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This visit to the time machine was hard.
A number of years ago, just after our son was born, my parents came to visit and see the new member of the family. My dad wanted to see what we’d made. My wife handed our son to me, and as I put my dad’s grandson into his arms, I could feel how he’d held me when I was that age. I could sense the love, the care, the overwhelming urge to protect this little bundle of life with every fiber of his being – and see he knew that he would not be able to do that, all while he struggled, in that moment, to understand the balance of holding on and letting go.
And then – as if to put that to rest, just as that thought crossed dad’s mind, my son reached up and held onto dad’s finger, the one that still had the scar from the table saw incident a few years earlier.
Michael holding Dad’s hand
And dad loved it, and let his grandson hold his finger at the beginning of his life, long before he taught him what pulling it did (and the giggles that followed)
And my memories flashed on another image tacked up on the scuffed walls of the time machine.
It was a similar situation, 9 years later – as I stood at my dad’s hospital bed, and saw my son again holding my father’s hand…
Dad holding Michael’s hand
Well, actually – they were holding each others hands. In this case, my dad held onto his grandson’s hand one last time.
And I’m glad he had those 9 years – though that last year was so hard.
Tomorrow it’ll have been 16 years that he’s been gone, living on in our memories, in our laughter, in our tears.
And… and I still miss him…
Take care, folks – oh – just a reminder – love the folks you’ve got while you’ve got them.
Two fathers and two sons… A photo from Father’s Day, 1997
I’ve been pondering here for a little bit, and so I’ll just start this story out with the results of the pondering…
See, it (the pondering) got me thinking…
Father’s day’s tomorrow.
I find myself thinking back on and missing my own dad – how for many years he thought he was a failure – and yet, good came out of those things he thought he’d failed at.
See, some years back, I learned how hard it is to be a parent… How much dedication, love, understanding, and determination it takes to love your kids when you’re trying to understand them, and support them when your memories of the world you grew up in “When you were their age” simply do not mesh with the world they’re growing up in.
In being a parent, I’ve been told you can do it like your parents did, do it the opposite of the way they did, or do something new.
I’ve found that there are things we all want to change from our childhoods, but there are also things we want to keep, traditions we want to pass on, and so on, and I’m still learning which ones are which.
I found myself often wanting to give advice to my kids, but then, since this is Father’s day realized how much I’d wanted my dad to listen to me – just to listen, and realized that that was so much more important…
And so, I try to spend my time listening to my kids when they want to talk.
Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard, but all the time, it’s important.
So without writing much more (hah, it’s me… 😉 I’m gonna take you through a little guided tour of fatherhood, and my experiences with it… I just went through this blog – and found myself smiling, laughing, and tearing up just a bit at the stories I’d written over the last few years. See, my Dad left us about 16 years ago. He no longer lives with us on this earth, but lives with us in our memories… That transition, for those of you who’ve not gone through it, is astonishingly hard. Cindy’s dad did the same thing a couple of years ago, and the transition for her, her family, and us, is ongoing. I think that’s the little bit where you find yourself laughing at things they might have said, memories you might have shared, and then crying at the same time because you miss them and can’t share the story the memory brings forth with them.
So the stories are in the links below – each one with a little intro to what it’s about… They’re not in any particular order other than the order I pulled them out of the blog – so they’re kind of in reverse chronological order as they were published, but not much else, so you can skip around and read whichever story without missing anything.
That said, the stories, about being, or having, or losing, a dad:
…I realized early on that keeping a straight face when you’re being a dad is something that comes with time… In this case, I had an adventure in plumbing, and can still hear the laughter of both kids as the problem I was dealing with became painfully obvious (like, it hit me in the face obvious). It still makes me smile, and they got to laugh at their dad (with his permission).
I remember how much I wanted my own dad to listen to me when I was a kid and a young adult. Those moments were few and far between, and as a result, so absolutely precious in my mind. I had a chance to listen to my son once where I so very consciously put my mind on “record” because I knew the story he was about to tell was going to be fun. It actually is the very first story on the blog.
