By Jim Travisano
So don't ask yourself at the end of the day if you did everything right. Ask yourself what you learned and how well you loved, then grow from your answer.
—L.R. Knost
I had just completed a 35-mile bike ride in my beloved Blue Ridge Mountains. I planned to grab a beer from the fridge and fall into a blissful slumber on the couch, lulled to sleep by golf on TV. First, I decided to check the mail.
There, among the ads designed for people in my demographic — hearing aids, assisted living homes, burial insurance… — was a thick envelope with delicate handwriting.
Out poured pictures of an infant in a crib, a girl at the beach with a dazzling smile, another with the same girl in a prom dress and a letter which read, “This is your daughter, Laney. She's 18, old enough to make her own decisions. She wants to meet you.”
It was signed by Laney's mom, a woman I had dated about 19 years earlier, and who had ghosted me before ghosting was a thing. From the return address, I saw she still lived a couple of towns away.
Back then, I called her, rapped on her apartment door, wrote a letter, and called her again. The answer was always the same: nothing.
There was nothing to fight for, nothing to fight against. Eventually, I went away.
I carried the pictures into the living room and asked my wife Natasha to sit down; I had some news to share. A redoubtable, sturdy native of Russia, Natasha is up to nearly any challenge — the more troublesome, the more steely her response. She will tell you, “It wasn't the Russian winter that defeated Napoleon. It was the Russian people.”
“For us, the worst is the best. We would rather burn our crops and starve than give them to the invaders, as Hitler had learned. The world should know by now, you don't poke the Russian bear.”
More than once, she has asked me over the years, “Do you have any children somewhere?”
More than once, I had laughed and said, “I think I would know.”
Natasha and I were one another’s second spouses. We had both married for the first time in our early 40s, so the first time she asked the question was natural; but it became ridiculous with each subsequent asking. Of course I would know. When it turned out that I did not, Natasha took the news stoically, quietly, and, yes, knowingly.
Other people asked me if I needed therapy for this sudden news, if I wasn't supremely angry at her mother for keeping my daughter from me. A psychologist friend foisted me with questions that she thought I should ask Laney’s mother, white-hot angry questions. She and others suggested it might take extensive therapy to find resolution.
Who the hell were they to tell me how to interact with my child? I didn't need therapy. I needed time with my daughter.
The letter from her mother included Laney's contact information, an email address at James Madison University. She was starting there as a freshman. I knew JMU. I liked the way the campus was set in the superbly beautiful Shenandoah Valley, and I liked even more that it was only 40 miles away.
“I hear we have something in common,” I wrote to Laney. “Do you want to get together?”
We made a plan to meet in a few days.
When we finally met, it was like a Hollywood movie. She was on one end of a campus-long sidewalk, I was on the other end. Just two small dots moving toward one another, getting larger and more defined. We met and gave each other a long, warm hug.
Finally, I said, “You wanna get a pizza?”
“I never say no to pizza.”
“Maybe,” I said, “we should order two pizzas so you can have one for breakfast tomorrow.”
She looked at me with something approaching horror. “Who has pizza for breakfast?” she asked.
“College students. It should be cold, straight from the fridge. Even better with beer.”
"For breakfast," she said again, incredulously. “With beer?”
I felt stupid. I wanted to kick myself. I was trying too hard to be the cool dad.
Laney got quiet for a while. And she finally said, “I know a girl who says fathers show up, and after a while, they disappear.”
“I'm not going away.”
Whatever mistakes I made, I was determined to focus on the present tense. We would start with a tabula rasa, filled with possibilities. I selfishly wanted to build for us a bubble, sacred and free from anything — or anyone — that could bring us harm. I was thrilled to have even a small role in my girl's life. One night, Laney's car was towed for illegal parking — amazingly — in a paid parking lot. She parked in a no-parking zone in a parking lot.She called, in need of $75, to get her car released from impoundment.
I remember a woman telling me, “I love being a hero to my kids.” And now I knew what she was talking about. I felt like Mr. Monopoly, monocle gleaming cheerfully, as I drove over to the lot where her car was locked up. It would only cost $75 to be the hero to my daughter, at least for one night.
Our search for common interests led to mixed results. Pat Matheny, for example, was playing on the JMU campus. He is ranked among the greatest jazz guitarists ever. That's about all I knew of him.
A quick Google search told me he had collaborated with David Bowie. I learned that he loves the music of James Taylor. I listened to his melodic rendering of the Beatles' And I Love Her. I figured he'd be the perfect introduction to jazz guitar for both my daughter and me.
One review read: “Critics praise his ability to create both intricate and accessible compositions, showcasing his mastery through dynamic shifts between dissonance and harmony.”
Pat Matheny was great — in fact, too great for us to appreciate. His dynamic shifts between dissonance and harmony seemed entirely too dissonant. While some in the audience cheered wildly, we were lost in a sea of notes that seemed to crash into one another.
When he was called back for his second encore, I asked Laney if she wanted to slip away.
“There's a once-in-lifetime experience we don't have to repeat,” I said.
“I'm glad you feel that way,” Laney said with relief.
William Martin in The Parent's Tao Te Ching Writes:
“Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives
Such striving may seem admirable,
But it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead find the wonder
and marvel in an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
When pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand
And make the ordinary come alive for
them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself."
I’ve found the inverse to also be true. My daughter makes the ordinary come alive for me. She makes going out for a pizza, getting bailed out of a parking infraction, or attending a befuddling jazz concert into grand adventures, and gifts beyond description.
Jim Travisano lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife and his cat.
Member comments