I Believe

When he told me I was so very pleased. I was also confused and in that confusion, I realised I was scared. This inexplicable feeling of fear clutched at my heart with ice cold fingers making me feel nauseous with the bad eventualities I regularly torture myself with. However often you go into battle, the fear never leaves you. All you can do is embrace it and make of it an ally and a friend. Learn from it. Relate to it. Comfort it with your actions despite its protestations.

You see, every step he takes out into the world now is a step away from me. Where he goes, I cannot follow. I was never made for such things. I overstretched myself a long while ago and sometimes it feels like I’ll soon cease to tread water and slip below the surface of a river too powerful for the likes of me. But somehow, I stay afloat and I keep the faith. My time has not yet come, but it will soon enough.

I have faith in him. I believe in him. Always have and always will. Mine is not a spurious fantasy. I have never indulged in such fantasy. Others do. I see them armour themselves with lies and I have learned to give the danger they present a wide berth. Some manage to fly quite high. The flammable hot air that buoys them will one day ignite and their true nature will be revealed. In this life or the next.

Substance is everything. Only the truth will do. It has to be real. We have to be real. And he is as real as it gets. He shines. And as he lives his life he shines brighter and brighter. The warmth of that light is life-giving. But he is not the sun. No one can look upon the sun. It is a fierce and proud warrior and our gaze is an unworthy challenge. He is my son and in him I see my worth. The worth I handed to him as an investment in a future he always deserved. The life he was destined to live.

I have tried my best not to live vicariously through him. He is not me and I am not him. I am the foundation upon which his life is built. I came a long way and built what was necessary for him to live a good life. My investment in him is the price I owed my ancestors. A baton handed to me so I would run the race of life with respect and honour in a continuation of their values and their worth.

The responsibility for myself and my actions was something I hid from until he came into the world. My obligation to him made me aware of how I’d avoided ownership of myself. As he grew, I felt the weight of the ages upon me. For some while, that was a burden I was unsure of. I had no notion as to how I could carry it. But then something happened. As my love for my son grew, I understood that what I had considered to be a burden was nothing of the sort. Instead, it was our guide. These were the values required for the journey ahead. We honour our ancestors by listening to them and taking upon ourselves their hopes and dreams and the knowledge and experience of their lives. Lives that made our moment in the sun possible.

We are miracles thousands and thousands of years in the making. Our mortality affords us a perspective that immortals envy. We are stars that shine with love. The consciousness of the universe. We see so much. We bear witness to existence and help make sense of the infinitely incomprehensible. Fragments of wonderful order in the chaos of the cosmos.

I love him. That is all I need to know. And in loving him, I love myself and the life I have carved out with my pursuit of the fulfilment of meaning. I knew he was special from the outset. That I was blessed with his existence. Since then, I have been gifted so many golden memories. Memories etched onto my heart so that they will not pass into nothingness when I breathe my very last breath in this part of my eternal journey. I will return to the bosom of the universe forever changed and in turn, I will change the universe with the light of my love.

When he was small and supposedly helpless, I saw the world anew. I was reminded by him of how I should be. My purpose was illuminated as I held him in my arms and we span dizzyingly under an ancient oak tree. He gazed upwards at the magically dappled light filtering through the leaves and branches, whilst I looked upon the delight writ large upon his joyous face. This was the way of things, set in place from the very beginning. My place. His place. Our place in loving relation to each other.

The knowledge of our destiny is liberating. We are so often faced with too many choices and these choices paralyse us. A child staring at all the jars of sweets. Unable to choose. So often we keep our energy in check and fail to launch. We fear failure, when the biggest of failures is not to begin to live.

Life is a seeming bundle of contradictions. But only if it remains unlived and unexperienced. It can only make sense in the doing. One of my aims was to keep as many of the doors open as possible and the horizon broad and inviting. It was never for me to choose for him. Only to guide and prepare him so that he was bold in the choices he made in this life and did not hesitate to cross the threshold to the adventures that awaited him.

I remember carrying him in a papoose. He would face outwards. Looking where we were going. Understanding from the off that we go where we look, and that we live more fully when we listen to everything around us. Taking it in and cherishing it all. In his smiling intensity he was beautiful and he has retained that beauty about him. In comparison, I became invisible. I was his carriage, conveying him through an adoring world. People would stop and say hello only to him. They could not take their eyes from his listening eyes. For the briefest of moments, my ego rose up and wanted me to protest. To state that I was here too. There was a will to be noticed. Thankfully, I saw it for what it really was. Another echo from my childhood. An irrelevance in the moment at hand. A curse attempting to inflict itself upon another generation. One of many dark temptations littering the path of life. Love-hating demons envying the vibrancy of our lives and intent upon our pain-filled demise.

We carry the seeds of our destruction within us. As we carry the seeds of our growth towards the light of love. The darkness we contain is just as fertile as the light. We choose where we plant our seeds and how we tend to them. Dark or light. Love or hate. Hope or despair. We can only sing one song. We are never silent. There is no sitting on the fence. Kidding ourselves that we have made no choice at all. That we are merely waiting. Those are lies of temptation. Waiting is not living. It’s giving up in one of so many dark guises. Life is a bold, loving fight, not a cowardly defence. There is alignment with the universe. Or there is betrayal of love.

Our children grow up fast, even as we gift them a childhood and protect their innocence. Even as we cherish every moment, committing it to the record of our loving hearts. Time spent in the best of ways is consumed with a compelling voracity. An addictive urge to do more and therefore be more. Yet there is peace in this. The contentment of fulfilment. I have lived a good life. My race is not yet run, but when it is, I will know that I did what I was destined to do.

