I saw a picture in a magazine today of a father and son sitting on a couch and looking at each other. I couldn’t stop looking at it. Looking at it made me think of you. The boy was looking at his father as if his father was the most important person in the world. I hope youi are able to look at me -- and your mother -- like that. I hope I am able to give you a reason to look at me like that.
I want to be the most important person in your life and your world. I want to be your role model. That brings me to something else I saw today and something I have felt long, long before you came into being.
Every time a famous person does something that is considered bad or not right, there is some parent somewhere who says that that isn’t right, that that person is a terrible role model for children. While I don’t think that famous person should have done what he or she did do, I do feel that that parent is wrong. Famous people should not be role models for children. Parents should be role models for children. My father and my maternal grandfather were my role models when I was a child, and I want to be the same for you.
Ah, your great grandfather. Sadly, he left us eight years ago. I wish you could have met him. (Mommy never got to meet him either and that’s one thing I regret.) But in all likelihood a part of him will live on with you -- his name. If you are a boy like we think you are, I want to give you his name, or at least his middle name. Mommy has been calling you 小里仁, and the more I hear it and think about it, the more I like the name “Leland”. It’s special, it’s different, it has meaning, and it’s you.
He was a great man and I’m sure you will be the same one day. I just hope in your eyes that I will be also be a great man. I am your daddy, and I’m very proud of that.
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