I’ve been asked, more than once, which story is my favorite – and it’s like asking parents which kid is their favorite… They’re all my favorites – for different reasons, but this one, “Hunting for Buried Treasure” keeps bubbling up to the top – because – well, you’ll have to read it… it’s not long, and any more would require a spoiler alert.
I remember how sometimes the dad I saw, (in his role as my dad) and the dad that was (an adult step-son), were two totally different people – I love this story for the sole reason that it showed a side of dad I didn’t know existed at the time, and it was a lot of fun to write.
This next one – just fair warning – it’s got a hankie warning on it for a reason… I think it was the story that started them. It’s called ‘Letting go of the Saddle’ – and if you can imagine teaching your kid (or being taught by your dad) to ride a bike – there’s a moment, a very special moment, that happens. It’s repeated throughout your life in different ways – and you’ll play different characters inside this story throughout your life, sometimes simultaneously. A huge part of this story really felt like it wrote itself and I was just hanging on for the ride. I remember the story changing about 2/3 of the way through, where my role in it changed – and I realized I was letting go of another saddle, but not one I was ready to let go of. It was a very hard story to write… I’ll leave it at that.
There’s the story, I’m sure you’ve heard, of The Prodigal Son. I realized that for there to be a Prodigal Son, there had to be a Prodigal Father, this is the story of the Prodigal Father and me sharing the experience of waiting for our sons to come home.
Many years before I became a dad, I was a newspaper photographer, and had the privilege of watching someone else being a dad, and was able to capture the moment, and the very strong lesson, in a 500th of a second from across a parking lot.
I’ve realized that some stories take seconds to happen, but require months or years of pondering before they’re ready to be written. This one was a little different. It took years to happen, and a couple of hours to write. It involved an F-4 Phantom, a cop, and – well, it made me smile then, and still makes me smile now.
One moment that I shared with my father in law was a simple one… a common occurrence in households around the world, but this one had something special in it. And I miss the gentle soul who was my wife’s dad.
There was a moment, not quite 16 years ago as I write this, that a number of things collided into a storm I was not ready for. A storm of fatherhood, childhood, memories, time machines, time moving forward, time standing still. I remember feeling very much like a little boy in an adult body, and I wasn’t ready to be that much of an adult right then. I remember this story for the cold, both physical and emotional, for the blowing oak leaves, the sound of Taps and a view I’d seen years before and never wanted to see again… If it’s not obvious yet, it has a hankie warning, just so you know.
And for a change of pace, you know the old saying, “Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your kids”? – Yeah, that’s true… There are other things you get from your kids. In this case, we’ve actually got three generations involved in this story… My mom’s reaction to something I did, and my reaction as a dad to something my daughter did – and it was the same reaction…
And then – you realize your kids get older – and you realize that some of the lessons change, and some stay the same, and you realize that God gives you chances to both listen to your kids and to help them out. In this case, again, a situation with my daughter – a couple decades after the above story, a gentle lesson from God, for me, as a dad, on how to be a dad… Occasionally God will present lessons with all the grace of a celestial sledge hammer… This time He used the celestial feather duster (which I appreciated very much)
Some years earlier – the family would go to Michigan for the summer to visit my wife’s side of the family, and in this case, I got to stay home and rat-sit. It was an adventure.
Then there’s the story of bathtime… and a little boy… and his dad. Oh, and giggles… Can’t forget the giggles…
Some years after the above story, Michael and I had a mad, crushing need to leave town and go on a father-son adventure. So we did. We had a fun road trip that involved Mermaids, toast scramblers (the pre-war kind) and the Gates of Mordor…
I learned how important having a hand to hold is – and more importantly, being able to reach up to hold the hand of someone bigger than you..
And how sometimes, not only can you learn a lot from a two year old, but the wisdom that can come from a two year old can be – on multiple levels, completely unadulterated and pure. Oh, and it’s also fun.
