Famous Last Words Week 13

By Berger & Föhr; Ello, Inc. (https://ello.co/wtf/post/ello-logo) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

So as I have said in one of other posts, I have finally left Facebook. I love the idea of social networks but Facebook is just not what it used to be. It used to be a place were you could network with people about jobs and other things. Then it became a place to keep up with your friends. Now it is a mix of things they want to sell to you and things they want you to buy. It got to the point that I couldn't see my friends updates. I guess I was not the only person that felt that way because a group of people created a social network site call Ello. When I first heard about this site I thought "wow that would be great to join, so that I could actually see my friends and not see ads constantly. So I sent a request to join. Well I am happy to announce that I have finally joined Ello and so far it looks like it is a pretty cool site. Much like Google+ but without the confusion of who is and isn't your friend. I love Google+, I really do except nobody uses it. I am hoping this doesn't become the case with Ello because it is such a great site. They don't collect any information from you and they are a non profit so absolutely no ads. All it is, well it is exactly like Facebook used to be. Just you and your friends updates. I really do like it better. If any of you wanna join it to check it out send me your email address and I will send you an invite.

Other than joining Ello the big highlight of my week was completely and LSAT prep test for fun. I'm taking it in December at OU so I figured I should at least crack open the book once and try it out just to see what a test is like. Wow, that was a crazy test. My brain hurt after taking it. It was like having a conversation with a crazy person on a three day drug bender. Seriously some of the questions seemed so far out there that I am not sure what they were about or how I got them right. The fact that I was able to answer these questions makes me a little worried about myself. I have always known I was and odd duck, but after getting some of these questions right I afraid I might be a really odd duck. LOL. Well other than that this was a pretty easy going week for me. Hope all of you have a great week. Do yourself a favor and make someone smile this week. Trust me it will make you feel great.

Essay Week 13 Me, My Editor, and the Work

     When writing poetry I have always found it is best to not force the poem. By this I mean that I am unable to make myself be creative. For this class I chose to write poetry for my storybook, and this was a process that some weeks went rather quickly and other weeks extremely slow. For my first poem I thought about my topic for about two weeks. Throughout my day I would say phrases in my head and slowly but surely the poem was completed before I even sat down to type it out. This is a very natural way for me to write poetry. So the first poem in my storybook actually happened in a very organic way. My second poem, Sita’s Sonnet, didn’t come to me as easy. This was a poem that I struggled with more than any of the other poems. I knew what I wanted to say, but because I wrote it in the form of a sonnet, I was faced with many challenges that I did not face when writing the other poems. One of the challenges was trying to write a poem that told the story of Sita without breaking the meter. It is an extremely confining form that I chose to write this poem in, but I feel as if it was my most creative of the poems because I was forced to choose words that gave the most information. The third poem, and I feel the best of the group, was the easiest to write. There was no plan to writing this poem, I sat down at the computer and started typing and it just came out. My final poem and my least favorite of the group presented little challenge in writing. I feel that this is my least creative poem, though this poem may be the easiest to read by someone that is not familiar to the story.

     Just because these poems were typed up and turned in did not mean that the work on them was finished. The most horrible part of the writing process was just beginning, the revising process. I have always found this part of the process to be the most alcohol inducing of them all. When a writer completes a piece of work there is a great deal of pride that they feel. They feel this because writing is a journey. For most of my work this is not something that I just sat down and typed up. Instead it is something that has been floating around in my head for a good deal of time, and even though I know it can be improved, I still feel proud and extremely protective of the work. This is why there is always a bunch of anxiety when you send in your work to your editor. This is for a couple of reasons. First, you want them to like the work. No matter what someone says, they really do want to be recognized as being gifted and one of the ways that they receive this from other people is through compliments. Second, as a writer you have a vision and this is your vision alone, so to have someone else comment of what they think your vision is can be frustrating. Finally, as a writer I hate to change my work. Still, it is a necessary step in the writing process. So even though receiving notes from your editor can drive you to drink, cuss, and throw your computer out the window, I have found it is best to stop, take a deep breath, and realize a few things. First, the editor is a fan of your work. If they did not like your work their only note to you would be, “this is horrible, delete it and start over.” Though they don’t tell you they like the work, the fact that they are taking the time to read it and give you honest thoughts on the work is proof that they like the work. Second, the editor wants your vision to be seen by people as much as you do, so their notes are an objective way of being able to share your vision with everyone else. Their objectivity is what is most important because as a writer you lack objectivity because you are emotionally attached to the work. Finally, they themselves are often writers so they know how much work goes into the writing. They know that if you are not pushed to make these changes you will regret it later when you revisit the work, because you will have gained some objectivity and will see that you could have done better. The most important thing for me to remember as a writer is that this is not a journey I am on alone. This journey involves myself, my editor, and the work and without the editor and I working together the work will suffer. As a writer I have to be able to surrender my ego and realize that the editor and I are working together to make the work the best possible version of itself.

