What would it mean to give my daughter more fertile soil and careful tending than what I got? How do we actually provide our children with more stable, more nurturing, more empowering upbringings than the ones we had?
What follows is another piece of my effort to find and live out the answers.
“When a father gives to his son, both laugh. When a son gives to his father, both cry.”*
It’s 1998.
You’re in Terminal A at SeaTac International, and your dad is sobbing uncontrollably, broken up over the end of your spring break stay at his house. He’s pouring his sorrow out onto you and your siblings and everyone else at Gate 11.
You say what you always say when this happens:
It’s ok, Dad. We’ll visit again in the summer. We’ll be back together again soon. I’ll call you every night. Don’t cry.
He snaps out of it for a moment, his eyes misty.
“You are wise beyond your years, son.”
It’s 2004.
You’re at the Starbucks down in Redmond, and as you sip at a cup full of foam and caramel syrup, you listen to him lament the fact that his relationship with Steve is unraveling. Again. He’s thinking out loud, waffling between wanting to make it work and being tired of being treated this way. Again.
You’re familiar with this script; the drama has been non-stop since you were in ninth grade, and at this point you’re just ready to see the back and forth end.
In an effort to get him to snap out of it, you draw the best analogy you can:
Dad, listen. I think it’d be really cool if I could dunk a basketball. But truth be told, I don’t know that jumping that high is in the cards for me. Now, I suppose I could really try to change that, but there also comes a point in which, if something’s just not happening, a person will likely be a lot happier if they just move on. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, ya know? There’s always soccer.
His face looks like a lightbulb just went on behind it. In a moment of fleeting catharsis, he exhales.
“I’m so lucky to have such a wise son,” he tells you.
It’s 2010.
You’re at your mom’s house in Richmond, preparing to drive to Bristol for your grandfather’s funeral. The phone rings, and you step into the yard to take a call from your dad, who is about to fly down from Seattle.
He might just not get on the flight, his voice booms. He might just skip the whole thing! There’s been some kind of dust-up with his sister. Maybe over funeral preparations? Where to go eat after the burial, perhaps? (Fitting that you can’t remember the details that led to the hysterics; they had a way of being so trivial.)
Years of training kick in:
Dad. These squabbles. They’re a thing your family does. You all feed off of confrontation with each other. And for what? Pappaw just died. Maybe just… don’t get sucked into it this time?
He pauses, and then he says it again:
“How did I get such a wise son?”
It’s now.
You are dreaming. You’re in his apartment on the day after he died, except because this is a dream, he is also waiting in his car, in the parking deck below the building. If you move quickly you’ll be able to say goodbye.
You rush down the stairs, and the two of you embrace.
You step back to look at him, and he is not the father you knew in those months when his time was drawing near. Instead, he’s flashes of a lifetime: a little boy sitting next to his beagle, proud and joyful. A young man posing with a prom date, pretending. A father of three, terrified. Each face holds that same conversation, the one whose surface-level emotion—be it bewilderment over in the wake of bankruptcy, hopelessness after another lost job, fear in the face of another diagnosis— was never as important as what was at the roots: an ongoing reach for affection and affirmation when there was none to be found.
You pull him in closer, and you tell him:
Dad, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You deserve unconditional love. You are worthy.
You wake up, at first happy that he paid you a visit. You lay still because you read recently that doing so helps with remembering what you saw in your sleep.
Part of you thinks:
That was a good thing to tell him, a true and useful message, just like all those others you delivered before it. He needed to hear that from someone.
You catch yourself though.
It comes back to you, that question you’re still trying to answer:
Why did I need to be the one to tell him?
*I came across this line a long time ago and it continues to speak to me and my experience. Some people say it’s a Yiddish proverb while others says it’s from Shakespeare. shrug.
Beautiful. From someone else who was a "wise beyond your years" kid because a parent needed parenting, I get it. Having a child yourself is daunting. You are definitely going to mess up, because we all do. But you'll be good enough. Sending love.
Love this piece..it also inspires me to write something along the same vein. Guaranteed it'll be awhile before your daughter realizes what she has in you: a kind shepherd. One who is watchful, gentle and kind; one who protects the vulnerable within his circle. She is blessed.