One week ago today I was driving home from Cedar City. At 1:30 in the morning I'd received a text message from my mother indicating that the paramedics were at their house and that my dad was headed to the hospital. He'd been throwing up blood. The fact that I'd awoken to the text message was unusual, but once I'd read the text I laid awake thinking about my dad.
One of my earliest childhood memories also involves my dad and paramedics. The setting was a softball diamond in Yerington, Nevada. I was two. My dad was playing softball and as he was sliding into base, his foot slipped under the bag and jammed into the buckle that anchored the base to the ground. His leg was shattered. Being two, I had no concept of what had happened, but I remember the flashing lights of the ambulance.
After he had recovered, my dad moved into new lines of work. He worked as a mechanic for a while, and then was employed by a heavy-equipment rental company. One of my favorite memories is riding up in a scissor lift and a boom lift. I'm sure it wasn't any higher than 20 feet up, but it seemed like a mile to me as a little boy.
Our family continued to grow, and my dad was always looking for ways to better provide for the family. He took a job doing seminars around the country. For two weeks every month he flew around the country speaking to groups of people. The BEST part of the job, though, at least from my perspective, was the souvenirs. T-shirts and key-chains and candy. I learned what a razorback pig was after he returned from Arkansas with a mug emblazened with a wild boar. I also found out that Virginia was for lovers.
LOVERS? WHAT?! I was probably about 7 years old. YOU CAN'T USE THAT WORD AROUND A 7 YEAR OLD! You certainly can't expect him to wear the t-shirt! Scarred for life.
By the way, I've been to Virginia since then. I was there with my wife. It was nice enough, but I didn't get the sense that we were any more attracted to each other than we were previously. Maybe we're doing the lovers (WHAT?!) thing wrong.
My dad always put his kids first. He grew up playing baseball and football, but my brothers and I found more interest on the soccer pitch. So my dad learned all about soccer. He learned about offenses and defenses (the WW holds a fond place in my heart even today) and became our coach. In Salt Lake, we played three of the four seasons. Rec and competitive soccer was played spring and fall and were relegated to the Salt Lake valley, but summer meant traveling team soccer. We went all over the state, seemingly every weekend. He never complained to us about the time commitment, he just did it.
My dad is a practical joker. One night he walked into the house holding his finger, writhing in pain. I looked over and saw a nail had gone THROUGH HIS FINGER! "Call the ambulance," he grunted. "WHAT? WHAT'S THEIR NUMBER?" I was in FULL PANIC MODE and he started laughing at me. How could he laugh? He had a nail (like a real nail--8 penny, I believe) through his finger. But there he was, laughing at me because I didn't know the number for 9-1-1. Finally, he revealed the secret--a little half-ring contraption that fit around his finger and made it look like there was a nail through his hand, but alas, it was just a CRUEL TRICK on an overly-sensitive young son.
As I became a teenager, my dad and I kind of grew apart. I blame myself. So does he. But really, teenagerhood seems to insist that you don't get along with your parents, and I certainly fell prey to that mandate. It didn't help that my brother just younger than me was a lot more like my dad and was probably just easier to like.
That sounds like I blame my brother. I don't. He really is a better man than me and always has been. I think I like him more than myself, so I can't really blame others for doing the same thing. And being a father, I understand that sometimes some of your kids are just plain easier to get along with at times than others are. I was definitely not easy to get along with.
Whatever the reason, I retreated, but my dad never pressed the issue. He didn't let me get away with crap, though. One night I was really mad at my mother and said some things that I had no business saying to my mom (or probably anyone else). Well, he was not going to tolerate me speaking to his wife like that and he punched me square in the chest. Hard. I just stood there and stared at him, not willing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me in pain, but that pride left as soon as I was out of sight and sound.
Things weren't bad between us, and I don't mean to give the impression that they were. We just weren't best friends like some fathers and sons. I actually worry that I still don't understand a healthy father and son relationship because I struggle in many of the same ways with my own son. But that's a story for another day.
After serving a mission in Oklahoma, I returned home to Carson City, Nevada, where I lived for a couple of years before moving to Las Vegas. After getting fired from a job (hmm, that's another post topic), I took a job working with my dad. It was only then that I learned he wasn't perfect.
