I’m 85… My Kids Stopped Visiting. Here Is What I Did. | HO!!!!

So, you are asking, “Harold, if I don’t call them, what am I supposed to do? Just sit here and rot?” No, no, no. You build a garden. My granddaddy used to say, “Harl, if you chase a butterfly, that thing is going to fly away. But if you build a beautiful garden, the butterfly will come to you. And even if it don’t come, shoot, you still got a beautiful garden.”

Six months ago, I looked at that phone, silent as a tomb, and I said, “Enough.” I walked out to the garage and I pulled the blue tarp off that **unfinished oak table**. I didn’t wait for a holiday. I didn’t wait for a promise of a visit. I plugged in the sander. I joined a woodshop class at the community center on Tuesdays. I started making things with my hands again. I started playing chess at the park with these other old fools.

We argue about politics, we laugh until we cough, we bet quarters on the games. I started cooking again. I got my gumbo recipe back out—the one with the dark roux that takes forty-five minutes to stir. And you know what happened? I became interesting again. I became happy. I stopped needing them to fill this hole in my chest. I filled it myself. You have to get busy. Go travel. Go learn something. Make your life so full that you don’t even notice the phone hasn’t rung.

Because here is the secret that nobody tells you: Children are curious creatures. When the phone stops ringing, when the guilt trips stop, when the voicemails cease, they start wondering. “Why ain’t Daddy calling? Is he okay? What is he doing?” The silence makes them look over their shoulder. And eventually—mhm, eventually—they call.

It happened to me last week. The phone rang. I was in the middle of sanding the final coat of varnish on that **unfinished oak table**, which was now a gleaming masterpiece of golden wood. I almost didn’t hear it over the sander. I picked it up, and it was my son. “Dad?” he said, sounding confused.

“I haven’t heard from you in weeks. Is everything alright?” I didn’t cry. I didn’t guilt him. I just smiled. “I’m great, son,” I said. “I’m just busy. I’m finishing a table. I’m going to eat a steak on it tonight.” We talked for twenty minutes. It was the best conversation we’ve had in a decade. Why? Because I wasn’t a beggar anymore. I was a man.

Now, I have to keep it real with you. I ain’t going to lie to make you feel better. Sometimes you build the garden, and the butterflies still don’t come. Sometimes they are just gone. Sometimes folks are just selfish, even your own kin. And if that is the case, if you find your peace and they still stay away, then let them go. Let them go with love, but let them go.

You cannot force nobody to love you, but you can refuse to let their absence destroy you. You ain’t defined by who comes to visit you on Sunday. You are defined by the man you see in that mirror.

My phone hasn’t rung today, but I am going to the woodshop. I am going to make a chair to go with my table. I am going to live. If they want to join me, the door is unlocked. But I ain’t standing in the doorway waiting no more. And you shouldn’t be neither. Get up, man. Go live.