Decker,
The world is going to try to beat you up a little. It’s nothing personal. It just happens that way. Our world is made up of billions of competing interests, of which you are just one. An important one, but one.
People are sometimes selfish. People will sometimes let you down. People will sometimes, intentionally or unintentionally, try to make you feel unimportant or less than. Don’t.
Know you have a place in this world. Don’t let anyone tell you or make you think different. If they do, they don’t know shit.
Here’s how I know you have a place in the world… God told me. Not some booming voice or anything. I’m not big on organized religion, though hopefully you’ll make your own call on that one. He/she/it told me like this…
It was a long day at work. Long and tedious. I didn’t really start accomplishing what i wanted to until about 4:00pm. I was tired when I got home just before 7. You’re 50 days old. According to Mom, you’d cried a lot throughout the day. She was tired. Mom went upstairs to go to sleep. (She sleeps from about 8:30-1:30 most nights.) You started to cry when she went up. I sat holding you and comforting you until you quieted down. Somewhere in all of that you looked straight at me and I looked straight at you. I started to cry. I knew you have a place in this world and I knew it was partly my job to make sure you knew that. How did I know that? I don’t know. I just knew. As certain as I know anything. To me, that’s God.
Maybe you’ll never have to think about it too much, maybe you’ll always know you have a place in this world. I hope that’s the way it plays out. But if not, just know that God told me.
What “your place” in this world is, I don’t know. That’s for you to figure out. I just know you’ve got one.
I love you. And I’m proud of you. This being a baby thing looks hard. You’re doing great.
Dad