“Walk, Hebert!”
I can hear the school bus driver all the way from our front door. Each morning it’s the same. The boy has one speed: SPRINT!
With his arms extended in a spazzed-out Frankenstein chase, his tiny legs whoosh beneath his five-year-old, race-car, T-Rex frame with hysterical fury as they bullet him down the twenty-four front steps, rocket past the empty lot where every so often the huge bull moose likes to hide out — quick glance — check for the moose — okay to go! — zip across our sloped circle, WAIT! … hold for the bus to finish pulling up … wait … wait … THREE-TWO-ONE! BLAST! to the opposite side of the street, vault inside the door, dart up the steps, and crash-land into the seat behind the driver.
The whole way there, Hebert’s backpack flops and hurtles, dizzier than a string of firecrackers on Chinese New Year as it clutches frantically to his bouncing shoulders. I laugh seeing that scrambled thing barely cling to life. It’s like watching a championship rodeo on fast-forward. My son is the cow.
I’m guessing that the flashing hazard beacons, the extended-out STOP sign, the open-window instructions from the driver – they’re all just spurs in Hebert’s flanks. They’re tests of his racing powers, tricks to see if he’ll fall to their temptations, but he always defeats them unflinchingly. No lame blinky lights are going to throw the magnificent speed machine from its victory circuit. He’s unstoppable.
Cheyenne has been driving the kids to elementary school since we moved here a couple of years ago. Before I met her in person, I knew she was wonderful, because she opens her window in the freezing dead of winter, when it’s still too early for even the sun to be awake, and coaches my son to walk across the street so he can learn to be safe around her bus, the bus that she completely loves filling with our kids.
This morning was especially frigid as the kids left the house. I wanted to watch them outside, but the rush of stinging air was too much, so I sandwiched myself between the door and the frame, thinking that in all my squishy insulation, I’d make highly efficient weather stripping with my pajamaed body. That was way too cold, so I stepped back and made a much thinner, appetizer-sized face canapé, but the tighter I squeezed the front door against the winter, the more belligerently it shoved its way inside.
Actually, I really like this temperature. I love it when the snow goes crunchy and the sidewalks crackle with deep-petrified footprints and the air bites the hairs in my nose. But all that needs to stay outside. I was shocked by how clearly the cold thought it could bulldoze its way into my home this morning. By the time the bus pulled near, I had narrowed the door crack to a frozen-eyeball-width breadstick, and I was scoping one kid at a time like a sniper.
(I realize now that I need to close the fireplace damper. That’s what’s making the chill so bold each time I open the door. Good idea. I also know I’m going to forget to do that before I’m done writing this.)
When Hebert came home from Kindergarten at lunchtime, he was totally keyed on this coming Friday.
“Dad, when is going to be my birthday?” (Actually, what he asked about was his “bothday”. He could probably say his R’s just fine, except that he’s picked up Agnes’ speech impediment, and it’s delightful, so I never correct him. I imagine at some point before college I probably should.)
“Four days.”
“Four more sleeps?”
“Yes, four more sleeps.”
“Okay! I’m going to go to bed!”
It was 1:00 in the afternoon.
I adore that little stinkpot. Sometimes the love I feel is so intense that it physically strains my body. My heart races, my ribs ache, my eyes flood, and I have to sit for a minute.
I constantly worry that he will be taken from me, that this little fountain of delight will only be mine for a breath. I constantly worry.
He is so sweet, so loving, so charming, so smart and funny and so full of life – it can only be a matter of time for a soul of such giggling brightness. Earth doesn’t tolerate that much grace for long, I fear. And I have probably already sucked far too much exquisite joy out of being his dad.
I heard once that parents worry about their kids as a safeguard, as a deterrent against the calamities that otherwise inevitably befall them. Maybe these tragedies just want to be acknowledged. Maybe they’re satisfied to be known only in presumption, and as a father, if I give them life in my heart, really think them through and understand and experience even hypothetical grief, perhaps I can convince them to leave my kids uninjured and not wreck my reality. Maybe that will be good enough.
Those poor parents who blithely savor the everyday pleasure of their children without the stain of dread that it will all be gone in the next blink — those people won’t know what hits them when the reckoning arrives. I want to be prepared.
So I involuntarily practice countless scenarios, imagining and reimagining how the loss will come. It will be a car rushing too fast across a street that is too familiar, and he’ll vanish in a heartbeat. Or it will be a rare, incurable syndrome, and I’ll watch his life disintegrate in perverse slow motion. I visualize every detail. I mourn, I collapse, I forgive, I break down, and I move forward.
Jean and I have known families who’ve struggled through these very catastrophes with their little ones. Each time I’ve prayed in gratitude that it was not my child; then the guilt of survival hits, and I start counting the days until it’s my turn.
I have fears for my girls, too, though in different, tortured variations. Maybe some afflicted creature will seek one of them on purpose, traumatizing her with calculated depravity. How will she possibly survive it? What will the anguish be like for her? Couldn’t I take her place? Will this give her strength, or will it hunt her dreams and overshadow all her life?
I hate worrying like this. It’s instinctive, primal. I fight it. I try to dig it out, but it is part of my bedrock, I guess. Always deeper. Always lingering below the happiness. It consumes me sometimes.
Do happiness and fear inexorably coexist? I want to just love the time I have with my family and not torment myself about what tragedies might be headed my way. Is that possible? Do all fathers do this?
I know I should believe that things will work out if I am faithful. I should let go of my fears and have hope in the future and enjoy life.
What is different about faith that makes it stronger than ignorance?
Is it stronger?
I do enjoy life. I know. I keep writing about it.
Fear is a temptation. Right?
I need to minimize it. It’s okay that fear comes, but it doesn’t have to live in my heart. Don’t fret about things that haven’t happened. Take today for what it is, and let tomorrow come tomorrow.
One day, one moment at a time. One tiny step after another.
Enjoy my family. Savor my life. Don’t race through it.
Walk. Don’t run.
And don’t worry.
I’ll keep trying to believe what I constantly tell myself.
(Sure enough, I forgot to close the fireplace damper earlier. I’ll go do that now, unless something else catches me on the way…)