A Death in the Family

My dear cat Chloe fell asleep for the last time last Friday.



Here's how we met. Chloe lived with three other cats in a house. I met a girl who lived in a room in that house. I'd go over to visit her and Chloe would come into the room and hang out with us. She would jump on my hip when I was laying down and just sit there, content, purring like mad.

Even then, she was partial to me. She could come to visit us, but she would sleep on my side of the bed. She'd rub her face up against me and I'd just pet her and pet her. We connected with each other instantly. She adopted me: I didn't adopt her. She chose me.



Chloe hated the other cats in her house. She became a bit of a thug - she would hiss and slash at the other cats when they walked down the hallway. When that girl moved out to move in with me, Chloe came with us. That girl became Mrs. B, of course.

According to her former staffer's best estimate, Chloe was six when she came to live with us. I put her in a carrier and drove her to her new home - a cinder block one-bedroom apartment. She looked around, saw that she was the only cat in the house, and began purring madly. She was home.

If the math was right, Chloe was twenty years old when she finally left this mortal coil. She stayed with us through four moves, and when I moved into my own apartment, Chloe came with me.

She was frail. Her hips were especially painful. She had hip dysplasia - her hips would slip out of joint. Also arthritis. There were days when she could barely walk across the room. She couldn't jump anymore. The kitty who used to jump up on the bathroom sink couldn't jump onto a foot-high couch.



I had cat stairs - one so she could get onto the bed, and a shorter set of stairs so she could climb onto the couch. It helped. Not enough. But the stairs helped.

She had other stuff. She had the inevitable thyroid problems. She had chronic renal disease - that was diagnosed a couple of years ago. One of her kidneys seemed to have stopped functioning completely.

Because of the kidneys and everything else, she became dehydrated easily. I was giving her fluids every other day, plus pain medicine once a day. Plus kidney medicine. Plus glucosamine in her food.

At some point, it just wasn't enough. None of it was enough, because cats get old, as we all do. Cats get old, and at some point, their life becomes just existing from day to day. One of my friends asked me if there was joy left in her life.

I like to think so. I don't like to think that she was just existing. She still ate. She still curled up with me - even when she could barely move on the bed, she would curl up next to me and purr her soft, fragile purrs. She loved being cradled and she loved being next to me. And Oliver. She was a snugglebug to the end.

Chloe would follow me from room to room, waiting for me to stop moving so she could sit down next to me. She always did this; even when she was at her weakest, she would do that. I was always her person.

Last Friday night, she fell asleep, and she was gone Saturday morning. Her body was still there. But Chloe had moved on. She was someplace where her hips didn't hurt, and where I didn't have to poke her with needles and fill her up with fluids like a water balloon. Some place where she could frolic and be free and joyful and happy.

I buried her in the backyard with one of her crinkly toys. And I cried. I cried because I missed her, and I cried because I was relieved. She was finally free of the pain and the suffering. When she decided she couldn't take anymore, she just let go.

I did the best I could with you, Chloe. It was an honor being your person and your staff. I hope you have sunshine and warm fuzzy blankets and grass to roll in. Thank you for giving so much of yourself to us and for filling our lives with joy. We will never forget you.

The Dark Hand

It sneaks up on me in unexpected ways. Something goes just slightly wrong. My boss glares at me. The wife and I don't have dinner together. Or the news - the news drags me down often. Stories about children - stories about despair. The floods in Colorado. Meaningless deaths, natural disasters, shameful political behavior.

It doesn't matter if the story on the 5:00 news is big or small. It doesn't matter if I'm being fired or if the boss just growls at me a little. It's like I have a trapdoor inside my heart, and if I step the wrong way, down I go.

Depression is something that I live with. I don't think about it very often, but my mother was bipolar. My brother was almost certainly bipolar. Manic depressive, that's what it used to be. Manic highs and lows. You go up hard, you come crashing down like a plane that's run out of fuel.

I have had my bouts, when it was hard to focus or concentrate on anything except the sadness. After 9/11, I crashed hard for a few months. I was in a funk. I couldn't stop listening to the news, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't concentrate. I would cry unexpectedly, unpredictably. I went to therapy. I got better. But it never goes away. The dark hand never stops reaching for you. It's just that, for a while, it can't reach you. That doesn't mean it's not still clutching.

