#31DaysOfWriting: Third Man In

Missing Mom

I stopped wiping the cabinets and looked at my dad. Every now and then I could recognize myself in him, or vice versa, however that worked. Like how I always wanted to fix everything, like in Hannaford’s class with Scott, or make everybody else happy. Sometimes I even think my dad and I ended up working against each other, me trying to do something for him as he was trying to do something for me; sort of like that O. Henry story, “The Gift of the Magi,” where the husband buys the wife a comb for her hair by selling his watch and the wife buys a watch chain for the husband by cutting off and selling her hair. We were pretty tight. After all, it was just the two of us. My mom had died in childbirth but for his own reasons, reasons he never explained, my dad never really talked about my mom, at least not to me. I used to ask him about her, when I was really little, I wanted to know things like what she was like and did he miss her, was it possible to miss someone you didn’t know, because I missed her and was she in heaven and what was heaven like and was God there and why didn’t God let me meet her first, before she went to heaven. He would get quiet and there would be a far away look in his eyes. Then he’d scoop me up in his arms and say something like, “Hey, boss, you ask a lot of hard questions. Hard questions are better answered over ice cream, don’t you think?” Then he’d load me into the car and we’d head off for Jim’s with him talking about all sorts of things. Except my mom or the questions I’d asked.

Then, one time, when I was about four, I overheard him talking to my grandmother about how much he still missed her and that he didn’t know how to answer all of my questions because there were many nights he still wrestled with his own questions, and one question in particular, why, why it had happened.

“It’s the one question my faith can’t seem to answer,” he’d told her. “It’s the one thing that makes me doubt God’s perfect will.”

I asked him what he meant by that. So God wasn’t perfect? Without hesitation, my dad had scooped me up in his arms and assured me that of course God was perfect and sovereign, which meant he called the plays, and all we needed to do was trust Him. Later that night, I snuck out of my bed to watch television from the top of the stairs. But the television wasn’t on; instead, my dad was sitting in his favorite chair, in the dark, his face in his hands, and he was crying.

After that, I stopped asking him, and he never brought it up.

When I felt like talking about my mom, I would call my grandmother, Nana James. She had lots of stories, and, unlike my dad, talking about my mom seemed to make her happy, not sad. Whenever she came over, she brought me pictures of my mom and she always told me I looked like my mom, but I acted like her even more. “It’s uncanny,” she’d say, and smile wistfully. One Christmas she gave me a picture of my mom from when she was a little girl; she was skating on the pond behind Nana James’ house, the same pond where I first learned to skate. “A natural talent for the ice, just like you,” my grandmother told me. It was one of my favorite pictures and I kept it beside my bed. That’s how I knew my mom, from my grandmother’s stories and through pictures she gave me; like I knew she was beautiful from her wedding picture; I knew she was gentle from a picture in which she was taking care of an injured sparrow; I knew she was extremely smart from a picture in which she was celebrating receiving her Ph.D. in theology (where she met my dad); and I knew she was kind by looking at her eyes in any picture.

Say a Little Prayer

My dad pushed the door closed, bringing me back to the kitchen. He sighed again and I knew he was still thinking about Scott. With the darkness outside and the kitchen light inside, the door’s window acted like a mirror and I could see my dad’s face. His eyes were closed and I knew he was saying a prayer for Scott. There was something reassuring about the man I could see in that reflection. I remembered an English paper I’d written once. We had to write about a person who had greatly influenced our life and I’d picked my dad. It was an easy choice, I’d explained, because “even though my dad is a man who might be overlooked because of his average build, slightly stooped shoulders and unassuming nature, he is clearly an example of what is meant by the phrase, ‘he has a beautiful soul.’”

“He’ll be okay, dad.”

“Ummmm,” he said, opening his eyes and looking at me in the reflection of the glass.

“I just wish you wouldn’t push the God thing with him.” I was mopping up the floor with the dish rag. He continued staring out into the night.

“I can’t not push the God thing with him, Alec.”

“It’s his choice, dad. Not yours,” I said quietly.

He sighed and looked up at the night sky. “I just wish I could do more,” he said after a while.

“You do a lot. Besides, you’re the one who’s always saying people don’t change people, God changes people,” I reminded him.

He smiled at me in his reflection. “So a little extra prayer can’t hurt.” He closed his eyes. “Almighty God, hold your child, Scott, close to you, cradle him gently in your arms that he might know your love even if he doesn’t readily recognize it. Amen.”

“Amen,” I whispered.

He opened his eyes and smiled at me. “You’re a good kid, boss.” As I wrung out the dish cloth, he picked up my Michigan hat from the table and put it on. He looked at himself in the door.

“It’s a good look for you,” I told him.