Accept Your Parents’ Limits with Bruce Springsteen

I loved my father deeply throughout my entire life.

But toward the last 10 years of his life, he was able to see my children.

And

we had one interaction that made the world a difference to me.

I was,

Patty and I were going to have our first, first son.

And

Daddy came down and visited me one day.

And we were living in Los Angeles.

I just knocks on my door.

This is my dad.

You know, he doesn't tell me he's coming.

He comes down from San Francisco.

He comes in, he wants a beer.

It's 11 in the morning.

I give him a beer.

I take one for myself.

And he

looks at me and says, Hey, you know, you've really been very good to us.

I says, Yep, I was my pleasure.

You know, it was

all you guys, the house.

And

I wasn't very good to you.

He looks at me and

I said, Well, you did the best you you could.

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Well, I have

the special honor of having one of my dear friends join me for this conversation.

He needs no introduction.

Cause everybody knows this dude.

20-time Grammy winner, Hall of Fame, all of that.

Blah, da, da, da, da.

The one and only Bruce Springsteen.

Thank you for

being here and taking time off your tour.

You're in the middle of touring.

It is my pleasure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Last time I saw you was on stage.

in Barcelona.

That's right.

And you did an excellent job as a backup singer, may I say?

Say that one more time, just for the record.

You did an excellent job as a backup singer.

That was

the tambourine.

I think I worked the tambourine pretty good.

You did.

That was

a surreal experience being on stage with you singing our hearts out.

That was a real

fun.

And I told you about this.

You play for three hours.

What else can I do?

You could do two.

You could do, but you play for three hours non-stop.

Yeah, non-stop.

I mean, you don't talk much.

No, you

sing

through and move through the whole thing.

It's incredible to watch you perform.

We put the pedal to the metal from first note to the last.

Yeah, yeah.

And blow everybody out of the water.

And the other thing I love is just the diversity of your crowds.

I mean, you've got folks in their 80s and 10-year-olds singing every note, every lyric.

It's pretty, it's amazing, you know.

And

what can I say?

I'm with my best friends every night.

And I've been doing it for 50 years

with the same guys.

That's a magic act right there.

You know,

there's a little bit of magic, but there's a little bit of truth.

And

look, everybody knows you as the great Bruce Springsteen, but you are truly one of my favorite favorite people

as a person.

Oh, kid, kid.

You know, I mean, I say this behind your back.

I say it to your wife, but, you know,

you're just the real deal.

You are a solid man, a solid human being.

I've seen you as

a caring husband, as a loving father, and you just became a grandfather.

That's right.

You know?

And you, you work at it.

You know, I don't think it's magic.

The loyalty that your fans and your band members show you, that's not magic.

That's work because

that's who you are.

Yeah.

If you want the stability

and if you want the depth.

of those lifelong friendships and partnerships, you know, you're not going to get it without working at it.

You know, when I was young, I said, oh, you know, I said, well, I got really good at playing the guitar.

Well, I should be great at

being a partner for someone.

And I realized, oh, wait a minute.

I spent thousands of hours learning the guitar.

And finally, I realized, hey, I got to put the time in.

And, you know, we got three great kids and Patty and I are both, you know, we came out of complicated families.

And so you get the great reward of seeing your children unburdened by a lot of the toxicity that you had to work your way through you know what is your goal your goal is let me work my way through this so you won't have to let your sins be your own yeah

for your children.

Let them have their own mistakes.

Just don't make my mistakes over again.

But that's a rare, it's a rare thing.

I mean,

it's rare that people don't pass their stuff on.

And that's one of the things that that's why I marvel at you and Patty and the work that you all have done because

you

learned those lessons.

You and Patty have been couple mentors for me and Barack for quite some time.

Whoa, all right.

Yeah, yeah.

You know,

watching you guys do the work, getting advice on how to keep those lines of communication open.

You got two powerful people in you and Patty, you know, your own powerhouses in your own right and merging those lives together.

For all those reasons,

you were the perfect person to.

be here to discuss this this wonderful question from one of our listeners.

Her name is Alex.

She's a 24-year-old woman.

And she, you know, is struggling with a relationship with a father.

But I think our listeners would love to hear some of your wisdom on

the challenge that Alex is facing.

So

let's listen to the question.

Hi, Michelle.

My name is Alex.

I'm 24 years old and I live in Oakland, California.

