"Daddy, I'm scared".
"Why are you scared, Emerson?" I asked. He told me that he wanted me to light the candle to scare off the monsters. Rather than argue with the 3-year-old about the existence of monsters, I lit 3 little candles in the bathroom, and the flickering glow flowed gently into the bedroom.
"There you go, little man", I said with a kiss to his little forehead. I left the room. After a couple of minutes, I went back to the room and peeked in through the crack in the door. I could hear a sniffle. Then another. I saw him bravely wipe an eye with his pajama sleeve, so I walked in and lay down next to him.
"Are you still scared?" He just nodded and sniffled. I thought of what my Great-aunt Isyle (yes, that was her name...pronounced "eye-soul") used to do when I couldn't sleep. I said, "Would you like to make a story?" "SpongeBob!" he said.
"Let's make up our own story, Emerson". His sad little mouth turned up into a big toothy grin, which he tried to suppress, unsuccessfully. I snuggled up closer to him. "How do stories start, Emerson?"
"Maybe...I don't know, Daddy."
"How about, Once upon a time? Say that with me..." We said it together, "Once upon a time". I asked him who our story should be about. "I don't know, Daddy". "I know...I'll start, ok?"
He smiled again. What a beautiful boy. "Once upon a time, there was a boy named Stuart. What does Stuart like to do, Emerson?"
"I know, he is riding his bike!"
"Then what? What happens to him next?"
"Maybe...I don't know, Daddy."
"How about, Stuart was riding his bike..." I could see that the distraction of our story had made Emerson forget about monsters, dark closets, and the tic-tocking of the Angels clock that was now on the top of my closet shelf, per Emerson's request. Distraction. It is one of the first tools any parent should have in their parenthood tool box.
"What happens to Stuart, Emerson?" "Maybe...I don't know", he said, trying to bite his lip. But it did not work, because I could see his smile. The fear was gone, replaced by the beautiful, pure smile that I wish the rest of the world could share. My father had never read me a bedtime story. He never held my hand when I was scared, or curled up next to me to comfort my fears. I grew up with the same fears as my little boy, the same fears that my now-15-year-old son Cameron also experienced. Yet, I had never known a father's selfless compassion. My mother tried, of course, but to a boy it just is not the same. Since Cameron was little, I have always sensed my son's anxiety, felt a connection to their vulnerability, their slightest feelings of loneliness and fear.
It is a lesson I have learned, particularly in the last 15 years. Parents leave a legacy, whether they like to admit it or not. It is up to the child to decide whether to follow that legacy, or to reject patterns of pain and self-destruction and follow alternate paths. When I close my eyes, I can see my boys' smiles, hear their laughter, feel their embraces. I choose to learn from my father, if only to parse from his life what 'not' to do. This is more as a result of hearing my boys tell me that they love me, rather than a response to my father's failures.
"How about, Stuart is riding his bike, and then...What happens next, Emerson?"
"Maybe, his wheel falls off?"
"Ok, so Stuart's wheel falls off, and then right behind Stuart stands a big, brown bear!"
The look on Emerson's face was priceless, as many of his expressions are. My youngest son's giant eyes and open mouth made me my eyes well up with tears as I smiled, as if aliens had just crash landed through my bedroom window and stepped out of their space ship, offering Emerson a steaming hot plate of broccoli and macaroni and cheese (Emerson's favorite meal).
"Yeah, Daddy. The big brown bear took his wheel!"
"Ok, so the big brown bear took his wheel...then what happened?"
"Maybe, he took it?"
"Ok, so the big brown bear took Stuart's wheel, and then Stuart sat down to figure out what he was going to do. He couldn't ride home without his bicycle wheel. And guess what he sat down on?" I said, sitting up in the bed and looking at Emerson's big brown eyes, sparkling with a hint of his father's green.
His smile was so big that I had to wipe the tear away from my eye. I swallowed, knowing that this interaction was one that we would both remember for the rest of our lives. Like the only memory I have of my father, walking along the American River
in Sacramento. I was now 32, and had flown up to meet him out of the blue, at the suggestion of a very close friend. Lee Cort had asked me 3 weeks before if I had seen my father recently. Not for years, I told him. "Why not?" he asked. I couldn't answer, because any excuse included bitterness and resentment, which I prided myself in not carrying around. But I had carried them around. So Lee's next question left me speechless. "Why don't you go see him?" I knew I needed to. I knew HE needed his only son to. As a father, I could not imagine having two daughters and a son who hated him. I was angry that he abandoned us for the dream of making millions as a doctor. And he certainly did accomplish that. However, along the way, he lost his children. I could not make my sisters forgive him, but I knew that I would never forgive myself if I had failed to make my boys know that I loved them even more than my career.
So I called him out of the blue one Thursday evening, and told him I had tickets to fly up to meet him the next day, and would spend the weekend with him. I had a chance to say that I loved him, that I forgave him. And I got to tell him that he never had to say another word to me about his failings to me. It was the only time I ever saw him cry.
"He sat down on his own bicycle wheel!" I smiled and opened my mouth wide, and Emerson mimicked my facial expression. We both paused to consider with amazement what Stuart must be feeling, the spokes poking his butt. Emerson laughed, and I again wiped a tear from my eye.
"But the big brown bear took it!"
"I know, but then he felt bad, because he knew that he hurt Stuart's feelings, and sometimes when we do something that hurts someone's feelings, we try to make it better, right?" He nodded, understanding a truth at age three that it took me three decades to comprehend.
"Then he hugged the big brown bear", he said with a smile. "And gave him a kiss and a hug" (which is something my littlest son gives to just about everyone he meets without fail).
I couldn't say anything for a few seconds, as I tried to compose myself. "Do you know how the bear felt after Stuart hugged and kissed him?"
He said, "Thanks!"
"Yes he did, Emerson." I kissed his forehead. "Are you going to have a happy night-night now, Emerson?"
"Yeah!" he said with an enthusiasm he usually reserves for things like going to the park, eating macaroni and cheese with steamed broccoli, or playing Candy Land with his brother. I noticed the side of his pillow that had held my head was damp from my tears. And I stood up, kissed him again, and smiled.
He smiled back, warming my heart. And I could only hope that my father, somewhere in Sacramento, knew that his son loved him as much as the love that I shared with my boys tonight.