Category: Dad Feels

10 Year Letters: 10 years (and 6 months) later

Matthew Heick Leave a comment

I had read a story awhile back about a 12-year young lady that wrote a letter to her future self 10 years later (today.com). Her name was Taylor Smith and she ended up making headlines not only for the novel idea of the letter but for unfortunately passing away from pneumonia.

Do not open until 2023 – Deceased girl’s letter to her future self goes viralDownload

That Christmas in 2014 I decided to start this as a family tradition, getting the kids down at the dinner table, telling them this story and informing them that they would love to hear about today much farther down the line from them.

It’s been 10 years and last night I read my letter. Suffice to say I’m proud of myself.

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When I am twice your age…

Matthew Heick Leave a comment

Today my second child officially turns 21 years old. It’s another milestone in being a parent and watching a child grow to an adult. This reminded me of a spreadsheet that I created when I realized that, on my 43rd birthday my oldest son was exactly half my age.

It’s not a difficult calculation: Determine the difference in age in days between your child and yourself, multiply that by two, and add that onto your Childs age.

When determining my all my kids’ 2x birthdays (TwiceDays? Triple-Quad-D aka Double-Dad-Days?) I went ahead to find out when those dates existed for my parents.

For my Father our PairDemiJour is June 21, 2009.

For my Mother our HalfMomMirror is September 28, 2008.

In all this birth date calculation I learned that I fathered my first 4 children earlier than my parents fathered me. Nothing to brag about, numbers do that for themselves.

So, the point? Maybe to create another special day that bonds parents with their children? Maybe. I just think when I rolled the cosmic dice and realized that on my 43rd birthday I’d be twice the age of my firstborn it was a gift from myself half-my-life away that I was glad to discover.