Pictures in Pockets

I, like many other teenagers, spend far too much time on TikTok, consuming copious amounts of AI slop and content so mind-numbingly stupid it almost makes my lectures seem interesting … almost. However, amongst all the OOTDs (Outfits-of-the-Day) and food reviews, some gems make you stay beyond the 0.2 seconds it takes to scroll. I stumbled across one such video the other night when, at 2 a.m., instead of sleeping, I found myself on a certain Heather Kinsey’s profile. The video that struck me captured her husband’s vows, National Football League player Mason Kinsey, in which he said: “When I die, don’t bury me with a football, a jersey, or a whistle, but with a picture of you in my pocket so I can show everyone in heaven who made me a better man.” 

Aside from being a beautiful sentiment, it got me thinking about who I would put in my pocket to show all the angels in heaven who made me a better man. I haven’t even lived a quarter of my life yet, so the number of candidates is pretty low; even still, it’s not a question I could easily answer. I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it some more (I had a pretty free schedule this week) and kept on returning to the same answer—my father. 

Naturally, I hope I don’t precede him in meeting Saint Peter at Heaven’s gates and hearing the words “Well done, good and faithful servant! […] Come and share your master’s happiness.” However, as we all know, living into our old age is a blessing, not a guarantee, so just in case, I’ll keep his photo in my pocket so if I get there first, people will know who to expect. 

I, like many others, was raised with the idea that parents aren’t supposed to be best friends with their children. Even the word parent, at its etymological roots, hints at something more than what friendship can offer. The Latin root of parent, parens, comes from the present participle of parere, meaning “to give birth, bring forth, or produce.” As much as I love my friends, not one of them brought me into existence, nor spent the painstaking hours molding me into the person I am today and aspire to be tomorrow. The parental bond is something unquantifiable, and to have a truly strong one is something I don’t take for granted. Unconditional love is a rare commodity these days, and Lord knows I don’t deserve it a lot of the time, especially when I wake my dad up at 5 a.m. (forgetting the time difference), calling about something I could easily do myself. Yet, after every call, the final words we say to each other are “I love you, goodnight.”

We don’t really say “goodbye” in my family; a superstition started by my grandmother as she advanced into old age, perhaps as a coping mechanism to distance herself from the reality of life’s natural next step, or perhaps an allusion to the idea that you’re never really going anywhere in life or in death. I firmly believe this superstition comes from the latter; even in death, one isn’t saying goodbye but just a “see you later.” This past year has been the longest time I’ve spent away from home, and the time between the in-person “see you laters” seems to grow larger and larger with every holiday. In some way, I fear I’ve grown slightly homesick, not out of a burning desire to see my parents—I’ve got FaceTime for that—but for the little things that even they might not notice.

Each morning, I wake up to the painfully robotic standard iPhone alarm jingle and miss my father’s customary knock on the door and his daily introductory phrase of “Up and at ’em.” Funnily enough, as a child, I always thought he was saying “Up and Adam.” I spent many mornings confused about why he kept mentioning this Adam guy, despite never having met him or knowing he existed. Clearly, I wasn’t the brightest toddler.

I also miss his creativity when it came to food. My father’s a vegan (yuck, I know), and many dinners would be, and still are, experiments of what he could make for us to try from our vegetable supply. It sure beats the classic rotation of rice and chicken, which I always seem to end up eating at Berg. I miss the music that would echo around our hallways. I’d share breakfast with Aretha, and Donnie Hathaway would join us at dinner, but now it’s whatever music is playing in Berg when I show up—though it’s usually good, it doesn’t quite hit the same.

Sidenote, just in case you, like my father, were thinking of being vegan: EVERY RESTAURANT YOU GO TO DOESN’T NEED TO BE VEGAN! YOU MADE A CHOICE. WHY SHOULD WE HAVE TO SUFFER? Anyway, you can tell I have strong feelings on the topic. 

I think it’s abundantly clear that I love my family a lot, and I am blessed to have one that loves me back in a similar way, though I am aware that this isn’t the case for many people. Though I may put my father in my pocket, you might put your mother, your best friend, your girlfriend, or whoever you choose in your breast pocket, so you can show everyone who made you the best version of yourself. 

That’s the beauty of “family”: it’s what you make of it. 

Noah Basden ’29 (nhbasden@college.harvard.edu) writes Forum for the “Harvard Independent.”