A Trip to NY

Awfully Fast but Filled with Love

If you’re new to Raising Myles, Welcome!

I write letters to my newborn son, Myles, sharing my journey as a first-time dad and spreading the love I didn't experience myself. If you’ve been here before — thank you for coming back. If you’re new here, below are some good places to start:

• Starting Daycare: I Never Knew it Would be this Hard

• I used to be a Plant Dad

• How I Met Your Mother

• A Letter From Your Mother

Five years ago on Valentine’s Day, I asked for my wife’s hand in marriage. There is something about someone choosing me for life that I will never be able to get over ❤️

Last year, I wrote a letter to Myles about it and included the proposal video. You can read and watch it here - How I Proposed to Your Mother.

Ok on to this week’s letter.

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20 Months Old

Dear Myles,

Before the year was over, we took a family trip to NY. A friend was gracious enough to give us their home and car while they went on vacation. I hope you find this kind of community wherever you go—the kind where you never have to ask for support; people just show up for you because of what you have created together. New York was exactly how your mother and I left it a couple of years ago—awfully fast but filled with love.

Living in answered prayers

We visited your grandparents, my mother and father. I watched smiles and laughter from them at the same time, a sight I rarely saw when I was younger, while they held you, They talked and played with you, in a tongue you usually only hear from me – but to their surprised you understand, and I smiled too one because for months now I see the benefits of only speaking Haitian Creole at home with you is paying off. But I also smile at a present I longed for myself but content at least I get to experience this moment through you.

Like watching my father play with you, tossing a ball back and forth, or you sitting on Grandma’s lap enjoying Soup Joumou for the first time. Another—my brother, your uncle—recording you dancing, clapping in circles to songs we knew when we were young.

If healing was a picture, this would be it—all of us together, with you at the center, spinning round and round as we clap and cheer you on. A love that makes you forget everything wrong with the world.

It is a love I wish I could pack in carry-ons and checked bags, the kind of love I wanted to unpack when we got back home to Birmingham—the kind of love I wish you could always experience from my side of the family. And maybe that is what makes all of this special—like meals you only eat once a year, I have learned to savor these moments now because, truthfully, we never know when we are coming back.

When we weren't with family, we visited your mother’s favorite museum—the American Museum of Natural History. We used to come here together early in our relationship; she loved the exhibits, and truthfully, I just came to spend time with someone I was falling in love with.

But there’s something beautiful about revisiting places you once knew—first as a child, then with the woman you love, and now with my own son, you. Everything feels more meaningful. It felt like I was seeing and experiencing these exhibits for the first time—thank you for this vision.

Traveling with a toddler isn’t easy. Going to New York felt awfully fast and filled with love. And as much as I wanted to take the people with me, and some of the foods too, I’m reminded when we are home I have everything I need – you and your mother.

I love you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Love,

Daddy

These letters are a labor of love. All funds collected from writing these letters go toward Myles' college savings. A paid subscription also gives you access to all letters I’ve written to Myles, including these letters I write every other week or so, where I explore fatherhood more deeply, discuss my own upbringing, and reflect on what it means to be raising a Black son.

If you can’t commit to a monthly subscription, but still want to support Myles’ college plan, here is my Buy Me a Coffee page.

And if you are on Substack, please restack this letter and recommend it so I can share this love with the world.

Let me know your thoughts:

1. Where did you love traveling with your family when you were younger?

2. What has your experience been like traveling with children under two?

3. Do you remember what it was like when your child first met their grandparents or someone else you loved?

4. If no one has told you they love you today, know that you are loved.

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Want more of Myles’ Letters?

These are Subscriber’s favorites:

• Myles met his Grandfather in Brooklyn, NY

• Read about Our first Father’s Day.

• A video about beautiful backgrounds: Tell Them Where You're From.

• Read about My Wife’s Love Affair - It’s exactly what you don’t think

• Have you ever been Cooking in the Bathroom kind of tired?

• Check out Carrying the Gift, Holding the Love

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  Looking for more Black Writers ?

  In honor of Black History Month, I present to you The Cookout Library! It's a compilation of newsletters by living Black writers put together by me. It’s now a page on my website.