Anyway, sometimes I don't even know what causes my funks of depression. Sometimes it's just a collection of small things, inconsequential in themselves, but the combination of them just seems to set me reeling. And I'm in the cloud. The dark cloud, the cloud that follows me around like Pigpen's cloud of gloom. And nothing can snap me out of it.

When I'm depressed, it's like a horribly sick game of chess. I see how one thing can lead to another, can lead to another, and pretty soon I'm imagining how easily I could end up sleeping in my car. Or declaring bankruptcy again. Or maybe I'll lose this job, too. I can see everything going completely, awfully, catastrophically wrong. Every blue sky looks like a looming monsoon.

There are days when all I want to do is sleep, when anything else just seems to be too much effort. There are days when I don't think I can stand the effort of doing my job, talking to other people, being part of the world. And I just want to pull the covers over my head and go away. When I was younger, that was a solution to the petty aches and pains of teenager-hood. I slept a lot. I'd come home from school at 3 in the afternoon, go into my room, and nap until dinnertime. It's easier than feeling.

I could be an alcoholic very easily, I think. I can see that the cloud of alcohol haziness would be a comfort in times like this. The blur of not seeing straight, of not quite being able to hold your thoughts together. The comfort of not holding onto things. Like time. Like memory. Like feelings. I can see the appeal of that. But I don't drink. Not really. I don't let myself. We keep only a small amount of liquor in the house, and I only drink one or two drinks when I'm out. I don't drink at home. Maybe a beer. That's it.  

Mostly, it's being aware that I have this tendency. I can get depressed. I can sink hard into despair and sorrow and sometimes I don't even know it's happening. So I try to check myself. I try to evaluate where I am and whether or not I'm sinking. When I am, sometimes the best thing is to tell my wife what's happening. It's not her fault. Depression isn't anyone's fault, anymore than you can blame cancer on your obnoxious neighbor or your sister who never calls anymore. Depression is a condition that exists in my body. It's a biochemical defect, an error in the coding, and sometimes it flares up. If I know it's there, I can watch for the signs. And if I watch for the signs, I can pull myself up out of the nosedive before I fall too far.

You, dear readers. Thank you for listening when I just need to talk things out. This blog, after all, is mostly so that I can say things out loud. This - this depression thing - is a thing that I need to talk about sometimes.

If you experience this too - if the dark hand reaches out for you sometimes, talk about it. Let your loved ones know that it's a part of your life. Because it's a part of theirs, too. And they care about you, and they can't know how to help you and how to be there for you if they don't know what's going on. So talk to your friends. Let people know. Educate yourself and take care of yourself. Start a blog, hell, it's still legal. Don't hide. We don't need to be ashamed. We didn't do anything wrong. Don't be ashamed that you suffer. It's hard enough just suffering, without feeling like we're somehow failures too.

Father's Day - Signs of Hope

Father's Day is often a dreadful day in popular media.  I wrote a bitter and frustrated post about it a few years ago, after reading a particularly infuriating post in a national magazine.

So imagine my surprise when I saw this commercial, depicting a dad doing ... well, doing what dads do. He was swaddling his kid. 

His wife called to check on him, and he responded that he had matters well in hand. He was a dad. Dads didn't need help - they managed. So she hung up, and then he pulled up a YouTube video to see how to do a better job of swaddling his kid. 

I probably could have helped him with his swaddle technique, if he'd only asked.

And lo and behold, a dad swaddled his kid on national television. And it was a beautiful moment. It was a real moment. He wasn't perfect, but he was trying his hardest and he wasn't intimidated. He was doing what dads do. (The commercial is called "Swaddle Master. I know a thing or two about swaddling, so I loved it.)

Another commercial, this one for toothbrushes. (Yeah, I know.) But holy cow, this commercial slayed me. Dads holding their kids, and playing with them, and teaching them stuff. It's so simple and just so perfect.



I wish I had a third commercial, so it would be a trend piece. But whatever. Two is good.

Oh, wait, here's a third. It's not a commercial, but it still works. It's a new piece by Louis CK that ran on CBS Sunday Morning for Father's Day.