Yes, despite the animosity that sometimes defined our relationship, I still held to the ideal that my dad was perfect. Not perfect in the walk-on-water sense, but in the father hero-worship sense. It didn't matter the question, I could take it to him and he would have the answer. I thought he was the best teacher, best salesman, best businessman that there was. He was what I consider the consummate entrepreneur. He would get a new idea and run with it. Sometimes it would work and he'd be very successful and get bored and sell the business. Other times his ideas would bust, but he'd keep reincarnating them until he found some way to make it work. Despite having eight kids, six of whom were boys, he always found a way to put food on the table and have a roof overhead.
Eventually Clorinda and I were married and my nuclear family went from my mom and dad and siblings to my wife and I and our children. I've taken my kids to work (sitting in a law office is SO MUCH more exciting than riding in a boom lift, I promise kids), coached their soccer teams, played practical jokes on them (sorry about the hair, Marien), struggled to communicate with them as moody teenagers, stayed up at night wondering where they were and when they'd be home. And I've come to understand that despite his imperfections, my dad really is perfect. Not in the walk-on-water sense, and not in the father hero-worship sense, either. Perfect in the sense that he never stopped being a dad. He never stopped doing everything in his power to set an example for his kids of how they should treat their mother, how they should work to provide for their families, how they should study the Gospel and incorporate it into their lives, how they should recognize people in need and do whatever possible to help, and how they should be a friend to even the most unlovable and unlikable because they too were children of God.
Last Monday I spent in a hospital room in Cedar City. My dad teased the nurses who were struggling to find a vein from which they could draw blood. He chatted with a nurse he'd remembered from a prior visit. He asked me to call my mother (who had gone home to get some sleep) and check on her. We talked about my work and about his new calling in church. He would doze off and snore and then be awakened by the beeping of the machines right above his head. He didn't complain. My brother and I were able to give him a blessing before we both had to leave.
I'm not sure why I felt so strongly that I needed to go up to Cedar City last week, but I'm glad I did. My dad was in the hospital for the better part of the week before he was released to go home. I wish I could say it was all better, but just last night I heard again from my mother that he'd been admitted again. More internal bleeding.
Being the dad is hard. Don't give up, Padre. You can do this.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Friday, September 18, 2015
O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A, Oklahoma, OK!
I've known Ariel since she was ten. She and her family live around the corner from us, and they honestly may be the nicest people I know. Her mother has a remarkable ability to make you feel as if you are the most important person in the world--she showers compliments freely and is always happy.
This week Ariel received a mission call to Kennewick Washington, where she'll go and serve the Lord and the people of Washington for the next year and a half of her life. Because of various conflicts, there wasn't a Sacrament Meeting available for her to speak in church, so she talked today, first about obedience but then about how she ended up submitting papers to serve a mission.
A lot of memories came back to me.
Twenty-five years ago next month I was working at my dad's cousin's house. She and her husband had just bought the house, and the prior owner had (1) carpeted the garage and (2) operated it as a hostel for un-housebroken dogs. There is nothing quite as aromatically charming as scraping old, urine-stained carpet from a garage floor. And THIS old, urine-stained carpet was particularly well soiled.
I'd been living with my grandma since right after I'd graduated from high school, and she called to let me know that my mission call had arrived. Now, for those of you who haven't experienced the phenomenon of a Mormon mission call, it's kind of like the Masters--an experience unlike any other. Friends and family gather together and wager on where in the world the new missionary will be sent. With great anticipation the new missionary tears open the envelope and begins to read:
When I read those words, I was surrounded by my grandma (who had served missions in Switzerland, New Zealand, and Australia), my aunt and cousins, and my dad's cousin and her family. Two of my cousins had preceded me in serving missions--one had gone to Australia, and the other was then-serving in Spain. Two of my best friends had just left on their missions, to Brazil and Seattle, respectively. My parents were 500 miles away in Carson City, Nevada, but were on the telephone.
When I uttered the words "Oklahoma Oklahoma City mission", I couldn't hear anything. I was IN THE ZONE and the GAME HAD SLOWED DOWN, to steal a couple of football cliches, and it was like the crowd wasn't even there. The silence was broken when someone (OK, it was the little voice in my head) said, "wow, that sucks."
I had only two thoughts: (1) "people live in Oklahoma?" and (2) "We have the Church in Oklahoma?"
It wasn't Switzerland or Australia or Brazil. It wasn't even Seattle, which is a remarkably cool American city. No, it was Oklahoma. Middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma. Later my dad told me that he was afraid I was a little disappointed by my reaction. I'm not sure what gave him that idea, other than the complete lack of excitement in my voice.
