Shodai’s Blog September 2 2009 9:45 AM Playas de Tijuana, Baja California, México

Shodai’s Blog September 2 2009 9:45 AM Playas de Tijuana, Baja California, México

Shiken haramitsu daikomyo!

I have news for you two! Your brother Jimmy is going to be a father, which means that you two will become aunt and uncle! I have just learned about this today. It also means that I will become a grandfather and therefore coming into a new dimension of my existence! I will have a grandchild to tell stories to! I will tell him or her stories of Amarok and Tatanka and I will have to have to create a character for him or her!

There is also something else I wanted to share with both you guys today. One is a poem that I memorized as a child and have your elder brother and sister memorize, and I believe made you study Alex when you were little and with me. It is “If” by Rudyard Kipling written to his son, and it is the only poem ever written, the only thing ever done by another person that I have envied and wished I had created myself, for it is perfect in its message, in its form and function:

IF.....

IF you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

These are truly words to live by, and there is nothing else, know that these are words your father sought to abide and lived to demonstrate in his every actions. I have, without pride or humility, lived up to these very words and have come to know, with the profundity of a man of wisdom, that they constitute, unto themselves, a Great Understanding!

There is also something else. Julia, do you remember, perhaps not, but when we were together I used to always say to you, “What is the most important question in the whole world?” and you would smile and say “De quien es Julila?” and then I would say, “And what is the most important answer in the whole world?” and you would reply, “De Daddy!” And that would make me happiest among all things.

And Alex, I want you to know that nothing in my life, even the news of my own cancer and probably death, hurt me as much as the news of what happened to you. Do you remember when you asked me what my deepest fear was? And I replied, “Not being there to protect my children,” and you said, “I always knew that about you.” I was then and there, at the moment I opened the email from your mother’s lawyer, as she did not tell me herself, confronted with my deepest fear come true. I cannot begin to describe what happened next, but if you ever watch the movie “300” and see the scene when Leonidas’ Captain’s son is beheaded before him, and you see the pain and rage that follows as he sees his son fall, then you will have an idea. At that point I started hemorrhaging from my bowels.

But when you are confronted with your greatest fear and you survive you develop a deep detachment from things. I changed from all of that process, and the things that happened to me associated with my cancer, its treatment, the Court battle against your mother, etc., and as a result I emerged more powerful and wiser. I will talk to you about these things more in the future.

Love you!

Shiken haramitsu daikomyo!