fathers Archives : The Aging of Aquarius

Lessons you learn from your kids

I just learned something from my son. He’s older and wiser than me now.

We had a public disagreement on Facebook, and he really let me have it. It hurt, though that wasn’t his intent. The details don’t matter; they’re just between us. The point is that he taught me something.

For the sake of this essay, I’ll call my son Jeremy because that’s his name.

I’m 73, and Jeremy’s 47, but sometimes I still think of him as a kid.

I do, but I don’t. It’s complicated.

I knew he was an adult when he went off to college nearly 30 years ago, but that’s where most of my personal memories of him end. That’s where we started to grow apart.

The tricky thing about parenting is that you have two lifelong relationships with your children: when they need you and when they don’t. It’s the whole point of parenting, right? Give them what they need and then let them go on to live their own lives.

Forty years after this picture, Jeremy has a long, happy marriage and a brilliant adult child of his own. In many ways, he’s the finest man I know. And sure, I take some credit, but just a bit. He also has a mother, a stepmother, teachers, friends, and a thousand other inspirations I know nothing about.

Children grow up and fly away from the nest, but as just one parent, your relationship is grounded in the past of birthday parties, Christmas mornings, and teary, skinned knees. You try to hold onto that feeling but reach a point where your heart can’t follow.

We stay in touch, but sometimes I need to be reminded that my son hasn’t lived with me for well over half of his life.

“You have nothing in common but his childhood.”

My wife of 37 years lovingly explained that to me a few nights ago.

Jeremy and I still love and respect each other. We just told each other so. And in the wisdom of age, we’re probably closer now than ever.

Sometimes it’s just hard to keep up.

I guess I’m still letting him go.

Happy birthday to me!

Today’s my birthday. I’m 73!

July 6, 2023 Bushmills, Ireland — Me, pensive: Giants Causeway, Bushmills, Northern Ireland, 2023

I know, I know – as an old man I’m supposed to harp philosophically and say things like “age is only a number” and “you’re as young as you feel”. Those cliches are true but they feel too modest.

It’s my birthday! That makes me happy, I feel special today and am old enough to admit it.

Please indulge me just for a moment while I talk about the things old people always talk about, though we’d rather not. There is a point to all of this.

A year ago, just before my 72nd birthday, I had a health scare that ended with the great news that there was nothing wrong with my heart or brain. How many people get that kind of reassurance into their eighth decade?

That led me to retire from my radio career, a heads-up that it was time to get off the rat wheel and make every day Saturday. CarolAnn and I don’t have the money to go gallivanting around the world as future retirees dream. I still want to take a great vacation when we can but I love my wife, our dogs, and our home. A lot of people have none of that.

In the past month I’ve been diagnosed with type-2 diabetes and nearly simultaneously had all of my teeth extracted to make room for dentures. I was born without teeth and that’s how I’ll go out. Wish it could be otherwise but you know what the older old folks used to say, “You can wish in one hand and spit in the other…”

I don’t remember how that ended. It never made any sense to begin with.

Diabetes is manageable and the dentures will be useful when my gums no longer hurt and I learn to eat without feeling like I’m chewing with a mouthful of Legos.

An aside: If you’re looking for a dead solid perfect weight loss diet try combining sugar and carb restrictions for diabetics with the severe limitations of eating without teeth. In six weeks I’ve lost 35 pounds!

So, yeah, I’m thrilled to be 73. My dad died five months before he got there. That weighed on my mind for most of the past year, it really did, for two reasons: At first I was merely hoping that I wouldn’t keel over as early as he did. Then it finally dawned on me that Dad would be over the moon in love with the fact that I outlived him. For some reason that makes me proud.

Dad and me c. 1953, Land Park, Sacramento

I still talk to my dad. Not out loud but whenever I have a question I know he could answer, I ask him. I can hear his wise and loving answer as plainly as if he was here in the room.

I hope to live another 20 or 30 years. I’ll probably be lucky to manage another 10. But if I should pass and anyone asks, you tell them I died a happy man. No matter when or how it happens it will be true.

I’ve crossed the finish line. Now I’m just taking victory laps.

Dave – August 6, 2024

For my kids and theirs

Saturday, March30, 2024

The big tree at Big Tree Park, Glendora, CA. CarolAnn and I lived half a block away. Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

I wish I knew more about the lives of my parents and theirs. My dad, born in 1929, was of a generation that believed children should be seen and not heard. It sounds mean but it was common sense at the time. Dad just figured if I were going to be in the room with adults it would be better for all of us if I sat quietly and just listened. I could learn and they wouldn’t be bothered by my childish interruptions. That probably makes some sense but it didn’t allow me to ask questions.

The attitude extended to what amounted to an information blackout. The grownups wouldn’t tell me much about their younger lives. They’d drop a little nugget here and there but if I asked a follow-up question or two we soon got to the point where I was told, “That was a long time ago. Go outside and play.”

My childhood was a long time ago and I still want to know more about the people who gave me life, loved, and taught me. That’s why I write these essays so that my kids and theirs can know me better than conversation ever allowed.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could learn about our ancestors back many generations if our grandparents could introduce us to theirs and so on over the decades and centuries past? If we could get an idea of who we are and why we belong here, wouldn’t we take ourselves a bit more seriously? Maybe we’d try a little harder to be worthy of the chain that binds the family to humanity.

We are all the sum of many; we are each the result of thousands of loves.

Son of my son

February 11, 1977 – When my son, Jeremy, was born I phoned my father from the hospital to give him the news. The baby was his first grandchild and my dad said something unintentionally funny.

“A boy, great! Our name will continue.”

“Dad,” I replied, “Williams is the third most common name in the English language. The name is safe.” We both laughed. It was one of those special moments between a father and son that I knew I would remember forever.

28 years and ten days later my son had a son and today is his 19th birthday. It’s a big day for him, bigger than he realizes.

I’ve always thought moms deserve the annual birthday celebrations for having done the physical and emotional work. Creating a human inside of yourself is quite literally an unimaginable miracle.

Fathers are bound to their children, too, but physically less so. We have to work a little harder at finding our way into the spiritual connection mothers create naturally.

“My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.” – Clarence Budington Kelland

Parents and grandparents talk a lot about how quickly time passes. It’s true but what we don’t acknowledge often enough is that the time we’ve spent with our children and grandchildren, fast as it seems to pass, is also infinite.

I’m 72 and I think often of my grandfathers, though I wish I knew them better. I marvel at the similarities between us. I appreciate the lessons they taught me through their sons and daughters.

My father died 22 years ago but I think of him daily. He is still my hero but I couldn’t tell you why. We just have that bond.

“A father’s love is like your shadow, though he is dead or alive, he will live with your shadow” – P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

Tyler Goold Williams, I love you for your birth, for who you’ve become since, and for who you will yet be. I celebrate each day of your existence. I wish I could hug and laugh with you more often. I hope we’ll spend more time getting to know each other but I assure you this: you are the result of thousands of generations of mothers and fathers who loved one another deeply. You belong in the chain of families whose love created you.

Through all of that, through all of time past and future, you are the only Tyler Goold Williams who has or will ever exist.

That’s why we celebrate birthdays.

Be happy, stay healthy. Live your life as you wish it to be.

Love, Grandpa

PS. Call us sometime. The phone works both ways, ya know.

I want a daddy do-over

This past week our youngest grandson, Tyler, started high school. His parents are shocked by how fast he’s grown and I find the whole thing amusing.

Been there, done that.

I was a single parent from the time Jeremy was four years old. The term “single parent” isn’t accurate, of course. Our son had two parents who adored him regardless of our inability to continue living together. Maybe more so because of that. He was the glue that secured the broken bond I had with his mother and he still is. Karen and I remain close because our little boy is 42 now with a rapidly aging son of his own.

I’m just going to say this once because I know he’ll protest and because I don’t want to come across as a nostalgic whiner:

Sometimes I think my son is a better dad than I was. I want a do-over.

Wait, hear me out.

I’m not saying he loves his kid more than I did. Not possible. It’s just that he’s more deeply involved in his son’s daily life and activities than I was when he was little and I’m sorry about that.

Jeremy & Tyler
Theatrical nuts don’t fall far from the tree.

Aside from the obvious, that one-parent-at-a-time thing, there is a difference in us as people.

For one thing, Jeremy has a sharp mind for mechanics and can build stuff. I’m a mechanical idiot. I will offer that as an excuse for never building him the tree house I always wanted him to have. (That and the fact that we never had the requisite tree, but it still haunts me.) I didn’t have a tree house when I was a kid and I wanted one for both of us.

Jeremy and Emily are scout leaders. I actually tried that when he was little but his Tiger Cub pack of four kids broke up after two or three outings. That group was led by all dads, no moms. Go figure.

More than anything I just wish I had taken my kid to see the world when he was old enough to appreciate it and to give him cherished lifetime memories of the great times and big things we did together.

We didn’t do those things and I’m still kicking myself.

CarolAnn reminds me of all the things we did do when our boys were growing up. We took them on a cruise, we took them to Disneyland and the Grand Canyon; Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone — certainly far more in the way of adventure than either of us had when we were growing up.

Still, there are regrets and I suppose that’s true for every parent who ever watched his or her child leave the nest far too soon.

I should have taken him to New York for Broadway theater, we both love that stuff. Why didn’t I ever take him to London, for that matter? Or to Boston, the cradle of American history?

Regret is just a memory written on my brow, and there’s nothing I can do about it now. -Beth Nielsen Chapman

Missed opportunities never fade completely but like everything else you get over them, you learn to appreciate what you have and reluctantly shrug off the things you just didn’t get around to doing. Sometimes I still want a do-over but these days the thought barely passes my mind before a soothing explanation follows:

Your son is a better dad because you set the bar pretty high and taught him how to clear it.

It took me a long time to spin that story and I’m sticking to it.

