For My Dad

March 31, 1995

Dear Dad,

I know that after your stroke you said that we all came waiting for you to die, as in some sort of death watch. This is just not true. It occurred to me that the moments that count in life are not the moments we spend alone but moments we spend with each other. Maybe we came together because we feel that we haven't spent enough time together.

You raised your children to be productive members of society and, I believe every one of us is, but in doing so we have all had to make sacrifices. One sacrifice is that the family we were raised with, the family that made us what we are today does not get to see each other as much as we would like. We all have our own lives. But at the time of your stroke we realized that life is precious and also temporary.

Your stroke awoke in us a reality that we really haven't spent as much time together as we should. That is what we are worried about when we ask you how you are doing. Time is our most precious gift.

I guess what I really feel is that this warning that you have been given could be looked on as a gift; a sign of how precious and fleeting life is and that each moment has a beauty all its own to be cherished.

I wrote a poem once and it's been on my mind for several years now. I have begun to ask myself if I am proud of the life I lead. I have no doubts about my personal decisions. I love my family with all my heart. I have questions about my professional decisions. The poem I wrote was about a professional man who finds the decisions he has made have made him unhappy in or unfulfilled in his personal life. The questions asked of him are whether the boy he was would be proud of the man he is.

There are some things that we may never know. But today I came home and I saw my reflection in the window. I was holding my son while fumbling for my keys and I paused and looked at myself in the window. At that moment I realized who I am. I am a family man and as such I have responsibilities to my wife and my daughter and my son. And it makes me very happy. Those responsibilities are manifested in my commitment to my professional life and to myself. And it was in this moment I found an answer to the question. Yes, I am proud of myself. The boy I was could be proud of me. This is the essence of fatherhood.

This boy is also proud of you. I often talk of you in terms of what you accomplished. I tell my coworkers what you worked on and how many years you spent as an engineer. I am amazed at how you can grow just about anything in your backyard and build anything you want from scraps of wood. I love the way you reuse stuff that most people would throw away. I learned a lot from you and you should feel proud of your accomplishments as much as we are proud of you.
Thank you for being my DAD.

Love,
Your son, David