Love
Never in a billion years did I ever imagine nor give a nanovolt of energy to how loving my son would come back to me. From the moment he was born I loved him and set about learning who he is/was and continues to grow into.
People noticed him and were drawn to him because of the love his mom and I gave him. We held him close every day. He slept on my chest every afternoon or else he wouldn’t sleep. Later, as a toddler, it always took 30–45 minutes to get him to nap, and always we engaged in silliness and lots of laughter.
Babies remember how they felt at birth. They don’t remember it verbally, but it shows up in their bodies for the rest of their lives. The midwife and I coordinated my son’s birth. She got his head and shoulders, and before we knew it I had him by the ankles. Two other midwives grabbed his mom by the armpits and pulled her from the birthing bar back onto the bed in an upright position. We then placed this big footed baby onto his mom’s bosom. This was done in less than 30 seconds. There’s never been a moment that he was not held with all the loving care babies need.
There’s never been a single day that he wasn’t loved, fed, hugged, kissed until he was 15 and was selected to go on a field trip to Hawaii. Out there amidst the lava fields and palms he flourished and people were drawn to him. We continued to love him.
Months later he and his mom (my partner in love) toured Europe with his Grandma. When they returned 10 days later one of the first things out of my partner’s and her mom’s mouth was that they heard his name shouted all over Europe as everyone wanted to be with him all the time. He’s quick-witted and quick-spoken with loving words. The Louvre, Sistine Chapel, The Eiffel Tower, on the trains, at the Coliseum, he was in demand and he gave his love to everyone.
The first thing he said to me upon his return was, “I missed you! I love you! How are you?” as he gave me hugs and kisses. He put his head on my chest and started falling asleep. Love and jet lag.
This love? I expected it to come back to me in mundane forms and it has. I can’t figure out why my parents—and parents of Boomers and Millennials in general—never figured out that love above any other consideration is the best tact. I was never hugged, never told I was loved, never accepted for being the communicator that I have always been. I realized before we were even pregnant that I would be able to give my child all of the love I never received.
You see, love is the only thing that requires one to give it before one can claim to ‘have’ it. And even then, one never makes that proclamation. No, one realizes that one has to keep on giving love to every situation. So that’s what we did. We were strict about loving him and when we got frustrated, angry, or disappointed we were quick to tell him that it showed we cared. We always discussed issues, we talked it out. We argued our points, corrected each other, held each other accountable and gave more love regardless.
One negative constant was my battles with PTSD stemming from lifelong neglect and being disabled by western medicine. The very first page of “The Body Keeps the Score” mentions family and western medicine as being the top two sources of PTSD. When I get in one of my moods, he and my partner avoid me which reinforces my PTSD. I don’t like being alone but I can’t stand being around them because I see how it damages them.
A few years ago my son sneaked up behind me and gave me a hug from behind and held me for 15 seconds. He and I felt my PTSD literally drain from my body. The next time I was dragging through the deeply rutted muck of PTSD, my partner gave me a hug from behind with the same results: the negativity just drained from me. The tension was gone and I surrendered in her arms.
I realized this must be what it feels like to be a baby. You have no control over it, and it feels good to be hugged, to be touched, to have another person rub noses with yours.
This love coming back to me is wonderful! It’s soothing, calming and very effective. It’s the antidote to a lifetime of little triggers that threaten to pull me into a mild slump or full-on PTSD.
And yet, until last night…I couldn’t imagine how the love we gave him would extend into another family and their friends.
Last night my son’s girlfriend wished me Happy Father’s Day on a basic lined paper. She left it on the front porch. I didn’t see her drop it off. I wrote about the love we’ve given our son to provide context for this surprise note that instantaneously washed away any residue from all of the years of neglect and all of the residual behaviors that marked it.
It was a simple note, thanking me for all I do as a father and for what I’ve done for her the past 9 months as she and my son navigated their Senior year of high school. She and her family are thankful beyond words.
Why would they be? Well, because we just focused on loving our son. He has this beautiful relationship with his girlfriend, but we didn’t know until a month ago is how deeply cherished he is by her family on both sides and all of their friends.
We attended her graduation party. It was a huge gathering. For the very first time in my life, people came up, introduced themselves to me, told me what an awesome job I’ve done with my son. The moms and wives all told me how much they appreciate a young man who knows how to treat women with love and respect. They never knew such a thing would ever be possible. I had no clue as to how deeply appreciated he is until then.
What’s more is that her father is firefighter who now has a potential son-in-law whom he can unequivocally trust to do the right thing should he perish on the job. His firefighting buddies were effusive in their praise of my son and by extension of me. They were recruiting him for his character. They didn’t question me, they weren’t skeptical the way most people are when they find out that I’m legally deaf, socially adept, can still talk, and still make people feel good about themselves when they give me the chance. There wasn’t a shred of dissonance with them. They had their proof: my son, the way he is with them.
I thought that was an outlier because I’ve never had that experience before. I’ve always have had to explain myself about a topic that absolutely nobody wants to have.
The past 6 months we had dinner table convos with her and my son about college. That’s when I came up with a decision making model that people are still talking about: list the pros and cons and rank them in terms of hopes and fears. Using this model shows you that your biggest pros contain both hopes and fears. It reveals where work needs to be done, and by doing so it calms both the parents and their fledglings. Each of us had different rankings for each pros and cons. We shared that with her, and it made a big difference for her and family to know that we would do so. It allowed them to address their own hopes and fears.
Why wouldn’t we do so? Why wouldn’t we do unto her as we’ve done unto our son? Why would we not love her as own our own daughter? That’s what she is to us after all.
Never in a billions years did I ever imagine that my dysfunctional, neglectful, loveless family dynamics ever be washed away by a tsunami of love.
