Right now I am remembering the days when our babies were small enough to stand on our laps and play. When they tried to balance on wobbly legs as they reached out to touch our faces…. maybe pinch a cheek or grab the nose. When they were all drool and wide eyes soaking up the world behind angelic faces and mops of hair. Right now the little girl is back to her bottle, and mom is probably thinking she is looking forward to getting her off of that thing one day. And she probably means it. Right now.

Right now the baby has a grasp on mommy’s wrist with one hand, and mommy’s thumb with the other. She is enjoying the bottle and drifting off to sleep. Off to dream baby dreams and enjoy her place on mommy’s lap, where she fits so comfortably. Right now. And I miss my boys. And I remember watching Kendra hold them for the first time. And I remember Logan calling me “dad” for the first time. And I remember knowing my life had changed so much for the better. I am so proud of all our sons and their development in life so far. I just sometimes wish I could go back and hold on to those moments… hold on to them… instead of just holding on to memories…. like right now.

Right now Logan is almost done with his first day of high school. Jaden and Dillon are now second-graders. Right now this mom is several years away from having to deal with saying those good-byes. Right now she won’t have to worry about planning the right things to say, but somehow getting caught up in the rush of a morning and not quite getting the right words out in just the right way. She won’t have to worry if they all went off into their new environments armed with the message she hoped to deliver….not right now.

Right now the little girl has fought off sleep. She is rubbing her eyes and picking at a new wafer. Mom is yawning. Right now she’d probably like them both to get some rest. But right now she is enjoying her daughter. Maybe she realizes how quickly all this will pass. Maybe she understands how much she will appreciate this moment some day. Maybe she realizes she is sitting among other parents who would give anything to hold their babies in their laps again… or have their children with them on this flight. Right now.

Baby has droopy eyes. Sleep will have its victory soon. But she is managing to smile through it right now. Logan and Jaden and Dillon are off facing new challenges and learning to handle their new experiences. They are focused on the events of their days. But as they go, whether they realize it or not, they remain in my and Kendra’s hearts and minds. Not only today, but every day…. and especially right now.

Thanks for coming along for the ride….

Kiss your kids

I was sitting one evening at the kitchen table  following up on emails and checking data when I got the call from the living room. Jaden and Dillon were lying on the floor about to watch a show, and Jaden gave the order. He popped up from in front of the couch and gave the patented furrowed brow, lowered head, raised eyed-scowl and stated firmly, “Dad, stop working!” Well then. I knew this was no time to argue. I took my place on the floor and ultimately lost myself in their world of imagination and goofiness. I love that they will call me out when I’m spending too much time on things that matter too little. I hope that they continue to care enough to do it… but more importantly, I am working to keep it in mind enough so they don’t have to. In order to assist myself to that end, I decided to add a sub list to number 10 so I can be mindful of the things that help make the time the time worth spending…

10a. building Legos… watching their minds work as they contemplate new creations, seeing the breakthrough moments, helping them apply different approaches to building, and seeing the pride in their accomplishments…fantastic

10b. playing Wii… the new Super Mario Bros. is an addiction (but not the cause of my hiatus). working with Logan, Jaden, and Dillon to conquer the levels and locate the secret passages provides many opportunities for providing constructive support and demonstrating patience with one another… i used the word “opportunities”, we have some work to do (myself included). Wii boxing with Jaden (nasty right hook); Wii baseball with Dillon (still can’t hit his sinker); Guitar Heroes with Logan (loves to show his skills on “Story of my life”); and Ethan, he is still at the age where he is fairly content holding the controller while we convince him he is either helping us out or is playing the role of an uncontrollable character in the game (e.g. Red Toad in Super Mario)

10c. reading books… Ethan is a Sandra Boynton fanatic, as were his brothers before him… and i cannot recall a day in the past few weeks where either Kendra or i (or both several times) have not read “A fly went by” to him. he gets so involved; acting out the words or chiming in on his favorite parts… it is always an active event. 

10d. talking… love to hear their thoughts on anything. they all have brilliant minds.

