Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
As an educator, I’ve seen the struggle some parents have with creating boundaries. For example, there are parents who don’t parent because they don’t want to undermine their friendship with their kid. They don’t parent their kid, they raise a buddy. From my experience, this is not good parenting of a school-aged kid. Kids need parental guidance, not just a supportive friend.
As a parent of two young adults, things change.
My wife and I took our youngest out for a birthday dinner last night. It’s hard to believe that my baby girl is 24! During the dinner she made a simple statement, “I’m so glad you two aren’t just my parents but friends I want to be around too.”
That hit a chord with me. My kids aren’t just my kids anymore. They are adults who I enjoy being around, who I want to spend time with, who I miss when I don’t see them. It’s not just that they are my kids, it’s not just that I’m their parent, they are amazing people I want in my life.
That simple statement said so much. It made me feel lucky, blessed. My wife and I raised two awesome kids, and they in turn have given us the ultimate gift in return… they enjoy our company as much as we enjoy theirs. ❤️
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Ps. All that said, I’m still Dad, they are still my kids, as my youngest reminded my by sending me a TikTok about all the things she’ll never learn to do… because that’s a dad’s job! 😆
I love getting together with family over the holidays. It’s a chance to focus on being together, eating, and being merry. 2025 hasn’t been easy, and it’s nice to spend the end of the year with the people I love and care about.
I hope everyone is doing the same, finding people they care about to spend time with. If not, make the hard ask. There are people who care, reach out.
The thing about grief that is most challenging is how different it is for everyone. For some it hits them like crashing waves on a rocky, unswimable shoreline, for others it feels like rogue waves hitting unexpectedly. For others it hits like ripples from a rock thrown into water, with a pattern of lulls and peaks. For still others it is like echoes of the past reminding us that the person was just here, while simultaneously reminding us of the emptiness to come without the loved one in our lives anymore.
For many, these feelings are intertwined with different emotions: Feelings of love, heart ache, loss, emptiness, guilt, shock, disbelief, and even anger. These emotions don’t always match with others who are grieving. For some people sharing their personal connection feels necessary, for others it’s private. From tears to laughter and everything in between mismatched emotions splash us like unexpectedly cold water, feeling that much colder when the people around us don’t necessarily respond the same way.
Like I said a few days ago, “I don’t have the words,” is sometimes the only words you are able to share… and yet they feel brutally insufficient. And so it is that the waves, ripples, and echoes hit us unevenly as we grieve. Each of us finding ways to make sense of loss, and finding ways forward… Finding ways to strengthen the echoes of fond memories while weakening the ripples of grief and loss.
I spent the afternoon with my mom, her sister, my wife and my kids. My aunt had us in stitches. It was wonderful having a good belly laugh. My favourite line from my auntie. “I like living by myself. I’m fine to talk to myself, I don’t need anybody else. It’s only a problem if I hear voices talking back, other than that, I’m good.”
Before this, I spent most of the day with an old friend. I can’t travel back home to my mom and not find time to see my buddy.
It’s just wonderful to realize that what I value most are my family and friends. Give me this, and my health, and I really don’t need much else from this world.
Too many people try to go solo when they have a community of support around them. There are more people around you willing to help you than you think. You just need to ask… and that’s the problem. The help isn’t always offered.
The people who can be most helpful would be glad to help if they just knew you needed help. The trick is to make contact and be clear about what you are hoping for.
There’s a difference between: “Do you have time to…?” And, “I really need you to help me right now.”
There’s a difference between: “Hey, just calling to say hi.” And, “I really needed a friend I could talk to right now.”
Too many times in my career, and in my personal life, I only realized after the fact that I could have gotten so much more support to get over a rough patch than I actually got, more than I asked for… only because I didn’t know how to ask, or that I could ask.
Sometimes I’ve thought I’d asked, but it was a soft ask, a sort of ‘help would be nice’ kind of ask rather than an, ‘I really need help’ kind of ask.
I get it, it would be great to have people realize that the soft ask wasn’t just an ask but a need. The thing is, everyone is knee deep in their own stuff and the soft ask can easily be missed. So don’t assume your soft ask is enough.
If you need help be clear, be blunt, and ask. It’s hard to do the hard ask… just do it anyway!
I think that gratitude is something to be celebrated. It is felt more when it is expressed and reflected on, not just experienced in the moment.
Yesterday I turned 58. I got to have an early morning coffee with a good friend, and I got to meet my daughters for a quick lunch. I had a couple cakes and many well wishes at work. Then I went to dinner and a movie with my wife and daughters after work. We were unexpectedly met at dinner by my wife’s sister and my brother-in-law at dinner, which was a very pleasant surprise.
It was a wonderful day all around. It ended with a few thoughtful gifts and cards at home after the show. My daughters have had a tradition of making personalized, hand-drawn birthday cards and I have always adored the thoughtfulness they put into them.
I can’t help but want to share my gratitude towards family, friends, and colleagues. I feel lucky, and blessed. Every year around the sun makes me feel more appreciative for the life I have lived and the opportunity to share more of it with the people I love.
I love this trend that’s going around. Parents are getting their grown kids to do things like jump into their arms, and wrap their feet around them, like they used to do as a little kid, to give a big hug for one last time. The theory is that you don’t remember the last time your kid did this, so do it one last time so that you will remember.
Back on Christmas Day 2024 I wrote ‘Firsts and Lasts’ about this same idea. The post, written to my daughters, starts like this:
“I remember.
