Father to Son
Tony E Hansen
April 2012
During high school, I was introduced to a poem by Langston
Hughes entitled “Mother to Son” where the mother explains to her son about some
of life’s unpleasant realities through a metaphorical approach of stairs. The
lessons being taught in this poem are similar to what I am poised to illustrate
to my own son because “…life ain’t been no crystal stair.” As my son turns sixteen, I suddenly found
myself with a discussion about what it means to be a, or to have a, gay parent with
all of the goofy “taboos” surrounding this.
Thus, I pen this open letter to him.
Son, life can be tough and sometimes not so great. We are given many things in life for which we
have no choice (e.g. our parents, our siblings, our athletic ability, our
intelligence, our ethnicity, or our sexuality.)
Some would decry these as reminders of the inequalities of life through
miserable feelings about how we have been treated unfairly or destructively.
Yet, I say we can find these as examples of our diverse natures and how we can
embrace those differences while learning to enjoy them with a little laugh. Thankfully, we have differences because life
would be considerably boring if we were all vanilla.
If we look at everything given to us as a tragedy, then our
whole outlook is founded in negativity, and then, how people perceive us, in
turn, will ultimately be negative.
Interestingly, similar-minded people tend to congregate together and
reinforce those ugly dimensions of life upon each other rather than looking at circumstances
as learning opportunities or even realizing the shear comedy of our lives.
The thing is that this idea took a long time for me to
understand because I felt that I was missing good role models in my life. Yet,
I cannot sit and stew about what did or what did not happen.
When I found people with good nature in their hearts and
learned different philosophies of life, I found an appreciation for the present
moment. In that, we do not know the
eventual outcome of many paths in our lives, but things do happen for a reason,
whatever that might be. We cannot worry ourselves about the past since there is
literally nothing we can do about that except to acknowledge our part and learn. There are many things in life that we wish we
could undo or decisions we may have done differently for potentially better
outcomes. We cannot agonize over what may happen in the future or what people
may think since that is only a possibility. We can wait for things to happen,
we can wait for that perfect opportunity, we can wait until there is more time
to do something, or we can fret over the possibility of something going wrong.
Yet, at those points, we are not living today because our focus is not here and
now.
Instead, get busy living! You can focus your effort on the
present moment, and you can do good in the present moment. This does not mean, however, to forgo planning
or to always be reckless about the present moment. Good things will reveal themselves to us if we
are willing to plan, to do good, to look at the whole picture, and to do that
with a smile. You could worry about someone’s opinion, wait for someone to act
or even agree with someone. Ultimately, you have to decide what you are willing
to do and if that action is appropriate.
No one else can do more for your own happiness, your own future, your own
work, and your own family than yourself. That is neither selfish, nor egoistic, nor
inconsiderate because with compassionate heart and action, you are promoting
positive influences upon people all around you and beyond. The rest will take care of itself.
You have to decide what you are going to do to make your
world a better place despite the “…splinters and boards torn up” along the way.
Keep moving forward and climbing, even when life gets tough. Be proud and look up. Believe in the moment
because you are destined to be in that moment, and only you can make the most
of what you have here and now. Learn, grow, have compassion, work diligently,
and trust in yourself. Consider what Steve Jobs said: “be a yardstick of
quality” and “if today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I
am about to do today?” If you can affirm the first and if you can answer
positively to the latter, then no matter what anyone else says, you can say today
that you are your best (and the rest will fall where they may.)
I am proud that you are my son! Congratulations on your
birthday and may you continue to enjoy life with a good heart and good
mind. With loving kindness, Dad
