Gate (9781441240569)

by Stouten, Dann A.

  Inside the kitchen, I took off my wet water shoes and called out, but no one answered. I went upstairs and took a warm shower, and when I was finished, my clothes were laid out on the bed as always: a hooded Hope College sweatshirt, blue jeans, rag socks, and sandals.

  I made myself a sandwich from last night’s leftovers and went out on the screened-in porch. The sun had broken through and was slowly setting over the treetops on the west end of the lake. I sat watching the lights turn on in the houses across the lake.

  Someone had started a bonfire, and I could just make out the silhouettes of three little girls lighting sparklers and roasting marshmallows. It had been a long time since Kate, Kelly, and Tara were that age, but seeing these girls made me miss my own. They were grown women now, and if you asked me, they grew up far too quickly.

  I remembered how they’d come running at me with their arms open when I’d walk through the back door after a long day. “We missed you, Daddy,” they’d say. “Why aren’t you home more?”

  I always had a good excuse. “I had people who needed me,” I’d say. “And your daddy tries to make them better.” At least that’s what I’d tell myself. I had to go by the hospital, I had to teach a class, I had to meet with someone else’s mommy and daddy who didn’t love each other like their mommy and I. My list of excuses was impressive. The world needed a superman, and I had a red cape. But looking back at it all now, I’m not so sure God would have minded that much if I’d spent a little less time with other people’s families and a little more time with my own.

  Everyone loves to be included in a story.

  Even so, I’m a lucky man. I have great kids—mostly, I suppose, because they had a great mother, but still, I want to believe that I had a little something to do with it. For example, each night before they went to sleep, I’d say their prayers with them, tell them a story, and try my best to listen as they told me about their day.

  Sometimes we’d read a story, but most of the time we made up our own. I’d always begin by saying, “Once upon a time, not your time, or my time, but a time lost in time itself, there lived three beautiful princesses named Katrina, Kelcinda, and Taratanna.” After that I’d invite them to help me imagine the story. I’d say, “They were on their way to . . . ,” and then I’d stop and ask them where they thought the princesses were going.

  Children have wonderful imaginations, so immediately one of them would pipe up and say they were going to the fair, or shopping, or to their grandma’s house, or to a baseball game. And I’d say, “That’s right!” and weave their idea into the story.

  “It was a beautiful spring day, and they were on their way to the fair. It came to town once a year, and it was always wonderful. Beautifully painted horse-drawn wagons would roll down Main Street and set up their tents and booths in the vacant field down by the river. The girls had watched the wagons ride by their castle yesterday afternoon, and so all night their dreams were filled with elephants, monkeys, Ferris wheels, and big sticky pieces of pink cotton candy. The next morning they were thinking about what they were going to do at the fair, when suddenly . . .” And again I’d ask them to imagine the story with me.

  “Suddenly they came to a river,” Kate would say. Kate loves rivers. Or, “Suddenly there was a handsome prince riding a beautiful polka-dotted horse.” Or, “Suddenly there was a giant sitting in the middle of the road.”

  “Yes,” I’d say. “That’s exactly what happened. There was a huge one-eyed giant sitting in the middle of the road. He was barefoot with nothing on but a faded old pair of farmer jeans, and he was a sight to see. He had light green skin, orange hair, and a big red eye that was crying pink tears. Well, the girls weren’t sure if they should offer to help him or run away, but then Taratanna walked up, gave him her handkerchief, and asked, ‘Why are you crying?’ And he replied . . . What did he say, Kelly?”

  We could stop the story almost anywhere and pick it up again the next night because it really wasn’t a lot of different stories as much as it was one big never-ending story. Of course, there came a time when the girls outgrew stories, and in a way they outgrew me too.

