Neil Tambe 4/20/25 Neil Tambe 4/20/25

Three Lessons from a Benevolent Universe

Three reflections on how love, in all its forms, is the lesson our suffering teaches us.

I try to remember that everyone is going through something and has gone through something.

No matter how wealthy or poor, how powerful or meek, how healthy or sick—everyone suffers. And at times, suffers brutally. Grief, loss, and addiction affect everyone—whether it's presidents or paupers.

This is the first lesson I learned about suffering: if everyone suffers, and suffers gravely, then I have an opportunity to help them mend just by treating them with dignity. And practically speaking, I can’t handle having a different MO for people who I like and respect and trust, and for people who I distrust or even find repulsive.

My soul can’t code-switch in the same way that my language can.

If I try to selectively treat some people with dignity and not others, it feels like my character splits in two—like a self-inflicted Jekyll and Hyde. I lose myself. So I try to offer the same dignity to everyone. It’s all or nothing—not because it’s easy or even comfortable, but because it’s the only way I know how to stay whole.

What to make of suffering itself, though?

I had this thought experiment in the past week—which has been the most intense we may have ever had. Our family is entering a season of tremendous challenge, and equally tremendous joy.

And as I look to the horizon ahead, I had one of those raw, reflective daydreams that stripped my heart down to naked honesty.

Let’s assume there is a higher-order being that influences our lives, orchestrating at least some of the suffering and joy we experience. Let’s further assume that this being actually does care about us and wants us to thrive.

If you are a theist, that being could be a benevolent God. If you are a non-theist, maybe you still hold space for the idea that something greater—life itself, the universe, some force beyond understanding—is trying to help us grow.

If we assume that there is a benevolent being that truly cares about our long-run best interest, and that being is intentionally influencing the suffering and joy in our lives, there must be some reason.

So what are they trying to teach us?

I can never know for sure, but I think it’s something like this—something about how we are in relation to others:

Learn to take care of yourself.
Take care of others.
And let others take care of you.

Or—
Learn to be a light.
Help others find their light.
Let others find the light in you.

Or even—
Learn to laugh at yourself.
Help others laugh.
Let others help you laugh.

Each part of the triad points to a different kind of human bonding.

To love the self is to become a vessel—open to love, radiant with light.
To love others is to offer them that light.
To let others love us—that’s the hardest. It requires trust.
It asks us to believe that we’re worthy, and that others are safe enough to let in.

Again, I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think that benevolent higher being is trying to teach us this—though too often, our actions wrongly suggest otherwise:

Learn to make money.
Take money from others.
Prevent others from taking your money.

Or—
Learn to live in the shadows.
Put others in darkness.
Fight the people who put you in darkness.

Or—
Learn to create fear.
Project fear onto others.
Shield yourself from the fearful others.

The first triad is a lesson inviting us into trust, love, and connection. The alternative traps us in a cycle of fear.

The first is an open hand; the other is a dagger at the neck.

The point is in how we are in relation to others. I don’t think the suffering and joy the benevolent being is throwing our way is to teach us to be in a state of conflict and exploitation. I think what they’re trying to teach us is to be in a state of harmony and intimacy.

Every experience of suffering and joy follows this pattern of pedagogy:
Experience love.
Love others.
Let love in.

Not one, not two, but all three:
Learn to love (an act of the self).
Love others (an act onto others).
Let love in (an act of others onto us).

We can’t graduate with just one of these lessons—we need all three. Hinduism has taught me this. So has Catholicism. Even my reflections as an indifferent agnostic in my early twenties taught me this.

Life has taught me, through all gives and takes from us, that we need all three threads of this triad, braided together.

As I grapple with the road ahead for our family, we are starting down tremendous suffering—but probably more than our fair share of joy, too. In prayer, contemplation, and written reflection, I’ve come to this conclusion again and again—including this week—and more strongly every time.

Maybe there is nothing out there. Maybe there is. Your beliefs and your guess are as good as mine. But it is helpful to think as if a benevolent being is trying to teach us something.

Because the conclusion I’ve come to—over and over—is powerful and instructive:

All this suffering and joy reminds us that the meaning of it all is to refine our relation to others—
By experiencing love,
Loving others,
And letting love in… again and again.

Neil Tambe 1/26/25 Neil Tambe 1/26/25

Why 100 Marbles Help Me Accept Life and Death

There are 100 marbles in these two jars. Here’s what they mean.

I went 26 years before Robyn and I started dating, which is why there are 26 peacock-colored marbles at the bottom of the jar on the right.

Then, we were together for three years before we had kids. That’s what the next three marbles are for. They’re a vibrant yellow because those years were our first golden years—just the two of us.

After that, there are 27 multi-colored confetti marbles. These are for the years we’ll have kids in the house. I can’t believe a quarter of them have already moved from the jar on the left to the jar on the right.

Next, there are 24 more golden marbles for the years Robyn and I will have together as empty nesters before I turn 80—just the two of us, again. Real talk, but that’s about how long the Social Security Administration says I’ll live based on my age and sex.

And then there are the clear marbles. There are 20 of them, representing the bonus years—if I’m lucky enough to get them. Living from 80 to 100 isn’t guaranteed, but if I make it, those years will be a mix of divine blessing and pure luck.

Finally, there’s one marble sitting between the jars. That’s this year. Beside it is a card with my New Year’s resolutions on it—those are a huge deal in our family.

I think it’s important to have reminders—clear ones—of our own mortality. Death is certain. It’s a painful thought, yes, but ignoring the truth is worse. Pretending I’ll live forever would guarantee that I’d look back with regrets.

I swear, honest to God, I’m the calmest I am all day when I step out of the shower and see the marbles. I see the “Year of Joy” marble between the jars and it reminds me to play in the basement with my sons after dinner. I remember I need to sweat everyday, to move, to take care of my body.

Those marbles bring me back to a place of radical honesty about my life, my death, and my choices—choices I’m making right now.

If we can accept the hardest truth—that we’re going to die—what else would we ever need to lie to ourselves about? When we accept death, every other problem in life becomes easier to face.

In my experience, the suffering of problems is almost always less than the suffering of avoiding them. Grief, divorce, loss—those are brutally hard, but avoiding them? Blaming other people for them? Lying to yourself about them? That’s worse.

Here’s the thing: we don’t have any real choices until we accept where we are. Denial is a dead end. It keeps us stuck. But once we accept reality, we can start to choose differently.

If “I love you” is the most powerful sentence in the English language, then “I am where I am, but I’m not going to live like this anymore” might be the second.

When we accept hard truth, we don’t need to spin stories about our lives or control other people. We don’t need to make enemies out of others just to avoid fighting the battles inside ourselves. We don’t need to live in a fragile state of fantasy and delusion. We can just get on with it.

And this is where I’ve landed: accepting death is the foundation for living a life of love, character, peace, and responsibility. Why? Because we can take all that energy we would’ve spent avoiding the truth and spend it improving our souls and making things better around us. If you’re more interested in power, status, or avoiding struggle, this radical honesty probably isn’t for you. But if you want something deeper? Start with death.

I use marbles because I’m a visual person. Maybe you need something else—a quote, a photo, time spent with people who are sick or dying. Maybe you need to go to church more or adopt a dog, knowing they’ll go first.

Whatever it is, my friends, find a way to face mortality. Because when we can accept that, we’ll have the courage to face everything else.

I’m not saying any of this is easy, but I am saying it’s worth it. Radical honesty isn’t warm and fuzzy. It doesn’t look great in an Instagram post. But it’s real.

And being real with death is the best place to start.

Neil Tambe 1/12/25 Neil Tambe 1/12/25

How to become the richest man in the world

Having strings attached is the point.

There’s an appeal to living life purely through arm’s-length transactions.

We agree on terms, make an exchange, shake hands, and we’re done. No recurring obligations. No one owes anyone anything. It can easily be how we operate in many situations: buying a new pair of jeans, running a garden club, working a job, or splitting chores with our wives.

A life of deals and agreements can feel in control, efficient, even profitable in a sense.

But I don’t want this.

I want my life to have strings attached. I don’t want to live at arm’s length from everyone else. I don’t want to depend on the market or a series of transactions to bring companionship, compassion, or joy into my life.

I want to be enmeshed. I want to watch my brothers’, sisters’, and friends’ kids when they need a date night out. I want to know the next time I hug someone in my family or anyone else I always hug is going to be soon.

I want to accept meals after we have a baby and reciprocate that kindness to the next ten families in line. I want my neighbors to call me when their computer monitor is broken, and I want to lean on them when I need a ride to the airport, and Robyn has to take the kids to a piano lesson.

I want to stay up later than I should to hear one more story over beers with my buddies, especially when they’re visiting from far away. I want the DCFC clubhouse to feel like our country club because that means we’re showing up for soccer practices, and cheering not just for our sons but also their teammates.

