iDad
There was nothing to prepare me
For the anguish I confronted
The morning after
My children moved
More than 2000 miles away.
In that moment
Reality was a vast tomb -
My casket the expanse
Between me and my children.
A suffocating distance.
But a surmountable distance.
My greatest relief
From the daily depression
Is the moment I see my children
After soaring to them.
Whether to visit,
Or bring them home,
There is no moment in my life
More powerful
Than that moment
We see each other.
Whether it's at midnight
And their sleepy eyes widen in surprise,
Or it's at noon
When they sprint down their school's corridor
As they spy me from behind the entry doors,
Those hugs,
So strong and so pure,
Fuel me.
But flights are expensive.
What once was monthly has reduced
To bi-monthly or more.
Bankruptcy,
A result of the constant travel,
Tethers me to Washington
And cautions me against more frequent visits.
It's a beast to abide by.
But it's necessary
To ensure a solvent future for my children.
I see my children
A cumulative span
Of less than one-quarter of the year.
But we make it work.
Imagine running your car
Without gas
Three out of every four days
And making it to your destination intact.
My children and I achieve such a feat daily.
Technology makes it so.
Every night,
With few exceptions,
I see my children.
Their faces digitized,
Their hugs verbalized,
Their kisses mimed.
But their love expressed.
Clearly. Sincerely. Powerfully.
Every day I see my children,
And in those minutes,
Sometimes 5,
Sometimes 15,
I replenish with a new fuel.
Two-dimensional love
Through a screen the size of my hand
Sustains me for days on end.
Months on end.
I miss their embrace
But I hear their voices.
I see their faces
But miss their choices.
Miss the routines
Of dinner, bath, and bedtime.
The stories,
The songs,
Will wait until the summer.
The iPhone and iPad
Saved my life.
They create a taunting window
Between me and my loves.
A window that is at once
Generous and compassionate,
And devastatingly cruel.
A portkey without port.
Still,
Technology connects me to my children,
My greatest loves.
And for that I am grateful.
This life is not the life I imagined,
But it is the life we grind through.
My children
Grind through
Without their dad
And are tough enough,
Without the benefit of experience,
To survive.
They know I love them
And I know they love me.
I am their Daddy.
In this digital plane,
A portal connecting two-thousand miles
Of heartache and longing, we get by.
They get by.
I get by.
I, their Daddy,
No longer just analogue,
But pixelized and digitized and synthesized.
A light-speed traveller for whom
No speed is fast enough
To break that glass feeling.
We get by.
They get by.
I get by.
I, their Daddy.
I, Dad.
iDad.
