Recent Lynchburg Living Article:
Sometimes the most brilliant episodes of fatherhood, the ones where we witness our kid really get it and grow up right in front of us, are the unscripted ones. These flashes of paternal genius aren’t from a bestseller’s “10 Easy Steps,” or even our pastor’s homely on Proverbs. Instead, these rare moments come from unseen forces, from risks, instinct and untempered creativity. We just have a gut feeling and go after it.
I’m on the Blackwater Creek bike path near the Orthodox church’s entrance. It’s early afternoon, so the city is still at work or in classrooms. My 6-year-old son, Chase, is Tigger-bouncing from our van door, because his dad just broke him out of kindergarten for the rest of the day. Soon, he runs 10 feet ahead of me and tries to keep up with our Labrador, but the dog is too fast and spastic, even with her bum hip. The boy laughs and the dog barks. Everything is perfect. And yet, I know my son’s complexion will do a 180 once we get off-road and into the wild.
My mission doesn’t have much time to culminate, because my other two children will await me for school pick-up in less than two hours. So, my amateur therapy experiment must act fast and has no room for error. The challenge: Help my son grow past his fear of the woods through controlled exposure. The truth is, he’s terror-stricken of the forest. For some reason, he is absolutely certain that a bear, dingo or Sasquatch crouches at every hollow and waits to eat him slowly.
Typically, our family hikes revolve around his sister and brother exploring wildly on and off the trail way up ahead, and yet Chase is never more than a few feet beside or in front of his mother and me. “Are we almost done, Daddy?” he’ll fret and hang onto my arm. And then he often shuffles and repeats, “Daddy, are there bears out here? Will they get us?”
Today, though, I think if I can get him under the trees and into the brush solo, without the tension of his siblings around, maybe he’ll thaw out a little, and perhaps unleash his inner woodsman. Also, if I create an extreme scenario where he can one-up his older brother, he might crave more of the outdoors. Fool hardy? Possibly traumatizing? Sure, but isn’t this what dads are supposed to do?
Soon, we reach the trailhead and are onto the gritty path that twists and bends downward to the Blackwater Creek. Everywhere we look, insects exploit our pores and blood supply with fury.
“Daddy, they’re biting me all the time,” my son rants.
The insects get more and more grating. Of course, this is part of the admission fee out here. Nonetheless, it’s Strike One for me with my son.
Several yards further, a couple squirrels scrap and chase in the foliage. Our dog invites herself into the rodent games and hustles after them into the thicket. Turn around, turn around, I think, but the dog just evaporates into an outlying tree line. Gone. Terrific, the dog is AWOL and I just swung Strike Two.
Chase’s eyes are cucumber sized from runaway dog shock.
“Is Annie gonna come back, Daddy?” he wonders aloud. “What if she gets lost out there?”
He starts to repeat questions in club-loop beat patterns. These are his early ticks before forest-fret takes over and he goes apocalyptic zombie-kid—must eat brains. So, if this experiment is to avoid nuclear chaos, two things must happen at this moment: First, that dog better rejoin our pack immediately or Chase will go into lockdown and I’m carrying a zombie-kid back to the parking lot. And second, some majestic Patton-esque dad speech must fall from heaven and into my head, so I can rally the afternoon back to my side.
Neither the dog nor the speech have come through for me, though. So, I improvise.
“Hurry, Chase!” I shout. Then, I grab his hand and haul it down the trail towards the eventual river embankment. “Let’s go after, Annie. We can get her back.”
I lose time as we scramble awhile. On purpose, I stare straight and not at him, so this crazy/brilliant/panic run stays with me. Before long, Chase and I are spent and face-to-face with our backs angled and hands on our knees. We gasp and spit and try to recompose. Nothing is said. Chase’s neck pulse looks like war drums rallying a dragon army. Something in his eyes is changed. Somehow, I recognized this isn’t the same boy. What’s different? I wonder.
Right then, our dog blazes past our position, off the trail and into a finger creek. She makes a dead stop and then peers back at Chase and me.
“Let’s go,” I say and we descend into the stream after her. Chase is, so far, unfazed. He just keeps going.
About 20 yards up the watery staircase, we face a decision: Go up the eight-foot bank on the left and return to the familiar dirt path and, thus, put an end to this unscripted revelry. Or, follow the dog up a 25-foot bank to an unknown plateau. My son now has one shoe submerged in creek water and the other on a rock. Our eyes lock and then I head motion the two choices without a word. Now, he reaches down to peel away his t-shirt. Although, he pulls the garment from his core, he doesn’t remove it entirely. Instead, it’s a dread-lock looking head piece that flows from his scalp down to his shoulders. We then begin our struggle up towards the summit.
Rotten branches and dirt, craggy rocks and vines all make an organic ladder to the top. We endeavor slowly up to the ridge and get tattooed by more bug bites and thorn gashes, all the while, piling on mud and mosquito guts. Once on top, I examine my son who stands a few feet way. He’s bare-chested, covered in earth and blood. The therapy is working, I conclude. My son is transforming before me. Tremendous.
However, I know if I go any deeper, I risk getting lost and leaving my other two children to wait on the curb at school. And yet, if I turn back, I also risk the miscarriage of this son’s right of passage. So, we go onward. We get lost. And Chase unleashes his fearless inner woodsman that sometimes makes his older siblings cower.
Incidentally, at 3:15 p.m., the absolute latest time I can retrieve my children from school without a night in the box, Chase and I arrive to recall our rugged tale.
These chancy flashes of fatherhood, in which you push your children to a central moment and enable them to reach a new place, can possibly be the most defining of their lives, and your own. It seems ironic, but fatherhood is more creative and artistic than I ever thought it to be before. It’s not just about providing regular sustenance and discipline, but personhood as well.
If our children are all entrusted to us as canvases and our love and leadership is what colors their souls, then we must simply parent with this knowledge: Be creative. You never know how it may brighten your child’s internal mural.