After the requisite pats-on-the-back and feigned "well, that will be, um, great!" votes-of-confidence, I decided that I needed a little break and jumped in my truck and went for a ride. (I can only imagine that moment for people called to REALLY boring places. "You are assigned to labor in the Utah Wendover mission." Can the crowd even fake those congratulations? But I digress.) As I headed north on 1300 East in Sandy, Utah, sulking a bit that I didn't have some exotic or exciting world city to go serve in, my heart was filled with a calm assurance that Oklahoma was EXACTLY where the Lord needed me to be. My soul was immediatly at peace with the call, and I even felt excited.
I entered the Provo Utah MTC (that's "Missionary Training Center" for the uninitiated) in January 1991. The US had just invaded Iraq (the first time). I left at home five brothers and two sistsers, ranging in age from 17 years to 21 months. The MTC was a spiritual boot camp, with lessons interrupted only by eating. Being the health-conscious 19 year old male that I was, I didn't attempt to survive SOLELY on Captain Crunch and chocolate milk, but a high percentage of my caloric intake could be traced to those two culinary miracles. After about three weeks, I was on a plane headed to Oklahoma.
Walking through the airport toward baggage claim, I was surprised by all of the singing and dancing going on among the locals. They seemed compelled to let every visitor to their state know that their state was not something to scoff at. No, it was a place where the wind swept down the plain. In very fact, it was OK!
Confession. That last paragraph ^^ was not true. I'm sorry.
I spent two (count 'em--TWO) years in Oklahoma. My first several months were in Lawton, a small city at the southern end of the State, home of the Ft. Sill army base. Fun story, my first morning I was awakened to the sound of explosions and rattling windows. I thought Iraq had decided to fight back and had decided on a military installation in southern Oklahoma. It turns out that Ft. Sill was (and probably still is) an artillery base, and it was just a training exercise. Good thing. From Lawton I went to Oklahoma City, where I served in the worst part of Oklahoma City (I'm about 98% certain that Kevin Durrant does not hang out in NE OKC, ever), and then I was assigned to Shawnee. That place was amazing. It was small-town Oklahoma and home to a Baptist university. After Shawnee I was moved to Del City, which is a suburb of OKC and home to Tinker AFB. I spent my last six months back in Lawton.
One Saturday morning, my companion and I were knocking doors in Del City. A kind gentleman answered the door and, although he was not interested at all in our message, he took a few moments to chat with us. He looked directly at me and said, "you should be proud of yourself. Your church can't send just anyone here. It has to send the very best young men to a place like Oklahoma, because there is so much working against you here."
I kind of laughed him off, but he said it again, "No, I mean it."
I cannot claim to be the type of person he thought I was, but somehow, 19 or 20 months after those first thoughts of discouragement, the Lord reminded me that I was right where he needed me.
We said our good-byes, and continued down the street, but this time I was singing with the rest of them, "O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A, Oklahoma, OK!"
Does anyone know a song about Kennewick Washington?
This week Ariel received a mission call to Kennewick Washington, where she'll go and serve the Lord and the people of Washington for the next year and a half of her life. Because of various conflicts, there wasn't a Sacrament Meeting available for her to speak in church, so she talked today, first about obedience but then about how she ended up submitting papers to serve a mission.
A lot of memories came back to me.
Twenty-five years ago next month I was working at my dad's cousin's house. She and her husband had just bought the house, and the prior owner had (1) carpeted the garage and (2) operated it as a hostel for un-housebroken dogs. There is nothing quite as aromatically charming as scraping old, urine-stained carpet from a garage floor. And THIS old, urine-stained carpet was particularly well soiled.
I'd been living with my grandma since right after I'd graduated from high school, and she called to let me know that my mission call had arrived. Now, for those of you who haven't experienced the phenomenon of a Mormon mission call, it's kind of like the Masters--an experience unlike any other. Friends and family gather together and wager on where in the world the new missionary will be sent. With great anticipation the new missionary tears open the envelope and begins to read:
Dear Elder Fontano,
You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Oklahoma Oklahoma City mission....at which point the crowd erupts in excitement, the missionary's mother starts crying (which naturally leads to a mascara emergency), and someone says "where's a map?!"
When I read those words, I was surrounded by my grandma (who had served missions in Switzerland, New Zealand, and Australia), my aunt and cousins, and my dad's cousin and her family. Two of my cousins had preceded me in serving missions--one had gone to Australia, and the other was then-serving in Spain. Two of my best friends had just left on their missions, to Brazil and Seattle, respectively. My parents were 500 miles away in Carson City, Nevada, but were on the telephone.
