Cheating Death or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the parenting.
My heart stopped the moment I heard the phone ring. No one calls me this late, I thought to myself. In a flash, my worse fear came hurling to that part of the brain that releases adrenalin. I had yet to look at who was calling. The fatherly instinct inside told me it was one of my sons. I looked over and saw that it was my younger son, Tyler. Tyler, like me, hates talking on the phone. Why is he calling?
Three months earlier, the most life-altering experience happened to my wife and me. We moved six hours away from our home of seven years in Ocala. Now 21 and 18, our sons elected to stay in Florida, where they began to make their own lives as young adults. We dreaded the day we would load up our Chevy and hug them goodbye. It’s unnatural for parents to leave their children. Everything in biology has conditioned children to one day leave the “nest.” However, we left the nest while our boys stayed. Leaving them behind was contrary to every instinct in me. I was going through a new season of life, and we felt that Atlanta was to become our new home. So we hugged them goodbye, holding the tears back until the drive northward as not to make a sad departure any worse than it already was. On the drive towards Atlanta, I reminisced about the times we shared as a family. While replaying these 8mm family films in my head, a thought occurred to me. What if something happens to them while we’re away? How will we find out? If one of them is hurt or in a car wreck, the other will call. What will that call be like? What will it feel like? Can I survive without them? That’s the way my brain works. I can go to the worse possible scenario in just about anything. That internal conversation grew into a fear that crept up every time the phone would ring.
My wife and I were amid a Seinfeld deep-dive after the complete series had been released on Netflix. Over 4 weeks, we had made it to season 8. A show about nothing had become my nightly routine to unwind and find that dreamy middle place between awake and asleep. I was there, in the middle, when my phone rang.
Years earlier, when my sons were allowed to own phones, I had set up a do-not-disturb function that activated at 10 pm every night. There was an option to let specific calls come through when in this mode. My wife, kids, and immediate family were on the list. When the phone rang, 10 people might be calling. Six of those ten were parents, siblings, and in-laws. They never called this late. They lived out west and respected the time change between their side of the country and ours. My wife was safely and soundly asleep next to me. So it was only two possible callers on the other end.
Oh God, no. I thought to myself. It’s a funny thing what the brain can accomplish in milliseconds. All my fears and worst-case scenarios popped into my head instantly. Lord, please no. You know I can’t live without them! I know. I’m far too dramatic.
I had a choice: Slowly pick up the phone to live out the last few seconds of life with both sons healthy and intact. Or quickly pick up the phone to face what may come from this late-night call. I chose the second option.
I grabbed the phone from my bedside table, ripping the charging cable from the wall. I swiped as fast as my fingers allowed. Before I could even say “hello,” I heard screaming.
Then yelling.
Then more screaming.
I knew exactly what was happening on the other side of the mobile device. Something terrible happened to my older son, Ethan, and it was my younger son who had to make this call. My younger child is the glue of the family. Highly relational and a friend to everyone who meets him. He’s a lover of people and has a way of challenging others to feel the same about humanity. My older child is a thinker. Analytical and calculating. He will research a pair of socks before making a purchase. He’s the highly responsible kid who may sometimes be a bit of a pain in the butt but is always trustworthy and responsible. Since moving, I have tasked him with taking care of his younger brother. Whether he liked it or not, he was the surrogate father in my absence. I hated that my younger son would have to be alone for at least the 6-hour drive from Atlanta to Ocala without his mother or me taking care of him. Our sons are best friends and together form a kind of perfect person. Absent of one or the other, incomplete. They need each other, especially in this new season of life.
Did I mention I’m selfish? Always have been. I did everything in my power for the previous 21 years to provide for my family and create the perfect living conditions for each of them. Now, after only being gone 3 months, it was all falling apart. And it was my fault.
Again, all these internal conversations and thoughts happened in milliseconds.
“Hello,” I said. What a strange thing to say when thinking something terrible has happened.
I waited for a response. Nothing. Just more screaming. And I couldn’t blame Tyler for it. I wouldn’t be able to speak either.
So I just listened until he had the emotional awareness to begin talking. Then his first words. “Sunglasses…”
Huh? I thought to myself. Then I heard what sounded like the mating calls of humpback whales.
Then I heard what I can only describe as one of the top five greatest guitar solos of all time.
I continued to listen. My heart still missing every other beat. Then more voices.
Now go out and get yourself some big black frames
With the glass so dark they won’t even know your name
And the choice is up to you cause they come in two classes
Rhinestone shades or cheap sunglasses
That’s when I saw the light emitting from my phone double in intensity. I pulled the phone from my face just in time to see the phone transition from voice mode to facetime. I squinted at the phone, and that’s when I saw a man standing on a stage with a beard down to his belly button playing guitar with lights flashing all around him.
