DAD!

DAD!

was the title of one of my favorite posts from last year. Judging by traffic and emails, it was one of yours as well.

If I were to make a list of my ten favorite tales ever told on Writer Dad, I imagine that list would be filled with stories of a similar stripe. I’ve always loved the posts about fatherhood best; yarns similar to those we all have and sometimes share.

Not just fathers, but mothers, brothers and sisters too. Family, for better or worse, is something we can all relate to.

These stories are always fun to write and wonderfully natural, they often fly from my fingers as fast as my thought can push them. Sometimes there is a point to prove, other times I’m trying to show you the movie in my mind with words instead of film.

More than anything, these stories are for the record. Not exactly the reason I started Writer Dad, but what made me first fall in love with the site, then later resolve to never leave it.

My children will one day grow up and then away from us. Cindy and I will feel the ache of a lingering silence; the same silence which these days we would sometimes do just about anything for. In those moments, it will be these pages I will want to return to.

Photographs are wonderful. My iPhoto library is filled with five digits worth. Pictures are perfect for capturing a moment and providing that ideal second of recall. But stories whisper in your ear, take you by the hand, and lead you deeper into a personal history, memory or experience than you could otherwise go.

These are the stories I wish to hang on the hallways of my personal forever.

I write these stories for Cindy, myself and my family. Most of the time in that order, though sometimes it changes. More than anyone, I write them for my children.

There is only so much of me that my children can see, at least right now. Their perspective is fenced by age and episode. I hope that one day they will look back, read these words and be able to know their father in a way that was not possible then, but has been effectively bottled for later.

The bond I build each day with my children is powerful. One day we will stand on equal footing, break bread, exchange words and indulge in the delights of adult conversation. On that day, they will know the me that I will one day be.

But that is not the me that I am now.

How could it be?

People change each day, even if it is only by barely a degree. Perhaps I will be better, I hope I won’t be worse. But there is no doubt I will be different. I want to try and capture the me that I am now as well as the me I once was so that my children will know him as well.

I write all over the Web. It’s what I do, day in and day out. It’s how I make my living. Yet this domain is sacred. In some measure, everything that hits this site is for them. But with the DAD! stories this is especially so. These tales are part of my personal time capsule.

Rather than burying them in the backyard for later excavation, I am sharing them here with you.

DAD! stories are not only the ones I wish to never forget, they are the stories I want my children to one day remember.

Tomorrow I’ll publish the first one.

See you then!

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