No Evidence

To my son Tommy,

You had a nightmare last night. You came in to sleep with us. Less than a minute before this picture was taken, you were in a classic "it is not easy to sleep with a kid in the bed" position. Your hand was a splayed across your mom's face and your foot was in the center of my back. Since you sought sanctuary in our bed from your nightmare, it was like your mission to make at least your old man uncomfortable. A foot here, a head there, a punch to the kidneys, a slap to the face, a push to the edge of the bed, etc. Alas, obtaining photographic evidence of how difficult it is to have you in our bed is on par with a picture of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. As soon as I had enough and got out of bed to snap this picture, you adjusted to the most heavenly position.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

Sour Notes

To my son Tommy,

It is no secret that your mom sings better than your old man, but I am not referring to music when I talk about my sour note today. Some days, especially when your mom has to wake up at the crack of dawn for clinical training, married couples are forced to talk using notes.

Now some guys might consider a note here and there as nagging. Not me. Unless it is over used, I am fine with it. In fact, before bed time your mom asked if I would remember the cake she made for your school or if she should leave a note. Reconciling my belief that I wouldn't forget and my good intentions and my realization that we can all use a backup system, I said, "Both!" The allergy medicine note was an after thought as it isn't part of the normal routine and she would have had to wake me up to tell me that one. So you see, your mom makes great notes.

Me however, my notes when singing or signing are a bit more sour. I knocked one (or more) of your mom's icing tips

Into the sink. It is little signs like this that tell me I shoul just go back to bed. Oh well.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

My note

Bunny cake

Backfire

To my son Tommy,

This morning, your mom was long gone. She has an exam today and left in the wee hours of the morning to go to school and study. So once again it was you and me.

One of the tricks I use to ensure a smooth morning is the early morning wake up. I wake up at 6:40 instead of the normal 7:00. I call for you to wake up. You moan and groan as usual and I promise you five more minutes of sleep. The plan then is to get myself ready and make your breakfast, and then call to you to say the five minutes is up. It is the same basic plan as any politician, take a lot and give a little back and hope your constituents don't realize the disparity. Well my constituent and I get an earlier start and you think you have been blessed with five more minutes of slumber.

Today, that plan backfired. You see after I promised you five more minutes, I went in the potty. Things were just starting to move when you came running in saying you had to go potty NOW! I protested and tried to send you down the stairs to the other bathroom, but you said you couldn't do it. So here are the options as I saw it.

1. Make you go downstairs anyhow and deal with the consequences and mess if you didn't make it.
2. Suck up the turtle head and penguin walk down the stairs myself.
3. Introduce you to peeing in the tub when you are not actually showering.

I chose number two (no pun intended) and learned a valuable lesson. From now on I will potty before waking you. The choices and sacrifices of a father.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Passion

To my son Tommy,

I never know when you will read these. I am not sure if you will read these as soon as you can or you will put them away and pull them out much later in your life. Are you reading this with three or four decades under your belt? This is probably best read then.

In all your life, have you ever been five moments past the point of breaking? You just don't know how you are going to hold up and the only thing you are sure of is life is still going to keep coming at you. You ever have that point where you are trembling because your body can't decide if it wants to scream or cry? It seems you have every bad emotion coursing through your veins and each one is screaming that life is not fair. You get to the point where you have lost faith and lost hope and you may even scream, "I hate you God." even if you really don't mean it. You feel lost and alone and have no faith. Well, I have. I have been there more recently than I would admit and keep coming back there more often than I should.

On this Palm Sunday, through scripture, I am reminded that I am not alone in this feeling. It is part of the human condition that even Jesus had to endure. I have this picture of Him in the garden of Gethsemane falling to the ground and weeping. My own words mix with the words from scripture. I can hear Him saying "This sucks" and "You can fix this if You wanted to" and "Let this cup pass from Me" and tons of yelling "Why?!" as he talked to his Father and faced His impending death. In the end, He trusted in God and the plan laid before Him and said, "not as I will but as You will" (or in other words "Thy will be done.") as He accepted what He had to do and He became the vessel by which we would receive God's forgiveness and grace. This goes without saying but, Jesus was a better man than me. I am still having trouble accepting and having faith. Perhaps I am more like Peter, and when things get tough, I turn quicker than a cock can crow.

