Milestones, Lines Crossed and Stubbed Toes
I was looking over my life
after the passing of my mother, and saw the different passing’s of
time. Looking it over, there seems to be rites of passage into
different age groups or maturity levels. Funny as to how, as I have
gotten older, I can see these lines drawn on the calendar of my life.
These lines have very little to do with age but more to do with the
level of maturity that Life seems to judge me ready for.
When I was younger, it seemed
like they were all little type things. The first time I walk to
school by myself. The first time I was allowed to ride my bike
alone. The first time I was asked to go to the store to pick
something up for my parents. These little pebbles of stone upon
which a foundation of trust was build between me and my parents. Sort
of like Life was judging me worthy as I grew. Time kept rolling on
and the level or bar of who I was to be, seemed to get raised,
whether I wanted or not.
The raising of the bar was not
based on accomplishing a task but more on the way I handled a
situation. When I was 13, I started to work for my Dad out at the
campgrounds in the summer. Seemed as I got older, I discovered, I
liked having money in my pocket. It was the typical mowing grass,
brushing the camp sites, minding and stocking the store, and on
occasions cleaning the fish the campers, tourists caught.
Cleaning fish can be a
disgusting job in the summer heat of Minnesota, with the flies and
mosquitoes buzzing around. But, every day I would be out there,
doing what I was supposed to do, and earning money for my savings
account. Being a father now, I can respect the Life lessons that this
taught me and I can see now, how it was crossing the line from
carefree summer time into maturing, growing up, into Life. The bar
of responsibility rising as I grew.
Now not all of the passages
came about from something good. Sometimes the bar rose as a result
of my stupidity. When I was 15 on Halloween, a buddy of mine and I
kind of stole some beer from the local grocery store. I say kind of,
because we were obviously not of age to buy it, but we did leave the
money for it at the register. But in truth, I guess, we did steal it.
We were not out to cause trouble, we just climbed up on the high
school's flat roof, drank the beer, smoked some cigarettes and
watched the young kids trick and treating on Halloween.
Well, on the walk back home, we
were taking the alley way, and the local policeman, checked on us to
make sure we weren’t up to no-good, smelled beer on our breath.
That earned me a ride home in the cop car and my buddy a ride to the
station to wait for his dad. Being the youngest in my family, I was
not the first of my family to be brought home in a cop car.
Actually, you could say I was holding up the tradition of my brothers
and sister in doing so.
My Dad was not happy, not happy
at all. When the whole story came out, and I actually was honest
about it, it was the first and only time my Dad ever hit me. Being a
father, I can understand, and even at that time, thought it was
justified. It was just the consequences of my own stupidity.
The next morning my Dad carted
me over to the grocery store, so I could talk to and apologize to the
owner, which I did, and that led to another story for a another time.
But the dynamics between my parents and me and for that matter my
brothers, sister and I had changed. The bar had raised, and Life no
longer saw me as a boy but as a young man. My parents and siblings
saw me as growing up.
Yes, I had done something
stupid, but it was in the handling of it, and in the standing up and
taking responsibility for it, that Life raised its expectations of
me. While my Dad was angry for the stupidity part, I think also he
had some pride in knowing he had taught his son how to handle the
situations that arise out of my own stupidity.
That really is the how and why
of it. It seems Life just keeps putting in little pop quizzes and how
I answer them is where I am at on its bar graph. The odd thing about
it all is that I may not know about the quiz at the time of it, nor
will I know if I answered correctly till some time down the road.
It is like setting up a long
line of dominoes, and I never know if they are going to fall true
until I put them in motion. As the chain falls, it suddenly stops,
one domino is out of place, so I have to take the time to put it in
place and then let the chain begin again.
That is how my Life is. The out
of place domino is a quiz question I answered incorrectly, or a
passage I should have turned right on but turned left instead. So I
have to go back and redo it, hopefully learning from it, so that the
rest of the dominoes will fall in order or in other words, my life
will run smoothly.
As with Life, I seem to learn
more from my mistakes than from the things I do correctly the first
time. I am grateful to my God for allowing me this perception. I
seem to have made many mistakes in my past and I am bound to make
more in the future, but in knowing that I am not doing it on purpose,
or with intent, allows me to continue to live an open life, one
lacking in the fear to take a risk and see what will happen. Having
this faith in my God gives me the opportunity to expand my life and
thinking. To grow in life as I think is His desire for all His
children.
As a father, I want my children
to experience Life. I know sometimes there will be scraped knees and
hurt feelings. That being the price of living, growing and loving.
Hopefully I am there to sooth the pain and help them make sense of
it, just as He does with me.
Funny how being a father
crossed one of those milestones without my knowledge of it. That
line that Life must have thought my capable of living, and the God of
my understanding knew I was ready accept.
