My Dude, I’ve been staring at this computer most of the night and into the early morning, trying to find some words I want to tell you. Just a few words that are true. Words that might capture even a small part of what I feel on this third anniversary of your passing. Early on while I was typing, our son came behind me and read a few sentences I later discarded. He stood there for a few minutes, trying to understand what I was writing and why I was writing it. Then he went into another room with his iPad. I heard him crying but decided to let him be with his feelings, just as I have been with ..read more

The way your mom showed me I had really messed something up was the same way she showed me I had done something remarkably well: she cried. In fact, this was also how she showed embarrassment, fear, anxiety, joy, or any of a cluster of emotions that would often bubble up throughout the day. A barbed comment from a supervisor; a TV advertisement for baby diapers with a soft melody and an infant wriggling around in slow motion; a well-timed hug from you. Any of these might produce a sudden leak from the tear ducts. So, when your mom stepped into the courtyard at the pizzeria and the crowd of fri ..read more

This day has arrived, though it doesn’t seem true. How’d I get through one year, let alone two, Living a life that doesn’t have you? Some days have been yellow, and some have been blue. Some days have been blurry blends of the two. Painting a life that doesn’t have you. The guilt I still feel when I do something new Rends ev’ry feeling I form into two. No shred of life that doesn’t have you. Nor escape from the pain; I’ve had to go through. Forgive me when sorrow tempted me to Imagine life that doesn’t have you. Without your love, after all, what would I do? For your laughter sustains me, your ..read more

“I’m going to tell you something, and then after that can we stop talking about it?”  “Sure,” I say. “What is it?” “Promise me you won’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you?” “OK, I promise.” And then you lay it on me. Another great wrongdoing, or an embarrassing thought, or a YouTube video you watched with a bad word in it, or someone you think is cute, or something that happened at school, or maybe some clothes you tried on to see how they looked that you don’t want others to know about. You are the most guilt-laden seven-year-old I’ve ever met. I don’t know why. I don’t think I sham ..read more

We walk up the stairs to the second floor of the hospital and stop in front of the door to the ICU. A nurse hands us a clipboard with a small card fastened to it. We walk over to a bench near the elevators where we sit as I fill out the basic details. You are quiet and nervous, as you take in the scene, observing the other families milling around near us. It only takes me a few seconds to fill out what needs to be completed on the form. We rise and return the clipboard, and the nurse points us to a short line at the end of the hallway. You hold my hand and I give a squeeze as we walk together ..read more

We’re a couple hours into the road trip when you wake up from your nap and say, “Dad, I’m getting hungry.” “Me too, buddy. I’ll pull over at the next spot and we’ll grab some breakfast.”  A few miles later I see one of the blue signs posted near an exit along northbound I-5, and I list off the choices to you. McDonald’s. Burger King. Taco Bell. Black Bear Diner. You surprise me by picking the latter.  For a moment, I think about telling you no. Insisting that we should do a drive-thru option to save time, so we can get up to see our family in Oregon quicker. But diner food sounds a l ..read more

“I really regret doing it,” you confess. “I feel really, really bad about it.” We are in the car driving home from school and you are in the backseat, unburdening yourself of your great misdeed. Looking at you in the rearview mirror, I notice the tension in your body and the nervous expression on your face. You are a seven-year-old on the way to the gallows. Earlier today I received a lengthy group email from your teacher. Apparently, one of your classmates was found with a Squid Game notecard. The teacher spoke with the class about how the Netflix show is not appropriate for kids your age, an ..read more

Even to my untrained eyes, the objects in the black-and-white CT scan seemed misshapen. A burgeoning blob filled most of the ovular cross-section of your mom’s abdomen. Squeezed into the bottom right corner were several other organs, huddled together as if in fear of the growing mass nearby.  For the last two weeks, your mom had complained about her stomach feeling tight and bloated. “I just feel like a pressure cooker; like I wish there was a knob I could twist to let out some air,” she’d say. Now, looking at the image on the screen, it was easy for me to see why she would feel that way ..read more

It’s the two year anniversary of your great-grandpa’s passing. He was the first significant person in your world to die, and it was my first taste of having to talk to you about hard things, something I’ve had to do a lot in the time since. I thought in memory of him, I’d share a letter I wrote you at the time. I didn’t know it then, but it was kind of an early version of what this blog would become. (Love you, Grandpa.) A couple months into Catholic school and you are full of questions about religion. You recently lost your first pet, a Betta fish you named Lovey. As much as we tried to care ..read more

That’s the post. There are some other things I thought I might write about this week, but I couldn’t find a way to organize my thoughts that felt right. So instead I’ll just fall back on the words we tell each other every day. The words that make my heart swell to hear you say them. The words that anchor us and guide us. The truest words I know. I love you ..read more