7 years, 11 months, and 20 days. Mind your words.

My most dearest Shosh and Jaialai:

Another Christmas has passed. Another year comes to a close. Another moment without you.

The moments add up and weigh heavily upon us. They often take our breaths away and threaten to envelop us in perpetual night. Oh, what we wouldn’t give to turn back time and reclaim each and every moment lost with each of you …

We can but move forward as best as possible and hope fate will be kind to us in the year ahead. Hope fades, but never dies as long as we have breath and memories.

We can but focus on taking one breath at a time, putting one foot in front of the other, and move forward into the unknow, hoping for the day we will reunite with you. In that light, we shall continue with our inquiries about how to live and how to teach you how to live.

The goals of the first, to be clear, is to fully reach our potentials as sentient beings and to help others do likewise. Some may call this Enlightenment while others Self-Actualization and Self-Transcendence. That is irrelevant. The objectives — to live a mindful life worthy of living and of the resources we deny others by using ourselves — are what’s important, not the labels.

These letters are my attempt at the second. I wish I were there each day to listen to your concerns and guide you through each struggle, but that is not the hand we were dealt. Under the circumstances, the best I can do is to offer you advice from the lessons life has imparted upon me and from the wisdom of those I have read.

Today, the lesson is to mind your manners and your words. In Asian cultures, the proper use of honorifics, the inflection of your tone, the use of body language, and diction establish to others your family upbringing and level of education. In America, we are limited to body language and word choice. Thus, be mindful of both.

We’ll address manners in the next letter. Today, we focus on word choices.

Words are the basic units of language and of all communications; thus, a strong vocabulary is necessary for personal, academic and professional success.  A large vocabulary enables you to communicate more effectively and persuasively, write more eloquently, and comprehend more completely what is being communicated.  (See, e.g. Becker, 1977; Anderson & Nagy, 1991.)  Conversely, poor vocabulary or word skills ensures failure.  (Biemiller, 2005.)

On average, American students learn 2,500-3,000 new words per year, 6-8 per day.  (Beck & McKeown, 1991; Nagy & Anderson, 2000.)  Studies show that in a typical hour, a child from a poor U.S. family hears 616 words; a working-class family, 1252 words; and, a professional family, 2153 words.  In four years, a child from a poor family hears 13 million words; from a working-class family, 26 million words; and, from a professional family, 45 million words.  (Hart & Risley, 1995, 2003.)  One study found that three-year-old children of professional parents have a recorded vocabulary size greater than the parents of children on welfare.  (Id.)  

You are disadvantaged because of my absence and because, following the divorce and the nightmare that befell us, your daily contacts are limited to your mother’s side of the family, which is made up mostly of high school graduates and only a sprinkling of college educated people. Unlike those in my side of the family, whose careers include doctors, lawyer, corporate managers, architects, and other white-collar professionals, your mother’s side of the family are decidedly blue-collar and engaged in jobs such as city bus driver, public works truck driver, stock boy, fast food workers, construction laborers, etc.

Among other things, they are disadvantaged because jobs do not require advanced vocabulary and because their limited vocabulary limits their careers opportunities. While no man is shamed for honest work and I applaud those of them engaged in gainful employment — as opposed to those of them who are unemployed and supported by their girlfriends with whom they have had children — as your father, I want better for you because I know you are capable of so much more. Shosh, my staff once chided me about the challenges of raising a smart child because, as a toddler, you were given to articulating with specificity and clarity the three reasons why you prefer one type of dinosaur to another, the five reasons why you like the Backyardigans, etc. Jaialai, despite being deprived of the hours of being read to as a child as Shosh was (since I was busy with my lone battle against the Enron of Healthcare while your mother return work after years of being a homemaker of her own volition), as a toddler, you gave us such gems as “We’re all Africans!” (which correctly states that the earliest humans from which we evolved migrated out of Africa) and “It’s not a fish!” when I asked you to identify an aardvark.

So, to maximize your potentials, strive first on improving your vocabulary daily. Read voraciously. Note words you don’t know and look up their definitions. Keep track of new vocabulary words and try to use them in your daily life.

In addition, to the extent possible, deconstruct new words you come across to their constituent parts — prefix, root, and suffix. Knowledge of Latin and Greek prefixes, roots, and suffices will help expand your ability to decode new words tremendously. Make the effort to learn and use them.

