Dear Shandra,

One of the reasons I was attracted to you was because of your wisdom... I am coming to realize more and more this is due at least in part to the perspective or vision of life you have been blessed with... You see things from a broader viewpoint... which in turn lends itself to a healthy longterm perspective, better parenting and healthier prioritizing of what matters most in life. You are very good at seeing the forest.

Admittedly, I am quite good at seeing and comprehending the details... the trees... However, this is often at the expense of forgetting about the forest, getting caught up in the here and now... This type of thinking can be very good when it comes to establishing a neurological diagnosis, but also can lend itself to sub-optimal parenting, and decreased street smarts.

I admire you a great deal and would not change anything about you. I need your strengths. You are very intelligent. The world measures intelligence on how well an individual can describe trees. (Academic tests by their very nature are written by tree analyzers for tree analyzers). There are very few measures out there that analyze how well an individual is at comprehending the forest. A laser beam may be very impressive... a sharp pinpoint of light that can cut down trees. A "sharp tool." However, it will never illuminate a forest. Nor will the light that illuminates a forest cut down too many trees.

There are countless brilliant psychologists and psychiatrists that are lousy parents and spouses... they see the trees great but can't step back to see the forest for fear of losing sight of the trees. They have difficulty applying the knowledge they know, because life does not happen one tree at a time.

An aerial perspective often matters far more than knowing the minutiae on the ground. I believe in mortality one can usually only gain the full benefits of either perspective at the expense of the loss of control of the other perspective. Those that see the forest realize they are letting go of their control of the view of individual trees... and are ultimately OK with that (even if they sometimes beat themselves up about the "deficiencies" that result from their lack of a "tree view"). Those of us that focus primarily on the trees often don't comprehend the "forest level control" that we fail to seize because we often don't get far enough off of the ground to even realize that there is a higher and broader level of control that can be gained only by letting go of the control of the here and now... the details. Which perspective is better? I guess it depends on the situation.

In your Dad's business, I don't know how good he is at looking at individual trees. However, I do know that he is excellent at comprehending the forest... and this has led to a great deal of economic success. I would be willing to bet that there were many "tree analyzers" in his classes in college that probably had better grades but that have not been blessed with near the same level of economic success. I view your father as a very intelligent man. So do many others. I believe you have been blessed with much of this same type of intelligence.

You bring a great deal of balance to my life. I need your strengths and am constantly learning from you. I hope to become more like you. Thank you. Together we are one and will continue to strengthen and develop each other.

I really enjoyed reading Isaac's quotes with you that you posted under his section of this blog.

Many of his quotes had to be at least as good as any "deep thoughts" I have heard or read. I loved laughing and laughing with you tonight! Thank you for capturing and preserving the essence of the joy of parenthood. It means so much to me.

I love you, my Dear.

Me

p.s. I haven't forgotten about the back rubs while I'm gone.