On Being a Father...

When I am lost, I am never alone, because of my Dad. And as a Dad, I will never let my own children be alone as I will always be with them.

Everything I do I do for my children and those I love…but especially my children. And by making them my priority I can always find the strength to fight on, both in this war and through any hardship in life. But I learned this from other fathers, and sometimes their words and the faces of my children are the daily inspiration I sometimes need to get up and march forward into whatever lies ahead.

Sometime I struggle with doing what needs to be done in the fight to protect them against these Public Health enemies and their domestic and international handlers. Not because it’s not important, but because there is the constant lure of procrastinating and distracting myself with more entertaining and comfortable pursuits. Why? Because Dads (and Moms) get tired…just physically tired. But still, sometimes it’s hard to put on my boots and pick up my proverbial rifle and start a new day on the “battlefield.” I’ve learned that if rage and the pursuit of justice are powerful though temporary antidotes to this type of “battle fatigue,” selfless love is a constant force that drives me forward and never wanes.

Rage helps…but it’s not a healthy motivator to rely on. Like last week I was tempted by that ever-present specter in the corner of my head: “take a break…you’ve earned it….you’re tired…watch a movie…the work can wait…” I hear that internal slacker in my head every day, as I am sure we all do. And yes, it’s tempting to put the work aside and put myself first, put my comfort and “need to lounge” first. As a funny parody site says about “Procrastination”: Hard work pays off in the long run, but laziness pays off now. And I have to admit, this is pretty funny. But it is parody…it’s mocking those who think this way. It’s not intended to be an option.

But as I have sought out rage for fuel, I’ve also sought justice. Often I seek sources to refuel these powerful but dark energies. Like last week I sought out CDC and other HHS officials giving testimony on C-SPAN and I found what I needed. Their insidious words spewing out of their wicked mouths, justifying under oath the poisoning of my fellow countrymen, the targeting of our children, and the murdering of our unborn. My batteries were recharged, I was enraged. “No! I can’t take a break…the monsters we are fighting never do (or seem to). So, no, specter of laziness…I won’t take a break, I don’t need to watch a movie, I am not that tired, the work can’t wait and I have not earned a thing until all of the monsters are destroyed and all of our sons and daughters are safe. And I will burn down all of their castles and hunt these people down until they are all dead or brought to justice!” I need that rage, that pursuit of justice. But it’s not enough…because these easily consumed energies can never replace selfless love as the most nourishing food for the soul.

Today, hanging with my cool 11-year old son, I am making my day about him and making this next week about him and his older sister. It’s in these moments that I recall what my tough, working class, Irish Dad taught me about rage.

“Rage is like a candy bar. You are hungry and it gives you quick satisfaction and a burst of energy.  However, family is like a steak.  It makes you full at first, can even overwhelm you, but it gives you energy forever, makes getting up and going to work a pleasure, and it makes you stronger, especially against ANYONE who tries to hurt your kids.”  

This morning in the absence of rage…I thought of him. I remembered these talks, and honestly, at the time, I didn’t realize how wise he was (probably because I wasn’t a Dad long ago when he gave it and when we are young we think adults are stupid). But today he is sitting next to me and we are watching my son mess around on the elliptical trainer. He chuckles next to me and undoubtedly is telling me a very inappropriate joke which I laugh at in spite of myself. His advice is clear and his voice is almost audible, though it’s clear and always present in my heart. He was right, he was always right, and he is always with me…though I miss him every day

.Another wise man and father I was friends with was man named Staff Sergeant Solis whom I had become friends with at the 101st Airborne Division and later in 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in the mid -90s.

He once gave me incredible Father’s Day advice because I needed motivation…fatherly motivation being a new and exhausted dad. You see, my daughter was just about a year old. Her mom (my ex-wife) had been deployed to Sarajevo and I was left to take care of this precious little girl while being on active duty and having zero experience with taking care of a baby. (Note: the Army has [or had] a policy that two active-duty parents who are married cannot be deployed at the same time…I would end up deploying after my ex-wife returned and would hand off our daughter at that time). So as far as managing this pretty little “crumb-thief” (as I lovingly refer to my daughter when I tell her about this time in our lives). I thought I had figured out the basics of raising a baby-girl on your own: 1: keep putting in lots of hair ties till the hair is out of her face even if she ends up looking like Cindy Lou Who, 2: duct tape the diaper on if the adhesive tabs fail to work, and 3: make sure you put a vomit rag on your shoulder before you perform the necessary “burping” exercise after each feeding. But I had no time for Me! I was exhausted! I was barely getting to work on time, and I was falling behind on MY college work and MY gym workouts! So as always, Sergeant Solis was available to lend a patient ear and unsolicited advice, which I always appreciated. When I was done ranting about “how hard is was to be me”, Solis just shook his head and laughed. “F*ck you, Dude…this is a serious problem!”, I thought to myself. But he had something to say and I decided to listen. Why? Because Solis had 4 kids and was raising a very healthy and happy clan of his own. He was also going to college after the duty day, his wife was a full-time shift nurse, and he was big into physical fitness and always got to work on time. Originally from Mexico, Staff Sergeant Solis had become a US Citizen in order to follow a dream that his dad always had but never quite accomplished and few in their twenties would be interested in, then or now: he wanted to be a Dad and raise “a big American family”. That’s it! THAT was his aspiration in life! And Me?(at that time)… I wanted to be the next super-spy-Rambo-Warrior/Poet-business leader-politician-Superman! But, despite being on my way to accomplish a lot of these goals, in some form or fashion, I was never happy. He always was. Solis was ready to speak, and so he did. “Dude, quit whining,” he said. “You’re doing great, you’ve go so much ‘awesome-ness’ in your life…you just need to change your lens…how you look at things and how you approach them.” True, I was, physically and mentally spent. But Solis wasn’t and God knows, he was in a more laborious domestic situation than I was. So I continued to listen.

“Brian, you’re going about being a Dad all wrong. Can I offer advice?” Please do, I nodded. Solis continued: “You see, when I go home, even after a deployment, even after I have had a horrible day, even if I am exhausted, I put all of my attention and energy into that one thing that I have made into my favorite hobby, my favorite skill, my best trait. You know what that is, Brian?” “Not really”…I muttered. “Come on man, you know…or someday I hope you will. It’s being a Dad.”

So this Father’s Day and everyday I hope we will all remember this: everything we do, every essay we help write, every Lego set we help build, every football we throw, every 6th grade graduation we drive 4 hours to be a part of, every shoe we tie, every story we listen to about some elementary school drama, every enraged rant we listed to about how we “will never understand,” every shelf we put up, every lesson we teach, every scraped knee we put a band-aid on, every tear we wipe away and every “I love you, I am proud of you” that we say to our children, and every silent kiss whisper at the end of a long and overdue phone call is a steak for the soul, a bullet fired at the enemies of goodness, and most importantly, a gift to our children that will never fade.

But it’s also a guarantee, if done selflessly and from a place of real love, that we will always be with them, especially when they need us the most. My Dad is proof. All nine of us kids were his hobby, his goal, his mission…and, as such, my Dad has always been with me, by my side, and in my heart as I will always be by my kids’ sides…forever.

Happy Father’s Day.