And this one is great because it adds a lot of elements that are also true to life. Louis is full of doubt and self-loathing and that fiery, angry defiance that defines him. "No, screw you, I'm going to do it THIS WAY!!"

Fathers are doubtful. We are consumed by doubt. We're not sure we're doing it right. The problem with dads having taken such a backseat role in parenting for so long is that now, we're not sure we know how to do it.

Here's the secret. Moms don't know what they're doing either. No, really, they don't. They DON'T. There is no magic innate motherhood gene. We all just learn by trying it and screwing up and waking up the next day anyway.

But we're not hopeless. Lots of dads are doing just what they're supposed to do. They change diapers and hold their kids and kiss their boo-boos and look at report cards and fix lunches. They strap in car seats and make dinners and wipe tears away and make their stuffed animals talk in ridiculous voices.

We do what we're supposed to do. We're not boobs. We're not idiots. We're people, and there are some great ones, and some really lousy ones. But in between, there's a hell of a lot of us who are just doing the job, day after day after day. I saw a great quote today, one that I'd never seen before. "Being a great father is like shaving. No matter how good you shaved today, you have to do it again tomorrow." It's from someone named Reed Markham.

We don't want medals. Just treat us like human beings. When you see a dad taking his kid for a walk, don't think "oh look, daddy's babysitting." That father is being a parent. It's not special anymore to see fathers doing the parenting thing. The world is changing. This year, for once, I'm a little more hopeful that the change is being noticed.

Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher

I know very little about this case.  I have avoided stories of this story feverishly, even though it is a story that touches many of my neighbors.  Even though the accused lives in the same city, the same neighborhood, as my family.  However, I feel called to talk about it because it is so close to home, literally and figuratively.  

I have avoided this story the way I avoid all stories of murder:  gruesome murder, celebrity murder, exploitative stories about murder, tragic stories about murder.  I avoid these stories.  I don't watch movies that talk cavalierly about murder, or movies like Pulp Fiction that use dead bodies as a punch line.  I wince at the way murder is treated in this country, and especially in the news.

So I did not seek out and I do not wish to know more about the Amanda Knox story:  about her alibi, her claims of innocence.  I do not wish to hear the cries from her family that she could not possibly have done something like this.  I do not want to know.  I don't follow murder stories.  

My brother was murdered fourteen years ago, you see.  (Some of my longtime readers have heard me talk about this before.)  We found out weeks after it had happened.  They found my father's address in his personal effects and were able to track him down, and they called him to identify the body of his son.  

One of the killers was found and arrested, years later.  He went to trial.  I was asked to attend as a witness.  I saw photos of my brother's body, taken at the morgue, depicting the blows that ended his life.  I saw the evidence of what had been done to him.  I saw these things and I wish that I never had.

I saw the man who was accused of murdering my brother.   I heard the prosecutor and a witness to the crime describe the things that had been done to end my brother's life.  I heard his attorney offer alibis, explanations, reasons why their client could not possibly have done these horrible things.

I met his family, the murderer's family.  They couldn't understand how such a mistake could have happened.  They were upset, angry, confused, and they know their son was innocent.  They just knew it.  He wasn't that kind of person. 

He was found guilty by a jury of his peers, and was sentenced to life in prison.  I have not seen him since that trial and I don't know if I will ever see his face again, except in my dreams, except when I want to think about my brother and instead, I see the ruddy face of the man who took his life.

So no, I don't want to know more about Amanda Knox' situation.  I don't want to know the holes in the prosecution's case.  I don't want to know the alternative theories of how the murder transpired.  It's not that I dislike Ms. Knox or that I've prejudged her.  I just don't want to know any more.  I can't do it.  I choose to just close my eyes and let the system do its job.   

I know this, however.  I know that Italy is a nation of laws, a nation with a legitimate government.  I know that Knox' trial was not conducted by reading goat entrails or casting runes.  I know that her trial was carried out in a legitimate court.  And if the jury said that she was guilty, then I have to believe that she was guilty.  A person was murdered.  Meredith Kercher's family deserves justice.  I will not, I dare not question the judgment of that Italian jury.  It is not my right.  None of us has that right except the judge and the men and women who made up that jury.  That's how it works.   

