“Hey Isaac. Come here a second. I want to tell you something.”
He walked in.
“Yeah?”
“I want you to know... I love you. I’m glad you are my son.
“I know things have been tough for you.
“I’ve had an interesting life. A lot of good things, some not so much.
“I’m sorry about Mom. I’m not saying she hasn’t done anything wrong, but there are things I am responsible for, things that are my share of these hurts.
“I know this has been a very tough year for you... Mom, Rocky, Jeremiah...
“Here’s the thing, what I want to tell you... I am so glad you are my son. I am so glad I adopted you. If I had to choose everything over again, I would do it just the same. It has all been worth it to have you as my son.
“I love you.”
He smiled. He sighed. He grinned. He hugged me and went to bed.
About Me
- Curious Servant
- I have adopted two boys from Haiti. Both are mentally handicapped. One is is now 20, the other 18. I divorced my wife of 28 years a few years ago and have just remarried, a woman from Belize. I find beauty in many things... many, many things (nature, art, people, space...) and that helps me to survive my deep empathy for so many who suffer. I like to write, and I've written quite a bit on my blogs. I have been thinking about writing a book. Unsure if it should be about the things I have experienced, or fiction (I have an interesting plot line worked out). I'm pretty open about things. I like blended whiskey, but I never have more than two drinks... usually just one, and not often at that. I have had many adventures. Makes me a little different. (Odd?)
10 comments:
you are the dad everyone wishes they had
It's almost one in the morning... I've woken from a long dream where I walked from room to room in an old house that was, and wasn't empty.
I turned on lights, the switches were those old push button types made in the 20s, surveyed the rooms where I thought I had heard a noise, turned the lights out again, feeling my way through the darkness to the next room.
There was the room filled with 1890s barber chairs, forming a tight circle under the hanging crystal lights.
I felt my way along the chairs, moving to where I knew the wall to be... The coolness on my left cheek told me when I was near the leaded window and I peered through the glass... Perhaps the noise had come from outside.
Dimly through the glass, old leaded glass that made the street lamp beyond the dark shapes of trees surrounding the front lawn a rippled blue, I saw the porch outside, empty except for the grey wood floor, two wicker chairs, and the ornate railing.
I found the door and went through the foyer toward the room where my bed was pushed up against a wall lined with shelves of leather-bound books, a wardrobe, old furniture... all very dim in the nearly absent light.
A different noise and a friendly cat I've never known sauntered across the room, amused at my stumbling in the darkness.
A heavy breathing came beside me. It pushed against me, its soft barrel shape told me it was Elvis, the over weight brown german short hair who died two years ago.
He was confused that I was wandering the strange house in the dark... So was I. I was searching for something I knew wasn't there.
I wished briefly I would wake from the dream and get a glass of milk from the kitchen of the less interesting house beyond the dream.
I thought if I could find my bed again I could fall asleep within this dream, and in sleeping I might awake.
I did find the bed. It took up no space at all behind the overstuffed wing back chair, yet when I crawled into it, I found it was large, warm, but empty.
I pulled the covers up to my chin and rolled onto my side. Elvis huffed, wondering what he should do.
"Lay down," I said softly. He plopped down on the oval rag rug. I lay in the darkness... I was so tired, but could not sleep...
"I've got to get some rest," I thought. "I've got to get some sleep. Some real sleep not filled with this strange dream of a large and empty house furnished from a century ago.
I consciously slowed my breathing... "Sleep," I thought. "Sleep and the dream will stop and you can wake up, shake off this dream, and then go back to sleep to something else."
The house creaked a little, the ordinary creaking a house makes for no apparent reason.
I hear the noise again, and repeated my trip through the rooms, mostly in darkness, but sometimes switching on the lights... the barber chairs again, the kitchen with the old fashioned stove and noisy refrigerator. Elvis huffed along beside me...
And back through the house again, through the dining room, the hallway where large paintings hung in ornate frames, back to the bed. The dog lay back down on the rug again.
"Sleep," I thought. "Sleep and then wake up and get some milk."
And finally, while listening to the dog's heavy breathing, I fell asleep and woke to my own less interesting home, where my son sleeps upstairs.
I got the glass of milk, took a pill that lessens anxiety, opened the laptop, read the comment of a friend I have never met, it made me smile... and wrote this comment, dumping the dream out of my thoughts, exercising it from my mind by writing it down...
Now my eyelids grow heavy... it is after one... I will be getting up in four hours...
Time to go to sleep... dream of something else.
Will,
I am just amazed at how well you express yourself with words! I hope God gave you the rest you needed.
Ann
I pray that you're able to find the peace you've been able to give your son.
You're doing a great job, Will.
Lord, please continue to allow my friend to experience his blessings and hold on through these storms of change. They will pass, but they're hell to live through. Thank you that you're riding it out with him. Please let him rest and smile while still processing and crying.
I feel like weeping when i read this Will
How lucky Isaac is to have a dad like you! Every child, every spouse, every family member needs to hear how important they are. My darling wife and I make sure we tell each other, every day, how glad we are to have each other. It makes a difference.
You are an extraordinary father, Will. Imagine what this world would be if more fathers took the time to have that conversation with their sons.
I hug my boys every day, kiss them and tell them how much I love them. I didn't have that growing up and I made a promise to myself I would make sure my children knew they were loved through words as well as actions.
Don't ever stop telling them you love them...Kim
Will,
You are one interesting friend. Love you dearly...
I would have loved to have you as a father.
Tom Petty
A Woman In Love lyrics
She laughed in my face, told me good-bye
Said "don't think about it, you can go crazy
Any thing can happen, anything can end
Don't try to fight it, don't try to save me"
She's a woman in love
And he's gonna break her heart to pieces
She don't want to see
She's a woman in love, but it's not me
Well all right then, do what you want
Don't try to talk, don't say nothin'
She used to be the kind of woman
You have and you hold, she could understand the problem
She let the little things go
She's a woman in love
And he's gonna break her heart to pieces
But she don't wanna know
She's a woman in love, she can't let go
Time after time, night after night
She would look up at me and say she was lonely
I don't understand the world today
I don't understand what she needed
I gave her everything, she threw it all away on nothin'
She's a woman in love
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