Please Be Patient With Your Old Man

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here.  Your mom expects to deliver towards the end of this month or early the next.  It has not been an easy-breezy pregnancy compared to when she was pregnant with you but we are nonetheless thankful that we’re nearing full term.

Son, as you continue to grow and learn, your character and your personality also develop.  I have been realizing more fully lately how possible it is for your personality and my personality to disagree sometimes.  I don’t know how old you’ll be when you begin reading these posts but let me write it down now so that these words don’t get lost in the ocean of everyday things.  When we end up disagreeing about something and I hurt your feelings and let you down, I would like to ask for your forgiveness even now.  As out of line as it may seem, I would like to ask for your patience.  Whatever our disagreement may be, and how stubborn with pride I may seem, please know that I love you with all my heart even if it doesn’t feel that way at the moment we don’t see eye to eye.  I may infuriate you every now and then because dads are imperfect and not really the superhero kind of guy little boys would sometimes picture their dads to be.  It may sometimes seem that I don’t care about what it is you’re fighting for because I don’t seem to listen to what you’re really saying.  Even if such instances come between us and it feels as though I have turned my back on you to put my own feelings and pride first, please, please know that as stubborn as your old man may be, I do not ever stop loving you, not even in a moment of intense anger or frustration.

Many times, I have an urge to write here but when I start to try to write something, my mind draws a blank.  I’ve reflected on why that happens and I’ve realized that, my urge to write here is mostly out of the growing father in me.  Many times, that growth is beyond words.  When you were born, that was also the very moment the father in me was born.  In a very real sense, although I may be the adult (for now) in this father-son relationship, I am actually growing as a father together with you.  You’re a three-year-old boy and I’m a three-year-old dad.  Let us walk this father-and-son path together and discover its many surprises!

I love you.  Should forgetfulness afflict me at some point in my life to the point that I do not even recognize the people whom I dearly love, I want to assure you, son, that in the deepest recesses of my being, my love for your remains true and whole.