My four-year-old is using my dad’s death as a bedtime stalling
tactic. It trumps ‘I’m hungry’, ‘I’m
thirsty’, ‘I’m not tired’, ‘My nightlight burnt out’, ‘My pj tag is chaffing my
skin’—Every. Single. Time. She’s no dummy. As soon as “I miss Grandpa”
tumbles from her pouted lips, she knows I’m as smearable as butter. I’m not
going to just shoo her back into her dark bedroom with a stern look and a pat
on the bum. Those three magic words are
met with a sympathetic nod, a hug, a rubbing of noses, a kiss on the
forehead. Missing her dead grandfather
earns her a few extra minutes of mom lingering in her room at night, smoothing
the bedsheet over her limbs and scratching the crook of her elbow. Asking WHY he had to die typically reaps two
bonus lullabies. They’re practically dessert.
I know she’s manipulating me, but I’m putty in my grief,
stretching to her whims and words in my mindful attempt to make death something
she can always ask me about, to nurture the few memories she may still have of
him, to keep him vibrant in her rapidly expanding mind.
She was newly three when he died. I have perhaps two
memories from when I was three, from a trip we took as a family to the Czech
Republic. Both of them are flimsy and unreliable. I’m not even convinced that they
are free-standing or if they instead grew out of the sepia photographs from
that trip like a potato that sprouts roots.
I know my dad is slipping through time for her. It’s been a
year and a half, a third of her entire life. His presence is being replaced by compound
words and playground etiquette and capital and lowercase and the names of her preschool
classmates. He’s irrelevant to her until the sun sets and the bedroom curtains
close.
Even when my dad was here, near the end, he mostly existed
in the periphery, a prop that accompanied my mom on her babysitting visits,
quiet, sullen, like a raincoat you might hang up at the door. Sure, he played restaurant with my daughter,
sitting on the couch while she piled plastic food on his lap, making sure he
sampled each of his dishes. Sure, he nodded off as she built castles out of Magna-Tiles on the rug around his feet and then smiled bleary-eyed when she’d
shake him awake. But, he wasn’t animated, teaching her how to grip a bat in the
backyard or carrying her on his back like a balding pony. He didn’t have the
energy to be alive with her, to spark those moments that create memory in a
toddler’s brain. By that time, he wasn’t capable of investing in his own
legacy.
A few weeks ago, she began using him not only at bedtime,
but when cranky or in the midst of being scolded in attempt to soften my
resolve. She’ll sob and retreat, only to find me later, tears streaming down
smooth cheeks, claiming to be missing him. She knows that Grandpa’s absence is
an acceptable reason to cry, as opposed to being denied cookie dough Pop-tarts
for dinner. She knows that I will indulge her with sympathy, her own personal
get-out-of-jail-free card. In his heyday, I realize my dad may have even been
proud of her for this. It’s genius.
But, her ploys were growing tiresome and overused, causing
me to wonder if her constant insistence on missing him was conditioning my own
mourning, dulling the significance of his loss like the boy who cried wolf. I
stopped humoring melancholic Grandpa claims after she’d lose at a game of Uno
or smack her sister in reproach.
“Really?’ I’d ask in a level voice, attempting to disguise
my cynicism. “What is it that you miss about him, specifically?”
Typically, that would shut it down.
Until yesterday afternoon in a store, after denying her request
to buy LOL charm cotton-candy scented bath fizz for $12.99 that was chocked
full of parabens and chemicals and just about epitomized everything that was
wrong with America, she began to cry harder as we exited through the automatic
doors.
With tears splashing her pink unicorn sandals, she gulped
repeatedly and peered up at me with wet eyes. “Mommy, I miss Grandpa, but
mostly I’m afraid of forgetting him. What if I really do forget Grandpa?”
I stopped cold, her hand still in mine as her little body
swung back to face me. It was my turn to swallow, my tears now hitting the
blacktop outside the entrance to Bed, Bath, and Beyond because I didn’t know
how to form the words. I didn’t know how to tell her the truth: “Sweetie, you
probably will. In fact, you probably already have.”
But, I didn’t say that. Instead, I blubbered, “You won’t,
honey. Don’t worry. We’ll talk about him tonight. I’ll scratch your back and we’ll
remember him together.”
It’s five minutes. Two extra songs. A stall tactic for sure,
but I realize it won’t last.
A man’s legacy, just might.
