Category: Courage

N.57 My Love For Your Mother, Part II

What began as a friendship was made stronger by a mutual attraction and when we were both seventeen we began what you might call our “official relationship.” The relationship we entered into at this young age shaped the remainder of my life and resulted in yours. However, it was not an easy, uncomplicated path to the marriage. There were missteps along the way. There were disagreements and challenges. We went to different colleges, 150 miles apart, and for many years we went our separate ways. During this time we led our own lives, hardly ever seeing each other, but the bond that had been formed between your mom and I stayed with me always. Even when I refused to acknowledge it, it was there. It had been there since the night I asked your mom to prom. This, I believe, was a moment to make note of.

We were at Jonathan Dickinson State Park just north of Jupiter, Florida. Friends had reserved several campsites and thrown a big party in the woods. I knew your mom would be there with friends and planned to ask her as soon as I saw her, afraid that if I didn’t ask quickly, someone else would beat me to it. I was pacing under the tall pine trees, some distance from everyone else and concealed by the dark. I was nervous, sweaty, and kept rehearsing in my head what I might say. When I saw her friend’s car drive up, I suddenly couldn’t recall a single word of the proposal I was drafting, but I knew I it was now or never. There was more than one guy there that night who liked your mom. I had been strategic, mentioning to a few friends my intentions to ask your mom to prom, a way of staking my claim to her prior to officially asking. Despite this, I was aware there were no guarantees. Just knowing I wanted to take her to prom wasn’t necessarily going to keep some other guy from asking her first. And even if I were the first to ask her, I wasn’t totally confident she’d say “yes.” A couple of her friends had suggested she would, but that didn’t doesn’t necessarily mean it was true.  

As soon as I saw her step from the car, I approached. She was wearing jean shorts, white sneakers and a baggy t-shirt. Nearing her, I hesitated. Not because I was having second thoughts, but because it was then, in that moment of approach, that I realized how much I actually liked her. Standing in the moonlight that night, smiling shyly at me with her fingers stuffed in her pockets, your mother was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Her friends had immediately scattered, leaving us alone. Slapping away mosquitos, we stood at the trunk of her friend’s car, making small talk underneath the stars. Behind us, at the campsite, a bonfire had been lit. Dozens of kids conversed and drank beer from plastic cups, laughing and cursing and egging one another on, but I my sole focus was your mom. At the forefront of my mind was “the ask.” How should I preface it? What’s my lead in?

Your mom seemed a little nervous, too. Even though I can’t remember what we talked about, I remember the awkwardness of it all. The disappearance of her friends. The sweat on my face. The bugs. She must know I am going to ask, I thought. And if she knows, why would she have let me corner her here at her friend’s car unless she was planning to accept? Why would she so patiently endure this senseless conversation if she wasn’t going to say “yes!” Eventually, I ran out of things to say, so during the next uncomfortable pause in the conversation I blurted out something along the lines of, “You wouldn’t want to go to prom with me, would you?” A confusing way to phrase a simple question. It didn’t allow her to give a simple “yes” or “no” answer. But it didn’t fluster her a bit. She replied, very sweetly, “I think that’d be a lot of fun.” Judging by her timidness and smile, I thought she might actually feel the same way about me that I did about her.

I have a friend who was fortunate enough to marry the love of his life. A girl he’d known since he was a teenager. They’ve now been married more than twenty years. Recently, he told me, “There’s nothing I could accomplish that would be more important to me than marrying D__. That’s it. Everything else is secondary.” When your mom agreed to go to the prom, something in me recognized the magnitude of the moment. Turns out the feeling I had that night was on the mark, as that uneasy and clumsy moment came to shape the remainder of my life. Since, there have only been a handful of moments as important — one being your mother’s teary-eyed “yes” when I asked her if should would marry me, and the other being the birth of each of you, our beautiful children.

A few minutes after our date was set, your mom climbed back into the car and left with her friends. I later learned that a girlfriend of hers had been in the trunk, hiding from a boy that was going to ask her to prom. Apparently, she had interest in someone else and did not want to have to hurt this boy’s feelings by turning him down, so she hid and had her friends tell the boy she wasn’t allowed to come to the party. Your mom’s friend had heard our entire conversation. As your mom tells it, driving away from the campsite she could hear her friend yelling from inside the trunk, “Woo-who! __ and __ are going to the prom!”

