In the end I hope I have left you with more good memories than bad, with more love than shame.

More than once, the pandemic has made me wonder what final lessons I’d want to teach you.  What were the things I wish I’d figured out ten or twenty years sooner?  What do I wish I’d done differently? What do I have to apologize for?

This is what I understand about myself, and about us.

I spent too much of my life settling, convinced I wasn’t good enough to have the things that I wanted. It goes way back.  I wanted to be a comic book artist.  I didn’t think that I had the talent.  Then one day I’d look at a cover and realize that Ako was tracing a Robin model that I’d made.  I’d see Mikel Janin achieve superstar status when he spent the start of his career tracing my work.  I’m there with a good deal of Mike Deodato Jr too.  None of them were better than me.  I could have traced myself just as well as they did.  What you need to know is that at the end of the day talent isn’t the defining factor.  It’s about who’s brave enough to actually chase their dreams. I don’t regret the years I spent teaching, the work I did there mattered.  Still I wish I’d been bolder.

Except, and I really apologize that this is the great advice that I have to leave for you. Don’t chase after anyone. From twelve to twenty two I was in love with one unobtainable object after another.  Listening to less obsessive music might have been a good start.  Still, all the movies tell you that if you chase someone long enough you can catch them.  That’s crap. No one wants a loser who debases themselves in their pursuit. Best you’ll ever be is someone to turn to when their self esteem needs a boost.  But they’ll never want you the way you want them.  Don’t demean yourself by trying to change their mind.  Amy Shumer explains it well in her “M’lady” sketch.  There’s even a good Ninja Turtle episode about it with Donatello and Yeti.  These are things I wish I had the sense to learn earlier than I did. More broadly, the world doesn’t work like the stories we tell ourselves about it.  

I do not hate this pandemic.  It gave me so much time with you.  I watched you come so far so quickly. It gave me a chance to be brave and follow my passions.  The pandemic gave me an excuse to finally be an artist, and I did it.  In the first year I made more than I ever did as a teacher.  I was brave and I did not fail. 

When you were quite small you stuck a booger in my mouth and I flicked you in the head with my finger, with only the pressure that could be achieved between index and thumb.  The tears and betrayal you felt were enormous. For years after the most harsh gesture you could think of when you were angry was to flick at us in the air.  In early talks about what to do if someone was trying to abduct you, you offered up the idea of flicking them. For a long time, to you, this is what it meant to be hit by a parent. This was the epitome  violence.

More recently I smacked your wrist when you were giving yourself a hickey and didn’t respond to a verbal request to stop.  You were quite incensed that I would dare to do so. I flinched every time I saw my father raise his hands. I feared the sound of his footsteps.

Those are the two times I slipped up.

You knew enough about the way the world should be that you knew I’d done something wrong.

I have controlled my hands but I have not controlled my tongue. I am sorry I have not been more patient or more kind. I cut at you like my mother cut at me, a never ending font of criticism and correction. Nearly all the memories of my own parents are negative.  I remember my mother throwing plates at me on my sleepover birthday while my father hid from the responsibilities of co-hosting in the garage. I remember her belittling a boy from a good home, like she might berate me, until he broke down into tears, simply for the way that he chewed.  Much later, I remember my father smacking me around and calling me fag.  I remember the hole he punched into my bedroom wall that wasn’t patched until they needed to sell the house.  I wanted to do so much better than I have done, but I was not strong enough. I am sorry. 

I don’t fully know what experiences shaped my parents.  I have some inkling of how my mother resented her mother’s weakness and dependency and her fathers control.  It’s why she pursued her own career as she did. I know for years my father’s father wasn’t allowed in our house based on the way he treated my fathers mother when she was dying.  Hard as it is for me to accept, they treated me better than they were treated.

Control your tongue son and give your own child the father you should have had. You will hear the shadow of my voice in your head, it might sound like yours, but it’s me, and my mother before me,  pushing you to say the kinds of things I’ve said to you.  

Don’t.  

Then it’s over.

As much as each of us has failed over the generations, we've also each closed half of the remaining distance. You can finish the journey.

The Blip

You started second grade today.  Just a moment ago you were halfway through your Kindergarten year, there was an exciting family vacation at the Wilderness resort and and your first birthday party with friends at Elevate. Then there was a pandemic.  We spent the vast majority of the last year and a half together, still it feels like it’s all gone by in a blip.  

You have a little sister now.  You never fail to bring a smile to her face. I have to admit she was a hard sell on the part of your mother.  For what seemed like an eternity, every time one of her friends would have another baby, she would cry uncontrollably about it.   Our original deal had been one, you.  Even then I worried about bringing more life into the world.  I worried about what kind of future I could ensure. Still, I was an only child.  It seemed that maybe by having someone else to care about would help you grow into a better person than I did.  You are already so patient with her, so much more patient than me.

I was a teacher and I was a good one.  Then I was your teacher.  Now I’m an artist.  The pandemic gave me an excuse to do something I never would have been brave enough to do otherwise.  I am aware of all the ways I might self sabotage,  time will tell if I do.  I’ve taken the $100,000 I stashed away for you over your six years as an only child and invested it.  In that arena I continuously snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Still the money grows.  It will hopefully be enough to provide an education for you both.  I hope you will be brave enough to follow your passions nakedly and without compromise or settling.  I hope I don’t piss it all away.

