For My Son, Bravery Del Rey

September 9th, 2022

Dear Bravery,

The day of your birth, April 21st, 2020, the exquisite and courageous Katherine Delos Reyes, your soon-to-be mama and my current wife, had been in labor over you for more than 24 hours in Highland Park Hospital, Highland Park, IL.  Except for returning to the apartment on Constitution Drive to feed Hobbes and Goose and try to get a couple hours of sleep at around 3AM that morning, I remained at mama’s side throughout the entirety of your birth, until a moment long into the second day overwhelmed me, so much so, I snuck out of the hospital to take a walk, get some air and clear my head.  Silence seems the only way to communicate this experience that afternoon, language seems inherently flawed and insufficient to convey moments like this and the many others subsequent.  I can try, and I will, because I sincerely believe every father owes his child a letter, but I already know this story is more effective felt than heard.

That afternoon, I spent the last hour of my life before becoming a parent wandering around downtown Highland Park, IL.  The context, the Coronavirus Emergency, a once-in-a-century humanitarian disaster, enveloped the Earth with the threat of imminent and indiscriminate death during the Spring of 2020, seizing lives of tens of thousands of human beings every day from every corner of civilization, effectively forcing society everywhere to retreat from itself.  On Central Avenue at 1PM on this Tuesday afternoon in April 2020, I was the only man for miles.  Highland Park was a ghost town, and not unlike every other American town, big or small, at this moment in time.

In hindsight, to juxtapose feelings of microcosmic and macrocosmic isolation seemed obvious, the world appearing to mirror a solitude I felt hidden away in my heart.  My first son, Bravery, you did not exist yet, and although I already loved you, more than anything, I desperately wanted you to have a world that was better than the one you were being born into.  Even if there was no one but me in the world to feel lonely at that moment, my existential solitude in mid-town on mid-day, vanished, with Bravery, with your life beginning here, in this place in history, into the light of day and into the arms of mama and myself.

Cue our newborn: Bravery Del Rey.  He steps forward into the spotlight of existence crying, appropriately, less than fifteen minutes after I return to mama’s maternity room at Highland Park Hospital to witness your grand entrance, into the spotlight of our family, the world, center stage.  Your mama and I, with conscious effort and without much success, valiantly tried to shake the persistent feeling of being stranded with you.  Mama and I became a family on April 21st, 2020, with our new baby boy, although immediately it felt like we were a family struggling to survive on a deserted island. It was the three of us.  And that was it.

We both needed you, Mama and I.  We needed you to be Brave.  We knew that you would be given no choice in this life, and in this world, you had to be Brave.

July 4th, 2022, around 28 months later, the people of Highland Park, IL, in the midst of celebrating Independence Day down Central Avenue with a big red-white-and-blue parade, not in any way dissimilar to every other American town, big or small, at this moment in time, beginning the long process of communal healing after successfully vanquishing the imminent Coronavirus threat, found our inherently American sense of invincibility pierced through the heart again, and again, by another invisible menace.

A random American citizen, with legal access to a high-powered weapon of mass destruction (or WMD, for short), fired indiscriminately into the crowd at the Independence Day parade on Central Avenue, committing capital murder with the effort of premeditation, in Highland Park, IL, of all possible places, and on July 4th, of all possible days.

And so, instead of a national celebration of freedom and independence, our symbolic American rejection of tyranny, all of us felt oppressed and tyrannized yet again by endless tragedy, senseless violence, and an all-to-common heartlessness.  The shooter’s victims included both parents of a two-year-old girl who was found amid the chaos without them.  This is America, Brave.  There is no perceivable end to the people’s suffering.

In early June of 2022, a month or so previous, I had scheduled an appointment with my North Shore physician for medical advice on a cognitive issue I’d been noticing, involving my difficulty writing short term memories.  The night before, I thought I had left you standing in the parking lot of a restaurant, pulling away but possessing no memory of having buckled you into the car seat only minutes before, not immediately seeing you in the backseat of the dark car, and not knowing you were there until I reached back and physically touched your leg to reassure myself, I had not lost you.

This experience, even though it lasted only a few seconds, filled me with such panic, I scheduled the consultation immediately.  The consultation Dad made with his physician, scheduled weeks in advance for July 7th, 2022, was to take place at the North Shore Medical Group’s Highland Park office, 1777 Green Bay Road, one block south of Central Avenue.  Three days after the tragedy in Highland Park on July 4th, 2022, you came with me to the appointment.  I couldn’t go it alone.  I knew what I would see in downtown Highland Park that day and I needed Bravery with me.

