I AM NO ONE

There’s something about hearing your own, earnest, written thoughts or words coming from your own child’s irreproachable hymnal like voice that can lead a guileless man to secret thoughts and tears.  In this case it was my nine year old son…who was attempting and succeeding at being comically entertaining last night.  Sitting next to me on our couch, out of the blue, he ceremonially cleared his throat, crossed his legs (like an intellectual might do) and randomly flipped through the pages of my book “A Walk with Prudence”. The paperback sits on the coffee table in our living room and doubles as a coaster for the occasional glass of wine or morning coffee.  As he flipped through the pages quickly, he arbitrarily stopped with a blind yet pronounced index finger and serendipitously began to read at the exact unsystematic spot touched upon. He cleared his throat with a touch of snobbishness and began to read the verse aloud but not before pausing for dramatic effect. 

“Life…in all its resiliency, beauty and strength is sometimes eclipsed by its unquestionable transient frailty. Today we are alive…tomorrow is not promised and sometimes, it seems, that the evil that lurks in the shadows, this side of heaven, often has its say. But let it never be that we allow evil, which basks in our fear, to hinder our ability to live vibrantly unafraid of what tomorrow might bring.” He raised a scholarly eyebrow and continued…“The only way to defeat the inevitable darkness that touches this world is to LIVE and LOVE brilliantly bright with unity and purpose. To not do so, is to diminish the very memory and glow of all the beautiful lights that have gone out before us.”  He pushed down the boyish giggle that was welling up within him and then solemnly said “JASON VERSEY”  

Even though he read my words in jest I couldn’t help but be moved by how he articulated the phrases so sweetly and uttered the sentiments so angelically. He did so to the point that the words he read aloud represented, to me, an entirely new meaning then when I first wrote them…simply because of the utterance of his speech which ebbed with his pre-pubescent pronunciation and charm. When he finished I gave him a knowing smile and a sophisticated golf clap but inside I held back a sting of tears…for the moment called for laughter and we did laugh but for a father who knows his own mortality I could only hope and pray that someday, one day, he would reread those words and find the strength to live and love brilliantly bright with unity and purpose when the day comes that I am no longer (physically) here to be with him.  Instead of going there…we giggled and I hugged him.  He said. “I love you dad.”

The life that I’ve led reminds me, daily, that I am no one.  So much unaccomplished, so little yet achieved and I am, therefore, eerily aware that my mere existence outside of a limited few does not register among the billions I share this world with. I am a grain of sand, a wisp of smoke, spirit, flesh and bone but in the transitory moments captured above…a voice reminds and finds me and says, I am someone. And so I am both no one and someone. No one to me (or perhaps to you) but I am someone to yet another (seemingly unknown) beautiful grain of sand, wisp of smoke, angelic spirit, and bundle of flesh and bone and despite so many unaccomplished aspirations...that is good enough for me.

“I love you too, son.”

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The Conversation

I am the author of the NON best selling book A Walk with Prudence -Practical Thoughts of Wisdom for Everyday Living

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