My Son’s Father

The evening began with me realizing that I was in a room. Actually, that’s not quite right… I was in a big room. A stadium, in fact. Surrounded by both familiar and unfamiliar faces. I’ll bet you were there too, I just couldn’t find you.

Oh, there were so many people there. Even that guy, you know? With the thing? We were all there too watch… what..? I can’t remember. Maybe because the center of the room was quite suddenly no longer the center of my attention…

There was a boy there too, looking to be about 8 years old sitting in the seat right next to mine.  He wore a big, goofy grin that gave away his amusement at my confusion. So I smiled back. He was very nice, so we chatted for what seemed a long while, all without any clue as to what brought such a large audience to that place.

As we chatted, the tension in the room seemed to ease back, and the air grew warm with the fire of good friendship.  I knew that this child was going to become a great man someday, just from his character, charm, and intelligence.  I think he knew it, too.

At some point, I paused to ask him about his parents, and where they were, or if they were worried about him.  He shrugged and gestured to the seat next to him. I looked up, and suddenly realized I was looking into the eyes of Jeffrey Zeldman, one of my own heroes. What? I asked myself… this doesn’t seem right. My confusion only grew stronger as the Jeffrey look-a-like seemed to ease away, like one of those focal-point camera tricks that you see in movies.

So I asked the boy “He’s your Dad?”. He nodded and shrugged. Then flashed a charismatic smile that hinted that there was more going on here. Looking up again, I nearly fell backward when I saw that the figure had become a mirror of myself.  It was at that point I woke up, cursing the alarm and considering what it all meant.

It wasn’t until the warm sting of the shower that I began to understand what my subconscious was telling me:  That perhaps I might not ever be as great as someone like Jeffrey Zeldman, but I will always be the father of a son who is proud of me, no matter what.