This morning we went for a family walk down 10th Avenue to the grounds of City Hall. It’s a great place to hang out and catch your breath. Green grass, big trees and an awesome community garden. It was a beautiful September day. Sunny and bright with a gentle breeze.
Being the overly cautious/semi-paranoid guy that I am, I soon noticed a guy about the age of fifty, drinking beer and chain-smoking on a bench a few hundred feet away. It was a strategic place to sit and drink as this particular bench was nestled under a huge tree obscuring the vision of passers-by. I was chasing Levi around for about an hour when he walked over to me and said: “Can I say something to you? I’ve been watching you and your son the whole time you’ve been here. If growing up I had had someone care about me as much as you obviously care about your son, I know that I would be in a very different place right now.” I was a little taken aback, but I thanked him for the sentiment and told him that we would be seeing him around the neighbourhood.
This brief conversation got me thinking about all kinds of things, but I was mainly contemplating the profound role parent’s play in shaping the intellectual and emotional development of their children, and how some people in this world have a much tougher road to travel.
