Our growing family

Your brother is almost here. Really he should be here any day now, and with him a new stage of life for you, sisterhood. I wish I knew more of what that will be like for you, your mom has a brother, Uncle Buddy, but I never had a sister. It will be an adjustment considering you are the sole focus of our love and attention at home, and now that attention will be divided. I think you will do well though, you seem very interested in having a baby brother to look after.

                Mom is huge from the side, but if you were walking right behind her you wouldn’t know there was a baby in there! She was the same way when you were in there. From behind, oh look at that skinny lady, then a turn to the side and BAM! Wow look at that baby. We talk about baby brother so often you currently think you too are carrying a small child in your belly. You will lift up your shirt and say “look my baby is moving” or “oh he’s kicking”. When I wrestle with you, you will stop and tell me “hey don’t hurt baby brother, he’s in my tummy”, something you say due to the fact we make you be gentle with moms tummy.

                We are so excited to have our family grow; you are such a blessing and can’t wait to have another little life running around the house melting our hearts. Watching you learn and change every week is captivating to me, it seems so strange that once you were not a part of my life, but now you are a central part of it.

                You are just so silly and sweet, you will be embarrassed about this someday but every time we change your clothes and you are naked you start singing “wiggle your hine” and then shaking you little booty from side to side. You love to make silly voices, tickle, bite the crap out of my arm and tell me I taste good, and run around the house “faster than a cobra snake, speeding bullet, fastest girl in the west”, and you love running from scary monsters- usually me.

                There is almost nothing that comes out of my mouth that will not eventually be repeated by you. When I tell you I am hurt you take care of me, telling me to be brave, that you are with me, that its ok and won’t hurt for long- all things I tell you. You make up silly songs like I do, and sometimes try to whistle like I do. In every small and large way you remind me that you are learning from me, and I am shaping the woman you will become.

                Baby brother may be almost here, any moment really as I type this, but there will always be something special and personal between just you and me. You will always be my sweet girl, even if someday you are a tattoo artist, drummer in a metal band, weightlifting, cage fighting adult. What you are now you will always be, and what you become I will always love, because you are mine, I am yours, and we are bound by something that can never be broken.

eulogy

I attended a funeral recently for your aunt’s husband. His name was Dan and he lived quite a full life. He had been a star high school quarterback, polo champion, expert horse judge, and seems to have single handedly made soccer in Arizona into a well-run, organized, and properly officiated sport. In addition he found success in his main career as a stockbroker. 

                I was not aware of all of these accomplishments, but his son who gave the eulogy made sure to highlight them all. It was a fine life, a fine eulogy; however, it left me wanting more. I had no insight into how this son knew his father, what he had learned or how one life had shaped the other. I doubt anyone can attend a funeral without dwelling, even if just for a moment, on their own mortality.

                So of course I began to wonder what you would say, what your brother to be would say, what mom would remember of me. Hopefully there is plenty of time to continue shaping that story! I guess my hope is this, that it would not be a list of accomplishments of mine that you list, but of yours and your brothers. 

                The longer I am a father the more certain I am that my role is to enrich and guide your life, the love and satisfaction I receive from my role is just a bonus. I do not want to be elevated by you for what I accomplish, but to allow you, through my life and leadership, to accomplish the desires of your heart, and to end up as a well rounded, well centered young woman. I do not know how successful I will be, and as you are my first child you have fallen into the “trial run” spot. 

                None of us outlives eternity; the life we build even if we live for 200 years is brief in comparison to what has come before and what will be after we are gone. None of the people you read about in the history books rest any better due to their names being written on those pages, or etched in stone on some monument. There is an unbending finality to time on this earth. Life is what goes on, life in your children, and life in your spirit. You don’t have to be a star athlete, rich, beautiful or possess any special gift to enrich life, be it your own or a strangers. 

                Someday my eulogy will come. Of this I am certain. If soon, I know I have lived longer than plenty, if long from now, I will have had the joy of watching you grow. By these pages you will know me, my heart and my unbound love for you. My wisdom may be found wanting, my knowledge fall short of the mark, and my strength fail with age, but my love for you will be full, and perfect, and pure. There is no measure of life I would not give for you, no wrong I could not forgive, no space between your heart and mine. You are of me, my very best, you carry my spirit and the God who watches over me is the same that watches over you. Simply, I love you, as truly as those words could ever be spoken or written.

moving to GA

Well we have made the great migration to the East. Heading the opposite direction of the settlers just feels wrong to me, but I guess the “west” doesn’t really exist anymore as they knew it. We are settling into the new home in Newnan GA. So far you seem happy, particularly with the fact that this home has a staircase. It did break my heart when the first week we were here you kept telling me “I am going to have a party, all my friends are coming over to see me” when I knew that those friends were 1800 miles away in Phoenix. You have mentioned Anabella quite a few times, you and she are such cute friends, always holding hands, hugging and playing so well together. I really hope we can keep all those relationships as intact as possible until we move back home.


