Published: June 21, 2009 12:51 am      

DODD: A trip down memory for this dad

“Before you cross the street, take my hand. Life is what happens to you, while you’re busy making other plans. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy.”

— John Lennon



I think the very best feeling I ever had as a father was when we would be returning home a bit late from a family outing and I would carry my son from the car when he was asleep, and I mean that type of deep sleep that only small children drift off into in the back of a car. I would gently pick him up and inevitably and instinctively he would wrap his arms tightly around my neck and never miss a beat of slumber. It was always one of those times that I think we both felt totally at peace; secure and satisfied in our respective father/son roles.

I’m also reminded of a sleep story when he was just a tiny fellow. Every parent knows how young children like to deny that they are prone to sleepiness. On one such late afternoon, Cameron was reaching that adorable sleepy, cranky, yet denial stage where he kept repeatedly snapping back at our suggestions to take a nap: “I am not tired!”

Kim and I kept insisting that he eat his dinner and lay down for a spell. Yet again, his insistence was that he was not tired and was adamant that he would not take a nap. Kim served him a plate of mashed potatoes. We both were just feet away and engaged in another meaningless activity and turned away for just a couple of moments.

One of us looked back at the table and motioned to the other to glance Cameron’s way. There was our little guy fast asleep with his face buried in a pile of mashed potatoes and gravy.

That little potato-faced guy is now 14 years old and about a half-inch taller than dad, with several years of prime growth remaining. It is a strange turnabout when you are about to literally start looking up to the one person who for all of his life has looked up to you. The natural cycle, while gradual, seems to come way quicker than time allows for you to prepare and accept.

The stages of Cameron’s life for me can be measured very simply, yet very profoundly. The first stage of when you carry a child around everywhere seems to fly at warp speed. Those first steps come way too soon, and at that exact moment of those first steps, your role lessens on a regular basis. Those are the first steps to a never-ending goal to independence that, like the opening of Pandora’s Box, can never be reversed.

As a dad, the second stage for me was when we walked together and he reached up his little hand to feel mine. That tiniest of hand that would be enveloped by my own. He felt secure and I felt so needed. Whenever his hand was in mine, I knew I was keeping him safe.

In no time he seemed to have a different physical profile. It was an awkward reach for hands as he walked beside me and I began to simply place my hand upon the top of his head. I can’t explain it, but this was one of my favorite stages. It was controlling enough with allowing a bit of freedom. It became natural as he stood beside me for my hand to fall naturally upon the top of his head, and I still felt that connection that was so warm and secure.

One day, he was too tall for the head-to-hand stroll. Somewhere that child became a young man and the only natural way to walk beside him was with my arm around his shoulder. It was more of an awkward stroll.

Too soon he became resistant to that attachment and separated from my touch. No more was I controlling his path and guiding his footsteps. Although I don’t remember that moment, I know there was that instance of the first resistance, probably gentle yet pronounced. He didn’t need my touch to feel safe.

That connection became less physical, more and more involving verbal interaction and communication. Most dads know with sons that moms get constant hugs and kisses. Dads with sons don’t get hugs and kisses but for a very few too short years.

I am very proud of my son and who and what he has become to this point. I think we are as close as any father and 14-year-old can be. I try not to wax nostalgic so much as to miss out on the magic of the present relationship which we share.

Every now and then, I walk through a room and find him sitting at the computer late at night. I might gently place my hand upon his head or, if I am feeling just right, might even kiss him on the top of his head. I guess it’s just my way of recapturing a bit of that past connection.

On even a rare occasion as I have placed my hand upon his head, I have felt him reach backward without missing a computer stroke and gently place his hand over mine as if he remembers a time when we both needed and felt a comfort in that connection.

That is a very good moment for a dad who is trying hard to realize and accept how quickly that the last 14 years have passed, and how quickly I know that chair will be sitting empty one night as I walk past the computer desk. I suspect that there will be at least one evening when I will walk through that room and feel as songwriter Dan Fogelberg once so poetically wrote: “When faced with the past, the strongest man cries.”

I wish every father could have an experience like I have had as a father and that everyone could have had a father like I had.

I hope that every dad has a happy Father’s Day, especially mine!

Lindon Dodd is an Otisco resident who is a freelance writer and can be reached at lindon.dodd@hotmail.com.