Dear Spike:
There it was, no bigger than a nickel. A thin, dark circle, barely raised against the surface of the rock. At first glance, it could have been a slice of obsidian — or even a raindrop upon the soft gray shale. And just like an ephemeral raindrop, it should have evaporated into the winds of time ...
... hundreds of millions of years ago.
Instead, this little bug left its tiny imprint on our Earth — disappearing into a sandy tomb long before the dinosaurs walked this land and reappearing, for the first time, as I drove a spike between two thin layers of shale.
"A trilobite!" you cried.
Indeed it was. But it was more than that. It was a tiny time machine. A window into prehistory. As old as the hills? No, that doesn't even scratch the surface. This was older. Much, much older.
I dropped my hammer, shook my head and ran my thumb over tiny, spiny fossil.
"Wow," I said.
That is all I could muster. Words simply failed me. And why should they not? Our ancestors began to communicate using language fewer than 100,000 years ago. This delicate little arthropod had been around for 500 million years. Maybe longer. And we had just unearthed it, waking it from its long slumber, robbing it from eternity.
We live just a few short hours from one of the most prolific trilobite quarries in the world. And as such, your mother and I had been meaning to do this for years. One thing or another kept getting in the way.
I'm so glad we finally did this. And I'm glad we got to do it with you. Because with all the awe I felt as we unearthed fossil after fossil after fossil, came an awe-inspiring reminder:
Our time here is short. Too short to leave undone what we dream of doing. Too short not to seek joy. Too short not to seek love. Too short not to care, deeply and passionately, for all of those around us. Too short not to be left speechless by a sunset, a snowflake, a little slice of shale.
Like the raindrops that danced on the soft gray rock as we reluctantly turned away from the quarry, we are both eternal and ephemeral.
And like the raindrops, we should dance.
Love,
dad
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Monday, October 25, 2010
Monday, October 5, 2009
AT THE CENTER
Dear Spike:
Far more people have argued about the Mojave Desert Cross than have actually seen it.
I'm pretty sure I passed it, once, just about 10 years ago, while taking a shortcut from the Marine Corps base at 29 Palms to Las Vegas. But if I noticed the simple, white structure, jutting from the top of a 30-foot rock outcropping, I certainly don't remember it now.
So I would never again have thought of that lonely drive had I not heard, this week, that the U.S. Supreme Court was going to hear arguments about whether the 75-year-old war monument should be torn down in adherence to the principle of separation of church and state.
Turns out folks have been fighting over this for years. Hiring lawyers and filing petitions. Building coalitions and organizing legislation. Fighting and writing and wrything in despair over two pieces of steel pipe, affixed at the center, painted white and planted in the middle of nowhere.
Here's the irony of it all: The people on both sides of this issue are good Christians. The man who filed the original suit asking for the cross to be taken down is a devout Catholic who says he is opposed to the government's exploitation of the most sacred symbol of Jesus Christ's sacrifice. Those who want the cross to remain where it is say they're defending that same sacred symbol against anti-religious zealots who want to destroy all vestiges of God in government.
I wonder if either side has given much thought to the resources that have been squandered in this years-long legal battle. What else could those thousands of hours have done? What else could those millions of dollars have bought? Whose lives could have been bettered — or saved?
How is it possible that neither side has decided to turn the other cheek, as Christ commanded? To give to Caesar what is Caesar's, as Christ commanded? To use what limited resources we have in this world to help those who need it most, as Christ commanded?
There are things in this world worth fighting for. Choose your battles wisely. I often fail in this regard. And so I am in no position to cast any stones — only to offer some advice.
Fight the fights that are worth fightin' — and leave the rest to God.
love,
dad
Far more people have argued about the Mojave Desert Cross than have actually seen it.
I'm pretty sure I passed it, once, just about 10 years ago, while taking a shortcut from the Marine Corps base at 29 Palms to Las Vegas. But if I noticed the simple, white structure, jutting from the top of a 30-foot rock outcropping, I certainly don't remember it now.
So I would never again have thought of that lonely drive had I not heard, this week, that the U.S. Supreme Court was going to hear arguments about whether the 75-year-old war monument should be torn down in adherence to the principle of separation of church and state.
Turns out folks have been fighting over this for years. Hiring lawyers and filing petitions. Building coalitions and organizing legislation. Fighting and writing and wrything in despair over two pieces of steel pipe, affixed at the center, painted white and planted in the middle of nowhere.
