Hello Son.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am your father. Of course you’ve already met me, in your fashion, but you don’t know me, and you don’t know what it means that I am your father. In time you’ll learn, but for right now you spend most of your time sleeping and eating, and cuddling with your mother. It will be a long time before you read this, but there are some things I need to tell you anyway.

Today you are one week old. You were born last Friday at 10:07 PM, and we brought you home for the first time just a couple of days later. You look quite different from our other boys, because you have hair. Dark hair, at that. But you’re cute, and as I’ve gotten to know you just a little bit, I think there’s plenty of family resemblance in you even if it isn’t obvious.

Speaking of family, your brothers want to name you Rocket Boy. Your sister wanted you to be a girl, and didn’t really care what we named you. They all love you, even if you are a boy, and they all want to spend time with you. Even your next oldest brother, at less than a year old, is fascinated by you. Yesterday he tried to pull you out of your cradle while you slept, just to play with you. And you don’t seem to mind any of the attention.

You’re going to spend a lot of time with your siblings, just like you’re going to spend a lot of time with me. Together we’re going to teach many things. In what will seem like a very short amount of time you’ll be talking, asking silly questions, learning to read and express yourself in ways that will surprise me despite having already helped your older siblings through such phases. We’ll have our moments of conflict and our times of peace. You will both admire and resent your older siblings, but you will always love them, even when you don’t realize it.

And as you grow and live, you will be hurt and in pain. You will get sick. You will make bad choices. At times you will disappoint me. But the opposites will also be true. You will find joy and fulfillment. You will make me proud. I don’t know any of the details of your future life. I don’t know who you will fall in love with. I don’t know what education or career choices you will make, or where you will live or where you might go. These are not truly the measure of your life. Your life will be defined by the type of man you choose to be.

Throughout your childhood I will do what I can to help you understand what that type of man should be. A man who loves and serves God, and his family. A man who doesn’t make moral compromises or submit to society’s concepts of just what he should do and believe. A man who strives for excellence in every facet of his life.

I don’t know if you will succeed. I don’t know what people will say after you’ve lived your life and how they will remember you. That’s up to you, and how you choose to live your life.  We each have our parts to play, and between us my part is to teach you and raise you as well as I possibly can. I’m going to make mistakes and I’m going to have success, just as you will.

I don’t know if you will ever read this. I hope you do. The world is going to tell you a lot of things that will be different from what I strive to teach you. I hope you listen more to me and to your mother, and above all to God, than you do to them.

Above all, always remember that I love you.

Sleep well.