by Jake Adams
I stayed up late catching the final breathtaking minutes of Ole Miss’ 73-70 win over Loyola Marymount last night, and after a few hours of bad sleep caused by a blend of caffeine and some creepy severe weather alerts from my wife’s cell phone was up and going earlier than her this morning.
My wife still lay in bed as precious minutes ticked off the clock that feels more like a shuttle countdown on school days. What I call "launch time" was bearing down on us. Usually she takes our four kids to school, but I could tell this morning she’d be cutting it close. In a moment of what must have been fatigue-induced charity I volunteered to take our two older girls and give her an easier start.
I knew it was a good move on my part when my wife awoke from her drowsiness with an excited, “Really!?” in the same way someone would respond if I had told them they had just won two free tickets to the Super Bowl.
Score one for the husband.
So as liftoff approached I loaded Gracie, my 2nd grader, and Addie, my 1st grader, into the old suburban. Gracie just recently graduated from a booster seat and I let her ride up front with me for the first time ever. Addie took her position in the back seat, and off we went, they in their little school uniforms and me in my casual lawyer garb.
“Do we have to listen to your radio show, Dad?” Gracie asked before we were even out of the driveway. It’s a very short driveway. She was referring to the morning sports talk show I listen to on most mornings.
“It’s soooo long,” she complained.
I obligingly flipped it to a music station and we chugged on. Their school is a 20 to 25 minute drive from our house in morning traffic. With no movie to watch or sports to listen to it was just us - captive in the car with each other and no distractions other than what we could see outside the windows.
I’m always easily lost in thought when I’m driving, and purposefully so when kids are in the car making their busy noises, usually thinking about Ole Miss sports or something related to work. As we settled into traffic my mind began focusing in on those things, and that’s when the questions began. When there’s not a movie playing or a sibling disagreement there are usually questions. Drives to school quite often turn into Q&A sessions. I usually answer them quickly with the best answer I can give them in hopes that it’ll turn the conversation off and I can go back to listening to radio or return to my thoughts.
“Am I going to Prep?” Gracie asked.
“We don’t know yet,” I responded. “You’re only in the 2nd grade. Your mom and I haven’t decided.”
“But I really want to play softball,” Gracie said.
“They have softball at every school,” I told her, wanting to keep alive the possibility in her mind that she could go somewhere other than the most expensive private school in Jackson.
And on we drove. A moment and a red light or two passed. My mind started to drift...
“I don’t want to get married when I grow up,” Gracie said.
“You don’t have to,” I responded, surprisingly happy about the idea, and not wanting to know the reason why. Knowing what men are like, since I am one, I truly do hope to keep boys as far from my daughters as possible for as long as possible. I was feeling internally pleased with the thought of Gracie finishing medical school (forgone conclusion of a proud father) without a husband when “How do you get a boyfriend?” came sailing from the back.
I could tell Addie’s mind was working away on the entire marriage thing.
“You meet a boy that you like and you want to spend time with, and who likes you and wants to spend time with you,” I said, hoping upon hope that the natural followup questions regarding kissing didn’t present.
“Is that what you did with mom?” Addie asked.
“Yes, that’s exactly what happened with mom,” I replied, happy that we skipped kissing dialogue.
It turns out kissing questions would have been easier.
“Why can’t you marry people who are in your family?” Gracie asked.
“Crap...a stumper,” I thought, wondering how I was going to explain DNA and the phenomenon some of us refer to as inbred children to a 2nd grader without getting asked how that happens. I tried to jump straight to the end using scientific sounding answers.
“Because it’s wrong,” I said.
“Why is it wrong?” Gracie asked.
“Dang,” I thought. “Because when people who are related to one another have children their children aren’t as healthy. It’s better to have DNA from different lineages of families than to mix the DNA of the same family,” I said, all the while wondering “What the heck am I saying? How is she going to respond? I’m in trouble!” I just knew I was about to get asked how babies are made.
“Can I just have kids without getting married?” Gracie asked.
This was getting out of hand, but then again I still had hope. I chose an evasive tactic.
“Well, you could,” I said, “but then the kids wouldn’t have a Daddy, and wouldn’t that be sad? All kids need Daddies.”
“Well if the kids never had a daddy how would they know they didn’t have a daddy?” Gracie asked.
The kid is too smart for me.
“They just would! Every kids wants a Daddy,” I said. Hoping this was actually true for my kids.
Fortunately we turned toward school and I took a turn their mother doesn’t normally take and the conversation migrated away from genetics, cousin marriage and single motherhood and back to, “the way mom does it.”
As we approached drop off I tickled their excitement over Christmas vacation by reminding them school was almost out for the holidays, walked them over to the crossing guard at the school, got two very sweet goodbye kisses and sent them in their little school girl uniforms and oversized backpacks on their way.
As they walked off into school I was amazed at the conversation we had just had, hoped upon hope I hadn’t steered their little, always-working minds in a wayward direction, and was thankful for the time we had just had together, and that’s when it hit me.
There are dads just like me in Newtown, Connecticut, today who didn’t get to have those conversations with their little girls on the way to school. They probably thought they’d always have moments like those with their kids. In fact they probably didn’t give it any thought. They probably took it for granted that they’d have to take their children to school again even though usually their wife did it because they thought taking their children to school was a distraction from work or their favorite morning radio show or their thoughts about work. I’m guessing there were Dads in Newtown like that. Like me. Dads who viewed their kids more as an agitation or inconvenience than as little treasures. Dads who didn’t savor the moments they had. Who forgot how brief life can be and took the next day for granted. Dads who wish they could do it over again, who would have done it all so differently if they had only known.
I don’t know any of those Dads, but I know myself, and I know if I was in their shoes on this final countdown to Christmas I would have a lot of regret. Moments I wish I could have back. School nights where I should have been more loving, more understanding and less agitated and put out by the needs of my precious kids.
Everybody wants to talk about what caused the tragedy at Newtown. Well-meaning government officials want to create legislation to fix it. People want to know why it happened. What made that scary looking man with the big spooky eyes grab up those guns and murder innocent teachers and kids? How can we stop it from happening again? They are good questions all, but finding the answers will be extremely difficult. Fixing it even harder. If madness could really be stopped, wouldn’t we have stopped it long ago?
As a father of four I can’t get past what was lost, and it makes me sad. Sad for the parents who lost their children and sad that we live in a world where madness can strike at any time, and where no matter how hard we try we can’t really protect our own.
On the other side of that sadness I also find myself thankful. Extremely, tangibly thankful.
I’m thankful for the drive I had with my girls this morning. I’m thankful for the hard questions and that they love me enough to want to ask them of me. I’m thankful that Gracie asked me to turn off my favorite sports radio show, and I’m sorry that she had to ask at all. I’m thankful for our time together. I’m thankful for what only a few days ago was the mundane.
Mostly, I’m just thankful.
I would never say that anything good came out of the tragedy at Newtown. That would be a slap in the face of all who lost so much. But a new perspective did come - for me - if only temporarily, and for that I am thankful.
Let’s all hug our children extra tight tonight...and the night after that...and the night after that....
Never forget Newtown.
Merry Christmas.
