Chicken Soup for the Soul 20th Anniversary Edition (21 page)

Kids spell love T-I-M-E.

~John Crudele

T
houghts while driving my son to school: Morning, Kid. You look pretty sharp in your Cub Scout gear, not as fat as your old man when he was a Cub. I don’t think my hair was ever as long until I went away to college, but I think I’d recognize you anyway by what you are: a little shaggy around the ears, scuffed around the toes, wrinkled in the knees. We get used to one another.

Now that you’re eight I notice I don’t see a whole lot of you anymore. On Columbus Day you left at nine in the morning. I saw you for 42 seconds at lunch and you reappeared for supper at five. I miss you, but I know you’ve got serious business to take care of. Certainly as serious as, if not more important than, the things the other commuters on the road are doing.

You’ve got to grow up and out and that’s more important than clipping coupons, arranging stock options or selling people short. You’ve got to learn what you are able to do and what you aren’t — and you’ve got to learn how to deal with that. You’ve got to learn about people and how they behave when they don’t feel good about themselves — like the bullies who hang out at the bike rack and hassle the smaller kids. Yeah, you’ll even have to learn how to pretend that name-calling doesn’t hurt. It’ll always hurt, but you’ll have to put up a front or they’ll call you worse names next time. I only hope you remember how it feels — in case you ever decide to rank a kid who’s smaller than you.

When was the last time I told you I was proud of you? I guess if I can’t remember, I’ve got work to do. I remember the last time I yelled at you — told you we’d be late if you didn’t hurry — but, on balance, as Nixon used to say, I haven’t given you as many pats as yells. For the record, in case you read this, I am proud of you. I especially like your independence, the way you take care of yourself even when it frightens me just a little bit. You’ve never been much of a whiner and that makes you a superior kid in my book.

Why is it that fathers are so slow to realize that eight-year-olds need as many hugs as four-year-olds? If I don’t watch out, pretty soon I’ll be punching you on the arm and saying, “Whaddaya say, kid?!” instead of hugging you and telling you I love you. Life is too short to hide affection. Why is it that eight-year-olds are so slow to realize that 36-year-olds need as many hugs as four-year-olds?

Did I forget to tell you that I’m proud you went back to a box lunch after one week’s worth of that indigestible hot lunch? I’m glad you value your body.

I wish the drive weren’t so short. I want to talk about last night when your younger brother was asleep and we let you stay up and watch the Yankees game. Those times are so special. There’s no way you can plan them. Every time we try to plan something together, it’s not as good or rich or warm. For a few all-too-short minutes it was as if you’d already grown up and we sat and talked without any words about “How are you doing in school, son?” I’d already checked your math homework the only way I could — with a calculator.

You’re better with numbers than I’ll ever be. So, we talked about the game and you knew more about the players than I did and I learned from you. And we were both happy when the Yankees won.

Well, there’s the crossing guard. He’ll probably outlive all of us. I wish you didn’t have to go to school today. There are so many things I want to say.

Your exit from my car is so quick. I want to savor the moment and you’ve already spotted a couple of your friends.

I just wanted to say “I love you, son.”

~Victor B. Miller

To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.

~Josh Billings

I
t was a sunny Saturday afternoon in Oklahoma City. My friend and proud father Bobby Lewis was taking his two little boys to play miniature golf. He walked up to the fellow at the ticket counter and said, “How much is it to get in?”

The young man replied, “$3.00 for you and $3.00 for any kid who is older than six. We let them in free if they are six or younger. How old are they?”

Bobby replied, “The lawyer’s three and the doctor is seven, so I guess I owe you $6.00.”

The man at the ticket counter said, “Hey, Mister, did you just win the lottery or something? You could have saved yourself three bucks. You could have told me that the older one was six; I wouldn’t have known the difference.”

Bobby replied, “Yes, that may be true, but the kids would have known the difference.”

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.” In challenging times when ethics are more important than ever before, make sure you set a good example for everyone you work and live with.

~Patricia Fripp

One of the virtues of being very young is that you don’t let the facts get in the way of your imagination.

