My favorite from Tom’s blog (Part 1)

Since no one really reads Tom’s personal blog, I’ll share my favorites with you - the ones that really fit our website pretty well.

“Thursday, January 18, 2007
There is no love…
Like a parent for a child.

So, I’ve been drinking, and thinking (a generally melancholy combination). Noah’s injury, the general state of affairs of my life… A mix that adds up to deepish, unedited thoughts. My training in research… nay my general demeanor and makeup as a human being… leads me to try and quantify everything.

Even things that defy quantification.

So I’m drinking, and watching old episodes of Jericho (I DVR’ed them forever ago and never got around to watching them) and Noah wakes up and comes out and snuggles with me. He places that splinted arm around my neck (good to keep it elevated for the swelling and all) and falls asleep. And what is the only thing I can think of? How much I want to take this pain away from him.

And at this point, it isn’t so much pain as inconvenience.

He’s doing great. I truly can’t believe it. He’s not even complaining about the sling any more. How is that possible? It’s all I can think about and it seems to be the furthest thing from his mind. Children.

So, I’m getting emotional at this point and trying to describe to myself how much I love my child. Of course, there are no words. No poems. No “picture’s worth a thousand words.” None of that. For those of you without children (or worse, those with children that think it’s OK to beat the shit out of them just because you’re a fucking waste of life) imagine the thing you love the most. The absolute most. The thing that would literally make you want to end your life if you lost it. Your parents. Your boyfriend. Your pet. Your bank account. Your lifelong dream. Your speakers. Your esoteric amp. Whatever. Imagine it… think about the emotions you have tied to it… and then imagine how much you would have to love something in order to make that thing, that person, that dream, worthless. Utterly worthless. A child inspires the depth of emotion that one can’t even begin to imagine before you experience it.

I’m an egotistical man. I admit it. I spend most of my waking moments thinking I either know it or that other people are just plain wrong. So I understand your skepticism. I would be to. I’ve loved things… people… dogs… more than I thought humanly possible. Things that I thought were on par with a parent’s experience with a child. I was wrong. Totally wrong.

But why?

Is it some magical thing? Some mystical spell that is cast over you at childbirth? Not for me. For me it grew eventually. At childbirth (and this is probably very different for my wife) my children seemed little different than other people’s children. Pooping, crying, slobbering bags of wiggle. They don’t look at you, they don’t smile at you, they don’t even know you exist. It isn’t until they get a little older and start to develop a their own little personality that you find yourself falling in love with them.

So what, it sounds creepy, but it’s an accurate description.

Slowly, eventually, you’ll find yourself feeling things you’ll never believe possible. But why? I still haven’t answered that. It is simply (very simply) because of what your child gives you. Unconditional love. TRULY unconditional. By the time you’re old enough to understand, you’ve already degraded that feeling between you and your parents. Your spouse/partner loves you, but you’re fooling yourself if you think it is unconditional. Adults can’t love unconditionally. At least I don’t think they can. They love. But they remember. To love unconditionally is to forget all past wrongs (not just forgive). Your child (and perhaps this is how abusers justify their horrific actions) will forget most everything you do. They may remember (in a way) but they don’t hold it against you.

And that is something that draws you in…

I had a girlfriend (a long distance one) say that she trusted that I wouldn’t cheat on her. It was the most liberating and confining statement I’ve ever heard. She trusted me and knowing that, I couldn’t betray her. At the same time, I didn’t have to worry about jealousy or any of that stupid shit. So I was able to interact with females freely (this was in high school so insecurities were a common occurrence) but her trust forced me to be faithful.

That was nothing compared to the type of trust a child puts in a parent. A trust that is so deep that it makes you attempt to be a better person. A trust that is so deep that, even though you know by age 12 they are going to hate you, you still want to do everything for them. A trust that is so deep, you are fairly sure that when they DO hate you, you’ll STILL want to do everything for them. A trust that is so deep that you wake up every day surprised at the intensity of the emotions you are feeling. A trust that is so deep that it inspires me to wax poetic on a blog that no one reads. My dad once told me that I could never understand how he felt about me until I had my own child -

He was right.”

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