maybe one day we will have enough time
do you love me to the stars and back?
Dear Z.,
The reason I skip past ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ when it comes on your playlist is because it makes me sad.
Actually, it’s not sadness. Sadness happens when we have to go home from the river when the sun is still up. This song makes me grieve.
I know it’s grief because after hearing this beautiful track two hundred or however many times I’ve heard it, I can say that the wretched, choking tears that appear just under the surface show up every.single.time, and point somewhere deep.
Maybe one day we will have enough time.
You said this the other day—one of your daily thousand sentences of increasingly coherent syntax and grammar. It stabbed me in the heart.
You were sincere, speaking about something extremely specific: maybe one day we will have enough time for that thing for which there seems to be not enough time right now.
It stabbed me in the heart because it was such a clear and beautiful reflection of something I’ve said to you on countless occasions, and may say many times more before we are through. Also, because it breaks with a value that I hold in my heart as true: that there is more than enough time, resource, fulfillment and love available for everyone, everywhere.
[Note: That may seem trite, cringe, or whatever the kids are calling lame now. But I assure you, it’s more important than you know. I’ve listened to a lot of wise and unwise people speak about their takes on how the universe works. There are patterns, but the single most common thread between them is love. So it’s my north star, even in the storms.]
Your phrase also reminded me of the son in ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’. The son who always wanted more time with his dad. The dad who was always busy. The dad who offered gifts on his way out the door. The dad who always prioritized other things. The son didn’t just forgive his dad’s absence, he aspired to be like him.
The grief comes when I think about all the lost moments between my dad and I.
There were a lot of special ones too, ones that only he and I got to share, which I still cherish, like pebbles in my pocket. If I was doing was a scientific study, I think I’d find conclusively that for all boys everywhere, love from their father is like oxygen: too much is just not really a thing.
In the end, the dad realizes that his son became just like him. Surprise, surprise. The adult son says to him, hey, I’ve got kids and work, and don’t have time, but it was real nice talking to you, dad.
Though my dad and I had a very different relationship from the dad and the son in the song, what touches me is the innocence, the selflessness, with which the son defends his father against any fault for all the time he didn’t get with him.
I carried that torch when I was young. I was quick to forgive any of his potential faults and defended the dad I wanted without concern for who the human showed himself to be. I cherished the pebbles so much that they’ve turned nearly to dust.
Your comment about maybe one day we’ll have enough time shook me to my core because I want you to have all of the time in the world, and I want to be there with you for as much of that time as possible.
And, things feel really full right now. It’s not lost on me that I’ve chosen your toddlerhood to build a business, a venture which requires so much time, creative energy, and internal resource. And what’s it for? To free up our time in the future; to offer you a foundation for which I have no precedent; and to support your ability to go do big things later.
But that all kind of misses the point, doesn’t it?
You’ve built up an impressive array of bedtime stalling techniques: the fourth poop; watering the succulents in the bathroom (or just touching them, which I get. It’s a totally delicious texture on the eyes and on the skin!); walking along the edge of the tub; reading another book; yet another poop; another cuddle; five more minutes; six more minutes; twenty-six more minutes before I go downstairs and you go to sleep.
My favorite, however, is when you ask me to show you how much I love you. I spread my arms really wide with a great effort. This much!
To the ceiling? you ask. To the moon?
To the moon and back, I say, quoting an old friend who hung fishing nets barefoot on the shores of Lake Aleknagik, Alaska.
and then,
Do you love me to the stars and back?
Yes, Z. I love you all the way to the stars and back.
Now go to sleep, you mongrel!
Love,
your Papa Sean