Here's the irony of it all: The people on both sides of this issue are good Christians. The man who filed the original suit asking for the cross to be taken down is a devout Catholic who says he is opposed to the government's exploitation of the most sacred symbol of Jesus Christ's sacrifice. Those who want the cross to remain where it is say they're defending that same sacred symbol against anti-religious zealots who want to destroy all vestiges of God in government.
I wonder if either side has given much thought to the resources that have been squandered in this years-long legal battle. What else could those thousands of hours have done? What else could those millions of dollars have bought? Whose lives could have been bettered — or saved?
How is it possible that neither side has decided to turn the other cheek, as Christ commanded? To give to Caesar what is Caesar's, as Christ commanded? To use what limited resources we have in this world to help those who need it most, as Christ commanded?
There are things in this world worth fighting for. Choose your battles wisely. I often fail in this regard. And so I am in no position to cast any stones — only to offer some advice.
Fight the fights that are worth fightin' — and leave the rest to God.
love,
dad
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
IN THIS LAND
Dear Spike:
Before it gets too far away from me, I’d like to share with you the experience I had last Tuesday – and what I think it means for the world you are inheriting.
Tuesday, of course, was the day in which our country inaugurated a new president. I watched the historic event unfold from the base club at Hill Air Force Base.
There, I sat beside a chaplain named Carl Wright and studied the way he beamed as his new commander in chief took the oath of office and delivered the inaugural address.
“I’m having a hard time believing this is all happening,” he told me. “I just have a deep sense of pride and awe."
He had good reason for those emotions. Thirty years ago, the chaplain was a young enlisted airman, returning home from his first duty assignment overseas, only to confront some of the uglier realities of life back in the land of the free.
As he tells the story, he was outfitted in his dress blues, waiting for a bus outside a military base in Charleston, South Carolina, when his pride was wrenched off its hinges.
The driver pulled up, stepped off the bus, and proceeded to take everyone’s ticket — except for the young black airman standing in the front of the line.
“I was getting worried,” the chaplain remembered. “I knew there were only so many seats on the bus, and I’d spent all of my money on this ticket, so I said, ‘excuse me, sir, are you going to take my ticket?’ ”
The bus driver looked him up and down and then, turning to the white passengers, mocked the young airman for having had the audacity to speak up -- throwing in a few cruel racial epithets for good measure.
With no other way to get home to Washington, D.C., the airman took the verbal assault and, when the driver finally consented to letting him on the bus, took a seat toward the back.
“I cried the entire way home,” he told me.
I’m sure this will sound as ancient history to you. As the television in the corner of the base club replayed images of black man taking on the role of our nation's leader, it seemed as ancient history to me.
But then I thought to ask…
“Chaplain,” I said, “when was the last time you heard that word?”
“That word?”
“The word the bus driver called you.”
“‘Nigger?’ Oh, you know, you hear that word all the time.”
“I don’t mean in music. I don’t mean in movies. I mean directed at you. Like that. Like it was in 1979.”
“Oh, in that way? It’s been a few years.”
I could see him flipping back through a mental calendar before he answered more confidently.
Two years, he said
Two years. That all that separated this man — a decorated officer in the United States Air Force — from the last time he’d been disparaged in that ugly, awful way.
Even on days when the world seems forever changed, you’ll sometimes get reminders that this planet actually turns quite slowly.
You should not ignore those truths. But neither should you allow those momentary darknesses to snuff out the lights of change.
Chaplain Wright told me that he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking of the day he cried from Charleston to D.C. And he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking of the times, between then and now, in which he’s been treated as a second-class citizen in this land where all men are created equal.
He prefers to recall a day, not long back, when he stepped off the airplane from his most recent overseas duty in Iraq.
“There were people there to greet me, to shake my hand, and I was thanked for my service."
That, he said, is all he ever wanted.
Love,
dad
Before it gets too far away from me, I’d like to share with you the experience I had last Tuesday – and what I think it means for the world you are inheriting.
Tuesday, of course, was the day in which our country inaugurated a new president. I watched the historic event unfold from the base club at Hill Air Force Base.
There, I sat beside a chaplain named Carl Wright and studied the way he beamed as his new commander in chief took the oath of office and delivered the inaugural address.
