It was morning. The boys and I sat at the kitchen table. I had begun a reading of my favorite parable - The Lost Son. As is often the case with children, and maybe people in general, reading directly from the text wasn't having the impact I had anticipated.
Not knowing what else to do, I laid the text aside and began to simply tell the story the way I saw it happening in my head...with embellishments, exclamations, and passion.
Soon the look on Ethan's face changed. He was into it...right there with me...seeing the far country, the pig slop, and the desperate look in the lost son's eyes. When I finished, all was strangely quiet.
Ethan stared thoughtfully at me. "Dad...you're a storyteller."
In a rare moment of insight, it seemed Ethan not only saw what I saw in the story, but he saw something else...me.
Not "the me" I always thought I wanted to be. You know...that guy people gathered around at parties or family gatherings. The guy who could tell a great yarn. The guy who simply opens his mouth and people listen.
The truth is...I'm not that guy. I'm not that kind of storyteller. I can't conjure up all kinds of wild tales. I can't even tell a good joke.
But as it turns out...I am a storyteller. The kind of storyteller that sees the small things...the hidden things...the things not everyone can see without being shown.
And remarkably, my son knows that...because he can see too. He can see me...just as I am.
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One of my greatest fears is that I will, little by little, begin to forget the series of seemingly insignificant events of my boys' early years. Perhaps I fear this because I know that these years are THE most formative. On second thought, it's not so much that I fear forgetting but I fear that there will come a day when I do not know my own children. Perhaps my hope is that if I pay attention now...I will know them better then, and in turn, they will know me.
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