Oh God, I must have died from a heart attack, and Billy Gibbons is meeting me at the pearly white gates singing “Cheap Sunglasses.”
Ok, that was an exaggeration for effect.
Then the facetime flipped, and I saw my younger son with his best friend standing next to him. They both had grins that stretched from ear to ear. That’s when I remembered him telling me a few weeks earlier they would see ZZ Top at the Hard Rock in Orlando.
“I thought you might like this!” He yelled into the phone. I tried responding, but he made the internationally known hand gesture for “I can’t hear what you are saying because of the music.”
Adrenaline was still coursing through my veins. I didn’t want Tyler to know how insane I was to think such terrible things. So I forced a smile and gave a fatherly thumbs up in approval of my son’s good taste in music (which he definitely got from me).
He flipped the facetime camera back and forth a few more times while Billy Gibbons busted out some more masterful guitar licks. By this time, my wife was awake and enjoying the music. She missed the whole part about my older son, most likely being dead.
After a few more seconds, he turned the phone camera towards himself and waved goodbye. My wife and I returned the gesture, and I hit the red button ending the call. I sat up in bed. That’s when the adrenaline began to wear off. I thought I was going to pass out.
“What’s wrong?” She asked.
I didn’t answer. I just stood up, put on a hoodie, and walked outside to regain my senses before retelling the whole stupid story.
I walked outside our apartment into the backyard to let the fall evening chill work the adrenaline and emotions out of my bloodstream. I looked up at the stars.
God, why do I do this? Why do I always go to the worst-case scenario in everything?
That’s when I thought about my own parents. I considered how they must have felt when they came home to see me covered in blood, screaming from being shot in the face.
—
The air smelled of sagebrush and earth. The sagebrush smell was due to the dessert flora consisting of tumbleweeds and sagebrush. Those are the only things desert sand could sustain in the New Mexico wilderness of west Albuquerque.
I grew up in a place called Westgate. It was probably named that to make it sound fancy. Westgate was anything but fancy. The houses were cheap, and that’s all my parents could afford on a minister’s salary while my mom was working towards her teaching degree.
The New Mexico desert earth has a smell that I can only describe as flat with a hint of iron and burnt dust. I had become familiar with the desert sand because my face was buried in it, doing all I could to avoid the copper projectiles whizzing by my head. These projectiles were smacking the sagebrush and tumbleweed limbs, periodically making a sound I had never heard before. It was terrifying and intoxicating all at once. Adrenaline was being released into my bloodstream. I should have feared for my wellbeing but, for some reason, didn’t seem to care much. Is this what it feels like to be in the army? Growing up in the post-Vietnam war era, I had a fascination with all things war. I was still too young to understand how terrible war was. “War is hell.” I read later in a history class. Yet, I had made a game of it.
I begged for one item for my birthday that year. Something that many young boys dreamed of owning. The Daisey 880 air rifle was a pump-action bb/pellet gun that was the only thing I wanted as I turned 12. I wasn’t involved in the conversations between my mom and dad as they discussed this purchase. However, I’m sure that safety came up at some point.
Upon my birthday, they handed me a large wrapped package that could only be one thing: my air rifle. I had this internal instinct to shoot things. At first, it was paper targets that came with the riffle. But that quickly became boring. Next were lizards. Though you have to be about five feet away to shoot something so small. Eventually, I graduated to defenseless birds resting on sagebrush or cottonwood tree limbs. This continued for several weeks as my accuracy developed. I had learned to adjust aim for the downward slope of BBs and pellets flying through the dry air. I was no Annie Oakley, but at least as good as Ralphie from The Christmas Story.
Ralphie. Freaking Ralphie. It didn’t take long for me to remember what his mother prophetically spoke. “You’ll shoot your eye out.” But I wasn’t as stupid as Ralphie.
All the other boys in my neighborhood owned air riffles too. There were plenty of times we would gather to go on hunting expeditions, searching for poor creatures whose days were numbered by pre-teen big game hunters. Many fowl died in the desert that summer. But eventually, that became boring too.
That is until one of us had a brilliant idea.
We had gathered outside my house on a hot summer day. The sun was beating down on us as we discussed a new game.
“Let’s play army.” One of them said. Brillant, we all thought.
“What’s the rules?” one of us asked.
There’s really only one simple yet crucial rule when playing army with air riffles amongst friends.
“No shooting above the neck.”
We all looked into each other’s eyes and nodded our heads in agreement.
“Good rule.” Another said.
“Anything else?” one of us asked.
“Let’s form teams. If you get hit, you’re out. Last man standing wins for his team.”
It all made good sense.
We formed two teams of about five players each. We each had a BB gun, but not all BB guns are made equal. Some have a greater range. Some have scopes for precision. Some are their dad’s hand me down that can barely hurt a fly. So we did our best to form fair teams based on the equipment.