  So years later, one of my best days was right before Tara got married. All three girls were home, which was a rarity, and we were up at Dad’s cottage. I went in to say good-night, and they said, “Dad, would you tell us a story?” So I unpacked the three beautiful princesses from the attic of my memory, and Katrina, Kelcinda, and Taratanna went on one more adventure. When they were young, the stories were my gift to them, but on that night, story time was their gift to me. It warmed my heart to know that those bedtime stories meant as much to them as they had to me.

  “Once upon a time,” I said. “Not your time, or my time, but a time lost in time itself . . .” And as I remembered our stories, I realized that Rae was right. We really do learn not by memorizing creeds and confessions but by the stories of our lives. Jesus never once wrote down a list of rules for us to live by, but the Gospels are full of his stories.

  In a file in my office I kept three letters that I’d written to my children, a separate one for each girl. I started writing them years ago after I got a call from a friend of mine named Matt. He told me they’d just found out that his wife, Kathy, had cancer, and he wondered if they could come by and talk about it.

  “Of course,” I said, and a couple hours later they were sitting in my office. She had inoperable brain cancer, and it was only a matter of months. We talked through it, we cried, and we prayed, and I tried to be as clinical as I could. They were friends, and they needed me to help them make a list of things they had to do before she died. I said they should make an appointment with their pastor, and their lawyer, and their insurance man, and they also really needed to get a second opinion to make sure.

  “We know all that,” Matt said. “What we need to know from you is, how do we explain this to our boys?”

  They had two sons: Kevin, who was eight, and Kyle, who was five. I encouraged them to be honest but also age appropriate.

  “Answer their questions,” I said. “Tell them you love them, and read them this.” I gave them a copy of a children’s book I had about heaven. We paged through it together, and Matt asked if I believed in heaven. I said that I did, and he slowly nodded his head as if to say, “Yeah, me too.” After a few minutes they thanked me for my time and stood up to leave.

  I walked them to the door and then, right as they were leaving, I suggested to Kathy that she might want to write the boys some letters.

  “They could open them on special days,” I said. “Like their next birthday, or the day they graduate from high school, or the day they get married, or maybe when they make profession of faith.” I’m not sure where the idea came from, but she liked it.

  “In some ways then it would be like I was there,” she said, and I agreed. The thought of writing the letters seemed to bring her some comfort, and she asked me if I would be willing to help her write them.

  “Sure, we can do that,” I said, and so each Monday for the next two months we met and wrote what she called her “I love you letters.” Each one seemed more poignant and more honest than the last. To be honest, the letters tore at my soul. I couldn’t stop thinking about them, and that’s when I decided to write some letters of my own.

  Every year on Father’s Day, after everyone else was asleep, I’d stay up and read them. Periodically through the years I’d rewrite them, and when I did I’d burn the old ones. I’d sit alone in the dark in front of the fireplace and say, “My Father which art in heaven, help me be a better father here on earth.”

  Then sometimes I’d go in the girls’ bedrooms and wake them up to tell them how much I loved them and how proud I was to be their dad. I’d promise them that this year was going to be different, that I’d play more Monopoly and make more popcorn and take more time off from work, and I meant it.

  As a dad I’m a work in progress, and I think I’m getting better at it. The problem is that with each new letter I write, they have l
ess need of me.

  I’m not sure when it happened, or how, or why, but somehow in the mystery of God’s timing they all tiptoed into womanhood when I wasn’t looking. They are competent and confident. They don’t need me to teach them how to play T-ball, or ride a bike, or untangle their fishing line, and it’s hard on my ego. I want to be needed. It’s part of who I am. For much of my adult life I’ve been Kate, Kelly, and Tara’s dad, and I’ve so enjoyed it. I was their coach, and their counselor, and their biggest cheerleader in life.

  Even in their teen years when it seemed like their moods changed about as often as they changed their clothes—even then, and maybe especially then, I prayed for them, and loved them, and tried to hold back the reins as they ran unbridled into adulthood. But I couldn’t stop them. They grew up anyway.

