无言无语的爱才是真情的爱 爱在无语时

爱在无语时  

爱在无语时
Words From a Father
In the doorway of my home
I looked closely at the face of my 23-year-old son
Daniel
his backpack by his side. We were saying good-bye. In a few hours he would be flying to France. He would be staying there for at least a year to learn another language and experience life in a different country.
It was a transitional time in Daniel‘s life
a passage
a step from college into the adult world. I wanted to leave him some words that would have some meaning
some significance beyond the moment.
But nothing came from my lips. No sound broke the stillness of my beachside home. Outside
I could hear the shrill cries of sea gulls as they circled the ever changing surf on Long Island. Inside
I stood frozen and quiet
looking into the searching eyes of my son.
What made it more difficult was that I knew this was not the first time I had let such a moment pass. When Daniel was five
I took him to the school-bus stop on his first day of kindergarten. I felt the tension in his hand holding mine as the bus turned the corner. I saw colour flush his cheeks as the bus pulled up. He looked at me-as he did now.
What is it going to be like
Dad? Can I do it? Will I be okay? And then he walked up the steps of the bus and disappeared inside. And the bus drove away. And I had said nothing.
A decade or so later
a similar scene played itself out. With his mother
I drove him to William and Mary College in Virginia. His first night
he went out with his new schoolmates
and when he met us the next morning
he was sick. He was ing down with mononucleosis
but we could not know that then. We thought he had a hangover.
In his room
Dan lay stretched out on his bed as I started to leave for the trip home. I tried to think of something to say to give him courage and confidence as he started this new phase of life.
Again
words failed me. I mumbled something like
"Hope you feel better Dan." And I left.
Now
as I stood before him
I thought of those lost opportunities. How many times have we all let such moments pass? A boy graduates from school
a daughter gets married. We go through the motions of the ceremony
but we don‘t seek out our children and find a quiet moment to tell them what they have meant to us. Or what they might expect to face in the years ahead.
How fast the years had passed. Daniel was born in New Orleans
LA.
in 1962
slow to walk and talk
and small of stature. He was the tiniest in his class
but he developed a warm
outgoing nature and was popular with his peers. He was coordinated and 6)agile
and he became adept in sports.
Baseball gave him his earliest challenge. He was an outstanding pitcher in Little League
and eventually
as a senior in high school
made the varsity
winning half the team‘s games with a record of five wins and o losses. At graduation
the coach named Daniel the team‘s most valuable player.
His finest hour
though
came at a school science fair. He entered an exhibit showing how the circulatory system works. It was primitive and crude
especially pared to the fancy
puterized
blinking-light models entered by other students. My wife
Sara
felt embarrassed for him.
It turned out that the other kids had not done their own work-their parents had made their exhibits. As the judges went on their rounds
they found that these other kids couldn‘t answer their questions. Daniel answered every one. When the judges awarded the Albert Einstein Plaque for the best exhibit
they gave it to him.
By the time Daniel left for college he stood six feet tall and weighed 170 pounds. He was muscular and in superb condition
but he never pitched another inning
having given up baseball for English literature. I was sorry that he would not develop his athletic talent
but proud that he had made such a mature decision.
One day I told Daniel that the great failing in my life had been that I didn‘t take a year or o off to travel when I finished college. This is the best way
to my way of thinking
to broaden oneself and develop a larger perspective on life. Once I had married and begun working
I found that the dream of living in another culture had vanished.
Daniel thought about this. His friends said that he would be insane to put his career on hold. But he decided it wasn‘t so crazy. After graduation
he worked as a waiter at college
a bike messenger and a house painter. With the money he earned
he had enough to go to Paris.
The night before he was to leave
I tossed in bed. I was trying to figure out something to say. Nothing came to mind. Maybe
I thought
it wasn‘t necessary to say anything.
What does it matter in the course of a life-time if a father never tells a son what he really thinks of him? But as I stood before Daniel
I knew that it does matter. My father and I loved each other. Yet
I always regretted never hearing him put his feelings into words and never having the memory of that moment. Now
I could feel my palms sweat and my throat tighten. Why is it so hard to tell a son something from the heart? My mouth turned dry
and I knew I would be able to get out only a few words clearly.
“Daniel
" I said
"if I could have picked
I would have picked you."
That‘s all I could say. I wasn‘t sure he understood what I meant. Then he came toward me and threw his arms around me. For a moment
the world and all its people vanished
and there was just Daniel and me in our home by the sea.
He was saying something
but my eyes misted over
and I couldn‘t understand what he was saying. All I was aware of was the stubble on his chin as his face pressed against mine. And then
the moment ended. I went to work
and Daniel left a few hours later with his girlfriend.
That was seven weeks ago
and I think about him when I walk along the beach on weekends. Thousands of miles away
somewhere out past the ocean waves breaking on the deserted shore
he might be scurrying across Boulevard Saint Germain
strolling through a musty hallway of the Louvre
bending an elbow in a Left Bank café.
What I had said to Daniel was clumsy and trite. It was nothing. And yet
it was everything.