Dylan Stafford

I would not leave you. In times of trouble.

Catholic girls start much too late.

Even rode my motorcycle, in the rain.

It’s Friday night. January 2, 2026. 7:21 PM. It-never-rains-in-southern-California, but its raining now.

My sons are 18 and 13, the adult teenager Jackson and our brand-new teenager Christian. Both are here, home tonight. We’ve finished dinner. Dishes washed. Dried. Put away.

And I’m inspired; I’m daddy-diary-driven. It’s been years. My cousin Carla gifted me her new book of poetry, The Coffee Cafe, and I read it cover-to-cover New Year’s Eve. Scenes of Americana from Bakersfield, California. Love and loss, tattoos and poetry, coffee and ideas. Carla’s poems are inspiring me to write again.

Jackson is home from his first semester of college. Christian is half-way through 8th grade. I’m 56. My wife is still 29, again. She’s happy to stay perpetually sunny at 29. Tee hee! We have our chronological age, and our mental age!

The leader of the band is tired, and his eyes are growing old. But his blood runs through me still and he’s my hero as always. Dad celebrated 60 years of marriage to Mom this year. 60. Wow. Respect. Dad always listens to me. When I’m in my brain-on-fire mode he’ll say, “That would be good in a book.” Or he’ll quote Bob Dylan, “I will know my song well before I sing it.” Always encouraging me towards art, creation. We enjoy the “Great Conversation” over decades.

He was born in the summer of his 27th year.

Music got me through my youth, to 27 and beyond. Music carried me, the lift to live. Bedroom-turntable getting ready for school. First record: Billy Joel, Glass Houses. Windows-down in my pickup truck with no AC, driving to high school with the 6 x 9 speakers bumping. Cassette tapes. Radio, and praying for a great next song. Driving to college, five hours to A&M with the windows down in the Texas heat. Sound waves lift. Songs re-member. Songs repeat.

They say that he got crazy once, and tried to touch the sun.

Repeat the Sounding Joy.

His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand.

Repeat the Sounding Joy.

Childhood Candlelight Christmas Eves. Memories flood back. Holding the candle, watching for drips. Advent calendars: 25 day countdowns with little chocolates, one-per-day. The magic crescendo to Christmas morning.

Can’t sleep. Wake early, before the parents. Gather my collaborators, my younger siblings Lisa and Jon. Three little mice. Pajama-clad kids. My sister with long strands of hair in the sides of her mouth, eyes twinkling, a little elf. When will they wake up? When can we open presents? After presents, cinnamon rolls and orange juice and eggs and bacon. Mom cooks a special breakfast. My brother runs through the house, his hands flying his new spaceship that makes different noises when he points it up, or down.

Then a Christmas morning drive. South. To our grandparents “down in Dallas” in the 70s. Walking in the backdoor at grandma and grandpa’s home, “Harold Dear” and “Bobby Dear.” Greeted by apple juice and goldfish crackers, and hugs. A tiny home that smelled like plaster. My grandfather with his leather vest that smelled like pipe smoke. A home full of nooks and magic and leftover clues of my dad’s childhood. Pictures. Trophies. Artifacts. Dad, a skinny child once? It couldn’t be. Could it? A kid, like me?

Christmas now, 2025.

We flew across America, Los Angeles to North Carolina, a week to make new memories with family. All four of our own parents now in their 80s. Still strong in some ways. Slowing down in other ways. Laughs. Forgets. Repeats. Lots of Repeats. What? Could you say that again? Does anyone still hear well?

Small moments. How many more? Don’t count. Just. Be. Here. Now.

My mother-in-law doesn’t say much. Most of her words are gone. She answers questions with Yes, or No, or not at all. But her eyes still sparkle. She’s in there. Her soul shines out even as her body retreats.

My father-in-law cares for his bride of 66 years. He’s a mountain of a man. Teacher. Entrepreneur. Deal-maker. Father of five. Double-digit grandfather. Now a great-grandfather, with more on the way. My wife gets her strength from both her parents.

Repeat the Sounding Joy.

Repeat the Sounding Joy.

Nobody told me there’d be days like these. Indeed.

Repeat the Sounding Joy.

Mom. I am blessed by your love, always. Thank you for your love of words. Thank you for your Joy. Thank you for creating our family, past, present and future. You are the center of all our orbits, the “egg in the meatloaf” that holds us all together. Thank you for always encouraging me, and Lisa and Jon.

Dad. The leader of the band. Your gentle means. Your strong hands. Ever the role model. Thank you Dad for showing me how to be a husband and a father. And how to backpack and fix things and read and stay organized and chill.

Lisa. Sister Christian. Oh. The time has come. Missing you Lisa. Always. Thank you for teaching me how to live sober. Touch wood, it’ll be 25 years this coming February.