I believe that the jury who convicted my brother's murder carried out their role and meted out justice.  I believe that the jury who convicted Amanda Knox did the same.  I have to believe that.  There are so many murders in this country and around the world that go unsolved, their perpetrators left to roam free, the families of the victims left with gaping wounds in their hearts.  I have to believe that justice was carried out here, and I do believe that.  It is disrespectful to Meredith Kercher's family, to that jury, and to the entire country of Italy to claim otherwise.  

And that's all I can say about that.  

Mutt Like Me

I didn't cry until this morning.

I've gotten emotional this week, of course. Tuesday night was amazing. I watched Obama's victory speech in awe and astonishment. But I never cried until today, watching his first post-election press conference.

Oddly enough, it was a question about dogs. He has promised his girls a dog if they move into the White House, and he was asked a light-hearted question about the kind of dog they were considering. And he said that he needed to consider getting a hypoallergenic dog because one of his girls is allergic.

But he then said that his preference was to get a dog from a shelter, and "most shelter dogs are mutts like me." I pumped my fist and cheered. And then I got misty-eyed.

Barack Obama is a mutt. He's a mixture, a hybrid, a biracial blend. He is both black and white, Kenyan and Hawaiian and Kansan, a swirl of cultures all at once.

I know something about this.

My father is 1st-generation Mexican-American, by which I mean that his parents were Mexican-born. He was born in Michigan, an American citizen although his father never became a naturalized citizen. He grew up speaking Spanish and English.

My mother was French-Canadian and English, from western Massachusetts. When they married and he came to New England to meet her family, he found them all staring anxiously out the window as he approached. They had never seen a Mexican person before, you see, and they couldn't wait to see what he looked like.

My childhood was a mixture of identities. I was never white, but never as dark as the pure Mexican kids in my neighborhood. I was in-between. I had a Spanish last name, but I couldn't speak Spanish beyond perro and gato. I was a typical American kid in most respects, I like to think: cable tv, video games, Sesame Street. And yet, there was that other thing that was so inconsequential and yet set me apart from the other kids on my block. I was different.

When I was thirteen, my family moved to a rural town in Colorado and I had to adjust to a whole new speed of living. I went from city life to a farm town. I adjusted well, learned to love country music and the Denver Broncos. I found many friends, graduated near the top of my class. I was in six plays in four years, played two years of high school baseball, won my first writing contest.

I believe today that because of my in-betweenness, I learned to drift and float between cultures and identities. Because I was always something in-between, I learned how to adapt to people who weren't exactly like me and assimilate myself to be just like them. As long as I needed to - until I needed to adapt to another group for an hour or a week or a year.

There were Mexican kids in my school who were low-riders, dropouts, drifters. There were also kids who were great students, cheerleaders, football stars. They weren't like each other, and none of them was like me, and I wasn't like any of them. I was someone who moved into town just in time to start 9th grade. I was an outsider as the new kid, the different kid. And then I was just me.

When I look at Barack Obama, I see a life story like mine. I was born in Michigan to a father whose parents were born in another country. He was born in Hawaii to a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya. I grew up a half-Mexican kid in Detroit and rural Colorado. He grew up a black kid in Honolulu and Indonesia.

I hear all these stories about how he crosses party lines, how well he works with political opponents, how he befriends his enemies. We do that. We see things from outside, always from outside, always sampling the other person's point of view. We wear different perspectives as a matter of course. We are always looking for the perspective that hasn't been expressed, for the point of view that isn't being noticed, the middle ground between the warring factions. We blend, and we try to bring together the seemingly irreconcilable as a matter of habit.

I have voted for presidents every year since 1988, and this is the first time I have been happy with my pick. No, more than that. I was overjoyed to select the name of Barack Hussein Obama to be my next president. He is of my generation - just eight years older than me. He is a parent of young children, like me. Like me, he married someone beautiful and intelligent and his equal, if not his better, in nearly every way. (Hi, sweetie.)

