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A Father’s Life Gift

An open letter from a father to his sons.

 “This is my life journey.

The memory of my past.

Not a separate life or an old life, but my life.

My own imprint.

My family DNA.

The blood I spilled in order to change.

The damage I choose to leave in the past by living in today.

The legacies of love I decided to open and claim.

I offer this to you, my sons.

Not a house or cars or careers but a father’s life gift.

An open letter.

His life. His mistakes. His lessons. The life he has walked.

My gorgeous boys, I am flawed and I took my flaws into fatherhood. Know that my intentions have always been true and I have never made a choice with an agenda, other than love. My life journey commenced with hope and innocence, but naivety is not an excuse.

Ultimately, I hope it helps you understand me with a bit more clarity and kindness. Even in my recovery, I have made mistakes and acted in self pity, grandiosity and denial.

I am sorry and I will always continue to make right what I made wrong. Sometimes, what is wrong can’t be made right. Thank you for loving me…I feel humbled by your courage and forgiveness….

What I have done is admit and own my vulnerability and humanity. I gave up making excuses and accepted that all we have is today. One day, One life.”

Well, that took courage and a big slab of self honesty and humility to write that piece. It took even more courage to read it to my sons.

Face to face.

I am a flawed man.

Made mistake after mistake.

As many mistakes as victories.

Yet, when I admitted my frailty and vulnerability to my sons we were all set free.

Something magical happened.

I stopped trying to be a man I could not be and they stopped believing their Dad was bullet proof.

Free.

Free to be ourselves.

Free to make our own mistakes.

And free to love each other for who we are.

Vulnerable.

Weak.

Flawed.

Imperfect.

And when a man realizes he does not have to live the propaganda of capitalism and the lies of modern advertising, he becomes truly masculine.

As M. Scott Peck writes in A Road Less Travelled:

“They are not burdened by any need to hide. They do not have to slink around in the shadows. They do not have to construct new lies to hide old ones. They need waste no effort covering tracks or maintaining disguises. And ultimately they find that the energy required for the self-discipline of honesty is far less than the energy required for secretiveness. The more honest one is, the easier it is to continue being honest, just as the more lies one has told, the more necessary it is to lie again.”

Preach brother!

And I love you my sons.

I have your fucking backs.

Come what may.

Need to read more?

This is an excerpt from One Day, One Life: Chapter One. One Day One Life

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