You come out of the womb and into this world with a face, but an identity doesn't really form until you grasp that first letter, the beginning of a lifelong climb, letter by letter, then word by word, into the eddying spirals of meaning and obfuscation. Slowly, bit by bit, you start to get a grip on things like joy and fear, love and death.
It was death that got my little boy that day. He woke up one afternoon, a rare Sunday when he had taken a late nap, shaking and crying after a bad dream he had about his great grandfather, who had only recently passed away. The particulars of his dream are hard to remember all these years later, although I do remember we discussed it in great detail in the moment. I believe the nightmare essentially centered around his realization that he would never see one of his favorite people in this world ever again. I do recall that it was not an easy conversation.
I wiped my son's tears with the sleeve of my sweatshirt and read him some of his Scooby Doo books, until he decided he wanted to "play chess," which, at that point, meant that we would pull all the pieces out of this magnetic travel set we had and then try to put them back in their places. Each piece fit snugly into a felt indentation.
"Do you see the one with the horse shape that could go there, bud?" I asked.
He tried to put the knight in its place, but had it facing the wrong way.
"How about this way?" I said, gently turning the piece around and handing it back to him. He got it in and smiled.
"You make this game fun, Dad!" he said.
He fell back asleep a little while later, with me rocking him against my chest and singing Johnny Cash's "I Walk The Line" really softly. I kissed him on his curly blonde head and carried him to bed.
Even in the harder moments, explaining death and nightmares, I couldn't understand what I'd ever done to deserve such a beautiful day, a beautiful child, a beautiful life.
I'm not sure I have any better answers to those questions all these years alter, but that feeling remains.
We began perfect. Look closely, that has never been lost.
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