When I uttered the words "Oklahoma Oklahoma City mission", I couldn't hear anything. I was IN THE ZONE and the GAME HAD SLOWED DOWN, to steal a couple of football cliches, and it was like the crowd wasn't even there. The silence was broken when someone (OK, it was the little voice in my head) said, "wow, that sucks."
I had only two thoughts: (1) "people live in Oklahoma?" and (2) "We have the Church in Oklahoma?"
It wasn't Switzerland or Australia or Brazil. It wasn't even Seattle, which is a remarkably cool American city. No, it was Oklahoma. Middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma. Later my dad told me that he was afraid I was a little disappointed by my reaction. I'm not sure what gave him that idea, other than the complete lack of excitement in my voice.
After the requisite pats-on-the-back and feigned "well, that will be, um, great!" votes-of-confidence, I decided that I needed a little break and jumped in my truck and went for a ride. (I can only imagine that moment for people called to REALLY boring places. "You are assigned to labor in the Utah Wendover mission." Can the crowd even fake those congratulations? But I digress.) As I headed north on 1300 East in Sandy, Utah, sulking a bit that I didn't have some exotic or exciting world city to go serve in, my heart was filled with a calm assurance that Oklahoma was EXACTLY where the Lord needed me to be. My soul was immediatly at peace with the call, and I even felt excited.
I entered the Provo Utah MTC (that's "Missionary Training Center" for the uninitiated) in January 1991. The US had just invaded Iraq (the first time). I left at home five brothers and two sistsers, ranging in age from 17 years to 21 months. The MTC was a spiritual boot camp, with lessons interrupted only by eating. Being the health-conscious 19 year old male that I was, I didn't attempt to survive SOLELY on Captain Crunch and chocolate milk, but a high percentage of my caloric intake could be traced to those two culinary miracles. After about three weeks, I was on a plane headed to Oklahoma.
Walking through the airport toward baggage claim, I was surprised by all of the singing and dancing going on among the locals. They seemed compelled to let every visitor to their state know that their state was not something to scoff at. No, it was a place where the wind swept down the plain. In very fact, it was OK!
Confession. That last paragraph ^^ was not true. I'm sorry.
I spent two (count 'em--TWO) years in Oklahoma. My first several months were in Lawton, a small city at the southern end of the State, home of the Ft. Sill army base. Fun story, my first morning I was awakened to the sound of explosions and rattling windows. I thought Iraq had decided to fight back and had decided on a military installation in southern Oklahoma. It turns out that Ft. Sill was (and probably still is) an artillery base, and it was just a training exercise. Good thing. From Lawton I went to Oklahoma City, where I served in the worst part of Oklahoma City (I'm about 98% certain that Kevin Durrant does not hang out in NE OKC, ever), and then I was assigned to Shawnee. That place was amazing. It was small-town Oklahoma and home to a Baptist university. After Shawnee I was moved to Del City, which is a suburb of OKC and home to Tinker AFB. I spent my last six months back in Lawton.
One Saturday morning, my companion and I were knocking doors in Del City. A kind gentleman answered the door and, although he was not interested at all in our message, he took a few moments to chat with us. He looked directly at me and said, "you should be proud of yourself. Your church can't send just anyone here. It has to send the very best young men to a place like Oklahoma, because there is so much working against you here."
I kind of laughed him off, but he said it again, "No, I mean it."
I cannot claim to be the type of person he thought I was, but somehow, 19 or 20 months after those first thoughts of discouragement, the Lord reminded me that I was right where he needed me.
We said our good-byes, and continued down the street, but this time I was singing with the rest of them, "O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A, Oklahoma, OK!"
Does anyone know a song about Kennewick Washington?
Friday, September 11, 2015
A Dime's Worth of Difference
It's a Friday afternoon and I really should be working, but today it's not happening. This is.
I grew up listening to some great music. My dad made sure I was indoctrinated to the sounds of the 60's and 70's. Clorinda and I celebrated my completion of the bar exam by going to see the Eagles at the MGM Grand--to this day, my favorite concert of all time. After that concert, I told my wife that if Simon and Garfunkel would just get back together and go on tour, I could die a happy man. Within weeks, lo and behold, they announced an "Old Friends" tour that would include a stop in Las Vegas. We took my parents, but I'm pretty sure that Clorinda and I were the youngest people there by 20 years.
