With My Best Foot in My Mouth


Almost thirty years ago, my Grandmother, Momo, wrote an article in the Prescott, Arkansas newspaper called With My Best Foot in My Mouth. She was a great lady. Her articles were about our family and her illness - she had cancer. She also used to write letters to God. I guess it was a way of praying without falling asleep at the end. She was the purest, most sincere person that I've ever Known. She died when I was very young and I never got to really learn from her the way I'd like to have. My father (her son) loved her madly, yet he's not really that much like her. Don't get me wrong, he raised five kids and I couldn't ask for a better father, but she was a Willow bending with the wind - he is an Oak always strong and unyielding. I've never really tried to put that feeling into words before this very second ... I wonder what it means?

I'm in my thirties and I've just become a father to Drew Holt. My God, I never really knew love until the moment he was born. Don't get me wrong, I've been married for nine years and I love my wife dearly.... but not like Drew. The funny thing is that I know she loves Drew more than she loves me and that's O.K. I know that Drew can never love me the way that I love him and that I can never love my parents the way they love me. It's a shame that you can be a parent first and then go back and be a son.... I would have done better.

Drew is great. I don't care if he grows up to be a surgeon or a garbage man. I just want him to be happy. I say that, but I also know that he is the 97th percentile in weight and off the charts in height and I'm convinced he's a genius --- not that any of that matters, but he said &goo goo& three days ahead of schedule! He is a very happy baby and I can see so much of me in him. Sometimes I see a purity in him that I know that I once had and he's teaching me how to get it back.

I look at Drew and I see a world of no pressure or stress. He sleeps without worries of mortgage payments or American Express bills. He lives each moment for that moment -- as long as he's not hungry! I then I come along and I want him to talk and to crawl and to sing and to smile. So am I developing and challenging my son ... or am I putting stress and pressure in his life?

I'm learning a lot from Drew!

Submitted December 6, 1996 by Tim Holt (timholt@cris.com).