But it's deeper. Barack Obama has that complicated, hard-to-explain life story that I recognize all too well. He's several things all at once. He is at once African-American and white and neither of those things. He is a blend, multiracial, like me. He's a drifter between worlds, like me. He's a mutt, just like me, just like millions of Americans.

He's one of us.

What Color is Heaven?

I need to tell you something, and some of you longtime readers know this already.

My brother died in 1995. He was murdered, by somebody who will be in jail for the rest of his life.

My mother died in 1980, when I was ten years old. She was manic depressive - today we call it bipolar disorder. She took her own life. I don't know if I want to say anything more about it. Someday I might.

I miss them every day. Some days more than others, but I miss them every day. I often talk about them, especially now that Oliver has come into our life.

My father-in-law - Mrs. B's father - passed away two years ago. Cancer. It was shockingly swift, like a car crash. I can tell you that Mrs. B misses him every day.

Oliver has seen pictures of these people - his uncle, his grandmother, his grandfather - and knows that they existed once. He met his grandfather, just once, before he died.

One day, we knew that we would have to explain that they were no longer here, no longer on this plane. So we decided that we would have to explain death. And one morning, the three of us were laying in bed and Oliver asked something about his uncle. And we started talking about death.

We chose to tell him that death is what happens when someone's body gets broken and stops working. We told him that usually, this happens when someone gets really, really old. (This way, he doesn't have to worry that his parents are going to keel over next week. Or that he will. I know that someday, he will learn math, and he will realize that his uncle was just 29 when he died, and that his grandmother was just 35. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.)

So we talked about death, and then we talked about heaven. I told him that heaven was the place where you go where you die, and everybody goes there. (There is no hell. The God in which I believe does not believe in eternal damnation. YMMV.) Frankly, he was much more interested in heaven. And wouldn't you be? Think about it - it's an invisible place up in the sky where everybody you ever loved goes to live, where you can get everything good that you ever wanted, where nothing bad ever happens. Heaven is way cool.

So the other day, I was putting him to bed, and he started asking about uncle Mike up in heaven. Apparently, he had some details he was trying to get straight.

What color is heaven?

Where is heaven?

Is it there all the time? (Logical question. The moon goes away during the day, the sun goes down at night. Yet heaven is always there.)

What is in heaven? (He wanted details: birds? Trees? Streets? Houses?)

What is Uncle Mike's house in heaven? (Translation: describe it to me.)

What street does Uncle Mike live on in heaven?

What does he do in heaven?

Does he look down on me every day?

At night, too? (It's dark at night, so this is understandably a pretty weird concept.)

Do they eat in heaven?

What food do they have in heaven?

Do they have beds in heaven?

And then he asked if he was going to go to heaven, and I answered him: you are absolutely, definitely going to go to heaven.

He asked why, and I told him that he just was, that this was just the way things worked. I didn't say what I was thinking: if there is no place for you in heaven, son, then it doesn't exist.

Three

So the lad turned three years old this weekend.

We went down to Oregon for a big ol' party with his favorite cousin, who celebrated her fifth birthday last week, too. The theme was Mexican - it was a fiesta of sorts, with Mexican food and Mexican beer. Our hosts made "burrito" cakes for the birthday kids. The burrito was pretty clever - the inside was a jellyrolled cake. The "tortilla" was ganache, rolled into an oblong shape and draped over. The "salsa" was made with strawberries, with bits of banana and kiwi for color.

They even made a piñata. (Rule #1 for anyone who ever wants a piñata at any sort of party: always make sure that you a stick strong enough to handle some bashing. The kids were using a plastic broom handle, and it bent before the piñata dented. Eventually, we had to resort to a wooden shovel handle.


Oliver had a blast. Because we were on the road for his birthday, he didn't get his big birthday present until we came home. I don't want to speak for Oliver, but I think it was worth the wait.



I'm going to have to write another post in depth about what it means that he's three. He has changed so much in a year that I can't even grasp all of the changes. He's a little person now. We can talk to him, he can carry grocery bags out of the car, he comments on our conversations.