As you endeavor to increase your toolbox of vocabulary words, remember words are tools. Use them wisely and judiciously … for yourself as well as for others. Sharp words can wound more deeply and leave longer lasting damage than sharp knives. Kind and supportive words can not only help someone weather a difficult moment, but can also change a person’s — especially a child — trajectory in life. Thus, be mindful of what you say to yourself and others. Be kind. Be patient. Be understanding. Be forgiving. But be firm when necessary. Be strong as needed to defend yourself and others.

Use your voice — here, the term conveys not just your words but also your deeds — to help improve the lives of others and the community. I know you can. Shosh and Jaialai, I have seen you both used your voices to defend others even as children.

Stay the course. Don’t deviate simply because of my absence or because those who role model for you in my absence value personal comfort, convenience, and political expediency more. Live right and use your words as a resource towards that goal.

All my love, always and forever,

Dad

7 years, 11 months, and 16 days. Be positive. Be thankful. Focus more on the possibilities and less on limitations.

[T]he people in Tromsø have strategies for making winter wonderful that people can use wherever they are. People in Tromsø see winter as full of opportunities, whereas in the U.S. we tend to only focus on the ways winter limits us and the things we can’t do.

https://news.stanford.edu/2020/12/18/norwegian-mindset-winter-might-help-covid-19-world/

My most dearest Shosh and Jaialai:

Merry Christmas! I hope you are enjoying the day and are basking in the warmth of family and joys of Christmas. Christmas is always a special occasion no matter the circumstances. Find joy. Make the best of the situation.

As stated in the above-quoted article out of Stanford, a positive mindset correlates with positive well-being, life satisfaction, positive emotions, psychological flourishing, and personal growth. Thus, be positive. Think positive thoughts. That is within your control.

Strive to gain good perspective and not allow the difficulties of the moment to darken life as a whole as most people are inclined to do. All too often, we are tempted to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Stop. Think. Appreciate that which is good and beautiful. Discard only the bad.

In our brief time together, I failed to engage you in my years-long efforts to fight for human rights and to help others. I thought you were too young and that we would have lots of time as you got older. I erred.

My reasons for helping the homeless, the refugees, the poor, the infirmed, etc., are three-fold. First, it is our duty to help others. If not me, then who? If we all count on others to sacrifice themselves for others, then humanity is lost because the burden of the many is born by the few. Free-ridership is a problem of epic proportion. No, each of us must do our part to make a better world. Second, it makes me feel good to help others. Third, helping those less fortunate helps me maintain a good perspective about what is important in life. For example, many in the U.S. currently bemoan Christmas shelter-in-place orders during a pandemic when hospitals in California and Texas are reaching capacity and the country is experiencing a surge on top of a surge. Meanwhile, we bemoan your absence, the destruction of our previous lives, and the uncertainty of our future. Yet, out there in the world, there are millions who have no home in which to shelter, no children alive to wish for, and no hope for a future. It is best if we each remember to be thankful for what we have: a home in which to shelter, food to fill our bellies, loved ones to hold and cherish, peace to rest, and faith to imagine greater than ourselves.

Be positive. Be thankful.

All my love, always and forever,

Dad

7 years, 11 months, and 13 days. Aim high. Extend yourselves. Fight for what is right. Live fully.

My most dearest Shosh and Jaialai:

We never to say a proper goodbye. Yes, I hugged you and kissed you as you headed off into your mom’s house, but that was an I’ll-see-you-next-week goodbye. It wasn’t an I’ll-see-you-when-I-see-you-which-is-at-least-more-than-8-years-from-now goodbye. Had I known, I would have held you longer …

Live each day to the fullest, my sons. Tomorrow is promised to no one, yet people often live as if tomorrow will be more of today and they’ll have a chance to remedy hurt feelings, misspoken words, etc. They live a lie.

More than 3,300 Americans did not live to see today. They passed from COVID-19 yesterday.

If they had known that yesterday would be their last, what would they have done differently? Would they have held on to anger and vengeance to be exacted upon perceived enemies, or let go and embrace the miracles of life in what little time remains? Would they have called loved ones they had not spoken to in years, months, days as each is carried away by the demands of life?

As I’ve often said, I have but two queries in life: how to live? and, how to teach my children to live? The totality of my lessons to you is this: live fully. Aim high. Experience life as much and as widely as you can. Look for and embrace what is good and beautiful. Eschew what is dark, evil, and ugly. Often, the two co-exist, so be measured, patient, and kind in your assessment. (Think critically here. For example, if you discover the new “friend” is a drug dealer, then run … don’t walk … and don’t bother to give him the time of day. There is no need to court danger.)

