On Fathers and Sons

Some days require perspective, some give it. Today was the latter somehow. I started the day crawling into bed with my three year old for a quick tickle fest to kick off a long day. As we lay there and laughed, I just felt so much joy. Not advertised, but I just felt it. It was like a warm blanket minutes after you pull it up to the neck and your body heat teams with the blanket and you feel your temperature begin to rise. It is at once insulating and comforting. This was that with the added benefit of a hysterically laughing, kicking and squirming three year old.

Joy part two came when I went into to wake the seven year old. Morning light splashed his face but didn't rouse him. I woke him and he wanted to know the outcome of the Bears/Redskins game. He was excited to learn that the Bears had lost. We had a laugh, a hug and then I moved on.

Hours later, I was at UIC hospital between MRI and X-ray that would reveal a stress fracture in my foot when my mother called me. She ostensibly called to talk about a legal document that concerned her, that needed immediate attention, but that wasn't the entire call. The backdrop was that my father, 81 and on dialysis was taking a turn for the worse so says his doctor and that he might die in a month or a year or tomorrow, but probably not. I couldn't speak for a moment (rare for me) as I absorbed that. I still struggle with it and it is hours later.

Funny to be so caught up in moments of fatherhood and in being a son in the same day. I doubt I am the only one in town who had a day like that.

The pictures above are on my desk at work. They don't really sit side by side, but do for the shot I post here. On the left, I stand with my boys earlier this year. We are standing before Buckingham Fountain in downtown Chicago. My daughter, age 9 (and not pictured here) did a wonderful job of capturing the simple happiness of the moment. That she was taking the picture served no small part of my smiling in the picture. My own father introduced me to photography and I want to give that to my daughter. More on that soon.

The picture on the right was taken in Fort Wayne in front of the Allen County Courthouse, most likely in 1966 or thereabouts. I am closest to my father there. Telling, perhaps, but I was young then. I mentioned the picture to him on the phone tonight and he remembered the picture with certainty, but the exact moment not as much.

A father. A son. A brother. A husband. A friend. So many parts we play. Some bring joy. But I am not feeling much joy just now.