Today is the day that I have been waiting for. My son, Payton, is arriving to come live with me, again. Maybe the third time will be the charm. Yes, we tried this several years back. Let me start at the beginning instead of the beginning. Payton was born in Kansas City. And unfortunately for him, he didn’t have his dad, ME, around at all until he was 13 years old. I’m not going to sugar coat this or try to make it sound better than it was. It was a terrible thing that I did and I have to live with that. I didn’t step up, find out the deal and most importantly, I didn’t put on my daddy pants with him until then and by that time, a lot of damage had been done. I missed out on him and he missed out on having a dad.

So, when I did decide to “Man Up,” he moved in with me and we started our relationship. Getting to know each other at that point was exciting, but it was also hard on him. He had all of these questions and I had no answers. It seemed like the best thing that I could do at that point was to focus on the future and not the past. After enrolling him in school, things seemed to be ok for a while. He was on the football team. He was making a few friends. It seemed to be going ok. Then, out of nowhere, his mom moved him back home. After taking a few steps forward, we took a giant step back. A few years later, we tried it again. He was going to enroll in school and work at my restaurant. He looked for apartments and we visited this aircraft mechanic school. It was going well…for a minute. But I think the rules started getting to him. He wasn’t ready. Or then again, maybe my fathering techniques weren’t up to par and I was asking too much. whichever was the case, he went back home to KC again to be with mom. Well, here we go again. He is 22 years old now. My girlfriend says some men show love with providing and some men show love by teaching. I think she’s right. I guess there’s actually lots of ways that men show love to their families. I have to figure this out as I go but I really want to be there for him. Better late than never, huh? But, this is a great opportunity for me to show him that I do love him and that even when things don’t start out on the right track, it is possible to get on track and get where you need to go.