I want the gentle nudge—and the pressure—to show up to Mass or open car doors in the school drop-off line, knowing the kids and other dads notice when I’ve been MIA for a while. I want to linger places, even at work, just to ask someone about how they and their family are doing.

I want to pour my love and laughter into someone who is struggling, even though it obligates me to the scary reality that, maybe—just maybe—I’ll have to open my heart and let it in when someone notices my grief and suffering and pours it right back.

These are the scenes from a life with strings attached.

This is what I want for us. I want us all to work hard and build just a little surplus—of money, love, time, and health—so we can take that extra and give it away.

Doing that isn’t how we become wealthy. In fact, we’re probably better off keeping people at arm’s length if wealth is our goal. Why? Because it’s easier to extract money from people when we stick to the terms of the contract. Our pesky emotions and feelings of attachment won’t dull our killer instincts, so to speak.

So intertwining ourselves with others—stringing ourselves to them and them to us—may not be the best way to become wealthy.

It is, I’d argue, how we become rich.

Neil Tambe 12/1/24 Neil Tambe 12/1/24

We're in the era of falling in love again

New eras are worth the struggle because we get to see those we love with new eyes.

I Have Fallen in Love, Again

On quiet weekend mornings, I stand at the stove, often with a spatula in hand, flipping pancakes. Robyn comes downstairs in her pajamas, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She smiles, tilts her head, and walks over to me with her arms outstretched. Without saying a word, we hug right there in the kitchen.

It’s not one of those young, giddy embraces. It’s a hug worn in by years—familiar, steadfast, with the kind of patina that only time and shared struggles can create.

This is what love looks like now.

And I’m falling in love with her again.

It’s a love I’ve rediscovered, not just because of who she is, but because of who we’ve both become. In this new era of our lives, she is still Robyn—but also someone new.

The Beauty of Changing Eras

I started to understand why I’ve been feeling this way over the Thanksgiving weekend. Something has shifted—not just in our relationship, but in our entire world.

We’ve entered a new era.

In our home, the signs are everywhere. We’re going to be parents to a newborn for the last time, and the weight of that reality feels both solemn and profound. Our sons have transitioned into school-aged kids, with piano lessons, soccer games, and social lives. Even our house itself has transformed—we’ve remodeled and repaired, shaping it into the place we’ll live for decades to come.

As individuals, we’ve changed too. Robyn and I are no longer just contributors at work; we’ve both shifted toward leading others. I hear it in her voice when she’s on a conference call—steady, calm, full of gravity that she’s earned over years of experience. Her team leans on her not just for answers but for her wisdom, and it shows in the way she carries herself.

And me? I finally got my book, Character by Choice, out into the world after seven years of working on it. It feels surreal to see it finished. That process stretched me in ways I didn’t expect, but it also revealed a new grittiness for sticking with something for years at a time with no guarantee of success that I didn’t know I had in me.

The changes of this era haven’t always been easy, but they’ve revealed so much beauty. Like the quiet strength Robyn shows every day. The way she hugs our sons or me—not just as a gesture, but as a statement of presence and love, even when she’s exhausted. Or the way she listens to friends who are newer parents with such intense warmth that it lifts them up without them even noticing. These things were always part of her, but this new stage of life has brought them to the surface.

But it’s not just us.

Our close-knit family and friends are evolving, too. Our siblings are becoming parents, which will soon add to the gaggle of kids running through our lives. With each new arrival, our family grows—cousins, nieces, and nephews weaving together a new web of connection and joy.

At the same time, our parents are navigating their own shifts. Robyn’s parents are caring for aging loved ones while preparing to move into homes that fit the lives they need now. My mom is still grappling with life after my father. Despite her health and strength, she’s navigating the reality of aging—for her and her siblings. Even things she’s done her whole life, like traveling back and forth between India and the U.S., aren’t as simple as they used to be.

It feels like everyone we know is moving into a new chapter at once.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Society is shifting all around us. Politically, both the Trump and Duggan eras are coming to an end within the next four years, making way for what’s next in the country and Detroit. Technologically, we’re stepping boldly into the age of AI and the wonder of tools like the James Webb Space Telescope, showing us the universe in ways we never imagined.

Change is everywhere, and it’s compelling all of us to grow in response.

Entering a new era doesn’t demand growth from us in an adversarial way. Instead, it calls to us gently but insistently, urging us to uncover new parts of ourselves. As the world around us changes, it doesn’t obligate us to change—that’s a choice we make—but the influence of a shifting context is undeniable.

Robyn’s quiet strength, her firm tenderness—it was always there, but this moment in time has brought it to the surface. And in seeing her anew, I’ve found myself falling in love with her all over again.

This is the beauty of changing eras. When everything shifts, we have the chance to become something new and to notice the people we love in new ways. The struggle of change—the hard work, the sacrifice, the heartbreak—gives us a rare gift: the chance to see life, and each other, with fresh eyes.

Marking the Era

My father used to say there’s no free lunch, and he was right. Change doesn’t come easily. To move into a new era, we have to let go of the old one. We have to embrace the challenges and celebrate the rhythms as they shift around us.

But here’s what I’ve learned: the struggle is worth it.

There’s a brilliance in how Taylor Swift brought this lesson to life through her Eras Tour. From all I’ve read and heard from friends, her concert marks eras, celebrates them, and embraces the growth that comes from moving forward. She so beautifully illustrates how the struggle of moving through eras is worth it.

When we mark the era—when we take the time to notice the passing of one chapter and the beginning of another—we honor the transformation. We honor what we’ve lost and what we’ve gained.

And in doing so, we give ourselves the chance to fall in love again.

So, my friends, don’t fear the reset. Lean into it. Notice the beauty it reveals in our lives and the lives of those we love. And when you look back on this new era we are all in, I hope you find yourself saying: It was worth it.

Neil Tambe 10/20/24 Neil Tambe 10/20/24

How Long We’ve Been Doing This

When we retire, I hope we realize we’ve been doing so wonderful things all along.

One day, we’ll be talkin’ about how long we’ve been doing this.

It’ll be in the quiet moments, like me cooking a lazy Sunday dinner while you’re working on a jigsaw puzzle nearby.

Or in the loud ones, like cheering on the sidelines at a soccer tournament, because it’s one of ours out there.

There’ll be days we’re just listening to country radio, holding hands as we drive to the coffee shop.

One day, we’ll be talkin’ about how long we’ve been doing this.

We’ll reminisce about getting a night out with old friends at Mario’s—the cozy restaurant we went to once, and it became ours.

And I’ll think of how you always bring the Fage Greek yogurt recipe we love for biscuits and gravy to brunch, in that cast iron pan that’s turned into “that old cast iron pan.”

There’ll be the quiet, spontaneous moments too, like you wrapping me in a hug while I’m sitting at the table writing a blog post (just like you did today).

Some things will stay the same, like family dinner at a crowded table with bumpy cake for a birthday—or pineapple, if it’s June.

There’ll be walks with the dog who still insists on taking us out at lunchtime.

And, of course, our family meetings that always seem to end with a cleaner house—or our temperature checks that always end with a kiss goodnight.

I know the years ahead will bring big changes—retirement, new adventures, and more gray hair than we have today.

But I hope that through it all, some things stay just as they are now. I hope, God willing, we’ll still be talking about how long we’ve been doing this, and how long we’ve been building this life together—one little tradition at a time.

Neil Tambe 9/29/24 Neil Tambe 9/29/24

What if death wasn’t certain?

The heaviest truth of human life is that death is certain. But the alternative, if death were uncertain, might be even heavier.

Friends,

I was driving the other day when a thought hit me.

Death feels unpredictable, doesn’t it? We have no idea when it’ll come.

But it’s also the most predictable thing there is—it’s the only thing we know for sure is coming.

But here’s the thing—it’s not just certain that we’ll die. We even have a rough window for it, right? Most of us can expect to go somewhere between 70 and 100 years old, and almost no one makes it past 110.

But what if that wasn’t the rule anymore?

Imagine this: a new treatment for longevity. You’d have to take it by 25, but here’s the kicker—it only works for half of us, and we can’t even tell who it’s working for.

This kind of life? It would be tough—devastating, even.

I can’t imagine not knowing whether I’d have to live without Robyn for 100 years. Just thinking about it—it’d tear me apart.

And what about my kids? Their kids? Would I end up burying generations of my own family because I lived to 500?

Then there’s friendships. Would they cross generations too? Or would we all start isolating, afraid to get close to people when we had no idea how long they’d be around?

Money—would we work forever? Could we even retire?

And politics? Would having immortals who cared about the extreme long-term make things better? Or would culture fall apart because the thread of shared experience stretched too thin?

I don’t have the answers. This idea—this uncertainty about how long we might live—it’s unsettling in ways I didn’t expect.

But what about you? How does this land for you? What would it mean to live in a world where death was no longer the one certainty we had?

With love from Detroit,

Neil

Neil Tambe 9/8/24 Neil Tambe 9/8/24

How To Grow Our Hearts

Love is out there waiting to fill us up.