My parents divorced when I was a young kid, and I've always had kind of a complicated relationship with my dad.

In middle school and high school, I saw my dad every week as part of the divorce schedule, but as an adult, his life is almost completely separate from mine.

We talk on the phone kind of every couple of months, but I see him only every year or two.

He remarried my stepmother while my sister and I were still pretty young, and now my dad and stepmom and two step siblings are kind of their own family unit, while my sister and I really feel more like they're cousins who get invited in only occasionally.

My main issue with my dad is that I just really want him to visit me in Oakland.

I've lived here for three years and he's not come to see me once.

I'd love him to meet my boyfriend and my friends and my cat and show him the life I've built for myself.

He says he will, but he just doesn't come.

I've told him directly how I want us to be more involved in each other's lives, but he does not reciprocate.

What makes this hardest is that I love spending time with my dad.

As much as he's hurt my feelings, when we're together, it's so easy.

We love the same things, and he makes me feel like the smartest version of myself.

When we argue, it's only over how I want him to give more of an effort.

I'm worried that now that I'm an adult, we'll just grow further apart.

And I kind of know he won't really be the parent I need him to be.

So my question to you is, how do I move forward from this?

How do you accept someone who you care so much about giving you less than what you need from them

yeah

you know i feel for alex um but i think her question um

unfortunately there are a lot of young people a lot of people who are struggling with this father dynamic um

uh all over the not just all over the country all over the world um

you know kids trying to figure out how to build those relationships with fathers who aren't there, can't be there, choose not to be there.

So I know that a lot of listeners can relate to where Alex is, but Bruce, why don't we just jump in?

What do you think?

This is a tough position to be in.

And I kind of grew up with an absentee father.

in the house you know my entire life was

sort of

waiting for him to shine on me in one way or another.

When you're young, you don't realize that's, I don't think that's going to happen.

He wasn't, he simply wasn't well enough.

He was, my dad struggled with a lot of mental illness,

which we didn't know until, because it's the 50s.

So we didn't know until much later.

But as a child, it was incredibly, credibly painful.

And she's only 24.

And at 24, I was still struggling with with all of this.

But she's in an interesting position because she says that her father

lights her up when they're together, but doesn't seem to want to take the full responsibility of a parent.

So you're sort of left in a between a rock and a hard place.

How do you accept someone you care about giving you less than what you need from them?

Yeah.

Is that a thing that you do?

you know i mean i would tell alex that it's it's not just her burden you know

to bear it's a tough thing trying to get a grown-up to do what's right by a kid who's just developing no i i think that

one of the most difficult things to do is realizing that relationships have their limits.

Sometimes there are simply no great choices.

We all want to love our parents.

At the same time, there are irretrievable relationships.

There are relationships that simply are not going to function.

The thing that I found was helpful, even with my father's illness, and it sounds like she's done this, but

It's worth reiterating that communicating honestly and directly as you can to with that person.

When my father got very ill, he got lost.

I had to go find him in Los Angeles, brought him back home.

And the only thing I could tell him, I says, look, dad, you know, you have to understand

that mom needs you.

I need you in my life.

And

I tried to be as directly as I could

with my father.

in letting him know how important he was and just in my heart and in my soul you know and hope that he would be able to respond to that and that's a that's a

a brave thing it's a bold thing to ask a kid to do and i'd still see alex at 24 as a kid yeah right 24 you're you're a kid you're you're still a kid and to be able to look someone that you look up to in the eye and tell them and admit to them that they've hurt you.

Yeah.

You know, and to even admit that need, right?

Yeah.

That's, that's a vulnerable thing.

That's a vulnerable position that Alex has to be mature enough to put herself in.

That's right.

But I think what you're saying is true that by doing that, even if it's tough, it's an unburdening for her

so that at least she's on record.

You know, as uncomfortable as it may make her feel, it's important for her well-being to have it stated plain

and to not assume that he understands, to say those words out loud that

I need you and I'm hurt when you're not here.

That's right.

I know that was, it was, it was valuable for me, and I think it helped my father understand his own value, which was a problem.

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Really, you have to lay it out there.

And in doing so, she's showing more maturity than her dad.

And make an effort to understand, you know,

he remarried, he has another family.

You You can look at like your previous family is a failed family in some way.

And that can bring a lot of guilt, a lot of your own sense of failure.

And he needs the maturity to understand that he has this beautiful daughter.

