While playing with my son, I learned about unconditional love. I'll never forget what he told me.
Credit: Mindy Tucker
- Chris Gethard is a comedian, writer, and podcast host.
- This is an adapted excerpt from Gethard's book, "Dad at Peace."
- It completes his Originals trilogy, following "Dad on Pills" and "The Lonely Dad Conversations."
Not far from my house is a hill. At the bottom of that hill is a field. In that field, there are some rocks my son likes to climb on. He pretends to be animals: billy goats, mountain lions, and others that he has learned are rock dwellers, plus others that reflect his creativity (purple tigers and baby gorillas and whatever else strikes his fancy in the moment).
He explores in a little loop — across the rocks, over to the stairs on the side of the hill, up the stairs to the gravel parking lot, then down the little path on the far side of the hill, and back to the beginning of the rocks. He loves teaching me how to do this.
My son realized I wasn't keeping up one day while playing
"Daddy, come on. You can climb on the rocks too. I can show you."
I do as he says. I follow his lead. I walk on the rocks, the tallest of which is maybe two feet high. I climb the stairs, then skitter down the side of the hill back to the rocks. I pretend to be a zebra if he asks me what animal I am.
"Now, what color, Daddy? What color zebra?"
"I'm a yellow zebra, Cal." I pause and wait when he tells me the billy goat is tired. He lies down and curls up in the fetal position on top of the largest rock. Sometimes, I lie down, too, on those uncomfortable rocks, knowing it's the only thing that will get him back up and moving. In the story in his head, it is naptime for the animals, and we must sleep before we go. So, I do it.
There are houses at the top of the hill. From their front windows, I am fairly certain one could see these rocks. I'm curious what my neighbors might think if they saw us walking in this loop, pretending to sleep on rocks. It is not a play area. It is not built for fun. It is a gravel parking lot, some wood chips on a hill, and some rocks. I wonder what they think, but I don't particularly care.
It is heartbreaking when kids catch you getting bored with their games. There's no way to explain that while I find so much joy in seeing Cal pretend to be a pink tiger sleeping on a rock, it's not necessarily the most thrilling game for me. My shelf life for this is shorter than his. I've seen movies and stuff. I've been to concerts. I've had fun. He can get lost in the world of these rocks — and in the world of his brain — forever. I sometimes crap out. On occasion, I am in my head, worried about work and marriage and mortgage and all the things grown-ups have to worry about that he can't even fathom yet.
On one of those occasions, he caught me slacking. I hadn't slept much that week due to the pace of my life and his habit of waking me up. I'd also moved something in our garage, and his old changing table fell off its perch and onto the top of my foot. I was tired, I was limping, and I wasn't keeping up as well as I usually do.
I realized he was looking out for me as much as I was looking out for him
He bounded across a few of the rocks, then looked back to me.
"Come on, Daddy," he said. "You can do it."
He proceeded forward but looked backward. Moving forward toward adventure. Looking backward, anchored to his dad. That's kind of the sum total of being a child, in a way. "Cal," I told him. "You have to watch which way you're going. Don't look back at me while you're walking. You'll slip and fall."
"But I have to look out for you, Daddy," he said to me. My eyes widened, and he stopped walking. "I have to look out for you."
I knelt down on my rock, getting closer to his eye level.
"Buddy," I told him, "I promise you don't have to look out for me. I have to look out for you. That's my job. It's not your job to look out for your dad. It's your dad's job to look out for you."
"Why do you have to look out for me?" he asked.
"Well, I'm big," I told him. "And you're small. So, I look out for you."
"Yeah," he told me, "but you're old, and I'm young. I have to look out for you." In the days after that conversation, I relayed it to adult friends as a joke. "Check out what my kid said," I'd tell other dads I ran into, with a smirk. "He called me old, to my face."
We all got a chuckle out of it. I am a good storyteller, so I knew how to make what he said land as a punchline.
I stopped making that joke after a few days. It didn't feel right. I have replayed that moment with him over and over in my head many times. It is not a joke to me. It wasn't a joke when he said it; if it becomes a joke, it is my fault and to my detriment.
I have to look out for you. I am young, and you are old. I have to look out for you. That is no joke.
That is the least alone I have ever felt.
He's now a 4-year-old boy. He's seen and done nothing. He doesn't know how awful the world can be. He hasn't picked up on racism yet, or what the Holocaust was, or the fact that there are people in this world right now going hungry. He hasn't yet come home from a field trip to New York City and cried because he realized there are people without homes. He hasn't sat through news footage of wars or fires or planes flying into buildings. He was too young to perceive what the COVID-19 pandemic really was. His worldview is unsullied.
That will change someday. He will get bullied. He will feel anger at the world. He will perceive injustices and will, rightfully, lay the blame at the feet of my generation for not correcting them. He'll wonder why we threw so much plastic in the ocean. He'll find out people used to have more rights and that governments take those rights away. He will listen to music that fuels rebellion in his soul. He'll rage, in all the ways young people do — vitally, righteously, beautifully. He will be foolish enough to think he might change all the bad things in the world, and who knows? Maybe he will. Someone always has to, and sometimes, someone actually does.
But for now, his tanks aren't full of the fuel that powers young people into their battles. For now, his biggest concern is that his dad is moving slowly across those rocks. For now, he just needs to make sure that his father doesn't fall.
He needs to look out for me. Because I am old. And he is young. And all I have to do is let him.
I have never felt love so unconditional. I have never known how to accept such love before. I have never known how to not deflect such profound and immense emotions. When feelings are that intense, I turn them into jokes. But this is not a joke. It can't be. How could you ever be so foolish to bat away something as simple and pure as the love your own kid has for you?
For this person, I can stop chasing my own dreams. Dreams used to fuel me. I'm an artist. Dreams are what allow you to perpetuate the endless chase. I no longer need a dream to keep going. I am enjoying this reality too much. My dreams can wait, or they can go away forever.
Excerpted from "Dad at Peace" by Chris Gethard. Copyright © 2024 by Chris Gethard. Published by Everand Originals, a part of Scribd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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