You were straightforward about it, and you were right: I spend no time with your kids. Not a standing call. Not a regular check-in. Just a lot of “we’ll figure something out,” which never becomes something. I keep trying to reverse-engineer a reason that would make sense on paper, but the truth keeps coming back smaller and harder to dodge: I don’t put it on the calendar. I don’t make the plan. And because I don’t make the plan, nothing happens. I’m writing this to say I heard you, and to put a shape around what I can actually do right now—only phone and video. No road trips yet. No grand gestures. Just consistent presence through a screen until my follow-through has legs.

I wish I could tell you the exact source of the stall. I can guess at it—uncertainty, old reflexes, the way family time doesn’t hand you a tidy scoreboard—but guesses aren’t action. What I know is that avoidance rewards itself quickly. If I don’t schedule a call, there’s nothing to be late to and no chance of awkward silence, and my body gives me a quiet nod as if I did something wise. That nod is counterfeit. It buys me an hour of comfort and sells off a future I keep saying I want. I won’t pretend I’ve solved the why. I’m going to change the when.

Here’s what that looks like when the only tools on the table are a phone and a camera: two short calls every week, same days, same times, set to repeat. Five minutes is not an insult; it’s a container I can lift without making promises I can’t carry. Five minutes means I arrive exactly when I said I would, ask one real question, listen to what they’re excited about, and end on time so it never becomes a chore anyone has to defend. If a day or time is bad for your house, we’ll slide the slot, not the principle. The point is rhythm, not theater.

I know the objection in advance because I’ve rehearsed it myself: what can five minutes do? It won’t repair the past or earn a trophy, and it won’t look like much from across the street. But five minutes, kept on purpose, changes the story in a way that is both humble and undeniable. A kid learns your cadence. They start saving a detail from their day because they know there will be a place to put it. They hold up a drawing or a Lego thing or a half-invented joke, and you’re the audience that makes it real. It’s not production value. It’s presence value. Presence only works if it repeats.

I want to be clear about roles because that’s where a lot of my hesitation hides. This is your home and your rules. When we set those call times, I will follow your rhythm. If you say “before dinner is chaos,” we won’t do before dinner. If you need screens off by a certain hour, we’ll call earlier. If I step on a boundary, tell me in the moment and I’ll course-correct without making it heavy. My job here isn’t to offer commentary from the grandstand. My job is to show up, be predictable, and keep it light and real for the kids, so that our time becomes a bell they can hear from the next room: it rings, it’s familiar, it ends, and it’ll ring again.

I want you to know what I’m actually going to do on those calls so this isn’t just a promise floating in the air. I will bring one small thing to each call—a riddle, a coin trick, a question about their world that isn’t a quiz. I will ask for exactly one thing from them—something they built, something they learned, something that made them laugh—and I will listen without jumping in to teach. If a call goes sideways because attention is a butterfly and someone decides the most important thing in the universe is suddenly the cat, then the call will be about the cat, and it will still count. We’ll end on time either way. Predictable endings make beginnings easier.

There’s a reason I’m not promising in-person visits yet, and it’s not because I don’t want them. It’s because I’ve learned that trying to leap three steps at once is how I fall down the stairs and then avoid the staircase. Phone and video are where I can build the muscle of consistency without the rest of the logistics crowding out the point. When the rhythm is real—when we’ve stacked enough small, on-time calls that everyone can feel the pattern holding—we can talk about adding a short visit with a start and end time. Until then, what I owe you is reliability in the simplest form available.

You told me the quiet part out loud: I am close to repeating something I did not like living through. My parents’ distance taught me to lower expectations until they were unbreakable. That’s not a legacy I’m interested in handing your kids. If “distance” is the family artifact, I want to break it in my hands. Breaking it doesn’t require a speech. It requires a dial tone that arrives when we said it would, week after week, until the kids don’t have to wonder whether Grandpa is real or theoretical. They’ll know because the bell keeps ringing.

If I slide, I want the slide to be visible so I can correct it. That’s why I’m putting these times in writing, and why I’m asking you to hold me to the literalness of the plan. If I miss a call, the next one still happens on schedule; I won’t try to buy forgiveness with an hour-long make-up marathon that teaches the kids to expect feast or famine. If a call needs to move because life is life, we move it once and lock the new time. The rhythm matters more than the length.

I don’t expect applause for basics. I’m asking for a clean slate and a ruler, not a parade. What I can promise is that the ruler will be honest. We’ll know, week by week, whether I showed up. We won’t need to interpret intentions or wrestle with “soon.” The calls will either be there, or they won’t. And if they aren’t, I won’t hide behind explanations; I’ll fix it with the only proof that counts: the next call, on time.

I love your kids. I love you. I’m late to this, but I’m not done. For now it’s phone and video, small and steady, with an end time and a next time. When the pattern has teeth, we can add more. Until then, we’ll let simple keep us honest. If future me starts inventing delays, text me the same line every time: dates, not feelings. I’ll put the phone where my mouth is.