And in this story from my dad – I learned a little about man’s inhumanity to man, and how dad learned about it – but also what he did, in his power, to try to combat it, with the realization that some things matter, but an awful lot of things that we think are important actually aren’t.
Another story from dad – this is a long one, but one of my favorites. Started out as a single dusty sentence I remembered from dad, and after two years of research, I got a story out of it. Still makes me smile.
Then comes Opa’s story – from WWI. He’s mom’s dad – and if it weren’t for a piece of Russian shrapnel and some soldiers scavenging for potatoes, you might not be reading this story… Really.
Being a dad means doing a lot of things, and sometimes it means telling a sick munchkin a story. In this case, I made up a story quite literally on the fly. Here’s the story – and the ‘behind the scenes’ of telling it.
It’s about a boy…
And a dragon…
Named Fred.
On evenings when Cindy was off with our daughter, I’d often take Michael for drives, bicycle rides, walks, or combinations of all of them. On one of these we saw something most peculiar in the sky, and I turned my brain on to ‘Record’, and didn’t blink.
Oh… My favorite… Springtime. ‘Nuff Said… Go read it and smile.
And, a story about a boy and… and a borrowed dog named Pongo. Pongo was a good dog, and even though he wasn’t ours, Michael got to ‘borrow’ him on his walk home from school. We haven’t walked down that street in a very long time, in large part because as long as we don’t, in our minds Pongo will still be there.
A lesson I learned from my son, that he didn’t realize he was teaching me… out at Shi Shi beach.
I learned a number of lessons – about shoes, from my daughter – even though she didn’t realize she was teaching me. We were walking to the bus stop, as fast as we could, because as always, we were running late. Michael was tucked into my coat (really) and Lys was walking behind me, looking at my red shoes, and proudly watching her two feet, also clad in much smaller Red Converse High Tops, enter and leave her view with every step. “Look, Papa, I’m two feet behind you! Get it? Two.. Feet.. Behind you?” I smiled, and sure enough, she was… Oh, and we caught the bus that day, and the next, and she – well, there’s more to the story – you can read the rest of it here.
Every now and then – you have a story that’s a lot like “Letting go of the Saddle” – only it’s even clearer… In this case, it was my Opa – and this story has a hankie warning.
And last, but not least, I’ve learned, just like being a mom, once a dad, always a dad… the seasons of life come and go, but you’re always dad, or pop, or papa, or daddy. You hover around being a confidant and an authority figure, between teaching and learning yourself, between laughing with them and crying with them.
Sometimes you spend time on a swingset with your kids, sometimes you spend time in the car with them… Sometimes you agree with them, sometimes not…
But that’s part of life, right?
Oh, and one thing that’s constant…
You always love them.
Always.
I rolled over in bed and my hand landed on a cold pillow.
That’s not right at any time and it woke me up. I looked around to find that the living room light was on.
At 4:00 a.m.
That was definitely not right, and I stumbled out of the bedroom without my glasses to see what was going on. My wife was sitting there in the chair by the window, curtains halfway open. Eyes red. Phone hanging listlessly in her hand.
“Are you okay?”
“My dad went to heaven a little while ago.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry…”
It was a Monday, and the beginning of what one might call a rough week.
I made some coffee, took the day off work, and shortly thereafter, we were using every phone in the house. My wife checked in with family back east, getting details and helping organize things while I made airline reservations and other travel arrangements to get us all there in the next few days. We’d learn much more later, but it turned out he’d passed away in his sleep. It was how he’d said he wanted to go, so amidst the shock, we were glad he’d gotten what he wanted.
We flew back east to help with some of the arrangements, and had a gathering of family and friends who came to celebrate the life of a man loved and cherished by so many. We learned a lot about family, and about how there are times when you pitch in and help even when you don’t know what do do, or how to do it. Friends and long lost family came out of the woodwork, and amidst all the grief and sadness, there was a feeling of simply being blessed by the presence of the people who were there both in body and in spirit.