Next, the two teams departed to designate a crude version of a home base. This is where we would draw our battle plans in the sand. We all loved TV shows and movies like Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a few of us had seen Platoon. Those whose parents wouldn’t let them watch R-rated war movies were relegated to TV shows like MASH, China Beach and Tour of Duty. Still quality television, but without the blood and guts.
“Go!” one of the boys screamed, signaling the start of the battle. That’s when I started hearing the sounds of pumping air riffles. I did the same. I loaded my 880 with a BB and pumped. I made sure to throw in a few extra pumps for good measure.
BB guns are not designed to be loud. They are actually quiet. They make a soft thud when you fire. But the sounds of BB’s whizzing through the dense sagebrush signaled an attack. A BB hit my leg. It hurt. Not terribly, but it stung. That’s when I dropped to the ground. I buried my head in the sand to avoid being shot.
This might not have been a great idea, I thought to myself. Some small amount of survival instinct was making its way to my head. But the BBs kept coming from every direction.
One of my teammates was close by and ran over to my side.
“Get up and shoot!” He exclaimed. It was like watching General Pickett trying to muster his doomed troops to their deaths at Gettysburg. The battle had only been going on for a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Time does a funny thing when life is on the line. It slows down.
“Get up!” he said again.
Against my better judgment, I stood to find something to shoot at. All the players were hiding behind sagebrush to conceal themselves from incoming fire. I was the only idiot standing at this point. General Pickett stayed down like a coward. I didn’t want to be a coward. So I found something that looked like a human and fired.
I heard nothing. So I reloaded and fired again. BBs were flying all around me. But the adrenaline did that thing where it makes you feel invincible. I stayed standing and shot anything that moved. I loved it. All of it. I was doing my part to ensure the freedoms and liberties of all families in my neighborhood. I was fighting the good fight. That’s when I felt a feeling I had never experienced before, and I pray I will never experience it again.
Let’s talk about teeth for a minute. According to a kid’s health website, “Human teeth are made up of four different types of tissue: pulp, dentin, enamel, and cementum. The pulp is the innermost portion of the tooth and consists of connective tissue, nerves, and blood vessels, which nourish the tooth.” Other than that, I know you need them to eat food, have a great smile, and not look like a backwoods cave dweller on school portrait day.
It didn’t hurt. It just felt unnatural. I knew something hit my mouth, but I had yet to consider that it was a BB because that would go against Rule #1, “No shooting above the neck.” I tasted something too. It had a metallic iron-like taste that was warm and wet. Not saliva, though.
Next, I felt something sharp in my mouth. Actually, I felt a lot of sharp things in my mouth. They were like shards of glass. So I spit. What came out was a mixture of blood and white pieces of something.
I’ve never had a great memory. My wife reminds me of things I said or did all the time for which I have no recollection. But I remember the next five minutes as vivid as if it happened only moments ago.
I looked down at the New Mexico desert to see my blood soaking into the dry sand and small pieces of tooth resting on top. A spit again to empty my mouth of metallic saliva and tooth shards. It took a few short moments to register what had just happened. Someone broke Rule #1, I thought to myself. I heard another BB whiz by my ear.
“Stop!” I screamed with all the intensity I could muster. “I’m shot,” I cried.
I began to run towards my house, which was less than 100 yards away. I still had the air rifle in my hands. Instincts made me protect my prized birthday gift, though she would never shoot again.
I ran home with everything I had in me. There’s something about the safety of home that compelled me there. However, my parents were not home that afternoon. Only my older sister and younger brother. I ran into the house screaming, “Miranda!”
My sister is two years older than me and has always acted as a protector and caretaker. She came from her room, meeting me in the living room. My brother was six years younger. I honestly can’t remember what he was doing.
“What happened?” She asked excitedly.
I couldn’t speak. I dared not try in case more teeth were to fall from my mouth. Blood was dripping down my chin onto my shirt. I gently leaned my gun against the wall. Miranda sat me down on the couch and did everything she could think of to calm me down. She inspected my mouth and face to see what damage the small copper BB had done.
The copper BB had hit the top middle tooth and the bottom tooth just below it shattering both but leaving the roots intact. My mouth had been closed when it hit, so my lips were busted, causing the blood. My sister, only 14, had to act as both comforter and nurse. She went to the kitchen and put some ice in a plastic bag for me to hold in place while I calmed down, and we both waited for our parents.
Up to this point, the only thoughts racing through my mind involved the lasting effects of missing teeth. I’m going to look like a dork. Can this be fixed? I hate the dentist. Who’s going to pay for this? What about corn on the cob? Girls won’t kiss a toothless wonder. Oh crap, my parents!
Suddenly, my fears and concerns shifted from dental procedures and embarrassing school pictures to my parents. What would they do to me? Surely I’ll be grounded. Will they take my rifle away?