10e. vacations…they are great road trippers… even when i added 2 hours to our return trip from San Diego because i went on a snipe hunt to find them a funnel cake stand (which we never found) and then missed our exit to the freeway because we were too busy talking about how insane it was that we drove all over the city only to find an abandoned office in an industrial park that looked like it might have been the headquarters of a funnel cake company at one time. but on the plus side, they did get to see Mexico, or at least they would have if they had looked up from their video games. 

10f. anything…doing anything with them, even if it’s doing nothing, is time well spent. Got to love that face time…

Thanks for coming along for the ride…

It was impossible to be around her and not enjoy yourself. I would come home from work some days and she and Kendra would be in tears from laughing so hard. They could find humor in anything. They called me once when I was out of town on travel to give me the blow-by-blow account of how they were ridding the backyard of rodents. The alternating screams and eruptions of laughter created quite the image in my mind. I’m sure my mental film footage did no justice to the actual scene unfolding on our lawn. Although I can’t right now, I know I’ll smile about that again for years to come. She was so selfless…She helped us paint to help our house feel like our home… and even though she hated to do it, when it was time for us to move, she helped us pack our home and prepare the house for the next family. I will remember her in that way. Always the friend. Always ready to lend a hand in whatever way necessary.

She was great with the boys. It’s sad that all we’ll ever have for them to see now are pictures… and she never got to meet Ethan. But all our “what-ifs” and “could haves” fail to compare to the pain and the void that her husband and their daughter are dealing with right now. This year would have been 20 years for those two. That is so rare, and so special… and her daughter… her daughter was her world. She truly embraced every moment of motherhood. She even took a part time job at her daughter’s school to be able to spend more time near her and be available during off school hours. Those two people who love her and need her are devastated today… and for that our hearts are broken. They are missing a very special person. She was amazing… I wish you could have met her. You would have loved her.

Please pray for our friends…

Kiss your kids.

1. laughter… our children’s laughter. the genuine expression of happiness that is represented by this is unmatched. all four of the boys have a certain laugh about them when they just give in to hilarity of the moment that just makes me smile to think about. and i love the little sigh at the end

2. random calls from the wife throughout the day…one of my favorite things in life is that i get to have the vicarious experiences of Kendra’s daily adventures with the boys. i love to hear about where they are, what they’ve done, what they’re doing, and what their reaction is to it all. i like listening to the background noise and hearing all the activity… some days it’s laughter, some days it’s crying, and some days it is absolute madness. i like to use the background noise and the level of exasperation in Kendra’s voice as a measure of how quickly i need to start shutting down and packing up for home (there is rarely ever any… so when i hear it, i know it’s been a seriously hectic day).  some of the best advice i have ever received came from a guy i interviewed with shortly after having the twins. he was a father of two sets of twins a couple years apart. he told me how his wife would always seem to call when he was right in the middle of something at work to talk about some random topic or another. he said it took him a little while to realize that she needed those conversations so she could just recharge and connect with him throughout the day. talking to an adult about even the most random of topics did a lot to restore her sanity. he came to understand that the little moments of support went a long way, and it gave him a window into their day that he would otherwise not have had. i have tried to keep that in mind.

3. baby breath… enjoy it while you can. it changes. fast.

4. trampolines… so much to say on this topic… i may have to dedicate some posts to this alone

5. windows into their world… i love when they initiate chance conversations about whatever is on their mind – story characters, video game plots, puzzles, Star Wars, music, bizarre hypothetical situations…anything. if they can’t talk to you about the little things, they won’t come talk to you about the big things.

6. helpers… sons jumping up on the counter to help make pancakes or help Kendra bake cookies…helping me load the chimney to start the coals for the grill… even the tiniest of effort for the smallest amount of time

7. bikes… i love the forward motion and the sensation of gliding along. riding bikes was one of the first activities Logan and i did together. we still head out occasionally. i put training wheels on Jaden’s old bike for Ethan. he was in Heaven.

