To My Son, Upon Reaching The Age of Nine Years

Now you sleep in your bed, waiting for your early wake up, breakfast in bed and presents before leaving for school on your ninth birthday. But as it is already after the hour of 2:00 am on November 20th in Bahrain, the country you were born in, you are already nine.

What an amazing person you are. Bright, energetic, funny, a natural at math, writing and singing. A mind hungry to learn about the world around you and the sciences that make it work, and a voracious appetite for boyish silliness. A caring and loving big brother and a fine young gentleman. I could never have foretold the joy you have brought me.

There was a boy born in India nearly 150 years ago, who grew up to be a great author. He wrote great stories, poems and books, for grown-ups and children. He wrote of men, women, children, animals, wars and adventures. He wrote of bravery, honor, decency and commitment. There are some today who think he was warlike, prejudiced and imperialist; maybe he was, but he was also wise. I would like to pass some of that wisdom to you:

If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

Happy Birthday, son.

Love,

Dad