I regret that I hadn’t had an opportunity to fully introduce you to my life as it was before the Enron of Healthcare and before evil befell us. You need to see what life has to offer, and good role models to show you the possibilities. That is my failing.

There is so much I hope to show you: the beauty of orchestral music played at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; the artistry of shows like Cats and Phantom of the Opera; the smoothness of jazz musicians like B.B. King and Dianna Krall; the breath-taking beauty of the Outer Banks, NC (at least we’ve shared the experiences of Okinawa, Hawaii, and the Northwest Coastline); the kindness of strangers building homes for the poor and feeding the hungry; the erudition of intellectuals gracing the halls of Duke University or other elite universities; the brilliance of friends and co-workers who are inspired and who aspire to be their very best, pushing themselves beyond the point where most people would be comfortable stopping; etc. I should have told you about the classmate in law school who slept in his car for a month since he didn’t have housing, or the classmate at Duke, a college football player, who could afford only pasta and butter and whatever else he could find when crashing parties or being invited over for dinner. Today, those guys are among the leaders of their communities, if not the nation.

I should have told you about my time on Capitol Hill; my experience meeting in the office of the Senate Majority Leader with a handful of others to discuss legislative priorities; my monthly breakfast meetings with the director of NAM at the Hay Adams, across the street from the White House, populated with patrons who often graced the nightly national news; the weeklong leadership conference at Skamania Lodge; the invitation to present at an annual state judicial conference and serve as a faculty member at an ALI-ABA conference; my appearance before the Conference Board; the projects I have lead and the meetings I have had with people like the Senior Vice President for a multinational corporation and the Vice President of the University of Chicago Hospital; etc. I want you to know that this was my normal, and that your future holds similar.

It worries me to no end that without my presence, you are surrounded by relatives on your mother’s side for whom normal is being a city bus driver, a driver for the city’s public works department, a landscaper, fast food workers, or unemployed “graphic artists” supported by girlfriends who are working two jobs to support them and their children. There is nothing wrong with these professions in and of themselves; however, you are capable of so much more! I know you! I raised you!

I fear that without positive role models, you will find them to be the normal to which you settle. That would be the greatest of sins … to waste the talent and intelligence God gave you for lack of guidance and effort.

I push you to aim high because I want that to be your normal. I want advance degrees to be your normal. I want management to be your normal. I want having a voice to be your normal. I want the knowledge that you will make an impact on life to be your normal.

It is too easy to let the vagaries of life push you as they see fit. It is too easy to be mediocre, to give up after trying. Everyone fails. The difference is those who find success keep at it until they succeed. They find ways to succeed. They don’t give up after the first failure.

Live fully so you will have few regrets later on. I do … at least I try to. And I am nothing special. I’m just a guy who tries to do what is right and to help others, who keep trying to understand the world and those around him, and who is fortunate enough to have met amazing people who introduced him to great programs and people.

My greatest wish is for you to experience the amazing things I have had to honor of experiencing; to travel and see distant lands such as Rome, Paris, London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Agara, New Dehli, etc.; to serve those in need such as the homeless, the poor, the refugees, and the infirmed; and, to have spent yourself fighting for a worthy cause greater than yourself, be it education for the poor, food for the hungry, opportunities for the marginalized, art for those parched of beauty, or friendship for the lonely.

Extend yourselves beyond your horizons, my sons. Too many use that as excuses to limit their lives. Live not tepid lives. Make not excuses. Push yourselves to better!

All my love, always and forever,

Dad

P.S., remember, I will always love you no matter what you do. Do your best and you’ll be as proud of yourself as I am of you. Remember, my definition of success is as Ralph Waldo Emerson has stated so eloquently:

What is Success?

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed
easier because you have lived;

This is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

7 years, 11 months, and 12 days. Live passionate, not tepid lives. (Christmas traditions.)

One of Sylvia Plath’s favorite short stories was Henry James’s “The Beast in the Jungle.” The story concerns a man, John Marcher, who spends his life waiting for an extreme experience — “the thing” — which he likens to a beast crouching in the jungle. It will be, he says, “natural” and “unmistakable.” It may be “violent,” a “catastrophe.” One too late does Marcher realize he has lived a passionless existence waiting for the thing. He has instead become the man to “whom noting on earth was to have happened.” The story ends as he flings himself at the tomb of the woman he should have loved. “When the possibilities themselves had accordingly turned stale, when the secrets of the gods had grown faint, had perhaps even quite evaporated, that, and that only, was failure,” James wrote. “It wouldn’t have been failure to be bankrupt, dishonoured, pilloried, hanged: it was failure not to be anything.”