8. friends… ours and theirs. i enjoy watching them interact with their friends. there is nothing quite like the chaos and destruction that can be ushered forth like a pack of 6 year-olds. beautiful. i can only hope they all grow up and go their separate ways so they can remember what good times they had and how much they meant to one another… somehow that realization doesn’t seem to set in any other way. maybe their generation will figure out how to appreciate what they have while they still have it. i’m still trying to learn.

9. chocolate milk… because it’s all about the spoon

10. time… maximize the time that exists rather than using that time to complain about the time that doesn’t. i was reminded recently that children only have one childhood… so true, and it flies by swiftly. do what you can to make the most of it. these slices of time are precious…i try to keep in mind that i want the last interaction i had with each of my sons to be one i won’t regret him remembering.

…to be continued. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

The boys will have a new teacher. Life has called Mr. and Mrs. Robbins away to North Carolina. Mr. Robbins went ahead early. Mrs. Robbins stayed until the break. Then Jaden and Dillon had to say goodbye for now…and so did we. Our family forged a strong relationship with Mr. and Mrs. Robbins. We’ve been on the inside of that moving van several times. Now we’re the ones standing in the street waving and watching the taillights disappear over the horizon. It hurts like hell to drive away, but it sure feels hopeless standing there watching the van pull away. We haven’t lost a friend. But we’ve certainly lost an ally. I tell myself that part of this was inevitable, really. The boys would have graduated from 1st grade in a few months and moved on to 2nd grade.They would’ve met a new teacher and adjusted to the new environment. Kendra and I will still need to engage with that teacher and stay involved in the classroom. We would still have to create a new ally. That’s what I say. But that doesn’t really cover it, and the boys are losing more than a teacher.

Mrs. Robbins was part of their everyday world. She would come over to the house and watch shows with Kendra. She would listen intently to them as they described (in great detail) their adventures in Lego Star Wars and Indiana Jones games over dinner. She even jumped with them on the trampoline! This is significant. Invitations onto the trampoline are typically extended to dads (men) because the boys feel we can make them jump higher. Outside of Kendra, Mrs. Robbins is only the 2nd woman to have a standing invitation to jump with them. Point being, if you are not a dad and they want you on the trampoline, it is because they think you are fun and they like having you around. Some people’s love Language is Physical Touch, other people’s Love Language is Words of Affirmation. Jaden’s and Dillon’s Love Language is Trampoline.

Our boys are not the only kids in the class to feel this way. So many of them have personal connections with Mrs. Robbins. There were many sad faces and wet little eyes when the announcement was made. Mr. Robbins was a very unpopular man that day. But change is change. We find the positives and manage it the best way we can. The miles are there between us. So we stay in touch. Jaden and Dillon will play and enjoy the rest of their Spring Break…the boys have made note of the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Robbins will be visiting during the last week of school. Maybe they’ll be driving a van.

Thanks for coming along for the ride… Kiss your kids!

I pushed our loot to the register and Kendra walked off with Ethan in search of some gum. The woman at the checkout counter noticed them and asked if she could help locate what they were seeking. I let her know their agenda, and she advised me that sadly, they did not carry gum.  I braced myself for the disappointment, and called out to Kendra to let her know.  Ethan looked up with a slightly alarmed expression (gum has become somewhat of a “problem” for him). The lady, who could not have been nicer, saw Ethan’s face. She said she might have some gum on her, and reached into her smock. She produced a pack of gum. It was still in the cellophane wrapper. She smiled kindly at Ethan and offered him the first piece from her personal stash (while this was exceedingly kind, this type of stuff just has to stop. I am about 98% sure he believes the world and everyone in it exists purely for his entertainment and amusement. My parents do nothing to help this condition either… but I digress).

Ethan was satisfied. He rewarded his faithful servant with an Ethan smile while playfully tucking his chin, lifting his outward shoulder slightly, and turning his head inward toward his mom in a semi-bashful pose. He gave a whispered “thank you” to raise the cuteness meter a little more, then turned his gaze away from her so he could fully concentrate on enjoying his gum. Ethan was ready for a second piece by the time she was done scanning our items. He looked at his gift giver as he swallowed the gum. He turned to Kendra, “More. More gum momma.” Kendra told him there was no more and that we might try to find some later. Ethan turned back to the woman helping us, “More”. He had spoken. She began to reach  into her smock when Kendra whisked him out of the store reminding him again that he was done for now but maybe we’d find some later. I thanked the kind lady again and took our purchases outside.

