you gotta wait on dad
When we get home from our trip, the package awaits, a kit Adam bought for Kevin’s birthday, a light-up speaker they can build together. Riley sits the box carefully at Kevin’s place at the dinner table so he can open it later, along with the rest of the mail that came while we were away. She creates a cityscape of brown box buildings, everything in a short, stout line, envelopes and junk mail postcards jutting off the top like shingles of slate.
Adam moves a few envelopes aside with his fingers and leans over the box, reading the label. He checks his watch, just a quick glance.
a beat, to wait
Gifting comes as a struggle for Adam; he always thinks of giving the things he wants. But then, we all love that way, according to the ways we receive love ourselves. We measure joy according to what brings us joy. It is the harder thing to consider love and joy from another person’s perspective. So I pointed to the day; I reiterated the gift is for Dad, and still Adam mentioned music he’d like to add to his own collection, Curious George books with audio he can download on the computer. So I steered him to this idea, an experience the two of them will share, even if the speaker they build ultimately ends up in Adam’s possession, plugged in to his tablet. The project appeals to Adam’s interest in music while requiring Kevin’s help, and for Kevin, the real gift will be their heads bent over mutual effort, their shoulders drawing the same line. He will enjoy helping Adam develop his talent for putting things together.
After supper, as we shuttle dirty plates to the dishwasher, Kevin unwraps the box. Adam feels anxious, urgent, to start the project, this I read clearly in the way he stands, leaning forward on his toes, hand drawn up by his shoulder as if under careful control not to reach, not to grab. “We can work on this tomorrow,” Kevin says, lightly touching Adam’s arm. So Adam drifts away, grinning, checks his watch again, flicking his eyes down just once.
an evening, to wait
Morning, and we hear Riley talking before we hit the stairs, telling Adam what he least likes to hear: You need to wait. “You gotta let Dad help you with this, Adam,” she says, in that one sisterly volume she uses. “You gotta wait on Dad.”
Before I see them, I imagine Riley bending over Adam’s shoulder mothering, her pajamas soft against his broad, sharp back. I imagine Adam’s glaring glances, his deep rumbling disagreement, something like, no, no waiting or, waiting is finished.
“Rebuke is an act of love,” David Mathis wrote, referring to the cautions of our spiritual siblings, those chastening tones “intended to stop us from continuing on a destructive path (Habits of Grace, 186).” But very few of us have the wisdom to recognize such entreaties as treasure, particularly coming from our own flesh and blood, most especially when we disagree. In our immaturity, we hardly understand how very desperately we need Dad’s help. I have sympathy; I have been there, ready, a loving one urging me not to rush ahead of God, and me thinking, “Why wait? I want to do this now and I can do this myself.”
Before I see our children, I gather that, with far less consequence, Adam has committed Saul’s Biblical sin: Having waited the prescribed amount of time (it is tomorrow), he has begun the work only moments before his father’s arrival. This trouble with reliance; it’s not new for any of us. In Adam’s case, at least this time, impatience comes as a product of anticipation rather than fear.
no more waiting
So yes, we find Adam at the table, box open and parts strewn across, wiring a breadboard the likes of which he has never seen nor ever imagined, step 7. Immediately, we wonder about steps 1-6, whether by inexperience Adam has lost or broken any intricate pieces, what damage might have occurred in his rushing ahead of help. Patience is better than pride, this was Solomon’s wisdom. But recognizing Adam’s excitement over the project, Kevin articulates none of our worry nor any reprimand in kind. Kevin sighs, just once, and settles sleepy in the chair beside our son, scanning the wild spread of unboxed parts.
“Why don’t we–” Kevin starts, but glancing at Adam, seeing that determined way son leans over breadboard and wires and instruction manual, father stops abruptly and changes course. Kevin had meant to suggest a later time for all this, but tenderness toward Adam’s enthusiasm simply will not allow it. In considering rights and wrongs and patience and impatience and maturity and immaturity, it’s a mistake for us children to disbelieve fatherly compassion. I think of the words of David, who with experience wrote, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103:13-14).”
“Well, let’s just see what you’ve done so far, okay?” Kevin pats Adam’s shoulder and picks up the instruction book, flipping back to step 1.
“I’ll get coffee,” I say, grinning as Kevin begins to trace back through the steps Adam has already taken, as Kevin softly congratulates and corrects, step by step and word by word empowering more confident steps. Pressing filter and scooping grounds, I listen, as father takes the lead so gently child hardly counts his wealth of grace, as love moves, as quietly and easily as breath.
However well we manage to love, God loves better.
