Yesterday, on his 17th birthday, he published a song he finished last week that took 2 weeks for him to make. This song moved me more than I have the words to express.
In this song, my son expresses his loss of innocence over the last year. I'm sure you can tell from the writing I've done that there's been a good amount happening in my household that has contributed to this.
More than that, he reached that magical milestone which lifted the veil of childhood. The one where all he saw was puppies and rainbows everywhere he looked.
Make no mistake though, my son has probably been the victim and witness of more violence than you will ever come into contact with in your entire life. So it's not as if he didn't already know that bad things happen to good people. No, what's he come to realize is not that bad people do bad things.
It's that good people do bad things for what seem like good reasons at the time.
And that is a harsh reality.
It's so much easier to see the world in the black and white manner of a child, where good people do good things and bad people do bad things and that's the end of it.
In the song, my son wishes he could make a return to this childhood innocence and wonder that he once knew.
In Taking a Walk, I expressed that holding on to that child-like innocence and wonder is exactly how I've maintained happiness in the face of adversity for coming up on 34 years now.
After we watched my son's video for the third time today, I told him, "The best part is son, the next stage in life is the one where you figure out that you can have all that you want. You can be who you want to be, you can be everything you want to be, and you can always view the world through the lens of innocence and wonder should you choose."
Welcome to adulthood, my beloved son. The world wherein you really can choose exactly who you want to be and what you're going to do with yourself. The only person you have to fight now is you.
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