Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

by Sanford D. Greenberg

  The larger point is this: Business matters, and business success can be greatly rewarding in multiple ways. But family matters infinitely more.

  15

  The Beauty of Small Things

  I had resisted the notion that fatherhood changes everything. During Sue’s first pregnancy, everyone wanted to remind me of this fact. Your whole world will be different, they would say. You’ll be different. Your priorities will change. Having a child puts everything into perspective. Work is not the same as it was—you don’t see it the same. It’s not that it becomes less important, but it just becomes another aspect of your life. This is what everyone wanted to tell me.

  I rejected, entirely, the idea that I would soften. I never thought that I would be one of those men who cooed, who spoke in ridiculous baby voices, who handled diapers.

  My business colleagues wanted to tell me stories about their children. They told delivery stories like they were telling war tales. It was like being part of a club. Where they were when their wife went into labor, what they thought when they heard, how they made it to the hospital. These were simply stories—nothing else.

  I was running a company. We were working very hard to make money, and with that came some pushing and shoving. No one wanted us to make money; we had to fight for it. This was the part of the job I hated, but like anyone who is competitive, the prospect of winning appealed to me a great deal.

  Besides, Sue was going about her life deftly. We had, in some sense, been through the worst of it, though that is not to say it was any easier. I was averaging four hours of sleep a night. All I could think about was work. I also had become part of various Washington circuits—political, social, charity, opera, theater. This was how we occupied our free time, though to call it “free” would be somewhat of a falsehood. I enjoyed it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t work.

  When Sue went into labor, we were both calm. The fathers didn’t go in the delivery room back then. We waited in the waiting room. I had every reason to be confident. I paced. I made a list of whom I would call and in what order. I thought about how business would be transacted in my absence and when would be an appropriate time to return. I am not ashamed to admit that these things were in my head.

  Finally, I was called in to see Sue. We had a boy. We named him Paul after my Grandmother Pauline. Sue held him in swaddling clothes on her chest. I touched his head. It was very soft, as if the plate of bone were not yet bone but just a thick layer of cartilage. This concerned me. The skin on his little hands was smooth.

  A few days later, we took Paul home. I was carrying him in a small wooden basket about the size of a picnic basket. It was May and warm. We brought him into his room and placed him on the changing table. Baby powder and Vaseline were administered. The belly button was inspected. Sue was very good about this, and so was I.

  The phone rang.

  “Do you want me to get that?” I said to her.

  “No, it’s probably my mother, anyway. You stay here. Are you okay to stay here?”

  “Of course I am,” I said.

  She left. I stood in front of the changing table so that there was no way for Paul to fall. I put my hands on his chest. He was very warm. The baby uniform, a little blue cotton one-size they’d dressed him in, was terribly soft. I walked my fingers up and down it to make sure all the buttons were fastened. His little legs were chubby. They seemed to move, along with his arms, in no pattern.

  I moved my head down to his. He was as red as a radish, this guy. I kissed his temple. It tasted a little salty. I could feel on my lips the thin hair on his head. I did it again. Sweet, sort of. Kind of like baby powder. I did it again. That’s strange, I thought. I could feel the tiny veins in his head pulsing through my lips. I did this the way one would taste wine. Then I did it a few more times. I liked kissing his little temples. I think he liked it, too. Though, of course, I can’t be sure. I just got a sense of calm from him.

  Sue came back in the room. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “It looked like you were doing something,” she said with a sort of sly smile.

  “No,” I said. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

  Paul is one week old and wearing yellow-and-white pajamas. I am holding him. He is about the length of my forearm. His eyes are blue. He has hair, flat on his head. There are yellow carnations on the bedside table, which sits in the corner. The bedside lamp is aqua-colored. He has a receding chin. He sleeps. He looks like a tiny old man. Sue plays with his hands. Imagine the heat coming off his little body. I hold him up for a picture before I leave in the morning for work. He looks at me. I lie with him on the white bed.