He's a big boy now. It's preposterous to call him my baby anymore, and yet I still get to carry him sometimes to his bedroom, draped over my arms. And sometimes, I sing him lullabies to get him to sleep just like in the early days. And sometimes, when I lay down in his big boy bed and watch him fall asleep with his arm slung over me, I just watch him. I watch my baby as his gentle breaths come and go, his tiny lips moving slightly with each breath. And I see the adult that he will become, and I see the baby he is and he always will be. He's an amazing person, this thing of wonder, this boy of mine, my beautiful son Oliver.

Wonder - Colin Meloy

P.S. I have more pictures on Flickr (see the right column to see a couple more previews.) You can go here to see 'em. Some of the pictures will not be visible unless you're on my friends list, so if I know you and you know me, email me and I'll get you on the guest list.

Five Years

We were married on the deck of a boat. We had found a judge who would marry us, and it was something like $200 for him to come to a location of our choosing, or $150 to do it on his houseboat in Shilshole Bay. So, of course, we went for the boat. Who wouldn't?

The sky was bluer than blue. The sun shone ferociously. It was a perfect Seattle summer day, eighty degrees and radiant, and we were gettin' hitched, floating on a boat in Puget Sound. That was five years ago, August 12th.

It was my brother, a friend, me and Mrs. B, and the judge. A five-person wedding party. I barely remember the words of the vows - he read the line, we repeated the line, and I kept staring at her in her beautiful dress, luminous in the sunlight. My feet barely touched the ground.

We had drinks at Ray's Boathouse, dropped off our wedding party of two, and headed down to a sumptuous dinner at Stanley & Seafort's in Tacoma. We spent our first night at a lush bed and breakfast - a mansion, literally. I remember feeling like we had gotten away with something.

In the morning, we had a private breakfast on a deck upstairs. Then we headed to the Oregon coast for a honeymoon of more B&Bs, more fantastic dinners, and four lighthouses in five days.

Since that day, lots has happened. I've changed jobs three times. We've moved three times. We've had Oliver, which has changed everything in our lives. We've had heartbreaking moments and moments of pure jubilation.

Some mornings, I still wake up and look over at this woman next to me, and I am filled with awe. Once, before I met her, I entertained the thought that I would never be married, never have a child, and I would be content with that. Now, I can't imagine my life without her or our son. Every one of my days is filled with joy - even if Oliver is incorrigible, even if my work is infuriating and exhausting, even if things happen that make my blood boil. My life is a joy. I have a wife who loves me and I have a son who is filled with wonder and curiosity and a seemingly unending supply of energy.

I am a lucky man.

Father's Day

He was making macaroni and cheese for his kids. He was the good dad, out to dazzle his children with his cooking prowess. He was going to introduce them to real mac-and-cheese, not that powdered boxed crapola. They liked that boxed crap, but he was going to teach them the difference. He knew what was best for them, after all. He was their father.

They hated it. They didn't like the crunchy noodles on top. They thought the bread crumbs on top made it look burnt. They wanted the orange stuff that came in the box, not this. This wasn't macaroni and cheese.

First he argued with them. Then, when their mother tried to explain that it was unfamiliar food, that they'd never seen bread crumbs on top of a dish before, he pouted. He got upset.

He stomped away from the dinner table. He shut himself in his bedroom, a petulant teenager, an overemotional dad in all the wrong ways. One of his children actually went up to apologize, attempting to coax him back to the dinner table.

This was the story I read in a national parents magazine. It's their current issue, on the newsstands just in time for Father's Day. It was part of their section for fathers. No, scratch that. This one-page anecdote was the entirety of their section for dads. That's it. One story about a dad who screwed up dinner. One more story about a dad who doesn't understand what his kids want, doesn't react well to his kids' natural reactions, and doesn't realize that his kids are watching everything he does for signs on how to act like a grown-up.

One more story about one more incompetent dad.

I don't understand how a magazine with a name like Parenting (parents are both mothers and fathers, right?) has only a single page dedicated to fathers. And I don't get how, month after month, the fathers who visit their pages are dunderheads. They make mistakes. They put diapers on wrong. They make atrocious choices about their children's clothes, their food, their safety. They are embarrassments to fatherhood.

I hate to brag, people. But let's get some things straight. I'm a father. I'm a damn good dad. I spent nearly a year at home with my son, changing his diapers, warming his bottles, holding him until my shoulders fell asleep during his naps. So I know a few things about being a father.