There were those who listened, those who made sure there was food for all the people who showed up, and those who shared stories that made us both laugh and cry. I don’t remember all their names, but I will remember how they made us feel, and surrounded by family in the middle of chaos, we felt loved.
Soon it was time to pack up and leave where we had all gathered. We turned to put things away only to realize, to our surprise, that much of the work had already been done. Done by willing hands who offered their help when it was needed, expecting nothing in return. We found that things and people had been taken back to the house. Unbidden, they just did it, and the stories, the laughter, and the tears, continued.
My wife would end up staying for several weeks to help out with the myriad of things that needed to be done, but a day or so later, it was time for me to head west again. To do that, we first had to head east about three hours through a massive rainstorm (<–news video of the storm and flooding) to get to the airport in Detroit.
Once again, the wipers were barely enough to keep the windshield clear, and the storm seemed to match physically what we were all going through emotionally. I had to block the emotion out, I’d have time on the plane to think about things. Right then, I just had to deal with driving and paying attention to what I could see of the road.
We got to the airport, I got out, managed to hug my sister-in-law, kiss Cindy goodbye and get under cover without getting too wet where I got through the beloved security lines and then to the gate, where it looked like this:
The storm looked and felt like something we’d been through not much more than a month before, so I looked it up on the radar and found this:
See the deep red dot at the left edge of that orange blob in the middle?
That’s where the worst of the storm was.
It’s also where the airport is.
And where I was.
It seemed fitting.
What’s strange is that right about then I realized something profound in its simplicity:
The reality of the storm we were in couldn’t be changed.
We could only change our reaction to it.
I mean, we could run to stay out of the rain, but we’d still get wet while we were in it.
That realization helped me see the bigger picture of the storm I’d seen through the windshield, out the window at the airport, and on the weather radar coalesce with the storm we were all going through emotionally.
That, also, seemed fitting.
Because of the storm, my wife’s 3 1/2 hour trip back with her sister turned into something closer to 5 1/2 hours. It was raining so hard they had to wait by the side of the road in places because they couldn’t see, much like the people waiting in the last story. I waited with all the others in the airplane at the airport until the worst was over, and finally, we were able to take our place in line and head out.
It took some time, but we finally took off, climbed out of the storm and saw the blue sky again.
Looking back, I got a different perspective on the storm we’d been through, how we’d gone deep into it, been bounced around a good bit, and then, finally, a sense of, if not clarity, then acceptance…
After a long stop in Chicago, we chased the longest sunset I’d ever seen, all the way to Seattle.
I watched it for hours, most of the flight, actually.
…and it got me thinking…
A lot.
See, what I was leaving behind, was rain, a good bit of chaos, and tears…
But I also left behind memories of a quiet, gentle man who taught not only his kids to play baseball, and who made an ice rink in the side yard for hockey because winters were cold enough to freeze it. Come to think of it, that wasn’t just for his kids, but all the kids in the neighborhood.
I left behind memories, stories of when he’d hunted rabbit to keep food on the table, and the stories of the look of satisfaction he had when he’d gotten a deer in the fall. He knew that meant the family would eat well that winter.
I had my own memories – of when I sat chatting with him on the front porch, looking out over his lawn, the bird feeder, and the maple tree he’d planted as a stick, years ago, the same porch we’d sat on side by side when I asked him if I could marry his daughter.
That had been over 25 years ago.
I looked out the window, lost in those thoughts, and then smiled at one more, remembering when he taught me how to pour coffee, and how important it was to pour it *just right*.
Back in the plane, I looked back a bit, and could see the darkness gaining on us.
Eventually we had a glorious sunset in front of us, darkness behind us, but the darkness was faster…
And so it goes with all of us, right? Each one of us has a flight to take, one on which there will be rough weather. And beautiful weather.
And at some point – there will be a sunset that we all must face.
I pondered a bit more as the plane was slowly enveloped in the darkness, and that glorious sunset slipped away, replaced with a gray, unearthly twilight.
