Parenting is tough.
Don't get me wrong, there are many good days, but also rough days.
I remember the early days, carrying my daughter to sleep, through the night - not surviving well with 2-3 hour sleep, for months.
I remember going for holidays where they was no fan/aircon, and my son crying through the night - and I had to walk/carry him on the beach to calm him.
I remember the long flight to Europe, our first, with a young child. He couldn't sleep on the seat, too big to be in a bassinet, we snuck him to the floor (where our feet were) to sleep, where he slept until the stewardess came, waking him up, because he wasn't supposed to sleep on the floor. It was a loonnnggg whiny/crying night. The last I swore.
There are days of struggle with school, and homework. The dreaded call by the teacher, new ways of sinning - and it only got worse, year after year.
I remember the days of missing children, disappearing after school, hunting high and low, at friend's homes, searching every inch of the school to hunt one little child who decided to wander off without telling us.
I remember the trips to hospitals, in wild panic, with a sick child.
I remember the time I brought my disobedient hysterical son to the toilet, him screaming in the toilet cubicle, before I heard a knock on the door, with a stranger asking me to stop hitting my child - except I hadn't even started yet!!!
I see the light at the end of the tunnel, only to find an oncoming train.
15 years on, it took a painful separation of just 2 months - before my son posts this, and it blows me away. I am speechless. Which is rare. I gasp, gather my thoughts, memories race through my mind, before finally... finally I see a light at the end of the tunnel, this time, it truly is a silver lining, the light at the end of a long tunnel, which makes it all worth while. The light that is.... love.
My heart melts, and I realize, yes, it is all worth it.
The painful separation has somehow given a clarity, of unclouded love. I see my son as never before, a young, mature (mostly) boy all grown up, almost at the edge of manhood.
Yes son, we made the choice to love you 15 years ago, we sometimes doubted it, sometimes didn't feel it, but it was the right decision. Love endures ups and downs. Love is a choice, whether you feel like it or not.
Kinda like how God loves us.
Thank you for giving us a chance, forgiving us of our mistakes, of which there are many.
We love you then, we love you now, and we will always love you.
Dad.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (ESV)
