The Budget of Paradox

Sophia,
The last thing you remember about me is that I walked out of your life. Morey, too. She was just six-and-a-half when I left for Iraq. It was meant to be a short deployment. I should have been back before she turned seven.

I imagine that if someone were to ask you about your father, all you’d really be able to say is that he walked out on you. That’s fair. I mean, that’s what happened.

But that’s not the full story, not by a long shot. When you were old enough to travel by yourself (in my opinion), I started actively inviting you to come visit me. Check out the YouTube video I made about Christmas 2021. Read more; I invited you to Mexico City many times. To force you to wait until you’re 18 seems stupid to me. What’s the point?

Dad

Sophia Zander Grace:
I love you, kid. I miss you a lot. I really wish things were different. I’m doing the best I can, which, I know, doesn’t seem like much. I would love to hear from you.
Dad

Sophia:
I started this blog as a way to re-connect to you. I want to remind you of the bits of our lives that overlap. We don’t have much in common, but I want to keep alive those things we do.

But today’s post isn’t about any of that. It’s all about me.

It’s June 30 today. On this day 29 years ago, I lost my first wife. You don’t know much about me, but I suspect that you know I was married twice. I love you, and I love Morey (Percy, whatever). And there was a time I loved your mother. But before I knew any of you, I was in love with another woman. She was only 22 when we got married. We were only married for 153 days and then she died in a car accident. She was one of the very first people I ever met in Hawaii, back in 1990. She was loving and thoughtful and curious and kind to animals and she appreciated my dumb sense of humor.

Robin at South Point, on the Big Island of Hawaii

Two weeks before she died, she graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) with a degree in marine zoology. She loved to scuba dive and gave me my first lessons. The UCSB campus is big and beautiful and located directly on a beach, where we got married.

My friend Dennis was my Best Man. The tradition of having a Best Man goes back to ancient times. Back then, an official jester was hired to appear at weddings. His job was to tell off-color jokes to attract the attention of the Devil away from the bride. True to the title, Dennis brought some dirty jokes, written on index cards. I have them to this day.

I graduated from a university in Arizona. I spent many, many hours driving between Arizona and Santa Barbara. I had a beat-up old jeep with no air conditioning. Driving through the Coachella Valley, on Interstate 10, in summertime is rough with no A/C. Sometimes I collected loose change to buy the gas to make the drive. It was madness. It was love. I’d drive ten hours in the desert heat just to have lunch with her.

When you’re in love, you’re really alive. Love is when someone leads you back to yourself.

Thirty-six years ago today, I graduated from high school. Sometimes, I wonder where all those years have gone. Have you ever read Peter Pan? I mean the original, not the children’s book.

“Pan, who and what are you?”
“I’m youth, I’m joy,” Peter answered at a venture, “I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.”

I like that line: “I’m youth; I’m joy.”

From left to right: my friend Mark (who's now a director at a cybersecurity company); my old friend Geoff (who's a psychiatrist now, but was an amateur terrorist in high school), me, my friend Mike (who's a CIO for a company in New York), and my friend John (I haven't seen him in a long time; I heard he's a nurse now).

Sometimes, I have vague memories of the young man I once was: My eyes full of hope, my world nothing but endless possibilities.

Sadly, you won’t have any idea what I’m talking about until many years from now.

Love you, dad

Sophia, It’s Father’s Day. It’s not like I’m expecting some great reward. All I really want is for you to know that you have father who loves you and thinks of you. I never wanted to be separated from you like this. This wasn’t my decision.

Memories of another time, Father’s Day 2005, at a restaurant called Joe’s On The Green on Kauai with Morey and your mom. Angry little Percy was nowhere to be seen.

Morey, Father's Day 2005

Morey, Father's Day 2005