That night I first called my dad in Rochester to say Merry Christmas. He sounded down and despondent. Then, I called my mother in Iowa. She was sad and morose. “This is the first time your father and I have ever spent the holidays apart,” she lamented. “It’s just not Christmas without him.”
I had 14 dinner guests arriving, all ready for a festive evening. I returned to cooking, but not being able to get my parents’ dilemma fully off my mind, I called my older sister. She called my brothers. We conferenced by phone. It was settled. Determined that our parents should not be without each other on Christmas Eve, my younger brother would drive the two hours to Rochester to pick up my father and bring him home without telling my mother. I called my father to tell him of the plans. “Oh, no,” he said, “it’s far too dangerous to come out on a night like this.” My brother arrived in Rochester and knocked at my father’s hotel door. He called me from Dad’s room to tell me he wouldn’t go. “You have to tell him, Bobbie. You’re the only one he’ll listen to.”
“Go, Dad,” I said gently.
He did. Tim and my dad started for Iowa. We kids kept track of their progress, the journey and the weather by talking with them on my brother’s car phone. By now, all my guests had arrived and all were a part of this undertaking. Whenever the phone rang, we put it on the speakerphone so we could hear the latest! It was just past 9:00 when the phone rang and it was Dad on the car phone, “Bobbie, how can I possibly go home without a gift for your mom? It would be the first time in nearly 50 years I didn’t get her perfume for Christmas!” By now my entire dinner party was engineering this plan. We called my sister to get the names of nearby open shopping centers so they could stop for the only gift my dad would consider giving Mom — the same brand of perfume he has given her every year at Christmas.
At 9:52 that evening, my brother and my dad left a little shopping mall in Minnesota for the trip home. At 11:50 they drove into the farmstead. My father, acting like a giggling schoolboy, stepped around the corner of the house and stood out of sight.
“Mom, I visited Dad today and he said to bring you his laundry,” my brother said as he handed my mom the suitcases.
“Oh,” she said softly and sadly, “I miss him so much, I might as well do these now.”
Said my father coming out from hiding, “You won’t have time to do them tonight.”
After my brother called me to relay this touching scene between our parents — these two friends and lovers — I phoned my mother. “Merry Christmas, Mother!”
“Oh, you kids...” she said in a cracking voice, choking back tears. She was unable to continue. My guests cheered. Though I was 2,000 miles away from them, it was one of the most special Christmases I’ve shared with my parents. And, of course, to date my parents have not been apart on Christmas Eve. That’s the strength of children who love and honor their parents and, of course, the committed and marvelous marriage my parents share.
“Good parents,” Jonas Salk once told me, “give their children roots and wings. Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away and exercise what’s been taught them.” If gaining the skills to lead one’s life purposefully and having a safe nest and being welcomed back to it is the legacy of parents, then I believe I chose my parents well. It was this past Christmas that I most fully understood why it was necessary that these two people be my parents. Though wings have taken me around the globe, eventually to nest in lovely California, the roots my parents gave me will be an indelible foundation forever.
~Bettie B. Youngs
The Animal School
You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note.
~Doug Floyd
Once upon a time, the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of “a new world.” So they organized a school.
They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.
The duck was excellent in swimming, in fact better than his instructor, but he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school, so nobody worried about that except the duck.
The rabbit started at the top of the class in running, but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming.
The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. He also developed a “charlie horse” from overexertion and then got a C in climbing and a D in running.
The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class he beat all the others to the top of the tree, but insisted on using his own way to get there.
At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceedingly well, and also run, climb and fly a little, had the highest average and was valedictorian.
The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school.
Does this fable have a moral?
~George H. Reavis
Touched
A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again.
~Enid Bagnold
She is my daughter and is immersed in the turbulence of her 16th year. Following a recent bout with illness, she learned her best friend would soon be moving away. School was not going as well as she had hoped, nor as well as her mother and I had hoped. She exuded sadness through a muffle of blankets as she huddled in bed, searching for comfort. I wanted to reach out to her and wrench away all the miseries that had taken root in her young spirit. Yet, even aware of how much I cared for her and wanted to remove her unhappiness, I knew the importance of proceeding with caution.
As a family therapist I’ve been well educated about inappropriate expressions of intimacy between fathers and daughters, primarily by clients whose lives have been torn apart by sexual abuse. I’m also aware of how easily care and closeness can be sexualized, especially by men who find the emotional field foreign territory and who mistake any expression of affection for sexual invitation. How much easier it was to hold and comfort her when she was two or three or even seven. But now her body, our society and my manhood all seemed to conspire against my comforting my daughter. How could I console her while still respecting the necessary boundaries between a father and a teenage daughter? I settled for offering her a back rub. She consented.
