| This story is
for parents who believe they know it all.
I’ve met them moaning their way through life. - red-necked farmers
yelling obscenities at their kids, city dwellers clucking at the crimes
of juveniles, suburbanites
trading gossip of teenage puberty
out of control. Thank
god that’s not me I would say to myself.
My son Karl and I were above all that.
Then we had a break in the weather this spring.
Weeks of miserable dreary rain and snow had shrouded the whole neighborhood.
Mother nature beamed that day. |
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| Spring house cleaning took
on special significance. It
was my last week in this wonderful paradise of Yorkfield.
The divorce was real now. The division of property had been settled,
the ink had been dry for six months and the lawyer had spent his fee on
some lush Caribbean island. Father was guilty of
“abandonment” after 25 years and 1 day of marriage.
Of course Jane had paid my son and I a few holiday visits in the
last 7 years but the strain of having all her immediate family die proved
too much. My
son was back home after his night out with the other actors in his
senior year college troupe. He was going to help me by moving the heavy furniture from
the 2nd floor to the garage.
Later it was to go to his pad.
Oh so we had planned. |
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| I had set a goal to get everything
out with his help and be done in time to get the latest update on his on-again-off-again
trip to Hollywood and England after graduation.
There were two heavy desks and a metal filing cabinet.
Most of the books were packed or
picked up by discerning
scholars. There they stood
rooted to the floor - the heavy stuff.
I woke my only begotten son Karl.
I was the heavy rich laden bourgeoisie
oppressing the unpaid
member of the proletariat. Ah
well - let him get some more sleep a budding actor needs his rest after
such a great performance. So
up I went upstairs to play Quasi-modo.
The first black desk was manageable but my dragging and scrapping
had woken up the thespian. “What’s a fellow got to do to get some sleep around here.”
My reminder of his promise to help didn’t weigh an iota of good-old
fashion parental guilt-tripping.
Well maybe, just maybe, some more noise would help him rise from
the reliving of applause and give pop a
hand. Oh foolish father
haven’t you summed up after 21 years that that tactic has never worked?
No - I guess not. I
called upon my invented demigods for help. The greatest weight-lifters legend
could provide were at my side. |
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| Quasi-modo was joined by Atlas and Hercules cleaning
out my Aegean stables.
I would try and slide the heaviest desk down the carpeted steps,
legs up, smooth side down, with me in front and the demigods in the back
to stop the force of gravity.
I still haven’t figured out how my son can sleep and give advice
on how to navigate weighty objects at the same time.
“Watch you don’t hurt yourself dad”.
As if some harbinger had signaled, some messenger of calamity was
speaking through my son. But
he was still sound asleep. |
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| I
slipped on the landing and I
turned my shoulder to take the weight of the sliding desk. I was pressed
against the wall. “I’m all right, I’m all right”.
It was our family’s comical way of dealing with pain.
It was a long standing pleasant
ritual to laugh away pain. Just recall the uncle in “It’s a wonderful Life”
when he fell into garbage cans after a night of over-indulgence.
I was a bit bruised but mostly the ego had been abandoned. Atlas
and Heracules left Quasi-modo to suffer in silence.
The desk, however, was in little pieces.
I took the kindling out to the large trash
heap which was later to be blessed with the sign “garage sale”.
Karl was up. His desk was in ruin, rubble for the refuse. Its dad’s
fault. Mea culpa! |
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| He
asked if he could help and in some stupid spurt of
spite, I refused to
ask for his help. Sure now
the only piece left to lift was the rickety old metal filing cabinet and
now he offers to help. Quasi-modo mumbles to himself.
Years of having him come out to mow the lawn after it was 99.9% completed
flashed up in an instant. Chopping wood and carrying water was my parental
duty. Sixteen tons of laundry
left for me to do but never to his satisfaction.
I had once mixed a red shirt with white underwear. I still recall the
retelling of the pink underwear
story to his sweethearts and
chronies. |
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| But all the clinking,
clanging and banging to move the filing cabinet down the stairs was a clumsy
call for help. He took action and grabbed the other end.
Two steps before the end of the wooden outdoor porch stairs I thanked
him for his help. True, true the tone of the thanks was a wee-bit sarcastic.
He let go and I let go and the edge of the metal filing cabinet hit
me on the left big toe. The
dance began. No partner, it
was a dance of pain. The soft
brown loafer did nothing to absorb the stabbing, the throbbing piercing
pain. I had grabbed my wounded
toe and pulled it up to my mouth.
I was yelling in home-grown Japanese. |
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| Now because
one foot was literally at my mouth - I found myself pirouetting
around the yard. I recall somehow waving to the mayor in one turn, seeing Karl
bursting out in a belly laugh in another turn and finally stepping in some
dog droppings and falling on my ass.
There’s a lesson here somewhere.
My compassionate one stopped
laughing when he saw that I had ripped off the shoe and sock to check for
bleeding. |
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| Doctor Karl was
on the phone to his sweetheart of the moment giving his scientific analysis
of a probable broken toe, stretched toe tendon and definite prognosis that
the toe-nail would be lost. Thank goodness it was the left and not the right
toe because then dad couldn’t play the piano.
Oh Buddha, Buddha where are you when I need to see beyond the pain.
The twigs on the trees swaying to the beat of the throbbing is no help Siddartha! |
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| That night
Karl made a special trip to the store to get staples for dinner and I took
my first unscheduled vacation day in 14 years the next day. |
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| The Dance
of Pain is a powerful teacher especially when self-inflicted by jealous
martyrs to the wisdom of parenthood. |
