Being a dad; a super human with super powers. Power that comes from family, not stars or batteries but, from home. And home, home is on the East with the sea and the mountains. It comes like each brick with each press forward, laying itself down. I can read the countless posts on the interwebs about how to become the ‘Dad of the Year,’ and ‘What a Dad Does for His Family.’ Mom takes on the roll as mother and father at times, there is no doubt about this. I think I do too at times but, her more than I. Little Cervantes is so absolute with her is beautiful. Being a parent is about wanting the best for your children, going to the ends of the cosmos to see their dreams through as support and guiding their steps on the river. I think that can best sum up any parent of the year - being a dad is a super hero thing but, being a parent is home.
6 feet plus 2
It has been a chilled set of months and now we are stretching through the soil, yearning for spring - true spring. The kind of spring that warms your face and smells of rain. Little Louise has grown in ways my mind cannot keep up with. He twists and turns, smiles and cries, reaches and slobs on everything and I can not love it all enough! We also added one more under our roof. My mother-in-law Peggy, who is a superhero all on her own, watches this growing little bean when the wife and I work, work, work for meals that fatten the cats and fill our bones. It is a blessed time. More than blessed.
The Occasional Donut
After a bit of a hiccup during my headstrong college walk, Ashley and I ventured across the Great American Plains, floating East to the start of our nations civilization. The dirt turned from brown to red and became clay. The flatlands ate and grew like sweet children into men and women, influential and sky-bound, regarding conditions we would not have before. 20 hours later we were at the start of our new journey, you see we still had the issue of the cat. I say cat because that was it was and the issue revolved around the feline and given our new but temporary home, the four-legged fur member could not stay with us at that particular time - solution? We drive the family down to Florida where my father-in-law resigned and drop off the cat, with love, until we could find a suitable home for us all. Adding another day to our journey. So, we drove. The Florida air was steamy, heavy and has no bounds with personal space. The cars just drive, people just go and we found this to become more and more true the further south we found ourselves. The ocean was cold and dad was groovy. He did what fathers do, giving us a room, food, and council, asking about our lives and where it might be heading, all the while laughing and sharing stories. It was painful to leave but our lives needed to start in South Carolina.
A bit of time went by, a couple of seasons and money gathering lead us to find our first home together. A 2 bedroom apartment with nothing to go in it was the warmest thing I have ever unearthed. More seasons go by and slowly the home became loud, lively and full of color. Something one might see as trivial but to me, to us I think, it was more than such. It was home. It was a step toward God and finding out the meaning of life. It was little but it was big.
Our new home