Our new home is beautiful, about 1000 square feet larger, your mother has a massive kitchen and the layout and design perfectly fits our taste. Here in Georgia pine trees are everywhere, lots of colorful birds and out away from the city like we are the air is clean and crisp. There are certainly worse places we could have ended up. I am looking forward to exploring the area and meeting new friends. You love the new church we have found, when we drop you off to bible study you wander right in with no complaints. I think at this point you are just happy to be out of the house and see some other kids.

I had to leave for the first time since we moved this week, I am actually typing this on the flight home from Mexico. Being there reminded me somewhat of being in Arizona, just a lot more brown skinned folks running around. The people I met there were great, I love the way they value relationships and seem to take a deep interest in others and have very strong families. The country itself is beautiful and full of rich history. I visited a church in Zacatecas that was built in the 1500’s with beautiful stone carvings and masonry. Currently, in the year 2013, the country struggles with battling very violent crime and rampant corruption in the government. The crime mostly stems from the drug trade- unfortunately partially Americas fault seeing as how we are the ones buying most of the drugs and therefore supplying most of the money. It’s just unfortunate seeing people live in fear of going out at night, police trucks filled with masked men armed to the teeth with machine guns patrolling the street; they are masked so the Cartels won’t kill their family if they find out their identity. I hope someday these troubles will be behind it, in my opinion the coming decades should see a new and better Mexico.

One month has gone by. Time seems to move every bit as quickly as it did back home. My stress in work has increased slightly, which is good because it means I am being challenged. Comfort in business isn’t necessarily a good thing. I am adapting to life in an office after being at home and on the road for the last 5 years. I normally get up at 5am, work out, get to the office around 7, and leave at 4:30 so I can come home and spend time with you and mom. I love coming home to my girls at the end of the day.

It is so strange to have deviated from everything that was once normal. I still don’t think it has entirely sank in. I cant explain entirely the feeling that nags at me. It keeps me aware that this is foreign, unknown, somewhat uncomfortable. This is a grand experiment in every sense. Not only being away from family and friends, but a new job for me, and a new role for your mother. Everything changed for each one of us, and I can only help but wonder what our reflections will be of this time years from now when we look back.

We ordered some new fancy leather couches for the new home. They have yet to arrive so we just put a small loveseat downstairs in the living room. Most nights the three of us end up sitting on the couch together, you cuddled up in between us. My favorite thing is when you snuggle up and burrow your head into my shoulder and say “I love my family”. When you say that I know we could be in a mud shack with no electricity or a mansion on a hill and the same things in our lives would still matter. For the first time we are more reliant on each other than anything else, which means we have a choice to grow closer, or grow colder. I am happy with the direction so far.

I love you always and forever sweet girl.

Last Friday a man walked into a classroom and killed 20 children and 6 adults. When I heard the news my heart was stricken in a way that two years ago it would have never been. I cant imagine not being able to hold you, see you, kiss you, and just be with you ever again. It is absolutely without question my greatest fear. I cannot begin to fathom what those families are going through, and I pray that I never know that depth of sorrow.

As people do, we are searching for a reason why. There could be no answer, none that would lend any measure of comfort to the grief visited upon every decent human being who learned of the tragedy. First, we attempt to explain, then prevent a similar tragedy, lastly congratulate ourselves on the accomplishment. There will never be a cure or countermeasure for those who wish with every faculty or from complete insanity, on visiting pain to the innocent and unsuspecting. There is certainly evil in this world and it will never be fully contained and caged, while allowing us to live our carefree lives free of fear.

I feel far too old to die young these days, and I am only 28. How can one not feel that they have lived a full life when told of 5 and 6 year olds who died scared and long before their time? How can I be afraid of the very same end, though through different means, that they met? It makes me evaluate the important things in life, the things that shape my life and the peace, joy, and purpose I find in it.

I came to the conclusion last night that the greatest burden I bear is that of want. Not want for food, clothing, shelter or any other thing necessary for life, but of the superfluous. I dream of a higher paying job, with more power, to buy a bigger house, and shower those I know with gifts and more than likely myself with some luxury car I don’t need and many other things that provide a momentary high quickly dissipated by a void of meaninglessness. It is my goal to give even more generously in 2013 outside of our normal tithing, and to go without buying myself anything not absolutely necessary. When I am content with what I have, in reality what I have been given, I am absolutely more content in every facet of my life.

I think about one thing only when I rest at night, am I a good enough man, father, husband; and how can I be better. Cora someday when you are old I hope you can read this and realize the struggle that one confronts when faced with the certainty that you have but one life to live on earth. My struggle is how to live it to the fullest, not by the measure of the world, but by the measure of God and those dearest to me.

A quick note, yesterday you were sitting on the couch next to me and I did a great big stretch where I lifted my arms above my head. You asked “what are you doing daddy”, to which I replied “just stretching”, a moment later you did the exact same thing and said “ohhh, im streaching”. You are absolutely the most precious thing in my life, and I am so thankful that God gave me your mother who stuck it out with me, until we made you. I will never be able to fully convey the depth and breadth and entirety of my love for you. My hope is that you know your father and failing that, that you know but one thing. I love you, completely, without condition, without constraint. I will always love you, and nothing can ever separate you from that love.