We were in Utah recently hanging out with some old friends
from my college improv troupe. It was
Father’s Day and many of us, in the intervening 6 to 8 years since we’d seen
each other, had gotten married and become fathers and mothers. It was cool to
look around and see so many friends had moved on with their lives in good ways.
Life can go lots of ways. The reunion
could have taken place at a methodone clinic.
But I made a joke (it’s a comedy troupe, there’s lots of
those) about how many of us will actually be able to call our fathers on
Father’s Day. I made the joke because I
knew the particular parental makeup of the group meeting there. Out of the six male members at this dinner,
four had fathers who were dead, one estranged, and only one had a father that
was living and involved in his life.
What a freak, right?
I kind of hate Father’s Day.
I always have. It’s been a
complicated road for me and my siblings in the father department and I’m not
really going to launch into that here.
We had a great mother and our Heavenly Father picked up a lot of slack
where earthly fathers should have been.
My grandfather was a saint and played Dad when he mostly just wanted to
be a grandfather. And my Mom’s brother, Uncle John, pitched in, too. This is not a “Oh, woe is me” post. It’s an intro to my new job as Dad.
It’s a lie to say I’m treading untrod territory. I know what a good dad is. I’ve seen Cliff Huxtable in action. But it feels strange/disconnected sometimes
to do “dad things” for Edie. I have very
little memory of “dad things” to emulate.
Sometimes it feels like I imitate things I think dads do. It’s like I’m checking off a list.
CHECKLIST OF DAD THINGS THAT DADS MUST DO
Dads swing kids in swings.
Check.
Dads throw kids in the air.
Check.
Dads give shoulder rides.
Check.
Dads play sports with kids.
Gag me.
Dads let kids play in puddles. Double
check.
Dads say “It’s okay” to kids when they fall. Check.
And I like doing these things. I like playing cliché Dad and finding real
Dad moments through it. I can’t over
analyze everything. There’s too much
life going on. But sometimes I wonder
what my gauge is. Like my improv friends
who had fathers that died, it’s a strange thing to realize you only have your
shadow to measure against. Or I guess
the idea of a shadow is all you have.
I remember looking in the mirror the first time I was going
to shave and realizing I was terrified.
I could cut my face into hamburger. Why was there no one to teach me? Who let me have this tiny knife? Why was I being trusted with this responsibility?
Maybe my teenage rat mustache could be burned off? Ultimately, I came through mostly unnicked.
As much I say I don’t care, I do wonder if I’m just
suppressing a desire to look over my shoulder and have someone say, “That’s
right, son. You’re doing it right.” Parenthood
is a strange solitary journey even when you have someone next to you
co-piloting. Then I guess life is a
strangely solitary thing as well. Your
dreams are your own. The echo of your
thoughts inside your brain is yours alone.
It’s good kids have such crappy memories or they’d remember you messing
up a lot.
The thing is, I want Edie to be in that room 30 years from
now hanging out with her friends and when hands are raised for who still has
their dad around, I want hers to be the one raised. I know life is tricky and full of lots of
sudden and tragic things. But I like
being her dad. I’m crazy about it actually. I’m going to try to stick around.
I was carrying her down the road last night in the 94 degree
Boston humidity with her little body like a heater against me and my shirt
clinging to me because of it and we both looked up at the hawk flying over us
and she pointed at it and I said, “Hawk” and she paused and said “Haw-awk!” and
she clapped for herself and I didn’t need anyone to tell me I was doing it
right. I knew I was.
Though one nod from Dr. Huxtable would be alright.
