There are two of me, maybe more. This much I know is true. There is the me that you know based on our interactions, our conversations, the things you've seen me do and the things you've heard about me. Add it all up and that is who I am in your eyes. That man is different to everyone who "knows" me. There is nothing I can write or say that will unite the me that I am with the me that you know me as. It is in this respect that I have learned that there is no one who can truly judge me as a person and certainly no one whom I can judge or claim to know. There are aspects of me, known only to me, and even aspects of me that I do not know as I am still just an observer, even of the things I do and say, but seen through the vision that is mine. I am biased, and as such will see my actions as right or wrong based on what I believe is right or wrong. Since my Willow died, everything has changed, or maybe nothing has changed but the way that I see things. I know nothing. I have no way of giving definitive answers as all I truly know is that I do not know, and I could be wrong about that too. Aspects of me. Who am I? I used to laugh at that question. "I need to find myself." I have only recently come to realize that there is such a possibility. How can I be the one who knows who I am the least? Aspects of me.
Here is a quality of mine that I have recently come to terms with. It is a quality that makes me who I am in your eyes. I have a strong desire to be appreciated. Maybe saying that it is a strong desire does not do it justice. I need it. I need you to admire me. I need people to say that I am the best milkman they have ever had. I need people to say that I am kind. I need people to say that I am selfless, and when they do my selfish goal has been attained. Hypocritical. If I have ever done anything for you, gone out of my way to say or do something that is a pleasure or a service to you, you need to know that I did it because I want you to appreciate me. I am insecure. I am weak. I live my life to find purpose, to be purposeful, to mean something to someone. Today my greatest success was when I was showing my son a card trick. He was amazed and laughing. He could not figure out how I knew his card, even when I never saw it. Even at the point of showing him his card, telling him it was his card, being right, I still did not know what his card was. He was amazed. He laughed. He had to know how I knew. I didn't know, I knew what the card before his was. In doing so I appeared to be amazing. In doing so I brought wonder to his young mind and made him admire his old dad. Then with a simple explanation of how the trick worked the amazement fell away and the wonder was gone and he saw how simple and foolish it all was. I laughed with his laughter. I was overjoyed that we were having such a great time and enjoying each others company. He was appreciating me. Then I lifted the curtain and revealed that there was no magic, just a small man pulling strings. One day the curtain will be lifted even more and he will see that the man he sees me as today is not the man that I am. I believe that this great disappointment is why children rebel. One day you realize that your parents do not know as much as you thought they did. One day you realize that they have been fooling you with a facade of tricks to make you believe they know right from wrong and good from evil. One day you realize that they do not know what lies in the cards for you, only what lay in the cards for them in their past. I can guide him as best I can through his teenage years but the guidance is based on what the cards held for me. He has been dealt a very different hand. In many ways I am so jealous of the life he has. There has been none of the tragedy and abuse that I suffered. He is not poor. He gets regular doctor and dental check ups. He has a nice bike. His dad has a job. Without revealing too much of my family secrets I will only say that he is blessed with something I never had. But he has had tragedy. He knows suffering. He lost his niece, who might as well have been his baby sister. He saw the terror in his household as he woke up to the screaming. He saw the paramedics take her out on a stretcher and into an ambulance, then into a helicopter. He saw her lifeless body in a hospital, hooked up to life support machines. He saw her body in a casket. He served as a pall bearer. He carried her to a hearse. He has seen his father break, fall to his face and weep. He has seen his strong man, his wise teacher, his rock...... he has seen me fall. That veil has been lifted and my ruse has been discovered. I am not strong. He knows that now. I don't have all the answers. He sees that too. He also knows that sometimes when it seems like I am amazing, like I have a way of doing something that seems so far beyond his comprehension, that I simply know what card has fallen before his and that there is no mystery. He knows I am weak and flawed, but he still loves me and thinks that I am the greatest man who ever lived and his best friend. Time will change that and I will become the one to rebel against until the day comes when he realizes his own fragility and begins to love me in spite of mine.