And you don't just get to walk away.

No, you got to be accountable.

Hey, once, you know, you signed your name on the dotted line, you know.

You said you used the term when you described your father as he was

absentee in the home they're the the people who just disappear they don't show up but you make a point that there's also

there's also an absence that can be felt when people are there yeah and that can be just as painful

people right you out of the picture using a variety of devices one was in my case my my dad was quite a drinker you know and

that took up a lot of his time.

He was busy doing that a lot.

And one of the things that Patty taught me was, she says, listen, you can't just be here.

You've got to be present.

I used to think, well, wait a minute, I got a song to write.

I'm sinking these great thoughts.

Come on, you're going to get in the way of my great thoughts.

And I've learned that, like, well,

if you got a good song,

it'll be there tomorrow, you know.

But the kids, they're going to be gone.

They're not going to be there tomorrow.

Yeah.

You know, that relatively quickly, they rush through your life.

And even if you remain close to them, they're out the door and they're leading their own lives now.

I always remember I had a...

discussion with my oldest son at one point where

I felt that I had taught him, like if I asked him to do something,

I had signaled him that I wanted him to say no.

If I asked you to do something, you know, it's always, well, maybe later, dad, or maybe this.

I think I taught you to do that.

You mean just spending time together.

That's more.

Yeah.

That's right.

Because so he started playing back for you the response.

That's right.

Be unavailable.

That's right.

Right.

This is what we do.

Dad wants to play, play ball.

Well,

this is what my dad says.

Maybe later.

So I realized the parenting is pennies in the bank.

It's that time when you were working and you didn't want to stop,

but you did.

That made a huge difference to me because if I'd have failed, I always felt if I'd have failed with my kids, I would have failed tremendously in life.

I like what you said that parenting is pennies in the bank.

And that just resonates because I think of,

you know, I think of my upbringing.

And I've talked about it a lot.

You know, we were working class, poor working class family.

Father was a city worker.

He did not make a lot of money.

He did not have a title.

He was not famous.

He wouldn't be on a regular schedule.

We could go for a week and not see him because he was working a shift.

But when he was present, he was present in very small but meaningful ways.

Wonderful.

Something as simple, you know.

I recall like the special treat before dinner, if he was there or after dinner, was that we get him to play a game.

Yeah.

Any kind of game, you know, a tickle game, a card game.

And it just felt like such a treat that this big, important man who had all this responsibility

got on the floor and played with us.

He delighted in our presence.

Yeah, that's wonderful.

And

what I tell a lot of parents is that a lot of times we work for money and things.

Because especially if you're poor, you think, well, if I could give my kids more, we could live in a bigger house, if I could put put them in the best schools, if I could give them the nicest sneakers, right?

Right.

That that is going to replace it.

But

it's the pennies in the bank

that matter.

And everybody's got some pennies.

You know, kids don't need the stuff.

They just want the pennies.

You know?

Very important.

And I think a lot of men lose sight of the fact that a lot of what they're working towards is just their goals

and ambition.

You know, and I think men should have that.

I think everyone, men, women, people have to have their own lives and their own ambitions, but have it and say that's for you.

But your kids, they just want pennies.

They want the pennies.

They really do.

They do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're never too poor to be a father.

No, to give, you know, time and attention.

You know, artists, the worst, the worst, so self-involved.

Yeah.

You know, oh my God, you know, you get so caught up in your own

inner world,

you know, because that's where you sought refuge.

You know, when

things weren't working out, when you were younger, you sought refuge in this inner world.

I think the point you're making is that, you know, it's easy to get lost in the grandeur of your life.

exactly of yourself of yourself um

and i had to deal with a lot of the grandeur of myself yeah

you know because that's the thing everybody's taught to pursue you know it's like that's that's the the brass ring um

and that's why parenting is a is a is it's a group sport um

and i think barack is just like you is a tremendous father doing it in a lot of grandeur, right?

Yeah, you're the commander-in-chief of the United States of America.

And so finding that balance of, you know, when you've got

the nuclear code in your grasp and world leaders calling you and big, important, heavy decisions.

coming at you every day and valets and aides and on and on and security.

And oh, it's just all grandeur.

Trying to wipe all that stuff away and leave it at the door before you enter, before he would enter the residence of the White House to sit at a dinner table with his two daughters and only talk about them.