  To be honest, if I could, I’d rewind the clock to the days when they’d greet me at the back door giggling and shouting, “Daddy’s home!” I miss bouncing them on my knee, and tickling their chubby little toes, and telling bedtime stories, and listening to their bedtime prayers, and solving their little problems. I liked it when all their problems were little. But now I’m afraid the creeping giant of change has had its way with us all. They’re all grown up now, and I’ve grown old. Not ancient, not decrepit, but old enough to know what my dad meant when he’d say, “I can’t believe where the time has gone.”

  There’s a little voice in my head that wants to scream, Stop! Don’t go! There’s so much more I want to teach you. But then there’s another voice, a wiser voice, their mother’s voice! She reminds me that they’ve learned their lessons long ago, and they’ll be fine without me now.

  There are certain words that are washed in the emotion of a particular moment in time and never meant for publication. The “I love you letters” were those kind of words. But whenever words like that are published, the reader needs to enter into a kind of sacred trust with the writer.

  It’s like when Jesus was baptized and he heard God say, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” I imagine that at that very moment, if we would have been there, we’d have heard the whispered words of God in the rustling wind.

  “Shhh . . . ,” he said. “Hush now, let all the earth keep silent, for I have something special to say to my Son.” And what followed was what every child wants to hear, for there are no sweeter words in a child’s ear than the praise of a parent.

  The “I love you letters” were those kinds of words, and now that the girls have grown I no longer feel a need to continually rewrite them each year. Many of the big milestone moments in their lives have come and gone, and I’ve been able to share my heart with each of them in person. Not surprisingly, in each case some of the words from their letters have spilled from my lips.

  For example, when Kelly went off to college, I stood in the shadow of Gilmore Hall and told her that her excitement brought me great joy.

  “I know you want this,” I said. “And I know you’re ready to be on your own, but forgive me if I’m not quite ready to let you go. The world has a lot of rough edges, and I wanted to protect you from all that just a little longer. But like a baby bird perched on the edge of her nest, you are ready to test your wings, and I must let you go. But that doesn’t stop me from worrying. You see, I know you, and I know how willing you are to make other people’s problems your own. You have a tender heart and a listening ear, and if you’re not careful people will take advantage of that, and, well, even the strongest among us have a load limit.”

  As I assembled the loft in her dorm room, Kelly went back home for another load of stuff, and my mind went back to an incident earlier that year. I so wanted to say, “Kelly, remember last year when Casey’s mom, Laura, took her own life? She was a good woman—kind, sympathetic, and always ready to open her door or her heart to anyone who was hurting. The caseload of her practice read like a laundry list of battered women and abused children. They would come and lie on her couch and unpack the suitcases of their lives one problem at a time. When they left, they always felt lighter, as if a load had been lifted off their shoulders, but she always felt heavier. Worry is like a cancer that eats up the joy in your soul, and that’s what happened to Laura. She strapped their problems on her back like a knapsack, and eventually the weight of it took its toll.

  “After they left she would pick up the tearstained Kleenex scattered around her couch and throw them away, but it was as if their tears stuck to her like glue. She began to cry for no reason, and when her husband, Jack, would ask her what was the matter, she would say, ‘Nothing, it’s nothing.’ But it was something, and the more that something grew, the more the distance grew between the two of them. When Jack would ask her to go out for dinner or to a movie or to the Friday night football game over at the high school, she’d say, ‘I’d love to but I have some reading to do,’ or some paperwork, or a client in crisis, and she’d send him off alone. And that’s when she started drinking.

  “Jack came to me once, a few months before she died, and he said, ‘I don’t know what to do, Sky. I feel like dark forces have broken into my house in the dark of night and stolen my wife. She never laughs anymore, never wants to do anything with me and the kids, and never wants me to hold her. You’ve got to help me, Sky. Maybe she’ll listen to you.’ I tried, but she was in denial. ‘I’ve just got a particularly heavy caseload right now,’ she said. ‘It’ll lighten up this summer.’ By summer she was gone.”

