It’s been 6 months since you’ve left us. I think we honored your today perhaps better than we ever have. We went out for breakfast. We prioritized family (breakfast, after-dinner). We made time for important, wonderful, old friends (Ami Sanghvi Snehal Patel Mital Sheth Hina Patel Sheth Urvashee Patel @samir patel).
And then we found our way home. To make sure we had ice cream. To make sure we were together. And we stayed up late telling powerful, fun, emotional–a wide range of stories and a wider range of emotions. You’d have loved all of it, and been proud of all we achieved and who we did it for. Life is simple. On a moment by moment basis sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
But in aggregate with the world judging you, you win, when you are supposed to win.
We won today. This bottle. Which I found at a liquor store today.
We won.
The world conspired to get this bottle into our hands and we didn’t waste a moment or a drop of it. #iamgrateful and #iamthankful , and also, #imissyou
Mom. Mumma. My greatest champion from Day 1. The wind beneath my wings. My Captain American Shield when the world was too responsive. My cloak of invisibility when the world was too judgemental.
My Batman utility belt when I was stuck in a jam. My Wonder Woman lasso when I was hiding from the truth. My MK Armor (in all its variations, allowing me to rise and shine, to propel and repel). My Power Ring allowing me incredible strength at times where it didn’t make sense (like a Ryan Renolds movie).
My Lightforce (eff the Darkforce) — cleansing, healing, redeeming.
My Mumma.
I read this post. I see you share this post. And all I wish is that the Marvel and DC Universe’s would unite, bring together all of their super powers, and make one thing happen: the alleviation of your pain. I know it’s not possible. I knew a long time ago that you were the world’s greatest superhero. I know today that you also carry the world’s greatest superpower–the ability to live, to move forward, with grace, without your own Allspark.
And I love you for it. And I am here for you. And you are allowed, all you feel. I can’t take it away.
But #iamgrateful and #iamthankful that you raised me. The rest is all comic book fodder. (Also…Mom you won’t get most of these references so we’ll cover them when I see you this weekend! Love you!)
We weren’t with you today, but, you know we are with you always. Kids tell the truth. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes it’s amazing. Like this love here. But it’s the truth. So…you can’t ever deny this video and this love.
Man. What a great video to see this morning. Incredible song. The choreography looks like a blast. And the families are putting smiles on my face.
All of ’em. I’m also loving Phil Wright as the hype man jumping into each sequence with a little positive reinforcement.
#iamgrateful and #iamthankful for video shares like this. Thanks Ami Shah for the share. This goes out to lots of people but today, hopefully this helps my sis start her birthday off right. Happy Birthday Anu Kiran!
Enjoy.
You know we’ll have Jaanu and Anaiya doing this in a few years (heck, maybe sooner!)
FB Family, I’m looking for Full Stack Engineering candidates. We’ve been on a bit of a hiring spree lately, but I’m keeping the pace slow on extending offers and hiring because I want to make sure that in this next class of Engineers I’m able to create a balance of backgrounds, perspectives, experiences.
Specifically, I’m looking for the underrepresented in technology development (women, minorities in tech). If you have any introductions to make or people to pass along my way or organizations and resources to point me at, I welcome it.
#iamgrateful and #iamthankful to work at a company where we have the backing, the founders, the culture, and the opportunity to think about these things from the ground up and at the outset.
I’m not the biggest Bruce Springsteen fan. I’m a fan. But for someone who’s 43 and was born and raised in NJ, I’m probably a disappointment to expectations. I mean, I’ve only seen him in concert once (and his haunting, all acoustic, single spotlight version of Born in the USA is the best of what great songs are about, about what they stand up to when played and presented).
A long and hurried series of events and travels between locations during the past 48 hours somehow, pushed Bruce into my head. And from Bruce, I remembered this article (https://www.rollingstone.com/…/bruce-springsteens…/) and I remembered this line …”Clarence doesn’t leave the E Street Band when he dies. He leaves when we die.”
And I loved that line. Because sometimes, we need to feel like life happens as a result of our actions. Like life is deliberate. I’m fine actively pursuing humble, but it’s not a lot of fun to be co constantly and consistently humbled. Also, Clarence Clemons was larger than life.
I played the saxophone in 5th grade because of him (and then broke my hand, and then stepped back altogether because I’m better as a fan of music than a producer of it).
Thanks for the reminder, Boss and The Big Man. #iamgrateful and #iamthankful for having the choice.
