Jeff's Musings about the Meaning of Dash...

... and other long-windedness

All I have right now is:

Great Expectations....

9/18/06

There are expectations upon us and from us and we like to test the limits, the accuracy, of our prejudgments.

The first test of my expectations of Dash was thirty seconds or so after he had been plucked out of Leigh as I watched from two feet away the nurses cleaning him up. I didn't feel a loud explicit CONNECTION with Dash.  I knew intellectually he was the only person I'd ever met genetically related to me. I don't think I was disappointed; this was a turning point in my life nonetheless. He was a handsome ex-fetus and would do just fine.

I still don't know if I feel a genetic connection; I certainly don't feel a need for it as he is my sunshine.

After some time I began to wonder if I loved Dash enough to be willing to do that Parental Ideal: to be willing to give one's life for one's child. I wasn't.

Here's the pause: it is so very hard to give up one's self. It really literally kills me knowing that my time on this planet is finite. My career has been largely that of saving time (process engineering) I suspect on the (naïve, but present) belief that all the time I save myself and other people will be stored in an account that I can use when I am supposed to die. "Okay, Jeff, your housekeeping has finally killed you. …but since you saved 10,000 man-hours for people in your career, you have that time to use until I come to take you away. Go!" I don't know if I'll ever be ready to go. There is so much to do, and I have done so little Good. The frustrating thing now, is I know what I should be doing in life (maximizing my talents to make the world a better place). It makes the remaining time that much more critical.

Anyway, so giving up my life is an extremely hard thing to do. Ultimately I expect to get to that point with my kids. Here's where the ego comes in. Even though you think the only thing you can leave behind is attitude, you want your kids to adopt the attitudes you value the most (though, often, you don't necessarily practice). There is an aspect of love that is a selfish thing, where you love the things about the kid that reflect the best part of yourself. In effect you're loving them because you are loving yourself.

So for a long time, if, having to choose giving my life for Dash's, I would have said no. After 40 years trying really hard to figure out what is important and meaningful and fair (okay, I only started thinking about these things when I was five (really, but that's another story)) I think I have figured it out. But I haven't written it down yet, and I haven't coerced Dash's mind to understand them, so if I were to go away now, then my life would have been mostly a waste, and nothing makes that okay.

When we were up in Traverse City visiting Grandma and Grandpa Stokes, it occurred to me (in the shower, oddly, which is where it occurred to me that I COULD be an astronaut, it wasn't just a daydream and I should go to the Air Force Academy to become an astronaut) that if I had to make the choice, that I would choose for Dash to live, even though the valuable portion of my life is only now beginning (as a father and as someone who finally knows what is important and meaningful and fair). And so much of the fun and the hope (and the worry) of being a parent is imagining WHO YOUR CHILD WILL BECOME. You hope that he become your best qualities plus more (again there's a selfishness there: his feats become your own). I'd certainly want to share with him what 35 years of hard searching has shown me.  He's not quite yet my cybernetic clone-and-upgrade yet (nor may he ever be) but he's a great kid, with a good attitude, who smiles so much and is so serious and so kind (in his toddler ability to be) and so gentle (though not with his hands or the cat or hair). He's plenty good enough and I love him enough and there's no way Id ever be able to live with myself if I ever were to hesitate on that decision. At some point you don't care about who he'll be in twenty years, you just want to give him a tomorrow.

Take me, spare Dash; he's so worth my life.

..

In the meantime, I better get writing. There may not be broad value in what Ive learned but I think it can resonate strongly with some...