  Arthur, who still resembles a college-age boy, holds him. Paul has a serious expression on his face. He is looking at the person taking the picture. Arthur is looking at him.

  We capture his first haircut. He does pretty well. His shirt is off. We’ve saved the hair. It is here: dark brown, hiding behind the picture. It is his birthday. There are three candles. Sue holds a white cake in front of him. I hold Paul and his baby brother, Jimmy, on my lap after work.

  Paul’s mouth is covered with chocolate icing, from a giant gingerbread man. His brother, in a high chair, is laughing at him. In the hallway, he looks like Elton John, in white, circular plastic glasses. He is holding a silver cup with a plastic red handle and a plastic green lid and a green straw. He is wearing a brown shirt and brown-and-white striped pants. His hands are curling against his thigh.

  He tries to put a pacifier in his brother’s mouth. His brother’s neck is on his knee. Both of them look like they could fall off the bed at any minute. The two boys on the patio, each sitting on one of Sue’s knees. Both boys in tank tops. Paul seems to be squirming. He must think he is too big a boy for this sort of thing.

  Another snapshot: Maine, late afternoon. The boys are tan. Both are in pajamas. On the table in front of us is a green squirt gun. Scrabble. A slide projector. A book. Paul rests his head on my knee. His face is maturing, offering a sense of what he will look like later on. A vision of the boy, the teenager, the man.

  In the afternoon, we eat lunch near the beach, on a red picnic bench. I thought I had forever. The boys are both holding bottles of cola with both hands. Paul is wearing red Converse sneakers and blue shorts and a yellow shirt with green numbers that read “51.” His brother imitates everything he does. At night, before they go to sleep, they dress up in crazy costumes. They both have blue Tishman hard hats on. They both have necklaces on. For some reason, Paul is wearing a black winter glove on his right hand.

  He is in a yellow bathing suit, standing in the water. The tide comes in.

  He’s smiling. Beyond him are what? Boats? Lobster trawlers? What?

  At his grandmother’s surprise party, he is twelve or thirteen. His hair is huge and curly. He is wearing a yellow polo shirt and a blue blazer. There are two buttons on the sleeve. A brown belt. His hand is on his grandmother’s shoulder in this photo. A nice smile. In the picture with the whole family, the entirety of us, he is again standing next to his grandmother, his hand on her shoulder. Protective? Covetous of her love? In the buffet line, he holds up his plate of food. In the photo of the five of us—with Sue, Jimmy, little Kathryn, and me—Paul is the only one sitting down. He’s next to the cake. His sister is looking at it like she can’t believe it. My hand is on his shoulder. His smile is quiet. In the last photo, his cousins, my brother’s kids, are messing with him. His hands are at his thighs, a little bit curled. A child with this hair cannot be anything but sweet.

  His bar mitzvah announcement reads: “Paul Eric Greenberg, son of Sanford D. Greenberg and Susan R. Greenberg, is a seventh grade honor student at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C. He is quarterback for the seventh grade football team and is also a member of the basketball and baseball teams. He is an avid reader and cartoonist and enjoys music.”

  At the ceremony, it is as if the ark holding the Torah is golden, but not just
golden: illuminated. He seems small and thin before it. I wrap his tallis around him. They all watch. His mother and I take a photograph afterward. He smiles. His hands are folded.

  Another photo with the entire family: Paul stands next to me. He smells like a young man—fresh, clean, a familiar cologne. I don’t know what his mornings are like in his dorm room—if he wakes up early before class, has a cup of coffee, looks over his books, or perhaps just reads a novel. Or if he rolls out of bed, throws on a pair of jeans, and walks across the same quad I walked across when I was his age, still sleepy.

  We parents place such heavy burdens on our firstborn. We freight them with sacred family names, wrap them in our own impossible dreams, expect them to lead their brothers and sisters when they are still children themselves. Paul, you have been up to the challenge in every way. When I nuzzled you on that changing table not long after you and your mother came home from the hospital, you melted my heart. You still do. And not you alone.

