For My Son

I gave him a pen.

Not just any pen - one I had bought for myself years earlier, at a time when I still believed I might become a writer, inspired by the kind of prose that makes you feel the language working at full power. I carried it for a long time before I understood I was carrying it for him.

The letter I wrote to go with it was about three things: the passing of a torch, the possibility of redemption, and a simple truth about what a pen actually is.

The torch is real. I did not fulfil many of the dreams I once had, and I know that. Some of that was circumstance and some of it was my own choices, and I am not interested in relitigating which was which. What I am interested in is what he does with the years ahead of him. He is, without question, a far superior version of myself - steadier, more serious, built for things I wasn't able to build. Watching that take shape has been one of the privileges of my life.

The redemption is not his burden to carry. I want to be clear about that. He does not owe me anything. What I meant was that the chance to watch him move forward well, to have played some part in who he is, gives me something I would not otherwise have. That is mine, not his.

The pen, as I told him, has its limitations. There is no instrument adequate to what he means to me. But it was the right gift, because what I most want for him is exactly what it represents: the chance to write his own future, in his own hand, on his own terms.

I am proud of the man he is becoming. I intend to keep saying so.

Nishan Kohli is Co-Founder and CEO of BIMstream.