A Christmas eve gift from Santa

 My son is 7. He is an intelligent, creative kid who has a bright spirit. We were sitting as he made himself a Pb & j. He turned and asked me if Santa was real. I always endeavour to tell my children the truth. Sometimes I varnish it. Sometimes I paint a verbal murals around it. I am always, at the core of what I say, truthful. I also endeavour to provide my children with tools to allow them to face the dark, cynical evil of the West with wisdom. This might seem complicated, but I'll expand.

I asked him if he thought Santa was true. He went into a brief rambling, as young boys do, about some version of the Santa story that fixed his plot hole. "Do you really believe that," I asked. Finally he told me no and that the story was a lie. That was where we stopped. True and false dont really work when you are talking about a story. They are all real in a sense. A story exists in a moment in time and therefore does have a piece of reality. Stories are either based on true events or based on fiction. I told him about the legend of the Saint named Nicholas and that there is real kernel in the story. We also talked about how when him and his sibling have a fight and they both complain, how do I know who is telling the truth. Truly, I dont know the truth. I can guess based on things I know, but I dont know with certainty. Stories have a place, but applying a scientific framework is not a helpful method in my view. We go into the world and we are told lots of stories. We are told of all the enemies and friends. All the blessings and pitfalls. Life is story. One we are living and to say that a story is not true robs you of a certain joy. The story of Santa isnt true or false. It is a traditional story we tell that allows us to share a collective experience. We allow children's imaginations to flow freely and to be excited about something. Rest assured, parenting is largely providing experiences to your kids and telling stories. The question doesn't need to be asked about the story because it doesn't matter. I want my kids to hear stories and to listen to them. I want them to hear the expressions of people and cultures and learn to enjoy them. Not to pick them apart. Not to analyse them and feel a smug sense of superiority. In truth, these things are a fools errand because it is like an ant that's found it's way up to a leaf and looks down at his colony and believes that he has ascended. Nope. Your an ant. You might feel better on the leaf, but its lonely there and people want to keep company with you.

Now having said all that, what he wanted to know was where the gifts come from. I told him about Occam's razor that postulates that the simplest answer is probably the correct one. Now, in the strictest sense this is a misuse of Occam's razor because it refers to evaluations of experiments within science. That not withstanding, it is a helpful way to give my child a simple tool to evaluate an idea. So the question was, "do you think your presents come from a magical flying fat man or your parents?" 

The conclusion was "your gifts come from mama and papa, but you can still talk about Santa and enjoy the story with all of your friends." I was satisfied because I believe I left him with the freedom to enjoy a part of his childhood without needing to paint it in some shameful tone. Share the story. Tell the story. Add to the story. Its a story. Smile at it. Think about it. Remind yourself, dear reader, that you are probably sitting on a leaf in your mind. Allow yourself to hear the stories in your life and free yourself from the need to evaluate all of them. Now I am not saying all logic need be thrown out the window, but if there is no cost in listening than listen freely my friends and enjoy the stories. 

Trying to blow out the candles

Someone told me once, "trauma stays with you and reverberates in your soul." I can attest to this fact. 

 

My trauma. I was 16 years old; I had just turned 16 approximately 14 days prior. On the day in question, I was sitting in a church pew. Beside me was my mother, my brother, my sister and my then brother-in-law. Before me, stood a casket in which contained the recently departed vessel of my father. I remember it as trauma because I felt alone. I always found social interaction difficult, but I always felt my father was safe. He loved me, both in word and action. He loved me if I was grouchy or happy. He sought me out and listened to me. He was kind, intelligent and funny. Three things that I still aspire to be. I always felt, no matter what went on around me, that our relationship was a safety net. Then one day I got a call while upstairs and my aunt told me that my safety net was gone. 

 

Right or wrong, I felt that day that the only person in the world who loved me was dead. Now this is not the truth, there were (& are) many people who loved me-but our relationship was special. I looked for that special relationship elsewhere, but never found it. I still feel like I look for that special kind of relationship. In all the years since that day, there has always been a little trap-door in my heart that I can open and look back down at the 16-year-old kid who never felt more alone. 