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark (2020 Alfred A. Knoff, New York)

My dearest and most beloved sons, Shosh and Jaialai:

Christmas is mere days away. I have but few regrets in life, and one is that I did not leave you with great Christmas traditions. After my divorce from your mother, we had just started our new lives in our new home. The two Christmases we celebrated there were simply insufficient to establish a tradition. I had just bought an upright Mason & Hamlin piano months prior to evil befalling us, and would have incorporated music into our new Christmas tradition.

Let me tell you about the Christmas tradition I grew up with. It still gives me comfort to know I had been blessed with such a thing of beauty.

My best Christmas memories were those from our time at the four-story Green House, with its eight bedrooms, cavernous basement, scary attic, and large backyard that ran all the way down to the little creek from which two boys once caught a huge trout. (FYI, the Green House would later become the city’s Children Museum — that’s how unique were the architecture and spacious the building.) As you know, I come from a large family. Between the more than a dozen siblings, the handful of cousins who lived with us from the time they came to the U.S. as refugees, and those in want of a home for Christmas, the house was usually bursting at the seams and bustling with Christmas activities.

On the day of Christmas Eve, we cleaned house and cooked a veritable feast fit for kings. We may not always have oil to heat the house for the winter, but we were always sure to have a huge Christmas tree befitting of the vaulted ceiling and spacious living room. (The tree cutting was an event of its own.) Christmas lights accentuated the huge window which framed the living room. (We couldn’t afford to heat the house since that huge, single pane window opted to share the warmth with the entire neighborhood!) In the middle of the window hung the three-foot tall tissue-paper and wood three-dimensional star we had crafted earlier. The star was illuminated from within, and its warm glow beckoned friends and family alike.

The sights and sounds of Christmas surrounded us. Delicious smells emanating from the kitchen mixed with the fresh pine scent to create an intoxicating mix that left us children drunk with joy. The house was filled with piano and/or guitar music as one of my siblings or our special guests graced us with songs. Laughter and conversations filled every nook and cranny. Our large and cold house never felt as warm as those Christmas days.

At the appointed hour, work stopped and we showered and got dressed for Midnight Mass. It was tradition. As a kid, I often struggled to stay awake that far beyond my usual bedtime of 8:00 or 9:00 P.M. But even that was a special treat … that struggle of issuing useless commands to the eyelids to remain open to take in the experience of Christmas mass as the late hour, the warmth of the crowded church, the murmur of the congregation praying in unison, the lone voice of the priest during homily, etc., conspired to achieve otherwise.

It turned out, getting up to receive the Eucharist, hearing the final Christmas hymns, and experiencing the excitement of what is to follow proved the best antidote. Sleep left the eye as the Christmas Spirit took hold.

Immediately after church service, we rushed home for the Christmas Feast. The tables were laid end to end to avoid the exclusion of anyone. Kids were neither banished to lesser tables nor denied the taste of wine that accompanied the meal. The table groaned under the weight of Christmas victuals. If memory serves me, most dishes were of the Asian persuasion, but I not recall our Divine or earthly guests ever complaining. Dinner service lasted for hours as food gave way to conversations and laughter.

Eventually, the party moved from the tables to the Christmas tree, where kids hovered in search of their gifts. Given the size of the gathering, only kids received gifts purchased specifically for them. Adults were blessed with Secret Santa or White Elephant gifts. The fun to be had when dozens of loved ones participated in the White Elephant gift exchange cannot be overstated, especially when most years we were graced as regifts that included the ugliest and most repulsive pair of fuzzy leopard (?) slippers which no person in his/her right mind would want to grace his/her home, much less his/her feet.

Board games, card games, and Christmas carols followed the gift exchange. Our practiced singing from the daily conscription to noon mass and our being a musical household that my mother had once hoped would rival the Von Trapp Family Singers ensured the singing portion of the night fared no worse than the feasting. The merriment would last until the early hours of the morning as some drifted off to seek slumber while others left overs.

Christmas morning came to life whenever a critical mass gathered. The day would always be subdued given what had transpired the night before and the early hours thereof. We ate left over, played games, and said goodbye to guests, hoping to see them again and hoping that next year’s celebration would be no less joyful. We were rarely disappointed.

Those were the days. We did not always have enough food to fill our bellies or heat to warm our beds, but we had each other and we had music … and that was more than enough.

