I had one of those moments this evening. The kind that only happen now that I’m a father. Maybe you know the moments to which I am referring… it’s when you well up over sentimental parent-child stuff. There’s a few country songs that get me every time, and there are books and movies aplenty. Tonight was the Hugh Jackman vehicle Real Steel, a fun little movie about an estranged father and son bonding over robot boxing. The climax of the movie was pretty dope, but if you think that scene was about the robots in the ring dukin’ it out, well… maybe you just don’t have those kind of moments.
Having a young son when you’re pushing 40 is an enlightening experience, to say the least. Sometimes we really don’t understand each other, but then we can kill half an hour dancing around to me playing the Transformers cartoon theme song on my guitar. I feel old and young at the same time, I suppose. But more importantly, I am more aware of my mortality, and somehow still perfectly confident that I can do anything.
I’m freakin’ Superman, yo.
Except, of course, that Supes doesn’t have gout and rarely has to lean on a cane to feel the least bit ambulatory. It really isn’t about invincibility or anything, anyway. It’s just, well… I suppose it’s just confidence. Confidence in myself and my ability to make things happen. Confident that I will seize the right opportunities as they present themselves. And confident that I’ll be able to handle whatever challenges life slings my direction with malice aforethought.
“He was like a ghost that night, floating inches above the mat… but I saw him.”
When I was a child, my father had little time for me and we grew farther apart as I got older. It was a year and a half after the fact that I found out that my father had died. For his entire life my father was afraid of growing old and searched for immortality. I found it on the 27th of November 1987 when my eldest daughter was born. I know I’m not a perfect parent, who is? but I tried. At the very least I can say that I was there. I was present and I was involved in the things they were doing as they were growing up.
Now that they are grown and we’ve spread out across the planet it is harder to keep in touch as much as we would like and I don’t get to see any of them as much as I want, but we do what we can and we try.
As your son grows into a man it won’t be that you leaned on a cane that he will remember, it is that you were there and you played with him. There will be times when he will resent your intrusion into his life that’s natural but he will know that he is loved.
That’s a pleasant thought. I was so worried before my son was born… My daughter is 18 now, but she’s not of my blood and I didn’t meet her until she was 10 years old (happily, she asked me to adopt her even before Jonikka and I had married, and I did so at the very first opportunity). I love her, but it’s a love that grew from getting to know her and being a part of her life. I still didn’t understand the love that emerges at the moment that fatherhood begins. And I’m an intellectual… I couldn’t just accept that it was freakin’ magic.
But is was. Go figure.
The next big fear was that I wouldn’t know how to connect. I wasn’t even good at communicating with other children when I walked amongst their ranks. I related better to older kids and adults, for as far back as I can remember. This was probably very formative for me and mine ego.
Again… not so much a problem. Don’t get me wrong… I’m just as confused as I have ever been with any 4-year-old. But I’ve had a chance to learn how that association works… we don’t relate as peers, obviously. I think that what I struggled with for so long is the idea that we should for some reason… which is patently ridiculous.
But I look forward to meeting Gabriel as a teenager, and I particularly look forward to knowing him as an adult. I know, I know… everyone says don’t be in a hurry, and I get that. In fact, I’m a psych student… I know precisely how important this period is – right now – for his development into personhood.
And with any luck, I won’t spend that much of his young life leaning on a cane. Though if I lost about 100 pounds, it might look kinda dashing. *grins*