I GET THAT

My wife and I were never interested in finding out the gender of our children before they were born. It was too much like opening Christmas presents in August. Part of the joy of the birth experience is learning whether you’re welcoming a boy or girl into the family.

We were comfortable we could clothe either a boy or a girl without a problem. I admit I find the trend toward increasingly elaborate “gender reveal” videos to be perplexing.

But I also remember discussing all this with a co-worker who told me she found out the gender of her children so she didn’t have to refer to her unborn child as “it.”

Okay. I get that.

That may not be the way I’d have chosen to do handle it, but I get that.

Once upon a time, people whom I love dearly cheerfully suggested to me that if I had a son, I should name him Mark, Jr. Of course, this was very flattering, but was never an option to me. I wanted my son to have his own identity, and naming him after me seemed like a move to imply he needed to be Exactly Like Me. I’d never want him to get that message.

I certainly don’t have a problem with the “junior” approach – my father-in-law was Jay Dea Davis, Jr. – I just didn’t want to do that myself. I did get an insight into WHY a man would want to name his son “Junior” from, interestingly enough, NBA player LeBron James.

"When I was younger, I didn't have a dad," James says, "so my whole thing was when I have a kid, not only is he gonna be a junior, I'm gonna do everything that this man didn't do. They're gonna experience things that I didn't experience.” – ESPN.com

I get that.

Sometimes, people do things that don’t make sense. It’s easy to dash to judgment. Sometimes, however, one fact can change your perspective, and make you appreciate a decision that you might never consider.

When the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001, the nation was shaken. Many people weren’t sure how to act, but many felt sure how we SHOULDN’T act. When I heard that people were taking rubble from the towers as souvenirs, I considered it as ghoulish a thing as I could imagine.

Then I read about Vinny Testaverde, Heisman Trophy winner and longtime NFL quarterback. He collected two pieces of debris. He did this because his father, Al, who had died two years previously, was a cement mason who helped build the World Trade Center towers. (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-sep-22-sp-48509-story.html) For Testaverde, this was not a creepy knickknack hunt. This was his father’s legacy, a memento of his father’s greatest achievement. He needed a piece of this.

I get that.

Some things can be simple. Sometimes looking for reasons becomes looking for excuses. There are things that should simply never be done.

However, there are times when The Reason Why makes a big difference. Sometimes you need to learn some more because you judge a person’s action. Sometimes what you learn will help you appreciate a choice you may not make.

I get that.