At one point, Paul Simon was talking about his guitar and Art Garfunkel commented about his own instrument--his voice. The comment struck me as odd, I mean, Simon did a lot of singing, too, and had enjoyed a much more successful solo career than had Garfunkel. But Garfunkel has one song that I really love, and his voice is a primary reason I like the song. A Heart in New York is a simple, somewhat melancholy tune, but Garfunkel's voice is perfect in it. Here, listen for yourself:
I've only actually been to New York one time, at Christmas in 2013. But about this time every year I think a lot about New York, as do a whole lot of people in this country.
On September 11, 2001, we were all up early in my house getting ready for school and work. The TV was on while the kids ate breakfast (as I'm writing this I'm realizing that my college freshman was in pre-school, and my high school freshman was 4 months old--that's incredible). The national news was reporting that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York City. They were speculating that there was something seriously wrong with the air traffic control that resulted in the plane accidentally hitting the tower. As they were reporting, with video playing of the smoke arising from the first tower, I watched as a second plane hit the other tower. I watched in disbelief.
Moments later, as we were heading out the door to drop the kids at my brother's house before going to school, the news reported that a helicopter had crashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC. (Obviously, that was not correct information.) I turned to Clorinda and asked if we were under attack. It was just surreal.
I had an early class, and we only briefly touched on the planes and the tower. The professor was only aware of the first tower having been hit at that point. After the hour was up, I left class to head to my carrel in the law library. A large group had gathered around one of the TVs mounted in the hall, and I watched with them as the first tower came crashing to the ground. And then the second as well.
The University canceled classes for that day. Law students were assigned carrels, or desks, and mine was in the basement of the law library. All of us had our laptops glued to CNN and other news outlets and stared in disbelief at the destruction we were witnessing on American soil. I imagine that you were much the same. We watched in shock as people leapt from the buildings, and with awe as firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical responders ran in to those same buildings from the bottom. We combed through dozens and hundreds of pictures that people had posted online, each one adding to the weight of the situation.
That night I held my children closely and wept. I cried for the parents who would never get to hug their children again, and for those children that would not feel the safe embrace of their mom or dad. I wept for the families of the first responders that so bravely ran into the danger to help those not in a position to help themselves. As Clorinda and I knelt by our bedside to pray, I sobbed for hundreds and thousands of people I didn't know.
In 2013, Clorinda's brother took us to ground zero. The new Freedom Tower was nearing completion, but the block was still surrounded in protective plywood fencing. We stood in line at dusk in freezing temperatures and waited our turn to walk into the campus and to visit the memorial. It was a somber experience to walk around the reflecting pools and to consider the events from all those years prior.
I know my story is not unique, and it does not compare with those who lost family members and friends that day. I was there only because of modern technology sending me sights and sounds over the internet. But that experience impacted me. With apologies to Art Garfunkel, my words won't make a dime's worth of difference, but here's to you New York (and Washington DC and Pennsylvania).
I grew up listening to some great music. My dad made sure I was indoctrinated to the sounds of the 60's and 70's. Clorinda and I celebrated my completion of the bar exam by going to see the Eagles at the MGM Grand--to this day, my favorite concert of all time. After that concert, I told my wife that if Simon and Garfunkel would just get back together and go on tour, I could die a happy man. Within weeks, lo and behold, they announced an "Old Friends" tour that would include a stop in Las Vegas. We took my parents, but I'm pretty sure that Clorinda and I were the youngest people there by 20 years.
At one point, Paul Simon was talking about his guitar and Art Garfunkel commented about his own instrument--his voice. The comment struck me as odd, I mean, Simon did a lot of singing, too, and had enjoyed a much more successful solo career than had Garfunkel. But Garfunkel has one song that I really love, and his voice is a primary reason I like the song. A Heart in New York is a simple, somewhat melancholy tune, but Garfunkel's voice is perfect in it. Here, listen for yourself:
I've only actually been to New York one time, at Christmas in 2013. But about this time every year I think a lot about New York, as do a whole lot of people in this country.
On September 11, 2001, we were all up early in my house getting ready for school and work. The TV was on while the kids ate breakfast (as I'm writing this I'm realizing that my college freshman was in pre-school, and my high school freshman was 4 months old--that's incredible). The national news was reporting that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York City. They were speculating that there was something seriously wrong with the air traffic control that resulted in the plane accidentally hitting the tower. As they were reporting, with video playing of the smoke arising from the first tower, I watched as a second plane hit the other tower. I watched in disbelief.