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N.52 On Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Our life is frittered away by detail…simplify, simplify.” He also wrote, “For my greatest skill has been to want but little.” And, “In wilderness is the salvation of the world.” And, “Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”

This is why we we walked Walden Pond. This is why we visited his grave.

Read and reread Thoreau. 

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N.47 A Letter Written To Your Mom On November 9, 2016

The following letter was written to your mother while on a flight to Savannah, Georgia, to speak at a children’s book festival.

November 9, 2016

Dear H_,

I will try not to speak much more of this, but I do want you to know where I stand on the president elect. This man is a virus, and his poison will spread.

I will not allow our daughters to be told that this thrice married, serial adulterer is a “good person” with “good family values.” They do not deserve to be deceived by adults who blindly support him. Our girls are being raised to be self-assured and compassionate, and will likely contribute in ways small and large to the betterment of society. As they grow older they will understand the truth about this man. History will not be kind to him, that is assured. But if we remain silent, we default our position to the wrong side of this embarrassment, as those in fervent support, we know, will continue to speak loud and often in his favor.

This man is delusional and dangerously ignorant, a gross narcissist, the type of person I loathe, and the antithesis of the person I wish our daughters to be as adults. We must teach our girls to verify information, to identify and dismiss those with questionable morals, to recognize hate speech, to expose untruths. In short, I want our daughters to stand up against those who disregard human decency, who berate, oppress and bully others. If our girls were older, I would hope that they would be appalled that an individual of such appallingly amoral character can become the President of the United States. God willing, the younger generation will never allow something as disgraceful as this to happen again. 

Remember that this is a man whose supporters’ chant, “Lock her up!” at his provocation, and “Make America Great Again!” The latter taken, by the way, from Ronald Reagan’s campaign slogan, “Let’s Make American Great Again.” Is America not great already? How many of these people who rally around this slogan, I wonder, have ever traveled outside the United States? And even those that have, how many have traveled in the third world? Was our country not great after we elected our first black president? Have we already forgotten that the Obama administration helped prevent a second Great Depression? Unemployment is currently at 4.2%, the stock market, after falling by more than 50% under George W. Bush, is at record highs. Retail and real estate markets are booming. Overseas conflicts have been deescalated. The U.S. economy, our freedom, our opportunities are the envy of the world. I understand that there are still millions who suffer, who feel neglected and unheard, but it is unfortunate that those who chant “Make America great again” do not appreciate just how much better our country is after eight years of the Obama presidency. 

Though a false narrative, Make America Great Again has become the rally cry for an almost exclusively white base of economically frustrated, disenfranchised and disillusioned, anti-Hillary and anti-Democrat men and women, but more frighteningly, it is being trumpeted by racists and white supremacists. Dangerous people have been empowered by this man’s election. They now feel vindicated after eight years of a black president, but their anger will not be subdued by the president elect, it will only be stoked. “This is serious, folks,” wrote a friend following the election. “T_ gets elected. T_ gets impeached. T_ calls on his heavily armed supporters to resist…America has a big problem.”

Whether we get through the next four years safely or descend into civil unrest, today begins a sad and tragic period in our nation’s history. My fear is that at the end of this we will no longer be great. Our country has elected a racist, chauvinist, megalomaniac; a man who faces dozens of allegations of sexual harassment and assault; a man who has been involved in over 4,000 law suits; a man who says climate change is a “Chinese hoax” and has campaigned on burning more fossil fuels, spewing even more pollutants into the air we breathe and the water we drink, exacerbating health problems in our children and accelerating the changes we are witnessing in the earth’s climate; a man who has made a career of insulting others, has virtually no knowledge of foreign policy, and even less ability to take on the roll of a diplomat. How could this possibly end well? The entire world will suffer from this election, and sadly, the negative effects of his presidency, of his cruel and vengeful ways, will be felt well into the future. 

