Boys,
In our laundry room, when we come in from the garage and go into the house, there is one of those walls where we periodically mark how tall you’ve gotten and the date you were that height. It is a physical representation of you two “growing up.”
I just read this thing that said I will likely only have a few years left of being your favorite person before your friends take over that space in your heart. And when I say “I,” I mean your mom too. Anyway, it said that eventually your friends will take that place as you grow into little independent people. Some days, especially the ones where you two are at each other’s throats or you ask to go fishing 28x in 30 minutes time, I think “I can’t wait for that day to come!” Other days, most days……, the thought of not being the person who makes you laugh and that you want to spend the most time with makes me sad.
As a parent, you want your kids to grow up and be independent and forge their own path while at the same time, want them to think of you as their hero and tell you everything they think about and dream about and love.
There is a quote from the book I’m reading that goes, “Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.” Without context, it might seem a bit generic, but what it means is that before we die, we have to remember to actually live. And while weakness finds everyone eventually, giving in is a choice—strength is deciding to stand anyway. Finally, before we ever reach where we want to go, we need to appreciate every step it takes to get there.
I want you boys to grow up, even if that means I am not going to be your favorite person forever. I want you both to figure out what drives you and what excites you. I want you to find the people who will help you be that person, whether it’s friends you meet along the way of, gasp, even a wife you’ll want to spend the rest of your life with.
I think parents and kids both want the other to stay as they are more than the other realizes. When I was your age, I remember being afraid of my parents growing up and getting old. I remember my dad used to play this kid in the neighborhood in basketball in our driveway. The kid was probably 17 or 18 at the time, but he felt like a grown up to me. I remember, or at least I think I remember, seeing my dad dunk the basketball at some point in our driveway (he might never tell, but the rim COULD have been a bit lower than 10 feet). I also remember seeing him play softball at our church and he could hit the ball further than anyone else on the team. I was very proud of that. I also thought my mom was the most beautiful girl in the world – she reminded me of the Little Mermaid because she had red hair too.
I wanted to keep them preserved like that until I grew up. I wanted my dad to always be the strong, athletic guy I would someday become (not saying I did, but that is what I wanted when I was a kid) and I wanted my mom to stay just as she was so she could always be my best friend.
But it doesn’t happen that way. One of my favorite songs is Stop the Train by John Mayer. I may have referenced this before. But the song uses this train as a metaphor for life, and how we can’t ever stop the train from moving and we can’t get off once we’re on it. The song looks at it from the vantage point of the son who sees his dad getting older, but the dad has a message for the son about what that train is like 30 years down the line. In the song, the dad is at peace with it and wants the son to reevaluate some of the things he prioritizes in his life so that he can appreciate the beauty of life itself.
The truth is that my dad can’t still dunk a basketball or hit a softball 300 feet. My mom is still beautiful, but not in the same way she was when she could have doubled for Ariel. But here is the beauty of growing up and growing older: I still love my mom and dad as much as I did when I was young. It’s not the same kind of love, but my mom actually got funny as she got older and now I think she’s almost as funny as me — ALMOST. And my dad and I had some hard times between now and way back then, but I learned more about who he is as a person and not as this “superhero” that I always thought of him as. I understand his scars a bit more now and I feel things like compassion, empathy, and grace for him now. Those emotions are really hard for kids to understand.
So I’m writing this to you both as a reminder to live fully before we die, to choose strength whenever weakness tempts us to quit, and to appreciate the climb while we figure out where we’re going. Because no matter how desperately we want to freeze time and keep things just as they are, we can’t stop what’s coming—we can only decide who we are when it arrives.
Love you boys,
Dad
PS – I didn’t write about Grampy in this, but I could apply everything to him the same way I did to my mom and dad. Your grandpa Whitt had a tough shell when I met him and still has a tough shell today, but I understand him more now than I ever did. It doesn’t mean it’s easy, but I know more about who he is and what he stands for now than I ever could in those early days. Anway, here’s a picture of him and Reagan using a blow torch to light a bonfire.
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