My son,
Today you are 18.
Your present is already chosen: formal object, the existence of which in the real world is palpable and visible. And it is very important insofar as it incorporates an independence of body and soul, a growing up, the coming of age: the right and the effective privilege of going and coming, without owing explanations to any one. Or, at least, this is what I felt in this moment, if my memory serves me well.
On the other hand, for you, it also carries the aspect of fortunate circumstance, of having been born in such a place and in such a time, the son of these parents, cared for and loved, observed and stimulated, favored like you were and is by tolerant and loving parents.
None of this should cloud the achievements that are fruit of your intelligence and of your humanity, of your solidarity and your legitimate concern with the world around you. These achievements belong to you. Nobody gave them to you.
But I want to tell you about an impalpable and intangible gift.
It is very hard to write a letter like this without being sentimental. This for an ordinary person, for me it is impossible, being corny to the marrow like I am, despite the pathetic efforts I make to seem rational and logic.
I have to tell you of the disturbing experience of being the son of one’s own son.
I’ll explain:
I believe this is the great surprise that life has in stock for the arrogant immortals we are when we decide to put a child in this world.
I imagined I would lead and teach that I’d be the benefactor who illustrates and explains the mysteries of the world to attentive and respectful ears.
No such luck!
Willful, that moon faced baby with the largest and most generous smile in the world, soon put me where I belonged from the get go, from a quarter to eleven of that Monday morning, March 23, eighteen years ago.
From then on, and little by little, in a daily basis in fact, life and living together with you taught me slowly to be humble, not to have certainties, to accept the other. You are the absolute other. A specific person with peculiarities and personal traits which I had and still have to learn every single day. This surrounded by relatives and varied persons who entertain themselves in explaining that my son is my spit image, that he took after me in this or that, or after my father or my grandfather. On the other hand, I was the father, consequently I was expected to know everything and to have all the answers: from the price of a Ferrari in Taiwan until the hourly rate of plumber in Mississippi; from who invented the X-ray or, all things considered, who was who in World War II. And I just standing there. Knowing and not being able to say that it is not quite like that. That the person who looks like me is, before anything else, the spitting image of himself, which is revealed everyday, every month, every year and in every birthday, for himself and for me.
And in this dance of the days and of the years all certainties were gone, and I, who had begun as the arrogant guide who knew it all and who would lead the son through the thousand paths and short cuts of this confusing and mysterious end of century, find myself marveled and surprised for being exactly what I was supposed to have been from the first minute on: only an apprentice.
And it is in this that I am the son of my son. Much more than teaching, I learned. I learned with my defects and vanities, I learned to be humble and I learned not to be right, I learned that listening is as important as being listened to, I learned that to respect is the only way to be respected and I also learned that patience is the art of peace. In sum, much of what I learned in life, I learned through being your father, I learned with you, my son.
Today, formally and legally, is the day of your coming of age. It is also the end of my guardianship. From today on you are an adult, responsible for your words and acts. You know that the importance of being righteous and of having character, of being compassionate with other human beings, of behaving ethically and of retributing the world for the plentifulness you received from it, does not lie in the opinion others may have of you, but in the opinion you have of yourself. And whenever you have to make a choice that may seem difficult to you, always ask yourself what is right: the answer will come to you crystal clear. Whatever the result, having chosen the path of righteousness, somehow it will have been the right choice.
There was a joke when I was a child that went like that:
Fritz, today you are 18. You have eaten many cakes and candies...
The idea was to reveal a secret that could only be disclosed in the day of the coming of age. In the joke the secret was that Santa Claus does not exist. The joke is false. Santa Claus does exist, because he represents the mystery of the world bestowing you with gifts. And what a mysterious gift of life is the incredible adventure of having a son and, as if in a mirror, being his son at the same time. Teaching how to learn and learning through teaching.
Happy birthday, my son, and may G-d, who is the Father of us all, bless you.
Dad.
