07 February 2012
To Morrissey Claire Memolo on the day of her birth.
Hello, kid; it's your Papa.
I wanted to take a few minutes to welcome you into the world. Many kids come into the world by accident, or into unfortunate circumstances. You come in with two parents who loved each other so much that they wanted a child together, to see their great love demonstrated in the creation of another human being. And you were no accident. Would that things were financially better, but that aside, we only had you after much deliberation, planning, and sacrifice. Don't hear that as me saying you are a burden or some kind of hardship. We know how lucky we are to have you. Both of us have looked forward to your birth for a couple of decades. It's the start of your life, but it's also the beginning of the realization of so many of our dreams.
You might be wondering about that name of yours. Well, you got it because you deserve a name as wonderful and unique as you are. If there are other girls in your class named Morrissey, I can tell you we got seriously ripped off. It was always a pet peeve of mine to see so many children with such unimaginative names, or even imaginative ones that had little to no significance. Yours is taken from a hero of mine. Actually, I began to really appreciate him about the same time I was falling deeply in love with your mother. Like him, I hope you will be reflective, witty, and appreciative of beauty. He was a man who sided with the underdog, with those most others had cast aside and written off as losers. May you at least sometimes side with the losers, and always be willing to give them a second look and wonder how they might see the world. I hope that like him, you will not be afraid to be different, and to speak your mind and stand firm for the things that are important to you. (And it certainly wouldn't kill you if, like him, you were well read and well spoken, but I'll love you even if you're not.)
It may seem of questionable wisdom to name a child after someone so drenched in melancholy. To be quite honest, many members of your family have battled a tendency toward melancholy and other emotional problems. You will be able to avoid all of that, to, with apologies to Oscar Wilde, look to the stars even when you may be mired in the gutter. Your Papa is rather powerfully inspired by the theories of Darwin (Evolution) and Wilber (Integral); both point out the way to evolve is to encompass everything that has come before you, and surpass it. In the spirit of this, rather than being a celebration of sadness, an aspersion oft cast at your namesake, I know that you, over the course of your life, will be a perpetual triumph over it.
Above all else, what I most wish for you is the ability to have great trust and faith in yourself and those you choose to love and surround yourself with. I love you. In many respects, the way I was brought up ensured I would possess certain values that I want to pass on to you. Several other elements of my childhood environment--despite my parents' best efforts--left me from the time I was very very young with the feeling that the bomb could blow up, the train could come off the rails, at any given time, and the source of it could come from anywhere.
I'll tell you right now that I'll fight for the security, stability, and sanctity of our family to the death, if need be, and it will be a rock you can count on day in, day out, and I'll do nothing to cheapen or destabilize it. There is absolutely nothing I take more seriously or hold more sacred. I want to provide you with an environment where you feel secure, one where you can put your best foot forward into the future knowing how worthwhile and important you are, and one where we can build memories to cherish throughout the rest of our lives that will help get us through the bad times. It's important because your family is the template you'll base so many of your relationships on in the future, and you deserve the best effort we can muster.
I'm also going to have to be hard on you, and it won't be fun for me when I do, but I'm doing it all for the good. I've come to understand that your own strength of character is a function of your powers of will and reason; it's the only thing you can control in this world, and as such, the basis for all of the things that really matter. When I come down hard on you for not doing the right thing and make you do things the hard way, understand that it is not because I don't love you, but rather because I do, and I'm preparing you for a time when I'm not around.
I want you to be a person of great substance and moral strength. This will at times require you to distance yourself from what is popular, and that's as it should be. I have done things I knew were not right just to stand with the crowd, and I can tell you every time I ever did so, I deeply regretted it. Just as I have, you need to learn to trust your own judgement over the squawking and ephemeral opinions of others.
As much as I materially will want make things easy on you, especially if I have the means, you need to strive to stand on your own, and I'm crippling you if I don't encourage that. There will be times when this will not make you happy, but stop and try to understand the place it's coming from.
Every day, think of this: 10,000 generations before you lived, suffered, died, so you can live the life you're living now. Think of your entire line of ancestors. Likely, some were slaves, others fought in bloody wars, some endured rape and slaughter and persevered just so you can be here now. Are you honoring them by being the best you can be?
So even though it seems like many years from now, I'm looking ahead in time to the day you'll leave our house and strike out on your own. It will be bittersweet and I will want to recall and relive the years between here and there. Likely, I'll tearfully think, "Oh, it went by too fast," and sigh and a part of me will wish you were still the baby I hold in my arms. It brings me to tears even now, but I do need to think about that fateful day in the far-flung future. I need to think of it often, and be certain I'm doing all I can to ensure when the time comes you are ready to stand on your own, that you don't stagger and look backward at me in helpless reticence, but instead dash forward with sure footing and eyes that lust to experience whatever adventure is yet to come. I want you to love strength, to love knowledge more, but to love compassion most of all.
But if you forget all of this just please do remember to truly love and honor yourself. You are the Arrow of Hope that I am shooting into the gaping abyss of the future, and wherever you go, you will always carry me with you.
Yes, there will all-too-soon come a time when you will be a woman and lead your own life, and that is as it should be. Your mother and I will try to have you in a good spot by then.
But just earlier today you were born, and now you're sleeping, swaddled, in my arms, and let me just close my eyes and imagine the days to come.
Walking hand in hand with my little baby girl.
But let's not walk so quickly. We'll get there.
We'll get there.
Love,
-Papa-
No comments:
Post a Comment