Following your heart

                I have probably flown into and out of San Diego CA 30 times over the last 4 years. Nearly every time I would look out the window as we were getting near and see the desert floor rise up to become red and dusty cliffs, and atop those cliffs there was a sprawling forest, mountain meadows dotted with lakes. I longed to stand in one of those meadows, and breathe in the last gasps of the cool air before it descended, unencumbered of its moisture to meet the ceaseless desert beyond.

                I am happy to report that on this business trip I did just that, I journeyed where my heart was longing to go. I mapped my route and set off, me and my rental car, and a can of redbull which I sometimes indulge in on roadtrips. I had a rather sporty car this trip, so the curves of the mountain road made the journey all the more enjoyable.

                As I neared the top and the shrubs turned to giant towering trees I realized what many explorers these days realize, others had come before me. The forest was dotted with cabins, and some of the meadows were fenced for cattle, sometimes l long desperately to be the first in a truly wild place. Nonetheless the area met my expectations, the road was the Sunset Highway, it began near Pine Valley and I am happy that I do not yet know where it ends. Perhaps someday we will find out together as a family.

                Even though the area was settled there was seclusion to be found, quiet places uninterrupted by the thoughts and footsteps of others. I found such a place where the wind must have been blowing at 30 miles per hour. I stood on the edge of those cliffs I had seen so many times from the sky. I tasted the last drops of the cool ocean air before they plummeted down to the desolation below. I sat and heard nothing but the wind, with no troubles plaguing my mind, and no worry in my bones.

                I often wonder if you will love wild places as I do, if such love can be instilled by a father to his children. My father brought me to the outdoors more times than could be counted. He brimmed with knowledge of plants, animals, native people, and a lot of other things you will most likely hear about someday whether you want to or not. Did his love create mine? Or did he simply introduce me to something I longed for all along and had yet to encounter?

                I will certainly be making frequent introductions. Someday you will be old enough to protest and find other pursuits to fill your time, but I hope you will find a passion for the wild as I have. I never feel as at peace as I do in those places. I never feel as bonded to others as I do when I have shared an adventure with them. There is simply a poetry to beautiful to wordsmith that stirs in me when I am free of the cities and the constant distractions of life.

                I can not wait to share it with you someday. As a father I long to share all that I find that is good in this life with you. Nothing could bring me more joy than to share that which I value, with that which I treasure. I love you always and forever, and I hope you take the time to seek out the desires of your heart.

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.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. One day to focus on all that we are truly thankful for in life, to count our blessings, and I suppose survey our disappointments. This year has not been bereft of disappointment, it has hung like a fog around your mother and I, the children we hoped for, and never got to know. It would seem strange to read it in these pages, as if I dwell upon it without ceasing, but please know my life is full, and you have made it overflow.

I have never known such good grace from God. He has given me your mother to make me a better man, and then you through your mother to continue that work even more. I am grateful for this, that you have shown me what it is to love without ceasing, hesitation, and even knowledge of why or how I could love so completely. The smallest moments with you are greater than so many others I used to cling to. I would not trade or part with those moments for all the things this world tells me to seek after- all the material and physical pleasure and pursuits in this life are nothing compared to the joy of having you as my daughter, and your mother as my wife.

If everything in my life I hold dearly to fell away, as someday it must, I would still be blessed. My house, car, career, could vanish and yet I would have blessings. It is too simple to expect only good, and scoff at the misfortune that comes into your life as if you warrant a better hand than the one you were dealt. I know what I would have earned on my own, and it would be bleak indeed.

I did not earn the blessings in my life, so how could I complain when the misfortune I did earn comes to visit me? If I have one hope for you it is that you do not expect a perfect life, so that you will be grateful for the blessings within the imperfect one you live. In that way you can savor them, thank God for them, and treasure them as true gifts.

It may have been sometime since I last wrote, you are recently two years old, your blonde hair has grown longer and your eyes even brighter. You give me great big hugs and enjoy cuddling on the couch. You often times break into song, and will repeat things I have said weeks after word that I had no idea you even heard in the first place. When I get you up in the morning and open your curtains you always exclaim “it’s a beautiful day”. I hope that never changes, I love your innocence and unadulterated joy in such small things.

All my days I am thankful for you. I love you always and nothing will ever separate you from that love.

                I have been thinking a lot about times I have failed in my life. Not necessarily a happy subject, but one I go back to from time to time in order to avoid the mistakes of my past while preparing for my future.

                Some of my failures have been more about my career, like when I tried to become a police officer, but was barred because I had sold my friends some prescription pain pills. Now, before you start imagining that I was a drug dealer I will tell you that I didn’t make more than $8 and only sold them because I did not want to take them myself. That was a tough time, getting rejected from a job I felt called to do, but I have a great job now that I am very grateful for and fulfilled by. I also think about the years I wasted so much time after graduating college. I had my job which paid well and was challenging but looking back I know I had too much spare time that I should have put into getting my MBA or otherwise improving myself. I don’t want to say that I am ungrateful for all the good things that happened those years, but I just wish I would have pushed myself to be at my best.

                Some failures have to do with hurting loved ones. I think about the time I got back from Catalina Island in the 6^th grade. I think I was gone 3 nights, my first time away from home without my parents for that long. My mom was so excited to see me when I got home and she said something like “come over here and give me a hug” but I walked right by her. I don’t know why I did it; maybe I thought it would make me feel more grown up. The one thing I do know is I have regretted the way it hurt her ever since. I mean this is so many years after it happened and yet I can go back to that moment and relive the way it happened so vividly.

                Another one that comes to mind is when your Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Rory had a miscarriage. We were, and hopefully as you are reading this still are, close friends with them. We had grown somewhat apart from them around that time, I don’t know why, sometimes it just happens. I think I might have called Rory to say I was sorry about what had happened, but I never went over, never did anything to show how much I cared and felt for them in their grief. I have always prided myself as being the kind of friend that is there no matter what. I think about that time and how I failed them and I feel so much regret. Sometimes you don’t necessarily hurt another person with your actions, but inside you know without a doubt you should have done more, even though no one was expecting you to.

                Then there is your mother. We had a very rough couple of years of marriage, fights and harsh words and bitter resentment. In retrospect it was a continual failure of mine to be the husband to her I promised to be, and to be the man God had called me to be. I was selfish, immature, and focused on my happiness and desires over hers. Thankfully your mother has more patience, perhaps stubbornness, than most, and we made it through that time. It doesn’t mean the rest is smooth sailing, it just means we are in the same boat to help each other now.  

                Lately my failure has been altogether different. Your mother and I have miscarried three times now. Each one seems to hit her harder than the last, and with each I see her hope and joy drained more and more. I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do or even feel. I just know I should be doing more for her, but I don’t know what it looks like. One of the hardest things in life is to watch others suffer and be unable to help them. Sometimes I even get upset because I don’t understand the way she feels, how she wants to avoid certain situations and her negative perspective. I am not saying its ok that I feel that way; I just want to be honest with you about how I feel and what I struggle with. I have to keep in mind that each person goes through life in a unique way, and its not up to me to fix her and force her to see a better way. My job is to love her, support her, listen, and try my best to understand without judgments. Like in all married life my job is to be strong, lead by example and carry us through the dark times when maybe I am the only one with the hope to carry on.

                Having you as our sweet little girl has made us above all things desire more children. We love spending time with you so much, and watching you grow and change. We take such delight in all the new things you learn to say and do. Lately you have been so sweet to me, always coming to find me with a kiss or a hug, wanting to cuddle and play. I think about you 20 times a day at least when I am traveling for work, in the airport each child that I see makes me miss you more and more. Knowing you has been so wonderful that all we want is more of the joy you bring us by being a part of our family.

                Failures are part of life. There are goals that remain unaccomplished, friends hurt, plans left unfulfilled. Those missteps make the successes all the sweeter though, they make the success we find so much more meaningful. I will never forget the triumphs in my life that came after struggle; the good years of marriage after the bad, graduating from college after so many tough exams. I hope that your failures lead you to your greatest accomplishments, that you can come to me always to talk them through, and that even though there may be tough seasons in your life you will never be a disappointment to me.