There it was: the little black sanding sponge. I’d forgotten we even picked it up, and I didn’t remember it being scanned. We decided on a package of sandpaper instead, so we didn’t even need that sponge. Kendra checked the receipt…not there. I didn’t want to deal with it. The thing didn’t cost more than 2 or 3 dollars anyway. It was right there in the basket, so I am not even sure how she missed it. Ethan was being squirmy now. He needed to be changed. We needed lunch. We still had things to do. I held it for a moment… looked at it, looked back at the store. Ethan looked at me curiously. I tossed the little black sanding sponge into the back of the vehicle along with everything else. Ethan was standing in the cart, so I took him with me to return the cart to the store.

I was expecting a fight with my conscience, but it was eerily silent. It was like the silence from your parents when you feel like you are too old to be scolded. When you know you’re wrong, and they know you know you’re wrong… but they just give you the look. They don’t say anything. You expect the lecture; you want the argument. But they just stand there looking at you… saying nothing. It’s that loud silence. There’s no need for words. I looked at Ethan. He looked at me.

We got back to the parking space. I handed Ethan to Kendra then grabbed the little black sanding sponge. Kendra offered to change Ethan while I returned it. I walked back in to the store and gave the item to a different woman working at the returns counter. She smiled and shook my hand. It seemed ridiculous that she would be so appreciative of me returning something worth less than a few dollars. Then it seemed more ridiculous that I initially balked at returning it in the first place; even when I had to walk back to the store to return the cart.

Kendra and Ethan were buckled in and ready to go when I got back. We pulled out of the parking space and Kendra began to drive off. I noticed it out of the corner of my eye, “Wait!”. Kendra stopped abruptly. I looked over to the parking space we had just left. Ethan’s right shoe was sitting in the space. Kendra had been on a mission for those shoes, and finally found them a few weeks ago. Even after she found them, it was no small feat to finally get them. I will just state that losing that shoe would not have been a good thing. I turned and looked at his toes wiggling in his sock. I hopped out to grab the stranded shoe. I had to think it was no accident that I happened to glance and see it… and had I not returned the little black sanding sponge, I would have to think it would be no accident if I had suddenly misplaced his shoe.

I slid his shoe back on…he looked at me and gave me the Ethan smile, and I couldn’t hear the silence any more. There are no small tests.

Thanks for coming along for the ride…

Kendra and I were floored… this was our first confrontation with this type of situation, and it really hit us out of nowhere (as these things do). We needed to react, but we needed our reaction to be appropriate to the circumstance. Fortunately, we had a little time to discuss our approach and gain some perspective rather than needing to follow through with our initial emotional responses. We started to focus on the potential reason’s why this event happened rather than just the event itself. We began to realize that we were dealing with the actions and decisions of a 14 year old boy, and all the confusion, clumsiness, and insecurities that accompany that. We realized that this was an opportunity for an awakening… for a lesson in accountability…an eye-opening opportunity for growth.  It brought to mind one of my own “wake-up” events. I remembered feeling alone and out of control… that no one would understand… that there would be no way back to redemption. We didn’t want to introduce hopelessness to the situation, so when I met with Logan, one of the first things I did was tell him my story.

I was about his same age… It was summertime in Albuquerque and my friend Marque and I were bored. We were lazing around his apartment when the notion struck us to visit our friend Eric. He didn’t live too far away, but the walk to his house was all uphill and it was very warm that afternoon. We thought about riding our bikes, but the same conditions made riding an unattractive option. Eventually, one of us brought up the idea of taking Marque’s mother’s car. She was upstairs asleep since she worked nights, and wouldn’t need the car. Marque was 16 and a licensed driver. I was 14 and had logged several hours at TNT Go-Carts… not exactly the same thing. But, I wanted to be cool and pull into Eric’s driveway behind the wheel. So I begged Marque to let me drive. He didn’t want any of his neighbors to see me pulling his mom’s car out, so he agreed to pull over and let me drive once we got to the park (City View).  Yep, here we go.

