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What’s lost and gained

This will seem like a story about losing, but believe me, it’s the opposite.

A few weeks ago, before everyone’s world got tossed upside-down, two of my sons were wrestling for spots in our state’s high school tournament. One was a long-shot, the other a number-one seed in his weight class. Hopes—and the smell of gym clothes worn by boys trying to make weight—were high in the Woodlief house.

One of my wrestlers with one of my future wrestlers

Well, nothing went as planned. The long-shot wrestled his way into contention, while our higher-rated wrestler, suffering from undiagnosed strep throat, got in trouble early. It all came down, for both of them, to one match. One more win apiece to reach the state tournament.

To compound the tension, their clinching matches were scheduled moments apart, on adjacent mats. Please, I prayed, give them this.

It was a shallow prayer, I know. Every boy in that gym worked hard to get there. Every one of them had a mother or father or someone praying. And wrestling is not, as we’re all being reminded these days, that important.

Future wrestler #2 wanted a turn

But I prayed, like every other parent in there, and like most of them, I watched my sons lose. Both of them, seconds apart.

It’s hard, in a moment like that, to make sure your child understands that you’re disappointed for him, not in him. And it’s hard, as a son, to stand in the gaze of your father so soon after losing. Understandably, the boys chose to ride home together, in the older one’s car.

Those of you with children in sports know there’s always a dozen things your kids leave behind, so we were several minutes behind them. Long enough for anything to happen on that long country highway home.

Some twenty minutes up the highway, we saw flashing lights. A lot of them. Firetrucks, an ambulance, state troopers. A tangle of metal strewn along the ditch.

I found myself praying again. Please, God. Not them. Not my children.

Which I suppose was more selfish than my first prayer. It had to be, after all, somebody’s children. That’s the terror of this world. It’s always somebody’s child.

I’m ashamed and thankful to tell you it wasn’t my children. And though I’ll always hurt for them when I think on that day, I can’t help but think of it as a gift. The day I didn’t lose my sons.

It’s a good season of life, for all of us, to be mindful of our gifts. We’re wired to take it all for granted. To let our everyday miracles become part of the background. Keep them in your sight.

The littlest one tags in his twin
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Guard the door

Fear is a thief. I say this as a father whose pockets have been picked many times. I’ve had countless moments of peace snatched from my hands. Hours of sleep pilfered. Excellence replaced with adequacy, because my mind was elsewhere.

Where, exactly? On what could go wrong. An illness, a car accident, a vicious dog on a frayed leash. I am a walking encyclopedia of worst-case scenarios. Go ahead, name something children do every day, and I can tell you a dozen ways they could get hurt, crippled, killed. Where someone else might see a toddler riding his tricycle down the driveway, I see a careless UPS driver behind the wheel of a two-ton truck. A walk on the nature trail? Poisonous snakes. Family cookout? Exploding propane tank.

I was this way before my daughter died from a brain tumor, but that nightmare certainly made it worse. Enduring horror makes you realize the worst things don’t always happen to other people. They happen to you.

But fear, like I said, is a thief. When I invite it to lean over my shoulder and whisper in my ear while I’m working or praying or playing with my children, I invite it to confiscate the small joys that are our only solace in a world of hardship. How foolish, how cruel, to let what has not come to pass steal all that remains untarnished by what did come to pass.

I share this with you because this is a fearful time for many of us. Fear of the coronavirus, of a sagging economy, of what our fellow humans are capable of when they too are afraid. If you need a few dozen other looming troubles to tremble over, I’m the man to see. But right now I’m the man reminding you that there’s good all around you. That the darkness will always and ever have no choice but to retreat in the face of even a little light. That it only wins when we clamp shut our eyes.

So today, and tomorrow, and maybe even the day after that, spend a little time noticing the good. Gratitude has always been the undoing of fear. This world is full of suffering, yes, but it is also filled with goodness. See that. Be a part of that. Don’t let the thief in.

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Absence and the heart

This week I’ve been quarantined in my bedroom with the flu. It’s particularly tough because my oldest son, a United States Marine, has been with us during what will likely be his longest leave for some time, and I’ve missed most of it. Today he flies back to base.

My littlest ones, two year-old twins, have decided that I’m being held against my will. They’ve made several forays against the door in an effort to liberate me. I’ll hear them conferring in low chatter down the hallway, then there will be the thundering of little feet as they charge the door, then a catastrophic thump as toddler flesh meets wood. They’re so adept at breaking into/out of every other confinement that I’ve shoved a chair up against the door.

It’s Christmas, and I’m literally barricaded inside my bedroom.

When it’s warm enough the twins play outside. Sometimes they congregate beneath my window. “Papa!” they shout. My older sons pause before some unnamed excursion. “Hi Dad!” they yell up at me. They pile into my truck.

I wave back from where I sit beside the window. My wife comes over to quietly confer with me about the day, how I’m feeling, what people are up to. She confirms that she’s checked everyone’s temperatures and no one else is sick. “I miss you,” she says.

Which could seem like an odd thing to say, given that we’re twelve feet apart and in constant contact. But I’m not there. I’m not with them.

My father-in-law holds the twins’ hands as they traverse the long driveway. In the kitchen below I hear my saintly mother-in-law chatting with one of our family friends.

I’m here and not there. “I miss you,” I tell my wife.

Maybe it’s a cruelty that this is the week all we who are going through the daily Intentional Fathering habits are focused on delighting in our children. Or maybe it’s just another way God is using this project to change one father, me.

Because while it hurts to hear them carrying on with the holidays, to hear the clink of dishes and the occasional bursts of laughter, to get texts telling me what they’re up to and checking on whether I need water or broth, it’s a good kind of hurt, I think. When you can’t hear everything you want to hear, you listen closely. When the ones you love are only in sight for a few minutes, you pay attention. When you can finally taste your broth, you remember it’s a blessing to live in circumstances where food comes easily to your hands.

Yesterday I was well enough to sit on our deck for awhile. The babies were napping, and everyone kept his distance. The sun felt good, though it was cold. One of the twins woke up, and his mother laid hold of him to keep him from running into my arms. She reminded him that I’m sick.

“Want to look at Papa,” he insisted. He sat near her and did just that. And his countenance was warmer than the sun. It was so filled up with unquestioned love that I almost couldn’t bear it. His was the gaze of someone delighting in the one he loves.

It occurred to me in that moment that all these things we fathers are working on: gratitude, delight, kindness, listening—they aren’t habits we need to acquire so much as a remembrance of who we were, back when our hearts were less burdened.