FMK - Waiting

Right now it is January 8th. The two of you are not due to be born until sometime in June. That sucks, a lot. I have wanted to be a father for the longest. I need to do it. My own father, whom I love very much, died when I was 13. At the time, my father was a superman who could do no wrong. As I got older, I realized that he had done wrong. He was not perfect. He had issues that eventually caught up with him. Since that time I have wanted to be the father to my kids that I never had. I did not spend much time with my dad. That breaks my heart. He was not there for so many important things in my life. It is something that will bother me for forever. I cannot begin to express how much it angers me that you will never know him. And I cannot express just how much it means to me to not make those same mistakes. I have played out in my head thousands of times what your lives will be like. What I picture is probably not even close to what they will be. But, that does not matter. What matters is that I will be there for you. I may not always be the dad that you want, but I will be the dad that you need. We will disagree. We will fight. I will punish you and you will go to your room and tell your friends that your dad is an asshole. That he is unfair. That he sucks and does not understand. I know this because all kids say that. However, I do understand. I do know what it will be like. I already did "it". And you know what, as odd as it may sound, I cannot wait. There are so many things that I look forward to. Everything is what I look forward to. I am going to screw up at times. Like everybody else I am not perfect. Pretty damn close but not quite there. What matters, I think, at the end of the day is that I want to be a good father. When I am gone I want you to look back at the times we had and say, "my dad was a good dad." That is what matters to me. I want to deserve you. We live in a pretty fucked up world. Bad shit happens every day. There is downright evil at work. It is my job to protect you from that. It is also my job to show you the good. Because for as many awful things that exist, there are more fantastic things. There are things in this world so astonishingly beautiful that it almost makes me well up when I think about them. (And I say almost well up because now that I am going to be a father, I have to be tough.) Things like the smell of a baseball glove. Things like early morning when everyone else is asleep and for just a moment, you are king or queen of your own little world. Things like how your hands feel after you have just eaten a bag of really buttery popcorn at the movies. Things like watching the first sunrise of the new year on a beach in Melbourne, FL (more on that later). All these things are mine to show you. Waiting for it sucks big. Like super big. The brass tacks of the situation are these, I promise to try my best to be my best. Until that time in June, I will continue to write to you. Every night if I can. I will continue to write to you after you are born. This is where I start.