Relative Something

Many times I have voiced the insight that my children have taught me more about myself than I ever expected to learn. Try as I did to figure out a way to instill what little wisdom I was able, while also granting them a healthy amount of independence, I never really felt like I was accomplishing a laudable level of fathering. Too much? Too little? Probably most parents share that feeling.

From my early memories of holding baby Elysa while we both watched ice hockey on television (she cried when play was suspended between periods) and the time she guffawed with genuine total body laughter over my silliness with the jack-in-the-box toy, to the difficult days when I didn’t know what to say to the adolescent she had become and she didn’t know what to say to me, we have forged all the firsts. Every time she faces something with me for the first time, it is my first time, too. She is my firstborn.

She has never shopped for a house before. I have never had a daughter make an offer on a house before.

I still vividly recall the overwhelming feeling of taking that newborn out of the safety of a hospital and putting her in a car to drive to our home. Soon there is walking, braces on teeth, and school graduations. In the next moment, buying a house.

I don’t always recognize what my lesson is, out of all the adventures you bring to my life, my dear, but I can tell you that each and every one is precious as can be. Good luck with this latest endeavor. I expect there will be plenty for both of us to learn.