First Days: Then and Now

Yesterday was the kid's 1st day of school... the big day! Here's Emma waiting for the bus...

But wait. That's not Emma. It's someone else-- another little girl, 34 years ago. It was her first day of kindergarten, and she waited at the end of a country road for a school bus; her mother hovered behind her. The little brown-haired girl wore a fancy red and white dress, with matching purse and a dress coat, and felt very precious and special. The big tube wrapped in brown paper was a large rug for nap time. It was heavy and felt like a big responsibility. She concentrated on NOT dropping that rug.

Yup, that was me.

Whenever the kids have these milestones-- 1st day of school, 1st tooth, whatever-- I'm reminded of that counterpart in my own life, years ago. Especially since Mom and Dad came to visit yesterday, and were here when Michael and Emma got off the school bus and started foraging for snacks.

Dad is 78 years old... exactly double my current age. He was 39 years old when I was born, just starting his family.

He's STILL taking care of us. Case and point:

When Mom and Dad pulled up into our driveway yesterday and parked, they noticed that one of the tires on our Tahoe was flat. Since Dad knew that Jon was on the road and I was by myself the rest of the week, he insisted on helping change the tire, and didn't even want me to call and worry Jon with my long-distance troubles.

Amazingly, this was not the first tire Dad ended up having to change yesterday. On the way over to Colfax, along a busy stretch of highway near Wausau, Mom and Dad realized that the loud sound under their tires was not equipment from the road construction they were passing through, but a badly deflated tire. Dad was forced to pull over and figure out how to change the tire, in a relatively new car he had never had to change tires on before.

So, after that adversity was over, he pulled into my driveway and was immediately greeted by the spectacle of MY own flat tire (which I hadn't noticed yet). This wouldn't have been so bad, but it was muggy and uncomfortable yesterday, and it quickly began to pour rain. In between showers, my 78 year-old Dad and I worked on the Tahoe.

Wouldn't it be nice if spare tires were readily available? If all you had to do was remove a flat tire and replace it with a spare? But no... my spare tire was hidden under the vehicle, "protected" from falling to the ground by a series of Machiavellian lock mechanisms. Dad was pretty sure that the engineers who designed my tire and jack storage system must have congratulated themselves on their ingenuity. But their system was a little overly-complex for our taste.

We spent several hours trying to get that spare down. Dad would not give up, though he did take occasional breaks. He knelt on a mattress pad to buffer his artificial knees somewhat from the gravel. He laid on a towel on the ground and peered up at the underside of the Tahoe, with a lamp. I fetched him wrenches, screw drivers, and even a hammer as needed, so we could clunk on the thing. We poured over that owner's manual with our almost nine years of college education (and over a century of combined life). We called Pat's garage a couple of times.

Finally the spare descended and allowed itself to be removed from the Tahoe (which was another whole procedure). The tire change itself took about five minutes.

Now for the scary part: Dad got hurt. But let me reassure my brothers and sister, before I even get into it, that Dad is all right.

We were done with the tire, after considerable effort on Dad's part (by this time the kids were home from school). I was pulling the Tahoe out of the garage so that we could more easily see to put the tire jack kit away. I heard a loud thump and Dad called out. I looked over and saw him fall to the ground.

I couldn't understand what had happened, sitting as I was up in the tall Tahoe. Dad had left my field of vision. I knew I had hit something. I knew I couldn't have hit Dad, because he was so far away from me and I clearly saw him fall, from a distance. I wondered if I had somehow run over something that had pulled Dad down, causing his fall. Irrationally, I was afraid to stop or move the Tahoe, in case its movement was somehow associated with his discomfort.

But I had to do something. I got out and ran over to a fallen Dad. He was clutching his chest. You can imagine what ran through my mind... "This is it. Dad's having the Big One." When I write this it sounds so melodramatic, but I was beside myself.

Dad was hurt, but he immediately acted to calm my distress, by explaining what happened. I had pulled out of the garage with the back of my Tahoe still up. The back door of the Tahoe hit the roof of the garage; that was the bump I heard. Dad saw what I'd done and rushed forward to help, and in the process tripped on the wooden the step leading into our garage. He fell onto his chest, landing on the pair of metal wheel stops he'd been carrying. They had cut into his chest; he wasn't sure how badly. With trepidation we looked inside his shirt. There was a scratch, but it looked relatively superficial; not as bad as it could have been.

Mom called me several times last night-- once when they stopped for dinner in Wausau, again when they made it home to Rhinelander. I know Dad planned to go to the doctor today to have himself checked out; I haven't heard how that went yet.

Last night I went to bed with a heavy heart. I sure don't mean to make things harder for Dad. I can't believe he got hurt, helping me like that. How come I'm 39 years old (lets optimistically call that the "prime of my life") and Dad is still buying me goodies like coffee and creamer, helping me with my vehicle, and doing what he can to make my world a better place? When does Dad get to forget my troubles and just worry about his own?

And then I realized: never. Because he's a parent. And similarly, I will never stop worrying about how Michael, Emma, and Leila fare in this world. When they fall down, when they are laughed at, when they go through their first heartbreak... I will feel all of that pain as if it were my own. But if I'm like Dad, I will also show them how to work through their problems. I will show them how to persevere against secret compartments and unhelpful spare tires. I will show them how to laugh at their own foibles and tap their own strengths. I will, through my own example, show them how to find kindness and wisdom and happiness in the crazy world around them. I know I will, because my dad showed me all of those things.

Thanks, Dad.