Comings and goings...

“The beginning is the most

important part of the work.”

- Plato

Dear Coen,

It was just great to see you today. You are nearly a month old by now, and when I expanded the video feed on my big screen, you were pretty much life size.

Your head was flopping around and it was clear that while your mum was looking into the camera lens, your gaze had the appearance of someone pre-occupied with the nature of the universe, oblivious to anyone or anything nearby.

I know you had not drifted too far away, because you got hungry during the call and headed for the nearest restaurant, which by the way was well within reach as you lay in your mother’s arms.

I have also got to say, I resonated with those uninhibited metabolic sounds you were making on the ‘other end’ of things. Early in the conversation – that would be between your mother and me – a sound emerged that was so familiar and robust, it could have been me. Yes, my young friend, we are definitely related!

It wasn’t long, however, before your face got a serious look, turned a little red and focused and you…ah….hmmm, how best to say this…you finished your business.

For the next few moments you and your mother disappeared from the screen, and while we still had audio contact, your ‘linens’ were being refreshed out of sight, not out of mind!!

Once all of that stuff had been done and you did a little spitting up – in as appropriate a manner as a youngster of your breeding might do – you wrapped your little arms around as much of your mother as possible and promptly went to sleep!

It wasn’t long after that when your mother and I finished up and put a semi-colon to our chin wagging – to be continued the next time we spoke.

A little reflection…

In a few weeks I will have traveled the planet for 68 years – you about a month and a half – completely oblivious, I might add, to my existence.  Molly and I will come to meet you in the not too distant future and look forward to a more formal introduction.  I suspect that by the time you associate me with something more than a casual inquisitive and occasional visitor, I will be in my 70s.

It is strange, in some ways, for you will only know me as an older fellow with whom you play, and giggle and hopefully look forward to seeing when the opportunity arises.

While you are actively engaged with the business of growing up, I will be actively slowing down in the business of growing old.  I want you to know, I am looking forward to both!

I suppose there will be moments of melancholy for me knowing that I might not be on the planet for your high school graduation or college or the years with which you will make your way through life.  It would be a gift indeed to find you as an adult and enjoy a meaningful conversation or two.  Ah, you will, however have many meaningful conversations as the future rushes toward you.

We, you and I, will simply have to make the best of the time we have. I will, of course, have the advantage of seeing both of our trajectories – ascending and descending…as it relates to me, you will, of course only be aware of the latter.

I hope this is only one of many letters I write as you are growing up and during the years we have with one another. I would like to see them kept in a place of safety until you are older and can appreciate the depth of love I feel for you. 

I look forward to holding you in my arms in the coming days and beginning the journey you and I will take, as long as we are able…

- ted