It was important for both of us, for me and Barack, to carve out that time in those eight years

when our girls were in their formative years, you know.

Yeah.

They lived longer, Malia and Sasha in the White House than they've lived in any house.

That's amazing.

They were formed in that house and around that table in that residence.

And it took a mighty effort to leave the grandeur at the door and to just

be there and talk about fifth grade.

Yeah.

And, you know, even in my job, you know, it's like, hey, you're on the road.

You're king.

You go home.

Hey, you're the chauffeur.

You know, and making that transition can be funny, you know, and everybody has some version of that, you know,

that

you need to transition into your domestic life and to be able to transition into your domestic life and to understand

who you are there and to identify it.

You know, I think, I know in my case, I had a hard time dealing with domesticity, period.

What do you mean by that?

What I was such a spoiled child, even though we grew up lower and middle class, working class, you were adored.

I was, yeah, period.

Somebody, you know, I was

the artists are all the same.

One person tells them they're the second coming of the baby Jesus, the other person tells them they're not worth a dime, and they believe both of them.

And it sets up a

dynamic that puts the fire in the furnace, you know, for the rest of your life.

But

in Alex's case, it's very difficult.

I think she has to find out if her relationship with her father is truly retrievable, if he can respond to

her needs.

And he's got to step up and be accountable.

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Alex,

you know, at 24, it's not too soon to do some analysis.

Not at all.

You know,

because

she definitely is in a situation that could mess her up.

It could impact her emotional, mental health,

her feelings of self-worth if doesn't get some help working through these feelings,

even if it's not with him.

Because, like you said, her father may not be capable of giving her what she needs.

And she's got to figure enough of that out.

But then, if the answer is no, she still is going to need some help to deal with that hurt.

and that rejection.

And what I would say to Alex is that that's real.

You know, you are not crazy

for feeling pained.

Your father's actions have done some damage on you.

And if he can't admit it, then I want to hand her that because she's not only dealing with his rejection, which is one thing, but the fact that he started a whole nother family

that

he is fathering.

That's an incredibly hurtful thing to watch and experience for her and her sister, for the, for the kids that were left behind.

And I think it's a disservice to not

let young people know when they're in a crazy circumstance.

Absolutely.

You know, it's like, I want to be like, Alex, it's messed up.

Yeah.

Your father is wrong.

Yeah.

You know, he is the adult.

He has failed you.

And it's not you.

Well, that's very important.

I think when you're, when you're young, you know, and I did this myself, is like,

if I'm being rejected, well, I must have done something wrong.

Yeah, that's right.

You know,

I'm insufficient in some way.

I'm not enough.

I don't deserve to be loved.

I don't deserve to be parented.

You know, I just assumed that that was true.

Yeah.

And carried that with me for a long, long, long time, you know, a long time.

What do you think were some of the biggest changes that you made once you said to yourself, I got to be more present?

Well, a lot of it was

I had to put my work more in perspective, you know.

Say that one more time.

I had to put my work more in perspective because I realized that I was so fundamentally uncomfortable in so many.

real life situations that I was taking my job, expanding its hours so that it took up most of my day.

I was used to this, putting an enormous amount of time

into

some place where I was comfortable emotionally and mentally, which was basically in the worlds that I was creating.

I had to step out of that and put that in perspective.

In other words, okay, guess what?

I'm only going to work from 12 to 6.

I'm not going to work after 6 o'clock.

And

I'm going to get up at 6.30 6.30 a.m.

and I'm going to make the kids breakfast and take them to school.

We do that every day.

Pennies in the bank.

And these are things which

I would not have done without Patty

being there to support me and explain to me, hey, man, you're screwing it up.

And not only are you screwing it up.

But you yourself are going to miss it.

Yeah.

If you don't get up in the morning when the kids are at their best, you are going to miss it.

And you lose those years.

They go by so fast.

Barack didn't struggle in the way that you did, but you know, with a busy schedule, I used to, whenever I thought he wasn't doing enough, I'd start singing cats in the cradle in the silver spoon because that song is so profound.

You know, when you're coming home, son, don't know when.

I was like, you're going to look up.

And the girls will be gone, you know, because there is a little window that parents don't understand of time when your children even want to be bothered with you.

Well, listen, they're going to be gone and they are not going to be taking you

with them.

That's right.

You know, that's right.

Your time and your ability to influence their inner life and their spiritual life and their emotional life

will have come to a close.

