To the grandchildren of my father,
Saturday, May 21, 2022
Birthday Catch Up
Wednesday, April 6, 2022
Barking Cough
To my son Tommy,
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
Who Is You
To my daughter Rosie,
For all intents and purposes, genetically you are the exact same as your sister. I must admit that throughout your young life I have times where I get you guys mixed up. There are a couple minor physical diffirences we have used to verify we are talking to the right girl.
When people ask how I tell you apart, I say it is easy and then ask you or your sister the purposefully gramatically incorrect, "Who is you?" A couple times, your sister and you have tried claiming to be the other. Luckily you guys have not inherited the Irish ability to say BS believably. Your mischief attempts are thwarted by your giggle or even the other culprit in mischief chiming in and blowing the gag.
You also live an entwined life with your sister. You are constantly together. You enjoy the same things. You both laugh when daddy carries you upside down to bed. You also both think it is hysterically when you fart on daddy's neck while he is carrying you to bed. Some people swear they can tell you guys apart from attitude or personality. You both have a distinct personality but honestly the similarities make it so you can easily lose track of who is who.
Of course, after last night, we have another physical distinguishing feature, a four stitch scar on the forehead. You and your sister were spinning in the hallway last night. Your mother warned you to stop. I warned you to stop. Like most kids, you assumed you knew more than your parents and didn't allow caution and common sense to stop your twirling fun. Dizziness and gravity won out and decided to make a love connection between your forehead and a jutting corner of two walls. The blood gushed as head cuts tend to. A couple hours in the urgent care, you were stitched up and now are on the mend.
Eileen was beside herself. "My sister! my sister! Oh no." She tried her best to stay up till you got home, even willing to kick daddy every time he picked up her sleeping body to move her to bed. "I can't sleep yet, I have to wait for Rosie to come home to make sure she is okay!"
The similarities between two twins is a fact of life. There is no point in fighting it. There will be times when you look to establish yourself as your own person, establish your own uniqueness. The connection and love between you two might have been a foregone conclusion too. I count it as a blessing. But you are unique and each of you are on your own unique path with your own unique likes and dislikes and quirks and adventures and successes and failures and memories and scars. This was just one of the major events at which you two have diverged. There will be more.
On a side note, you were a trooper through the whole ordeal. After you finished at the clinic, you told your mother, "That was fun!" or something to that effect and meant it sincerely. You relayed the same sentiment to me except you added, "...besides the yucky stuff," and you apologized for the whole event to me saying, "this is all my fault." Oh sweet girl, I love you so.
Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo
Sunday, March 13, 2022
Unpacking
To my daughters Rosie and Ilee,
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Happy Meals Make My Girls Happy
To my daughters Ilee and Rosie,
Thursday, March 10, 2022
Flying Birds
To my son Tommy and my daughters Rosie and Ilee,
Monday, March 7, 2022
Reading Minds
To the twins,
Sunday, March 6, 2022
Sudden Changes For The Better
To my son Tommy and my daughters “the twins”,
Saturday, March 5, 2022
Take Your Shots
To my son Tommy,
“Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity To seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment Would you capture it, or just let it slip?” We hear this line from the song “Lose Yourself” by Eminem right before every basketball game. It has become our pre-game ritual.
You had two games today, and the morning game saw you with four or five shots. Not a single one went in. Every parent for our team leaned and squirmed and tried to will the ball off the rim and into the basket every shot you had. You were close, but no two. But that is okay with me. Keep taking the shots. They will fall in place eventually.
More importantly, your basketball game has improved greatly this year, and not just ball handling, defense, and taking shots. You have learned to be a team player. You have learned to give it your all. You have learned that every action counts and can help your team even when it is away from the ball or even on the bench. You have gained a bit more poise and a bunch more confidence on the court, and off. You have learned that these lessons from team sports translate to all aspects of your life. You can go this entire season without ever making a bucket, and I will still be amazingly proud of you and your growth.
Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo
Friday, March 4, 2022
Doing Undone Chores
To my son Tommy,
Thursday, March 3, 2022
Maintenance
Wednesday, March 2, 2022
Precarious
To my son Tommy and my daughters Illee and Rosie,
I wish I could always talk about funny on goings in the family or small life lessons learned or basically keep to the lighter stuff. I would, however, be remiss to not share accounts of the events throughout the greater world, especially when they have such potential for catastrophe. Maybe one day you will read this and realize why mommy and daddy kept putting on the news to the distress and outcry from the girls who seemingly cannot survive without another episode of “Butterbean’s Café” and how they foil Ms. Marmalade.
The world once again stands in a precarious situation. Conflict has never left the world for any significant time, but there is no doubt the current situation in Europe rises well above the level of "conflict" and can be called war. This is an all-out war, a war that can continue to escalate and have wide and dire consequences for everyone in the world. You see Russia has invaded the Ukraine. Russia is a superpower with nuclear capabilities and has even hinted that it is not above putting the world into a nuclear winter should anyone interfere.
Now unlike most people on the internet these days, I do not pretend to be an accomplished geo political analyst. However, it doesn't take a professional to know some serious crap is going down. It also doesn't take an expert to realize that Russia under their leader Vladimir Putin is the aggressor, the invader, the villain here. That much seems obvious to me, but alas some others in the world, and even a few others in our own country, will argue this point. The world we live in is fraught with misinformation, disinformation, and pure bad judgement bolstered by ego and ignorance and political vitriol. To say I am concerned and disheartened would be an understatement.