I gently massaged her bony back and knotted shoulders as I apologized for my recent absence. I explained that I had just returned from the international back-rubbing finals, where I had placed fourth. I assured her that it’s hard to beat the back rub of a concerned father, especially if he’s a world-class back-rubbing concerned father. I told her all about the contest and the other contestants as my hands and fingers sought to loosen tightened muscles and unlock the tensions in her young life.
I told her about the shrunken antique Asian man who had placed third in the contest. After studying acupuncture and acupressure his entire life, he could focus all his energy into his fingers, elevating back rubbing to an art. “He poked and prodded with prestidigitatious precision,” I explained, showing my daughter a sample of what I’d learned from the old man. She groaned, though I wasn’t sure whether in response to my alliteration or my touch. Then I told her about the woman who had placed second. She was from Turkey and since her childhood had practiced the art of belly dancing, so she could make muscles move and ripple in fluid motion. With her back rub, her fingers awakened in tired muscles and weary bodies an urge to vibrate and quiver and dance. “She let
her fingers do the walking and the muscles tagged along,” I said, demonstrating.
“That’s weird,” emanated faintly from a face muffled by a pillow. Was it my one-liner or my touch?
Then I just rubbed my daughter’s back and we settled into silence. After a time she asked, “So who got first place?”
“You’d never believe it!” I said. “It was a baby!” And I explained how the soft, trusting touches of an infant exploring a world of skin and smells and tastes was like no other touch in the world. Softer than soft. Unpredictable, gentle, searching. Tiny hands saying more than words could ever express. About belonging. About trust. About innocent love. And then I gently and softly touched her as I had learned from the infant. I recalled vividly her own infancy — holding her, rocking her, watching her grope and grow into her world. I realized that she, in fact, was the infant who had taught me about the touch of the infant.
After another period of gentle back rubbing and silence, I said I was glad to have learned so much from the world’s expert back rubbers. I explained how I had become an even better back rubber for a 16-year-old daughter painfully stretching herself into adult shape. I offered a silent prayer of thanks that such life had been placed in my hands and that I was blessed with the miracle of touching even a part of it.
~Victor Nelson
I Love You, Son
Kids spell love T-I-M-E.
~John Crudele
Thoughts while driving my son to school: Morning, Kid. You look pretty sharp in your Cub Scout gear, not as fat as your old man when he was a Cub. I don’t think my hair was ever as long until I went away to college, but I think I’d recognize you anyway by what you are: a little shaggy around the ears, scuffed around the toes, wrinkled in the knees. We get used to one another.
Now that you’re eight I notice I don’t see a whole lot of you anymore. On Columbus Day you left at nine in the morning. I saw you for 42 seconds at lunch and you reappeared for supper at five. I miss you, but I know you’ve got serious business to take care of. Certainly as serious as, if not more important than, the things the other commuters on the road are doing.
You’ve got to grow up and out and that’s more important than clipping coupons, arranging stock options or selling people short. You’ve got to learn what you are able to do and what you aren’t — and you’ve got to learn how to deal with that. You’ve got to learn about people and how they behave when they don’t feel good about themselves — like the bullies who hang out at the bike rack and hassle the smaller kids. Yeah, you’ll even have to learn how to pretend that name-calling doesn’t hurt. It’ll always hurt, but you’ll have to put up a front or they’ll call you worse names next time. I only hope you remember how it feels — in case you ever decide to rank a kid who’s smaller than you.
When was the last time I told you I was proud of you? I guess if I can’t remember, I’ve got work to do. I remember the last time I yelled at you — told you we’d be late if you didn’t hurry — but, on balance, as Nixon used to say, I haven’t given you as many pats as yells. For the record, in case you read this, I am proud of you. I especially like your independence, the way you take care of yourself even when it frightens me just a little bit. You’ve never been much of a whiner and that makes you a superior kid in my book.
Why is it that fathers are so slow to realize that eight-year-olds need as many hugs as four-year-olds? If I don’t watch out, pretty soon I’ll be punching you on the arm and saying, “Whaddaya say, kid?!” instead of hugging you and telling you I love you. Life is too short to hide affection. Why is it that eight-year-olds are so slow to realize that 36-year-olds need as many hugs as four-year-olds?
Did I forget to tell you that I’m proud you went back to a box lunch after one week’s worth of that indigestible hot lunch? I’m glad you value your body.
I wish the drive weren’t so short. I want to talk about last night when your younger brother was asleep and we let you stay up and watch the Yankees game. Those times are so special. There’s no way you can plan them. Every time we try to plan something together, it’s not as good or rich or warm. For a few all-too-short minutes it was as if you’d already grown up and we sat and talked without any words about “How are you doing in school, son?” I’d already checked your math homework the only way I could — with a calculator.