Moments later, as we were heading out the door to drop the kids at my brother's house before going to school, the news reported that a helicopter had crashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC. (Obviously, that was not correct information.) I turned to Clorinda and asked if we were under attack. It was just surreal.
I had an early class, and we only briefly touched on the planes and the tower. The professor was only aware of the first tower having been hit at that point. After the hour was up, I left class to head to my carrel in the law library. A large group had gathered around one of the TVs mounted in the hall, and I watched with them as the first tower came crashing to the ground. And then the second as well.
The University canceled classes for that day. Law students were assigned carrels, or desks, and mine was in the basement of the law library. All of us had our laptops glued to CNN and other news outlets and stared in disbelief at the destruction we were witnessing on American soil. I imagine that you were much the same. We watched in shock as people leapt from the buildings, and with awe as firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical responders ran in to those same buildings from the bottom. We combed through dozens and hundreds of pictures that people had posted online, each one adding to the weight of the situation.
That night I held my children closely and wept. I cried for the parents who would never get to hug their children again, and for those children that would not feel the safe embrace of their mom or dad. I wept for the families of the first responders that so bravely ran into the danger to help those not in a position to help themselves. As Clorinda and I knelt by our bedside to pray, I sobbed for hundreds and thousands of people I didn't know.
In 2013, Clorinda's brother took us to ground zero. The new Freedom Tower was nearing completion, but the block was still surrounded in protective plywood fencing. We stood in line at dusk in freezing temperatures and waited our turn to walk into the campus and to visit the memorial. It was a somber experience to walk around the reflecting pools and to consider the events from all those years prior.
I know my story is not unique, and it does not compare with those who lost family members and friends that day. I was there only because of modern technology sending me sights and sounds over the internet. But that experience impacted me. With apologies to Art Garfunkel, my words won't make a dime's worth of difference, but here's to you New York (and Washington DC and Pennsylvania).
Sunday, September 6, 2015
But Wait, There's More!
A little over 18 years ago, I had one of those life-changing moments. No, it wasn't the first time I ate Chunky Monkey, although that was one of those life-changing moments (and waistline changing moments, for that matter). No, this moment occurred on a Tuesday afternoon, and I'm pretty sure Chunky Monkey first occurred on a Saturday evening. Have you had that stuff, by the way? It's incredible. Banana ice cream and chunks of dark chocolate and walnuts. It's amazing. But I digress.
No, on this Tuesday all those years ago, a nurse handed me a little baby girl. Clorinda and I had tried negotiating the gender of the baby. I had learned somewhere (9th grade biology at Kaiser High School, probably) that the FATHER determined the sex of a baby, and since I was the father, I had determined that our first child would be a boy. What dad doesn't want a boy? I had visions of fishing and camping and tossing a baseball in the backyard, and those father-and-son-bonding moments like teaching him how to pee outside and the proper way to spit. Apparently the cross between the English language and 9th grade biology created some confusion in me, because I didn't determine that baby's gender at all. Then again, maybe that's why I didn't do so hot in biology. Despite my determination, that baby was a little girl.
When the nurse handed her to me, I was overcome by a flood of emotion. I didn't understand it, and I'm still not sure I understand it all these years later. I had heard about love all my life. I was pretty sure I finally had it figured out the summer before my fourth grade year. My family, which consisted of my parents and five (yes, 5) boys, yours truly being the oldest, moved in next door to household of five (yes, 5) really pretty girls, all of whom seemed to line up perfectly age wise. I'll tell you, I was smitten and it was a good thing I had really fast shoes so I could show off my manly prowess.
For some reason, that love never blossomed the way I had expected it to. But that was OK, because by 7th grade, I had started middle school and found not just one but TWO (2!) girls I really loved. The first I'd known for a few years, and we decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Because I was a really cool guy, I knew that what girls wanted was to be ignored (it makes them like you more), so after we became an "item" I stopped talking to her altogether. I'll let you take a stab at how well that worked out.
Not to be deterred, I became infatuated with a girl in my English class. I say girl, but that's not right, she was a twelve-year-old WOMAN. I was sure she was the one I would be spending the rest of my life with, so I passed her a note. Little did I realize that passing notes to declare your affection was SO elementary school. I think that typing this paragraph took longer than my entire relationship lasted with that girl. Alas.
