How Will My Sons Remember Me?

As my oldest son has grown into his fourth year (and is now nearing five), I’ve thought more and more about what lasting memories he is now developing. Most of my vibrant recollections are from the time he currently occupies, somewhere around three or four years old. And most of them involve my father.

There was the time my dad accidentally hammered his thumb in our backyard in Fayetteville, AR, and then screamed and cursed. Or the time he smashed the car door on his ankle and cursed and screamed. There’s also an odd one. I’m standing in the living room (again in Fayetteville). It was a neat old house on Meadow Street right near the university. My father is sitting on a couch that faced a wooden staircase that led up to an unfinished space where he had an office.

My dad is young (27 or 28 at the time) with longish curling black hair (he was a bit of a hippy) and a face that still carried some baby fat. In my memory–vibrant with rich colors out of a Polaroid–he is smoking something and then offers it to me with a smile on his face. Before I can even consider grabbing it my mother runs in yelling “No, Johnny!” and tears it away from his hand. (Both my parents vehemently denied this ever happening.)

Finally, there is one great memory that is as sweet as the smell of marijuana my dad was pretending to give me that day. We live in Dallas, TX, I am the age my son B is now, and it is very sunny in the living room. Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run is playing (to this day, still my favorite record) and my father is lying on his back with his legs extended toward the ceiling and I am resting on his feet as a ceiling fan twirls behind my head. He is pushing me up into the air, I think we were pretending we were a helicopter with the fan as the blades, and I am laughing and so is he, my blonde bangs billowing in the air with each push.

So what will my sons remember of me? Unfortunately, I scream and curse after incurring physical pain. Just this past Sunday, we were at a playground and I was walking under part of a play set when I stood up too early and smashed the top of my head into a platform. It hurt like hell and so I screamed a couple of times, then cursed. Both of my sons just looked at me (sadly, they are used to this). Will this stick with them? Maybe not this specific incident but surely one of the times I let loose.

Thankfully, there are many moments like the one from Dallas for me and my two boys but I can definitely try to make more by being more invested in their daily lives. Too often, I brush off their requests to play Transformers or color with crayons.

Actually, there’s another incident that has just popped into my mind. I am around four-years-old again and at my grandparents in Illinois. My father and I are wrestling, he is really letting me beat him up, and at some point I push him and he rolls down a set of steps, collapsing at my granny’s feet. She hates this and yells for us to stop but I love it of course.

Now this I can easily do and so yesterday I put on Band on the Run and then crouched on the floor and let B kick and jump on me for half an hour. It really hurt at times, especially the stomps on the back of my head, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make, all in the service of good memories.