The streets east of the park get fairly steep, and I was having trouble keeping the speed of the car consistent. I started to mash the accelerator to prevent the urk and jerk motion, but failed to release it when I took the final left and right turns of that voyage. A family was crossing the street a few houses up the block. I was coming around the turn pretty quickly, and I panicked. I pulled the wheel hard to the right, lifted my foot off the gas, and mashed down as hard as I could on what I thought would be the brakes. It wasn’t the brakes.

We sped toward the curb; then up the curb and through some hedges; then onto the lawn and toward the house. The people looking out their front window looked about as surprised as I was to see us barreling toward them. Somehow, we stopped. I remember lifting my feet up after we went over the curb, but I’m not sure how me finally came to a stop. I think Marque might have slid across the bench seat to step on the brakes. I just remember feeling foolish and not knowing what to say.  One of the residents came flying out of the house and was banging on my window. He was screaming something, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I rolled the window down and kept staring ahead. I remember him reaching in the car and turning off the engine.

The police came. I remember the homeowner being very upset and wanting to know what charges he could press. He was screaming and being very animated, and I remember looking at the house next door and realizing where I was and thinking, “Oh yeah, Vicky Roe lives there. Damn.”, as they were putting me in the back of the police car. I have never felt more cut off from the world… and the humiliation of having your friends seeing you like that… that lingers.

Eventually, Marque got to take his mom’s car home, and somehow word got to my friend Jay who drove by on his motorcycle and gave me a ride back home. The souvenirs from my trip? A $180.00 ticket, a promise of a follow-up call to my home regarding the damage to the property, and 6 points off of a driver’s license that I didn’t yet possess. I could’ve taken out a family, I put my friend in a bad position with his mother, could’ve damaged her car severely, ruined someone’s yard, got a ticket I couldn’t pay, and became an insurance liability for my parents before they even needed to have me on the coverage. The outlook was bleak.

I went to my brother, as I tended to do when I found myself in precarious situations, but the remedy for this one fell directly on me. He helped me come to terms with the fact I had to man up and come clean and face whatever music was in the cards.  I had an uncomfortable conversation with my dad that evening when he came home from work. Things were pretty day-to-day for the next few weeks. But, I paid my consequences and worked off my debts, and eventually, I saw the opportunity to grow that was wrapped around that situation. Our hope for Logan was to shorten the distance between the event and the realization of the opportunity. He has fences to mend and he has consequences to reap. But I am hoping the understanding that I am familiar with his path and that I understand where he is coming from will keep him from feeling isolated and strange through all this. The remedies we’ve designed should help address why he did what he did…and we are here to support him through it all.

So, we will see… I had to hit snooze a few times before I finally heard the alarm clearly. Let’s hope this tune rings loudly.

Thanks for coming along for the ride…

We spent the holiday on Monday running around together. And as I watched the boys and searched their actions for any hints or signs of internal fire, I contemplated the great many contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I asked myself “What if he didn’t share his dream? What if he hadn’t heeded the call to service and followed the convictions of his heart?” There were way too many possibilities for me to fully explore… I was just certain that the absence of his patience and diplomacy; his strength and courage; and his vision and hope during that important time would have drastically affected the civil rights movement. The echoes of his work and his inspiration have circled the globe several times over. Could someone else have carried that torch? Might other groups or individuals have surfaced at later points that could have put us back on or near the path he blazed? Maybe, maybe not; of course it’s impossible to say. I can’t fully imagine the world had he not followed his heart; I can only say I am glad to know the reality that exists today because he did. And as I contemplated the prospect of Dr. King not following his fire, I began to run through the same exercise with other prominent figures in history and the potential bleakness that might have been…then on to a smaller scale…to me; to my sons.