Story Telling Week 13

Twenty-Two Six Strings

Everyday Mike sat next to John on the park bench while he ate his lunch. They never spoke, in fact he only knew John’s name because John introduced himself the first time they sat down for lunch. John would hum and eat while Mike would talk on his cell phone with his daughter. Honestly he wasn’t even sure that was his real name. All he really knew about him was that he liked tuna fish sandwiches and drank Tab cola, which seemed odd to Mike because Tab cola hasn’t been sold in years, liked big hats and scarfs and that he did not like shoes. John was always barefoot. Mike on the other hand was a reserved, shirt and tie guy that always wore dress shoes. In a way Mike envied the freedom John must have felt being able to wear whatever he wanted and often wished he could do the same but instead he gave up his freedom years ago for what his boss at the copy store called “Job security.”

Each day after John was done eating he would politely nod goodbye to Mike and hand him a sticky note with a picture of a musical note on it. Mike would take the note and nod back to John and throw the sticky notes in his pockets and when he got home we would throw them up on the dresser and forget about them.
One day however, John gave came home and gave the note to his teenage daughter. She looked at the note and headed to her room. About five minutes after this happened Mike heard screaming.

“What’s wrong?”

 “Where did you get this?”

“A guy I know gave it to me. Why?”

“Oh my god! My dad knows John Mayer!”

“Who?
”
“John Mayer daddy. Look her on the other side of this note it is his autograph.” Mike looked at the note to see that signature of John Mayer. He went to his room and grabbed the other notes that he had tossed on his dresser. Each one had his signature on it; his daughter noticed that each musical note was different. “Dad, do you know what this is?”

“No. What?”

“It is a song. This is a song written by John Mayer.”

“Of course it is.” Mike did not want to seem to uncool to his daughter. Since she reached her teenage years he felt more out of touch with her than ever, so this was a moment he had longed for, a moment when his little girl looked up to him as someone cool again just like she did when she was three years old.

“Where did you meet him dad?”

“I have lunch with him every day in the park.”

 “Daddy you have to take me to lunch to meet him. I love his music. Please.”

Staring into his baby girls eyes he knew he had no choice but to tell her “Yes.”

The next day Mike and his daughter went to the park bench for lunch. When John walked towards the bench to sit down, Mike’s daughter jumped up and threw her arms around him, “Oh my god you are John Mayer. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

John was gracious to her and hugged her back. Mike looked at John as if to say, “I’m sorry.” After Mike’s Daughter calmed down, he pulled out the sticky notes from his pocket and showed them to John. “You gave me these, what are they.”

“Well they are your song. Well actually I guess they are her song. The first day I sat here with you I heard you on the phone with her and I was inspired to write a song about your daughter and you. I am working on my new album and well I was coming here each day for inspiration to finish this song. In fact today was going to be the last day because I am almost done writing the song. Actually after meeting your daughter I think I am done with the final note in the song. Those notes were the notes to the song and my gift to you.”

“Will you play me the song? Please?” The teenage girl was completely star struck by John, and even though he did not want to impose on John, he loved the feeling of being his daughter’s hero, even if it was just for a day.

“I will give you anything if you could play my daughter that song John.”

“Sure thing. I’d love to play that song for her. You say you would give me anything, well that sounds like a pretty good deal.” John pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Mike. “I need you to go downtown to the music store and in the back is a 1959 Les Paul Whitford 'Burst guitar. Hand that piece of paper to the store owner and he will give you the guitar. Bring the guitar to me and I will play you guys the song. Me and you daughter will wait her and have lunch together.”

Mike nodded at John, hugged his daughter, and headed to the music store downtown. He grabbed the guitar and handed the note to the owner and left the store and began to make his way back to the park. As soon as he was a block away from the store he heard singing coming from the guitar. Mike dropped the guitar and then heard it say, “Ouch! Why did you do that man?”

“What?”

