I Want to Show You

My black recliner called to me.  It had been a long day and Bilbo's phrase rang true.  I felt "sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

"Dad...I want to show you Minecraft."

Later E.  I need to rest for a few.

"But Dad, I really want to show you what I made on Minecraft."

Not now E.

I shadow passed over him.  I barely noticed.  

The last thing I wanted to see or hear right now was a computer game.  I closed my eyes. 

Suddenly, the gray walls of my 1990 basement bedroom surrounded me.  My 16 year old hands held Dad's classic Epiphone acoustic guitar.  After months of many futile attempts, my voice and hands were starting to pretend like they wanted to work together.  I felt proud for my first song was ready for presentation.  I yelled up the stairs, "Mom, Dad...I want to show you something!!!"  The echoes of my voice faded into the next 22 years...

Dad...I want to show you...  Dad...look at me...  Dad...see what I am doing...  Dad...care...  

I felt an old pain and a new shame.  

I had forgotten how it feels when you are a boy trying to live in a big person world, wishing for no greater thing than to be seen and acknowledged by the people you care about most.  I had forgotten that somehow, though you pretend you could care less, every "later E" feels like a surprise gut punch.  I had forgotten that feeling...that sick feeling, when you realize the world may not really want to hear your version of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."

My black recliner didn't feel very comfortable.  I opened my eyes.  

"Hey E, what did you want to show me?"

Battlefield Kitchens

Bullets flew everywhere.  Bodies were flying, falling, and flipping.  The noise was deafening.  I had unknowingly walked into a nerf gun warzone.

The boys had recruited our neighbor Anya to take part in the mayhem.

Luckily, our house has a basement designed perfectly for such endeavors and I firmly instructed the infantry to move the warzone to the nearest basement bunker.  And of course, like any good soldier, they heard and obeyed...but then they forgot...three times.  I should have made 'em give me 50.  But I simply reminded them...again....and again...and again.

After the third time something strange and beautiful happened.  As the bodies and voices continued to swarm like a nest of angry hornets, time suddenly held no sway, and in a dream I saw what would be.  

The kitchen was quiet.  No voices, no bodies, no battlefield...just silence and emptiness.  And I knew in my heart that this is how life is -  when you are young, you are loud and fast, and being a soldier is easy and fun.  Kitchens can be battlefields or race tracks or anything at all.

But things change; children grow up, and the sounds of loud laughter and play fade like a mountain voice echo.  And old kitchens grow silent as they have been before.

And with the past, present, and future dancing in my heart, something small and beautiful grew in me, something that had been trying to grow for a long time.

Acceptance.  grow...grOW...GROW!

May God bless the underaged soldiers and their parents...and battlefield kitchens that always grow silent.

Old Memory

An old memory and passion has been awakened.

The awakening started during Ethan's first official Parchment basketball game. I have seen a lot of football and baseball games in the past three years. But none of those compared to this...

I was excited...really excited. My son...out there playing defense, passing, and making shots...just his father before him, and his grandfather before him.

I recently read a journal entry my dad wrote in 1982. "Lon attended his first basketball camp this summer, and was selected to the Cougars youth basketball drill team. It choked me up when they announced it."

Strange timing to read that within days of Ethan's first game. After the game I searched for Ethan. All I wanted to do is see my son. When I finally found him, I knelt down so I could look him in the eye. Suddenly, I could barely speak...and I understood how my dad felt so long ago.

"I'm proud of you son. You did great. You played defense. You passed to your teammates, and you took the shot when you had it. Great job."

I had wanted to say more...to explain that my emotion wasn't about what he can or cannot do in some game. I wanted to tell him I'm proud to be his dad, like my father before me. I wanted to tell him I'm so glad we belong together, that we can share the same interests, and laugh at the same things, and have the same people in our lives. But in a moment, he was gone...high-fiving his buddies, glowing in the aftermath of his first ever basketball game.

I suppose that's just about right. His time for old memory will come in his time.

But today is my time. And I'm glad for it...glad to be apart of this great undeserved grace. A grace received from my father. A grace passed on to my son.