Looking back again, I could see the moon casting shadows on the clouds. The darkness had its own beauty. It was easy to look down, but I felt a strong urge to look up, to see what the sky looked like at night from this high up, so I slouched down in my seat as much as I could, turned my own light off above my seat, and as hard as it was in that position, I looked up.
And as our plane descended through the turbulence back to earth, the sunset faded, and I looked up into the dark, dark sky. I realized that the beauty of the fading sunset…
…had been replaced by stars.
It’s been a year now since this story happened, and it’s simmered enough to finally write.
We had an interesting summer last year.
We did a road trip. But, as with anything with us, it wasn’t ordinary.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of ordinary stuff in there – but – well, here, I’ll explain a bit as we go, k? You hop in the back seat, right next to the ice chest, kick the sandy shoes and the McDonald’s bag out of the way so you have some leg room, say hi to Michael, he’s back there, too, and come along for the ride – oh, sorry – no cup holders in the back seat.
There are so many stories to tell here – some of them are behind us – in fact, here – fold the map up and crack the window a bit while I get you caught up. We’re heading west, with no turns for 2000 miles… We won’t need the map for a few days.
So we were headed back to my wife’s home state of Michigan to celebrate – lots of things…
An anniversary…
A wedding…
A graduation…
…it’s the stuff life is made out of, right?
Life had been a bit challenging leading up to the trip – lots of things…
A ton of overtime at work…
Lots of organizing things for the trip…
Lots of – well…
…it’s also the stuff life is made out of, right?
And so while we were looking forward to some fun times, life, as you well know, occasionally has other ideas. And in this case, there was a trip to an emergency room, a hospital stay, a resulting unexpected trip to a laundromat, where some prayers were answered, where we bought the cop car we’re driving west in, and – yeah, a lot of things… things that you just don’t expect when you’re going to visit family for an anniversary, a wedding, and a graduation.
But they were there…
It’s…
…it’s the stuff life is made out of, right?
But things were a bit stressful, wondering if it was okay to leave, but we were told things would be okay, and so the time came to leave, we said our goodbyes, and tried not to cry – because as you know, there’s always a chance that the last time you see someone will indeed be the last time you see someone, and the last words you say to someone will indeed be the last words…
And you realize, as you leave, that you want to hold on to them for just a little longer…
You want to soak up their presence, their essence, and you want to just be with them for a little bit longer.
You don’t *know* that something bad is going to happen, but the visits are rare, and you have to save up for them, so that thought isn’t just in the back of your mind, it’s actually in front of that.
And so you hug them, put on a brave face, and try to remember everything you learned from them.
So you not only hug them, but you hold on to them as long as you can, and –
– hang on a bit – it looks like a rainstorm ahead…
And yes indeed – it is a rainstorm.
In fact – it’s raining so hard I can barely see – wow this came on suddenly – unexpectedly… Should I have seen this coming? This is not a road I’m familiar traveling, but stopping isn’t an option.
I look in the rear view mirror and see a Semi truck barreling down on me. I’ve slowed down to 35 mph and still it doesn’t seem slow enough… the wipers are flipping rain as hard as they can. The car suddenly shudders violently in the turbulence as the truck blasts by. The wipers won’t go any faster, and the only car I can see, and that just barely, is the one in front of me…
I can’t follow too closely, because there won’t be time to react if that driver has to stop suddenly. There was a gentle curve to the left starting just as we hit the rainstorm, so I need to stay with that driver – to be close enough to see his taillights to help guide me, but far enough away to be safe. I know I’ll have to let go, so to speak, of that driver, sooner or later, but for now, I have to hang on.
About this time, trying to imagine explaining this later, I ask Michael to take a picture, and he does.
The wipers are on full, and if you look closely, you can barely see the one taillight of that car just about dead center in the picture. The one I have to stay close enough to to see, but not so close that I crash into them.
I can’t believe how hard it’s raining, or that it’s even possible for it to rain harder.