I hope some day, we will reunite and will create our own Christmas traditions. There are things I have seen and experienced these past 7 plus years that I would love to incorporate into our new Christmas traditions.

Merry Christmas, my sons.

All my love, always and forever,

Dad

P.S., we’ll discuss living fully next time.

7 years, 11 months, and 9 days. Be you. Be mindful of yourself and others. Have grit and strive to be your best.

DESIDERATA by Max Ehrmann

“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.​​

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.​​

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. 

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.” 

https://maxehrmann.com

My dearest and most precious sons, Shosh and Jaialai:

As always, the holidays are difficult. Your absence is more pronounced. I recall promising you upon my divorce from your mother that you will always have two Christmases — one with her and one with me. Well, we put up the Christmas lights and a few Christmas decorations last night. The ornaments I have saved from your childhood arts projects are missing and the foot of the Christmas tree is bare, but Christmas awaits. You are here in our hearts and spirit.

As 2020 wraps up, I want to remind you to keep your eyes on the prize — living right. Nothing else matters. Others’ opinions don’t matter. Wealth, Likes, Hearts, and other indicia of “success” by society’s standards don’t matter. What matters is how you live and the legacy you leave behind. That’s it.

You must answer to God when you meet your Maker, and you must answer to yourself each night when the world is quiet and the voice of your conscience breaks through the din. How will you answer? Did you do right, no matter how difficult the conditions? Did you fail by giving in to convenience? comfort? political expediency? popularity?

America is largely a popularity contest. When young, we worried much about being liked and being popular. That is the source of much fear and insecurity in grade school and high school for many. I once thought that we leave behind such childish concerns upon maturity. Not so.

I witnessed two things that drove home the point. The first occurred during college. In my freshmen year, big hair bows were all the rage. They were ubiquitous. Almost all the girls on campus, especially those in sororities, religiously wore them in order to remain with the popular crowd. (It’s silly: we give much lip service to celebrating individuality, yet people mimic each other like sheep to avoid being relegated to the “out crowd”.) The second occurred when I worked for the United States Congress, where our country’s leaders conduct the people’s business. There, I watched John Boehner (who I respect) played the popularity game and, as a result, was selected as president of his freshmen class of House Representatives, Chairman of his party’s Conference, and Speaker of the House of Representatives.

To a certain extent, you are limited by our culture of popularity and are forced to play the game. For example, in school projects and at work, you must be cognizant of what will garner sufficient support to succeed. Stakeholders’ buy-in is critical. While we’d love to say that people are data driven and dispassionate in their analyses, we know that to be untrue. Just look at the chasm today between those who trust experts and science and those who eschew experts in favor of blindly following their ill-informed leader. Look at the resulting damage done to our society, e.g., the needless loss of more than 300,000 American lives which is attributable to those in leadership positions who call the pandemic a hoax and who push pseudo-science or outright lies.

But to a certain extent, you can choose to not play the game. Right IS might. Truth is NOT relative. You can choose to do what is right regardless of whether it is popular or politically expedient.

You can choose to forge your own path — one based on the best available data, sound analysis, and adherence to ethical principles. Those of caliber and of worth will value your decision even if they do not agree with it, even if they do not like it.

As we wrap up this difficult and divisive year, I call on you to have the courage and grit to be true to yourself, and to do what is right, regardless of what others may say.

Despite what you see and hear around you everyday, life really isn’t about a popularity contest. It’s about living right and leaving the world a better place than how you found it. That is the legacy you want to leave, not the legacy of pandering to the crowd to chase that elusive 15 seconds of fame. That’s a lesson best taught by William Barr, Jeff Sessions, and others who sold out their principles to curry fleeting favor with those in power only to find themselves both disfavored and deemed unprincipled. Don’t be like them.

With that, I wish you a warm holiday season, and leave you with the following wise words from Robert Frost and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

All my love, always and forever,

Dad

The Road Not Taken 

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Sucess

What is Success?

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed
easier because you have lived;

This is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

7 years, 10 months, and 21 days. It’s December. I miss you.

Remember all those beach trips we used to take? the sand art and games we used to play? I miss those times.

I miss you. A father shouldn’t be without his sons, nor sons be without their father.

Know that you are loved … the day you were born (I kept and vacuum sealed the newspaper on the day each of you were born), every day since, now, and forever. Never question your worth. You are everything to me.

Be well. Stay safe. Be healthy.

All my love, always,

Dad