“It’s kind of like the Grinch,” I told my oldest son.

“When we have another kid, God helps us grow our heart so that we can love and support each of you 100%.”

Bo gave me that perplexed brow that he always gives me when he’s punching above his weight while processing a complex idea. Luckily, he understood and trusted me enough to take a leap of faith and believe me.

Truth is, I get why he was so torn. Soccer has been his thing: for fun, for confidence, and for having our whole family be his fans. And now, Myles, two years his junior, was encroaching on a precious source of love and stability by having his first game. For Bo, soccer was no longer just his thing.

He needed to understand that our love wasn’t a limited resource—our hearts have grown big enough to fully support him, Myles, and their younger sibling. Like the Grinch, our love expands with every child, every moment, growing larger as life calls for it.

But I could see his hesitation. He was still trying to understand how this worked. How does our heart grow? How do we become the Grinch? Where does that process even begin?

So, where do we start? I believe it begins with making sure we aren’t turning into ‘black holes’ of emotional energy—the kind of person who constantly drains others because their own heart feels empty. We all know that person—the one who pulls love and attention from anywhere they can, but can never seem to hold onto it. To truly let our hearts grow, we need to stop the leaks in our own cup and learn how to fill it.

Once we’ve learned to hold onto love and stop draining it, we realize something else: love is all around us, waiting to be noticed. It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing the world is cold or that people can't be trusted—after all, negativity shouts louder. But if we stop and pay attention, we’ll see that love is quietly everywhere.

In my experience, the ugliness just seems louder, drowning out the love that’s quietly waiting to be seen. If we actually pause and look, we’d notice that so many people are eager to share love—they’re just waiting for a small sign to open their hearts. I’ve seen this firsthand in the smallest moments.

When I go for a run, for example, I make a point to give a thumbs-up to cars and pedestrians as I pass by. People almost always wave back—90% of the time, they respond. And I remember doing a ride-along with the Detroit Police when I worked with them. Even in the roughest, most violent neighborhoods, there would still be one or two houses with cut grass and flowers, standing as a beacon of love and care.

When I’ve stopped and paid close attention, it’s clear—love is everywhere, like water behind a dam, waiting to rush forward. It’s in the small gestures, the people around us, just waiting to be released. But love doesn’t just sit there; it does something magical. For me, that magic has two parts. First, love starts to mend the leaks in our emotional cups. Where there were once holes—places where fear, doubt, or loneliness drained us—love flows in and seals them up. The more I’ve opened myself to love, the less I’ve felt those leaks, and the more whole I’ve become.

That’s the first part of love’s magic: it stops the leaks.

The second part is when love begins to pour in, like a river rushing into an open cup. Once we slow down, notice the love around us, and give just the smallest signal that we’re ready for it, love bursts in. It fills our cup, and when it overflows, that flood of love makes it easy to share with others.
And that’s when our hearts start to grow. Just like the Grinch, our hearts expand to hold all that love, naturally growing larger so we can give even more of it away.

Then it’s inevitable for our hearts to grow, like it did for the Grinch.

Neil Tambe 6/23/24 Neil Tambe 6/23/24

To my old friends

I think of you more than I let on.

Occasionally, we will bump into each other at a game or perhaps at the market. Or, we’ll be in your town and none of our kids will be sick and we’ll meet up at a park.

And maybe, it’ll be on a zoom call with all our pals who can make it. Or, perhaps in one of its fleeting uses, Facebook will remind me that it’s your birthday.

One of my sons, after awhile will ask, “how do you know them, Papa?”

And I’ll get to say one of the phrases in the whole of the English language that is the most special to me:

“We’re old friends.”

I am lucky enough to have old friends from three places I’ve lived: Rochester, Ann Arbor, and Detroit. We’ve lived in Detroit for 13 years this fall, longer than I’ve lived anywhere and certainly long enough to be “old friends.”

I was laid up sick this weekend, and as my fever was peaking above 103 degrees and I didn’t even have the energy to fall asleep, I listened to Ben Rector’s live album, thought of you, and wept - like I am now. How I miss you, so desperately.

I think of you so much more than I let on. I am so sorry that it can be years sometimes before I’ll pop up out of my hole. I’m so sorry I’m not better.

The reason why, is one I owe you.

My dreams have come true. All I ever wanted, I realize now, was a family. And we have one. It has been a beautiful, messy, hilarious, journey. Here, tucked away in Detroit, my life has been made.

I want to be here, in my hole, soaking up every moment.

There’ll be times when I’m about to text or call and one of my sons will rope me into a soccer game in our basement. We’ll laugh. And then it’ll be bedtime, and then it’s dishes time, and then I’ll be wiped but glowing with happiness as Robyn and I spend 30m together if we can - and the moment will have passed.

I don’t mean this to be an excuse, but it is a reason.

So to my old friends, I miss you. I love you very much, and will think of you often - I promise.

Until we meet again,

Neil

Neil Tambe 6/16/24 Neil Tambe 6/16/24

Days Like These: A Father’s Wish

I wish for another day where we celebrate at a table more crowded than the year before.

I forget sometimes how large I loom in their world. But on this Father’s Day, I am reminded of it, and it’s something I don’t want to forget.

All my sons put so much effort and care into my Father’s Day present. It helped me remember that, no matter who you are, as a young kid, the people who raise you are your whole world. Mothers and fathers are just…giants to a kid. All children explore this, fascinated and in awe. That’s why all kids put on their parents’ shoes and mittens and walk around in them.

“Maybe someday,” we wish, “these will fit and I’ll get the chance to be like them.”

Mothers and fathers are giants to a kid.

This is such a gift of love, not just for our joy and hearts but for the people we will become in the future.

I’ve been thinking about how this year, on my birthday, my perception of age changed. When we’re young, the first change comes when you realize how awesome it will be to be older: bigger, stronger, and more free. Then you hit the invincibility years of your twenties, wishing to stay 27 or 28 forever.

Next come the years of control—or lack thereof, I suppose. There’s not enough money, not a good enough job, the kids grow up too quickly, and you find yourself nervously joking about the increasing gray in your hair or talking about revisiting old haunts to recapture fleeting youth.

Then my 37th birthday hit, and my perception of age changed again. It was a birthday where I thought, “Damn, I’m just glad to be here for it.”

Why? Because I became very conscious of how our table grew more crowded this year, not less. This year, we’ve added children, brothers, and sisters to our table of friends and family. And we lost almost nobody. I’m old enough now to realize how rare and precious birthdays like this one will be from here on out.

So yes, when I blew out the candles on my pineapple birthday cake this year, my wish was: “Thank you, God, for letting me celebrate this birthday. My wish is for my next birthday to be like this one, with our table more crowded, not less.”

One of my greatest fears about death now is not the pain, suffering, and uncertainty that surrounds it—though that’s still a real fear. I have started to fear that a birthday will come—especially if my friends and family are gone, and I’m the last one standing—where I won’t wish for another one.

That’s the final change in our perception of age: moving from a place of peace and gratitude for our life—where we’re just happy to be here—to hoping for death to come peacefully, but also soon. I don’t want to ever slip into that last phase of age. I hope this last birthday, where I was just happy to be here and hoped for another birthday, is the last time my perception of age meaningfully changes.

No matter what happens, I know today that I have mattered to my sons. Days like these, marked by little celebrations and small gestures of love, remind us that we mattered to someone—whether it was our kids, friends, family, colleagues, or neighbors—that we loomed large.

These little Father’s Day gifts, like the ones I received today, are more than just presents. They are symbols we can hold onto as we age, reminders that we loved and were loved. These symbols of love will always give me hope and a feeling of worth, a reason to keep wishing for more birthdays. Because we were loved once, there’s always hope that each day we wake up, there will be that light of love again—whether it comes to us or is the light we carry and gift to others.

Neil Tambe 6/2/24 Neil Tambe 6/2/24

15 Slow Seconds Is Enough

This is your excuse to get back to the here and now.

Instead of taking 5 minutes to read my blog post this week, please take 15 seconds to just take a pause. Notice something so that you can make a memory of where you are right now.

The reason for this deliberate non-post? It’s because one of the building blocks of human bonding is attention. Relationships only form when we pay attention. Love blossoms in the here and now.

I remembered this after attending a very special family wedding where the bride and groom gave us the gift of presence by asking for the ceremony to be phone-free.

This is an image of a dog offering up a glass of water. Take one more brief moment to look at it and plant it firmly in your mind.

Now, when you and I inevitably see a dog or a glass of water this summer, let’s use it as a trigger which gives us the permission to take 15 seconds, shake out of whatever we were thinking about, and get back to the present moment.

Once we’re back to the here and now we’re ready for love and fellowship.

Neil Tambe 5/5/24 Neil Tambe 5/5/24

I’ve fallen in love, again and again.

