Dear son:
I can't wait to hold you in my arms, tell you how much your mother and I love you. I can't wait to protect you, take care of you and shower you with so much love that one day, you'll look back and say "I had great parents and my dad did right by me."
To tell you the truth, Elliott, I'm terrified of being a good father and you have yet to make an appearance. I guess, well hope, this is a normal feeling for all fathers expecting their first child. The closest I've ever been to fatherhood is to Buddy, our family dog and your bodyguard in training. Even with Buddy I find myself feeling guilty sometimes that I don't do all that I can or should do to make his life the best it can be. But, I try hard every day to make sure he is happy and that he feels the undeniable love that mommy and I have for him.
With you, however, it's going to be a whole new playing field. Buddy, as I've explained to him, will soon take a backseat from the spoiled stage he has been taking full advantage of for the past five years and settle into his soon to be second fiddle position. There were times before I met your mother that I questioned whether or not I would ever be fortunate enough to have children. Because of this, I often would refer to Buddy as "son." And now, my son is growing and will be here before we know it. I'm going through a roller coaster of emotions, fears and concerns. I do know, however, that I am preparing myself to do all that I can to be the best dad I can be.
In doing so, I'm writing you a letter now that I will show you when you are able to read it. I have always been able to communicate on a higher level through writing. It's like painting a picture - I see what I want to say in my mind and I write it down and more often than not, it's a much better form of communication for me. So, here is my letter I wrote to you when your mother was five months pregnant with you.
First and foremost, son, my promise to you is to love you more than anyone will ever love you in your lifetime. You are now, and will always be, the most important thing in this life to me and your mother. Nothing will ever be more important to us than your well being and creating a strong family bond together that will always be most important to all three of us. I will work on this everyday of our lives together and I will strive to be a perfect father, even though I know mistakes will be made. But know this, you will never have to doubt for a second your father's love for you.
I will be 40 when you are born and have, in some ways, already lived a full life. A life of so many ups and downs that it's hard to imagine I came out on the good side of it all. Life is never easy and, unfortunately, I've had to experience how unfair life can be on more than one occasion, but it was never as bad as it was when my brother, your Uncle Drew, died on April 5, 2005. The pain of that is still so very difficult for me to this day. The one thing I have learned through life's journey of ups and downs is that regardless of how bad it may seem, it can always get better with a little bit of elbow grease. Life is what you make of it, so I promise to always try to teach you how to stay positive and face the negative moments in life with courage, positivity and digging deep for that certain will power that will always help you find a way to overcome any obstacle.
I also will do my best to teach you right from wrong. Making the right decisions in life isn't always easy and knowing right from wrong can seem difficult at times, but just know that at some point in your life, you WILL know and understand what is right and what is wrong. You will know this because I will make sure you always understand the consequences of your decisions, good or bad. And if you do make bad choices in life, my hope is that you will learn from it. Always educate your mind, Elliott. Life is one constant lesson and the more you learn in this wacky world, the better man it will make you.
Developing this understanding early in life will benefit you as you enter your teenage years and especially in high school, which should be some of the best years of your life and a springboard for bigger and better things to come. From my experience, I will make sure you understand that you need to be your own person and not worry about fitting in certain crowds or being a star athlete. There's so much more to high school than crowds, parties, worrying about what others think of you and trying to fit in. Life is tough enough, so my job as a father is to try and teach you to create your own path. Walk your own line and make your own decisions that aren't influenced by peer pressure from others. And most of all, use school growing up as it meant for - to educate your mind the best that you can. Take advantage of what teachers are trying to do and always strive to always learn, learn and learn some more. Elliott, if you can somehow understand early in life to strive to take advantage of all the tools to educate your mind, understand right from wrong and creating your own identity, I promise you it will benefit you later in life in so many ways.
And finally, I promise to you here and now that I WILL always be there for you and that I will constantly strive to be the very best father a son can have. We will be a family that won't always have the finer things in life, but I will always work hard to make sure you have the best childhood possible. I will always talk with you and to you, I will always listen to you and never take you for granted. I will never for a second put my wants or needs in front of yours and will always take the time to always spend quality time with you. I will laugh and cry with you. We will argue and there will be times when you're just going to have to listen to me even when you don't want to. We will have our ups and downs and plenty of disagreements. We may even yell at each other. However, never to be overlooked through any of this will be my love and respect for my son. That will never be lost in my eyes. You, my son, will always be my heart and soul and the light of my life.
I will support you in whatever you decide to do in life. If you want to play basketball as your father did, I'm all in. If you would rather be in the chess club, I'm all in. If you want to be a chef, teacher, policeman, politician, doctor, journalist or the president of the United States, I'm all in because you will always have your father's support to do anything and be anything you want.
I want you to have everything in life that I didn't get the chance to have: a normal childhood with a stable family. We will have family dinners at the dining room table. We will have family nights out. We will spend time talking as a family. Open and honest communication will be a key component of our family. I will make sure you get to know and love your grandparents, which is something every child should take full advantage of. Your mother and I will never desert you and the two of us will always work together to provide you with all the tools you need to become a smart, honest and polite young man. Our problems will never be your problems, yet your problems will always be our concern.
I will do my best to not be a helicopter parent. I will try to always give you space and not smother you. I have to honest from the get go of all this - this will be the hardest part of parenthood for me. I am going to always want to smother you. Guilty, I know. But I will never feel bad for loving you as much as I do.
I want to be more than your father ... I want us to be great friends - best friends. I want us to have a very special father-son-relationship and I will always work on making that strong bond stay strong. Just because your my son doesn't mean we can't be friends, too.
In closing, Elliott, I am already so proud of you and you've provided something to your father I never thought would happen — an opportunity to share a lifetime with my son. From the moment your mother and I found out we were having a child, our entire lives changed in such a great way and it's because of you. You have no idea how happy you have made us and in return, we are going to spend the rest of our lives showing you just how happy we are to have you as our son.
I love you, son.
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