Father | Son

In much of the competition-based television foisted upon us today, there's a fairly common trope. It's a father or mother doing something like artfully cooking a sea slug or trying to get up Mt. Upchuck-a-rama (I may or may not have that name wrong) in record time for the sole purpose of making their child proud of them. Nine times out of ten, as the footage rolls and the overwrought emotional music is cued, it turns out said child is an infant who would not know if his father was climbing Mt. Whatever or if he was the closet door. So it's pretty safe to say being proud of daddy isn't much of an issue yet.

As the stunningly patient and mighty fine SML will tell you, I don't appreciate these scenes. They're trite, maudlin, and spectacularly lazy. It also usually launches me into an unhinged rant on the nature of parent-child relationships and as her nom de guerre suggests, SML has an unending well of patience with me, but she's done with these rants, so we aren't watching a lot of this type of television together and that's probably for the best.

The Great Mullet Debacle of 2014
Not our finest hour. Let's not
talk about it ever again.

These maudlin scenes have been playing in my mind of late as we are preparing for The RM's wedding just 13 days from today. My involvement in this event has been reserved to paying for stuff sans complaint and taste testing tacos and a next-level dessert for the groom's dinner.  I did nominate myself to create a playlist to add to the ambience of that dinner. For those of you unfamiliar with my iTunes library, it is essentially an extended cry for help consisting of more than 1200 songs that have no discernible rhyme or reason, so this playlist is going to be aces! That said, I've found myself in a mawkish well of my own creation thanks to the lyrics of one song that I added to the list, forgetting that it's about a father's love, as opposed to an unsettling love song between an F-Dude and his F150 as the title would suggest. The chorus of the George Strait song "Love Without End, Amen" goes like this:

Let me tell you a secret about a father's love

A secret that my daddy said was just between us

He said daddies don't just love their children every now and then

It's a love without end, amen

It's a love without end, amen

As I've listened to that song multiple times, more than one tear has fallen from my eyes as I think about this good young man, my son, and the pride I have in him, as well as the unending love I feel. Even during the Great Mullet Debacle of 2014 wherein we experienced a taste of the Seventh Ring of Hell that no parent should have to endure, I've loved this son of mine to the Moon and back, just as I have his sisters.

Holding him after 18 months of not seeing each other

My son, The RM, is now somehow on the precipice of marrying a smart, capable, lovely young woman and starting a completely new phase of life. I can't help but marvel at how this has all played out. Wasn't it just yesterday that I held him in my arms for the first time, still smarting from the fact that I didn't get to finish a burrito because he decided to turn up fast? Wasn't it just yesterday that I held both him and his mother as a doctor set his broken arm (first of three, but who's counting)? Wasn't it just yesterday that we threw our arms around each other in a victory hug in the bleachers at Wrigley at our first Cubs game? Wasn't it just over a year ago when we threw our arms around him as he emerged from behind the Curtain of Incompetence (AKA the TSA) at the Hartford Airport as he returned from his missionary service as a mature young man? I held him for a good long time that day, remembering all the times I held him before and then, as you see from the picture above, I stood back and marveled at my son. I marveled at the man he'd become. I marveled at what the future held for him. I marveled that somehow I had something to do with raising him and his sisters into the good people that they are. (On that point, I need to give credit where credit is due right now: the stunningly patient and mighty fine SML is why my children are who they are. Also, she is a saint.)

In the coming days, he and I will have a few more 'advice' sessions and I'm sure he won't remember a lot of it. I hope he'll remember the good things I've tried to demonstrate as his father and as a husband to his mom. In thirteen days, I'll hold him again as I wrap my arms around him and through my tears, of which there will be many, I'll say 'Congratulations, son,' as he embarks on a new life as a husband. I'll give my new daughter-in-law a hug and say 'He's yours now. Buena suerte!'

Like that cowboy philosopher George Strait said of a father's love for his children, "It's a love without end, amen." I could not agree more.

22

Last night the stunningly patient and mighty fine SML was perusing the Facebooks when she insisted that I look at a picture posted by one of her friends. The picture featured this friend's daughter, in a hospital bed (rightfully so as she had just delivered twins), and her OB/GYN standing next to her, holding the babies. SML wanted to know if I recognized the doctor. I didn't, so I assumed it was the new grandfather. 'No, silly,' she decried. 'It's Dr XX!' Dr. XX delivered both CAL and the RM. Apparently I was supposed to have his image seared into my memory. I did not. The last time I recall seeing or speaking to said doctor was twenty two years ago today when he delivered The Boy aka The RM.