“I’m having a hard time believing this is all happening,” he told me. “I just have a deep sense of pride and awe."
He had good reason for those emotions. Thirty years ago, the chaplain was a young enlisted airman, returning home from his first duty assignment overseas, only to confront some of the uglier realities of life back in the land of the free.
As he tells the story, he was outfitted in his dress blues, waiting for a bus outside a military base in Charleston, South Carolina, when his pride was wrenched off its hinges.
The driver pulled up, stepped off the bus, and proceeded to take everyone’s ticket — except for the young black airman standing in the front of the line.
“I was getting worried,” the chaplain remembered. “I knew there were only so many seats on the bus, and I’d spent all of my money on this ticket, so I said, ‘excuse me, sir, are you going to take my ticket?’ ”
The bus driver looked him up and down and then, turning to the white passengers, mocked the young airman for having had the audacity to speak up -- throwing in a few cruel racial epithets for good measure.
With no other way to get home to Washington, D.C., the airman took the verbal assault and, when the driver finally consented to letting him on the bus, took a seat toward the back.
“I cried the entire way home,” he told me.
I’m sure this will sound as ancient history to you. As the television in the corner of the base club replayed images of black man taking on the role of our nation's leader, it seemed as ancient history to me.
But then I thought to ask…
“Chaplain,” I said, “when was the last time you heard that word?”
“That word?”
“The word the bus driver called you.”
“‘Nigger?’ Oh, you know, you hear that word all the time.”
“I don’t mean in music. I don’t mean in movies. I mean directed at you. Like that. Like it was in 1979.”
“Oh, in that way? It’s been a few years.”
I could see him flipping back through a mental calendar before he answered more confidently.
Two years, he said
Two years. That all that separated this man — a decorated officer in the United States Air Force — from the last time he’d been disparaged in that ugly, awful way.
Even on days when the world seems forever changed, you’ll sometimes get reminders that this planet actually turns quite slowly.
You should not ignore those truths. But neither should you allow those momentary darknesses to snuff out the lights of change.
Chaplain Wright told me that he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking of the day he cried from Charleston to D.C. And he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking of the times, between then and now, in which he’s been treated as a second-class citizen in this land where all men are created equal.
He prefers to recall a day, not long back, when he stepped off the airplane from his most recent overseas duty in Iraq.
“There were people there to greet me, to shake my hand, and I was thanked for my service."
That, he said, is all he ever wanted.
Love,
dad
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
HISTORY TO YOU
Dear Spike:
Will you shiver when you hear this speech?
Yes, I know you’ll probably shrug.
What is historic for me will be history to you.
A black man in the White House?
OK, you’ll say. That’s fine.
Now give me a woman.
Give me an immigrant.
Give me a homosexual.
For this is the way of our Republic.
The way of our Revolution.
Thirst.
Insatiable.
For a more perfect union.
Love,
dad
Will you shiver when you hear this speech?
Yes, I know you’ll probably shrug.
What is historic for me will be history to you.
A black man in the White House?
OK, you’ll say. That’s fine.
Now give me a woman.
Give me an immigrant.
Give me a homosexual.
For this is the way of our Republic.
The way of our Revolution.
Thirst.
Insatiable.
For a more perfect union.
Love,
dad
Sunday, January 18, 2009
OH HOLY HECK
Dear Spike:
I couldn't help but sigh when your social security card came in the mail, a few weeks after you were born. The nine digits on that baby will follow you around for the rest of your life, giving employers, insurers, creditors, educators and the government a way to keep tabs on you.
The idea that Big Brother already had you on his grid was depressing enough. But it was those first three numbers were especially depressing. Most folks don't know it, but that prefix is code for the state in which you were born.
And so, no matter where you go, what you do or what place you ultimately come to think of as your home, you will always be a...
... sigh ...
... Utahn.
Your mother and I came to Salt Lake City thinking it was a good stepping stone to somewhere else. A rest stop on the road of life. We figured we'd spend a few years here en route to another place — probably a bigger town on the west coast.
Portland would have been nice. Seattle too. San Francisco or San Diego, oh yeah.
We'd leave Los Angeles to your Aunt Kelly, but anywhere else would have been swell.
But we found a nice home here, right across the street from one of the coolest city parks in the country. We found some good friends, too. We grew to love the mountains and got used to the sweltering summers. The winters? I hardly even notice the cold anymore. And every time it snows, I glance up at the canyons, do a little fist pump, and check our bank account to see if there's enough in there for a lift ticket.
