The Love of Parents

Shortly after posting my anti-war bit about the anniversary of Operation Meetinghouse I dug into what my Steemit friends have been posting for the past few days. I have been really busy lately (which is why I haven't posted the winners of the last haiku contest yet) so I haven't read much on Steemit the past few week.

Standouts

Among all the posts, two delightful and lovely posts jumped out at me from my buddies @kafkanarchy and @boxcarblue - coincidently also expats in Japan with young families, like me.

I will let their posts speak for themselves. Here you go:

• It’s the small things in life that make a world of difference
• About the thing itself (in the Halls of Meta-cine)

Sappiness

At one time I would have called any display of parental affection sappy and avoided it. Then I had kids of my own and my entire way of thinking changed. I look at my sons and I know what true love is. I can get tears in my eyes thinking of how much they mean to me.

When I leave for work and my oldest demands I give him a hug and kiss before I leave, I am overjoyed as I hug him tightly and tell him "Papa loves you very much". When he goes to bed and hugs me and repeats the words back to me "Papa, I love you very much", that means everything to me.

My youngest can't talk yet, but he also demands I give him a hug and kiss when I leave for work. He holds out his arms and makes his baby babble which I know means "hug!", and then he pats his cheek to show where he wants his kiss.

Being a parent is the greatest thing in the world.

A haiku

I write haiku daily, as I have mentioned to many of you. Beyond the haiku translations I post I don't share much of mine, but I do practice it. Reading the above it may not be much of a surprise to learn that my kids are often the topic of my poems.

Here's one I wrote last night:

watching
as they sleep
beautiful boys