Saturday, June 26, 2010

SUZI: Stocky is in his genes

At two months old, Cooper’s body shape is stocky and barrel-chested.  It looks like my dad’s.   I have no idea how it is possible to see someone’s body style in a two month old, but I’m not making this up.  Scott agrees and his family, while they were here, confirmed it.  My point?  I miss my dad.  He’s been gone since October of last year, but I really miss him.
When I found out I was pregnant, he and my mom were in Colorado so I told them over the phone.  He cried.  He wasn’t the crying kind.  He said some unbelievably nice things to me about the kind of mom I would be and how lucky our baby was.  He wasn’t really the emotionally expressive kind, so those words meant a lot to me.  I think of them often (especially in difficult moments like when I’ve accidentally bonked Cooper’s head or I can’t seem to get him to stop crying).
I just knew he and our baby would be buddies.  I planned that he would teach him or her about the stars, rocks, lizards, birds and science.  I don’t have anybody else in my life who knows as much about the outdoors or science as my dad did.  Now that Cooper is here and my dad isn’t, I realize how much I don’t know.  My knowledge in these areas is woefully lacking.  On my Amazon wish list I already have a book called “The Tree Book for Kids and Their Grown Ups.”  I want Cooper to know these things.  Will I somehow be able to convey my dad’s wealth of knowledge and love for nature through some books and experiences I create?  Will I be able to find the right people to teach him if I can’t? 
Do I miss some of the crazy things about my dad?  Like the fact that everything always had to be accurate?  If I announced that it was 100 degrees outside, trying to indicate that it was extremely hot, he would have to check his weather station and correct me with the true temperature.  “Actually, Suzi, it’s only 92 degrees outside.”  Do I miss that everything had to be functional – that there was no reason for merely decorative items?  That his “fixes” almost always included some PVC piping or duct tape.? Do I miss the fact that he always had to be right, arguing an issue with my mom even when we all knew she was right?  (At which point Lucy would wisely keep quiet and I would invariably announce, “I’m on mom’s side.”)  Yes, yes, I miss those things.
Jack Johnson's song, If I Could, talks about a new life coming into the world, while another life passes from it.  One of the lines says, “New life makes losing life easier to understand….”  
Mr. Johnson, I’m just not sure I agree.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What an awesome testimony about your dad. It says that all children need fathers and mothers. I pray for you all daily.
Sister Ella Langdon