Blessed Days Like These (PinP is back in Town)

PinF is in Pennsylvania; and has been for nearly three years.  So technically speaking, I'm now PinP, which in so many ways, is really right where I belong.  As I've come to realize, both through my increasing years and just as many laughs and tears, is that we always are, right where we belong.  This really is the very essence of all our lives; in that we all walk our own paths, hit our own roadblocks, and if only slightly lucky, will taste the sweet nectar of success - emotional, financial or a healthy family, or maybe all of them --  if only once in our adult lives - tough hopefully many, many times.

This set of life realizations have increasingly become more and more focused in this crazy, fearfully uncertain, and uncharted and scary world we all seem to suddenly inhabit in the same space and time.  No matter where you live, be it on a beach on a tropical island or on a gritty N.Y. street; or on a farm in Iowa, for once we're really "all in it together".  Republican, Democrat, White, Black, Muslim or Jew, rich, poor, wise or ignorant; no matter your salary, our occupation, your wealth or lack thereof; whether a you're a kind human or a complete asshole; we're all in this mess together.

Yes that's the real take away.  Nothing really matters now more than the one's we hold close, the one's we cherish, the people we truly hold dear.  Period.  The house, the cars, the job--nothing would really matter if we didn't get through this together.  "Existential threat".  This is probably the most hyperbolic comment we've heard tossed about for the last three years.  Though now we really do have an honest to God "ET" on our hands.  This threat is probably the most helpless feeling I've ever felt as a parent.  Get through, we surely will, but God only knows that these coming days will be something my children, and your's too, will carry for the rest of their substantially longer lives than mine or your's.


Today I came home from a limited work related appointment, to continue my Family Closeness time.  "Social Distancing" just sounds so much more harsh and disconnected.  I'm choosing to get closer, hold tighter, and love more fiercely. I did that by playing basketball today with my daughters, and then we broke out the big chalk set on the front pavement.  And is was bliss. Something I believe was partly due to the strangely altering events of their lives -- a time that for my two younger daughters will indelibly be etched into their sweet carefree memories   Playing hoops on a Wednesday afternoon in March with their Pops, doing chalk in the blazing warm pre-spring sunshine.  I hadn't really taken it all in until I returned from walking our dog at sunset, and the gentle glow of dusk greeted me in vibrantly dancing colors -- all of them displaying the joy and innocence of a childhood, protected from the reality of substantial fear.



These cement, oasis pads of of love, and joy, instant sources of overwhelming love, pride, and fear, all mis-mashed together in my gut as I stood there and studied their art and words before me.  I knew in that minute I had to write this feeling down; as much so to not forget that wave of love and fear colliding; but also, so that my daughters might some day read my words.  Someday when they too are parents, filled with dreadful fear and so much love during a sure to come time of great trials and faith.  My wife, my partner and creator in crime, the one I couldn't live without, our two daughters both free and pure souls. Full of joy, kind of heart, and as easy to raise as any children should be.  I studied their words, their images, and their hope.  Words like "magic", "be happy", and "welcome" pierced into my unsuspecting heart.  I chose to let this message, their joy, and my deep love for them to be my guiding thought today, and hopefully each day forward.  I am so blessed,  my incredibly beautiful and kind wife, my three healthy and thriving daughters, my still beautiful and vital mother at 81, and my four uniquely gifted and special brothers.  Yes this virus shit is scary.  But somehow being close to, surrounded by, and invested in - my girls, my brothers, and my mother make it all tolerable.