Isaac Joel

09.08.2016

I thought about titling this blog “The Year that Didn’t Happen,” because, well…it didn’t–at least not as it was supposed to.  I was going to be juggling a job, a newly burgeoning film career, being a husband, and being a father to not one, but two boys.  But a year ago today I held my second son for the first, and last time.  I remember it as if it were yesterday.

Like all babies, he was lighter than he looked.  But this one…Isaac looked like me.  It was nice to see.  I love T3, but he certainly looks more like a Cooper than he does a Brown.  Isaac had my nose, which up until his mid-fifties would have been a good thing.  (It goes downhill from there.)

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not okay, and that that’s all right.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be “OK.”  I have an Isaac shaped hole in my heart that couldn’t possibly be filled.  But I don’t want that.

I still laugh.  I still dream.  And if you ask Isaac’s older brother what the meaning of life is, he will answer loud and clear: “Bacon!”  I’ve done well.

But Isaac, I miss you, boy.  And I always will.

Not many people ask me how I’m doing.  This, I believe, is mainly due to the fact that, as a Gemini, I’m quite good at keeping my cards hidden.  And I don’t take offense to it.  I’m usually more concerned about what is going on in others lives than to worry them with my own.  I am fine.  Just a little more sad than usual.

I’ve started (again) to write a novel.  I don’t have much written but the first page says the following:

To my boys, Thomas D. Brown III and Isaac Joel Brown.

I don’t know when exactly you became my compass on this adventure, but I can’t imagine life without you.  And so I dedicate this adventure to you.  

Love,
Your Father

Maybe I should have titled the blog “Meandering with Isaac.”  #LOL

You have never stopped being an inspiration my boy, and though the idea of waiting any longer to hold you again tears me apart, I’ll do us all a favor, and keep on kickin’ until I’m old and gray.  (Don’t tell anyone, but I’m starting to go gray already.)

Cheers.

Dad

PS: Your headstone / marker thing is pretty nice.  I liked that it had a tree on it.  A bringer of life. -T2

2015

I moved across the country.
I lost weight, and gained it back.
I read twenty-three books.  Not one of them was the one I promised to read.
I literally, “leaped for joy,” upon learning of my wife’s pregnancy.
I starred in a movie and made several.
My son taught me how to be a triceratops.  I taught him about bacon.
I was unemployed. “Sorry, we’re going in a cheaper direction.”
But, then I got a job.
I wore a tuxedo, and cried at a wedding.
But then my baby died.  I held him in my arms, only once, for fear I wouldn’t let him go again.
We put him in the ground, and I held my wife.
And, then I went to work.
I made new friends.
I tried new food.
I cried a lot. 
I began working on my novel again.  We’ll see how it works out.
I have not visited his grave.
Christmas is supposed to be a happy time of year.
All I want is for it to be September 8th, and for him to still be here.
But time is a constant.
Thanksgiving was good.
I’ve whispered “I love you” into my son’s ear, on a consistent basis.
I’ve watched Star Wars twice.
I’ll see it again, soon.
I don’t like resolutions.
But I will promise myself, this:

I will not stop.  I will continue.  I will learn how to breathe again.
I will make him proud.
I love you, Isaac.

Dear Isaac, #1

I’ve been thinking about you today.  Trying to keep it to just at “lunch time” because I won’t be productive otherwise.  My heart breaks every time I do.  No good customer service experience could blossom from that.  #NewJob

I want to make a movie for you, but I don’t know what to do.  I thought I could do a documentary-style essay, or letter from me to you, but that’s too on the nose—I would cry the whole time and not get anything done.

I have a science-fiction idea, which could be really cool if I can shape it into a story.  Ideas come easier than whole stories do.  It’s something you learn the more time you spend writing.  It would help if I knew what you looked like, you know, grown up.  I don’t know.  You were a beautiful baby though, and you had your mother’s lips.  You looked like your brother did when he was first born.  A little more purple, though.

Some people will read that last bit and think my joke in poor taste, but it isn’t for them.  It’s for you and for me.  And if you’re anything like your Dad, which I’m sure you would have been, you’d appreciate a good corpse joke, as I appreciate a good one-nut joke (as it pertains to my survival of testicular cancer in 2001).

Here’s what it boils down to: How can you miss someone you’ve never met so much that it breaks you apart every few days?  How do you tell that story?  You know, without just saying it–that’s too easy, and you deserve a masterpiece, not some Hallmark movie of the week.  I love you more than life.

It’s therapeutic to write to you.  I’m going to do it again.

Does it make a good blog post?  Probably not, but I’d rather keep it here than risk losing the piece of paper.  I’ll write you again soon…once I’ve figured out your story.

Love,

Dad