Make sure you make it personal.  That was my advice to Krista when she said she wanted to write a blog about our experiences as a family as our son Nate undergoes treatment for leukemia.

So when Krista asked me if I wanted to write a guest blog, I felt compelled to take my own advice.  But what’s personal about me?

Well, I thought, one thing is that I love music.  And it’s one kind of music especially: The old Classic Rock.

I’m a little embarrassed to acknowledge how much time I’ve spent attending the College of Classic Rock.  But the time hasn’t been entirely wasted.  I’ve been exposed to some great works of art and found great insights and inspirations in the music.

It’s funny the connections you make between music and profound events in your life.  I’ll always associate the birth of my first son Sam with Bob Dylan’s song “Forever Young.”  With Nate, it’s John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy.”

Krista has also come to love that song, one of Lennon’s last, and associate it with Nate so much that she took the title of this blog from it.  The association between Nate and the song is in some ways obvious.  As you can tell from the pictures, he is simply a beautiful boy. (Please take note, Richard Dawkins.)  The nurses are constantly coming into his room just to cuddle with him.

And Lennon’s line that “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” has clear relevance to our family.

But there are other parts of that song that resonate with me perhaps even more.  It’s a great tribute to the artistry of the song and of John Lennon that something he wrote when I was just a child could inspire me so deeply when I am, like he was then, a middle-aged father of two sons.

Here’s one part that expresses perfectly what I feel toward Nate right now:

I can hardly wait

To see you come of age

But I guess, we’ll both just have to be patient

‘Cause it’s a long way to go, a hard row to hoe

And, of course, the very beginning of the song:

Close your eyes

Have no fear

The monster’s gone

He’s on the run and your daddy’s here

Another intriguing part to me is that Lennon, famously atheistic, tells his son Sean to pray:

Before you go to sleep

Say a little prayer

Every day in every way

It’s getting better and better

From your lips to God’s ear, Mr. Lennon.  Or, as another icon of Classic Rock mentioned above would put it, “Roll on, John.”

Ted’s over at the hospital now hanging out with Nate.  On typical Saturday mornings, you’d find him sitting at the dining room table with a cup of coffee, several newspapers and Beats on his head listening to the Van or Bruuuuuce.  This morning’s entry is from Ted.