My youngest son and I have a wonderful relationship today. When we see each other, we don’t shake hands; we hug. We laugh together. We help each other wherever we can. We enjoy each other’s company. We love each other.

Such was not always the case. In our thirty years of knowing each other, twenty of those were strained.

He was adopted by my first wife and I when he was five. When Cruella and I divorced, she fought tooth and nail to obtain full custody of him and his sister. Rather than fight and make things ugly, I agreed to it, and I settled for visitation rights to the kids every weekend.

After about five years of this, Cruella had her fill of motherhood, and she called me one evening saying that she was severing all parental rights to our son because “she was tired”. If I “wanted” him, she would sign him over to me. If not, she was going to make him a ward of the state.

After about a three-minute conversation on the topic with my new wife, Mary Ellen, I called Cruella back and told her that we would take my son. Pete was thirteen years old at the time. When Pete came to live with us, Cruella packed up and moved out of state.

For three years, Pete lived with us. It was rocky at times. He had a chip on his shoulder. He broke rules. He stole from us. He was belligerent.

After three years with all of us patiently working at the relationship, he turned a corner in a positive direction. He started making the honor roll at school. He get involved with sports. He even began dating nice girls.

Then, one day out of the clear, blue sky, Cruella called him, begging him to move in with her because she was lonely. Pete, feeling an obligation towards his mother, moved in with her within the week.

There was a period of two years where Mary Ellen and I didn’t hear a word from him. Nothing. There were times when I had no idea whether he was alive or dead. Then, one day, (again, out of the clear, blue sky), he showed up at the house unannounced.

He told me that he was in trouble. He had dropped out of school soon after he moved in with his mom, and he got deeply involved with street gangs. He feared for his life, and he wanted to know if Mary Ellen and I would take him in again.

Mary Ellen and I agreed to bring him back, but there would be rules to follow. The most important rule was that he would either have to get a full time job, go back to school, or get his G.E.D.

He agreed to all of the conditions we set down, and back he came.

It didn’t take me long to see that all the progress Pete had made when he was living with us before was gone. He had regressed. His bad attitude was back. He was surly. He had listened to trash talk about me, spewed by his mom, for two straight years, and he did nothing to hide his contempt for me. (I had NEVER said a bad word about his mother. Never. I made a point of it, even though there were times when I was sorely tempted to do so.)

In one memorable conversation between us, I asked him what his problem was with me. His answer was succinct. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “I think you’re an awful father, and you’re the biggest asshole I’ve ever known.” (That quote is verbatim. Trust me; those words are burned into my brain for all time.)

Within the year, he moved out again, tired of my “rules”.

Well, to make a long story just a tad longer, he bounced in and out of my life for a few more years. He resumed his disappearing act once again for months at a time.

Then, one spring afternoon, he showed up at my door with his G.E.D. in hand. He had gotten himself a full-time job. He had apprenticed as a carpenter, and he secured himself a good job building houses with a well-established housing contractor.

He said that he had done a lot of soul-searching, and came to the conclusion that the relationship between us was important to him. He told me that, in the past, I was not the perfect father and he was not the perfect son. Nobody is perfect. But he told me that I was pretty good, and that he loved me.

Now, he, his fiancée and his baby daughter, (my third granddaughter) live a half mile down the road from me. He frequently visits Mary Ellen and me to share a beer or two and “just talk”. Mary Ellen babysits for little Nova two days a week. Pete helps out, without being asked, when I’m lost and frustrated with “manly” household projects.

***

Anyhow, this weekend, we here in CT got whacked with 14 inches of snow. I woke up Saturday morning knowing that I was going to spend most of the day shoveling and plowing the white stuff. I dragged myself out of bed, got dressed, trudged downstairs, and looked out the window onto the driveway.

I was shocked to see that driveway was already plowed out. Not only that, but the deck was shoveled off. I looked down the walkway between the back door and the garage, and there was Pete, working his butt off, shoveling the walk so that I wouldn’t have to. He was taking care of the old man.

I was overwhelmed. My thoughts flashed over all the struggles that Pete and I have had in the past…and now, it has all come to this.

What a distance we have come!

…and it was all worth it.

I sat down in a kitchen chair, and my love and gratitude overwhelmed me. It filled my chest, got caught in my throat, and leaked out of my eyes and down my cheeks.

Trust me when I tell you that people can change.

Love can conquer all if you let it and don’t ever give up.

Merry Christmas.