What's Left

Father's Day is coming, and I have failed.
I have failed my son. In spite of all my best intentions and efforts to the contrary, the world is not as I had hoped to present him as he becomes an adult.
I wanted to hand off a planet that was in better shape than I had inherited from my father. I know he tried too. It was from my father's house that I watched the fires burn on the University of Colorado campus. I was born into a world where political assassinations were part of a campaign to quiet the voices of freedom. I watched it on TV. I listened to it on the radio. I heard it in the music. I saw it on the movie screen. I began to hope for a world that would see that arc of history bend all the way to justice.
It's still not there. Voices still cry out in pain and fear. Wars are being waged because one world just doesn't seem to be enough.
I am deeply ashamed of the lack of progress my generation has been able to create. Somehow, I still feel like I'm part of the resistance. How can this be?
Black Lives Matter.
Climate Change Is Real.
Pro-Choice and Pro-Life shouldn't be two different things.
This is a nation built on dreams and dreamers.
Peace.
When I was nine years old, I painted peace symbols all over, well, everything. I grew up in a summer of love, and I don't know where it went. Maybe it was never really there. Maybe it was just a cleverly poised ad campaign that made me think that I really could buy the world a Coke.
When I moved to Oakland, I was already on my way to being an adult. I was ready to take my place behind the wheel of Spaceship Earth. And I'll be darned if I didn't manage to run it into a few ditches along the way. Meanwhile, my son was watching. He is the voice I heard when I made bad choices. He's the one to whom I tried to explain the murder of Oscar Grant. He was twelve when riots tore through his hometown. He watched it burn from my house.
I am sorry, eleven years later, that I still cannot explain how far from the world I had hoped to present him is.
I am happy, because he is the one who is teaching me. Leading me.
It's time for me to listen.