To Arthur, on his second birthday:
You have the fortune of being born on Groundhog Day—a
“holiday” that will always coincide with your birthday. While men in stovepipe hats ritualistically
gather to read the body language of a marmot and the portent of light running
across its body, we will shower you with love, gifts, memories, and songs. Of course, whether we admit it or not, we
will be making predictions about the future.
Your second birthday is full of data that are hinting at who
you will become in your growing journey.
You are now about half of the height you will grow to in adulthood. You are starting to acquire language and
other skills. Indeed, there are several
things we’ve learned about you:
1.
You have a strong physical presence.
While we are working to help you learn not to push your siblings and
friends down to the ground, we are also cultivating your seemingly freakish
strength. You can pick up heavy items,
climb on things, and wrestle us with a legitimate chance of winning.
2.
Whatever you do, you do it headlong.
As it currently stands, you show a raw commitment to your actions by
attacking them without abandon. You have
certainly hurt yourself, but you are more often pleased with yourself as you
fall to the floor, off of furniture, or down the stairs with an open-mouthed grin.
3.
You have early-onset curiosity.
You do not talk as much as your brother and sister did at your age. You are an observer. But, when you do speak, you use sentences. And I find that you often ask me, “What is
this?” When I provide an answer, you
repeat the answer with a raised pitch and cocked eyebrow to question my
response. “What is this?”/“This is a
spatula.”/“A sp[at]ula?” With a tone as
if you are not sure of the answer and/or you have a bordering-on-the-unhealthy
skepticism of your father’s ability to tell you the truth. I love it.
But whether these qualities are any indication of your
future persona, we would be guessing and would probably have better accuracy if
we divined it from the marmots. We are
not hurrying the process, but you will continue to change. I do not know if there is any truly universal
principle that we could look to and say that you are guaranteed to turn out “okay.” After all, this is a world of probabilities
and actuaries. How can we put you in the
best place to find honest meaning and satisfaction in your life? Your mother and I are already thinking about
this and how our seemingly small decisions can have great consequences for you
and your own future. We want to be good
stewards of the portion of your lifetime with which we are charged.
In the end, though, we want you—our little baby!—to leave
our proverbial nest and spread those proverbial wings (while we shed those
less-than-proverbial tears). I have been
thinking and imagining the day when we sit down with you and try to impart some
sort of unified theory and shove you out the door to face the world head
first. I am working on such a theory of
verything, but here is the best piece that I have synthesized to date.
When presented with more opportunities and relationships
than you have time to meaningfully experience or develop, ask yourself these
questions in this sequence: (1) “Where
am I going?” (2) “Who will go with me?” The crucial part is that you order the questions
correctly; if you reverse the questions, you are creating a situation that
creates a higher likelihood of trouble and heartache.
You may find that this formula works in a variety of
scenarios. For example, when you are
looking to develop strong friendships, you will be wise to visit your own
dreams and ideas about your life. If your
friends do not support you or push you to become better, you should cultivate
other friendships that do (which will necessarily be at the sake of your relationship
with your old buddies). Not because you
are a jerk and view yourself as better than others but because you want to do
something with your limited time in this life, where others will desire
something else.
Another example, and the most important, is how you choose a
life partner. Any pre-marital counseling
or similar relationship discussion will inventory your personal desires for
what you want out of your life and how you would like to share it. It is a strange experience to discuss the big-ticket
questions for the first time in a pre-marital survey when the ring is on both the
finger and the credit card. You want to
have those discussions earlier in your relationship. It is part of governing your trajectory. Where are you going? Is this the person who should go with you? This is the evergreen romance; two people
outloving one another towards their individual but shared dreams.
But, as the saying goes, you cannot pick your family (or
your friends’ noses). For a while, you
are just along for the ride with us, but we want our family to be a launching
point, where you will find and begin to tread the unique journey of your life. If you will have us, we will go with you.
Happy birthday, son.
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