A year ago you couldn’t read.  Now, with coaching, you’ve read most of what Arnold Lobel has to offer, several Captain Underpants Books, the third book in the Last Kids on Earth series (the year before, mom and I read the first two books to you).  You finished the first Fart Quest Book.  Now we’re working on the Barf of the Bedazzler. You are not an eager reader, I am too exacting, still I hope the skill will be there for you when you need it or for when you find something that piques your interest.

For a while, as I acted as your stand in teacher, Kiwi Crates provided us with some fun educational experiences.  Now they’re stacking up.  At the start of the summer I even ordered some extra.  There was a canon (because what kid doesn’t want a canon), a lantern (because you were briefly obsessed with Over the Garden Wall (even listening to the soundtrack)), a sewable robot circuit and a mechanical T-Rex costume.  It occurs to me that I chose the T-Rex costume for a different Henry. I ordered it for some little boy in a photo. Kindergarten Henry may have really enjoyed that, but that’s not who you are anymore.  We ordered the circuit because of how much you enjoyed sewing brain, heart and stomach stuffies from an earlier crate.  However, it’s just complicated enough as a project that every time you suggest it, mother and I just don’t quite have the energy to get started on it.

Your mother and I have dropped the ball on swimming and bike riding.  For the first few years we always signed you up for lessons at the pool.  Then we missed a year.  Then everyone missed a year. This summer, with the world reopening, we’ve tried to make the most of our pool passes.  With any luck we’ll go again tomorrow. You’re big enough to go down a lot of the slides now, and you do so fearlessly.  You wouldn’t have let the fact that a lifeguard had to save you after one slow you down.  I did that instead.  I am sorry for the fear that we’ve instilled in you. Maybe there is still time to roll it back.

I don’t know why we haven’t gotten you out on a bike more.  I suspect it may be the same as the circuit. Your grandpa Schmidt has provided a supply of them over the years.  When we finally got you out and trying… things did not go as well as they could.  Like I did at your age, you now ride a scooter.  You’re building your confidence, balance and coordination.

We went to Pheasant Run once before it closed on a family vacation. It was a place I’d gone as a kid, a place I went to for teacher conferences.  You might remember all the inflatables when you’re older, or the indoor/outdoor pool, how cold it was outside that winter.  You may remember the little waterfall or the indoor street with shops. One of the last things we did before everything shut down was go to the Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells just after Christmas with your cousins.  You have been clamoring to go back.  Hopefully we will be able to this winter.  

I would like to say, for posterity’s sake, that Yoga Camp was my find and my idea.  I wanted you to have a space to be creative out from underneath my heavy hand.  Just as you were starting school, an opportunity which should have given you independence, you were locked in a house with me for a year and a half. I don’t know why I have become so controlling.  It taints much of what we do. Yoga camp gave you a place to go make the things you wanted to make with the materials you preferred to use.  I would not be there to tell you how to do it or to criticize your decision to begin without an end in mind.

You needed to see people again, to be around kids your own age and people you didn't share any chromosomes with.  You naturally glommed on to all of the adult instructors.  Your favorite was a twenty something named Emmy.

We’ve been playing Fortnite together for a year. You've seen all the best Ghibli cartoons now. I started cooking steak on the grill and you like it dry like me and my father before me. You also love Salmon (but not with lemon).  We have BoBo's BBQ nearly every Friday night, another pandemic find, they had a drive through. We rented a whole theater in the middle of a pandemic so that you could see the new Godzilla movie. We spent the summer sleeping on the couch watching old Beast Wars cartoons.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a certain Ms Sharpe. Afterall, people teased me about my own Kindergarten girlfriend for about as long as there were people who knew she existed. When people didn’t RSVP right away for your birthday two years ago, I was afraid it was going to be a bust. You were so excited and I was afraid no one would be there. I reached out to the Sharpe mom personally to try to ensure that at least her daughters would show. Your mother was embarrassed at the way I so brazenly pleaded with such important people (with such important lives) to bring their daughters to your party.  I didn’t understand at the time how taking her daughters on such an excursion would make her so noticeably uncomfortable, but they came for you, and  for you, Selena was really the only other person there. I quickly saw how many of your inexplicable mannerisms you had cribbed from her and how she quickly took to mimicking your diabolical fingers.  I was surprised she hadn’t seen them before.

Heteronormative girlfriend nonsense aside, Selena was your first friend.  Your first friend from outside the family, the first friend that you chose.  What an interesting pick. Bright and challenging in equal measures, though I’m not sure you saw the challenge.  Her mother thought the bond was an intellectual one centered on shared interests.  I suspect you could just match each others frenetic energy. Regardless, in one of your online class sessions from the past year she mentioned you as her first friend too, and spoke about how kind you were. With school starting again, I hope you are able to reconnect, but a year and a half is a long time, and now you are in separate classrooms and people change. 

Still, it's time to get back out into the world and start making up for lost time.  I hope today proves to be an important first step in that.