Do not ignore the angry and obnoxious comments he has made about women, Mexicans, Muslims, veterans, war heroes, the handicap, and war. Read the stories told by the women who have accused him of sexual assault, including his first wife. Look at the photographs of he and his third wife in their grotesquely gilded Manhattan penthouse. As a businessman, developer, husband and father, the man is a disgrace. As president, he is absolutely horrifying.

To those who say he will put the best people in place, I have doubts. I cannot see this man surrounding himself with intelligent people the way previous presidents have done. Appointing intelligent people into his cabinet would only spotlight his inadequacy. A man of his conceited nature could not tolerate such a demoralizing blow to his ego. Remember, this is a man who does not read. His words: “I don’t have time to read…I have a good brain…I go with my gut.” He gets the majority of his information from his own propaganda machine, and communicates with juvenile Tweets. 

As parents we must begin with our children. The solution lies in the education and moral development of America’s youth. We will stand for what is good, for what is right. We will lead by example. Everyday, we will be the antithesis of our nation’s president.

Please forgive my rant. I am extremely frustrated.

All my love, A.R.V.

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N.45 On Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” He also wrote, “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” And, “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” And, “People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.” And, “You become what you think about all day long.” And lastly, from his essay Self-Reliance, “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” This is why we visited his grave in Concord, Massachusetts. Read and reread Emerson.

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N.44 On The Pace of Life

You may or may not have noticed that my pace has slowed. Most significantly this past year, as a fatigue has enveloped me that I cannot shake. The speed at which I do things seems a fraction of what it has normally been. I am tired almost all of the time. Everything requires more effort. I actually hope that you have not noticed this, though I assume you have.

Aside from regular physical deterioration, this slowing, to be frank, results from a tiring of life. There is indication of a looming existential crisis I may face before long. Many integral parts of my daily life have become hazardously unmanageable.

This, of course, is no fault of yours. It is my own. The problem, however, is compounded by its impact on other aspects of our life. It causes stress, for one. Your mom and I loose sleep, putting us at an immediate disadvantage each day. I struggle to effectively manage multiple projects, both paid and unpaid, and thus seem to make no real progress on any one thing. I spend early mornings, evenings and late nights, charging forward on my latest “brilliant” idea, reading and thinking and typing, only to see the fire doused the following day by the need to tend to other obligations. Add to this the current disarray in which the world is operating, the seeming deterioration of our morals, terrible inequality and threats again of unrest and war, it is a miracle anyone can keep focus on their own work long enough to accomplish anything.

All of this amounts to a growing concern for our future and yours. What will become of our decaying culture? How will our livelihoods be altered by artificial intelligence, climate change, pollution, disease, political conflict? Every generation of parents grieves over what they believe will be a grim and frightening future for their children. We talk about the “good old days” and lament that they have long passed. You may do the same when you have children.

Let us remember, however, when looking back, most of these concerns turn out to be nothing. You’ll find yourself standing tall one day and marvel over the fact that, somehow, you have made it. I wonder, what was it that concerned me when I was in my 20s and 30s? The issues I faced were monumental at the time, that’s for certain, and yet I couldn’t tell you what they were. My hope is that the concerns I have today will similarly prove to be nothing. Much like the humorous quote many have attributed to Mark Twain (though its origin is disputed). Your Poppy often uses this quote to put into perspective the fleeting nature of all the things we spend so much time worrying about. It goes like this, “I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”

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N.42 “What If” Questions

I find this passage in my notebook.

“What if instead of anger, patience? What if instead of judgment, an attempt to understand? What if instead of hate, empathy? What if instead of war, discussion, negotiation and reasonable compromise?” 

The source of these words is unknown to me. I have searched and come up with nothing. I suppose it is possible that they are my own, but I honestly can’t remember. It does not matter. Whoever wrote it, I like the idea. What if in moments of weakness, when we wish to react negatively, our brain was trained to shut down the harmful reaction, and instead consider the opposite, positive alternative?

