My son was three days old and immobilized in a small bed in the neonatal intensive care unit at University of Michigan hospital. He’d had a tracheotomy, was sedated and was attached to a half dozen tubes and monitors.
“I will never leave you,” I vowed to Alex as I held his tiny hand with my fingertips.
Less than four years later, my son was a healthy, normal boy when his mother and I had reached a mutual decision to divorce. When she moved more than an hour away, I agreed to allow her to have primary custody of Alex.
I couldn’t have been more sincere when I made that promise. But it was undoubtedly influenced by two strong forces: The emotions and stresses of seeing my newborn so medically vulnerable, and the fact that I was amid a 10-year period of not speaking to my own father.
I’ve never “left” Alex, who turns 31 this summer, but there’s a temptation to look back and wonder if I did enough, if I should have done more, if I could have been a better father.
The answers don’t come solely from me. If this column was written by Alex, it would have an entirely different perspective. He might also land where I do – I am still parenting, and our life together is lived right now, not the past.
I know I supported him financially, helped parent on major issues, went to his follow-up medical appointments at UM. I had my scheduled weekends and extended times during the summer, took him on vacations.
But did I come to enough of his school and sports events? Did I call him enough on the school nights when we were apart to say, “How was your day?” or “Good night?” Did I share enough in the day-to-day developments that taken alone are unremarkable, but together add up to a childhood?
My relationship with my father was complex, something I’ve touched on in previous columns. I am grateful that in the final years of his life we were able to set aside our differences and that I just focused on trying to understand him better.
His unshakable view, as he felt the clouds of mortality and reckoning form, was this: “I loved you kids, and I did the best I could at the time.”
The pledge I made at my son’s hospital bed was rooted in seeking something greater: I was promising, to myself as much as to him, to make it better for him than I believed it had been for me.
I’m glad I have loving and positive relationships with Alex and my daughter, Carly. I continually work to put into practice what I have learned along the way, from my interactions with my own parents and from my mistakes. I listen, I give guidance when asked, and I try to be present for them as much as our adult lives allow.
When I’m nearing the end, and my kids give me my report card as a father, I intend to have something better to say than “I did the best I could.” I plan to say, “I never left you,” and truly mean it.
Happy Father’s Day, dads. You don’t have to be perfect, just keep listening, learning and staying present.
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