When you came along, we did some thinking about the issue and recognized that this wouldn't be too bad a place to raise a kid.
The clincher came when your mother got hired at the elementary school a few blocks away. It wasn't just the proximity. She'd found a place where she was making a difference — a place where like-minded people were teaching their guts out and where it really mattered that they were.
And yeah, the five-minute bike ride was nice, too. Suddenly, neither of us had a commute. You can't put a price on that.
I like this place. I like our life here. And if we end up staying here for the rest of our lives, I wouldn't be sad about it.
But for whatever reason, I've resisted calling myself a Utahn. Maybe it's just that the word is so funny. Maybe it's that, for whatever reason, I've long held onto the very Californian idea that being from California makes you so much cooler than being from anywhere else. And maybe it's that, for whatever reason, I really came to feel like an Oregonian during the six years I lived there — a period in which I found my calling and found your mother. (And yes, I love the rain. I love, love, love, love, love the rain.)
Or maybe it's that, for most of my life, Utah was little more than an endless plain of salt, a stinky lake, a boring desert, a place so desolate that, after being run out of every other town on the continent, a sect of religious fundamentalists managed to form its own polygamous nation without anyone really noticing or caring, because — hey — it was only Utah.
So for all the effort this state has put into re-marketing itself — and it is true, absolutely true, that Utah has "the greatest snow on Earth" — I just couldn't bring myself to call myself a Utahn.
But you? You were ...
... are ...
... forever will be ...
... oh holy heck ...
... fer goodness sake ...
... gol' dang't fetch ...
... a Utahn.
At least, that's what your social security card says. I resolved, however, to raise you up like the west-coaster I know you really are.
But there's nature...
... and there's nurture ...
... and then there is everything else.
And today you reminded me that no matter how hard your mother and I try, there will be parts of this place that will seep into your veins, that will course through your body and that will, alas, confirm that three-digit prefix is accurate.
It was no small slap in the face that all you did, to make me realize all of that, was to repeat something I said.
We were at the dinner table and your mother passed me a napkin.
"Thanks," I said, wiping the corner of my mouth. " 'preciate it."
" 'preciate it!" you repeated.
I dropped the napkin and stared at you.
" 'preciate it!" you said again. " 'preciate it!"
I shook my head. Your mother laughed hysterically. And you just beamed.
We're Utahns.
Fine.
But if you ever so much as think of cheering for BYU, you'll be out on the street faster than you can say "Provo."
Love,
dad
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
GAGA WOULD SAY
Dear Spike:
Her hands were soft as rose petals. And her heart was big as the ocean.
Your great grandmother, Dorothy Meath, died Friday, just a few hours after your mother reached her bedside in Oregon. "Gaga," as we called her, was 92 years old. She was gracious and kind and strong and decent. And we will miss her very, very much.
Although you will not get to know your Gaga the way we would have wished, there is still a lot you can learn from her. Of course, your mother will have far more stories to share with you than I will, but let me whet your whistle, as Gaga would say...
Stand by your man, but with your own two feet on the ground:
Gaga lost her husband decades ago and she never stopped loving or admiring him — but she also did not let his life define her life. Having lived through the Great Depression, she knew the value of work and she understood the importance of independence. She often told your mother that it was crucial for women to be able to stand for themselves, so that they could walk away from a bad husband with a moment's notice, if need be. There's probably more romantic things to be said about marriage, but none more practical.
There is nothing worse than war:
Gaga was born in 1916, two years into World War I. That was supposed to be the war to end all wars, but she lived to see many more. Her son, Don, fought in Vietnam. She despised the way that war tore apart families. The only time I ever saw her become angry with me was when she learned that I was contemplating returning to Iraq over your mother's objections. She called me "a nincompoop" and refused to speak to me for the rest of the night.
If you can't say something nice, say something even nicer:
Gaga didn't care much for your given name, and she made no secret of her dislike for your nickname. But that didn't chance at all how she felt about you. You weighed no more than five pounds the first time she held you. She called you "my littlest, littlest angel." And that's what you are.
Love is a system of unspoken agreements:
Gaga used to help your mother get ready for school in the morning. On days when your mother would ask, Gaga would make her an ice cream sundae for breakfast. Your mother never abused this arrangement, and so Gaga never had to turn her down when she asked.