  My train of thought was interrupted as Kelly came back into the room carrying an armload of clothes.

  “Hi, Dad,” she said. “Looks like you’ve about got the loft together.”

  “This is the last bolt,” I said, “but before I go, come over here, give me a hug, and let me finish what I was saying earlier.”

  She hung up the clothes, put her arm around my neck, and said, “Don’t make me cry, Dad.”

  I spoke slowly and deliberately. “Guard your heart, Kelly. Be careful who you let in. I want you to have lots of friends, and to fall in love, and to care about the broken people of the world, but I don’t want them to break your heart. Like your mother, you have a generous spirit. You’re always ready to give of yourself to anyone who asks, and I love that about you, but be careful, okay? And when life starts piling up and you need to unload a little, call me. I’ll always be there. Okay?”

  “Sure, Dad,” she said. “But you didn’t need to say it. I always knew you were there for me.”

  My conversation with Kate came the second summer she went out to Colorado to work at Noah’s Ark. It was the premier white-water rafting company on the Arkansas River, and for Kate it quickly became a second home. I knew that she loved the mountains, the white-water rafting, and the adventure, and the people there were some of her closest friends. Like her they were all young and passionate, and they lived with an intensity for life and for God. I also knew that she went intending to again only spend the summer out there, but there was a part of me that was afraid that this time she’d never come back home.

  She left for Colorado early in the morning on a beautiful spring day as the sun was just peeking over the eastern skyline. Her silver Subaru Baja was packed and parked in the driveway, ready for the long cross-country trip. We’d had breakfast, and her mother and her sisters had already said their tearful good-byes. Now the two of us sat alone together in the front seat of her truck.

  “You have your cell phone?” I asked, knowing she did.

  “Yes, Dad,” she replied.

  “And the GPS?”

  “It’s right there on the dash, and you helped me plug in the coordinates last night. Besides, I’ve made this trip before, you know. Just like last year, I’ve got reservations at the Best Western in Kearney, Nebraska, and I’ll call you when I get there. Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll be fine!”

  “I know you will,” I said. “You’ve got that same stubborn, independent streak that your Grandma Jackie’s famous for.” My kids always called Jackie the fun grandma, mostly because she never real
ly grew up and so she’d let them get away with almost anything. She always had candy, costumes, and the latest toys and games, and she was always ready to play. Baseball, Slip ’N Slide, Super Soaker squirt guns, fireworks, ice skates, lawn darts, and hula hoops—if it was fun, Jackie had it. Like I said, she was always a kid at heart.

  During World War II, when all the able-bodied men went off to war, the baseball owners started what they called the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. After the war the AAGPBL continued play until the mid 1950s, and two days after she graduated from high school, Jackie started traveling around the country with the Grand Rapids Chicks. In ’49 and ’50 she played second base, and she loved every minute of it. She was independent and adventurous, and Kate has a lot of Jackie in her.

  “Listen, Kate,” I said. “You know those letters I told you about? The ones I said you couldn’t read unless something happened to me?”

  “I remember,” she said.

  “Well, in yours I say, ‘Be careful,’ and it’s not because I don’t trust you but because I know you.”

  “You know what?” she said with that sheepish grin of hers.

  “Don’t play that game with me,” I said. “I checked out the pictures on the Noah’s Ark website. I know that last summer you went glacier sliding on your back down Mount Shavano, and I know you went midnight rafting with what’s-his-name earlier in the summer when the water was deep and fast, and I know that when a kid in your raft lost his paddle, you went in after it and almost drowned.”

  “I didn’t almost drown.” She rolled her eyes. “I just got stuck in the body slot for a minute or two. It was no big deal.”

  “Look,” I said, “anytime you’re stuck between two rocks in the middle of the river and the water is washing over your head, trust me, it’s a big deal! God himself was watching out for you that day and you know it, so don’t go telling me it was no big deal.”