Here we go again, another lap around the globe as we grapple to "flatten the curve in fourteen days", now in its second year.
I have returned to writing after an extended absence in another country fulfilling the obligations of emergency management in the Covid era. Returning to writing I have been presented with atopic that continues to plague me, grief.
Twenty one days to complete a manuscript for publication.
Yup, we go again. Damaged goods.
Welcome, my child.
A little girl.
...and once again, the Bourgeois family has provided the Madden family with another lost link.
The following is a reproduction of an article that I wrote for the Fathers Rights Movement California State Chapter on 6 Feb 2021.
My parents were divorced when I was young. As a teen and later as a college student, I'd occasionally visit Dad at the Army base he lived and worked at. On his desk were photographs of my brother and I but they were old photos...as toddlers, the first day of school - there was nothing recent.
I never understood why.
Come forward sixteen years and I'm divorced with two daughters. On my last day in Australia before coming to the USA, Dad took us to a fine seafood restaurant. At the end of the meal a photo was taken of the people present, including my Dad, my brother, and my daughters.
Come forward another sixteen years and and the photo pops up on my Facebook memories.
And suddenly...I understand why Dad only had old photos of my brother and I.
It was all he had.
The photograph taken at the restaurant was the last time my Father saw his granddaughters. It was the second last time I saw my daughters.
Now, it is all that I have.
Happy birthday Ming.
It's a been a long time since we last spoke. I can't recall how long it is. I recall what was said, and how I was away.
In the last sixty days I've lost the man who taught me to parent, a parent I cared for and a co-parent. I kept to myself since I got here because of the damage that was done before I left.
How's your Goddaughter? You might know more than I, but the loss of the girls broke me.
I went back to work on my book last week. In particular, I changed the part where I mentioned you and your wife. I had not used your names through the first few drafts - not because I didn't want to, but because I felt that you and D didn't need the "publicity" that might come when the book came out. I prefer to think of the two of you as the couple who could point to the book and go "he's talking about us there." There is a section where your words read "If he comes here, it's because no one else believe in him."
I have change it, to include your name, not because the words have changed, the relationship has changed. You were #thefirstfan and people should know, even if it's not the case now.
Happy birthday Anthony, from your fan. Your friend.
It has a been...a quiet time. A Dreamtime.
For the First Fans - we have lost three in sixty days.
The Big Man was the first to go. He taught me more about parenting then my own Father did.
The next was Her Mom. She needed the dependent care but in the end, She would always been the disobedient person that She was, in need of oversight at all times, and needing saving when there was no oversight. She wanted to make Her own decisions, and that is why She has gone.
The third, I did not not know well, but Her loss punctuated the generational gap.
There is a child that will be born this year, a child that will be the first (known) grandchild to me.
...and suddenly, the stories I should have written have now become the stories that will be told to a young child. The stories that they will hear of the Big Man, Large Marge and another, will no longer be coming from the lips of those people, but will be regaled by story tellers.
The aboriginal people of Australia speak of the Dreamtime, to explain the landscape of the land, and the history of their people. And I will speak of the Dreamtime in the technological era, of the people that came before the child, and of what the child meant to those people.
I wonder if my own children will tell the Dreamtime story of their Father to their children?