You'll never be alone in the kitchen:
Gaga loved fresh produce. And she loved to cook for her family. There is a photograph of Gaga and your mother, from our wedding day, on the windowsill in our kitchen. Even before she passed away, we called her "the saint of the kitchen" and imagined that she was there whenever we brought home a bag of veggies from the market, or started a soup on the stovetop, or sliced into a warm loaf of bread. Now we don't have to imagine anymore. Gaga is there. And she always will be.
Love,
dad
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
CHASING YOU NOW
Dear Spike:
I don't know how it happened or when it happened.
But I know why it happened: The sun rises and sets and rises again. The moon comes and goes, waxes and wanes. The Big Dipper — that simple, stalwart sign under which I fell in love with your mother — spins round and round and round again.
Time passes. Children grow.
You're no longer a baby. You're a genuine little girl.
The pigtails may have had something to do with it — not with your transformation from infant to toddler but with my late-in-coming recognition of that change. Your mother fretted over the haircut we gave you until she found that she could gather up your remaining locks into splendid tufts on either side of your perfect little skull. The effect is rather devilish. Naughty. And I dare say it suits you, kiddo. But, alas, it's the hairdo of a little girl.
You talk like a paid-by-the-case public defender who has borrowed just a taste of her client's meth. A thousand words a minute. Ten thousand. A whole dictionary of animals, colors, shapes, names.
Nouns. Lots and lots and lots of nouns.
Our last stroll around the park sounded something like this:
"Tree. Car. People. Running. Doggy. Doggy! Doggy!! Please doggy! Ah, Doggy. Pet? Pet. Doggy. Bye bye. Tree. Sky. Cold. Cold. Daddy! Cold! Daddy! Thank you. Tree. Running. Bike. People. People. People! Doggy. Doggy? Doggy! Doggy!!!!!!!!!"
And you understand. You really understand. Enough to follow directions. And enough to be maddeningly obstinate. You know "no." Oh no, how you know "no."
You play games. You sing songs. You know our daily routine. Even still, you cry when you mother leaves for work in the morning — not, as I once believed, because you fear she'll disappear forever, but rather because you know very well that she'll be back and you know how much you'll miss her while she's gone.
You ask questions. You make statements. You tell jokes. All in one- and two-word bursts.
You run. Ready. Set. Go. You run. Sometimes you hold my fingers and let me run along.
I'm chasing you now, little one. When did it happen that I started chasing you? When did any of this happen? It's all such a beautiful blur.
Sometimes I wonder how on God's Green Earth it all came to this, but mostly I just laugh and smile and marvel at how damn fun it all is.
I do not lament the days behind us. You and I and your mother are making the best of what we've been given. And when every minute is better than the last, why would I stop to fret over the passing of time?
Time passes. Children grow.
You're no longer a baby. You're a genuine little girl.
And I couldn't be a happier father.
Love,
dad
I don't know how it happened or when it happened.
But I know why it happened: The sun rises and sets and rises again. The moon comes and goes, waxes and wanes. The Big Dipper — that simple, stalwart sign under which I fell in love with your mother — spins round and round and round again.
Time passes. Children grow.
You're no longer a baby. You're a genuine little girl.
The pigtails may have had something to do with it — not with your transformation from infant to toddler but with my late-in-coming recognition of that change. Your mother fretted over the haircut we gave you until she found that she could gather up your remaining locks into splendid tufts on either side of your perfect little skull. The effect is rather devilish. Naughty. And I dare say it suits you, kiddo. But, alas, it's the hairdo of a little girl.
You talk like a paid-by-the-case public defender who has borrowed just a taste of her client's meth. A thousand words a minute. Ten thousand. A whole dictionary of animals, colors, shapes, names.
Nouns. Lots and lots and lots of nouns.
Our last stroll around the park sounded something like this:
"Tree. Car. People. Running. Doggy. Doggy! Doggy!! Please doggy! Ah, Doggy. Pet? Pet. Doggy. Bye bye. Tree. Sky. Cold. Cold. Daddy! Cold! Daddy! Thank you. Tree. Running. Bike. People. People. People! Doggy. Doggy? Doggy! Doggy!!!!!!!!!"
And you understand. You really understand. Enough to follow directions. And enough to be maddeningly obstinate. You know "no." Oh no, how you know "no."
