Suddenly Bright and Breezy

I’m grateful for an incredibly eventful week. I’m grateful for a dark, gray morning and really good coffee. I’m grateful for a chance to meet a certain grandson later today. I’m grateful for the beauty that unfolds in front of me. I’m grateful I found the way back. I’m grateful to be sober today.

song of the week:

This is so far out of character. Of course, there’s a story. This story began (for me) on Father’s Day in June. My daughter, K., and her husband, S., were here in New York City and we were meeting for brunch. I arrived at the swanky location K had selected and when I was seated, she pushed a card across the table and said, “Happy Father’s Day, Dad.”

Now right there, I’m going to pause and explain why I regard the simple utterance of those words as a plenty sufficient miracle. You see, in all of those years of drinking, I managed to destroy the family she grew up with and loved, I managed to lie to her in incredibly shameful ways. She hung in there, even when she was really angry, she kept trying to help. At one point, she even arranged for me to try a new IOP, went with me to the intake, drove me to the sessions. Of course, I would skip out on those sessions and go drink for the next two hours until she came and picked me up and then I would tell her how great the session had been and how many meaningful insights I had gleaned. This was definitely helping me get sober.

I got kicked out of the IOP after two weeks.

That didn’t go over great. Things got worse, more chaotic from there. She gamely kept trying to show up in my life, but you could see the fatigue. I moved to New York on the heels of the latest relationship disaster and she’d had enough. She was in New York visiting friends and came to see me and the new apartment. I got the talk wherein I was informed that while she very much appreciated everything I had done for her throughout her life, and while she still loved me, she now got to choose who was in her life and she just didn’t want to deal with my nonsense anymore. She didn’t believe I would stay sober. She was very suspicious about my motives in moving to New York. She’d finally had enough.1

I’ve written a lot about my fantastic and loving children and the journey back to them. Since this one is mostly about K., I think it’s only fair to mention my son:

Anyway, it’s Father’s Day 2024 and I open the card and immediately think there’s been a mistake, that she’s given me the card she meant for my Dad, her grandfather. I was very confused, because the card said:

Happy Father’s Day, Grandpa!

My head was kind of swimming, things seemed off-kilter and then this fell out of the card:

Suddenly, I got it. I looked across the table at K., she was already crying and just nodded her head, “yes.” About a millisecond later, I was crying, too. Of course, there was nothing sad, it was just pure, overwhelming joy and happiness. There was no thought, no processing, no thinking, no considering—I was just immediately and completely suffused with happiness and love—like a big wave knocking me over at the beach.

Things progressed and soon it came time for her to deliver. They went to the hospital on Monday and I spent a pretty sleepless night looking at my phone every 16 or 17 minutes. S. texted me when it was time to push and I just paced around the apartment for the next hour or so. Finally, the notification for the grandparents’ group text chimed and there was a photo of my beautiful, strong daughter looking like she had just fought a battle, but she’s got about the biggest smile I’ve ever seen and is holding the most precious, 2 minute-old baby boy.

I started crying right away and, to be honest, I still kind of am. I can’t really describe the swirl of powerful emotions, except that I guess this is what unbridled joy feels like. So, anyway, the song of the week!

It’s the summer of 1991, I was a 28 year-old young lawyer about to become a father. Someone had given us this “For the Children” cassette tape. It was a Disney benefit for pediatric AIDS and featured lots of famous people singing children’s songs. We weren’t parents yet, but we had started listening to the music already. Late on an August night, K. made her way into the world and arrived via C-section, I was in the room and the moment she emerged is one I will never, ever, ever forget. Her eyes were wide-open and so alert. It was like she was taking in everything at 3 minutes old. We locked eyes and it was the most powerful thing I’ve ever felt.

Bringing a new baby home is such an amazing event—and completely terrifying. Like all new parents there is the sudden realization that you are in charge and that taking care of the squalling 8 lbs is maybe not something you’re completely prepared to do. But you do it. There wasn’t much in the way of paternity leave back then, so I was working pretty quickly again. One of those first mornings I walked out of our house, started the car and someone had been playing this tape and I heard this song.