But it does. It rains harder, I can barely see past the hood, much less the sides of the road.
We have to slow down even more.
I want to say “I can’t believe it” – but believing it – or not, is irrelevant… it’s staring me in the face. The deluge on the other side of the windshield just is, and has to be dealt with.
Now.
Whether I believe it or not.
Whether I’m capable of believing it or not.
Other drivers have seen a cable guardrail on the side of the road and have decided that slowing down isn’t enough. They had actually stopped on the shoulder, knowing they couldn’t drive any farther, simply because they couldn’t see.
I think about it – but a quick look in the rear view mirror shows the dark silhouette of another truck coming up behind me in the fast lane. He’s doing maybe twice my speed and I realize that I’d never be able to get out of the way fast enough if he were in my lane, much less drifting off to the shoulder full of parked cars.
I glance up and see that his cab is just above the spray from all the cars. That’s why he can drive faster – he can see, but all of us down here are in the middle of the spray, and we can’t see very well, so we drive slowly… and safely. We crawl past the line of cars and see an exit, which we take.
The exit to Jamestown, ND, as seen from Google Earth, taken on a much dryer day
It loops around 180 degrees to the right, we make a left turn off it, and find a truck stop that says, in large letters, “CAFÉ”. There’s a parking space right in front of the door, so I pull in and just sit there for a bit.
My foot’s still on the brake, and I’m surprised to find I have to slowly peel my fingers off the steering wheel. One at a time. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding on so tight – but I had been. I had to so I could stay in control, in case – I can’t allow myself to think of the alternative.
Our ears re-adjust to the sounds in the car now that it’s stopped. The engine’s off, there’s no sound of tires on wet pavement or frantic wipers on wet glass. The only sound now is the rain, roaring down on the roof so loud we have to talk loud to be heard over it.
We wait in the car for a bit, wipers finally off, wondering if the rain will let up…
And it’s not letting up, so if we’re going to get inside, we’re going get wet, plain and simple, so taking a deep breath, we jump out, lock the car and run for the door.
We stomp our shoes dry in the foyer and find others have had the same idea, that stopping and waiting for the weather to clear is just smart. There’s a crowd of people congregated around the bathrooms to the right and I hear two women talking, one surprised to see the other’s there. “Oh, I wasn’t expecting to be here, but there’s an accident blocking the westbound lanes at the next exit a mile or so further up, so I came this way.”
Those westbound lanes were the lanes we’d been traveling on.
With the storm, I wouldn’t have been able to see an accident if we’d come up on it.
Waiting my turn, and still trying to come to grips with what had happened, I pull out my phone and look up the local weather radar – I’d never seen anything like this, and from that radar image, it’s clear why it felt so sudden, because quite frankly, it was. It had been cloudy, but no rain, or even a sign of rain, until we came up over a rise just outside of Jamestown. We could see rain up ahead, but there wasn’t any hint of what was to come. Since we could barely see past the hood of the car, trying to figure out how big this storm is would take something else, so I check the scale on the radar map and find the towns of Steele (on the left) and Casselton (on the right) are about 130 miles apart. That means the storm we’re in is about that big north to south, and the part we were driving through east to west was maybe 15 miles of total blindness. It would have been driving by braille, feeling our way along.
Yeah, it was worth stopping.
We go back to the café part of the place and sit down in a booth where the vegetable beef soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, and diner coffee sounds about as good as anything could sound on a day where the water in the air is so thick you can’t see through it.
…and it got me thinking…
The whole trip had been full of so many things.
Some were wonderful. (Put going to Mackinac Island on your bucket list, really)
Some were calmly pleasant. (Sitting on the front porch, quietly chatting with my father in law, the one who taught me how to pour coffee).
And some – like all goodbyes, were hard.
I remembered holding on through our goodbyes as we left, and how much that was like holding on to that car up ahead in the rainstorm, the one I’d seen so clearly until the rains fell. I tried to hold onto it – to stay close to it, so that I wouldn’t lose it.