America is America. I love her always. I feel patriotism always. My parents, my wife, my family, all love me because of me and in spite of me. They don’t love all I do, or all of how I do it. They do always love me. True love means loving the being and the entity, and separating those from the actions.
I love America. I also acknowledge that we’re a young nation. It’s easy to forget that our actual time in the spotlight has been shorter than the average life expectancy of our people.
We’re young. And we’re all the things that youth brings with it. Confidence and energy. Arrogance and recklessness. The biggest thing that youth gives us is the energy to make mistakes, and the strength and confidence to recover and learn from those mistakes.
We’ve made lots of them. Look at our poverty. Look at our education system. Look at our wealth gap. Look at our infrastructure. Look at the way we (sometimes, not often, not always, just sometimes) treat each other. Today is not our forever. Today is not our destiny. Today is merely, today. The only thing today is for sure, is a byproduct of yesterday.
I know what America means to me. It means every single day I stand on the shoulders of the hundreds of millions of people who came before me and sewed together some piece of this fabric. I know America means to me that I am not welcome in some parts of this country implicitly, and I know in others explicitly. I am not young anymore. I also have my own experience and perspective. I know I’m welcome in more places today than I would have been 43 years ago when I was born. And I know my son and daughter are welcome in more places than I was at their age. It’s not perfect. Neither am I. It’s getting better.
Which is more than I can sometimes say for myself. If peopled judged me for the way I acted in my youth (hell, even the way I acted a month ago), I’d be alone I’m sure.
I won’t judge all of America on some of the actions of Today.
In the end, I love all of America, but… I know what America means to me. It means the power to choose to be like TI. Happy 4th of July. There’s a new kind of independence we need to fight for. TI’s got it going on IMHO. And I applaud this vision, very specifically. Very explicitly. I don’t applaud his public drunkenness, how he treated Tiny, or none of that. But nobody’s perfect.
I can separate action from actor, and maybe today, I need to do more of that to keep moving forward. If there is a fight in our world today it is the fight for meaning. All that we rail against is anchored in our search and desire for meaning. I love America.
#iamgrateful and #iamthankful for America. All of it. I’m not feeling less patriotic, I’m feeling more. Because love is objective and independent and from the inside out. True love exists independent of reciprocation.(And let me be clear, I feel super loved back, America.)
In a new world of firsts, you handled today with strength, grace and fleeting moments of vulnerability…and we love you.Anaiya as always, said it best.
While I spend thousands of characters trying to get it right, followed by edits, deletes, pauses and revisits. She just loves you and says. It’s why she’s magic. In a sentence and a wish she wraps you in love.
“I wish that my Dadi could never cry.”
I assure you, Mumma, all of us will keep wrapping you in love. Like you’ve done for us for lifetimes.
I also can’t wait for Anaiya to do all the talking for me soon (we’re close.)HBD Mumma.
Finally…it’s amazing what happens to a song like “You’ll never find…” when you’re where we are. It goes from intoxicating to haunting. It’s still wonderful Mr Rawls. But it hurts at levels it used to just hum at.
Sometimes I just need to close my eyes; it’s raining outside, it made me think of this song for some reason, and a search on “Africa + Toto” + “Covers” led me here. And I couldn’t be happier. I’ve got it on (manual) loop and I couldn’t be happier.
In a time where everything needs a little more purpose, meaning, and just grace, it’s not a bad song to have in your head. Bless everything and everyone. Let’s go.
If you’re tagged here, I thought of you at a very precise moment.
One thing I’ve promised to do in the spirit of moving forward, honoring legacies, and simply, trying to do better — was to honor Daddy’s legacy on this Father’s Day.
I’m doing that with two posts:
1) My $.02 | Preparing for the Inevitable – I’ve been asked a few times over to share anything I’ve learned, working through my family’s estate, over the past few months. I did my best here. I welcome feedback on it. And I hope it’s helpful.
I’m also always happy to discuss it if/when you find yourself going through it. I’m not an expert, just a guy with some experiences to share:
2) “WAIT, WHAT?” or HOW I GRIEVE – I’ve been asked a few times over to consolidate all the posts I’ve written about Daddy over the past few months; I’ve done that here in one blog post, that gives some additional context around the origin of the posts as well as links to all 16 I’ve written about my journey/experience.
#iamgrateful and #iamthankful for all the love, support, and strength our family’s been given. All we can do is say thank you and pay it forward. Here’s what probably amounts to some spare change, being paid forward.
Suneet Bhatt 