I need people to know that I appreciate them. I love people. There is someone who works at a coffee shop that I take care of who has inadvertently helped me to realize something about myself. She has recently graduated college and is struggling to find her place in this life. I have known her for over three years and have always felt very empathetic towards her. I came to know her at a time when my daughter's life was falling apart. Shelby was so young and pregnant. She had no idea what the future held for her and was scared. My heart was changed in an instant when I found out she was pregnant. I was not angry, I was none of the things that a parent would think they would be when they learn such a thing. My heart melted. I fell instantly in love with this little soul and knew in that moment that as long as I lived this little baby would never want for anything. I lost who I had been prior to that moment and instantly changed into her protector, her provider. My life's purpose changed to be the man who supported Shelby in every way to give her as many opportunities as I could to provide a life for this baby. I knew I would work my bones into the ground to provide Shelby a way to provide for Willow on her own. I was the sentinel standing at the gate keeping away anything that could possibly cause the slightest discomfort to this little baby's life. I became a protector. In this time in my life I began to see these kids at LSU as something so sweet and precious to me. These girls who were away from home and having to deal with the struggles of life without a sentinel, without someone to care for them and protect them. Of course some had strong families, some had a support system, but there were those that did not. One girl, and I don't know her story well enough to know if her family was there for her or not, but she tugged at my heart strings. She could have been Shelby. She was about the same height, brown hair and brown eyes. Just like my Shelby. One day I noticed she was sick. Not a serious illness or anything, just a bad cold or maybe the flu. A few days passed, then a week, and she was still sick. I finally asked her if she had seen a doctor and she replied "I don't have any money." I asked if she had been taking any medicine and her answer was the same. I couldn't not do something. I left that coffee shop and went to a drug store and bought enough cold and flu medicine for her and her two roommates who were also sick. I needed to take care or her. Of course, I was very nervous not to give any kind of wrong impression but my heart really went out to her. I started to wonder if I thought I was every girl's dad. The guys at the dairy would always ask about the "scenery" at LSU. All of those young girls. To them it meant something totally different than it meant to me. These were someone's daughters. These were young women who were dealing with having to pay bills and get an education, obviously trying to make a better life for themselves through the struggles that accompany getting your life established but with the added pressure that young men put on them. There is so much pressure on young women. TV and movies tell them that they are sex objects. The internet has taught our young men that women are to be used for their gratification. There is so much bad out there to influence this up and coming generation. The things I've heard people say sadden me. "Blow jobs are the new kissing." "If she doesn't sleep with you someone else will." Is it really so cheap? Are we really so debased that we only value these young women for what they look like? Or, is my view off based. Is it really as bad as I think? In this age where equal rights for women is a phrase you hear almost daily and something that is on the forefront of social change, are they really so much better off? Maybe the idea that women used to be respected more than they are today is one that is off base. I feel like there is nothing I can do but the little things that I can do for the few that I know. I want them to know that I appreciate them. I want them to see the true beauty that they have based on who they are, not what they look like. I told Shelby just the other day that there is a huge difference between a boy liking what he sees and liking WHO he sees. I fear that in my wanting these people to know how much I appreciate them, my wanting to know their story better that I will give the wrong impression. I don't want to be misunderstood.
There is one aspect of me that I now know beyond any reasonable doubt. I am a broken man. I tell myself that my sweet Willow doesn't ever have to deal with these pressures I've mentioned and more that I haven't. I tell myself that she had a perfect life. I tell myself that she got all of the best that this world has to offer and then got to leave before she ever learned of the bad. But still, I want her here in this God forsaken world so that I can hold her, protect her, make sure that everything is okay. I want to give her everything she needs and alleviate even the smallest discomfort. I want to make things better. I want my baby girl! So now I find myself wanting to make things better for the rest of them. For my daughter, for the coffee shop girl, for the girl who works at the gas station counter. For the girl down the street who doesn't know her dad. She needs a positive, safe male figure and I want to be him. For the little girls next door whose parents don't have time for them. I want to push them on the swing anytime they ask. I want to let them all know how beautiful they are and how amazing it is to have been someone that they trust and have merited to be worthy of their conversation and their smiles. Maybe I do feel like I want to be every girl's dad. Maybe that is sick and I need my head examined. Maybe there is a real shortage of men in this world who want to be dads, even to their own children. Maybe that shortage needs to be filled with men who will take up the slack and love the fatherless as their own. Maybe I am arrogant. Maybe I'm a frickin saint. All I know is that I don't really have a firm grasp on anything and that I am holding a deck of cards, slowly holding the attention of whomever I am engaging and waiting for the moment when they see something they can appreciate. I hope they see that, and I hope they know that their attention is everything to me and I feel unworthy of it. Oh God, there is something wrong with me.