Either way, you will probably have had these moments. If you haven't, count yourself blessed, but these moments might yet still come, whether you had them in the past or not. You might be ashamed of these moments of doubt and moments of weakness and moments where you lost all faith and hope. You may have been angry with God and the world and you may lash out at the people you love the most. I am here to tell you to be not ashamed and or afraid. It is okay to pray, "My Father, hear my cry!", and it is okay to say to your loved ones, "I need help!", and it is okay to be angry with God, as He can handle it. But in the end, things are going to happen that you will have no control over. Sometimes the only control you have is controlling how you act or react. Try to do so with love. You will have to find the strength from within to continue on and accept the path before you. But if you find yourself laying on the ground weeping and questioning, know you are in good company.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Don't Be Scared

To my son Tommy,

Last night, while your mom attended your cousins school play at IND, you and I went out shopping. I needed a diversion. We got some practical things, like a new outdoor trashcan, and some less than practical things, like a couple teenage mutant ninja turtle characters. I told you, on the toys, we had to stay under ten bucks. You found one for about eight bucks. You immediately grabbed two. One for me, one for your you, so we can play together. How nice of you, you always think of others.

This morning, I asked if you showed your mom your new toys. I told you to go get them from your headboard where they spent the night. You said, "Mom, I got to show you these new toys! But, don't be scared because they are ninja turtles." As I said, you always think of others.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

The Negative Rep

To my son Tommy,

Last night was spent with Grandpa Leo at the ER for another seizure due to his brain cancer tumor. Last night I was close to breaking as we dealt with this. This is obvious when you read my social media status where I degraded into using a bad (albeit quite utilitarian word) to describe how I feel about all this. The slightly censored version would read  "F*@# brain cancer... F*@# seizures... F*@# hospitals" as I let the world know how I felt in a less than poetic way. Just a few hours before I was all laughs and jokes and now I was filled with anger and hate.

In my journey through the forty plus years of my life, I have found that sometimes you have to get mad to get through. It is easy to replace tears with piss and vinegar. Anger sometimes helps you push off dealing with all those "weak" emotions so you can get by and get things done that need to be done. They call them weak emotions but that really isn't true, as it shows more strength to cry and show your true feelings despite the stigma. But these emotions are very overwhelming and can sometimes hinder the task at hand, so if you replace them with something, you can cope better with what you have to do. You will still have to deal with all of it later, as this is simply a delaying tactic.

If you ever get into lifting weights, you will eventually learn about the negative rep. This is when you load up the bar (for say a bench press) with a high amount of weight and you lower it (which they call the negative part of the motion) as slowly as possible. At first it seems easy, and you begin to question if you put on enough weight. You think to yourself, "I can handle this!" Then as you continue lowering it slowly, your muscles begin to fatigue and burn. You would swear someone added weight to the bar without you seeing. You think to yourself, "I can still handle this. I got this." You continue further and further in the motion and the weight gets unbearable, and you switch from lowering the weight to trying to push it back up with every ounce of energy you have. You grunt, you groan, you sometimes even yell as you try to will the weight back up. You get angry at it and you pull from deep in your emotional well, but no matter how much you fight back, the weight still is coming down as if it is hell bent on crushing you. Then finally it touches your chest and hopefully your spotter helps you pick it back up to the starting the point. You look at him with this incredulous face as he says, "That was one. You ready to go again?" Do it again? Didn't he just see what you went through?

I have found anger as a way to get through. It is not the best way. It is not something to be proud of. It can hurt those around you. But unfortunately it is one of the only ways I know to get through this and get things done that need to be done without becoming a bucket of tears babbling to myself in the corner. I hope you don't follow my example and I hope you find a better way. Because for all that anger, all that screaming and yelling and cursing and fighting back, that weight is still coming down. It is only through the help of God and the help of others, our spotters in life, that we can return the weight back to the normal position. When life gets hard, find that way and rely on those around you for help, and more importantly, when life gets hard for people around you, be that way for them.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

P.S. Your Grandpa Leo is now home from the hospital and they made a slight adjustment (which is more a guess and that is why doctors call it a practice) to his meds, but unfortunately they also said we can pretty much expect more of this from time to time as things progress. As for me, I am at that point where I am looking tot he heavens at the ultimate spotter with that incredulous look on my face as He allows the weight to come down yet again.

Cut Flowers

To my son Tommy,

Cut flowers are the biggest waste of money. They are impractical to say the least. Spend thirty bucks on a bundle of buds that are destined to die and do so quickly. Plus, in our family, hay fever is prevalent so introducing a pollen source is pretty silly. If you are going to buy flowers, at least go for a potted version which are much less fleeting and much more durable.

Still...it isn't every day your mom gets inducted into an honor society for her nursing grades. And... no words can convince a woman of the specialness of a moment like a surprise bouquet. Plus... gerber daisies make your mom smile, and I'd do and pay anything to see your mom smile.

So don't shun cut flowers totally in your life. They have their place, even though everything I said about them in the beginning of this letter is true. Just don't rely too heavily on them and remember unexpected flowers are much more effective. And always remember, gerber daisies make your mom smile.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo