Will you help?

Those of you who know me, also know that I have always been one step out of the crowd and marching to a different beat. This has always been my modus operandi. I have my whole life strived to be and sometimes failed in my goal of being a decent person. Recently several facets of my life, past and present have combined themselves into a driving force. I am on a journey to not be a plainly common and decent man, but am training, learning and working towards becoming a great man. I have as we all have, made mistakes in life. I do not regret those errors, but embrace them as they have forged me into who I am at this moment. I failed a marriage as I feel we both did not take into account the seriousness of the commitment we uttered. I do not believe we were meant to ever marry but we did it anyway and made a mockery of it. This is an action which I will constantly pay the price of my youthful foolishness. In doing so, I hope to make my daughter and stepdaughter better understand what a relationship between a man and woman, should truly be. Admitting my mistakes is no less hard than making a learning example from them will be. I have denied my faith for many years, due wholly and partly by mistakes made by other persons and myself in life. I shuttered out greatness and became a solitary warrior against the world. A lyric strikes me at this moment "we do together what we cannot do alone". This being said, I am asking each of you to hold me accountable for my mistakes and transgressions. If you would do this, the reward is my daughter and step daughter knowing without error what a man should be. In doing such I hope they would in turn strive to be as great and wondrous women as they could find the strength and guidance to become. This is my paying it forward. I will not falter as failure is not an option. I care not for your opinions or personal beliefs on this undertaking of mine. I am only asking for your support. I know that my God and my Family will carry me across this bridge of change. I ask sincerely that you understand my reasons and support them, however different they are from yours. I am tired and disgusted of our current collective of "men" and the general lackadaisical way they as I have in the past, shrug responsibility and refuse to take up the sword and fight back all the “demons” that have ruined what we should be. Our actions affect not only the opinions of our women and children as they pertain to us. If you have not been the man and person you should be and have burnt your bridges, then build another one. I am trying with every fiber to stand tall, chain myself to the mast and become what we all have refused to be: A man! The time is now to put away childish things and lead by example. I am not asking you to become Christian, Hindu, Buddhist or any other faith. I am asking only to stand with me and change this downward spiral of decadence we have become. It is not enough to want change, but as Gandhi said we must be the change we want to see. I am with you and you will not be alone. If I use profane and vulgar language around you, please call me on it. If I judge you or others, I command you to correct my wrongs. If I fail in my fatherhood and manhood then I expect you to point out my faults. I am becoming truth. Will you help me?

Valentines Day 2012

My Dearest,
I could write volumes, and speak for hours on the topic of how much adoration, affection and trust I have for you. Due to the time constraints and the pressures of this world around us with its impending timeline of daily monotony closing, I'll be as brief as one can when describing the effects of you on me. There is a memory that begins with 19 hours of work followed by an almost 9 hour drive. One could think that this sounds hellish, but my reward was arriving finally on Kelley Street, in front of a small house with the yard scattered with leaves. The tiredness had beaten my eyes almost to closing, so focusing on the figure on the porch was hard. My neck wouldn't turn without searing pain and my hands were nailed to the wheel. I turned to exit and the figure was no longer in the porch but looking in my eyes. Those ocean waves almost knocked me to the ground as my knees struggled to maintain strength. I don't remember the words spoken but I remember thinking that the image burned in my mind of you smiling was what perfection would look like if you could frame it and hang it on the wall. That day in the end of August over eighteen months ago, was a pivotal and critically refreshing point in my life. The long, sweltering, humid talks on the banks of the Mississippi followed by the highs and lows of Beale Street, will forever be the foundation of us. Character is the driving force for me. You darling have improved mine tenfold, I am a vastly greater, gentler and blessed man, since you entered my life. Your maternal nature benefits all around you and your stoic grace exudes a timid radiance that is as millions of hugs and affectionate kisses punching me in the face. I am a charmed man with a truly undeserved blessing. That blessing is You!

Happy Valentines Day
With endearing regard,
Travis 2012

We cannot receive a holier name!

Bill Cosby jokes that "Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is Soap on a Rope". We fathers should know that Mr. Cosby was joking and playing on the issue of sacrifice and moral building in the eyes of those who look up to us. Research in several studies to include those of which place under a glass, the relationship between adolescence and psychological distress in adulthood and paternal involvement in the developing stages, point to the fact that absence of a father can directly be linked to low academic scores. Some studies have indicated and confirmed that children in single mother families, as opposed to families with a father figure present, generally tend to have lower academic scores and cognitive ability. Also, they may have a higher risk of delinquency, deviant actions, school drop out rates and pregnancy outside of wedlock. Some of these are alone not necessarily anything to be concerned with, however the attainment of all of these factors, tends to suggest that we "patriarchs" play a bigger role than most of us realize. Freud states that a child’s greatest need is that of a father's love and affection. Freud also says that a child who is denied this great need will have low self-esteem, be prone to depression when faced with real or perceived losses and grow to be an adult never being able to feel deserving of love. Whether you agree with Freud or not, it is easy to trace statistics to the undoing of the traditional "nuclear" family unit due to growing social and economic changes. Generally these changes develop into one with a lack of the "paternal" figure. Freud also goes on to suggest that the lack of a paternal figure in children’s lives prior to the age of five has severe, long-lasting, and profound effects. The father/ daughter relationship commonly is referred to as "Daddy Issues". This is a factor most men in our generation are familiar with, as it may have affected our mothers, sisters, girlfriends or wives. The lack of a this positive relationship is directly connected to the a daughter's ability to trust and relate to men as well as in the son to be able to treat women as the people they are, and not as property to be abandoned, neglected or reclaimed when the male figure decides. As a father to a wonderful, smart and gorgeous daughter, who lives 15 hours away, and the stepfather to a talented, eccentric, and stunning and equally outgoing to my stepdaughter, I am well familiar with both sides of this equation. The simple idea is that, we all, admitted or not crave the attention of our fathers. It is and was detrimental in the developing of our ideas of success, failure, integrity and ethic. I am looked on everyday professionally and privately as a man who has the answers. I admit that I am no scholar or great genius. However, I am as I should, we should be a dedicated and hardworking paternal figure. Whether it is to my actual family or my extended, I have made a commitment to teach, learn and grow with my brood. I will always strive to be the man, father, brother, son, friend, husband and confidant I would choose for myself. This is a thought for the day. How do your actions, perceived or invisible affect those around you? And are you being the man you want the world to remember? I should hope we are, because it matters to more than we realize. William Wordsworth states in his ecclesiastical sonnets that "Father! - to God himself we cannot give a holier name."