Regrets

Ted Reads Regrets

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I was sitting with a friend on a perfect summer morning in a giant city park, when she exclaimed, “Look at that!!!!” As I turned around, I saw a man, catching one of those giant foam airplane shaped gliders. He had that thing dialed in so that it would always return to him, like an obedient dog. Little did I know what seeing that would trigger in me.

For a moment, I saw myself as a kid secretly climbing all the way up to the top of our neighbors six-story barn silo and tossing one of those little balsa fighter plane shaped gliders out of the opening at the top. Watching it float, dip, dive, circle, moving up, flipping over, looping and swirling on its way to the ground. Hoping that I had adjusted the wings and tail just right. Trying to make each flight a little longer than the last. Hoping that it wouldn’t crash into the side of the silo, just a few feet below me, falling apart and all the pieces fluttering in their own way to the ground (though that was sort of exciting to see too.)

Sometimes my brother would be with me, and we would throw two planes out of the opening at the same time, imagining we were dog fighting like planes in war do. Sometimes we would compete for time aloft, or distance if we only had one plane. Counting out loud the seconds, pacing off the distance, always shortening our normal strides, just a little.

Most often my glider (due to the prevailing winds) landed in the barn yard. Sometimes though it landed on the road that went past the barn and silo. Sliding down the silo’s ladder as fast as I could, hoping to get to it before the pigs discovered it and determined it was edible (pigs will eat or try to eat just about anything) a cow stepped on it, a truck, tractor or car ran over it, or I got caught red-handed, whereupon, the glider would be destroyed.  Those were the pleasant thoughts and memories triggered by the man in the park with the glider.

Seeing him, also sparked the thought I might just be able to do that with my two grandsons. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? They are now 12 and 8. They (and all my grandchildren) have received ‘gliders’ already. It is one of the first gifts all of them received from me. I’m still likely to buy them one. I am guessing now, at this moment, I give them those planes hoping to have the experience of me playing with them (the gliders as well as my grandchildren) again. We always do, for a little bit in the house until we get caught.

What has never happened was for me to say, “Let’s go outside and play with them.”  Partly it is because it’s usually the dead of winter with double digit inches of snow on the ground, and/or single digit temperatures, or because I never think to ask them. By the time it warms up, the planes are long gone.

Another factor is that our family lives in the suburbs without much open space. Sadly, they may now be well past the point of wanting to do that with me. But I MIGHT risk asking them. Then I thought of all the lost years of not asking. Why? I just didn’t think of it.

If assessed, I think I would probably fail the grandpa test. Not because I am not interested, but primarily I just don’t know how to do it. I would qualify more as a spectator. I wasn’t that great of a dad either. I didn’t and don’t know how to do that very well either. I have asked each of them a goodly number of times how I am doing as their dad.

Being my son or daughter meant that unless it involved some kind of ball or joining me in my work, there wasn’t much going on. Again, I didn’t know what to do or how to do it. Oh, there were trips to see the circus or sitting alongside the road next to the ski area and watching people ski. There were trips to Cadillac square in downtown Detroit, but in terms of anything other than special events, I’d give myself a failing grade at dadding as in intimately connecting with them as people.

Our connection was mostly about them either going to work with me or working for me. My son says the part of my body that he knew best was the back of my head and the part of terrain he knew best was the high school ball field that I was always trying to make the best in the state of Michigan. If “playing” didn’t involve a ball, I was pretty useless. Puzzles, singing a song, board games? I would join in, but if someone else hadn’t or didn’t initiate it, it didn’t happen.

When my first grandchild was born, my daughter began planning trips and times for us to get together even though we lived about 500 miles away. Why? My daughter said, “I never had the chance to really know you and I want to offer my girls, your granddaughters the opportunity that I never had.”  We have continued seeing each other about every 6-8 weeks for nearly 20 years.  

I was excited about that, and we made that happen. We are still making that happen. We either go their way, they ours, or meet somewhere.

The cool part was, that sensing my disability to know what to do as a grandfather, my daughter would say “how about…” (taking my first granddaughter– and shortly after, her sister) to the zoo, to a park to fly kites, going with them and their dad trick or treating, to the downtown Chicago museum, to this little festival down the street, letting them go with me to the little local grocery store two blocks down the street, to the playground, to get a hot chocolate at a little cafe just down the street, play school with them in the role of student while my granddaughter played the teacher, or inviting me to write and sing a song for her on her birthday, being an honored audience to a play that they produced, a dance recital they created, table games that they had learned, etc., etc., all things that I gladly said yes to, but would never thought up on my own.  My daughter and wife were coaches for me. I was child and grand – child rearing ignorant.

I just got back from a trip. Reunited with relatives I grew up with. Classmates from the schools I attended. To the farm that was a central part of my life. To the graves of those who raised us. For me, it was a tender telling and a confirmation of what our lives were like then and what we had lived through. It was not an easy time for any of us, and we have all paid big prices in our lives for what happened that shouldn’t have and what didn’t happen that should have. Poverty exacts pounds of flesh, physical, spiritual, emotional, and psychological.

As I am recalling all of this and wondering why I am so bad at parenting and grandparenting, I am aware of having had a father, who told me, as a little boy, that the most important thing to do as a father was to make sure your children had a place to live and food to eat. He lived his life that way. I worshipped him for doing that. I do remember he played with me one day. That was when my brother and I were trying out for a little league baseball team.

Though I had two grandfathers, there was never any interaction that didn’t revolve around work. It was a common experience to spend an entire day with my grandfather fixing fences without a word being spoken between us.

It is stunning what amazing parents my two children and their spouses are. They baffle me with their knowledge of parenting. My daughter has taught me well. My son is still teaching me. He told me this morning of his decision to send his two boys to a summer camp next year. That he leads. For just our two boys. He asked me to join him. What a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?

They did not get any of that from me, not because I knew and didn’t do it, but because I was ignorant and didn’t know what to do.

They gratefully always invite me in to the “doing” and it is sad that I am not quite sure what to do when I’m there.

There is one thing I have learned. That if it comes down to presence or presents, presence is the secret sauce, though the latter never hurts. So, as for regrets, as Frank Sinatra sings, I have a few.