Can usually be found with at least one child within arms reach and/or one eye plastered to the viewfinder of a camera. My loves. Oh, and that husband of mine :)
The Lessons I Learned from My Dad
I am not the man my father is.
I am trying. Some days closer. Some days farther.
He never sat me down and explained these lessons. He lived them. I’m still learning them.
Show up.
The kitchen table. The hospital room. The funeral. The picket line. The call from the son who won’t answer.
Show up.
Most days that’s the whole job.
My whole life I watched him do it. Not for cameras. Not for headlines. Not because there was something in it for him. He showed up because someone needed him.
I learned that grief doesn’t make you special.
My father buried a wife and daughter. He buried a son. Yet he never treated grief as a claim on other people’s sympathy. Instead, it made him notice theirs.
A mother who lost a child. A father sitting beside a hospital bed. A kid scared about what comes next. A son who lost his mother, his sister, his brother.
He always noticed.
I learned that power is not the point.
The people who chase power eventually confuse the office with themselves.
My father never did.
Whether he was a county councilman, a senator, vice president, or president, he was the same man.
The title changed.
He didn’t.
I learned that family comes first.
The train from Wilmington wasn’t symbolism.
It was every night.
He read to us. Showed up to games. Sat through hospital rooms. Waited up for children who were lost.
And when the day came that the country and the family could not both have him at full strength, he chose family. He relinquished the last chapter of how he wanted to be remembered. And he never complained about it.
Most of all, I learned that love is not soft.
Love is discipline.
Love is showing up at one in the morning when nobody is watching.
Love is answering the phone.
Love is staying.
Love is getting back up after life knocks you down and doing it all again tomorrow.
That love saved my life.
I’ve failed at many of these lessons, sometimes in very public ways.
He loved me anyway.
That’s the last lesson.
I am not trying to become my father.
I am trying to carry what he gave me.
And if I can do that, even imperfectly, that will be enough.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you.
The shape of the Obama Museum tower is inspired by 4 hands coming together to hold something sacred inside. The tower is also dynamic and changes with the weather. This is a great watch if you'd like to know more about the thought process behind the design. 🩷
More than 40 years ago, I arrived in Chicago in search of an idea. I was a young man looking for purpose, who believed deeply in America, was inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, and wanted to be a part of something larger. The America I believed in was one where everyone has opportunity, everyone is seen, everyone belongs—because that was an America that had a place for me, too.
Barack: You told me all those years ago that you couldn’t promise me the world, but you could promise me an interesting life. Of course, you outdid yourself and managed to give me both.
Eight years in the crucible, and not once did you melt from the heat. Not once did you let it harden you. Instead, you used it to reveal your truest essence: your stubborn optimism and unflinching courage, your dazzling brilliance and unpretentious decency, your ferocious work ethic and absolutely unshakable moral fiber.
@atrupar “So often this city comes together because we are forced to, by a moment of tragedy or adversity, what a gift it is to be brought together by pure unfiltered joy.” Spurs fan here, that was a bar.
@BulwarkOnline Sooooooooo after the incident they said "we have to investigate." Now that they've investigated it's just "oh, you didn't forget about that yet??"
@LongDesertTrain@JaneMoss08@TheRickWilson I know I was vaccinated as a child AND received a measles booster before living in college dorms. Had my antibodies tested last year and had zero! Wild. Good thing I checked. Received a booster.
CNN montage of Trump bashing the JCPOA and releasing any money to Iran:
I would have never given him back the money. I would have said, the money is off the table. Let's start negotiating. And you know what? I would have won that negotiation
Loggerhead sea turtles 🐢 don’t just migrate willy-nilly. As it turns out, they follow a narrow band of ideal chlorophyll and heat levels—which stretches across the Pacific and moves north and south with the seasons!
In honor of #WorldSeaTurtleDay, see how data collected from tagged turtles and @NOAA’s #satellites reveals this migration pattern!