The word "Mom" is so powerful.
By itself. Not "my mom ..." or "my mother..."
Just "Mom."
There's so much at stake when you say that single word, then wait for the response.
I don't say it much -- but when I do, I feel an overwhelming rush.
Just that one, elemental word suspends everything.
I don't think of what I probably will feel.
In that silence in between is a gulf.
That silence is holy.
Each year, the boys and I paint Christmas ornaments. Nothing big, just some little stuff from the craft store. We just use Sharpie pens. Then put our names and the year on the back.
Eventually we'll have enough of the ornaments that we'll run out of room. Our trees are seeming to get smaller each year. I like that, but we're going to have to get rid of other ornaments from when I was a kid.
With some time between my time as a kid to my kids' time as a kid, I've realized that I don't care to keep my old ornaments.
Sometimes ever the lightest ones feel like they carry so much weight they're enough to topple a tree over by themselves.
The truth is ... you change each year. You become somebody you weren't.
I'm content that I like who I am now better than who I was then. Or in terms of Christmas ... I like Christmas more now than I did then.
I wouldn't choose to remember 1985 over 2005. I'd like those newer ornaments, traditions, etc. to define Christmas for my family.
So where does that put my 9-year-old son, Asa?
Frankly, I don't know what to make of what I'm doing with these kids.
But what I do know is this ...
Tonight, Asa impatiently painted his Christmas ornament, looked at his 6-year-old brother Aden's work and thought he did such a stupid job on his own that he turned his over and wrote, "Asa 2007" on the back.
It might seem convoluted, but his willingness to use a former Christmas self so unceremoniously and unsentimentally, to save face for a present self, makes me feel like Christmas must be going smoothly for these guys.
P.S. Of course, I told him it looked great. And it's got that Asa 2009 charm. But in all honesty, take a look at Aden's work, a full year behind Asa 2007, to see why Asa might have wanted to bend the space-time continuum ...
Of course, with my penguin with the Dolphins-colored scarf, I have to say I think I'm gonna go with Daddy 2009 ...
I feel like my life would have been meaningless if I never had children.
It's not that I can't imagine what my life would have been like without them.
I think I can imagine it.
I imagine I'd be an older version of who I was when I was younger. I changed the first glorious moment I saw my first son and heard him cry -- changed into someone I needed to be, a better person, but nevertheless a person for the sake of someone else.
I suppose it's a good thing to put someone else before you -- to subjugate yourself and in turn allow yourself the opportunity to be more of something greater. And along the way I think I've learned things I couldn't have learned without the necessity of changing.
However, I'm beginning to feel like I'm missing something.
Like I've set aside who I was -- in particular the traits that can best be described as selfish, idealistic, distant -- but never transformed from it into something I needed to be, both for myself as an individual and for those who need me.
I find myself disconnected from an understanding of my own personal history -- yet a large part of the equation that makes up who I am is founded on the choices I made and the choices that were made for me.
I've lost my desire to be anything that defines me. I've left it to other people to define me.
In time I've come to feel that whoever I wanted to be on my own is not someone I'd like to be.
And then there it still is, waiting for me. The phantom of who I am -- on my own -- waiting for me when I can no longer justify ignoring it.
I used to live only for myself; now I feel like I live only because of my absolute importance to a few people whose lives, through no choice of their own, are intertwined with mine.
And what is that in the end?
A man who speaks to himself when he speaks to God, and hears nothing but the shrill noise of his own mind?
What is that in the end?
Perhaps it's nothing more than an illusion of a person.
It wasn't looking good two years ago.
The Dolphins went 1-15, and people would look at me and say, "If they ever manage to win the Super Bowl, I'll tell everybody you were wearing the shirt when they sucked."
I remember at the time thinking that there's no way my son is going to follow in my footsteps. There's just nothing for him there. As much as I want it, there's just nothing there.
The allegiances you owe to a team -- the true ones that are irreversible -- are born in childhood. You don't just "pick one" as an adult and really feel it.
I became a Dolphins fan in 1983, when I was 9 -- the same age he is now. One of my step-fathers was from Ft. Lauderdale and lived and died by the success (mostly success) of the team. I remember going down there and fishing coconuts out of the waterways.
When he up and left one day when I was 11, I decided I hated the Dolphins and would become a Broncos fan. It never worked. It wasn't real. The dolphin wearing a helmet jumping through a ring of fire (or is that a rendering of the sunshine?) just always held a place in my heart.
Twenty five years or so later, my son decided he liked LaDanian Tomlinson. Which means he became a Chargers fan.
I was skeptical. But he seemed to stay firm.
Fine with me.
But I still never lost hope.
When he was 2, I bought him a Ricky Williams poster for his room, hoping they could hold up their end of the deal. They didn't.
The domination of the '70s, the fireworks of the '80s and punking the Jets and Cowboys (and being punked by the Bills) in the '90s ... ancient history (though winning the AFC East last year did help me gain some traction).
I had thought about bribing him: "I'll buy you a Ronnie Brown jersey for Christmas if you become a Dolphins fan."
Of course, that goes against everything that I know to be true if the real goal is an authentic, undeniable loyalty.
It would have to happen on its own.
I'd always ask him, "You sure you don't want to be a Dolphins fan?"
"I like them," he said, "but I like the Chargers first."
I'd always end it with, "Well, you know as far as I'm concerned you can like whatever team you want."
And then I bought him a Tomlinson jersey.
But my opportunity had come.
On the way to Charlotte to see the Dolphins plays the Panthers on a Thursday night, I asked him one of the many probing questions I come up with to divine his heart.
"So what would happen if the Chargers traded Tomlinson? Who would your team be? The Chargers? Or the team Tomlinson plays for?"
He told me hoped that didn't happen. That he didn't think it could happen. But that he'd pull for whomever Tomlinson played for.
There was my glimmer of hope. I could see that his heart hadn't been set.
We rolled into Charlotte, and I knew there was still a chance.
All the Dolphins had to do was do their part.
As we're throwing the football in the parking lot, the Dolphins fans are everywhere.
On the way to the stadium. And inside the stadium -- the especially drunk ones hugging it up.
Everywhere I walk, somebody slaps me on the back or says "Go Dolphins!"
He began to feel it.
The proud tradition -- '72 undefeated, the Bears in '85, Marino to Clayton, the aqua jerseys glowing warmly like the Kool-Aid seas of Miami, etc.
All these people.
And then it happened.
As the Dolphins led 14-3, the chant gained steam, then rung throughout amid the blue and black.
"Let's Go, Dolphins!"
You would have thought we were in Miami.
By the end of the night, Ricky Williams -- that 32-year-old guy on his wall -- would score three touchdowns. And the Dolphins would wind up doing their part, 24-17.
I saw his eyes open wide, drinking it all in.
"Daddy, I'm a Dolphins fan."
"Really? What about the Chargers?"
"Daddy, I'm a Dolphins fan."
With the voices of thousands ringing, I spoke for them: "Well, we'll take you."
I can feel it. It's true. His heart is set on the righteous course.
And now -- only now that it's real -- the Ronnie Brown t-shirt jersey is coming.
I just can't resist.
And the great thing is ... now I don't have to.