But I couldn’t get too close.
Right?
Too close and I’d run the risk of running into him. Too far, too early, and I could lose my way entirely and crash myself.
I had to stay with them as long as I could, until I could see well enough to get along on my own, and only then let him go.
And I thought more about that, sitting there in that café, with my family, as we ate our soup and sandwiches…
We have to let go of the generation in front of us, right?
At some point in everyone’s life, there will come a storm.
It will be hard to see.
It may come on suddenly, like a tornado.
It may come slowly, like a hurricane.
You will find yourself trying desperately to hold on to the generation that’s always been in front of you.
Leading the way.
Lighting the way.
And you’ll realize that there will be people around you – for whom this storm matters not.
Like the first truck that drenched us with spray.
There will be things that shake you.
Like that second truck that so shook the car.
And you will find that there will be situations where people simply can’t see as well as you can.
And for a moment, they’ll stop.
They know their limits, and they’ve pulled over.
They’ll move again when the road is clearer, when the storm has passed enough for them to see clearly enough to move on.
At some point, that storm will pass enough for you try to make it on home, too.
You’ll have taken a break to think of these things and to strengthen yourself with family, and maybe with the emotional equivalent of vegetable beef soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, and diner coffee, but when you get back on the road to move on, the car in front of you, the one you depended on and simultaneously took for granted, will not be there.
All that you have of that car, the guidance, the wisdom, the acceptance is what you learned from it before and during the storm…
While the person who was ahead of you in the car, and in life, will be gone, those memories you were able to bring from their life into yours will live on.
All of what you were able to bring into your life, you’ll be able to keep with you.
That which you didn’t is gone forever.
Be safe out there, folks.
Hug the friends and family you have while you have them. You never know when the storm will come.
And you don’t know when it will be your turn to be the driver up front.
We’ve learned a lot of hard lessons over the last couple of years. Life has been busy, and I needed a place to be alone with my thoughts. A lot of people, family and friends, had left our lives in that time, to live on in our memories, and fall brings memories, and “firsts” that are bittersweet and often painful.
The weather was nice the other day, so I went out to Golden Gardens where I often go to watch the sunset.
I walked toward the water, past the sand and onto the rocky part, just watching and listening. A train had gone by a little earlier, and its fading rumble mixed with a ship’s horn…
…and the swish of waves rolling over the rocks on the beach.
I wandered for awhile, and one of the rocks caught my eye, and I picked it up…
…and saw the impression it had left behind in the sand in the beach, shaped just like itself.
And I realized that each person in my life, in your life, occupies a space only they can fill. Some people exist in your life in a very specific time and place, with very clear borders, a lot like a rock on the beach.
They leave your life in whatever way they leave…
…but the hole they leave is quietly filled up over time, like the sand on the beach.
I pondered this as I watched the waves a little more.
And realized that only after some people leave your life – that you realize they weren’t a rock on the beach.
They were the rock that held the beach up.
And nothing is ever the same.
I stepped into the time machine again the other day.
It’s taken many shapes over the years… Sometimes a cardboard box of photos, sometimes a garage full of old stuff that’s in that strange stage between being treasure and being junk, sometimes an old car full of memories.
In this case, it was a train… and a plane… and a mountain…
…all in the shape of an old swing set.
It was old when we got it almost 20 years ago from a family that was moving out of state and couldn’t take it with them. I remember seeing it and thinking it was just the kind of swing set I’d drooled over years ago in the old Sears catalog when I was a kid. My dad was in the Air Force at the time, and we moved around too much to be able to have our own swing set, and this time, even though it was used, the little boy inside me was just thrilled for my own kids, that they’d be able to have the kind I’d always wanted – down to the paint and everything.
And you know what? The kids loved it.
I learned to pull the kids by their feet on the swing from the front, not push them from the back – that way I could see their faces, tickle their feet, and laugh with them as they swung toward me. I never understood the idea of pushing them from the back, pulling them from the front was just so much more fun.
