I think I am going to have a son.
Danny's SongI listened to Danny’s Song today for the first time in a very, very long time. Suddenly decades compressed into hours and the 70’s were only yesterday, maybe even this morning. The album the song was on was released in 1971 while I was still in high school and given how popular it was, we listened to it countless times. In the beginning, the lyrics offered hope and a picture of how my life might unfold.
Perhaps, like Kenny Loggins, I would find a good woman, get married and have a son. At least that is what I hoped for, what I wanted but could never count on with certainty. We just don’t know what our futures hold whether we are 20 standing on the first steps of adulthood or 60 and have reached the top of the stairs.
In time, I met the woman and we married. Years went by and we listened to the song often and hoped. And hoped. And dreamed. After more time a son came but left before we got to walk with him. Still more time passed and then came another son. This one became my Danny. Our Danny. As time continued to pass, there was daughter who joined our first son but then, finally, came a second Danny. We have two Dannys, two sons who walk through life with us.
When I listened to the song in the days after our children came, I no longer was moved to live in anticipation but instead felt fulfilled and experienced satisfaction from being a husband and father. Today, the song took me to a very different place, one of appreciation, recollection and remembrance. It is a good place. I have a good wife. I have good sons. They, together, are the reason I have had a good life.
People smile and tell me I am the lucky one and I know I am. We have come far from the beginning and we have 2 sons. They are free, to be like doves, conceived in love, yes, but they live every day in our love and are busy about the business of making families of their own. Danny 1 and Danny 2 are the reason the sun shines above us no matter the time of day or the kind of weather. We ARE the lucky ones.
