"I’ll miss you” aren’t the right words. Not really. Because wherever you are, wherever you go, you’re also with me. This has been the case since your arrival 18 years ago. My own parents suggested such a condition before you were born, but they also acknowledged I wouldn’t understand until fatherhood became a bundle of reality for your mom and me. And what an extraordinary dose of reality you’ve delivered.
Your adventure has just begun, of course, and my hope is that Wesleyan University soon recognizes it’s merely a partner in a four-year chapter of your journey that should prove transformative for both of you. Selfishly, I feel the academic institution gets the sweeter deal: proximity to Sofia Murtaugh has value well beyond the measure of any FAFSA algorithm or scholarship program. Those you encounter in and around Middletown, Connecticut, will discover this soon enough.
“Thank you” is closer to the standby expression I most want to share as you make a new roof your own. Thanks for showing me why I’m here, why my marriage to your mother was the smartest thing I’ve ever done or ever will do. Thanks for helping me love the things I’ve long loved even more (baseball, R.P. McMurphy, and the Herb Brooks speech) and thanks for helping me learn to love things I should have long ago (pickup trucks, beauty marks, and chickens). Thanks for being “old school” when you need to be (lessons from All in the Family remain important today) and visionary when you must (that Spartan logo in the White Station High School parking lot says it all).
Perhaps it’s merely coincidence that Wonder Woman finally hit the silver screen — on her own — 12 days after you graduated from high school (and 12 years after you first donned her power bracelets for Halloween). But I think it’s cosmic. We are, in fact, upon an age when a woman’s combination of grace, strength, intelligence, charm, and yes, beauty, is to be celebrated — and by Hollywood terms, sold — without reservation or restriction. There was a time you needed me to fish you out of the koi pond at Memphis Botanic Garden. That day is long gone. Rescue those you can, Sofia, because there are those who need rescuing.
I’m no Polonius (and Laertes was no Sofia), but his wisdom shouldn’t be ignored, at least certain components. (“Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.”) My own dad’s favorite advice — “Remember who you are” — has followed me well into middle age, and seems to steer me in the right direction when big choices must be made. But I’d like to think you’ve reached a life stage where your compass — inspirational, quaint, humorous, or otherwise — will be guided by your own values and aspirations, and not so much the lines made famous simply because they’ve crossed generations. (Satchel Paige, though, remains the gold standard: “Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain’t restful.”)
Like most sentient humans of my age, there are times I scream at the demon we call technology. But now that “facetime” is a verb, I’ll be worshipping at the altar of twenty-first-century communication capability. (Though, dear “Laertes,” such comforts come with a price.) Your mom and I will be able to visit with you across a thousand miles in ways I couldn’t across my one-traffic-light hometown 30 years ago. This will ease the pain of geographic distance. So text away, sweet Sofia. Please share the parts of your new adventure that will enhance mine, and your mom’s, and your sister’s. Roof be damned, we’re living under the same sun, moon, and stars.
Lastly, my love, stay curious. Don’t let any class, any professor, any guest speaker fill your well of curiosity. There’s simply too much more to discover, however far your formal academic quest takes you. Read as though you’re running out of time and books. Ask the last question. (Then follow up with another.) Listen to others’ stories. (There will be time for your own.) Take a trip to an unfamiliar place. (Be safe. Always be safe.) There are limits, you see, to anything and everything known to mankind . . . except the human capacity for thought. If I have any “secret” to share as you open this new door, it’s precisely that: There is no door.
Your first visit home can’t come soon enough, Sofia. Until then, be the wonder woman you’ve become.