Trying to describe how the disaster in Highland Park, IL, on July 4th, 2022, affected me on a personal level will be difficult for me, but Brave, this entire letter so far has been extremely difficult for me.  I spent my childhood in Deerfield, IL, one town over from Highland Park.  The people of Highland Park were my next-door neighbors, I grew up with them, childhood friends and girlfriends, Deerfield High School football rivals.  And decades later, you were born in Highland Park.  I was traumatized.

Mass shootings terrorize American towns on a daily basis.  There are very few exceptions to this statement (days without incident) and the exceptions prove the rule.  There is also a large fascist segment of the American population that champion the rights of lone gunmen under the lie of promoting personal liberties at all cost, and the proliferation of episodes of capital murder doesn’t even make the national news anymore, so ingrained in American culture is the acceptance of random, indiscriminate murder as a risk of daily American life.  Your grade school will practice shooter drills, just as my generation in grade school practiced tornado drills, just as the generation preceding mine practiced atomic bomb drills as the prevailing imminent threat to the lives of school children.  To put it in perspective, Brave – since your birth in 2020, the children affected by gun violence on a school day would fill three University of Michigan football stadiums to capacity.

Every single day, a different town in America is terrorized by capital murder just as Highland Park was on July 4th, 2022.  It’s infinitely sad, unbearably heartbreaking, and appears to most of us as absolutely hopeless.  Whenever I see the American flag being flown full-mast, and not half-mast, on any day anywhere in the United States, the sight disgusts me.  I find it offensive.  Gun violence is a uniquely American epidemic without a viable cure, and most of us are fucking sick of it.

After my doctor’s appointment on July 7th, 2022, you and I walked a single lone block north on Green Bay Road to Central Avenue in Highland Park, IL.  Looking into the eyes of every passerby in town out that day, I noticed a kind of guilt the people of Highland Park shared.  It was a kind of guilt for having survived an attack that others had not.

Central Avenue in Highland Park, IL, the street where I had spent the hour before you were born in complete solitude, was as similarly desolate on July 7th, 2022, as it was 28 months before, on your birthday, Brave, April 21st, 2020, and for a similar reason.  A similar sense of dread hung over Central Avenue.  I heard silence on Central Avenue that day that I recognized, standing at the corner of Green Bay and Central, looking east toward the lake.

The only difference I recollect between these two experiences was holding you in my arms the second time, whereas the first time I didn’t have you to comfort me yet.

In Highland Park, IL, on July 7th, 2022, we did not approach uniformed authority for details of the disaster, but they were everywhere.  Nor were we approached by media for our testimony or thoughts, but they were everywhere.  Brave, you and I spoke only to The American Red Cross.  I wanted to tell you about this exchange we had with them, because it was meaningful to me personally, and I want you to grow up knowing this story, keeping it pinned close to your heart.

People capable of generosity do exist in the world.  People capable of selflessness exist.  Heroes exist Brave.  They actually do.  It surprises me during these rare moments when I find someone in America capable of pure charity without any underlying self-serving motivations.  And acknowledging my surprise saddens me.  We talked to two Americans on July 7th, 2022, that prove good people are still out there somewhere.

Brave, the best humanity has to offer tends to fly under the radar.  They never require recognition for common decency.  They almost never call attention to themselves.  They are willing to stand in front of a bullet for you, or for anyone.  These people are extremely few and far between but their contribution to society is immeasurable.

Organizations like The American Red Cross contribute a crucial reassurance to humanity that someone out there somewhere cares about them unconditionally.  It is extremely easy to lose sight of this these days.  A lot of people don’t believe it at all.  Brave – your dad, your mama, your friends – we all love you to the ends of the Earth.  But, in addition to all the love you can prove, someone else out there, someone you may never meet, loves you as well.  You should know this as everybody should.  And this fact should serve to comfort you.  There’s a little stuffed dog without a blue bandana I’m saving for you, gifted to you by The American Red Cross, in Highland Park, IL, on July 7th, 2022.  I hope you will keep it to remind you of all of this.

The world is a frightening place most of the time.  I want to protect you for as long as I possibly can from the multiplicity of unique horrors involved in everyday existence, American or otherwise, but eventually, everybody gets exposed to them.  So, as direct as possible, I must tell you now and I must tell you here:

Do not let fear get the best of you. 

It will destroy you if you let it. 

Do not submit.  Do not negotiate. 

And never let fear tear you apart. 

Be Brave.

Love,

Dad