One Son

[Brian. April 24, 2018.]

No, the title of this post is not something I stole from a menu from one of the many Korean eateries on W. 35th Street.

And, if you look at the photo above…(I always use a lead-in graphic for my posts), I can tell you certain things:

It’s a profile of my son, Brian. No, he is not dreaming of traveling to France. No, he does not make a living balancing things on his forehead (maybe he does, maybe I missed something). And, no, he is not conjuring a suitcase. If he had that kind of talent, I’m confident he’d be conjuring something more interesting that a valise with faded travel stickers.

We were at a restaurant just south of Macy’s and a few blocks from where he works. During the dinner I looked at him and recalled that I didn’t have a good profile picture of him. So I asked him to pose against a neutral wall, not considering the piece of old-time luggage that was mounted there.

Before we rejected the desert menu, I was busy thinking. I had written many blog posts that highlighted places and people who I hardly knew. Interesting interactions with people who I, most likely, would never meet again.

I’m proud of those posts, but it occurred to me that I had not highlighted my own children enough. I had mentioned them in many blogs, but never were they a main subject of my encounters.

When I first moved to Manhattan in the very early 1990’s, Brian was about five years old. I was going through a divorce. My father brought him down to visit. I took my dad to Bethune Street where he worked for the Bell Labs in the 1930’s. Brian came along. He was a tiny guy in the big city.

Later, he came down with a friend. I have a picture of him in front of the Twin Towers. He says he remembers the day clearly.

Even later, he came to live with us while he attended Baruch College to complete his undergraduate degree. We had a challenging time fitting him into our one bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side. For me, it was good-bye Letterman while he slept on the fold-out sofa.

He graduated and before you could say “congratulations”, he had a job.

Now, he buys us dinner…we are the ‘out-of-town’ now. He tells me which train to take to get to some obscure place in one of the boroughs. He has a lady friend and they live in Astoria. Ironically, he lives just blocks away from where my wife grew up.

I’m awed by how my son has grown up. I’m amazed at his success. I’m proud to have him as my son, my only son. No one will carry the Egan name into the future except him. And, I’m not pushing anything.

I love my son beyond what I thought was possible. He is everything I tried to be in my life…funny, outgoing and charismatic. Where I failed, he succeeded.

Look at the photo below. It seems like just yesterday that I took the picture. I’ll always think of him with the little stick in his right hand. The look on his face says to me: “I’m a good boy, daddy.”

I hope the sweater is still in around somewhere. In a trunk maybe. Then someday, if he has a son of his own, he may be able to have him pose for a similar photo. And, maybe he’ll write a blog about much he loves his little boy.

Oh, yes you are, my one son. My Number One Son.

Love you Brian.