His Fathers Son.......

A father is defined as a male parent of any type of offspring.

Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad.

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!
~Lydia M. Child



So as time passes and I come ever that much closer to becoming a father, I am starting to think more about my own father and our father son relationship.

you ever noticed how boys want to be just like their dad's when they are young, nothing like their father's when they are teens, and then become just like their father's for better and worse when they become adults?

This could not be more evident than in the relationship between my father and I. From my evolution of childhood through adult, the predictable life stages that occurred in my life that kept us apart and the challenges that keep us close vary as my view of him over the years, I have viewed and related to my father in many different ways in different stages in my life.

See as children, sons idolize their dads and think they can do anything. This is most often demonstrated by a son’s imitation of his father’s behavior by walking like him, talking like him or wearing his clothes or shoes. At this age, a son wants so much to please his father and receive his approval and acceptance. As for me I idolized my father from afar, my parents divorced when I was very young ( too young for me to remember ) So I would create pictures and depictions of my father from bits of stories that fell from dinner table conversations that I was too young to hear mixed with vivid glimpses of old photos and tales of his manhood,courage and psychical strength. My father was a god to me as a child and I would anxiously await his arrival when he would bless me with his seldom found presents. weather if it was because of his personal life, his jail sentence or his drug addiction my fathers touch or voice was rarely seen, heard or felt in my early childhood.


As a teen, I experienced a period of discord in which conflict was the central theme of my life. I often rejected the expectations, values and directions that my father had embraced and I took on more non-traditional philosophies, placing me regularly at odds with him. He had seen the error in his ways, in not only his life but in my life and was attempting to be the father that I needed and deserved but at this time in my life I didn't want a father.
Resentment or even the fear of depending on the man who was my absent "fallen god like" father was great, but he buried his head and continued to try and better
himself as a man and a father. He educated him self, he separated himself from his former life,he found respect for himself as a man. and even as a rebellious, resentful and emotionally scared teen that I was at the time, I couldn't help but take note of his growth. My father was becoming the dad I wanted, right before my eyes (yes it took years but he never quit ) He continued to build that father son relationship that we were so very much lacking.

As a young adult, My father took me in to his home, when mom couldn't handle me anymore and in this short year that I lived with my father from the age of 16 to 17
( the most time we spent together in my life ) He taught me many things about being and becoming a man strength, honesty , Faith, humility and The most important thing that my dad showed me was that only a real man can be a father.

See all men fall and make mistakes but only a man can rise, My father fell but he rose from the ashes of his mistakes and atoned for every sin and lie he told for every second lost of my childhood, he took responsibility for his actions and withstood the pain of facing his past shortcomings as a man face to face till only then, to move forward as a father.

and now I am to be a father to a son.

To successfully pass through these stages of idolizing, discord, evolving, acceptance and becoming a legacy, is an “ideal” goal for every Son to a father.

Let me become your legacy Dad, for my son and I will pick up what you have begun
and hold it high for the world to see, This legacy was not made of riches and soft times but forged from the bottoms of uncertainty, mistrust and scrutiny of naysayers to rise to the highest points of trust,respect, love and prosperity.

Thank You
Rev. Dr. Bruce C Rivera PH.D. aka my DAD

Can a zebra change it's stripes

Ever heard the expression “a zebra never changes its stripes” or “a leopard never changes its spots”? They’re used in reference to change, or more accurately, inability to change. Simply put it means that people’s personalities are unlikely to shift suddenly in one direction or another. An expression that encapsulates this thought is one you’ve most likely already heard, “once a cheater, always a cheater”.
I’m beginning to believe that the thought of people changing, myself included,
is more along the lines of fantasy, not reality. It seems more fitting to say that the pattern people’s personalities take as they mature is one of growth, not change.

For a change to occur in a person’s behavior there has to first be a revelation,
a moment of clarity where they realize something is wrong or that a situation could have been handled better. Not easily manufactured! Yet even with revelation,
it’s assumed that they have the humility to admit fault and want to change.

Rest assured I’m not losing my faith in humanity; rather I’m identifying trends in human behavior, which I’m only beginning to understand. The expectation that people “can” change, even if they want to has proven to me a foolish one.
In my experience this only leads to anguish and frustration.

The gravity of the expression “a zebra never changes its stripes” is often felt when trying to answer the question, what do I do when someone I care about cannot get passed a monumental path of errors and mistakes that constanly take them down the wrong path,yet they seem so insignificant to them.
When all you want for them is freedom from their self-perpetuating internal jail, yet your seemingly helpful words fall on deaf ears.

Well I’m still working that one out, but what I do know for certain is that you cannot change for them. I know that sounds obvious but the truth is you cannot sacrifice yourself for someone with an expectation that your sacrifice will give them an “ahh ha” experience. In many cases the kindest yet hardest thing you can do is let them fall. Change as it seems, is futile without consequence.

My feelings towards someone being able to alter their personality for the better (provided they want to) as radically as “change” implies, are similar to those I have for someone trying to quit smoking cold turkey, it’s painful for them, it’s unpleasant for everyone around them and it rarely works.

Upon reflection of recent personal experiences, the validity of the expression “a zebra never changes its stripes” appears more accurate than I want to believe.

That said, people can suprise you, they’re just unlikely to.