Leaving A Mark

     Well it’s Sunday morning and here I sit. Coffee in hand, birds singing, sun coming up…the start of another day on God’s green earth. In less than a week I will make the 10 hour journey to see three of the most important people in my life, Madison, Jerome and Jeffrey…my children. I haven’t seen them since X-mas. And yes there is Skype, texting and other forms of communication but to be the father of teenagers…for all intent and purpose I could be on the moon. It’s never easy being apart from your loved ones but time does heal wounds and allow some to move forward. It also gives way for growth and independence.


     It’s not the fact that my kids and I are so far apart…but more of the unjust strain placed on the relationship I have with them. See, it wasn’t how they were raised by their mother and I, and to see them act in a manner which goes against that teaching, their inner spirit, it’s a shame. I think back to when they were all running around in diapers, asking for this or that; trusting in us to lead them down the path towards adulthood. They were innocent souls…full of love, wonder and amazement. And over the years I watched them grow and struggle to hold on to that which was pure and innocent within them in a day and age when so many have forgotten and or spend so much time trying to suppress it.

     Kids are a blank slate when they are born. And then we adults imprint on them (values, attitudes, beliefs & norms) the best things we have within us and hope that as they grow older it’s enough to combat the other things that they will be exposed too as they grow and mature. Sometimes these outside influences will impact them in a negative way and others will be a positive. Some will cause great pain and strife and others…great joy. But all these “life experiences” are needed and valued.

     These things, these values/ beliefs are the foundations for what will make them into young people as well as adults as they mature. And through all these experiences we hope they turn out ok. I along with my former spouse for 12 years, as a married couple, showed them right, as well as what wrong look like. And now as parents, only in co-parenting circles, we must continue. This can be an easy task or a tough one. Because we are apart and live very, very different lives what’s important and pivotal to me may not be to her. Things I want my kids to practice and or believe in I have only text, phone and summer visits to discuss, influence and or mentor them in these values/ beliefs. It would be a much easier task if I along with their mother could communicate about these and come to a general consensus about the important things we want to leave with them and place personal feelings as well as agendas aside. But since we can not, I must wait my turn and not convince them whose right or who’s wrong but show them, teach them and talk with them. Allow them to absorb the material and then…do with it as they wish.

     Since they don’t reside with me my job or my way of thinking and living gets left out and they get an abundance of it from their Mom. And without communication, I have no way of knowing what they are being influenced with or by. I don’t know their friends (most of them), activities, or privy to mother child conversations. I’m blind in this regard and all I have is faith that what they are getting and or exposed to is still on the path which their mother and I set them on.

     So, I will spend my summer playing catch up; finding out about the past 6 months, the ups, the downs…listening to stories of joy and sorrow. All the things that have been experienced and learned that I unfortunately have missed out on. So this reunion will start sometime Friday evening and it will not stop until they are on their way back to school and life with their mother at the end of the summer. I will not force or coerce but guide and lead them down the path which will be of their choosing. I will spend my summer loving, guiding and just being a Dad. Because in the end…that is the greatest influence I have.