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N.31 A Dream About Purpose

Last week I had a dream that replayed vividly in my mind the moment I awoke. What I remembered of this dream was a scene that took place in a doctor’s office. The very doctor’s office I visit when I am sick, with my actual doctor, Dr. M__, looking just as she did the last time I saw her, more than five years ago. My memory of the dream picks up at the very moment a diagnosis was being delivered. Dr. M__ stated, very matter of factly, that I had two years to live. I reacted to this final verdict with the calmness and practicality of one who had long been prepared for such news. Somehow, I was okay with it. The comfort, I believe, was due in part to the knowledge that I would have time to finish this book. I had two full years. My focus was now singular. Complete this book. All else fell away. What a gift!

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N. 25 Recurring Failures

I am often of the opinion that, as a father and husband, I am not enough. I am not doing enough, providing enough, achieving enough. I am not bringing enough enthusiasm or positivity to our household each day. I am not wise enough, and therefore I’m making poor decisions and saying the wrong things. The frustration and exhaustion come over me are more powerful than my strength to overcome.

All I can do to remedy this is apologize. Each day brings small successes and seemingly larger failures. It is the failures that linger. When they occur, I sit with regret, analyze what I have done wrong, vow to improve. Sometimes I succeed, other times, clearly, I do not. Here’s something you may not know. Just as children wish to please a father, a father wishes to please his children, to make them proud of the father that he is. I can only hope that the cumulative effect of my efforts over the course of my life, all the successes and failure, brings about the desired result.

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N.21 Leading by Example

If I had the time, I would write a book titled Curriculum For A Noble Leader. Compelling title, right? Simply sketching this title on a sticky note and pasting it above my desk might inspire me to be a better father, a better person. A leader is not just one who holds political office or military rank, runs a company or leads an organization. Any individual can be a leader. Opportunities present themselves every day. Lead by way of quiet action.

Come to think of it, Plato may have already addressed this topic, rather meticulously, too, I imagine, in his book The Republic. On The Republic, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Burn the libraries; for their value is in this book.” Given Emerson’s endorsement, I think my book would probably be redundant, not to mention remarkably inferior. Okay then, maybe this project is unnecessary, and since I don’t have the time anyway, let’s forget it. What I need to do instead is read The Republic and report back to you. I think I can make time for that, but we’ll see.

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N.20 On Being Made Fun of and How You Might Handle It

When you told me that you had heard from a friend something a certain girl had said about you that was unkind, I sat you down and gave you the best advice I could think of. This morning, when I woke I wanted to write that advice down as best as I can remember it.

It doesn’t matter if you are the nicest kid in the class, at some point you’ll become the target of someone’s frustrations. Certain kids will find something about you to take a jab at. It has always been this way, and it always will be, I suppose. The reason for this may have to do with a child’s innate need to make themselves feel better about who they are and the easiest way to do that is to knock someone else down. It may have to do with something that the child is dealing with at home. It may be a combination of all sorts of factors. Whatever the reason, it’s going to happen, so you will have to learn to cope with it.

I know that it is not easy. I remember being made fun of for all kinds of things. My hair cut, the clothes I wore, a poor performance on a test, etc. Looking back now, these trivial jabs actually make me laugh, in a sort of nostalgic fondness for my youth, which may seem strange, but you will one day see. Small things may seem heavy in the moment, however, they all lose their weight over time.

But here you are, a grade schooler in the thick of it, so what to do now? One counter to this sort of behavior is to always be kind and respectful to others. And be careful not to gossip. If you can do these things they will help ensure healthy and long lasting relationships with your peers. As I have told you time and time again, if you are kind to people, you’ll have more friends over the course of your life than you can possibly imagine.

I know there will be times when it is difficult to be kind. Times when the cruelty directed at you is unfair and hurtful and hard to endure. In such situations, a measured silence is often the best response. Lean on your mom and me. Sit down with us, tell us what’s going on and how you feel about it. We’ll listen, offer you the best advice we can, wrap you in a hug and love you with all of our hearts. We are always there for you. Don’t ever forget, in our eyes, you are each the most special person in the whole world.

In my observations, you seem to handle these things very well. Your mom and I have heard the same from teachers and parents. The kindness you show others proves to me that you are a force for good in this world. In fact, I am more proud of your kindness and compassion than anything else, as it is far more important than any solitary achievement, regardless of how grand that achievement might be.

In conclusion, I said to you, “Just keep doing what you’re doing, and everything will be okay.”

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