You’re better with numbers than I’ll ever be. So, we talked about the game and you knew more about the players than I did and I learned from you. And we were both happy when the Yankees won.
Well, there’s the crossing guard. He’ll probably outlive all of us. I wish you didn’t have to go to school today. There are so many things I want to say.
Your exit from my car is so quick. I want to savor the moment and you’ve already spotted a couple of your friends.
I just wanted to say “I love you, son.”
~Victor B. Miller
What You Are Is as Important as What You Do
To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.
~Josh Billings
It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in Oklahoma City. My friend and proud father Bobby Lewis was taking his two little boys to play miniature golf. He walked up to the fellow at the ticket counter and said, “How much is it to get in?”
The young man replied, “$3.00 for you and $3.00 for any kid who is older than six. We let them in free if they are six or younger. How old are they?”
Bobby replied, “The lawyer’s three and the doctor is seven, so I guess I owe you $6.00.”
The man at the ticket counter said, “Hey, Mister, did you just win the lottery or something? You could have saved yourself three bucks. You could have told me that the older one was six; I wouldn’t have known the difference.”
Bobby replied, “Yes, that may be true, but the kids would have known the difference.”
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.” In challenging times when ethics are more important than ever before, make sure you set a good example for everyone you work and live with.
~Patricia Fripp
The Perfect American Family
One of the virtues of being very young is that you don’t let the facts get in the way of your imagination.
~Sam Levenson
It is 10:30 on a perfect Saturday morning and we are, for the moment, the perfect American family. My wife has taken our six-year-old to his first piano lesson. Our 14-year-old has not yet roused from his slumber. The four-year-old watches tiny, anthropomorphic beings hurl one another from cliffs in the other room. I sit at the kitchen table reading the newspaper.
Aaron Malachi, the four-year-old, apparently bored by the cartoon carnage and the considerable personal power obtained by holding the television’s remote control, enters my space.
“I’m hungry,” he says.
“Want some more cereal?”
“No.”
“Want some yogurt?”
“No.”
“Want some eggs?”
“No. Can I have some ice cream?”
“No.”
For all I know, ice cream may be far more nourishing than
processed cereal or antibiotic-laden eggs but, according to my cultural values, it is wrong to have ice cream at 10:45 on a Saturday morning.
Silence. About four seconds. “Daddy, we have very much of life left, don’t we?”
“Yes, we have lots of life left, Aaron.”
“Me and you and Mommy?”
“That’s right.”
“And Isaac?”
“Yes.”
“And Ben?”
“Yes. You and me and Mommy and Isaac and Ben.”
“We have very much of life left. Until all the people die.”
“What do you mean?”
“Until all the people die and the dinosaurs come back.”
Aaron sits down on the table, cross-legged like a Buddha, in the center of my newspaper.
/> “What do you mean, Aaron, ‘until all the people die’?”
“You said everybody dies. When everybody dies, then the dinosaurs will come back. The cavemen lived in caves, dinosaur caves. Then the dinosaurs came back and squished ’em.”
I realize that already for Aaron life is a limited economy, a resource with a beginning and an end. He envisions himself and us somewhere along that trajectory, a trajectory that ends in uncertainty and loss.
I am faced with an ethical decision. What should I do now? Should I attempt to give him God, salvation, eternity? Should I toss him some spiel like, “Your body is just a shell and after you die, we will all be together in spirit forever”?
Or should I leave him with his uncertainty and his anxiety because I think it’s real? Should I try to make him an anxious existentialist or should I try to make him feel better?
I don’t know. I stare at the newspaper. The Celtics are consistently losing on Friday nights. Larry Bird is angry at somebody, but I can’t see who, because Aaron’s foot is in the way. I don’t know but my neurotic, addictive, middle-class sensibility is telling me that this is a very important moment, a moment when Aaron’s ways of constructing his world are being formed. Or maybe my neurotic, addictive, middle-class sensibility is just making me think that. If life and death are an illusion, then why should I trifle with how someone else understands them?
On the table Aaron plays with an “army guy,” raising his arms and balancing him on his shaky legs. It was Kevin McHale that Larry Bird was angry at. No, not Kevin McHale, it was Jerry Sichting. But Jerry Sichting is no longer with the Celtics. Whatever happened to Jerry Sichting? Everything dies; everything comes to an end. Jerry Sichting is playing for Sacramento or Orlando or he has disappeared.
Chicken Soup for the Soul: All Your Favorite Original Stories Page 11