I believe we all have God-given talents and abilities. I don’t know that they are always revealed in ways we expect or at times we find convenient. They may not be the talents or gifts we would have preferred to receive or any that we find immediately useful…but they are what they need to be, and at times they may even be intended to serve others rather than ourselves. God lights fires within us to do certain things or to walk certain paths…call it passion; call it heart; call it drive… however you associate with it or relate to it, it is the unquenchable fire that moves you toward a specific goal. Sometimes those fires align with your talents and abilities. Sometimes those fires shine as passion’s bright lights to attract the people with the right talents and abilities to you in order to get things accomplished. So I watch them in hopes of catching a glimpse of a flicker of the flame… to help them recognize it within themselves, and to harness the fire and help to focus and guide it if I can.

Passions and enthusiasms ebb and flow, but once that fire is lit, it remains constantly within when the other interests fade. It can’t be ignored, but it can be denied. I don’t want them to live with the regrets of not following through and wondering what could have been if they had devoted their lives to developing their talents and fueling their fires. Langston Hughes captures the concept in A Dream Deferred. He suggests that even if the “dream” (or fire) can be disregarded, it will remain in some form as a reminder in its “deferred” state…even to the point of explosion; potentially consuming it’s carrier. No… I’d rather they embrace whatever it is at the moment of recognition and hold on tightly down whatever corridors that path takes them. If God lights the fire, He will light the way.

I love to write. I always have. I am drawn to it… it is my fire. I received some advice once…well, several times through many iterations of the same conversation with various parties. It was sound advice. It was simple. It took me a few years to hear it, but I finally heard it.  The conversation(s) went like this:

Me: “I really want to write. I feel like that is what I should be doing.”

Friend: “So write.”

Me: “No, you don’t understand… it’s complicated. I can’t just write. I don’t have a lot of time, I work too much, there’s no money in it, excuse, excuse, excuse…”

Friend: “But, you feel like you have to write? like you should be writing?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Friend: “Hmm. So write.”

So right. I have to write. I may never make a living writing, but I’ve stopped making excuses for not doing it. I will encourage them to follow whatever their passions describe, and pray they have the courage to stay the course. I am eternally grateful for those conversations and for that message. It is what I will say to my sons when they tell me about their fire. So write. So sing. So cure. So think. So run. So help. So teach. So preach. So heal. So fight. So move… So live.

Thank you for coming along for the ride…

One of the many blessings of having kids in ages from toddler to teenager is having the ever-present reminder that “Dad’s Little Helper”, while a highly prestigious and sought after position early on, quickly becomes the job no one wants to take or hold for very long as the kids grow older. Logan was fantastic as an assistant bicycle mechanic. He was an expert seed thrower and jr. landscape artist. But now… the other day, I asked him to sweep the front walkway because we had people coming over and everyone was tasked with something to help out; he obliged, but I believe the word he used was “exploitation”, or some derivative thereof.

Jaden spent about 20 minutes washing dishes the other day. Both he and Dillon rush to help me pull weeds, hang pictures, fix chairs, and change AC filters. Ethan loves to help empty the dishwasher and help sweep. Dillon and Jaden used to help me make pancakes almost every weekend. Now they just help out every now and then. They’ve passed a lot of the pancake helper opportunities down to Ethan, who is a permanent fixture in the kitchen when I’m making pancakes or when Kendra is baking anything. He is in full blown “Little Helper” mode and is trying to climb that corporate ladder as quickly as his little Pumas will take him. The twins have reached the executive office level and feel like they need to start branching out. They do enjoy being BBQ/Grilling assistants though… I think it’s the lure of the fire. The danger factor plays well with them. They are looking forward to helping me take the Tiger Saw to the Christmas tree.

Yep, these days just fly… I document these things not to brag, but as evidence that these times did indeed exist, because in a few years it may not seem even remotely possible… but also to remind myself not to be impatient or get frustrated by the “help” that I receive, because the help won’t last long. My jr. executives will venture on just as the previous administration did. Ethan will ascend to the high ranks and shortly afterwards, he too will depart. So, it isn’t just the loss of my illustrator, but the eventual vacancies that will exist in all the helper categories that make me want to appreciate every one of the little things they do today.