“Why did you drop me bro, I was grooving, why you killin my groove man. Where are you taking me?”

“What is going on? How are you talking, am I on some weird television show, where are the cameras?”

“Nah man, it’s all cool here man, no one is messing with you. Where are you taking me?”

“To John Mayer.”

“That dude ha. He has been trying to get his fingers on my strings to hit a lick for a while now. Ok, well if you want to take me to him that is cool with me, that boy’s got talent, but first you have to answer me a question. I you are clever enough to answer it then you have to return me to the store. If you know the answer and try to be slick and not say anything then your head will explode.”

“What!”

“Ha, got ya. Nah there bro just relax I was kidding your head won’t explode. You will just go to hell. See I am the devil in disguise, and don’t go thinking you can’t play this game because you gave the owner the note and that is a binding contract. So if you don’t play then I get your soul.”


And so began the story of the twenty-two six strings.


Author's Notes
The is a retelling of the introduction to the "22 Goblins" tale listed in the assignments. It is a little long but I have cut it down in half already and could not cut it down anymore. The basic of the introduction is a king is given fruit by a wise man each day. The kings throws them away until one day gives one of the fruit to a monkey and then sees the monkey playing with a jewels and realizes all the fruit has jewels. He is so happy he gives the jewels a way to his assistant ( I guess that is the best term ) and promises a boon to the wise man. The wise man sends him to a tree to fetch a hanging dead body. The dead body contains a goblin and the goblin makes him answer questions before he can take him back to the wise man. If the wise man knows the answer then he has to say it or else his head will explode. If the king is correct then he has to return the goblin to the tree.

Picture attribution
By Delhovlyn (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Reading Diary Part B Week 13 22 Goblins

Twenty two Goblins

Introduction

King Victory????

King throws away jewels

Finds them and gives them away

King is sent on a journey

Discovers goblin



The three Lovers

Goblins tells the king a story at the end the king must answer the question

If he lies his head will explode

King must decide who the wife belongs to

The man that slept with her ashes is the husband



Brave Wise Clever

King must decide who a girl should marry

He decides the brave man should be married to her because he risked his life



The Girl her husband and her brother

Boy falls for a woman while at the village bathe

They marry and the husband and brother are killed

Their heads are placed on eachothers body

King guesses who should be the Husband



Food Women Cotton

Three brothers quarrel about a turtle

They stay with a king and their cleverness is tested

King victory decides the brother that was the specialist in cotton was the most clever



The Four Scientific Suitors

Lotus city=pleasure city= golden city- Ujjain

King named heroic

Son named brave, daughter named grace

King is looking for a husband for grace

She tells him to marry her off to a man that understands science

First science is the working man

Second science is the farmer

Third science is the strong armed soldier

Fourth science is the ability to restore life

King victory decides that the soldier is who she married



The three delicate wives

King Virtue banner

He had three wives

Crecent, star, moon

King injures Crecent with a lotus flower

Star is burned by the moons light

Moon is bruised by the sound of Pestles

Goblin ask king victory which is most delicate



King victory says that moon was most delicate because nothing touched her, she was injured by just sound.

Story Telling Week 12

The "Fire!" Alarm

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yama_Vac_Pot.JPG

Jon lived on the top floor of the a five story building. This is not uncommon for most people in the city to live on the top floor but Jon was scared of heights. At night Jon would sit awake scared that a fire would break out and he would be trapped on the top floor and die. Each night Jon would make himself a pot of coffee so that he was able to stay awake and think about how he was gonna die on the top floor of his building in a fire. Each night Jon would fall asleep eventually and dream about how he was going to die in a top story fire. This fear followed him around each day as he would walk through the city and look at all the tall buildings. He would think to himself that he "better not enter that building because he would die in a fire for sure in that building."

One night Jon fell asleep on his couch. It had been a long day of worrying and he was ready to fall asleep and worry some more. In the middle of the night he woke up and smelled something burning. "Oh my lord, it's a Fire!" he said as he ran out his apartment door and down the stairs to the fourth floor.

"FIRE!" he screamed as he ran past the fourth floor where people woke up and heard them.

"Fire!" they all yelled and began to run down the stairs.

"FIRE!" he yelled as he passed the third floor.

"Fire!" all the people on the third floor yelled as they followed him.

"FIRE!" Jon yelled as he passed the second floor.

"Fire!" everyone from the second floor yelled as they woke up and ran down the stairs to the first floor.

"FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" everyone yelled on the first floor, waking the building manager.

