A Lesson Learned. . .

I think as parents we sometimes get caught up with expected behaviors and social graces with our children.  Some of this of course is natural and probably good.  We don’t want our kids acting like idiots in public or in certain settings.  But sometimes lessons can be taught by letting stuff slide.  I was taught such a lesson by my 9-year-old earlier this year.

In April my family attended a celebration of life service for my wife’s beloved uncle in Connecticut.  He had unexpectedly passed away due to a heart attack in February.  Uncle Tom was truly one of a kind- smart, irreverently funny, well-read, articulate, loving and absolutely enamored with being a family man.  He felt comfortable in any setting; possessing a real eccentric quality that drew people in with fascinating conversation premises ranging from sharing your top 10 lists of U.S. presidents to the concept of heaven, hell, and eternity.  An in-law himself to the same family I married into, Uncle Tom was the guy in the extended family that at first boyfriends and then sons-in-law (if you past the test) gravitated to at family functions.  His timing was impeccable in extracting his other male counterparts from family social situations.  .  . like a Coast Guard rescue helicopter plucking someone from rough seas there were indeed several times where I was pulled to “safety” by him with a simple “Michael I need your help out front for a minute. . .”  Code for let’s have a drink(s) alone together and recharge the battery.  I think about him a lot and miss him each day.

At his celebration of life service one of the recurring themes was that Tom never got angry a whole lot whether it be at situations or people.  He rolled with life’s punches and very much lived by the motto of “what you see is what you get.”  Indeed, Tom was not impressed much by the ostentatious side of people’s lives.

Listening to his son deliver a magnificent reflection/eulogy on his life my 9-yr-old daughter was fiddling with the program- crinkling it up, smoothing it out, folding it, crinkling it again. It was driving me nuts and I was certain it was driving others around us nuts as well.  Clearly not an expected behavior in church.  Like many parents my strategy was one of escalation- first a stern glare, then a quick quiet but annoyed “stop” and finally after a few more minutes “put the program down or I’m going to take it from you.” At the conclusion of his son’s reflection my 9-yr-old nudged me and quietly said “Here dad, this is what I was doing.” Looking down at the program she just handed me was a perfectly framed square of Uncle Tom.  She had folded the program in just such a way that only his face appeared.  It was a powerful and surreal moment for me.  Almost as if Uncle Tom was saying to me at that moment “Really Michael? She’s not doing anything.  No one cares.  Haven’t you listened at all?” The world could use more Toms.

And score one for my 9-yr-old!

**Image used in this post is the original program handed to me by daughter, folded over and everything**