Thanks for coming along for the ride…

I came downstairs with Jaden and made  him breakfast while I continued to contemplate the new year. I stepped out into the front walkway and stared up into the clear blue sky. The morning sun was warm and a cool thin layer of air breezed around me like a sheer curtain. It felt like music. That seemed like the right type of beginning. I went back inside and watched Jaden finish his breakfast. I figured I would create a few new playlists since music appeared to be the theme of the day. Jaden and Dillon had grown quite fond of a few tracks on some CDs I’d received, so I decided to pull the music together for them on my iPod. I was feeling very good about this musical morning.

The boys were sitting on the couch listening to the tracks and a song they hadn’t heard came on. I was curious about their reaction to it, so I watched them closely as it played. They sat fairly still and just listened… about halfway through, Jaden walked over to the iPod and clicked the wheel. I wasn’t sure if he was going to change the song or if he was just curious about the title. He stood there for a while and listened. When the song ended, I started it over again for him. They both just sat quietly through the song… three more times.

In the afternoon, we loaded up the boys and a CD and and set off to my brother’s (and sister-in-law’s) house. We listened to the boys’ new musical infatuation Wavin’ flag a couple of times back to back, and suddenly I heard a sound from the backseat that tied together the thoughts and sensations of the day. It was Dillon’s voice. He was signing along to the chorus with a passion and conviction that sent my mind down a path. Hearing his voice attached to those lyrics spun me… I got choked up and even veered a bit from my lane.

The song touched him in some way and he found some association with the message. Clearly he has no direct awareness of or experience with the Somali civil war which is at the heart of the song, but he found great enjoyment in singing the lines. Dillon’s voice grew louder from the back seat, and Jaden’s joined in, ”when I get older, I will be stronger, they’ll call me freedom just like a wavin’ flag!” It made me think about the child in an environment  that felt too massive or complicated to control or overcome. I thought about the courage and the will that must burn inside that child and lets him know that the situation is temporary and the environment can be changed, and that the child himself possesses the ability and strength to effect that change. It is amazing, the fruits of change that God can cultivate from the smallest seeds of hope and faith in the darkest and most barren of places.

Now, our children have never known that kind of oppression or fear. The hardships of their days cannot compare to the atrocities that other children witness and are subjected to. But that doesn’t invalidate the obstacles and challenges our children will face along their respective paths. They will be required to be courageous. They will be challenged and tested. They will have to navigate change. All these on a scale that is relative and relevant to them. Hearing them sing the chorus did not make me envision them as children of war. Rather, it reminded me that while the struggles in the song are not their own, they still encounter situations where they need to choose whether or not to demonstrate courage… and I need to be making sure I am modeling that for them.

It reminded me that I have an opportunity and an obligation to be a beacon of strength for them so they can grow their own and head out into the world and make it better for their children. It reminded me that there are too many children that do not have a beacon, and so we need to make the most of what opportunities we have. I am a generation whose parents lived through a significant struggle for civil rights and the extension of basic human decency from one to another. That inferno, while not fully extinguished, burns quietly now, and perhaps with that so cooled the perception that courage was still a necessary part of the American life. Our generation had thrust upon us a different model for courage early in the new century, and so grew our resolve again. I am hoping to find more frequent opportunities to practice the virtue of courage, and ones that rely on smaller lessons. That was the clarity I gained by the time we pulled up next to the house.

There is always a demon to slay. As much as I hope there is no great obstacle facing the next generation, I know there has to be… or else what would they overcome? I feel like 2010 is a year that has a very bright outlook and is filled with limitless possibilities. I feel like paths will be available to be taken. I pray I have the courage to take the right steps. I pray you do too… so when our children get older, they will be stronger… they will have seen the fruits of the courage before them… and they can be the beacons of strength.

Thank you for coming along for the ride… kiss your kids!