Dear Jonah,
I know that you will not be able to read this message for many years, and even then, it may still be many more years until you can truly comprehend it. However, I feel I need to tell you about some events that have occurred within the past few days.
On Monday, our family discovered that your great-grandfather, Clifford Andersen, passed away. As I write this, you are only 19 months old. While you will certainly not remember him, it is difficult to put into words how much you meant to him.
He would have been proud of how you will one day learn to tie your shoes. He would have been on the edge of his seat hearing about your first day of school. Laughter would have danced in his eyes seeing you open the perfect present on Christmas. He would have put his arm around you when you told him about how you failed a test. He would have driven you to get your driver’s license and waited in line with you at the DMV, telling you stories you’ve already heard a million times, stories that you would hear at least a million more times in the years to come. He would have pointed and told anyone willing to listen, “That’s my great-grandson,” as you walked across the stage to accept your high school diploma. He would have been excited at the prospect of your new job. He would have been choking back tears on your wedding day. He would have been worried about you as you traveled around the world for something you believed in. And he would have folded you into his arms and told you how much he loved you when you came back. And that love would have been something you felt everyday, deep within your heart, for the rest of your days.
You will meet a lot of people in your life, Jonah. Some of them you will think of fondly for a matter of hours and never see again. Others will stick with you. There will be some members of your family whom you will not especially like. And there will be some that you realize how much you value only after they are gone. I guess all I can say to you is that, for those people who light something deep within you, those relationships that matter when the stakes are highest, treasure every moment.
I feel fortunate. I learned that lesson with Grandpa Andersen early in life. Of course, it helped that he was a gracious and loving man who would have moved heaven and earth for his grandkids. Over the years, we talked about his experiences as a boy, a young man, how he went off to fight the Japanese as a Marine in World War II, how he became a father to my Mom. He was more than just a grandfather to me — he was a friend. Now that it’s too late, I can only hope he knew that. I am certain that he did.
But this letter to you is about more than just the past.
On Tuesday, our nation swore in as President a man named Barack Hussein Obama. As you will surely learn in school, he is the first non-white President this country has ever had. He has been President for all of one day, and for all I know, for all of his charisma and dynamism, he may end up being a disastrous leader. But regardless of how history will one day judge Obama the President, and regardless of your political persuasion, I can tell you that Inauguration Day 2009 was the day that many people in this country believe our nation became One. It was the day our nation reached out to the most historically marginalized segment of our society, a segment that government only 150 years ago deemed equal to but three-fifths of the rest of society. It was the day America looked upon a man of color and declared, “You will lead us.”
As a minority yourself in this Country of Minorities, as a person who bridges nations by being of multiple ancestries, like Mr. Obama himself, I hope that you will only know a world where a person is not judged by the color of his skin, by her genetic makeup or sexual preference or religious beliefs, but is instead judged, as Martin Luther King so rightly stated in 1963, by the content of your character.
These are the values for which your great-grandfather fought, risking his life on a battleship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1945. These are the values that I hope will continue to define the place you call home. In interviews following the inauguration, I’ve heard many say their children will grow up in an America their ancestors never dreamed of. That couldn’t be further from the truth. They dreamed it, son. They dreamed it and then they made it.
Of course, there are still the prosaic and practical matters to attend to, such as growing older. Like many parents, I often wonder what you will be like when you grow up. Certainly, I hope we are friends. I hope you will make right choices and good choices, because I know what it is like to sometimes make the wrong ones. And I know that making the wrong choice can sometimes be inevitable; I can only hope those wrong choices are not irrevocable.
I hope the events of the last two days make me a better person and a better husband to your Mom and a better father to you. I hope when you are a man one day that you can recognize sacrifice, not only in our nation’s leaders, but in the actions of those people who are closest to you. I hope that you enter into the world knowing you have a family who loves you unconditionally, because I can tell you, when you have that knowledge, the world looks like a completely different place.
As our family prepares to mourn your great-grandfather tomorrow, I can’t help but think of my own mortality. It’s not pleasant to think about, but there will come a day many years from now when you will have to wave Goodbye to your Mom and me. When that day comes, mourn us, but don’t be sad. Perhaps one day you will have a son or daughter, and then the things I’m writing about in this letter, the things I am only now beginning to understand, will also become apparent to you.
If that day does come, I only request this: Hold that child in your arms and tell them everyday how much you love them.
Love,
Daddy
