A chance encounter on a bike ride at a park leaves Wolf Pascoe and his son struggling with the limits of compassion.
The scene unfolds like a play.
Stage directions: My son Nick and I in the park on a night ride. The sun just down. We pause to rest on a grassy hill near the toddler sandbox. Few children remain.
Out of the dark, a boy emerges.
He’s about Nick’s age, eight, and even in the poor light, I can see something odd about him–the way he inclines his head, his arms churning the air.
He grips the handle bars of Nick’s bike.
“What’s your name?” he says.
“Nick.”
“Ride over there and then ride back,” he says.
It’s as if he’s playing Mother-May-I and it’s Nick’s turn to be told.
Nick shakes his head. “I don’t want to,” he says.
The boy gives Nick detailed instructions, pointing out the exact route his bike must take.
“No,” Nick says. “I don’t want to do that.”
♦◊♦
A man approaches, in no particular hurry. I know immediately he’s the boy’s father. We make eye contact for half a second, and in that interval have a telepathic conversation.
The conversation goes like this:
Man. He’s no danger.
Me. I know.
Man. He’s got—
Me. I know.
Man. Thanks for not intervening. I’ll take care of it.
Me. No worries. We both love our sons.
The man puts his arm around the boy.
“Did you ask if you could touch the boy’s bike?” he says.
“My name is Brandon,” the boy says to Nick.
Nick regards him.
“We’re going to be going,” Nick says.
Brandon has released Nick’s bike.
“Can you say goodbye to the boy?” says Brandon’s father.
Nick and I inch our bikes away.
“Bye,” says Brandon.
“Bye Brandon,” I say.
♦◊♦
Nick and I ride over a soccer field. You have to be careful here. The grass hides little rises and holes that can upend a speeding bike at night. We stop on the far side and look back at the sandbox. We can still see the man with his son.
“That boy was kind of nerdy, wasn’t he?” Nick says.
“I think he’s one of those people whose brain works different.”
“Like how?” says Nick.
“The wiring is different. It travels in circles more. Slower.”
“That boy was weird.”
“He wanted to be friends with you. But that’s how it comes out sometimes when the brain works different,” I say.
“I don’t want to go back there.”
I think hard about what I want to say next. I look at Nick and smile. We’re both out of breath from the dash across the field.
“You know,” I say, “You were very nice to that boy. You answered his questions. You said what you wanted. That was just right.”
Enough, a voice in me says. Don’t push it. Let this thing be. Leave Nick his feelings.
We cruise more, always circling the sandbox. Nick wants to go back there, but he’s waiting for the boy and his father to leave.
I can’t help but feel he’s making too big a deal out of this. It’s as if Nick has a sore tooth and can’t help touching the spot with his tongue. I resist the urge to say something. I listen to his complaints, wanting them to stop. Finally the boy is gone.
It’s getting toward bedtime and we need to be home, but Nick isn’t willing. Something in him is not finished with this. We ride over to the exact spot where boy first approached us. We get off our bikes.
The moon has just risen over a grove of trees. Nick looks away from me and stares into the distance, but I’ve never felt more connected to him.
“Dada,” he says.
“Yes?”
“That boy.”
“Yes?”
“Am I like him?”
My breathing ceases. The circling around, the need to watch the boy, the compulsion to stay. Everything becomes clear.
Nick was different once. When he first came to his school, he couldn’t talk. For a long time, things didn’t go well. A few other kids were different, too. There was a slow girl, children of various skin colors, a boy who couldn’t pick up on social cues.
Nick’s school is a good one. Yet despite all humanistic compassion—listening, valuing, allowing, empathizing—no power can protect any child from being different, not really. It can only help them deal with the responses to those differences. And when you’re young, you just want to fit in. Only much, much later do round pegs become prized and sought after by square holes.
Not often do I know with sureness what my job is as a father. Most times I find myself groping in the dark, scared, fighting wrong impulses, fighting Nick, fighting my past. Every once in a while, though, the stars align, the way is open.
“No Nick,” I say. “You’re nothing like him. Not like him at all.”
—Photo nerissa’s ring/Flickr
About Wolf Pascoe
Wolf, Dr., if you prefer…
A warm. loving expose’ of a fathers heart. The very fact that men like yourself (and an M.D.) are willing to lay out their souls agony and celebration in support of their children should be required reading for all men of this country.
Your article touched something deep within me as I read and reread your words. I am the grandfather of a beautiful little girl, Emma. At two years of age (terrible two’s) I am so crazy about this child, that I can hardly stand the times when she is home with her folks (Daddy is my only son and only child).
I have so many plans for her that my son Ryan, chides me often about letting her “be a child”.
But, it makes me crazy with joy to envision her as a “world class scientist” out to save the Oceans , the skies and Earth itself. In my daydreams, I dream of her as the next “Rachel Carson, author: Silent Spring.
Her dad, my son is a highly recognized “technical scuba diver” and dive instructor. Ryan is also a highly qualified Registered Nurse and deeply committed to his career, with eventual plans to become a nurse anesthesiologist.
My middle brother is a graduate geologist and mineralogist. His specimens are on display in the Harvard Science museum and The Smithsonian Institute. I am a graduate in Economics, so the basics are certainly in place to guide Emma in her education
My hearts deepest fear resides in the fact that Emma was born with only one functioning kidney. She will always need to be mindful of this critical abnormality to protect herself. I am sure, that as a physician, you, hopefully, would tell me to “cool my jets ” and celebrate her life to the max. And I do, everyday of my life since she came into my life.
You are not alone. I hope one day that the catchphrase will be: children will be children..without regard to any “differences”.
A blessing on your son and his mother and father
Jim,
Wolf works.
We celebrate for them, we dream for them, we agonize for them. All in a days work. I try so hard to remember that my son will not be me, doing it right. He is and will be what I cannot imagine.
Your granddaughter is lucky to be born into such love and such a family. And I wouldn’t stress too much about the single kidney. It’s an incredibly rare event when a person ever needs a second one.
All blessings.
I’m in the process of working on a degree focusing on theories and practice’s related to what we call “exceptional learners.” From the sounds of it both Nick and the boy from the park would fall into this category. Although one of the first principles we accept when discussing ‘exceptional learners’ is that obviously every child is different, we also accept that there are similarities around which people can be grouped. So in this case while your son would likely not be grouped with this other boy they both do represent educational ‘exceptionalities.’
I understand that your son is quite young and that he is acutely aware of his own difference from other kids, and I applaud you for the self restraint you display in allowing him to ‘have his feelings’ uninterrupted or guided by yours. this can be one of the most difficult tasks of a caregiver.
I do feel some ambivalence however, about reassuring your son that he was ‘not like’ that other boy. Clearly there are big differences between them, and acknowledging that is important but I have to ask myself if there could be a way to draw that distinction that might help to demystify the aspects of that other boys manner that triggered your son’s insecurity. Only because the subtle undertone that I can’t shake… but feel certain you did not intend, was: “he’s really different, you’re normal” which, while that might be comforting for your son right now, presents a whole new set of problems down the line, particularly with respect to all of the different little boys who’s fathers can’t reassure them that they are normal…
Alexandre,
Thank you for your response. I’m not sure I understand everything in it, for example, what you mean by the set of problems down the line, but I do share your curiosity, if that is the right word, about what it was in Brandon’s manner that triggered Nick. The unraveling of such mysteries, at least in our house, is a slow process, and one which occupies my attention.