This blog is a copy of the letter that I sent to my oldest, Teo, on his birthday. Below is a pic of him reading this letter back in Ellensburg, Washington, while my other boy, Paolo, talks to me on the phone in the background. It's funny, but I thought they were doing all of this inside.
My precious son, Teo Fiann,
How I send you the most emphatic and loud declaration of Best Birthday Wishes!! Happy Birthday, Son T! Twenty two years old. Holy Wow!
From so far away. It is a strange thing. I am so used to being with you at this time of year. Hmm. New times, I guess. And while I am pained to not be able to watch your face as you are sung to, as you open presents, as you unwrap gifts, I hope that you can see that I am both pursuing my goals and making a trade as well, in order to be able to provide things for me and for my two angels. I trust that you are feeling me on a portion of this, how your goals and dreams loom big for me as well as for you.
To be able to aid you in the chasing down and netting one of your goals and an awesome, life altering for the better plunge out across the globe to a place that I know is inextricably linked into you, not, I think only through your Lanegan blood, but also in some other way not yet revealed to you or to me, is also a dream fulfilled for me. You have some crazy, as of yet unknowable destiny that you are acting out now. It is asMicheleangelo said of his sculptures, he didn’t carve them so much as they already existed and he simply freed them from the surrounding stone. Thus so it is, I feel, with you and your going to Eire, where you will free your future life from the surrounding environs. It is a big thing, T. A really big thing. No matter if you come right back afterwards, get a job in eburg, marry a local, have kids, whatever, and I truly doubt that any of those things will happen soon for you, this adventure will still always be a big one for you and you will come in time to see it as the step that set you on the thousand year journey of your adult life, the rest of your life.
You are a stud. You are a strong man. You are a handsome, bright, enthusiastic, vibrant, funny, confident, shining star in the firmaments of this plane we inhabit. You and I and all of us understand that there are some people who just shine brighter than others, they light up the room, they draw people’s eyes,they get selected to be the head of the group, the go to person in the group. You come from a line of people like that on both sides of your family. You have that thing. That ineffable, not able to be described exactly thing.
It is not but seeming weeks back that I bounced you on my knee, carried you in my arms, volunteered in your classrooms, drove to your football games, yelled loudly enough that you would look at me and plead with your eyes for me to shut up, my bad! I would push the red button and go back and do it again at the drop of a hat. What a grand and amazing child you were. You have always had some special something that is in the area of wise old man in you. Like you watch carefully and examine and come to understand. Like you speak less than you know but when you speak, it is true. I shall never forget your birth. The doctor and nurses were a bit concerned because you didn’t cry. Babies cry when they get expelled into the world outside of their mother. It is a hostile, new place for them and it freaks them out. Not you, Teo. Precisely because you only looked carefully at everyone, made eye contact with all of us one by one, which babies in general not only don’t do because they are freaked and shrieking, but because they don’t have the ability to focus their eyes very well, that they were worried. Why isn’t this kid crying!? They told us not to worry but brought a pediatric specialist it to check you out, look at your vitals. You were fine. You just were not having any of that crap. You owned thatfricking delivery room, just like you are going to own Galway. Like you owned the Camino, keeping me in line, telling me to eat and stop bitching, forgiving me for being an ass that one night-you know which one I’m talking about.
I can only say to you that you are an amazing being to me. Not simply because you are my blood, not because I take pride in how you turned out. You amaze me because of what a sterling person you are, because of your balance, your inner illumination, your compassion, your strength, your seeming self knowledge. I am gifted you as a companion to share time and mind with and I am grateful for that. That is what amazes me.We give gifts on birthdays, but you have been one of the two best gifts that I have ever received, and ironically enough, you came to me on your birthday, a gift to me!
We are going to, Universe willing, have so many more years and adventures and conversations and quiet moments and celebrations together. I just want to wish for you the best year you have ever experienced. I implore you to say to hell with the conventions, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! Make your life extraordinary. You bear within yourself a stunning compass and you should trust it and allow it to guide you to your destiny.Do not listen to the naysayers. The naysayers doubt themselves and so they will doubt you. As they say, never let the people who say one cannot do a thing get in the way of your doing it.You will have a super fan right here backing your play always and you will never, never be alone. I love you in ways I will never be able to explain to you. Just know that it is here inside of me burning away, a nuclear explosion, the heart of the sun, churning away with a smile bigger than the Milky Way, focused on you and your frighteningly bright, white hot future.
After the pediatrician finished looking you over, gave you the thumbs up, and we all sighed a bit of relief, and I stopped jumping around like the fool that I am, yelling, “It’s a BOY!! It’s a BOY!!” I said to one of the nurses, “I feel like he really bonded with me,” and she looked at me, a look I’ll never forget in her eyes, a bit of a crinkle of her brow, “He bonded with everyone in the room.”
Damned straight. That’s my boy. Go get ‘em, Teo! Adelante a tufuturo excellente!!
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