I remember the moment in the hospital when I first laid eyes on you; the first time I held you, and kissed your cheek. I remember your first smile, (that wasn’t just passing gas), your first laugh, and the first time you said, ‘Da-da’. I remember your first steps. There were so many firsts in those early days and, although they slowed, they still kept coming. From your first tooth to your first tooth falling out. From your first day at daycare to your first day at school. And from your first birthday to your last one as a teenager.
And so it is that I remember many firsts, but unfortunately I don’t remember too many lasts.
I don’t remember the last time you fell asleep on my chest or came running towards me and jumped unabashedly into my arms for a big hug. I don’t remember the last time we were walking together and you reached up to hold my hand. I don’t remember the last time I did a push up with you on my back, or the last time you danced on my feet, or the last time I gave you a piggyback.
And such is life that as we grow up together, parent and child, we carry with us these moments, momentous ‘first’ occasions, but we never know what other forgotten momentsdisappear as we get older. We remember the firsts, not the lasts. We savour the memories of so many special occasions, and we lament those things that we take for granted only after they no longer happen.”
There are a lot of silly trends that go viral, and send ripples across the internet. This one isn’t silly, it’s heartwarming and wonderful. Parents trying to recapture a special moment with their child long after they’ve done something for the last time. I hope this trends lasts a while and impacts a lot of people.
I heard a great quote today, ‘Nobody will ever love you exactly the way you want… Because that’s your job.’
It reminds me of an insightful question, “Would you hang out with a person who speaks to you the way you speak to yourself?’
We can be our own worst critics, and yet it costs us nothing to appreciate ourselves rather than put ourselves down. That doesn’t mean that we don’t strive to be better. It’s not about accepting mediocrity. It is however an opportunity for us to find value and appreciation in who we are and what we accomplish.
It starts with acceptance, and ultimately self-love. There are enough critics in the world, it doesn’t make sense that the one you hear the most is yourself. It’s ultimately your job to love you first. And when you’ve humbly, yet sincerely achieved that, the love of others is sure to follow.
I started writing this in my head just over 7 years ago, in August 2017. We were all in Victoria, and had just finished moving Cassie into her tiny, very green, residence room for first year university.
I was sitting on her bed. As we chatted I thought about what a milestone this was… one of our babies was leaving the nest. I felt overly sentimental, and started thinking about all the ideas below. Over the years I’ve thought of different ways of saying this, always feeling like I’m not doing the ideas justice.
Today I decided that since you are already 25 and almost 23, I need to get these thoughts out. I’ve put off sharing this for too long. So here goes…
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Firsts and Lasts
Dear Cassie & Katie,
I remember.
I remember the moment in the hospital when I first laid eyes on you; the first time I held you, and kissed your cheek. I remember your first smile, (that wasn’t just passing gas), your first laugh, and the first time you said, ‘Da-da’. I remember your first steps. There were so many firsts in those early days and, although they slowed, they still kept coming. From your first tooth to your first tooth falling out. From your first day at daycare to your first day at school. And from your first birthday to your last one as a teenager.
And so it is that I remember many firsts, but unfortunately I don’t remember too many lasts.
I don’t remember the last time you fell asleep on my chest or came running towards me and jumped unabashedly into my arms for a big hug. I don’t remember the last time we were walking together and you reached up to hold my hand. I don’t remember the last time I did a push up with you on my back, or the last time you danced on my feet, or the last time I gave you a piggyback.
And such is life that as we grow up together, parent and child, we carry with us these moments, momentous ‘first’ occasions, but we never know what other forgotten momentsdisappear as we get older. We remember the firsts, not the lasts. We savour the memories of so many special occasions, and we lament those things that we take for granted only after they no longer happen.
I won’t ever forget our Christmases in China and Spain. I will never remember the last story I read to you while you sat in my lap. Firsts… and lasts: Lifetime memories and forever forgotten interactions that fade away secretly. Photographs and movies that play in my mind as well as on film, photo paper, and digital jpg’s stay with me, like first school concerts, and graduations.
Meanwhile I’ll never remember the last time I fed you porridge, or tricked you into eating healthy baby food by burying it under a layer of dessert on the spoon. The fact that I can recall this interaction tells me the memories still resonate. Sure, it may not have been the last time, but I remember feeding you in your high chairs. I also remember the frustration of you trying to feed yourself. Sometimes it was your frustration because it was too much work, sometimes our parental frustration because feeding yourself took so long. But we wanted to give you your independence, and so we let you do it even when it would have been easier to just keep feeding you… and then you just didn’t need us to feed you anymore. It just happens… and after it happened one last time that time was not remembered.
It sounds a bit sad, and in a way it is, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I’ve watched my two girls blossom into wonderful young women. I see you as adults that I don’t just love, but love being around. I’ve seen you both develop amazing work ethics, and carry with you a kindness to others that I want to see more of in the world. These things do not happen without forgotten lasts along the way.
And now as you head into adulthood I look forward to many more firsts. You might not dance on my feet anymore but I look forward to my first father daughter dance at your weddings. You might not fall asleep in my arms, but I look forward to being a grandparent and having your kids remind me of that wonderful feeling.
Along the way there will also be more lasts, and while I know they will come too, I will only think of them afterwards, unable to recall when such moments came to an end. Such is life. And so as I look to the future, I can’t wait for more first, and yes, more lasts too. Moments to cherish, milestones to achieve, adventures to experience. Your mom and I are excited to see what our amazing girls do next. We cherish you, your firsts, and your lasts.