That's right, twenty two years ago today, our lives were inexorably changed with the arrival of The Boy. He was more than a week late, finally turning up when he felt the time was right. That time, of course, was when I was right in the middle of delicious burrito that I was never able to finish (not that I'm still bitter) because a nurse insisted it was time for SML to start pushing. It was our third child and he was our smallest. I mean she could have sneezed and shot him out like a cannon. I could have finished that burrito (again not that I'm still bitter).

While I didn't get to finish that burrito, I am forever grateful for the Boy that we got that day. Each of our children have brought their own unique spirit into our home and he was certainly no different. With two older sisters and his mom, he essentially grew up with three mothers. For the most part, he's been a good sport about that. He's never left us wondering why our lives are dull. He's made sure they aren't. From a cavalcade of broken arms to inexplicable dents in his car during high school to his absolute transparency in telling us all kinds of things, he's made sure our lives have been anything but dull. Frankly, I'm grateful for that. Not sure I'd have it any other way, as I look back on his shenanigans over the years, as a parent does on a child's birthday.

You can't help but look forward to what lies ahead on a child's birthday as well. The RM has grown into a darn good young man. He's wading through young adulthood and is making his way through the minefield of adulthood with aplomb, so far. He's found himself a really lovely young woman and they have a lot of exciting things ahead of them.  We're excited for him, to be sure.

Happy birthday, son. I'm lucky to be your dad. It's been an honor and it's never been boring. My gray hair thanks you.

21

It's another day of celebration here in the Den. One of our Den-izens is celebrating a birthday. Today it's The RM who we celebrate. He turns 21 today and suffice to say, we are celebrating a fine young man.

Those 21 years have gone by in a flash. I remember each of our children's births for very different reasons and can go back to them as if it were yesterday. Our Lady of Awesome's birth is associated with many firsts including a whole lot of terror, as she was our first-born (duh!); CAL's birth is associated with peace because A) I wasn't the one doing the birthing and 2) due to an odd set of circumstances and the fact that it was Christmas, it was just the nurses, doctors, and the stunningly patient and mighty fine SML and I in the room as she came into the world; and The RM's birth pretty much set the stage for how he rolls.

He was several days overdue and determined to make his mother just a little crazy. Finally, a bed opened up at the hospital and we were on our way down there for the induction festivities. Of course, by the time we got there some other woman had the testicular fortitude to go into labor on her own and our bed was gone. This news was not well-received. So in my most calm and soothing manner (go ahead and believe that), I explained to the hospital staff that we were not leaving and that they were welcome to find us a place where my wife could being the miracle of birth. Sensing we weren't leaving, they literally dumped us in a large, fairly barren closet-like space and induced SML. Meanwhile, The RM seemed completely non-plussed by all this and still didn't seem in any hurry to leave the comfort of the womb. In the meantime, I found out that some friends of ours from Church were in a room a few doors down, having had a little girl the night before. I sauntered down to their room, greeted the new parents with the following greeting, "Hi Rob and Rhonda! Congratulations on your little girl! Now get out. We need the room." As I recall, her parents, whom I had never met, seemed a little shocked. Suffice to say, that didn't work. So my father had the presence of mind to get me a burrito from Filbertos (he apparently knew the dangers of being hangry before it was a thing and I labored over that thing while SML labored over The RM. Right as things were getting good with the burrito, The RM decided it was showtime and like Moses parting the Red Seas, the Miracle of the Found Room occurred and we were whisked out of the birthing closet and into a real room. In no time flat, again says the guy's who's contribution to this whole process was minimal, The RM made his arrival. It was fairly drama free and full of joy. That's how he started life and that's how he rolls today.

Over the course of these last 21 years, he's made us a little crazy on more than one occasion, but it really has been a drama-free, joyful 21. That's a pretty good way to live, if you ask me. Like his sisters, he's been a joy to us and I can't imagine our world without him. He rounds out our family well.

Happy birthday, mijo!

He loves his Mom and he'll still hug her.
He'll never outgrow that.