I've been his dad since the day he was born. Not a stand-in, not a weekend daddy, not an absentee, not a detached parental unit. I am his dad, and I take my work seriously.

Let me present my credentials:

I can always find his ticklish spots, and I know a few secret ones that his mother might not even know.

I can change his diaper with my eyes closed. Seriously.

I can feed him animal crackers, one by one, while driving down the highway. Without taking my eyes off the road.

If there are ten kids at the park running around, and my kid cries, I hear it. I know the frequency of his cries, the shape and size of the vowels, the pattern, the pitch. I will hear my son cry, because he is my son and I am his dad.

I know how my son talks, and I know the words and almost-words and semi-words that come out of his mouth. Sometimes I can interpret things he says that his mother can't.

I know what he eats and what he doesn't. I stopped getting him veggie burgers a long time ago, because as much as I thought they were a perfect food for him, he never liked them. So I stopped, because I realized I was wasting my time. A real dad knows when he's wasting his time on unimportant things. I feed him what he likes, and when I experiment with new foods on him, I always have a cheese stick or a bowl of peas as a backup.



I don't fear time alone with him. I took a job with a four-day work week so that I could spend an entire day with him. These days are the joys of my week.

I know what he likes to wear. I know which hand he uses to pick up a form. I know that he loves slapstick humor, and running squirrels, and music with a good solid beat. I know that he doesn't like to wear socks when he sleeps. I know how to make his cowlicks stay down.


If I close my eyes, right now, I can remember his sleeping face from the first few weeks of his life.

I know what meconium looks like. I know how to cut his fingernails. I know how to make him laugh. I know exactly where the mole is on his chest.

And I love this boy, this child, my son. I love the smell of his hair when it's been warmed by sunlight. I love the sound of his laughter. I love the way he scolds me when I'm doing something he doesn't like ("no, daddy!") I love watching his face while he sleeps. I love the way he wakes me up ( he says "daddy, come!" and grabs one of my fingers to pull me out of bed). I love every inch of his being.

I'm a good dad. I pay attention. I watch out for him. I keep him safe. I feed him, clothe him, change his diapers, read him stories, put him down for naps, kiss his boo-boos, wipe the snot and drool off his face, let him put half-eaten noodles in my mouth.

I've been his dad since he was born.

I'm not the only dad who gets it. There are millions of us. We are competent. We take pride in our skills (or skillz, as it were) in fathering. We are the new fathers, and there are a hell of a lot of us.

Watch for us on Father's Day. We're all around. We're in the parking lots, holding our kids' hands. We're in the parks, running around with our kids, chasing them as they laugh and scream. We're in the restaurants, offering our kid a bite of our breakfast. We're at home, making our own Father's Day breakfasts. We're good dads, and there's more and more of us all the time.

Sunday Morning

Wedding Day
Originally uploaded by Sky Bluesky

It's Sunday morning, and I'm making blueberry pancakes for my wife and our son. And I'm thinking about my mother.

Longtime readers know about my mother. For the rest of you, my mother died when I was ten years old. Without saying too much, she was manic depressive and took her own life. (This is what I wrote about it a couple of years ago, if you want to know more.)

Mom was the kind of person who would make us blueberry pancakes in the morning, when she could. She had a disease. There was a lot of time when she couldn't - when she was in the hospital, or when we were in another house (away from the potential danger of our sick mother). Or just in bed, unable to get up.

But she made us pancakes, and she read us stories, and she tucked us into bed at night. When she could, she was the best mother she could be. And that's where I reconcile this. She did the best she could, but her disease made it hard for her to be there - and ultimately, to be anywhere at all. To be here.

I mourn the loss of that woman who raised me, and I mourn the void. I have lived for twenty-seven years without her. My mother never saw me graduate high school or college. I am thirty-eight years old. My mother married when she was 21, had three children by the time she was 25, and died before her thirty-fifth birthday.

She never met my wife. She never saw Oliver. But Oliver has seen her, and I tell him that she's his grandma Anne. He will never meet her in this world, but she is his grandmother, and there is some of her in him, and there's a lot of her in me.