I've Been Thinking...

Dangerous, I know. I should stop.

But since it's the 19th of December, I can't stop.

Two years ago tomorrow, my father died.

Big deal; it happens to everyone. Everyone has regrets, things they wish they'd said - or hadn't - things they wish they'd done, or not. But that doesn't make it easier to put behind you.

You may have read some of the things I have said about my father before; you may not. But either way, as my son edges up on his first birthday gradually, I can't stop thinking about him; the example he set, the life he led, the choices he made, the things he taught me.

I hope I can do as well.

My son deserves that. Dad always wanted me to do better; he told me - often - that the day you stop learning new things is the day you start dying. I'm trying to live up to that; trying to keep on improving myself, and my life, and trying to do the kinds of things for my family - for my son - that he would have expected.

Dad wasn't easy to live with; he was argumentative, and constantly challenged anything you said. It's only now - now that I don't have it anymore - that I realize how much I'd come to enjoy always having to defend my decisions, question my assumptions, and above all, prove - with logic - that I was doing the right thing.

You never realize how important it is that you never stop questioning yourself, until you do. My dad's constant argument with anything I said was the best way to learn to think things through, and that's something you never stop needing to do; it's something of which you never stop needing a reminder.

I don't always do the right thing. I'm human; we make mistakes. But I always try, and I always will; that's something my dad taught me - that you owe it to yourself, and to the people around you, to make that effort, and to double-check yourself at every opportunity.

"After all, son, sometimes you only get to be wrong once."

I hope I can instill in my son the same willingness to question, not only authority, not only others, but himself; his thinking, his ideas, his logic, his beliefs. In this regard, I don't think being gentle is a service to your child; thinking requires effort, not pats on the back and mollycoddling.

Goddamn, Dad, I miss you. I wish you were still with us.

But I guess, in a way, you are, aren't you? The part of you that YOU valued - your mind - continues, at least in part, through me, and hopefully on with my son as well. I hope I do as good a job as you did; he deserves my very best - and yours - and he's going to get it.

Your watch may be over - or at least changed - but mine is only beginning. Rest well, Dad. You, more than anyone else I've ever known, deserve it.

F. J. B.
8/12/1933 - 12/20/2005