And if they walk out that door without taking you with them, it's going to be a tremendous loss in your life.

Well, and that kind of foresight, I don't think a lot of people think about like the pennies in the bank investment when they're young and you do still have some influence over their emotional and spiritual and intellectual being.

And to know that they come out on the other end as adults whole,

able to raise whole grandkids.

And how that frees you up later in life so that you can really enjoy your life and not worry about your adult kids screwing up because you weren't there when they needed you.

You know, I mean, isn't it really a wonderful thing to be at this stage to have three beautiful adults who are out in the world contributing?

Yeah.

And you can now have a full relationship with them and watch them parent their own kids.

I watched my youngest son with his daughter.

He's a better dad than I was already, you know, and that gives me great pride.

Yeah.

You know, great pride.

I go, well, he's really doing it right.

You know, and

for Alex,

taking a long view of things,

realizing that these things don't necessarily work themselves out in your desired time or certainly quickly, you know, that sometimes you process and work these things out.

throughout your entire life

and that's how you find peace with them

and some compassion for your errant parent or or you know i i i loved my father deeply throughout my entire life but toward the last 10 years of his life he was able to see my children and

and

we had one interaction that made the world a difference to me i was

patty and i were going to have our first first son and

Daddy came down and visited me one day and we were living in Los Angeles.

He just knocks on my door.

This is my dad.

dad.

You know, he doesn't tell me he's coming.

Comes down from San Francisco.

He comes in.

He wants a beer.

It's 11 in the morning.

I give him a beer.

I take one for myself.

And he

looks at me and says, hey, you know, you've really been very good to us.

I says, yeah, Papa, it's my pleasure.

You know, it was

all you guys, the house.

And

I wasn't very good to you.

He looks at me and

I said, well, you did the best you could, which he

did under the circumstances of his illness.

And

that was,

in a funny way, that one small acknowledgement of the truth made an enormous, enormous difference to me in my life.

I still remain filled with the grace of that moment.

And I feel blessed by the ability to have that moment.

And sometimes that's the best that you can, that's the best that you can hope for.

Bruce,

that's just such an important thing for people to remember because I know there are probably a lot of absentee parents out there listening.

And I'm sure some of what happens is that it just gets harder.

to acknowledge, right?

Yeah.

You know, the longer it goes, the more the words get lost and stuck in the throat.

And so I'm sure there are people out there who aren't reaching out because they don't even know how to.

They think it's too late.

And I think this story reminds us all that for kids, it's never too late.

And the acknowledgement can be something as small as,

I see you.

Yeah.

I know

that I didn't do my best.

And it's just important for the adults out there to understand that even that little bit of acknowledgement, like the grace of that, as you said, what that did for you, even as you were becoming a father, it wasn't too late.

No.

And it meant something.

And like I said, it ended up being enough for me at the end of the day.

But I think it ended up being enough for me because I put all the time and to process through the pain and heartbreak that relationship had cost the two of us, you know.

So,

and you have to understand sometimes there's things you're, you know, there were things that my father was totally incapable of.

So I love you, please.

That wasn't that started.

You know, it's like, you know, it's like, and I had to come to the,

I had to come to peace with the fact that, well, that's my old man, you know, that that's, and

my father was a very funny man.

at my first divorce he's taking me to the airport and he says bruce you know maybe it's time for you to move back home

okay

and they go dad i'm like i'm 36.

i'm a i'm a self-made i'm a i'm a millionaire you know i'm the boss yeah i can't move back home in my room move in the basement but you know i was really glad to be asked

i never really, really, really touched you in the ass.

It's like, maybe you need to be with your daddy.

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But

I found recognition of my needs in funny places at funny times.

They weren't convenient and they were never going to be,

quote, normal.

Alex here says that when she's with her father, it makes her feel like the smartest person in the room.

That's a good place to start.

Yeah.

Now, one thing I do want to go back to the work that you've done, the therapy that you've done.

And I talk to you about this a lot, you know, that it is rare for men

to

get

help,

to seek counseling.

And not only have you done it, but you're very vocal about it and you're very clear-headed about it.

You give permission to a lot of men out there who need to do work.

They need to do some self-reflection and to figure out.

Let me say, when I started, I was...

I was embarrassed.

I mean, I, you know, I was a child of the 50s.

My dad was a man of the 50s.