I finally started to understand love sometime about my junior year of high school. By that time I had an actual, honest-to-goodness real girlfriend. We talked to each other, went on dates, held hands, and even (don't tell my kids, or my wife) kissed on occasion. I WAS FINALLY IN LOVE! It was fun and exciting and heartbreaking at times, too. We made plans for a future that wasn't to be. Like my previous forays into love, it too came to an end.
Fast forward about five years. I had grown up. The hairline had started creeping back (but I was usually able to hide it with little hats and bonnets). I had met this woman (and unlike my seventh-grade infatuation, this was an actual, bona-fide WOMAN) and had really come to love her. For some unknown reason, she loved me too. It was probably the ice cream. (Note to self: write a post about the engagement story...) This love was a much more mature love, although as I write this now, some 20 years later, I realize that it was more mature only relative to my adolescent flings. There's something to be said for growing old together. Regardless, it was mature enough that Clorinda determined that we should get married and she told me the date and time to be there. Since I was in love, I showed up. This was clearly NOT 9th grade biology determination.
Clorinda and I are both the oldest of really big families (8 kids each), and we decided, or rather she decided and let me in on the secret, that we wanted to have lots of kids as well. As many couples do, we experienced some heartache along the way, but after nine months of trying, we found out we were expecting.
So that brings me back to the nurse handing me that little girl, and to love. I loved my neighbor in 4th grade. I loved my girlfriend in 7th grade and the girl that sat behind me in English. I really loved my high school girlfriend, and I LOVED my wife (I still do), but until that nurse handed me my daughter, I did not understand what love was. I didn't know that I could care more about someone in an instant than I did about myself. I hadn't understood that I would want everything good for someone, that I would want to protect and teach and help and nurture and care for for that little person at the expense of all else. That I would ache more than she did when she was sick or hurt, and that if there was ANY way possible, I would have taken that pain away. In that moment, I was overwhelmed with the love that I felt. I thought, in some small degree, I understood God's love for me, because he had blessed me to feel for that little girl the same type of love.
Two weeks ago I helped that little girl pack up her car to head off to college. Seemingly all of her earthly possessions were stuffed into boxes and loaded up, ready to make the trip off to new adventures and a new life. Suddenly I recognized all of my failures as a father. There was SO MUCH I hadn't taught her, SO MUCH MORE I needed to tell her and to do to prepare her for life. I felt a little like Ron Popeil--BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Here's how to check your oil, oh, and let me teach you how to drive in snow (yeah, there wasn't much opportunity to teach that skill in Las Vegas), and make sure you turn this off so the battery doesn't drain when your car is parked, and if you act now, I'll throw in this set of steak knives ABSOLUTELY FREE!
I've never felt more inadequate as a father than I did watching her drive away with her mother, but I've never felt more proud, either. I was a real mess. I knew that she would do great in school, but I wasn't going to be there anymore when she got hurt. It's hard to protect your little girl when she's 500 miles away.
And so Heavenly Father taught me something else about His love. He lets us go so that we can learn and grow on our own, and we can have those experiences that will help us to become more like Him. I'm grateful for this added dimension of love that I hadn't understood before.
THM
BUT WAIT, THERE's MORE. I got this series of text messages from her tonight:
No, on this Tuesday all those years ago, a nurse handed me a little baby girl. Clorinda and I had tried negotiating the gender of the baby. I had learned somewhere (9th grade biology at Kaiser High School, probably) that the FATHER determined the sex of a baby, and since I was the father, I had determined that our first child would be a boy. What dad doesn't want a boy? I had visions of fishing and camping and tossing a baseball in the backyard, and those father-and-son-bonding moments like teaching him how to pee outside and the proper way to spit. Apparently the cross between the English language and 9th grade biology created some confusion in me, because I didn't determine that baby's gender at all. Then again, maybe that's why I didn't do so hot in biology. Despite my determination, that baby was a little girl.
When the nurse handed her to me, I was overcome by a flood of emotion. I didn't understand it, and I'm still not sure I understand it all these years later. I had heard about love all my life. I was pretty sure I finally had it figured out the summer before my fourth grade year. My family, which consisted of my parents and five (yes, 5) boys, yours truly being the oldest, moved in next door to household of five (yes, 5) really pretty girls, all of whom seemed to line up perfectly age wise. I'll tell you, I was smitten and it was a good thing I had really fast shoes so I could show off my manly prowess.