I have paved the way for the next generations. I inherited a house of being. A structure that informed my existence so that it could become more than the pursuit of animal urges. A transcendence from the base wants that we can wilfully misconstrue as a life. We are our humanity. The harmony of thought and deed underwritten by love. Everything that went before me contained meaning. In the bricks and mortar of my family’s history was everything I would ever need. It was for me to clear the floors of the detritus of bad habits. To see the potential of that placed before me, and create the vision with my blood, sweat, tears and longing for life and love. To belong, but not at any cost. For I also must be. I could not sacrifice who I was in order to move forward through this world. Instead, I had to make the house of my father’s and my mother’s my own. I had to reclaim the place of my ancestors and fill it with my life and my light. Mend the roof so I had shelter. Clean the bedroom so I had peace. Sweep the chimney and clear the fireplace so that I had a fire of warmth and passion. Only when we do this work can we be true to ourselves and in being true to ourselves we make the necessary space for fulfilment and the joyous feelings that accompany it. I did not pursue happiness. Happiness visited my house as and when it pleased it to do so and it was always a welcome visitor. I smile at the thought of its many visitations and I can feel it’s presence even now. It is a part of my home and a part of me. A free-spirited friend I have grown to love over the span of my life.

Today my son, my boy, my loving warrior, called me. Phone calls are rare these days. It’s all stunted messages punctuated with emojis. Perhaps that is why happiness is all the more elusive. Happiness is old-fashioned. It is the unexpected knock on the door and the invitation to come out to play. We no longer answer the door, let alone accept the invitation to dance in the rain. My phone rang and I saw my son’s name on the screen. The sight of it led me to a deep well of worry. The fear of losing him is real. I know that life is fleeting and every day a gift. I do my best to renew my gratitude when both myself and my boy enter another day. I fill each day willingly as a result of that gratitude.

Despite myself, I answered the ominous phone. My son asked if I was OK. Automatically I said that I was. Not often would I say that I am not. Mustn’t complain. Manifesting the negative is a mug’s game. A slippery slope to misery and gloom. We exchanged pleasantries, then I pointed out the obvious. This is a habit of mine. Saying what I see. Covering the initial ground. Not skipping it. I know that to stay silent on the most obvious of points is to make dangerous assumptions that can lead to painful diversions from that which must be done.

You don’t call me out of the blue. Has something happened?

It had, as I’d known would be the case.

My son had been awarded a KBE. I had no idea what that meant. I asked if it was anything like an OBE. He laughed indulgently and said, I’m going to be a knight, Dad. Imagine that. My son. A knight. That wasn’t for the likes of us. The rarefied echelons of society. My boy had flown so high and his feathers had remained intact. Quite how, I did not know. But I gave thanks all the same.

The news of my son’s knighthood made my head swim and I barely took in what he was saying. I had visions of the knights of old. Honour made flesh. The human spirit tempered with discipline into a purity that safeguarded truth come what may. My son had been a man for a long while. Not by virtue of the passing of the years, but by the measure of his very virtue. This accolade was another statement of the obvious. But the recognition was overwhelming. I did not have the words to congratulate him; I’m glad. I said this in a humble whisper. My thoughts and feelings defied expression. Then my love for him eclipsed everything and I said what was needed; I love you, son.

So you’re OK with not being invited to the ceremony?

He was summarising words that only now came through to my beleaguered mind. Two places for the ceremony. His wife would attend as a matter of course. He wanted to ask his Mum along too.

Sure, I said, don’t mind me. That’s fine.

I smiled into the air before me and saw my son in all of his iterations since he was but a tiny babe. I smiled, appreciated the moment, and nodded an acknowledgement as a single tear escaped my eye.

Thanks Dad, you’re the best. I couldn’t have done it without you.

I laughed then. There was a release here, and with it much needed levity.

I know.

We both knew I meant it. Earlier exploratory thoughts of my place as my son’s squire dissipated like cloud in the heat of the sun. I was as much a knight as he was. I’d fought many a campaign. Shown him the way again and again, as I led from the front. To bend the knee and retain humility even in the greatest of victories. To remain steadfast to your self, your values and the constancy of your love. To speak the truth and mean it even if it cost you your life, because there is no life without truth. To love with all your heart come what may. To love, even if your heart is broken. Especially when it is broken. Our light shines through our wounds. We shine more brightly for having fought for what counts.

Knights can still drink, can’t they? I added.

Now it was his turn to laugh. A hearty sound that filled me with joy.

I’ve got you a bottle of something rather special. It’s the first thing I did when I received the letter. I didn’t speak to a soul. I couldn’t. All I thought about was celebrating with you. Sitting down in front of that open fire of yours and chewing the fat as we shared a bottle. Man to man.

I took all of that in and my old, creaky heart skipped a beat. A gentle warning that my work here was now nearly done. That I’d been afforded a rare prize. To catch a glimpse of what it was that I had paid forward. Something stirred within me. A memory from a time beyond my own. Memories of those who had gone before. I felt a surge of energy from the land itself, accompanied with the desire to experience that simple validation. This wasn’t my moment. It was our moment. All of us.

Warrior to warrior.

My son drew in a breath and tried that on for size. Two battle hardened soldiers sharing a companionship of knowing. Appreciating the true reality of the world and what it took to still be standing after everything we had been through and witnessed. Glasses raised to the fallen. Glasses raised in thanks.

I’ll be there later today. Best put a log on the fire.

I grinned.

As it’s a special occasion, I’ll put two on.

The silence of longing. The reluctance to end the interaction.

I love you, Dad.

I nodded to myself at the statement of the obvious. Much needed words of affirmation.

Love you too, sire.

A chuckle.

Silly idiot! It’s sir. See you later… sir!