And

we had a lot of mental illness in my family, my aunts, my cousins.

It really ran through, particularly the Irish side, but the Italian side in some ways also.

And no one got any help.

So

when I started, And I only started because I hit a wall and really

had,

looking back on it, was somewhat of a breakdown, you know, and that was, I almost felt like, well, I got to get help somehow.

Yeah.

But I was totally embarrassed.

I would hide.

I had the baseball cap and the sunglasses, and I'm looking all around to see if anybody's looking at me.

It's going in office villains going in the block, and I'm sneaking

into the doctor's office and I'm sneaking out.

And I had to say it, but that might have gone on for years.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, that's how I did feel embarrassed about it you know yeah but there was one thing i couldn't argue with it was working yeah it was simply working you know uh in bits and pieces i was getting better at this and more comfortable with that so it was really i just came from a world where that didn't exist you know and it took a lot to go initially and to finally to just feel completely relaxed about going and and

i was very well it's still stigmatized.

I mean, we still don't, we're doing a better job of it than our parents and our grandparents did for sure.

But it's still, we don't talk about mental health.

It's like if you were

looking for the job of presidency and someone finds out that you've been in therapy.

I don't know of anyone who's done that.

It hasn't been done.

You know, it should be a problem.

Even though some people should be in therapy who want to be president.

Yeah, you think so.

You know,

it's like,

so, you know, you look at it, hey, that should be a plus in your corner, not a, it's not a minus, you know, but it's still, it's still an issue.

You know, it's still a cultural issue.

So and I think about how many men would be helped, how many families would be stronger, um, you know, how many Alexes

would, you know, have some level of support and understanding if we were to

understand and embrace the importance of mental health in our lives,

because it's not unique.

I mean, we all have people in our lives who have real clear mental health issues, like your father, but it doesn't have to be that extreme.

You know, just getting through depression, dealing with the day-to-day questions, even if you had a parent that was there for you, you know, maybe they weren't good at communicating.

You know, maybe they didn't teach you how to explore your emotions.

Maybe your mother, you know, didn't hug you enough.

Who knows whatever it is, but we are impacted by the world around us.

And it doesn't just affect our physical health.

It affects us, our souls and our minds.

And I just think it's important for.

people who,

you know, have those looking up to them

to know, you know, even the coolest dude on the planet

gets some help every now and then.

Sure does.

But I think that, you know,

if we were to sum up some advice for Alex as we close out this conversation, you know, I think, Bruce, one of the things that you said is that, you know, sometimes there isn't

a nice, neat answer.

No.

And in Alex's case, she may never

find what she needs in her father because he may never be capable of giving that to her.

And some of this is for the people, if there are parents out there who find themselves in this kind of relationship with their children.

You know, I think the advice for me wouldn't be for Alex.

It's for the parents who are listening.

Don't put your child in this kind of situation.

You know, if you bring a child onto this earth,

be present.

Yeah.

Put in the pennies.

You know, you don't have to be perfect.

You don't have to be trouble-free.

You know, kids love parents, even if they've gone to jail, done some bad things, made some huge mistakes.

You still can't replace that love.

And it is never too late.

If you weren't there for the first 10 years, be there for the next and the next and the next.

Well, that was it with my uncle.

I was like, hey, you know, guess what?

You know, the things you didn't do so well with me and you got another chance.

He's my son.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, and to see my father interact with my with my son was very, very valuable.

Yeah.

It was healing.

Yeah.

And so it's a constant discussion.

It's, it's, for Alex, it's not something that's necessarily going to be resolved this month or this year.

I think

if she's not getting the kind of love that she needs, there's

what does she do with her love?

You know,

where does that go?

Where does she place that?

And also...

in her her own choosing of a partner.

Yes.

Because

we're attracted to a lot of the characteristics of our parents.

And

your peace is something that

you have to drive internally yourself and you have to seek out.

You know, I think Alex has some good, you know, she heard it from the boss.

You know, your piece, your inner piece is yours to work on.

And it's a gift I hope she cherishes and she gets some help to process it.

But

thank you for, you know,

coming in.

That's the advice

Yeah, yeah,

guitar player.

Whatever that is for.

A guitar player who happens to be an amazing father and

is a proud grandpapa, too.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Thanks, Michelle.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bruce.

Thanks for your time and your friendship and your love.

Yeah.

We love you.

All right.

We'll see you out there.