Introduction

Dear Gregory,

    I've been meaning to begin this journey with you for quite some time.  If you're reading this, it's because you're ready to read it. Before I say anything else, before I begin this, I want you to know how much I love you.  Perhaps I see so much of myself in you, because we are so very much alike. Your smile and your bright disposition steals the attention of everyone, everywhere we go.  You truly do make my world a brighter place, a place very much worth living in.

   I was told my entire life that I would never understand true love until I had a child of my own.  What I was told was entirely accurate.  Once you came along, I finally understood how much my parents love(d) me, how much God must love each and every one of us.  I truly hope that you learn something from what I've been through, the mistakes I've made, the heartache I've endured and caused for myself as well as others.  I hope you're smarter than I am. I don't want you to suffer the things I've suffered. I think a parent would do absolutely anything to keep their child from pain.

  I'm writing this from my apartment, the 3 bedroom townhome in Roosevelt, where you shared a room upstairs with your brother Everett. The spare bedroom I've been meaning to turn into an office, but have yet to get around to it.   Sometimes when you're here, I'll sneak into your room at night and scoop you up in my arms, take you to my room and lay you in my bed so we can hold hands while you're sleeping.  Having you and your brother here under my roof is about the only time I feel at peace nowadays. But I hope that changes for the better.

  I want you to know why we don't live in the same house.  I want you to know why your mother and I are not together, at least at the time of this writing. I don't think this will be a short explanation, in fact, I have a feeling this is going to be a somewhat lengthy treatise on my life up to this point, especially over the last 10 years.  I hope through this, you'll get to know me, and maybe get to know yourself a little bit as well.

You deserve to know the whole truth, at least everything I can recall and everything I feel is relevant for you to better understand things as they are, things as they were. More than anything, I hope by the time you read this, that maybe we've come to an understanding, and that by some miracle you've forgiven me for everything I've done wrong in my life.  Someday you'll realize that your dad, your hero, is just a man, flawed, weak, and doing his very best.

 Nevertheless, I'm writing this because you are the love of my life.