Thursday, March 5, 2026

Thursday, March 5, 2026

Hello friends, family, and followers! I’m Alex, Andy’s son, writing to you today with a story about my Daddio.

Growing up with divorced parents meant that I stayed with my mom for the most part, and then lived with my dad every other weekend. While we aren’t big movie people, there were quite a few weekends where we would go see whatever movie was popular at the time - movies like Revenge of the Sith, Iron Man 1, Jason Bourne, National Treasure, and other action movies like that.

So, in the summer of 2009 when I was 13 years old, my dad and I went to see the new blockbuster with Nic Cage. The movie was called Knowing, and the movie poster made it seem like some apocalypse thriller where Nic Cage will come to save the day.

And just as the movie starts, it becomes apparent that it is not just a cool action movie, but instead some paranormal horror movie. About five minutes into the movie, the main person is investigating some spooky noise, and then opens a door and finds a little girl carving numbers into the walls and into her skin. This was definitely not what either of us expected to be watching.

But put yourself in my shoes for a second. I am a 13 year old MAN watching a scary movie with my dad who I only see once every two weeks. I obviously knew that adults weren’t scared of scary movies, only kids get scared, so that meant I needed to suck it up and show my dad that I’m brave enough to handle it.

Just as I was about to accept that line of thought and suffer my way through this scary movie, my dad turns to me and says, “This is too scary for me, do you want to keep watching?” and I think I was probably already out of my seat before he finished his sentence.

In that moment, I mostly remember just feeling relieved that I didn’t have to sit through whatever scary stuff that movie was about. But I’ve reflected on this moment quite a few times as an adult, and it’s really showed me what bravery really is.

Being brave doesn’t mean you have no fear. Bravery is addressing those fears and finding a solution to overcome them. For this situation, that solution was simply leaving. And throughout his blog posts, I’ve noticed many times where my dad showed his bravery against this “shitty fucking disease”.

Dad’s bravery is just one of his many traits that make me proud to be his son.