Every new season brings a fresh chance to fall in love again. Over the years, my marriage has taught me that love deepens and renews itself, unveiling its beauty time and again.

The years in my mid-twenties, when Robyn and I fell in love, were some of the best of my life. Looking back, that whole time felt like a smile.

Eight years ago this week, Robyn and I were wed at an old Jesuit church in downtown Detroit. This was the Gospel reading we chose, Matthew 7:24-25:

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock."

We chose this reading deliberately. Fresh off the sudden passing of my father three months before our wedding day, we had already been through the gales and floods of a big storm. The notion of “in good times and bad” wasn’t just an abstract concept to us—our young relationship had already lived through both.

We had at least some notion of the good and bad days ahead. We knew that there would be more death and grief ahead. We didn’t know exactly what parenting would be like, but we did have some idea of the intense joy and struggle it would entail.

We knew that jobs would come and go with varying levels of stress and accomplishment. We knew that we’d have fun passing time around Detroit with friends and neighbors. And, perhaps most importantly, we knew that “family first” would be a guiding principle for our life together, and with that commitment would come love and sacrifice.

We chose that passage for our wedding Gospel reading because we wanted to anchor our marriage into the “rock” of God and love so we could celebrate the good days and weather the bad days we knew would come.

We didn’t know exactly what was coming or when, but we knew it would.

All that said, something happened over the last 8 years that I never predicted, and honestly, it completely blindsided me.

I never imagined, after that first season of falling in love, that I’d fall in love with Robyn again. That I’d feel that rush of romance after we had long passed the days of being love birds and our honeymoon phase.

But I have. As we’ve lived through each new season of our life together, I’ve fallen in love with Robyn again and again.

And I’m so grateful.

The reason why this happened is simple: we’ve each changed, a lot. Of course, our core principles remain intact. But holy cow, so much has happened these past 8 years. The entire context in which our lives are set has changed, how could we not be different people?

All this change has made things novel and fresh. It has given us an opportunity to fall in love again and again, in every new season. That’s a choice: we’re choosing to grow together instead of apart, and that has perhaps made falling in love the second, third, and fourth times even more exciting and beautiful than the first.

And what a silver lining that is.

Because I know I’m getting older. I see it and feel it regularly. Like when with each new haircut I notice a few more grey hairs. Or in how my hangovers are less frequent, but last much longer.

All these are mile markers that remind me that every day I’m a day closer to the end of this beautiful life.

But damn. It makes aging so much more bearable to know that as we grow old we are growing older together. And that as our seasons change we will get to fall in love several more times throughout our life.

If we must trade our youth for age, it is a blessing to realize that we get this gift to fall in love, again and again.

Neil Tambe 3/24/24 Neil Tambe 3/24/24

Love Strikes Back

When it seems all we can do is acquiesce to rage and cruelty, love strikes back.

In my mind's eye, one thing I often do is zoom out. I close my eyes, and like Google Earth, I start where I am and move outward.

First, I see our neighborhood, with its densely packed blocks and tree-lined streets. Then, I start to see the Detroit River and the border with Canada, and then the Mitten of Michigan. Soon, North America vanishes into the blue marble of the Earth.

And then, in my mind, I hit a galactic speed and imagine the spiral of the Milky Way, whirling about in front of me. Then our galaxy disappears and becomes a mere point of light, and all of a sudden, what I see in my mind's eye is the totality of the known universe spun in time. I am seeing every tiny thing that has ever lived or ever will live.

When I snap back and open my eyes, the same feeling and conclusion always come to me: we are all on the same team.

But with the widened perspective gifted to me by my mind's eye, the "we" does not just encompass my community, or even just the human race. It's bigger. This view is even broader than our Earth and the tiny planets of our galaxy. This “we” is every tiny, living thing, anywhere in the universe.

I have not encountered any living thing beyond the atmosphere of our pale blue dot. But I feel the faintest, yet enduring, unity with everything, everywhere. Because I cannot believe anything other than that every living thing in the universe shares one common conviction: that we want to live. And that common, universal belief—the desire to live—gives us common ground and puts us on the same team, even if only with the most delicate of adhesions.

As hopeful as this wider aperture makes me, I also weep from it. Because, at times, the world seems cruel and it seems as if nobody on Earth feels a common bond with any other living thing. Not a human, not a plant, nor an animal, let alone the life that may exist beyond our solar system.

There are even some people on this planet who do not even act as if their spouses or children are on the same team as them. Some even seem to deliberately generate distrust and sabotage any attempt at fellowship so they may profit from it. How could anyone choose to profit from breaking bonds of fellowship?

I think in the way our good Uncle Shakespeare put it in Sonnet 65: "How with all this rage shall beauty hold a plea, whose action is no stronger than a flower?"

The Battle

Our hearts have an aperture, just like our eyes. As the rage and cruelty around us intensify, the reflex of this aperture is to close, shielding ourselves from the siege and battery of the universe around us.

But the aperture can also do the opposite, open and widen so that we—the souls we are—can join with the universe around us, shining our love outward and allowing the light of others to come through the pupil and back to us.

Many days, I feel like I am losing the battle for this aperture. Like I am one man, struggling to keep my heart open; trying my best to be a good guy in a stressed out world, as I often say.

And yet, so many days I can’t get through the day without yelling at my kids or I feel the grip of greed and the addiction of ego. My heart closing with every swipe or scroll on my phone or fiscal year that passes.

I am at my most despondent, my absolute saddest, when I am losing the battle for my own heart and I know it. I want so badly to not let the rage out there win, but I so often feel and worry that it is.

Sometimes, even on the hardest days, I start to think about forfeiting and make excuses to relieve myself of this battle. I lie to myself with thoughts like, 'If I sell out and play the game, I'm just doing what everyone else is doing,' or 'There's no way but to fight fire with fire,' or, 'This is how the world works, it is what it is,' or worst 'I need to look out for myself…for the family,'" When these inner monologues hit, I come close to shutting the aperture of my heart—very close.

If you've lived a life like mine, and maybe even if you haven't, you're likely also battling for the aperture your own heart, trying to stand pat and stand gracefully, juxtaposing yourself with the seemingly endless supply of rage and cruelty around us. I think there may be tens of millions of us, battling in this way, quietly. Maybe you also come close to forfeiting sometimes.

But I always seems to get a reminder when I need one—to keep battling—maybe you do too.

Like today, I had a sudden urge to listen to this song, “Joe”, which is the story of an alcoholic who is trying and struggling to say sober…and he’s doing it. The song, as far as I can tell, is fictitious, but it still reminds me: there are others fighting for their own hearts—and winning.

The grace of being forgiven, reminds me too, to keep battling.

If I can blow my top and my sons still forgive me and show it by bringing me a paper to make a plane out of, asking me to play soccer, or offering me one of their grapes as a sign of peace—how can I not keep trying? The grace and forgiveness out of my own sons, who I have wronged, redeems me.

The is the story of the ages, it seems. We try to live, meet our crucible, and we come close to giving up our light. But then, we meet our Mentor, or someone finds love for us and catches us before the citadel in our hearts falls. And then, we find redemption and persist on our quest. Love, it seems, finds a way to strike back.

I honestly wrote this because I have been frayed at all ends and have felt my heart closing. For me, writing is a way to force, even if only slightly, the aperture of my heart back open. When my heart needs to open, I suppose this is what comes out of it.

I don’t have a pithy, triumphant conclusion to this essay. If I had to feign one because it makes for better reading—I’d be lying.

If you’re still reading this, something about this probably resonated with you, you may even be battling for the aperture of your own heart right now. Maybe, even, you feel like you are losing the battle.

That place, feels so lonely. The world we live in is so centered around projecting control and “with-it-ness” it doesn’t feel possible that anyone else is engaged in such a struggle. The battlefield for our hearts feels so lonely - like it’s us against the cruelty and rage of the whole world.

If nothing else, I hope this essay is proof that it’s not.There are so many of us battling to keep widening and opening the aperture of our own hearts.

Despite all this rage, beauty does hold a plea. Because love finds a way to remind us what we are fighting for and that we can win.

When rage and cruelty threaten, love strikes back.

In my mind's eye, one thing I often do is zoom out. I close my eyes, and like Google Earth, I start where I am and move outward.

When I snap back and open my eyes, the same feeling and conclusion always come to me: we are all on the same team.

I think in the way our good Uncle Shakespeare put it in Sonnet 65: "How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, whose action is no stronger than a flower?"

The Battle

Many days, I feel like I am losing the battle for this aperture. Like I am one man, struggling to keep my heart open; trying my best to be a good guy in a stressed-out world, as I often say.

And yet, so many days I can’t get through the day without yelling at my kids, or I feel the grip of greed and the addiction of ego. My heart closing with every swipe or scroll on my phone or fiscal year that passes.

