Category: family life

a girl draws a picture

January 17th, 2015

He’s angry at work because customer orders are going late again and again.

She’s mad because the waitress brought her a fork instead of a spoon.

Every moment, the scale moves to and fro. Negativity. Positivity. Evil and good. An unbearable state of grey. And every day we move closer to the grave. That big, secret ending working its way toward us with each step we do or do not take.

None of us get out alive. That’s what the cynics say. The realists. The smart, sometimes condescending people that don’t need faith or love or God or hope—not anything at all—because they’ve got it all figured out. Everyone is stupid. Plain and simple. Easy to wrap it up nice and tidy and forget that where we’ve come from and where we’re going is magical. Something only kids seem to understand.

As I write this, my daughter appears. She’s made me a drawing.

To dad fum Oogie, it says.

There is a sun at the bottom of the page and a sun at the top. There is a flower growing out of the sky and a flower growing out of the ground. In the middle of the page is a giant, smiling frog.

For about fifteen minutes tonight, my little girl sat on her bed thinking of nothing else but making something nice for someone else. Her dad.

What did I do for even five minutes today that made that much difference in the world?

What did you do?

It’s hard to believe that a dead baby was found in a dumpster today.

That there was a double-homicide just fifteen miles away.

That a man climbed a giant TV tower to freefall through the sky only to discover his parachute wouldn’t open.

It is chaos, not God, they’ll say. All randomness and nothingness and science and facts and proof and theories and psychology and whatever else they can come up with to make themselves feel like that’ve got a handle on life. That they’re in control.

And tomorrow, they’ll be angry again.

Frustrated because equipment was delivered to the wrong dock.

Disgusted because the cashier at the counter was chewing gum.

But the magic will continue. As it always does. In mysterious ways.

A girl will paint a picture. A boy will share his lunch. Children will keep trying, again and again, to overcome the bad, the evil, the negativity with nothing but innocence and good.

~ K.J.
actions speak louder than words

January 17th, 2015

When I was a kid, just seven or eight, and it was bitter cold like this—the wind killing our cheeks, icing our eyes, and easing through even the most solid surfaces of our double wide—I woke every morning to the sound of Dad crumpling and rolling newspapers to light a fire two hours before the rest of us were up so that when we finally got out of our warm beds we wouldn’t be shocked by the cold.

After he lit the fire, he’d pack his lunch. I’d hear the delicate clink of a knife against the butter dish. The cap of the horseradish jar coming off, a spoon rattling around the glass, then the cap screwed back on. The clunk of the lunch meat drawer in the fridge. The rattle of a paper sack. Then the long pour of coffee into his tall gray thermos.

After he scribbled notes for all of us—mine was typically a list of chores: KJ, empty the ash drawer, feed and water the dogs, bring in kindling, bring in firewood, straighten your bed, and shovel the porch—he cranked the old Chevy Nova to life, scraped the windows, then roared away to Besser Company. The place he’ll go to tonight. Forty-three years later. To work a midnight shift.

It’s hard to find loyalty like that today.

And hard hands.

And a strong back.

And shoulders like iron from caring for a wife, three sons, and carrying loads and loads of silence—the heaviest thing a man will ever handle. Because good advice is given quietly and without judgment even when you see your sons making the same mistakes you made over and over and over again.

They don’t make men like Dad anymore, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try. So tonight, I showed my boy the art of crumpling and rolling newspapers to start a fire. The importance of proper spacing between kindling and logs, and that sometimes to keep a fire going it just takes time. And as my son ate his apple sauce and watched my every move, I remembered to say nothing because actions speak louder than words.

(Here’s to May 2015, Dad…retirement is soon.)
sometimes things need to be just so before you move on

January 17th, 2015

I want to write about the bitter cold and how pretty the snow looks over everything. I want to write about the twenty-three brown apples hanging from the tree in our backyard and how my five-year-old daughter noticed them.

“There are more apples that won’t let go than there were last year,” she said to me as I mixed together chopped pickles, mayo, garlic powder, salt and pepper, and tuna for sandwiches.

“I know, buddy. Last year there were eleven. The year before that nine. Now, there’s twenty-three.”