For some reason, that love never blossomed the way I had expected it to. But that was OK, because by 7th grade, I had started middle school and found not just one but TWO (2!) girls I really loved. The first I'd known for a few years, and we decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Because I was a really cool guy, I knew that what girls wanted was to be ignored (it makes them like you more), so after we became an "item" I stopped talking to her altogether. I'll let you take a stab at how well that worked out.
Not to be deterred, I became infatuated with a girl in my English class. I say girl, but that's not right, she was a twelve-year-old WOMAN. I was sure she was the one I would be spending the rest of my life with, so I passed her a note. Little did I realize that passing notes to declare your affection was SO elementary school. I think that typing this paragraph took longer than my entire relationship lasted with that girl. Alas.
I finally started to understand love sometime about my junior year of high school. By that time I had an actual, honest-to-goodness real girlfriend. We talked to each other, went on dates, held hands, and even (don't tell my kids, or my wife) kissed on occasion. I WAS FINALLY IN LOVE! It was fun and exciting and heartbreaking at times, too. We made plans for a future that wasn't to be. Like my previous forays into love, it too came to an end.
Fast forward about five years. I had grown up. The hairline had started creeping back (but I was usually able to hide it with little hats and bonnets). I had met this woman (and unlike my seventh-grade infatuation, this was an actual, bona-fide WOMAN) and had really come to love her. For some unknown reason, she loved me too. It was probably the ice cream. (Note to self: write a post about the engagement story...) This love was a much more mature love, although as I write this now, some 20 years later, I realize that it was more mature only relative to my adolescent flings. There's something to be said for growing old together. Regardless, it was mature enough that Clorinda determined that we should get married and she told me the date and time to be there. Since I was in love, I showed up. This was clearly NOT 9th grade biology determination.
Clorinda and I are both the oldest of really big families (8 kids each), and we decided, or rather she decided and let me in on the secret, that we wanted to have lots of kids as well. As many couples do, we experienced some heartache along the way, but after nine months of trying, we found out we were expecting.
So that brings me back to the nurse handing me that little girl, and to love. I loved my neighbor in 4th grade. I loved my girlfriend in 7th grade and the girl that sat behind me in English. I really loved my high school girlfriend, and I LOVED my wife (I still do), but until that nurse handed me my daughter, I did not understand what love was. I didn't know that I could care more about someone in an instant than I did about myself. I hadn't understood that I would want everything good for someone, that I would want to protect and teach and help and nurture and care for for that little person at the expense of all else. That I would ache more than she did when she was sick or hurt, and that if there was ANY way possible, I would have taken that pain away. In that moment, I was overwhelmed with the love that I felt. I thought, in some small degree, I understood God's love for me, because he had blessed me to feel for that little girl the same type of love.
Two weeks ago I helped that little girl pack up her car to head off to college. Seemingly all of her earthly possessions were stuffed into boxes and loaded up, ready to make the trip off to new adventures and a new life. Suddenly I recognized all of my failures as a father. There was SO MUCH I hadn't taught her, SO MUCH MORE I needed to tell her and to do to prepare her for life. I felt a little like Ron Popeil--BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Here's how to check your oil, oh, and let me teach you how to drive in snow (yeah, there wasn't much opportunity to teach that skill in Las Vegas), and make sure you turn this off so the battery doesn't drain when your car is parked, and if you act now, I'll throw in this set of steak knives ABSOLUTELY FREE!
I've never felt more inadequate as a father than I did watching her drive away with her mother, but I've never felt more proud, either. I was a real mess. I knew that she would do great in school, but I wasn't going to be there anymore when she got hurt. It's hard to protect your little girl when she's 500 miles away.
And so Heavenly Father taught me something else about His love. He lets us go so that we can learn and grow on our own, and we can have those experiences that will help us to become more like Him. I'm grateful for this added dimension of love that I hadn't understood before.
THM
BUT WAIT, THERE's MORE. I got this series of text messages from her tonight:
today I almost caught the microwave on fireShe's doing fine without me. But wait, M, there's so much more I need you to know. Most of all, I need you to know that I love you. For real.
my roommates love me so much
* * *
But then I redeemed myself bc the spinach artichoke dip was Delilah
*delish
Hahaha AUTOCORRECT
dad we're having such a fancy dinner tonight like it doesn't feel like college
A roast with potatoes, carrots and onions, homemade rolls, broccoli, homemade apple pie
Also salad and my spinach dip.
Also vanilla ice cream with the pie [ed. note: apparently Chunky Monkey was not available]
And I made a really yummy streusel topping for the pie
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