Sometimes, even on the hardest days, I start to think about forfeiting and make excuses to relieve myself of this battle. I lie to myself with thoughts like, 'If I sell out and play the game, I'm just doing what everyone else is doing,' or 'There's no way but to fight fire with fire,' or, 'This is how the world works, it is what it is,' or worst, 'I need to look out for myself…for the family.' When these inner monologues hit, I come close to shutting the aperture of my heart—very close.

If you've lived a life like mine, and maybe even if you haven't, you're likely also battling for the aperture of your own heart, trying to stand pat and stand gracefully, juxtaposing yourself with the seemingly endless supply of rage and cruelty around us. I think there may be tens of millions of us, battling in this way, quietly. Maybe you also come close to forfeiting sometimes.

But I always seem to get a reminder when I need one—to keep battling—maybe you do too.

Like today, I had a sudden urge to listen to this song, “Joe”, which is the story of an alcoholic who is trying and struggling to stay sober…and he’s doing it. The song, as far as I can tell, is fictitious, but it still reminds me: there are others fighting for their own hearts—and winning.

The grace of being forgiven, reminds me too, to keep battling.

This is the story of the ages, it seems. We try to live, meet our crucible, and we come close to giving up our light. But then, we meet our Mentor, or someone finds love for us and catches us before the citadel in our hearts falls. And then, we find redemption and persist on our quest. Love, it seems, finds a way to strike back.

I don’t have a pithy, triumphant conclusion to this essay. If I had to feign one because it makes for better reading—I’d be lying.

If you’re still reading this, something about this probably resonated with you; you may even be battling for the aperture of your own heart right now. Maybe, even, you feel like you are losing the battle.

That place feels so lonely. The world we live in is so centered around projecting control and “with-it-ness” it doesn’t feel possible that anyone else is engaged in such a struggle. The battlefield for our hearts feels so lonely - like it’s us against the cruelty and rage of the whole world.

If nothing else, I hope this essay is proof that it’s not. There are so many of us battling to keep widening and opening the aperture of our own hearts.

Despite all this rage, beauty does hold a plea. Because love finds a way to remind us what we are fighting for and that we can win.

When rage and cruelty threaten, love strikes back.

Neil Tambe 2/3/24 Neil Tambe 2/3/24

“I’m not going anywhere.”

How do we make a promise to be around, when we must contend with an unpredictable life?

I’m not going anywhere.

This is one of the most divine things a person can hear. Especially someone, like me, whose nightmare is to be alone. But aren’t we all that way, in the deepest part of the heart at least, where it’s hardest for the light to reach?

I knew that if Robyn and I started dating, I would marry her. We started, and I loved her quickly. I was hers, before the end of our first summer. As summer became winter, I started to get scared. I honest-to-God loved Robyn. And I knew that when we married and had our life together, eventually one of us would pass from this earth. And there was a chance that Robyn would be the first to go, and that I’d be left alone.

The idea of being on this earth without kissing Robyn goodnight is among the most painful realities possible for me. What if? How could it? Would I? When?

By then, Robyn already knew the reaches of my curious and inquisitive mind - both the gregarious dimension of it and the morose. And so she said to me, those divine words that protected my soul from its darkest fears.

I’m not going anywhere.

Really, saying this is a promise. It’s a promise that we’re going to stay. It’s a commitment to companionship and love. Whether we reach the gates of heaven or hell, when we say something as bold as “I’m not going anywhere,” it means we’re there. This word, anywhere, is all-encompassing. When we say anywhere, it means we’re ride or die for someone.

But that’s the catch, isn’t it? The second part of ride or die is just that, die. We can’t control when we die; none of us can. So we know that “I’m not going anywhere” doesn’t mean that we’re going to be here forever. We infer that it means we’re here for as long as we can outrun the reaper.

I’m not going anywhere.

Our sons are at the age where they’re afraid of the dark, afraid to go to bed, or some combination of both. I get it. I slept in my parent’s bed well past kindergarten. I was scared too. Part of me still is.

So we say this to them: “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here. I’ll check on you before I go to bed.”

This is what most soothes them. Because they know we mean it, and they know they’ll be safe because we have the night watch. They know they won’t be alone and they’ll have someone to run to if they have a bad dream or throw up in the middle of the night - because we’re not going anywhere.

But they don’t understand the deal, fully. I can’t tell them, yet, that when I say this I implicitly mean unless I die.

This unsettles me because I am making them a promise that they don’t fully understand. I am running the risk that I will be stolen from them before they understand this. They need me to say it, so I say it. And I mean it, so I say it. And I plan to be here for a long time, so I say it. But I’m always still sending up a prayer every time I speak those four words.

I’m not going anywhere.

When I wake up in the morning, I believe in God. And when I go to bed at night, I really believe in God. This faith is what carried me through tonight.

Robyn is traveling this weekend for our soon-to-be sister-in-law’s bachelorette party. It’s Saturday as I write this, and I’ve been solo parenting since lunchtime on Thursday. The kids are having a really hard time with their mother being away. I can tell, even though they are the same rambunctious, gleeful, hilarious set of brothers that they always are.

It was a boys weekend and tonight was game night. Bo was the last one up today because I let him. And to be honest, I think we needed each other. We are both incredibly emotional. We both feel the sting of loneliness more devastatingly than anyone else in this house. So, I let him stay up later than his brothers, so we could play one extra game. He chose Ticket to Ride: First Journey, probably because it’s the only game where it’s at least 50% likely that he’ll beat me.

After his bath and bedtime story, he started to wig out. He flailed his arms, and contorted his body while sputtering semi-coherent sentences, as if the closing of the book’s cover caused him to be possessed by a wandering ghost. Thank God I wasn’t a train wreck of a father like I was earlier in the day. Next thing I knew, he was clinging to me, he and I on top of the duvet - and he was just clutching me, tight as he ever has.

“I’m never letting go,” he whispered.

This may be the most vulnerable he’s ever let himself be around me. His big feelings scare him, and with Bo, there’s no such thing as little feelings. So I am surprised, and humbled, as he says this.

“I will always be with you,” I replied.

Then my heart started to quicken, and tears squeezed out the sides of my eyes.

“No matter where you are or when it is, part of me is always with you, bud. Wherever I am, I am always thinking about you, mommy, and your brothers. Part of me is always in your heart. I will always be with you.”

This, I suppose, is the way out of this ride or die dilemma. I believe in God, and I believe that I have a soul. And I believe that if I love and pray hard enough, part of me will always be with Robyn, and with each of my sons. I can say those words and actually be telling the full truth. Because even if I die, part of me will always be with them.

And that is the divine element. Because with the help of God, I can say “I’m not going anywhere”, fully, lovingly, and deeply, without any exception.

And that’s where I left it with Bo tonight. I carried him to his room. I helped him squirm under the covers, tucked him in, and told him.

I’m not going anywhere.

My new book, Character by Choice: Letters on Goodness, Courage, and Becoming Better on Purpose, is now out in soft launch. I’m so excited to share it and proud of how it turned out. If you liked this post, you might find it a good read. You can learn more about the book here.

Neil Tambe 10/29/23 Neil Tambe 10/29/23

In the lingering, there is love.

When we linger, we are showing love in the most honest of ways.

One of the greatest acts of love is to linger.

When we linger we are saying, “Let us stay here, together. The time we have is better together. Let’s cheat our departure for just a little longer. With you, this moment is complete.”

This is what we do in our Michigan goodbyes which makes the end of a dinner party 20 minutes instead of the time it takes for a quick handshake. We want to chat a little more, hug a little longer and with an extra squeeze if you live far away - so I know it’ll say with you until you make it home. We want to hear one more story about our grandfather or our college days and laugh one more time together while we can. This is a mark of a family and not people who are simply related.

With you this moment is complete.

As much I wish our kids went to bed faster and didn’t rouse us awake when they slip under our covers, so gently, before sunrise, it still brings tears to my eyes thinking about it now. That is how they linger and the most honest way they show us that they really do love us. Don’t grow up so fast, my sons because each morning is one day closer to when you soar away from this place.

With you, this moment is complete.

I remember so fondly the lingering we would do in the fraternity house or our senior house, after the party or last call at the bar. When we’d eat our grubby burritos and play FIFA or become Guitar Heros. Most of the time, I preferred that time to the party itself. It was in the lingering that we became brothers. It was in the lingering that we formed a lifelong bond, that survives across the time zones that separate us today.

With you, this moment is complete.

Even at work, there are some times we linger in fellowship or in pursuit of the magical moment of “aha!” The meeting after the meeting, where we are free to be ourselves and speak as equals. It’s some of the only time we aren’t compelled to spend together, making it feel rare and special. It is in the lingering where we put away our masks, and finally get real - and that’s energetic and joyous.

With you, this moment is complete.

And you, my love, are who I most want to linger with. This is what we have always done. Just a little longer with our glasses of wine. Just a little longer with our walk around the neighborhood at lunch time. Just one more song, one more kiss, one more smile, one more whiff of your perfume that smells like warm vanilla sugar.