There are flashes of hope. There are stories of valor. There are moments that briefly restore faith in humanity, but these moment are interspersed among death and desolation and violence that almost immediately blankets what little optimism that shines through with a shroud of despair.
This is the state of the world. It can wear you down greatly. Though this current war seems more dire than many conflicts of the past, I do not foresee a world where such events never happen. As your Grandpa Leo, a keen student of history, would often remind me, "It has happened before, it is happening now, it will happen again. The only thing we can do is study history, and learn from the past mistakes, and commit ourselves to not repeat such mistakes, and pray that one day mankind will let love into their hearts and abandon such violent folly."
I remember those words well. When he told me it was April 1986 and I was 11 years old and the U.S. had just bombed Libya in retaliation for a bombing of West Berlin discotheque which injured or killed a bunch of people including many U.S. military personnel. It was easily the biggest and scariest thing that I was aware of in my short life. We were stationed in Italy at the time. Libya was a relatively quick hop south over the Mediterranean, and, because Libya used to be an Italian colony, many Libyans also spoke Italian and enjoyed a liberal visa policy with Italy. Consequently over the next few months that followed, I learned how to check the underside of the family car with a mirror for bombs. I learned why one should vary their travel routes and why my dad would sometimes U-turn without warning and take a new path. I learned Army tactics for defending a military base with barricades and sniper positioning. I learned how to scan the horizon for threats. I saw some pretty crazy stuff. Fairly scary experience for an 11 year old me. I thought this would be the worst thing I would see in my life. Unfortunately, I was wrong. During my life there have been so many catastrophes and atrocities, all seemingly trying to outdo the last with their level of shock and devastation.
So we watch the current war in Ukraine with worry and anxiety. We watch the pundits on the tele saying "we should do this" and "we shouldn't do that" and "this will happen" and "doing this would be better" and other such flag waving or fear mongering or armchair quarterbacking. We wonder if our country is doing enough to help. We pray for those in harm's way. We wish the world would unite and stand for the supremacy of good over evil. We watch for those moments of hope and mercy and valor to help us not fall in despair. If I find myself losing all faith, I simply grab one of you and hug just a little bit tighter. Thank you for being my grounding rod and my comfort blanket.
Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
Inclusivity
To my son Tommy and his twin sisters,
Tommy, your mother pointed out that I should not leave out your twin sisters. Perhaps the address of each letter will change slightly here and there. A more targeted address, like "to my lovely children," or "to the banes of my current existence," or just each individually or just to the twins occasionally, will be used.
Ladies, for now, if I slip back into my usual address that is dedicated to just Tommy, I ask forgiveness. Tommy was here first. He inspired me to write these letters. In no way were the 865 previous letters designed to leave you out. In no way is anything I wrote not meant for your eyes and ears and hearts and minds. I will include you, and your love, and your shenanigans, and the life lessons you teach me and your mom, in these letters as well.
There is a fine line for parents to walk when dealing with multiple children. No matter how much we say how much we love you all, opportunities are ripe for children to feel a sense of favoritism or injustice. Each of you are unique (even the twins) with your own personality and wants and needs. We try to interact and nourish and love each of you accordingly. We don’t necessarily love you in the same way, equally, because each of you differ in what love you need. But we love you equitably and we try to show and grow our love as a family unit.
From time to time, you may look with envy at what the other gets and have a short memory of what you have received. Remember, the only time we need to compare, to look in your neighbor’s bowl, is to make sure they have enough, not to make sure you have as much as them. (That last reworded thought is attributed to a comedian named Louis CK and alas not my own but still stands true)
Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo
Monday, February 28, 2022
Once More Unto The Breach
To my son Tommy,
It has been a long time coming since I started a letter with those words. It is not because I lost interest in writing to you these stories and life lessons. It is not because the lack of events or ongoings of our world or the greater world around us. (For there are so many things that have happened ranging from pandemics to personal family health issues to just amazing moments of watching you grow into a fine young man.) Nor is it because I stopped writing, though I just haven't put pen to paper or finger to keyboard to digital imprint. No. For the past years, I often would write in my mind; I would find the perfect sentence, the perfect topic, the perfect lesson, and would write the whole thing in my brain as I would drive, or sit, or find a moment to daydream away at work. Alas, those near perfect words (as my mind saw them at the time) are gone, shuffled away or filed without context like a lost post-it note or scrap piece of paper thrown into the junk drawer of my sentient file cabinet.
The real reason I stopped writing is this blog became a chore. The tremendous amount of joy it brought to me imagining you reading these words in your future life was overcome by the amount of work and tasks and overwhelming issues of the present. I had to pare down and eliminate all those excess things in life, and unfortunately writing made the chopping block. I probably should have found other things to drop from my life, but, when you are beset with just the challenges of living and surviving from day to day, you do what you have to do.
But one thing I learned from your Grandpa Leo: It is never too late to start again. And so I will try. The words and the feelings and most importantly the love for you are there. They never really left. Perhaps now I will find the time, and make the time, to illuminate and enlighten through this blog once again. Maybe illuminate and enlighten is overreaching, but at the least I will write to you and you can later separate the few pearls of wisdom from the piles of Irish bullshit I put forward.
Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo