Zachary Winston Williams: Two

Welcome to Zach's Blog

After seemingly endless prodding, teasing and thinly veiled condescension from friends and family, my wife and I have finally succumbed to peer pressure and have entered the 21st century. That's right, we are now officially "blogging". Besides, what better way to introduce ourselves to this mysterious and novel medium than through the shameless exploitation of our wonderful little boy, Zachary Winston Williams. Since before he was even born Zach has been a constant source of "oohs" and "aahs" which I have piously and painstakingly documented with my camera. Indeed, you- the common citizen of the Internet, will no longer have to miss out on precious moments such as "Baby's first dirty diaper" or "Baby blows milk out his nose all over mom".

During the first months of his life, Zach has had his photograph taken ad nauseum. I have countless photos of myself, Lesley, friends, family and a few complete strangers holding our son in every possible setting imaginable. There are so many photos in fact, that it would be impractical and maybe even a bit cruel to post them all here. So in order to conserve both available memory and the readers sanity, the plan is to pick a 'small' handful of the best pictures and include a link to my flickr website for those with the fortitude to tackle the rest.

On my son's behalf, I would like to extend my sincerest appreciation and gratitude for your interest in his life. I hope all of you will enjoy watching him grow and develop over the next months and years. I know I will.
~Kacy

Friday, February 19, 2010

Two

When I pick you up from daycare and we try to leave, little girls chase you down the hall and squeal your name. They wrap you in their arms and little gold stars twinkle and rain down on your beaming smiles. I think Look at you matter. Look at how much you matter in the world

I can’t believe you didn’t exist before 2 years ago. Who can fathom? You are so firmly entrenched in the world. You’re a stone tossed in my pond. Your ripples hit all my edges. It’s wrong to say there was life before you. Your mark runs through my entire biography.

Oh Son. You are 2 today. I want to tell you things. I am so filled with wanting to teach you.

Listen. There will be people in your life who make you cry and you will feel like shrouding yourself in a cloud of bitterness. You will want to walk about scowling and waving your fist at happy people. But here’s a little secret. The past? Well. You can change it. It can be changed and healed and re-written. It’s not some hard thing chiseled in a stone. Sometimes something reaches back and edits entire stories. Do you believe me? Do you believe that all our yesterdays can be changed by a today that flashes through our lives like lightning? Well, it can. I know it’s true. For you, little boy, are just this kind of past changing thing.

Many years ago I was not so happy. Once I stood on a dock that stretched out onto a frozen pond. I cried icicles, clenched my fists, and screamed until my throat hurt. I screamed at the dark and dared it to come get me. I wanted to run as fast as I could to the end of the dock and leap right into the darkness. I was not so happy.

But years later, when you were born, when you were no more than a couple handfuls of raging pink littleness, the very first thing you did was change everything. When I saw you I shuddered with my whole body.

The stone was tossed.

The room rippled. I gasped. The future filtered through your open eyes. Your wail rewrote the past. That shuddering ripple changed everyone I ever was. You ran all the way back to that dock and whispered in my ear Don’t you jump into the dark just yet, mister. You will one day be my Daddy.

And so I didn’t. Instead, I sat cross-legged at the edge of the dock in a vague cool atmosphere of unarticulated reason to live.

I walked home that night, oddly contented, in a rain of little gold stars that twinkled and beamed.