 

Fast forward. I am on the cusp of 40 and I have been reading a self-help book. This book suggests that we all have a story that we tell ourselves and one that serves us. As was previously stated, I realised that I always have the story of tragedy waiting in the background of my soul. I do this for a number of reasons. I remind myself of the tragedy because it is the last thing I have of my Dad and I feel disloyal to give that up. I do this because I believe if I allow the idea of tragedy to stay with me than I will make more responsible decisions and have a better life. I do this because I believe that if I know tragedy is coming, I can prepare for it and then when it happens the things I (or others) will be left with be greater in number and quality. 

I am grateful to have carried the story of tragedy. I am grateful because it has allowed me to be a better friend, husband and father because I understand that my actions can have consequences and that time is not limited. I am grateful to have actively remembered my father, he was a man of exceptional quality and deserves a place in my heart until I see him again. I am grateful because making responsible decisions have better outcomes because they ultimately rest on the idea of caring about others over yourself. 

 

I chose today to blow out the candles of morning. I chose to shut off the lights in the church in my mind and send that 16-year-old kid home to play video games. I chose to hold to a different story. A story that is my own and is grateful and optimistic. 

 

I held to tragedy because I thought it was all I had. It's not all. He was kind to loads of people. He brought joy. He was inventive, complicated, and sharp. Instead of grief, I will replace that story of endless drives we took together. Long conversations as the street lights flickered above. Special moments that showed me his soul and let him see mine. Worthy memories of a father who cared for his son and showed him his humanity. Memories worthy of Gerry Vogt, who I proudly hold up as the best father I could ask for.

 

I held to tragedy because I thought it made me more responsible. Instead, I realise the years of steeping myself in faith and the Bible or the profound influence of countless Christian men who showed me the spirit of being a man of God serves as a much more solid reminder than grief. Lessons of humility, discipline, faithfulness and passion are the markers of my adult life. They are the reason I am in a happy marriage and they are the reason I have a happy family. These are the things that kept me afloat.

 

I held to tragedy because I believed it helped me to prepare for the future. I am not clairvoyant and I don’t know if I will live to be 40 or 140. I chose to believe that by cultivating with the tools I mentioned in the last paragraph I do more for my future than being depressed ever would. That the sense of despair I feel serves me less than the optimism and joy that awaits me. The sense of despair paints all the good in my life (both past and future) as "nice, but...." when all of that should be met with joyful gratitude.

 

I wrote once in this blog about how I had an emotional shrine for my dad. Today I am going to that shrine and blowing out the candles because I don’t think he would want me to mourn forever for him in the dust and I really want to know more personal freedom in my life.

 

So, thank you for indulging me dear reader. I hope you can take from my experience something of a reminder that what you see as "you" is a lot more fluid a concept than you give credit. I want a better life and I want it for you also. I want to believe we can have a better life together as we find the parts of our story we believe and look at a knew story for ourselves so that we can truly see if there is more joy to be squeaked out of this very short existence.   

Being honest

 I have made a decision that I would like to blog more, but a "family" centred blog feels like a limiting concept. I have struggled in writing blogs to think of and address ideas that are sufficiently centred on my children while still maintaining some artistic integrity to things and ideas that drive me on a daily basis. 

In the spirit of being honest I have decided to move to a different style of blog. A blog that's themed more generally from my own perspective of which a great deal of it is driven by parenting. The intention is not to characterise my self as not being a, "family man," but rather being a man with a family. It is necessary that I not allow my kids to define me nor my wife nor my role to any of the aforementioned. In being more genuine to myself I can have more honest discussions. My first instinct was to republish a new blog, but that seems kind of silly. So, I am just putting it out there that my future blog posts will still be much in the way of family, but also my long form expressions on ideas that I think are important. Thanks for reading (those that do) and I will post more regularly and hopefully produce something that you can consistently come to appreciate as an enjoyable task. Thanks again as always dear reader and I will see you soon.