With you, I will never have enough time. I will take every extra breath together that we get. You, my love, are who I most want to linger with.

With you, this moment is complete.

***Photo by*** ***Tim Mossholder*** on ***Unsplash***

Neil Tambe 4/9/23 Neil Tambe 4/9/23

Holding onto forever

To be held is to be loved.

ACT I

I appreciate things I can hold. I mean this literally.

I savor burritos and breakfast sandwiches - these are the foods that I enjoyed with my father and remind me of him, down to the detail of us both dousing them with hot sauce. I relish the feel of a tennis racket in my grasp, gripped to perfectly that the racket feels like it’s gripping back - the tennis court was where I could find peace and freedom, before I even knew what meditation even was.

I like pens, pencils, and chef’s knives - because words and a meal prepared for others are two of the only ways I know how to tell someone I love them. All those three objects - pens, pencils, and a good knife - feel less like implements and more like extensions when I handle them. Then take on the rhythm and flow of my heartbeat and tapping toe, as if they’re a part of my body.

With the things I hold, I develop a symbiotic relationship. I fuse with them somehow - I become a little of them, and they become a little of me. This connection brings a feeling of peace, serenity, and security.

My whole life may resemble that one chaotic drawer in the house, filled with knick-knacks, rarely used items, and tiny screwdrivers that only see the light of day in a frenzy. But when I'm holding something in my hand, I've got it. And when I've got the thing in my hand, I start to feel like I've got this. The act of the body changes the act of the mind.

I, quite literally, cherish things I can hold. But I also mean this metaphorically. I appreciate buffer and the freedom it provides, borne from a lifetime of needing to feel control and security. I prefer to save rather than spend. To this day, I pack one more pair of underwear than the number of nights I'm traveling. I’ll pack a rain jacket even when it’s sunny. I like to be prepared. I like to hold onto extra.

I think I do this because I know what it feels like to lose. When I was young, money was tight. It was tight again when the recessions hit Michigan. Our brother, Nakul, was taken from us too soon, as was my father. In some ways, the seriousness with which I was raised makes me feel like the innocence of childhood slipped away prematurely.

When I hold things, I' feel like I’ve got them. And when I've got them, I can tell myself for a little while that nobody else can take them. Now, I finally have a world - my wife, my children, my family, good friends, my health, a livelihood, and a few dreams - that's worth holding onto.

And I'm going to hold them in the palm of my hand, gripping them tight enough so that nobody can ever take them away from me.

I intend to hold onto them forever.

ACT II

Everything feels like forever when you're a child.

Even a summer vacation, with all its bike rides and fireflies, seems endless. Middle and high school, infused with a sense of invincibility, appear as though they'll never run out. Every long car ride, every grocery queue, every football practice - every single thing is long.

Childhood is the part of our lives that feels like forever.

And for you three, so much of that forever is shaped by your mom and me. The golden, fuzzy forever you experience - your memories of childhood - isn't entirely up to you. Part of it is your responsibility, sure. But a lot of it is ours.

And so I wonder - what will you three, my sons, remember about what forever felt like?

I want you to remember being held because to be held is to be loved. I want you to recall that you were loved. I want you to feel loved. I want you to be loved, and I want to love you.

Holding onto someone and being held is not a small thing. It, in a very physical way, proves that we are bonded. It proves that we are together and committed to each other. It demonstrates, with certainty that I care about you because I am here. The Jesuits talk about finding God in all things, and I think embraces are an example of what they mean in this teaching. There is something divine about being held, because to be held is to be loved.

You will have memories of fun, laughter, and joy, of course. You will experience snow days and summer nights. You'll have spring flings and Friday night lights. You'll have moments with your toes in Burt Lake and in the backyard grass on Parkside, ice cream dribbling down your chins. You'll have all this. I promise you'll have all this.

But when I think about my own childhood, the only thing that endures enough to be more than a memory but a feeling, a deep-seated sensation, is love. Love is what endures.

Even a single moment of true, unconditional love is what carries you when you want to give up or when you feel like all you can do is surrender everything. Just one moment of love is enough to save us.

I want you to remember being held because being held is to be loved. So that no matter what, you have that. When you think of the part of your life that was forever, I want you to feel like holding onto it. I want you to feel like holding onto forever.

This is why I must hold you, all three of you, forever.

ACT III

Nothing feels like forever now that we're grown. We have a clock, and it's ticking. Tick tock, tick tock.

When we’re drinking wine after the kids go to bed, I often say that last weekend feels like "forever ago," but that's not really true. Our days are full. Our nights never seem long enough to rest. Our weeks and weekends are packed enough to trick me into thinking time is passing slowly.

I notice this the most in photographs now. We look different than we did not long ago. I see it in our hair and skin. Our postures. The settings in which those photos were taken.

Seven years have passed since my favorite photo of our wedding day was captured. It's the one on our mantle, the black and white image in the silvery frame, where we're on the river, and you're embracing me from behind, around my neck and shoulders, your mehendi-adorned hand visible. I'm smiling at you over my right shoulder, looking up at you, as if you're the sunshine. It reminded me of what forever can feel like.

We've aged seven years since then, and luckily it doesn't look like more. But it feels like it should have only been two, maybe three years since that photo by the river. Tick tock, tick tock.

We hug and hold each other often and spontaneously. We naturally find our way to an embrace. It could be in the kitchen while the pasta is boiling, or for a few minutes in bed after you've showered, and I'm still lying in my pajamas. You hold me, and I hold you.

These moments, where we're holding each other, don't stop the clock. The clock moves ahead. The alarm rings. But during those moments, when we're holding onto each other, we're reminded. It takes us back to that photo by the river, where I am smiling, and you look like sunshine, in the moment that reminds me of forever.

And sometimes, when we were there in those embraces that remind me of forever, I don’t want to leave. I want to stay there. I feel safe there, loved there. To be held, after all, is to be loved.

But at the same time, what would our lives be if we did not have the world around us, if we just kept it to us in that embrace, just you and me?

If we did not have our children or our families? Or if we didn’t have our friends and neighbors? Or even kind strangers? To embrace them we have to open up and expand our hearts from just us, to give more than we think we have. To hold onto them, we have to let go.

I have to remember sometimes, that not everyone is trying to take you all away from me. Not everyone is a threat to what we finally have. I can hold on while still letting go, at least for as long as it takes to share some of the love in our hearts with others.

This ability to hold on and let go first felt like a paradox, but I think now that it’s merely a leap of faith. It is okay to make this leap, I know this now, because we will always get back to holding each other. We will come back to an embrace of each other. And we will get back to this place that reminds me of forever.

Neil Tambe 3/5/23 Neil Tambe 3/5/23

The Waiting Place

A heaven on the other side of the door.

It’s not the lung stuff that has knocked me out ill as an adult, it’s the stomach bugs. And this one was a gut punch like I haven’t had in half a decade.

I had lost water in both directions, still unable to eat or drink more than a little without twitching and convulsing sleeplessly with abdominal pain. Even with full blankets, socks, pajamas, and hours of adorning a second comforter I just couldn’t get warm.

“This one’s a nasty one,” I thought.

The kids were going about their “home day” downstairs, and Robyn was bridging both worlds to check on my condition. I was upstairs, just laying there. I was drifting in and out of semi-conscious daydreams and actual dreams. And damn, I was probably thinking too much about work, too.

But more than anything, I was alone. It was just me, with the bedroom door closed, laying witness to the bug battle being waged in my upper abdomen.

This is the first time I’ve been home sick with the kids around, that I can remember, at least. The other times, must’ve been while they were at daycare, I guess.

It wasn’t different than a typical day, their comings and goings seeming like what I would expect. There were bumps and kicks. The clinking of dishes in the sink, accumulating because I wasn’t doing them. The half-hearted tears of sibling friction. Riley, of course, barked as the mail carrier made their daily rounds. A neighbor in his seventies or eighties stopped by with children’s books, in hopes that they’d find new life with our sons. I heard celebrations, I think, after a victor emerged after a game of Uno.

In our home, these sounds are businesses as usual. Except, today, I wasn’t downstairs in the thick of it. I was at a distance, hearing muddled and softened versions of it all. It was as if all the scenes were familiar, photographically familiar, but somehow fuzzy and uncharacteristically muddled.

And as I lay there, I wanted to rise. I wanted to get up, shuffle downstairs and just be there with them, even if I was relegated to the couch. I wanted to hold them, to kiss them on the crown of their heads. My fingers longed to be interlaced with Robyn’s.

All of a sudden I missed them all, desperately and with panic, like I was in the desert and being present for their afternoon snack was the oasis I needed to even just survive. I was only a floor above them, but all of a sudden, without any warning I felt like I was a whole world away.

And I wondered, in my half lucid mind, what if this is what it was like. What if this is what it was like when we moved from this world into the next world away?

