Today's Moments Are Tomorrow's Memories...

As a dad I have some lofty goals when it comes to raising my son.  Let’s see.  Keep him off of meth, out of the emergency room, and in school.  Oh and out of jail. Okay, there, that’s a good start. Perhaps off the meth thing and the out of jail thing go hand in hand, but I really want to hammer that one home.  Moving on..

So I was on the way to work the other morning and thinking about memories.  Everyone has childhood memories, no matter how great or painful, or in my case embarrassing they are. Hopefully the good outweighs the bad and no serious damage occurred.  But then my brain continued to roam and dream and come up with ridiculousness and I thought, I’m kind of the maker of my kid’s memories.

Not that I’m so self-centered as to think that every memory will involve me.  Actually I don’t want that. Who needs that kind of pressure?  But still, most of his childhood memories, whenever they start, will involve his mother and me.

So that means everything I say, do, how I react, will all be recorded in his little black box in his mind. And one day, when my son looks back on his amazing life and all of the things he accomplished because of/despite his father, he’ll sit down to write his memoir.  And I want to look good in this thing.  I mean, not play myself in the movie adaptation good, but not Joe Jackson bad...

That means…

Let’s say I make a habit of getting wasted on the weekends.  Well, my son’s memoir could include the following passage:  Dad called me over to him and I forced myself, with timid steps riddled with fear, towards the familiar aroma of George Dickel and smoke.   See what I mean? 

Or he could go into his hatred of sports.  And then, in the tell all book he drops this little gem about dear old Dad…

It was during halftime of our little league game.  Dad had been taunting the officials and threatening the coaches for most of the morning when another parent asked him to knock it off.  What happened next would render the game pointless and the field bloody…

Let me go ahead and note here that I haven’t been a fight since I was 14 and don’t make a habit of drinking bourbon, so I think I’m safe with either of those scenarios.  But you get the point.

As a memory maker, or at least shaper, I have to show self-control and discipline.  I have to watch my language and from what my wife says, even my expressions. It sounds so easy until I’m sitting behind a tractor trailer stuck in traffic and late for work while I’m carting the little sponge in the backseat…. But I’m working on it. Let’s turn the page of this little memoir…

Dad’s laughter bounced off of the walls, filling our home with the warmth and joyous gift of happiness that I’d come to love.  He once nursed a butterfly to health with dental floss and toothpicks...

Okay, a stretch maybe, as I haven't done the butterfly thing yet. But at least I’m not knifing people at the mall.  Or doing meth. (reading this you might think that I have a thing against meth). In all seriousness, I'll probably fall somewhere in between.  But whatever he does remember, I hope there are more smiles than tears, and I hope he knows that I cared and that I tried.  Because I do and I will.

I smell a best seller.