  To pack Jimmy’s stuff and send it off to college via moving truck, he must have a 1,000-pound minimum. That is the least, but how to get there?

  To begin with, there would be the report cards from his middle school—the letter from his Latin teacher who said he wanted to write an extra recommendation for him because he was such a standout kid. So, two letters of recommendation. Plus the letter he writes me from camp—the summer before he leaves for college. He writes on the envelope: Personal and Confidential. This is meant to keep his mother from reading it, though he knows that someone must read it to his father.

  Dear Dad:

  I want to bring up a subject with you which is going to change drastically in the next year. I feel that the last 10 years you and I have worked extremely hard to build a solid and compassionate relationship. This has not only kept me going but also saved me during difficult times in high school. I want you to know that just because I am leaving does not mean that I do not want to continue to build.…

  Well, now I have to attend to some business. I will let you know that I’ve learned a lesson on managing people this summer, and it was a hard lesson to learn. It looks a lot easier than it is.

  I love you and again thank you for your letters. I’ll be home soon and we can relax at the beach.

  Love Jim.

  End.

  How much does that weigh? And how about the weight of our family story—the ones who survived the Holocaust and the ones who didn’t? And the weight on watching your father walk into walls? Your own father, not being able to make it down the hallway or across the street? Or seeing him cut—the blood coming down his forehead or his knees? Blood is scary to a kid—it can be horrifying. The cuts on his face after he’s shaved, and his not knowing it was there. Or hearing a thud, a thump, in the middle of the night and thinking this is it, he’s gone down this time for sure. He knocked himself out entirely. Worrying that every time he travels alone he’s going to step off the curb at the wrong time and that’ll be it. The type of worry that not only gives you bad dreams but makes your stomach cramp. Forget about him dropping you off at the school dance, the pep rally, the Saturday afternoon game. Oh, other kids had drivers, too—we were all well off—but this was something different. You want your dad to be able to do these things. You want not to have to worry about it.

  Surely, some poundage can be assigned to that and to the memory of an apology from a little boy:

  Dear Dad,

  I am sorry I did what I did. I made my first mistake. In an office do you ever make major mistakes like that or not? Jimmy.

  The total weight of our family: 517 pounds. That is a big step toward our minimum and to the extent that he carries us with him, then it ought to count.

  One summer, Jimmy interned for E.F. Hutton. His boss wrote him this recommendation: “At first, we were all too busy to teach Jimmy. To my delight and surprise, he taught himself. Through a combination of careful listening and dogged research, he carved out, in a very brief time, an area of expertise in the complex bond field which proved quite valuable to my colleagues and me. Indeed, he gave a presentation to forty professionals in our office in which he showed exceptional poise and maturity. I have come to have a high regard for Jimmy. He has an unusual blend of pragmatic intelligence, judgment, and great personal charm. He will, I am certain, have great success in life and be a valuable contributor, and leader, throughout his career.”

  In college, he is indebted, and that has a weight also. We bought him a Volvo Turbo, and he wrote that the car was not a car but an expression of what we’ve always done for him, which is to support him and love him. All this is true and so perhaps it rebalances; it tares the weight of his having seen what he saw with me and all that came along with it. What is the weight of that car—3,500 lbs.? That puts us way over the limit.

  We’re headed in the right direction. St. Louis, here we come. Business school, here we come. The women, the beer, the activities—here we come. I wonder if my burden on him will be heavy there. Will it follow him, weigh upon him even these years later? Will he wake in the night, every night, after hearing a thud, a bump, thinking for a second, before waking, thinking it is me, fallen down, hit something sharp, a wound that will bleed out before it can be repaired? No, I forbid it. I will take him and his friends out to dinner. Everything will be great. There’s evidence for it.

  Then suddenly he’s a financier, doing extremely well at a bank, all on his own, arranging deals, aligning projects, structuring, analyzing, investing. Jimmy is investing. James is investing. Jahmes. James is now married, and now he is a daddy. And very quickly, there is not enough time. He’s got these kids. All the work. It’s work, day and night. It took all this time to understand. How did you do it, Dad? The weight of that he could not have imagined and he calls me at night, not in tears but close to tears, and they taste like the tears I might have once shed had I a father with whom to share them.