~Sam Levenson

I
t is 10:30 on a perfect Saturday morning and we are, for the moment, the perfect American family. My wife has taken our six-year-old to his first piano lesson. Our 14-year-old has not yet roused from his slumber. The four-year-old watches tiny, anthropomorphic beings hurl one another from cliffs in the other room. I sit at the kitchen table reading the newspaper.

Aaron Malachi, the four-year-old, apparently bored by the cartoon carnage and the considerable personal power obtained by holding the television’s remote control, enters my space.

“I’m hungry,” he says.

“Want some more cereal?”

“No.”

“Want some yogurt?”

“No.”

“Want some eggs?”

“No. Can I have some ice cream?”

“No.”

For all I know, ice cream may be far more nourishing than

processed cereal or antibiotic-laden eggs but, according to my cultural values, it is wrong to have ice cream at 10:45 on a Saturday morning.

Silence. About four seconds. “Daddy, we have very much of life left, don’t we?”

“Yes, we have lots of life left, Aaron.”

“Me and you and Mommy?”

“That’s right.”

“And Isaac?”

“Yes.”

“And Ben?”

“Yes. You and me and Mommy and Isaac and Ben.”

“We have very much of life left. Until all the people die.”

“What do you mean?”

“Until all the people die and the dinosaurs come back.”

Aaron sits down on the table, cross-legged like a Buddha, in the center of my newspaper.

“What do you mean, Aaron, ‘until all the people die’?”

“You said everybody dies. When everybody dies, then the dinosaurs will come back. The cavemen lived in caves, dinosaur caves. Then the dinosaurs came back and squished ’em.”

I realize that already for Aaron life is a limited economy, a resource with a beginning and an end. He envisions himself and us somewhere along that trajectory, a trajectory that ends in uncertainty and loss.

I am faced with an ethical decision. What should I do now? Should I attempt to give him God, salvation, eternity? Should I toss him some spiel like, “Your body is just a shell and after you die, we will all be together in spirit forever”?

Or should I leave him with his uncertainty and his anxiety because I think it’s real? Should I try to make him an anxious existentialist or should I try to make him feel better?

I don’t know. I stare at the newspaper. The Celtics are consistently losing on Friday nights. Larry Bird is angry at somebody, but I can’t see who, because Aaron’s foot is in the way. I don’t know but my neurotic, addictive, middle-class sensibility is telling me that this is a very important moment, a moment when Aaron’s ways of constructing his world are being formed. Or maybe my neurotic, addictive, middle-class sensibility is just making me think that. If life and death are an illusion, then why should I trifle with how someone else understands them?

On the table Aaron plays with an “army guy,” raising his arms and balancing him on his shaky legs. It was Kevin McHale that Larry Bird was angry at. No, not Kevin McHale, it was Jerry Sichting. But Jerry Sichting is no longer with the Celtics. Whatever happened to Jerry Sichting? Everything dies; everything comes to an end. Jerry Sichting is playing for Sacramento or Orlando or he has disappeared.

I should not trifle with how Aaron understands life and death because I want him to have a solid sense of structure, a sense of the permanence of things. It’s obvious what a good job the nuns and priests did with me. It was agony or bliss. Heaven and hell were not connected by long distance service. You were on God’s team or you were in the soup, and the soup was hot. I don’t want Aaron to get burned, but I want him to have a strong frame. The neurotic but unavoidable anxiety can come later.

Is that possible? It is possible to have a sense that God, spirit, karma, Y*H*W*H, something — is transcendent, without traumatizing the presentness of a person, without beating it into them? Can we have our cake and eat it too, ontologically speaking? Or is their fragile sensibility, their “there-ness,” sundered by such an act?

Sensing a slight increase in agitation on the table, I know that Aaron is becoming bored with his guy. With an attitude of drama benefiting the moment, I clear my throat and begin with a professional tone.

“Aaron, death is something that some people believe....”

“Dad,” Aaron interrupts, “could we play a video game? It’s not a very violent game,” he explains, hands gesticulating. “It’s not like a killing game. The guys just kind of flop over.”

“Yes,” I say with some relief, “let’s play video games. But first there’s something else we have to do.”

“What?” Aaron stops and turns from where he has run, already halfway to the arcade.

“First, let’s have some ice cream.”

Another perfect Saturday for a perfect family. For now.

~Michael Murphy