Eight years of letters to my son — and the record of a father trying to get it right.
What began as a private endeavor — a father putting down in writing what he didn't want to lose — has become central to the most important project I've ever worked on — being a dad. Years of letters, written to my son, since before he was born. It’s not a blog, or even advice. Closer to a collection, a record of accounts: what I was thinking, what I was afraid of, what I wanted him to know, in any event. Something I yearned for when my father was no longer here to answer.
They arrive as life presents itself — a birthday, a death, a song, an ordinary afternoon that suddenly matters and makes your hair stand up. Some are a paragraph. Some are longer. Taken as a whole, they're a journal of sorts, but also a library, a soundtrack, an archive — the small daily evidence of a life lived before and now, alongside his.
I lost my father at eighteen. There was too much left unsaid, that's why this exists. Will should never have to wonder what I thought about him, or what he means to me. It’ll be here, as true as the day.
Read a few:
The Letter — the day I learned my father had died, with his last letter still in my pocket.
Breathing Time — a song, a playground, and learning to stand back instead of catching him.
The Truth — my mother, the harder inheritance.
The letters live on Substack, where new ones arrive as they come. If you'd like to follow along —
The Harvest Playlist — the songs that run through these letters. The soundtrack of a life, with Will and Ali.