WHO YOU ARE

Dear Spike:

It’s late at night — early in the morning, actually — and I’m waiting for a call from your Uncle Michael, who is due in on the train at any moment. We’ll spend the next few days in a friend’s cabin in the mountains, strumming away at our guitars, writing songs and trying hard not to fight over lyrics and chords.

I haven’t always had the best relationship with my little brother. I accept blame for that. Four years his senior, I should have been looking out for him when we were growing up. But often I was the one he needed to look out for.

The tough brotherly love I dished out, from time to time, was compounded over the years by the fact that Michael and I are little alike. And so, by the time I enlisted in the Navy after high school, I think he was ready to see me go.

I don’t think my mother was ever all that close to her siblings, either. And last year, when she lost the second of her two brothers to a rather awful form of cancer, I could feel how much it pained her to know that she’d never been able to reclaim those relationships – and now never would.

So last fall Michael and I took a road trip down the California coastline — strumming away at our guitars, writing songs and trying hard (though ultimately unsuccessfully) not to fight over lyrics and chords. The result of that trip was a six song album of music that I'm rather proud of (although now, when I listen to it, I realize I should always allow your uncle – credited in at least one Sacramento band’s latest album as “Mike Megavoice” — to sing by his lonesome.)

You’re very likely to have a sibling. And I am hoping you become close with your cousins as well (again, lamentably, something I wasn’t able to achieve as well I would wish.)

There are six billion people on this planet. Only a small handful share any significant amount of the DNA that makes you who you are. Learn from them. Spend time with them. And though it may sometimes be hard, love them.

Life is fleeting. The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes called it, “nasty, brutish and short.”

But with respect to Mr. Hobbes, it can also be beautiful, fulfilling, exhilarating and joyful.

The difference, I think, has much to do with those with whom you choose to travel. And the relationships you keep with those, like your family, that life chooses for you.

Love,
dad