The building manager saw everyone running and yelled "STOP!" and everyone stopped. The building manager was extremely cranky because he was having the best dream about everyone in the building paying their rent on time, so he was short with everyone. "How do you know there is a fire? The fire alarms and sprinklers are not going off. Not to mention I don't smell any smoke."

The people from the second floor said, "We didn't see the fire or smell smoke but we saw the people third floor running and yelling fire."

The people from the third floor said, "Well we were only running because we heard the people from the fourth floor yelling fire and saw them running."

The people from the fourth floor said, "Well that is true but it is only because we saw Jon running and yelling fire."

Jon said, "That's because there is a fire in my apartment now we must go so I don't die."

The building manager looked at Jon and asked, "Did you see the fire Jon?"

"Well no, but I smelled it."

"You smelled smoke?"

"No. I smelled something burning, I didn't stop to look I just got out of there because I knew if I didn't I would die."

"Well there is no fire Jon so let's go to your apartment and see what you are talking about."

When everyone arrived at Jon's apartment they saw that there was no fire, though they all agreed they could smell something burning. All day Jon had remembered to worry about dying in the tall building. He remembered to sit awake at night and think about burning to death on the top floor of his building in a fire. He remembered to make a pot of coffee so he could stay awake longer and worry about dying in a fire. He even remembered to dream about dying in a fire on the fifth floor of his building. Jon remembered to do all this, but forgot to turn off his coffee pot. Jon had not smelled a fire at all, but rather Jon had drank almost all the coffee in his coffee pot and had smelled the last little bit evaporating from it. Jon felt foolish.

Author's Notes

This is a retelling from the "Foolish, Timid Rabbit" in the Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babitt. I updated the story to use people instead of animals. The lesson of the story is not to panic so I used the scenario of a Fire to express that because we have always been told "Don't yell fire if there is not fire" because people will panic and run and people can get hurt. So I thought this would fit right in perfect with the story of the rabbit.

Reading Diary Part B Week 12 Jataka Tales

The monkey and the Crocodile
This sounds like the frog and scorpion story
The croc is trying to kill the monkey for his mother
The monkey is smart to tell the  croc he left his heart on the shore
This seems to be a story about out witting your enemy and then having your enemy find respect for you

How the Turtle Saved His Own Life
The boys think the turtle is a demon
The king orders the turtle to be killed
The turtle tricks the men into thinking that throwing him back into the lake is a horrible thing for the turtle

The Turtle who couldn’t stop talking
The Geese ask the turtle to come home with them
They tell the turtle he can not talk on the flight home
But the turtle does talk and falls to his death

The Ox Who Won The Forfeit
The man treats his ox bad and the ox refuses to pull the carts and loses money
The Ox and the man talk and the man realizes he was at fault and swears to never treat the ox bad again and the Ox goes back and does the work and the man wins his money back

The Quarrel of the Quails
The leader of the Quails comes up with a plan to keep the quails from being captured
The quails refuse to work together because of a misunderstanding so they are captured

The foolish, Timid Rabbit
The rabbit allows his imagination to scare him so when he hears a noise he panics
This panic causes all the other animals to panic
The lion steps in and calms everyone by getting to the bottom of things

The Banyan Deer
The deer are being killed
So the two deer kings agree to sacrafice one deer from each of their herd each day by taking turns
A mother deer is to be killed and the Banyan Deer takes her place
His life and all the deer’s lives are spared

The Princes and the Water-Sprite
The king had three sons
The star, moon, and sun princes
The king promised the Sun Prince’s mother a Boon and on his 21st birthday she asked him to make her son king
A water sprite traps the two younger brothers
The oldest brother passes the water sprite’s test and saves both brothers

The King’s White Elephant
An elephant has a splinter in its foot
To pay the carpenters back for taking out the splinter the elephant does work for them
The elephant has a son and teaches him to work hard
A king sees this and buys the elephant and the young elephant has a good life

The Ox Who Envied the Pig
To oxen on a farm
One becomes jealous because a pig is fed better
The older ox tells him not to be jealous
The pig is killed for a feast and the young ox understands not to be jealous

The Crab and the Crane
A crane tricks a bunch of fish in a dry pond into being eaten
The crane sees a crab and tries to do the same thing
When the crane gets the crab to the place that the fish were eaten the crab cuts off his neck