So many thoughts and all at once. My brain was having a hard time processing it. So we sat and patiently waited. My sister by my side consoling me.
“You know, you’re going to be in trouble.” She said seriously.
This was a time before mobile phones and pagers. If you wanted to contact someone, you were out of luck. You waited. And we waited. And waited. And waited. The adrenaline began to wear off, and I began to feel the next phase of my dumb decision: pain.
Let’s discuss why we experience toothaches from a website that scares me to death: WebMD.
“The pulp or pulp chamber is the soft area within the center of the tooth and contains the nerve, blood vessels, and connective tissue. The tooth’s nerve is in the “root” or “legs” of the tooth. The root canals travel from the tip of the tooth’s root into the pulp chamber. Its only function is sensory — to provide the sensation of heat or cold.”
My nerve endings were totally exposed to the elements. They were telling my brain to say to me that something was seriously wrong. They were doing their job well. The pain mounted and grew over time. With every breath, air passed by the nerves sending shock waves to my head. It was becoming unbearable. I had seen an episode of Ren and Stimpy where Ren’s tooth nerves were exposed just like mine.
Then, we heard a car door shut. They were home.
Upon their entrance, I began to scream and shudder with fear. The look of horror on my parent’s faces is something I will take with me to my grave. Instantly, my sister began explaining the situation and how we arrived at this point. My mom went into mom mode and took over for my sister. My dad went into dad mode.
What’s dad mode?
I always ask myself what I would have done had I been in his shoes. He knew I wasn’t going to die, and my mom was already attending to me. But he needed a way to express his feelings. They were feelings of fear. Not that I lost teeth, but that it could have been far worse. He’s the first person that had to explain that if the BB was only two inches higher, it would have pierced my eye socket and may have killed me, or at the very least, made me a one-eyed wonder-wearing a pirate’s patch the rest of my life.
He needed a way to express his feelings. He glanced to his left and saw the gift they had bought me only weeks earlier. He immediately walked over to the riffle, picked it up by the gun’s barrel, and smashed it into the ground, breaking the plastic arm stock. That scared me more than the desert incident. Not because of his emotions, but more so because of the implications of the whole event. I could have died. And he, as a parent and protector whose sole purpose in life was to take care of his family and provide for them, had somehow played a small part in my present situation. He offered the tool of destruction. He could have lost me, and he was just as angry at himself for buying the gun as he was at me for being the idiot who abused it.
That Saturday evening, we found a dentist willing to do the initial root canals and necessary work to allow me to function until a proper procedure on Monday. Dr. Ham became like a family member. And we probably helped put his kids through Ivy League college with all the medical bills. Over the next 30 years, I would have multiple surgeries, cyst removals, tooth removals (the surrounding teeth eventually cracked and had to be extracted), and thousands of dollars of bills, dentist visits, more bills, and perhaps the worst part, school pictures of me missing teeth. And the torment and bullying that would come with it, but, that’s another story.
__
I calmed myself down and returned to bed inside of my tiny apartment in Atlanta. The adrenaline had run its course, and I was no longer trembling. My sons were back in Florida at this moment, safe. I didn’t have to experience the incredible pain that words could never effectively express the loss of a child. My greatest fears had not been realized. My job as protector and provider was secure but changing. I couldn’t be there physically like I had been the previous 21 beautiful years. I had to transition from benevolent dictator to a new role as advisor and lover of sons from afar. Can I do this? I asked myself. My wife and I designed a whole life around those two kids. Every decision we made was to ensure they had everything they could have ever wanted.
My father had experienced the terrible fear of watching helplessly as a child hurt. At every dentist visit, he and my mother were next to me, witnessing the drills and other torture devices do their best to keep the remaining teeth functioning. My pain was their pain. My embarrassments were their embarrassments. My recovery was their recovery.
Parenting is the hardest thing we’ve ever endured. It’s also the greatest gift we will ever have. If you think about it, it really doesn’t make much sense. To willingly put yourself in a position where so many emotions have the potential to surface at any moment. We could have chosen not to have kids, as many do, with no judgment from me. We could have decided that we weren’t cut out to give away all of our whole selves to our offspring. But we did.
And now, we let them go. Now, our sons have to make their own choices. Choices that, like my BB gun story, may well affect the rest of their lives. And I want so badly to make the right choices for them. But it’s no longer my role. I have to pray that they learn from my mistakes and my successes to arrive at a place where they can safely move forward.
Perhaps one day, they too will get a late-night call that will leave them trembling. But they will also get good calls. New jobs, new friends, graduations, engagements, children of their own.
If the role of parenting does nothing more than to teach us that unconditional love and total fear can simultaneously exist, then it’s worth the risks. It was a famed Civil War General who said, “War is hell.” Parenting can be hell. It’s also heaven.