Could it be that the next stage our soul goes to after we die is the equivalent of “being a floor away”? To a place where we can catch glimpses of the life happening without us? Where we hear the yelps of victory and the melody dishes clanking? Where we hear, but never see, muffled and fuzzy glimpses of home?

If the first stage of the afterlife is being the equivalent of a floor, but really a world, away, it would be a place of love and gratefulness, but also of the deepest sadness. If that were the afterlife, I thought, I would wait there. I’d wait, on the floor, back and ear to the door all day, hoping to hear just a little bit more, for a little bit longer.

I would hope to hear laughter and pray that someone could wipe the tears I could not wipe myself. I would eat when they ate. I would sleep when they’d slept. I would wait up for them, meditating and thinking, while they were out of the house, scratching a couple verses if there was a notebook at hand.

If waiting is all I could do, I thought, I would wait.

But if this place, this room of waiting, were the first stage of the afterlife, I thought further, how long would I wait?

Because surely, if whatever God there was created this waiting place, this good but anxious waiting place, he would create something more and better for us too. Surely, no God benevolent enough to create this purgatory of waiting would be so cruel to make it without a heaven that follows.

That’s where that heaven would be, right on the other side of the waiting room door. If this waiting place were purgatory, unity with God would be right on the other side of the door…

But no, if this were purgatory and I had made it here, surely Robyn would follow. I would wait here, I would wait here for her. Like Yudhisthira refused Indra, I would not cross the threshold without her.

One day, I would wake up, and she would be here in this waiting room with me. We’d take a few days or weeks, to see to it that our sons were on their way to being settled. And then we’d open the door, and we’d cross the threshold together.

As I thought about this possibility of a waiting place, frenetically, and with feverish mind, I started to weep - losing a few drops more of saline that I could scarcely afford to lose. I missed my family, even after just a few hours, and I wept.

I thought of them, a world away downstairs, and tried to feel the halo of their love in the air. And then I went to sleep.

When I woke, my toes, surprisingly, were warm again. From my core to my knees, I was warm again. The pain in my stomach had subsided. I tested out a few crackers and a few larger gulps of the electrolyte mix Robyn had brought me hours earlier. Sure enough, I was able to stomach both.

And then, I remembered that this was just a minor stomach bug, from which I would recover. This room, our bedroom, was not a purgatory of waiting. I was not in a waiting place.

I was here, right now. I was alive, right now. My wife, and my children, and our pup - my family - they were here right now.

I long to be with them, for the business as usual days the most, maybe. I want to be with them for the daily grind, with all its struggles, joys, illnesses, and small mercies. Being with them is a form of heaven for me, and it’s right here, right now. A heaven, I thought, is just on the other side of that door.

Neil Tambe 2/19/23 Neil Tambe 2/19/23

Small Love

My love needs to be big enough so that my sons never have to fight for it. It must be infinite.

The front-facing window of our family room faces East. And not just East, but perfectly East. And so in the mid-morning, before the sun is at its highest point in the sky, its light pours in by the bushel.

That window, over the 6 years we’ve lived in this house, has become a bit of a holy place for me.

Before that window is Riley’s guard post, where he became the sentinel and protector of our family, his watchful eye and bark alarming us of any potential intruders. It is where Robert and Myles both took their first steps, on the worn-in hardwood beneath their wobbly and eager feet. It is our arena of card games, and magical lands we have built with blocks, lego blocks, and action figures.

And most recently, it is the very spot, I believe, that the brotherhood of the Tambe boys was established. It is there that Robert and Myles, 5 and 3, have stood, looking outward, their silhouettes radiant in the morning light.

In the window, side by side, facing easteward into the sun any rivalry they have has siblings is forgotten. All the fighting and the insults. All the screaming and the punches. All the jealousy and differences. All these things, have faded for now.

For now, they both there there, talking, staring out with wonder and inquiry about the comings and goings of the street. They observe and listen, both to the wind in the trees and to each other. Their world, for at least this moment, starts and ends with them and what they see through the threshold of the glass. They are gentle and peaceful, but also with a dynamism of connection between them.

This image of them, little shoulder to littler shoulder, hands up to the sill, noses to the pane, I know, is uneraseable from my memory. To see this is joy, and relief.

They, there, in the frame, convinces me that no matter what happens between them in their lives, no matter what difficulties ebb and flow between them, they can be grounded. They can be a team. Right now, what I see here before this window, is incontrovertible proof that they are bonded for life.

Before this window, they became brothers.

And soon enough, Emmett will be there with them and the fraternity they created, right there at the window, will grow. These three are becoming brothers.

What is most haunting, though, is the realization that one the most likely ways for their bond to be broken is because of me.

Rivalries, I know from education and experience, exist because of competition over common resources. Rival sports team compete for prestige. Rival kingdoms compete for land and power. Rival companies compete for customers. Rival nations compete for position in the international order.

And though I don’t understand their sibling dynamic from my own experience of having a sibling, I understand the one thing they might have to compete for is my love.

It is my duty then, part of my dharma even, to convince them that my love does not need to be fought over, to be won. I need to prove to them that my love need not be a source of their rivalry or a crack in the foundation of their brotherhood.

My love cannot be finite. The pressure on me as their father is to demonstrate beyond and shadow of a doubt, that my love for them is ever-widening and expanding. That it is a deep pool from which they can always draw, never running dry.

I need to make my heart big enough to support their brotherhood. But how? How can I do this in a world where children have lived through mass shootings on two separate campuses? How is this possible?

The secret, I think, maybe the love that is present in small things.

There is love, small love, in waving at a colleague in the hallways instead of letting them pass without acknowledgement, feeling as if they are an outcast. There is small love is in asking and answering “how are you” sincerely and truthfully. There is small love in allowing ourselves to laugh loud enough so others - and our own hearts - can believe that it’s okay to find humor in peculiar places.

There is small love in saying thank you. There is small love writing a little note or giving an unprompted hug. There is small love in remembering someone’s birthday or even just their name. There is small love making a new friend, or in letting yourself become a new friend. There is small love, if we deliberately create it, all around.

It is in these small things, and creating love in these small moments, that we see that love is possible, not just in grand seemingly-cinematic scenes but in every moment. Small love shows that it’s possible to expand our hearts in in every moment.

I think we can do this. Small love is not out of any of our reach. And the prize is immeasurable.

If we create love in small moments we can convince ourselves, our children, and those around us that life doesn’t have to be a game, but that it can be an expansive sort of thing. We can believe that love is a renewable resource, and that it need not be finite.

If I can grow my heart with small acts, I can prove to my sons that my heart is big enough and that my love is a deep enough pool for all of them. I can show them that they do not have to be rivals, they do not have to fight for my love, and that they can be brothers.

This is why I must create moments of small love. So they can be brothers.

And so to for us all, I believe at leastIf we can create enough love, even small love - whether with our families, our colleagues, or our neighbors - we can end this rivalry. And when we squash these beefs that are over nothing but love, can can form genuine and durable bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood. We can be brothers and sisters.

Neil Tambe 1/22/23 Neil Tambe 1/22/23

Detroiter Kindness

Kindness, as it’s practiced in Detroit, is different.

Detroit has taken me in like no place I have ever lived.

Having left Buffalo at age 5, I don’t remember much other than glimpses of my Kindergarten classroom, the nearby Tops grocery store, and the red-haired girl named Dina who lived next door - who was both my first friend and someone I will likely never hear of again.

Rochester was where I lived for most of my childhood, a well-to-do northern suburb of Detroit. It was a good place to grow up, but there were enough glares that I received in public - which I realize now were from a place of discomfort and skepticism, probably about race - to never allow that place to feel like one I could be from.

Ann Arbor was nice - lively, intellectual, and inclusive. People there were kind, even though I was a shrimpy college kid, and therefore loud and usually irritating to the locals.

Living there, something funny happened. The same, race-based, alienation I felt in Rochester made me feel exotic in Ann Arbor. It was as if the town was so oriented toward inclusion, people so willing to be kind, that my race felt extra salient.

That attitude of inclusivity that seemed to permeate the town was so generous, and I am grateful to have lived in place that was so midwestern, in the purest sense. But alas, Ann Arbor couldn’t feel like home for the same reason Disney World cannot: Ann Arbor is among the happiest of places, but it’s too magical - just beyond what feels real - to feel like I could actually be from there.

I never expected Detroit to be the place, the first place, to feel like home. And yet, here we are.

One of my favorite things to do while running is to wave. I wave at everyone I see. When I used to live nearer to the City center, I would go jogging, often ending up downtown. And no matter who it was I waved at - whether old, young, rich, poor, without a fixed address, or a young professional walking a dog - almost everyone waved back at me. This place, Detroit, I thought, was different.

When started working as in intern in City government, later joining the Police Department I was in the most diverse workforce I’d ever been part of, and not just on the basis of race. But also by age, professional experience, creed, sexual orientation, educational background, family origin, and likelihood to use profanity.