The Girl Monkey and the String of Pearls
A girl monkey sees a queen put her pearls in a box
The girl monkey steals the pearls and hides them
The guard comes up with a plan to trick the girl monkey
He throws a bunch of glass beads and all the monkeys come down and take them except the girl monkey
To make the other monkeys jealous the girl monkey puts on the pearls and is caught

The Three Fish
Three fish live in a river names Thoughtful, very thoughtful, and thoughtless
Thoughtful and thoughtless are captured in a fishermen’s net
Very thoughtful tricks the fisherman into thinking there is a hole in his net so he releases the two other fish by mistake

The Tricky Wolf and the Rats
The wolf wants to eat the Rats
The wolf tricks the rats into thinking he is injured and each day he eats a rat
The chief of the rats begins to suspect the wolf is eating them each day and sets a trap
The chief of the rats kills the wolf

Famous Last Words Week 11

  All My life I was always told that I was a spitting image of my father.  As a child I always felt like this was some kind of insult. It was however completely true. I was a bull headed kid.  I was prone to doing things my way.  Doing things my way usually led to trouble.  A spitting image of my father at that age. When parents got divorced I was sent to live with my father. I dreaded the thought of being locked up in a house under his thumb. My father was extremely strict. I hated living with my father. We were so poor, we never went anywhere except to eat once a month. I never had anything new, all my clothes were second hand. As a kid I just hated living with my father.It wasn’t until my son was born that I could appreciate just how high of a compliment it was to be compared to my dad.

     My son being born is easily the happiest moment of my life.   The moment I saw my son I instantly believed in love at first sight.  It was like every cell in my body was yearning just to hold him in my arms.  After forty long weeks I was finally able to kiss his little lips and tell him “I love you,” over and over again.  This was truly a life changing event.  One minute I was one person and in the next minute I was a completely different person.  I even had a new name.  At the same time I was filled with fear about not being ready to be a father. This fear continued to build until the second happiest moment of my life which just so happens to have taken place minutes after the happiest moment of my life.  This second moment changed me because I realized I was an adult.  This gave my perspective on how selfish and immature I was a child.

    After kissing and telling my newborn son “I love you” for what must have been twenty minutes, I noticed the room was quiet and I felt the stares of everyone in the room on me.  These were not the stares of “Awe look at him what a cute daddy.”  Instead these were the angry stares of the doctor, the nurses, and the mother of my child.  As a man that had just spent the last nine months receiving angry stares for things like the way I was eating, the way I was breathing, the way I walked, and although she never would admit just the simple fact that I was the reason she was pregnant, I was not quite sure what I had done to draw the ire of every lady in the hospital room.  Still as any man will tell you, I know I did something to get in trouble.

Then the doctor spoke up, “Um daddy did a great job getting through the labor and childbirth but do you think mommy could hold him?”  I tell you this shamefully that I held him for another minute or so before handing him to mommy. I wiped the tears from my eyes and composed myself and by all accounts I was pretty sure I was not needed here anymore so I left the room to tell everyone the good news.

     As I exited the room the first person I saw was my father.  He was waiting in the hall that was supposed to be restricted to anyone other than hospital workers and people that were in labor.  I imagine that someone told him that he could not be there but knowing my father he did not listen to them.  He was leaning against the wall directly across from the birthing room.  I realized he had been standing there listening to everything.  Every moment of my son’s delivery from the first push to the last he was listening.  When he heard the door open and close he looked up at me.  I did not then, nor do I now possess the vocabulary to justly describe the way he was looking at me, all I can say is that this was a look I had never seen from him before.  For my part I felt like I was seeing my father for the first time.  We instinctively walked towards each other and my daddy wrapped his arms around me and for the first time, I knew.  I knew what an idiot I had been my entire life.

My father grew up the only son of Sam and Rose Costa.  Sam thought it was his duty in life to teach my dad to be a man.  Part of being a man was not sucking your thumb.  Sam had an interesting approach to solving this problem.  He would duct tape my dad’s hands together as a so that he would not suck his thumb in his sleep.  When Sam would come home and see that my father had removed the tape in his sleep and was sucking his thumb, his father would beat him like my father was a full grown man.  These were not just slaps, but rather they were the closed fist hands of a golden gloves boxer.  I don’t mean that as a metaphor, I mean that his father was a golden gloves contender.  To look at my father’s nose it is easy to see the numerous times that my father’s nose was broken.  Even now as I think about it I cringe at what it must have been like for a five year old boy to be woken up to a full grown man punching him in the face.  Thumbsucking was not the only reason Sam used to beat my father.  If Sam was drunk my dad got beat.  If my aunts did something wrong my dad got beat.  If Sam and Rose got into an argument my dad got beat.  Sam did not believe in beating women, just my father.