We moved, and took the swing set with us to what we called “the brick house” – where the back yard was barely big enough to take it, and you ended up with your butt in the hedge when swinging all the way back, the only thing visible being your arms and maybe your feet.
And we moved again, this time to a house with a back yard big enough to hold the entire swing set and have plenty of room to swing, and slide, and play.
I spent some time on that ‘glider’ swing with my son – where one adult and one kid (or four kids) could sit and pretend they’re on a train, in a hot air balloon, or on an adventure of some kind. For us it was mostly the train, and we swung back and forth as we traveled through magical kingdoms and faraway lands, with bridges crossing beautiful valleys, and tunnels darkly going through tall mountains.
There were times that the train also ended up traveling through tall jungles…
(that had to do with where I was working, and the length of the commute),
…because I had to hack and slash a path back to the swing set in late spring when I had the time to spend an entire weekend taming the jungle that had been a lawn at one time.
We’d tied a rope from the swing set to the tree house we’d made in the apple tree, and put a pulley with a handle onto it. That pulley became the quickest way to escape from the apple tree (just in case there were monsters attacking that needed escaping from).
And as time went on, the swing set was played on by many children, mowed around every couple of weeks in the summer, and it was a place where the imagination, and children, could soar.
One morning awhile back, I went out there again, and things looked different. The grass was still worn underneath, but it was something else that caught my eye.
It was obvious that the swing set had current visitors, but the laughter of small children on it was still. The chains had rusted, and instead of children going on magical journeys, there were spiders.
And there was a web.
And it got me thinking…
We have our children for a very short time.
I’ve learned the hours and minutes can feel like they’re dragging on (remember the last time you were in an emergency room with your kid?) – but the months and years fly by like the smoke from a blown out birthday candle.
I remembered when I was a kid, desperately wanting to grow up because adults always had all the answers, and adults knew everything, especially mom and dad. As I grew older, I realized that I didn’t have all the answers and in all honesty, neither did they.
In fact, I found myself repeating that one especially as I learned (from my own kids) that there were questions I’d never thought of, and it’s impossible to have all the answers for your kids, especially when you’re still looking for them for yourself.
I stood there, in the morning sunshine, watching the spider weaving her web, and came to the realization that I was in the middle of a transition. My mind stumbled across it all. Among the myriad of things that had happened this year, our daughter had gotten married, and both she and her new husband were doing amazing work at their respective companies. Our son, heading off to college this fall, had started a small shop selling chainmail jewelry, which he would often make while singing along with John Rawnsley’s wonderful version of The Barber of Seville (he’d graduated from the Bugs Bunny version that I found myself humming…)
And then, while the last of the strains of Figaro (the barber) were still echoing in my mind, I thought of the lessons I’d taught them, both consciously and unconsciously. For good or for bad, I’ve learned some of the most powerful lessons that stick are the ones we don’t realize we’re teaching them, and we often only realize years later. I thought of the conversations I’d had with both of them over their lives, and I pondered a moment at how much both the kids and the conversations had changed. Both of them were in various stages of putting away their childish things (we know, because most of them are still in the basement 🙂 ) and are well on their way to thinking and acting like the adults they are becoming instead of the children they had been.
They’re growing up…
…
I gave the swing just enough of a push to make the spider a little woozy and watched as it swung back and forth a few times.
It brought a smile, a tear, more than just a little gratitude at the blessings I had experienced with them, because of them.
I stood there a little longer…
Thinking…
Pondering…
Remembering…
A lifetime of memories floated by as the swing swung a little slower each time, creaking a little less with every one…
The years, unlike the swing, seem to go by more quickly each time, creaking a little more with every one.
I pondered a little more… reflecting, and then suddenly became conscious not only of the years, but of the minutes, and realized that time never stood still. It was still passing. I stole a look at my watch and realized it was time to leave for work, so I turned, took a deep breath, wiped my eyes, and like the kids, left the swing set and the memories behind to start a new day.
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