And yet, no matter whether I was talking to a career public servant, a political operative, a cop, a returned citizen, a pastor, a basketball coach, or an activist - people were cool with me. Citizens I met because of my job were cool with me. Everyone was cool with me. It wasn’t that people treated me in any special way - they were just cool with it.

It was precisely that I wasn’t special, that made the interactions I had feel so uncommon. For the first time in my life, I was just a guy doing a job. I was treated, just like a regular guy. If I was a decent guy, they were decent back. If I was respectful, I got it back. I was given the chance to just…be a guy doing a job. Detroit, I thought, is different.

When we moved into our neighborhood, I realized this Detroiter kindness wasn’t a coincidence or an unusual deference paid to me because I was a political appointee.

When Robyn and I walked down the street, first with our pup, and later with our sons, people would smile and wave back. Our neighbors, irrespective of our obvious demographic differences, actually wanted to know us. We would talk on the street, and everywhere we went, we got to be Neil and Robyn, that young couple up the street with the black dog and those three sons who were always rolling around on a stroller, tricycle, or scooter. This could be the last place I ever live, and that’d be nice, I thought. Seeing myself in this one place, for the rest of my days was different.

And then there was Church today, which reminded me of all this Detroit kindness and brought these memories about place back to the forefront of my mind in a surge.

Gesu is a Catholic Church of the Jesuit tradition. It’s a place where every week, during church announcements, any one who is a guest is invited to stand and be recognized. And the applause that follows is unfailingly sincere. I know many churches do this, but it just feels so sincere and never something that is just going through the motions.

In the pews there, I can be there and listen and pray. I don’t feel the searing eyes of the congregation, questioning why I’m there, when I don’t come forward to take communion. At that point in the service, when it’s time to give a sign of peace to others, people give me a sign of peace, warmly. It feels different.

There is an usher at the 8:00am Mass who is always at the door near where we usually sit. He is dressed well, usually with a brown overcoat, brown turtleneck, and a thin gold chain. He is older, but what I notice more is that he’s always smiling. At the end of mass today, he came over to say, “you have a beautiful family, such nice kids.”

“Thank you, we are blessed,” I said. And after a pause I added, with the slightest trepidation, “I’m Neil.”

“I’m Fitz. They call me Fitz. And this is my friend Walter.”

This type of interaction, genuinely kind and without any frills, pomp, or reservation, has only ever happened to me at Churches in Detroit. Detroit is different.

If you’ve never been here, I must admit that I don’t know quite how to describe Detroiter kindness. It’s genuine, but not from a place of bubbly energy or naïveté. It’s warm, but never given with waste or haste. It’s a no frills, meet-energy-with-energy, this is just how we do it, sort of kindness. It’s a kindness that seems like it can only be given by a person that’s lived in a City who has seen some things. It is a kindness that is not flashy and lavish, but is also not meek, and because of that it feels more sincere and is somewhat disarming. It’s a kindness that can only be earned, I think, not inherited.

Detroiter kindness is different.

I am so grateful for this place, and for it’s kindness. For many years I felt like a nomad in my own country, my identity caught between geography, ancestry, demeanor, and race. When someone asked me where I was from, I didn’t have an answer I actually felt comfortable saying or actually believed.

But now, I can say, “I’m from Detroit.” And it’s actually true. I actually feel it, and feel it in my bones. What a gift it has been for Detroit to have taken me in. What a blessing it is to finally be home.

Neil Tambe 1/8/23 Neil Tambe 1/8/23

The linchpin to goodness: listening to love

The power of listening is that it creates bonds of love and ultimately, goodness.

This post is an excerpt from Choosing Goodness - a series of letters to my sons, that is both a memoir and a book of everyday philosophy. To find out more about this project, click here.

—

In my reflection, the linchpin of goodness is courageous action on the hard stuff, and the linchpin of courageous action is love.

Love, my sons, is what everything we’re discussing comes down to, and not in a soft, lofty, squishy, and non-specific way. For the purpose of goodness, love is tangible and tactical. Love is the brass tacks of the whole enterprise.

As I’ve thought about love, and where it comes from, the most important practice I can think of is listening. And I don’t mean just listening with your ears and your intellect. I mean the most comprehensive listening possible - with your heart, and your whole body and spirit.

There’s absolutely no chance in the world of loving someone if you know nothing about them. At it’s root, love is knowing something of another person’s story. And when we hear that story, we find something to love about them. Something about their essence and what makes them unique and special. Something of the grace that God himself has place within them to shine forth. You have to understand the truth, at least a little to start, of who someone is to love them.

There’s no chance of this knowing of someone and finding something about them to love – with that deep unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive love – unless your heart is open to listening. Knowing and loving someone cannot occur without listening.

Photo Credit: Unsplash @christinhumephoto

Listening is what puts us on the journey to love, because once we start to understand the compelling story, gifts, and grace that everyone has, we are drawn to them – just a little bit more than we were. And then we learn more of their grace, and we’re drawn in a little closer. And then a little closer.

Listening is like gravity, drawing us in closer. As we listen, we start to recognize the light in them that’s as important or more important than our own needs. We start to value who they are, and feel a genuine sense of care and concern for their well being. They become “same human beings.” And without even realizing it, there comes to be love there.

Listening, perhaps, is not a sufficient condition to love, but it is the first necessary condition to love.

When it comes to figuring out how to love, therefore, there is no bigger question than how to open up our whole body and heart and listen. The more and better we can listen, the more its gravity draws us in closer to love.

We can start with the basics. There are tips and practices I suggest to help with the mechanical aspects of listening. Before we learn to listen with our whole body and heart, we can try to listen with just our ears.

There are plenty of resources to help you with it, like these articles from NPR, Harvard Business Review, or TED. Some of the basics techniques are things like, “be quiet”, “confirm your understanding with questions”, or “reserve judgement”; a simple Google search will help you find many other tactics you can use to help with the mechanics of listening.

I don’t have much to add to the body of knowledge on the mechanics of listening and active listening. You can read about and practice those skills on your own. What I’ve found, however, is that to really listen in such a way that it leads to a bond of love, it’s a practice requiring more than just the mechanical. Listening that creates gravity between you and someone else takes opening your heart, which is a much different enterprise than what is thought of commonly as “listening.”

Again we turn to the how. How can we open our hearts?

Neil Tambe 12/25/22 Neil Tambe 12/25/22

Becoming giving beings

Life can transform us from selfish into something more gracious - if we let it.

Children are selfish. By design. That’s what they’re supposed to do and their survival depends on it. From the moment they are born, they demand that we feed them, clothe them, protect them, love them, and bathe them.

And so did I. Like every other person that has ever lived, I was a selfish child. Far into adolescence, I was selfish, even if it was slightly less so than the day I was born.

As we age, it seems as if life extracts the selfishness, little by little, from our bodies and minds. First through marriage, then through children. For those of us who believe, through faith also. Through the intensities of grief and joy the selfishness is stolen sneakily, by the experience of life itself - if we let it.

If I am lucky enough to live a full life, without sudden death, I don’t know, exactly, what it will be like to die. I know it’s coming someday, but say I am dying at 95 from the ailment of a having a body that has long since depreciated past its useful life - what will it be like? I meditate on what it might be so that I can be prepared.

If I am so lucky to not die a sudden death, I think it may actually be like the movies. That’s what I hope for, anyway.

When I meditate on what I will be thinking and feeling on my deathbed, I imagine being close to Robyn and our children. I think I will want to just sit with them, drinking water and eating rice with lentils. Simple food, that does not distract from the company.

As I visualize myself slowly chewing the tasteless rice, my deathbed meditation progress to its very last moments.

I am there. Robyn is there. Our sons are there, and even in my foggy mental state, and despite the excruciating pain of inhabiting a dying body, I can tell our sons are grown because the hair on their temples has started to grey - that is the mark of a grown man in our line.

And then, at the very end, I gaze at Robyn. I am there, trying to muster some last words before I go ahead. In that last moment I do not ask for more painkillers. I do not cry. I do not beg God for more time. I do not say to her, “tell me you love me.” In those last moments, I am determined not to take.

With the last breaths of oxygen I breathe, and the last beats of my heart, before my thoughts go dark, I will try to say, “I love you.”

I will try to give love, to her, until the literal end of my life. Until God takes me from her embrace. In that moment, when I am as vulnerable as the day I was born, I dream of giving whatever love remains. Just like that. Just like the movies.

In life, and death, there can be so much suffering. That’s part of the deal. But what a beautiful thing to be part of. It is wonderful to know that if we must suffer the fate of death that there’s at least a fighting chance that life will have transformed us from something selfish into something more gracious.

It is utterly remarkable to me that we can go from being newborns, designed to be selfish, into giving beings. What a beautiful and curious thing it is, that after the immense suffering of our lives, at the moment of imminent death, our singular focus, above even our own survival, can become, “I love you.”

Being that, a giving being, is what I hope to become.