You Feed Them, And They Grow

For the first time in my life since I was a 26-year-old, scared shitless father-to-be, I won't wake up and have at least one of my little boys with me in the morning.

I lost the first one three years ago when he went "on the grid" into kindergarten.

But, there was always the knowing that I still had my little guy, there to revel in sleeping in with me and making a fashionably late appearance to pre-school.

(The way it works is my boys go early with their mother to school, where she's employed as an assistant Minister of Truth).

I've been struggling to feel much of anything real lately. Who knows why that happens? No matter. It does. So be it.

But this morning, after I left my youngest son in the same kindergarten class his brother first entered three years ago, tears filled my eyes.

And they continued to well as I turned out of the school parking lot and merged into interstate traffic and prepared to struggle to find some justification for wearing a tie that feels right.

Real tears. Genuine tears. And, best of all, unexpected.

Each drop blended with a mix of melancholy and pride(the good kind).

There's sadness that they're both moving on -- one to K-5, the other to 3rd grade(where it's a stretch for me to take a walk by his class and offer a thumbs up in support).

There's the questioning whether you made the most of a time that will never exist again, but fulfilled because you know they're at least headed in the right direction and maybe, if you allow yourself, you'll begin to learn new things with them.

And you know something that helps me?

Something besides his big brother being there?



The little guy's a nerd. About the whole school thing. About everything.

A true believer in whatever he's into. No fear. No regrets. Owning the moment that presents itself.

We don't know where it comes from. Not from his mother or father or anybody else we know.

We didn't create it. It's from somewhere divine, unique to him.

And knowing he's bringing that to the world on the grid ...

It's good like the taste of salt on these world-weary cheeks.