     I found out later when I was going through the end of my relationship with my son’s mother, that when my parents split up it was hard on my dad, much in the same way as my break up was hard on me, but he never let it show. When I was sent to live with him, I was being sent to live with the only person that was able to stay on top of me.  My father took me in and gave me structure to ensure that I would get on the right path.  He witnessed his friends and family get involved in drugs and other various criminal activities and was determined to make sure I avoided that life.  When all the other kids were out drinking and bouncing around town causing whatever trouble they could, I was at home.  I guess it worked because I have never done drugs, I don’t have a drinking problem, and I’m not in jail. My dad was strict on me because he loved me and wanted me to have a better life than him.

Not only was my dad strict but the guy was also a ninja spy.  I could not do anything at school that he did not know about.  If I got sent to the office, he knew.  If I got a bad grade, he knew.  If I skipped school, yep you guessed it he knew.  I only saw my dad about forty five minutes a day, and for the most part my dad never had any free time, but he always had time to know what was going on with me at school.  He was involved enough to recognize that I had fallen through the cracks, and that in a small town school like the one I went to, the teachers were not too interested in making sure I got off to a good start to my scholastic future.  He sent me to Upward Bound because it placed me on a college campus and gave me the extra schooling I needed so that I could have a chance at being successful at life.  My dad did this because he knew what it was like to have a parent that did not care about their kids future.  His dad died after my dad turned ten.  For her part his mother was truly neglectful.  Yes she worked, but she made no attempt to involve herself in my dad’s life.  If he got bad grades or skipped school, it didn’t matter because she didn’t care.  There was nobody in my father’s life to instill the importance of an education to him.  It wasn’t until he was in his late thirties that my dad went back to school, and he was determined to make sure I didn’t wait that long to do the same.  Along with extra schooling Upward Bound gave me other tools that helped me build my confidence.  It was an environment that allowed a person like me to be surrounded by other like people so that I could make friends.

Yeah we didn’t have nice things.  Everything I owned was hand me downs.  It seemed so important then, but in the long run it didn’t matter.  All that matters is that my father did the best he could.  The man went to college full time.  When he wasn’t studying he was trying to sleep so he could go to work.  At work, my father, a grown man, spent his evening wiping other adult’s asses.  Literally that is what he did for a living.  My dad worked as a nurse’s aid while he was in college.  If the opportunity for him to work a double shift came up he worked it.  There were times he would go seventy two hours without sleep.  He never once complained.  He worked the extra shifts so that he could afford to take me out to dinner once a month.  He took me out on those dinners because he knew I did not have any friends and he was my friend.  He missed me and liked spending time with his son.  All he knew of his father was physical violence.  All I know of my father is emotional support.  He was always found time for me, no matter how busy he was, my father always had a way of knowing when I needed him.  Having nice things doesn’t matter now because I always had food in my belly, clothes on my back and a roof over my head.  My dad was one thing in my life that was never a hand me down.

I hugged my father looking at my childhood in a new light, and something that had never happened before happened.  I heard my father begin to cry.  I had never heard or seen my dad exhibit much emotion let alone cry.  I didn’t realize it but I was crying too.  We must have looked silly standing there hugging each other while crying.  To be honest I don’t care how it looked because to me it was one of the most beautiful and tender moments I have ever felt.  I felt so safe, so happy, and I felt so loved.  This made me cry even harder.  I never felt loved growing up as a child.  I can’t explain why I just never really thought anyone loved me.  When my son was born I had never felt so much love for another human being.  This though was different.  This was the first time I have ever felt so completely and unconditionally loved by another person.  I know that no matter what I do or say my father will always love me and be proud of me.  I know this because I felt the same way the moment I saw my son, and I could finally understand what my father had always felt when he looked at me.    I wanted to be just like him.  Being told I was the spitting image of my father was something I finally took pride in being told.  Knowing how much he loved me made me happy. I did not think I could be any happier when my son was born but I had room in my heart.  I was so full of joy that my chest hurt, I could not control my tears and neither could my father.  We told each other that we loved one another.  I told my father that I hoped I would be as good of a father as him and then he told me something I will never forget.  He said,

“You’re gonna be better.”