  On a sheet of lined notebook paper Kathryn has made a green globe with gray, brown, blue, orange, pink, and purple flowers. Several purple clouds line the top of the page, with a rainbow.

  She writes “Welcome Back Dad” and, below, a purple heart balloon. On another sheet of paper, she writes “Dear Dad, from Kathryn.” That is followed by what looks like pieces of fruit: a banana, a plum, an orange, an apple, and, perhaps, a waffle.

  She draws a rainbow-colored ice-cream cone. The ice cream must be bubble-gum ice cream. Below this in neon orange: “to Dad, Happy Birthday.”

  She draws a girl. I assume this is her. I cannot tell whether she is standing on some kind of blue pyramid, or the pyramid is actually a dress. It looks as if she has four arms. Blonde hair. Green legs.

  In blue crayon, she writes: “DEAR DAD THIS IS WHAT I DO AT CAMP I THINK I PLAY ARE TEACHER READS US A STORY BEFORE SWIMMING LUNCH WE GO AND AFTER LUNCH.…”

  She writes a book about me: Kathryn’s Book About My Dad.

  This is a story about a boy named Sandy. He was born in Buffalo, New York on Friday, December 13. It was a cold and wintry day. He loved his mom and his grandmom and his dad. He wanted to play with Kathryn but she was not born yet! The end.

  On a square piece of cardboard, she takes thick string and makes a flag. Blue string crosses orange string. In the upper right-hand corner, yellow string is wound around itself to make a sun. The right side reads: “to Dad, love Kathryn.”

  She and her friend Lauren make a small envelope out of wrapping paper and in it place two notes. Kathryn’s reads: “Dear Daddy, get well soon.” The other reads, “Get well from Lauren.” Both are written in pink and red, and both have stars and circles on them. They have thoughtfully but oddly included string inside the envelope.

  On August 12, 1984, she has written an anniversary card to Sue and me, this time with blue clouds and a rainbow and a pair of lips with a tongue coming out and flowers near the bottom. The sun has a smiley face on it.

  For Father’s Day she attaches a piece of red paper, folded in half, to a theater program from her class at Si
dwell Friends School. The play is called The Amazing Voyage of the New Orleans. Kathryn is playing Townsperson One, Mr. Wilson (silent). She begins to include stickers—flashy red hearts—on her letters to me. She begins to sign her name KLG.

  For Father’s Day she reminds me that I am a great father, even if she gets mad at me. “Your Loving Daughter, Kathryn (Curly Pie).”

  A sentimental father? A pushover? Not me! Except I use her fingers to trace her name on my fingers and on my hands and the back of my hands. On my arm with various colored magic markers, she designs flowers and bumblebees and cherry trees and smiling suns. She makes little circles on my elbows. She makes triangles on the insteps of my feet, in the sand. On my face, she writes “I love you Daddy.” I wash my face, shave, and it comes off; I have her write it again.

  When Kathryn goes off to camp in the summer, I send her long letters that detail our life without her, and then when she comes home, I ask that she write on my chest everything that she has done, and on my shoulders I ask that she spell out that she received my letters. I ask that she chronicle, in case I forget, which I will not—but just in case—all the trips we make, the plays she has been in, the iterations of the images she has of herself: little girl in the clouds, little girl in winter, little girl on the beach, little girl in a helicopter. Write it here and here and here.

  “Why?” she wants to know. Answer: “So that I will remember, as I have on every night.”

  And then the poems, so many of them, so knowing. The one, for example, written in the shadow of Father’s Day 1987 when she was only ten:

  He is a palm tree, shading people from the sun.

  He is a pillow all nice and soft.

  He is a racing car, sometimes moving very fast.

  He is a turtle, moving very slowly, taking a walk, enjoying every

  second of life.

  He is a tree, tall and strong.

  He is a summer breeze, so kind and gentle.