PulpLit.net

Father's Day

As I mentioned in passing yesterday, I met up with my pal Justin, an old college buddy, for a few wobbly pops and some appetizers at my favorite neighbor, Applebee?s, last night. Since college, we?ve made it a point to keep the fraternal bond strengthened no matter where the day took us.

Anyway, there we sat barside, two guys standing before the precipice of fatherhood looking down the road and wondering what the next few months and years would bring us. The same two guys who participated in Co-Ed Naked Wheel Barrel Racing and brainstormed the UMASS Debate Team (say that one real fast) are to become fathers in a few precious months? time.

And were both ready and rearing to go..

Anyway, we got to talking about how we are in complete agreement that there?s not much nervousness tripping neural synapses and that for the most part, we?re at a damn fine point in our lives. He and I married our respective sweethearts 2 weeks a part, and we both played important roles in each other?s weddings. Now here we are two years post blessed event preparing for another milestone. His wife Jen is due in mid April. My wife Andrea is due in early May.

Anyway, somewhere squeezed within the pre-req collegiate reminiscence and assorted juvenelia our talk turned to our parental preparedness. It didn?t take either of us very long to pinpoint the exact cause for the lack of concern ? which one would think a premier pop would have in abundance.

Justin and I ? like so many others of our generation ? come from a family torn asunder by divorce. Our parents' generation was wracked by this epidemic ? in greater numbers than generations before and some may argue since.

My parents divorced when I was 14. Lately, while thinking of my son Colin and pondering the life he will lead and the opportunities he will grasp hold of, I?ve found myself thinking back to milestones in my life ? brief snapshots from my own personal life serial that, while no different than any other moment that has passed, nevertheless held some intangible quality that caused these events to tattoo their every detail upon my psyche. That fateful day when my Mom came into my room to wake me ? as she had done so many school days prior ? yet this time bearing a seemingly innocuous message that she would like me to stay home from school that day (Surprise vacation? Snow day? ? The mind raced.) Yeah, that?s on the Top Ten List.

To be sure, my parent?s divorce was a good thing. Their nightly verbal jousts over any number of subjects (mostly money) spoke volumes of the rift that was widening ? no matter how much they tried to hush their voices. There?s nary a pillow on Earth that possesses the acoustic deafening properties that a pre-?child of divorce? craves on nights like those. Trust me, I've searched.

And although money woes only worsened once the union was severed, the divorce was very clean. The fighting stopped. My parents actually spoke to each other when they saw each other. My relationship with my Dad blossomed. And these days ? both Mom and Dad have found new relationships that age seems to have refined and ripened.

Regardless, as a child of divorce, some inner promise to myself was made. No child of mine would ever suffer one of those sleepless nights.

?When I fall in love? It will be forever??

And eventually I found Andrea and we married and we bought a house and we decided to have a child and forever has arrived for a wonderful extended lifelong stay. So to my son Colin I offer this heartwarming notion ? your Old Man is a history buff and has studied the past closely ? steadfastly determined to learn from past example and pave a bright future.