I burst into tears.

“Getting to Know You,” was originally from the Rogers & Hammerstein show, “The King and I.” And if you’d like to know the truth, having Julie Andrews sing, “You are precisely my cup of tea” to me would be a high point of my life. It’s not a romantic falling in love song, it’s about the incredibly special process of getting to build a relationship with a child.

Getting to know you, 
Getting to know all about you, 
Getting to like you, 
Getting to hope you like me

I loved being a dad. I loved doing everything with my kids. I’ve seen “The Little Mermaid,” and “Aladdin,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” thousands of times. I’ve coached a wide variety of youth sports teams. I cheerfully attended practices, concerts, plays, recitals and a literal shit-ton of school events. I loved reading to them at night. I loved playing the imaginary restaurant game where I would provoke the four year-old proprietress to frustration by continuing to order “weasel cakes,” when I had been advised 5 times now that not only did the restaurant not serve weasel cakes, the proprietress was not even sure there was such a thing as “weasels.”2

You could look at my actions, my conduct, my drinking, as representing a conscious decision to throw all of that away. That’s why it’s so hard to understand us alcoholics and addicts, why it’s so hard to get over the things we do. One of the many things that alcohol enables is compartmentalization. When I was drinking, I was excused from drawing connections between the different parts of my life. What happened with the kids was entirely distinct from the rest of my life. The drinking helped convince me that this was true—that what I did in the rest of my life didn’t really have anything to do with the kids. I loved them obviously, so what’s the problem?

That’s the kind of deluded, muddled thinking that attends long-term alcoholism and addiction.

At 28, I was drinking secretly almost every day. I was both building a family and a secret life at the same time. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to rid me of the terrible knowledge that all of this was going to come crashing down one day. But, I could drink enough to forget for one day, for today. I’d listen to this song in my car on the way to the office, think about the tiny, sweet baby at home and let the tears flow down my face.

I loved her so much. It’s a kind of love that is wholly different than anything else I’d felt in my entire life. It’s completely consuming and a little terrifying, too. When the dark thoughts would creep in, what if something happened to her? That was too much to even think about. More tears for sure. I was completely in love with that little baby at home: The way her eyes already danced, the smiles she already beamed, the way she loved to be held and snuggled. There was so much joy and happiness,

Because of all of the beautiful and new things I’m learning about you

Little RH was born on Tuesday morning and he’s a bundle of sweetness and cuteness for sure:

I’m going to be honest here. There have been moments over the last several months when I’ve been a little less enthusiastic about assuming the grandfather mantle. I think mostly out of vanity, not wanting to recognize that yes, I am old enough to have a grandchild.3

I’m an idiot.

I’m quite good at proving that over and over again. But don’t worry, I’m not going to f*** this up. I’m all in. All week, every time I look at one of the pictures, I burst into tears. I imagine how mind-blowing and how fantastic it’s going to be to hold him for the first time. How amazing it is that my little daughter, the one who didn’t believe in weasels, is a mom now. That’s a beautiful, beautiful thing all by itself. I’ve been alarming people on the subway all week, because while clinging to the pole and staring absently at the ads, I suddenly break out into maniacal Jack Nicholson-type smiles. Insane, huge, idiot-sized grins.

I’m imagining holding that little boy in my arms. I’m imagining all the things I’m going to do with him, the places I’m going to take him, the things I’m going to teach him, the things I’m going to read him. But mostly, I’m imagining how much I’m going to love him.

Birth represents another renewal in the great cycle the universe spins for us. It’s a chance to find that there’s even more love inside me than I had previously thought. It’s a chance to mend even more fences with my daughter. It’s a chance to be part of a family that I thought I had ruined. It’s a chance to fall deeply, deeply in love again.

The gratitude lists kind of write themselves these days. I’m getting on a train later today and headed to Boston. I barely slept last night, I’m so excited. I’m like the kids waiting at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning. There’s a part of the song of the week that still makes me cry just about every f***ing time I hear it:4

Haven’t you noticed, suddenly I’m bright and breezy?

I’ve got a train to catch.

It’s a very happy Friday.