“Why are so many hanging on?”

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“I bet it’s because they don’t want to die,” she said. And she ran away down the hallway to play cops and robbers with her brother. Something they started doing over Christmas break that really has a hold on them and has surprisingly brought them closer together.

I spent a long time mixing together the ingredients for my lunch. My wife thinks I’m crazy with many things and one of them is the amount of time I put into the preparation of food. Whatever I make—breakfast, a simple sandwich, dinner, or even BBQ—I have to start early because the process is like a ritual to me. Sometimes things need to be just so before you can move on.

Maybe that’s what the apples are waiting for.

Maybe my daughter needed that break in her day—looking out the big kitchen window when she was supposed to be arresting her brother for burglary. And maybe I needed her. To stop and remind me that time is running out and that there’s nothing we can do, but hang on and hope, even after the last bit of sunshine is gone, the nutrients are no longer working their way up the roots toward us, and all we can do is wait it out—the bitter, wintry cold that is inevitable and keeps coming, working us toward the end by way of snowdrifts that sparkle like diamonds, lopsided snowmen with crooked smiles, and a soft white blanket that covers the world.

(for B.K.: enjoy the otherside, big guy…we’ll miss you)
his boy takes a perfect swing at a piñata

January 17th, 2015

My son is eight, but looking like he’s twelve. He’s grown four inches since April. He is lean and strong and already getting too old for things like piñatas at holiday parties. Last night, my wife and I watched as he lined up with the other kids—there must have been ten of them—and he took his turn swinging a wiffle ball bat at a Minion from Despicable Me that none of the other kids could crack. He was not the oldest or the biggest. He does not play baseball, but has a natural feel for all things athletic, so when he gripped that bat like Ty Cobb it took some parents by surprise. With two swats he freed the treats locked inside and for forty-five seconds, as the other kids crawled around on the garage floor snatching candy up and putting it in paper bags, my boy was King.

These are the things I remember. The moments I want to bottle, save, and sip during later days when S.B. and I have the house to ourselves, more padding in the nest, and we’re living a life without kids. I will be writing. She’ll be painting. We’ll travel, socialize, be active in the community, but nothing will replace being Mom and Dad. And even though the path of parenthood is not lined with accolades, roses, and opportunities for rest, I’ll miss it.

I will stand at the big front window one Christmas Day waiting in silent excitement because he and his wife and kids are coming home for the holidays. It will have been months since I’ve seen him, hugged him, heard him say, “Dad.” And the wait will almost be too much. I’ll pour wine or mix myself a drink and pace the long living room keeping my ear tuned to the quiet street so as soon as I hear tires crunching snow in the driveway and car doors slamming, I’ll shout to S.B., “They’re here!” And as he walks up the steps onto the porch I’ll remember.

Pushing him on the swings, teaching him how to move his little arms and feet. Back-and-forth. Back-and-forth. So he knew what it was like to be free. Just a boy in the world in mid-air. Smiling.

Training wheels off and holding the back of his bicycle seat as we travelled up and down the sidewalk in the hot sun. Sweat pouring out of me. Running and running alongside of him as he tried again and again to master the art of balancing on two wheels.

My unstoppable smile as I watched him cast and reel at the break wall of the boat harbor. His practice making perfect as the sun set and bass surfaced and he threw lures with confidence and accuracy and told me he never wanted to go home, that he wanted to just be there with me. Fishing.

The shot of warmth deep in my gut after he spent two hours trick or treating in blowing snow and cold only to come home, turn on our front porch light, and pass the candy he earned out to kids still brave enough to be making the rounds that night.

Every day, little surprises. Hope and faith. A building up of belief in the midst of all the hard work of raising a son in a world that I know will not be as kind to him as he deserves. And when it’s all said and done and he has gone off into the world to succeed and fail and do all those things I’ve done, as selfish as it seems, I just want him to remember me as his Dad. The guy sitting in a metal folding chair at the back of the crowd getting a little teary-eyed—filled with joy—as his boy takes a perfect swing at a piñata.

~ K.J.

Category: family life

a girl draws a picture

actions speak louder than words

sometimes things need to be just so before you move on

his boy takes a perfect swing at a piñata