Hey Nineteen!

 

At Sean's first Yankees game

Sean Adams turned nineteen years old this morning.

The events of the early morning hours of Feb 23, 2002 live in my brain more than the dirty diapers and 2 a.m. feedings.

Every step of it -- highs and lows -- have been worth it.

I wanted to be a dad and Sean made it easy to be one.

We're not best friends. For some, that works. For us, it's not what we want. I always want to make sure Will and Chris (who calls me, "The Big Man") are "his boys." But we have a remarkable relationship for sure and, no matter what, we always would have.

I'm apparently unique in the father department, or so I've been told.

There have been growing pains. Of course, there have been. He has made mistakes and so have I. But we never wavered in our steadfast connection and support for each other.

When people ask me about Sean, my answer is always the same: "Sean is Sean." He's quirky. He's quiet. He is deadly with a well-timed joke or pun. He does things on his time and does them his way.

He decided to stay close to home for college at Dutchess Community. That was the absolute correct move.

He waited to learn to drive, not getting his license and a car until he was 18. For him, it was correct.

He still hasn't driven the Taconic Parkway, while I was doing that when I was 16. But, for Sean, it's correct.

He is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma (paraphrasing Churchill).

I often don't know what's going on in that brain. Where I ooze emotion, he hides it.

Where I apologize for being nervous about dealing with ice on PA Route 896 last Saturday, he yells at me for apologizing.

When I express concern over letting him down as a father or screwing him up, he tells me to pipe down (basically).

He's never disrespectful. Ever.

He's shy and still trying to climb out of that shell.

I still feel sadness over lost time. I didn't really have to help with homework or getting to doctor's appointments (even if I said I'd go to every one of them). I wanted to be a part of everything but that just didn't work. 

Things changed what kind of father I would be. 

No time to lament it.

He came into the world quietly, yet still found a way to be heard on a radio audience within the first 48 hours of his life.

That's the way he likes it.

The second decade of Sean Adams is wrapping up.

You've yet to see the best of him as he still figures it all out.

And he will. Will he ever.