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Just some delights of having a little four year old son.
He should be a grandpa. But He just keeps raising babies.
First let us start off easy.
This writer is four people's child. Born and then adopted as a two month old infant. So the writer gets parents. If you were to ask the writer would tell you that he had the finest four parents of any child ever born of man and woman. (not authoritative on JC's lineage) You might claim yours are better. I think we could argue about that as mine were human and had some character defects to say the least. But they produced the writer who is a one man wrecking machine of love and compassion and empathy and perhaps the world's greatest dad ever --- that is if you reject fatalism and accept nurture verses nature because the writer has the four finest children ever known and about four others he had positive impact and fathering with, or at least they claim it and hug like tomorrow will not be here soon enough.
A strange theme song for a hub about delights of a child. But stop and think about it please.
So pappy pulls up at the pre-school.
And the four year old and his posse come running over to the gate, screaming "story, story story story" and the pappy opens the gate and is mobbed by snotty nosed little renegades with no manner of respect. And pappy has 2-5 year monsters wiping all nature of yuk all over him. But the story unfolds and a couple are held a little tighter as their mothers or fathers are sailors and solders and marines and seals and special forces or just on a boat looking for a missing jet liner in the Indian ocean or bringing hospital ships to Tsunami victims or headed to Crimea.
The pappy works from home a lot and the live in 20 something nephew asks him why the hell he gets all dressed up to pick up the son. And the answer is simple. To make the son proud of the pappy.
Pride is a sin. We must be weary of such sin. But pappy just is proud of his children. So send him to hell, if he spent an eternity there, that would mean he could think of his children for an eternity. And I reckon that would suit him just fine and dandy.
Let us take liberty with my son's favorite song. He thinks the blind black man is somehow like a super hero. Maybe it is because his pappy told him so.
Now is a delight that you seldom find in our great fight.
My San. Is the name of a special child. His pappy had horrible cancer and was treated with more horrible drugs. His pappy was not only hairless and lost over one hundred pounds but he got arthritis, drop foot and tremors he also got sterility. Later he was married to a gal too old to have a healthy baby. Well just guess what in the hell happened. My San was born to them. And the miracle was that he looked just way too much like pappy to be the postman's child.
His name was given to him by a Great Grand ma when she was 103 years old. God I loved that woman. We would hold hands and watch little My San crawl around on the floor in a country home without even a vent over the wood burning cooking stove on dirt floor.
My,,,, means America in Vietnamese. San is treated the same as the world over and it means saint. So a Vietnamese 103 year old lady who lived through war after war in a country that mine tried to destroy, named my child American Saint.
Now how can pappy ever look at that child without a smile?
Well as the cookie monster was growing.....
Well long about this time, Pappy was a preacher man.
Pappy is not a preacher man like one who gets paid. He would just down right shiver if someone called him "father" and he does not believe in dogma or doctrine. So pappy man just teaches and preaches something he does not understand and just admits it is a mystery,,,, it is called love.
So here is a delight. Pappy or grand ma or momma ask the boy just who is this Jesus Christ? And the little rug rat cartoon watching punk just takes his hand and pounds it over his heart. Begotten of nothing taught or example.
The delight is in the love and that a small child can give that love and believe to clearly that love comes from his heart.
(did I tell you the dawg will not put his Legos away and that pappy has nearly broken his ankle on building blocks circling the bed!!! And in truth that is a delight also)
True this! Sitting right there are six degrees from major universities and one advanced degree.
Know this delight.
It is not cool for all people to have children. When you are sixty and look back and ain't got nothin but chirrens you could just kick yourself in the ass and say where is my mansion and where is my retirement and where is all my stuff.
Gaul dagnabbit it went in their mouths. It went into sports practice and coaching and staying up too late with their fever and being too damned tired the next day to function and still worried. It went into medical bills and birthday parties and graduations.
And my friends when you turn around and count up the goods you can take to heaven or hell. There is only one. The good you do here on earth.
Now most of you should not be parents. You should just love those who are children and those who are parents.
I sat around a big table with 5 siblings after my mom's passing. And between the others all together I had given her the most grandchildren. But they were reclaiming the other gifts they had given her. And one of my children called me at that time and said "walk away dad you have no business in things".
So there is delight in bringing up those who are smarter than us.
May I please leave you with a song, and think of My San and that strange twist the delight gives us.
Words by Katharine Lee Bates,
Melody by Samuel Ward
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!
O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stem impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!
O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!