You play games. You sing songs. You know our daily routine. Even still, you cry when you mother leaves for work in the morning — not, as I once believed, because you fear she'll disappear forever, but rather because you know very well that she'll be back and you know how much you'll miss her while she's gone.
You ask questions. You make statements. You tell jokes. All in one- and two-word bursts.
You run. Ready. Set. Go. You run. Sometimes you hold my fingers and let me run along.
I'm chasing you now, little one. When did it happen that I started chasing you? When did any of this happen? It's all such a beautiful blur.
Sometimes I wonder how on God's Green Earth it all came to this, but mostly I just laugh and smile and marvel at how damn fun it all is.
I do not lament the days behind us. You and I and your mother are making the best of what we've been given. And when every minute is better than the last, why would I stop to fret over the passing of time?
Time passes. Children grow.
You're no longer a baby. You're a genuine little girl.
And I couldn't be a happier father.
Love,
dad
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
OF A DREAM
Dear Spike:
Today will come and go for you like any other.
The sun has not imploded. Gravity has not been upended. The sky is still the sky and the land is still the land and the sea is still the sea.
Today is just another day for you. And, in the very grand scheme of things, for all of us.
But it does not feel that way. No, today it feels as though the entire world has changed.
Today, a black man has been elected as our president.
You are still very young, but at some point in the next four years, you will come to understand that there is someone in this nation we call our president. You won't at first understand how he came to be who he came to be. You won't know precisely what he does.
You will simply know him as a photograph. As an image on the television screen. As a name spoken on the radio.
And when you come to this very simple understanding, the man you will know as your president will not look like any of the men that preceded him as the leader of our nation.
But you will not know that this is special.
For you will not know — not for a few more years, at least — our nation's great shame. You will not know that, at one time in our history, we held people in chains and sold them as cattle and kept them as property. You will not know that, at one time in our history, we kept people from voting and sent them to sit in the back of the bus and told them that they were not human enough to eat at our side. You will not know that, at one time in our history, we hung people from trees.
Thank God Almighty that you will not know. Thank God Almighty that when you come to learn these things, you will learn them as history. Ancient as the pyramids, I pray.
You will come to learn these things in a classroom full of children of many races, colors and creeds. You will come to learn these things in a classroom full of children belonging to parents who look like your parents and who do not. You will come to learn these things in a classroom full of children who, like you, will be learning these things for the first time, too. You will come to learn these things in a classroom full of children who, like you, will not know that the ascension of a black man into the White House is in any way significant.
For as far as you will know, that is how it always has been.
As you grow you will come to know that our shame is not so ancient, that our wounds are still quite fresh. You will learn that there is still so much work to be done.
You will learn of a dream not yet realized, of a check still not cashed.
Do not be dismayed.
Listen to me, my child: The world can change.
I know that it is so.
Love,
dad
Today will come and go for you like any other.
The sun has not imploded. Gravity has not been upended. The sky is still the sky and the land is still the land and the sea is still the sea.
Today is just another day for you. And, in the very grand scheme of things, for all of us.
But it does not feel that way. No, today it feels as though the entire world has changed.
Today, a black man has been elected as our president.
You are still very young, but at some point in the next four years, you will come to understand that there is someone in this nation we call our president. You won't at first understand how he came to be who he came to be. You won't know precisely what he does.
You will simply know him as a photograph. As an image on the television screen. As a name spoken on the radio.
And when you come to this very simple understanding, the man you will know as your president will not look like any of the men that preceded him as the leader of our nation.
But you will not know that this is special.
For you will not know — not for a few more years, at least — our nation's great shame. You will not know that, at one time in our history, we held people in chains and sold them as cattle and kept them as property. You will not know that, at one time in our history, we kept people from voting and sent them to sit in the back of the bus and told them that they were not human enough to eat at our side. You will not know that, at one time in our history, we hung people from trees.
Thank God Almighty that you will not know. Thank God Almighty that when you come to learn these things, you will learn them as history. Ancient as the pyramids, I pray.
You will come to learn these things in a classroom full of children of many races, colors and creeds. You will come to learn these things in a classroom full of children belonging to parents who look like your parents and who do not. You will come to learn these things in a classroom full of children who, like you, will be learning these things for the first time, too. You will come to learn these things in a classroom full of children who, like you, will not know that the ascension of a black man into the White House is in any way significant.
