Almost a year later, jacarandas appear again during a walk through Century City. A quieter return brings back the memory of a fallen bloom and the game that once formed around it.

After a year of raising my own son, I have started to understand my father’s absence differently. A reflection on memory, fatherhood, and what it means to stay.

A night at S.O.B.’s opened back up a larger memory about how access was built. Not through connections, but through repetition, respect, and proof. Looking back now, that same patience feels connected to fatherhood.

He walked toward his bedroom and said “caffeyy.”
When he opened his mouth, I saw the pieces of a coffee bean he had already bitten apart. One by one he pushed the fragments out into my hand. Moments like that reveal something quietly important. Not the coffee bean itself, but the fact that he came to me. No panic. No hiding. Just a small person sharing what he found.

I had you.

Your experiments make up most of our days. You test. You look back. You continue.

He didn’t die and leave. He practiced leaving first. Death did not steal him. It handed him back fully formed, without excuse.

Sometimes he walks out ahead. Sometimes he hangs back. And sometimes he tucks himself between my legs like my body is the safest corridor in the neighborhood.

He woke up ready to play. I forgot the formula. He showed me where to begin.

I am not pushing Santa on him. It is not about hating the tradition. I just want his trust to stay clean while his sense of reality is still forming

He began taking steps in late October. Walking is a gift that not everyone gets. He has it, and every day he gives it back to us in abundance.

A purple bib bandana on a cabinet door becomes Malik’s first two-syllable color. A story about movement, trust, and how kids learn the world one cabinet at a time.

A stitched emblem arrives in the mail — The Double M. A mirrored mark of balance, inheritance, and authorship.

Laundry becomes a record of growth. What once fit now folds into memory, and every new reach feels like a door opening.

We turned back toward LAX and made lunch of landings.
He sat between us on the blanket his grandmother made, still and wide-eyed, turning to every roar.

A 13-month-old growls, stomps, and roars.

A reflection on instinct, inheritance, and the things we lose when we learn to fit in.

Time travels differently when you slow down enough to see it.

We didn’t do it by the book. We watched you, took shifts, and listened. Your cries weren’t manipulation. They were communication.

Car. Crow. Blue. Bus. Duck. Girl. Moon. Dog. Mama. Dada. Nana. Box. Even airplane sounds. Your first little dictionary is already bigger than we thought.

He doesn’t just notice the bright ones. The red baby monitor glow. The blue numbers on the oven. Sunlight through the blinds. Like each one is saying hello.