Father’s Day in Judgment City

by Dave Williams

Jeremy and me, the early 80s, Fairytale Town at Land Park, Sacramento..

One of my favorite movies is Defending Your Life starring, written, and directed by Albert Brooks. It’s about a man who dies on his birthday and wakes up in Judgment City, a purgatory-like waiting area where he must justify his life in order to proceed to the next phase of existence. It’s warm and funny and will keep you examining your own life for a very long time.

My son Jeremy loves this movie as much as I do and today is his birthday.

On my birthday 17 years ago, shortly before he died, my dad told me he couldn’t believe he had a son who was 50. I know the feeling.

Jeremy was born 42 years ago today. Like all loving parents at this age I understand that he’s an adult with a family of his own and our relationship has grown with us. But like all parents, in my heart he will always be my little boy.

You have to be careful about that when you talk to a middle-aged child. Occasionally I still have to stop myself from calling him, “Kiddo”.

I’m not going to wax poetic about Jeremy and me. Many fine words have been written about ideal father-son relationships and the bonds of love that can’t be described. I have nothing to add. We know how we feel and how we’ve enriched and informed each other’s lives.

I will say this, however:

I am a far better person for his existence than I would be without his love, influence and instruction.

Parenting is a two-way street. You get as much as you give; you learn at least as much as you teach, probably more.

If you’re happy with who you are today you can thank your children in large measure.

When I arrive in Judgment City I will point fearlessly to my boy down on Earth and testify, “This man is my justification for everything.”

Aging is easy, changing is hard

by Dave Williams

I learned nothing from my upbringing about aging gracefully. Mother’s only advice about the passing years was to encourage the use of more moisturizer so boys will like you.

– Anita Garner

My friend Anita wrote those words in her blog earlier this week and it made me think about my own upbringing.

My parents taught me small things about washing dishes and how to work a slingshot. Mom taught me to scrub my face with Phisohex to wipe away teenaged pimples. Dad taught me to stand up straight and look a man in the eyes when I shook his hand.

Neither of them talked to me about girls or careers and retirement. I didn’t even get the birds and the bees talk.

There was no talk, not one speck of advice about fulfillment, about health, about work, about relationships, about how all of that changes through the years. – Anita

My parents, like Anita’s, left me to learn the deep, quiet lessons of life in my own good time. They taught me to be honest and respectful and that was pretty much it. Matters of my future and relationships were not theirs to teach.

These days parents seem to be much more hands-on. They plan their kids’ lives from sunup to sundown, from birth to college and beyond.

For all the stuff we read about helicopter parents and everyone-gets-a-trophy I don’t think parents today are doing anything wrong. It’s not mine to judge. The world seems much more complicated now than it was 60 years ago, though I don’t understand why.

I do wish my grandsons could spend their free afternoons building forts in open fields with no grownups around. I wish they could ride their bikes home at sundown dirty, sweaty and wearing a freshly scabbed knee and simply be told to go wash up for dinner.

Their world isn’t mine, I get that.

But sometimes I still wish it was.

A father’s advice: part one

by Dave Williams

Today I have some words of advice for my sons and theirs. We dads are very good at this. Even if the advice is sometimes nonsense we never stop spewing warnings, admonitions, analogies, metaphors and stories that begin with, “When I was your age…”

My own dad was a master of the art. He’s been gone for several years now but every day of my life things happen that remind me of something he said or did largely created the better parts of the man I am today. I still seek his advice and he still delivers.

Whenever I am faced with a perplexing decision I only have to ask myself, “What would Dad tell you?” The answer comes to me in a flash.

It works very well the other way around, too. Sometimes I have a dilemma that just can’t be sorted out by weighing the pros and cons of alternative actions or decisions. If I simply ask myself, “What would you tell Jeremy or Nathan to do?” I get my answer immediately with clarity and confidence.

These wise tricks of fatherhood are excellent tools and I highly recommend them. They almost always work.

Almost.

So, the first piece of advice I must give my sons is: have faith in your wisdom but embrace your honest ignorance. There’s no shame in it.

Repeat after me now the three little words that are the most powerful item in a father’s bag of tricks:

“I don’t know.”

Say it again, fearlessly, as if you mean it this time.

“I don’t know.”

The more you say it the easier it becomes but you also must understand that these words should never be used except in sincerity. Your eternal responsibility to your children requires that you make every effort to help them find their way through life’s labyrinth. You, of course, are still finding your own way through the maze and sometimes they will encounter an intersection you’ve not seen. So, again with feeling, please:

“I don’t know.”

It’s getting kind of warm and charming, isn’t it? Maybe later we can address the other three words you need in your toolkit which require much greater skill and caution:

“Ask your mother.”

Post Script: After she read this my wife, the lovely and feisty CarolAnn Conley-Williams said, “You need to add the other three words that are the most important of all: ‘I love you.'” I replied, “That’s obvious.” She said, “No, it’s not. Many fathers can’t or won’t say it.”

She’s right, of course. I didn’t think of it because we Williams dads have no problem with it at all. You can read her comment below.