Jon. Brother Jon. That’s what friends are for. Thanks for all you do for Mom and Dad. Thank you for your Joy and your creativity. Your art with your music always inspires me.

Teach. Your children. Well.

Well, I’m a father now. Me!? My own children. Two. Sons.

The past. Is just a good bye.

Don’t you ever ask them why.

Just look. At them. (*Sigh*) And know they love you.

Steak. Tonight Jackson cooked steak. Really well. Well not Well. Medium rare actually. He sears way better than me, and I’m the one who was raised in Texas. His Christmas gift to the family was a 10″ stainless steel fry pan. Tonight: Room temperature meat. Salt and pepper on both sides. Heat the pan. Hot. Add olive oil, instantly sliding around and really hot now. The sizzling contact and then three minutes on a side. Exhaust fan working. The house smells great. Baked potatoes. One for everyone. Sour cream. Cheddar cheese. Pepper and salt. Butter. More butter, just in case. Touching me. Touching you. Sweet Caroline. I’m feeling fine. Bah Dah Dah. This is my life. Nobody told me it could be this good.

Christian cheered on Jackson from his gaming PC in the next room. NBA 2K26. His avatar, the 6’8″ digital Christian Stafford is crushing it. Averaging 60 points a game. With a career high of 111 points. Plus, Christian keeps giving his avatar new tattoos. Tonight, his avatar is rocking a giant rose on his back, and a huge “6 7” on his chest. Six-Seven, how many times did I hear that this winter? Christian is cooking on the digital court while his big brother rocks in the kitchen.

Sizzling steak dinner here in never-raining, yet wet wet wet, southern California tonight. Dark too early. Cozy. Both boys back under one roof after Jackson’s first semester of college, so far away in Baltimore(!?!?) Could he pick a school farther away? Okay. I get it. If I had his parents, I might stretch my wings too.

Family. After-Christmas homily. Jesus had to flee. Joseph had a dream. Get out of Dodge! King Herod is still looking for you. Flee. From a manger to a refugee in Egypt. Humble. Scared. A family together in stress. Listening for God’s direction. How blessed am I to raise children in 2026, in a country with running water, with streets, with electricity? Blessed.

Nobody told me there’d be days like these

Indeed. Strange days. Peaceful days. Circumstances circumstancing. Life doing life. But everything falls into place, eventually. My momma told me.

My bride. Thank you Marisa. For this life together. You always re-listen when I repeat my joke.

“I gotta get some new charts,” say I.

“Why?” you reply.

“Cuz loving you is off the charts.” My punchline.

But it’s a serious joke. You smile, hearing it repeated. I smile with gratitude because I could have missed all of this. I got sober in February of 2001. I met you three months later. I’m still sober. We’re 22 years married. I’m getting the hang of being your husband. And life keeps getting better.

Catholic girls start much too late. Do they? Maybe that is a good thing? What was my hurry? I’m grateful for you, my exotic Catholic girl. You introduced me to a whole new world.

Grateful for our marriage. Grateful for children-becoming-men. Stand up straight. Pull your shoulders back. Look upon the world with peace, with strength, with humility, with curiosity.

No. No. No. It ain’t me babe. I don’t know how to be a dad. And neither do most dads. But we do our best anyway.

Thank you Marisa. I might be as crazy as they say. But you chose me. Anyway. Newly sober. Laid off six weeks after 9/11. When I proposed to you in the summer of 2002, without a job, you saw who I was, without all the perfect trappings. You saw the me I could become. You married me, flaws and weaknesses and goofiness and all. You gave me that New Jersey promise, “Divorce never…Murder maybe!” You have blessed me beyond my dreams love.

It was me you were looking for babe.

You get prettier each year. Nobody told me a wife could get prettier. Prettier on the inside. Prettier on the outside. Your faith. Your family. Those generations who made you. All of them shine through you. You bless all around you, family, friends, customers, neighbors.

She was… (You Are) an American girl.

Song. Sung. True.

Solitary man. Transformed to a married human. One plus one is three: father, son and holy holy holy Toledo. You plus me is we. Nobody told me. The joy repeats. The joy repeats.

It sounds. It repeats.

Music: the art form all other art forms aspire to be. Music lifts. Music moves. Someone saved my life tonight.

Marriage: nobody told me. It gets better. 22 years for Marisa and me. 60 years for Jack and Ginny, my parents. 66 years for Brad and Barbara, Marisa’s parents. 69 years for Alphonse and Helen (now deceased) Marisa’s grandparents who danced at our wedding in 2003. Married role models all around. Nobody told me. They showed me.

Merry Merry Happy Happy 2026.

May you look and seek, and find. May peace, unearned and gifted by grace, find you and lift you and bless you with your hopes and dreams this coming year.

Peace. Peace. Peace.

Songs. Sung. True.

Repeat the Sounding Joy.