June 21st, 2026
I became a father in 1994. Memories of being “dad” started to accumulate. Some were good and some not so good.
I was scolded for not being excited enough when my first son was conceived. I spent a long evening in an emergency room waiting area after being told there was likely a miscarriage and a DNC was next. Then they told me they had detected a tiny heartbeat. Crisis averted. There were trips for ultra-sounds every other week to make sure. There were 7 months of a wife restricted to bed rest with every evening of that time spent sitting on that bed for dinner, followed by a TV show or round of cards.
There was a tubal pregnancy later, with a 100 mph race across Indiana and Michigan to get to Henry Ford Hospital in a little Mercury Villager van so that I could be there during her recovery.
Then my next child was revealed to be a girl, but turned out to be a 12 pound 3 ounce boy who was born drowning in blood and had to be resuscitated. I was told later that the chances of one of them surviving was 50%, but the chances of both was only 25%. He spent his first week in the Neonatology Unit, while she spent the same week in Intensive Care.
When my sons were 5 and 7, I became a single parent. During that time period, “good” memories were pretty rare. But memories average out. Those two boys were smart, fun, and never caused me any trouble. We had years of memories as 3 guys living in a bachelor pad. We went to karate, soccer, baseball, and basketball practices and games. One boy played the trumpet and the other trombone in the high school band. We went camping, fishing, canoeing, and bicycle riding. We played X-Box and PlayStation games. We slept in the early evening and then got up to see first run Sci-fi movies at mid-night at our local movie theater. We went to Disney World and swam with the dolphins. There were Cal Ripken Baseball Tournaments in Myrtle Beach and a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in a rented Mustang.
There were also memories of split lips, super glued head lacerations, torn growth plates, and middle school bullies. There were the need for gut wrenching decisions that could empty savings accounts or change young lives.
And then, they grow up. What you have left is all those memories. As a father, you start forced retirement. All those things you used to do are not necessary any more. You were successful. They now take care of themselves.
You have memories. But they are clouded. You were a younger man when they were made. You didn’t know then what you know now. You saw things through different eyes. You made different decisions then as you were without all the years of experience and accumulated wisdom and trial and error that affected how you did things then. As you review the memories, you wish you could go back and correct a thing here or there. You would use hindsight to tweak things and improve them. But, there are no do-overs. You just have to hope that you did your best, and in the end, it was good enough.
Sometimes I miss who my kids were when they were little, not because of their age but because I wish I could go back, hold them tighter, fix my mistakes, and relive every laugh and hug.
As things stand now, there may not be many more memories to accumulate. Maybe not another Father’s Day. But I have a lot of good memories. I am fortunate, as so far, I can still recall them. Many of those memories were about who I was. For 35 years, I was a Database Administrator and Software Developer. I am proud of that. At one point, it was said that I was one of the top 50 Oracle DBAs in the country. Yet, I had never received a college degree. But that was interrupted by who I really was really meant to be, a Father. There was no training for that. No degree. You just had to figure it out yourself and possibly receive help from the good example of your own father. I was lucky also to have two wonderful sons.
My boys were the best surprise of my life.
Starting All Over 