For as far as you will know, that is how it always has been.
As you grow you will come to know that our shame is not so ancient, that our wounds are still quite fresh. You will learn that there is still so much work to be done.
You will learn of a dream not yet realized, of a check still not cashed.
Do not be dismayed.
Listen to me, my child: The world can change.
I know that it is so.
Love,
dad
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
YOUR OWN HERO
Dear Spike:
It all kind of happened in slow motion.
You were sitting on the playground, minding your own business, running your fingers through the tanbark near the base of the slide. All of the sudden, a boy about a year your senior grabbed a handful of bark and, point blank, threw it in your face.
Maybe I'm a bad father, but I didn't really do anything.
It's not that I didn't want to. Every basal impulse in my body was telling me to march right up to that little punk, grab him by his Gymboree jacket collar, and toss his smug little mug into the mud. And that impulse was even stronger after his mother, who watched the whole thing unfold just as I did, sauntered over to let me know that her little pookey "probably didn't mean to hurt your daughter."
So your kid's not savage, just stupid? I should throw you into the mud too, lady.
Luckily for all of us, you were none the worse for the wear. A little stunned, maybe, and with a mouth full of playground nastiness, but not in any sort of pain, so far as I could tell.
I suppose I could have jumped into the fray — I could have swept you up from the spot where you were playing next to that cruddy little kid and whisked you away. I could have run you over to the park restrooms to wash out your mouth and wash off your face and hair, which had little pieces of bark dust stuck in it. I could have packed you back into your stroller and headed home for a bath and a change of clothes.
Maybe any of those things would have been the right thing to do. But I didn't do any of those things.
Instead, I sat back and watched as you looked dumbfounded at the boy and then, quite calmly, went back to digging your fingers into the dirt.
I'm not sure, but I think that was an OK outcome. You took a lump and kept on going — and, at least in a very small way, figured out how to handle the situation on your own, without daddy sweeping in for the rescue.
Someday, I imagine, you're going to need me to sweep in and do what big, angry men do — to thump my chest and pull you away from danger and right the wrongs and generally take care of business.
But most of the time, you're going to need to be your own hero — to remove yourself from danger, to right the wrongs that can be righted, and to generally take care of your own business. Or, when appropriate, to just turn the other cheek as you did today.
Sometimes, I think, you know better than I do. Thank goodness for that.
Love,
dad
It all kind of happened in slow motion.
You were sitting on the playground, minding your own business, running your fingers through the tanbark near the base of the slide. All of the sudden, a boy about a year your senior grabbed a handful of bark and, point blank, threw it in your face.
Maybe I'm a bad father, but I didn't really do anything.
It's not that I didn't want to. Every basal impulse in my body was telling me to march right up to that little punk, grab him by his Gymboree jacket collar, and toss his smug little mug into the mud. And that impulse was even stronger after his mother, who watched the whole thing unfold just as I did, sauntered over to let me know that her little pookey "probably didn't mean to hurt your daughter."
So your kid's not savage, just stupid? I should throw you into the mud too, lady.
Luckily for all of us, you were none the worse for the wear. A little stunned, maybe, and with a mouth full of playground nastiness, but not in any sort of pain, so far as I could tell.
I suppose I could have jumped into the fray — I could have swept you up from the spot where you were playing next to that cruddy little kid and whisked you away. I could have run you over to the park restrooms to wash out your mouth and wash off your face and hair, which had little pieces of bark dust stuck in it. I could have packed you back into your stroller and headed home for a bath and a change of clothes.
Maybe any of those things would have been the right thing to do. But I didn't do any of those things.
Instead, I sat back and watched as you looked dumbfounded at the boy and then, quite calmly, went back to digging your fingers into the dirt.
I'm not sure, but I think that was an OK outcome. You took a lump and kept on going — and, at least in a very small way, figured out how to handle the situation on your own, without daddy sweeping in for the rescue.
Someday, I imagine, you're going to need me to sweep in and do what big, angry men do — to thump my chest and pull you away from danger and right the wrongs and generally take care of business.
But most of the time, you're going to need to be your own hero — to remove yourself from danger, to right the wrongs that can be righted, and to generally take care of your own business. Or, when appropriate, to just turn the other cheek as you did today.
Sometimes, I think, you know better than I do. Thank goodness for that.
Love,
dad
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