You are beautiful...

I sat at my office desk today during my lunch break writing a short note to a dear friend that is currently going through a bit of a rough time.  In the midst of reading her previous message I could easily sense much of her emotional state mostly because we have both been served some exquisite wine out of the same bottle which we have reluctantly sipped during our lives.  Just as love has no boundaries and is able to transcend space and time, sadness also has a way of reaching far and beyond the constraints of our complicated lives into some of the people that bring us meaning.

If you have had an opportunity to read through this blog I am sure you can easily notice that nothing has impacted me more emotionally in the last two years than my relationship with my children.  The common thread that weaves through most of my posts is essentially made of my desire to be able to understand and contribute to the well being of my kids regardless of any of our household circumstances.  I have learned to search for what might seem as the most insignificant details in our interactions in order to make sense of our challenges and find whatever common ground we can in order to overcome our difficulties together.  When faced with some of the behavior of my children I have had to learn to take it all in strides and patiently find a way to stack the odds in our favor so that we can not just survive, but also prevail.

As I sat here writing to my friend I did what I always do when I sense that maybe I was sharing too much...I found hope in some of the images that surround my cubicle office space.  Pictures of my children in all stages of their lives surround me together with many others of family and friends.  Almost without exception each of the moments in time that are captured say something amazing about the individuals that are contained within the minuscule dots of millions of colors of ink and sometimes even billions of silver halides that create their photographs.  The delight of both my children posing inside of a giant Easter Egg without a care in the world of how hard their lives would eventually become as they grew older forces me to dig deep into my brain and find the exact moment in time that we all went to have that picture taken.  A four year old Superman, an effortless gigantic laugh from my son while posing next to a live orangutan at the zoo, and my proud younger brother wearing a tuxedo minutes away from celebrating one of the greatest accomplishments of his life when becoming a doctor, all reveal themselves to me with the same intense grip on my heart as the one caused by the black and white image of my father when he was a child.  I can honestly say that all of these people that at one moment or another have touched my life and now reside on my walls have a heck of a lot in common.  For one, they are all beautiful to me regardless of how much they might of changed during the years that have gone by.  They are beautiful to me because at that very moment that they either stood next to me posing for these images or in front of me waiting for the light to bounce off their essence and record itself in a camera, at that exact moment they allowed their memory to be a part of my life.

I've said it before and I will say it again, I am a very lucky man indeed.  Without all of these people that have touched me in one way or another, there would be no way I would be able to appreciate the extent of my blessings.  Love has surrounded me from the instant my parents knew I was on my way into their lives.  Even in my darkest moments, when my knees have hit the ground to beg my Maker to spare me from some of the incredibly painful events of my life, still I have felt that I am loved.  It is this message that I wish I could teach to my children most of all.  They need to know that love has and will always surround them so that they can live their lives without ever doubting how important and amazing it is to love and to be loved.  They need to know that they are beautiful because of what is inside of them.  After all, it is what makes them different that impresses me the most and not the other way around.

Dad