It’s no surprise that after I call you for a diaper change and you, not wanting to be taken away from your toy animals, scream and fall to the floor, fist, and feet pounding, that I can fold my arms around you, you still writhing, and kiss you on your newly hardened head before I get you clean.
Mommy will be home soon.
It’s no surprise I can do these things because the night is coming. And because, year-round, your cheeks are as sun-warmed, soft, and new as any spring bud and, when I pick you up from daycare, you let loose an unabashed whinny, trundling up to me with arms outstretched, fingers twinkling to angel-feather fall onto my shoulders, solid now from lifting you and holding you close. Yet the night is coming, a night when no one can work.
What is surprising is that many children and their fathers don’t have and haven’t had these kinds of daily joys. My father didn’t have them with his father, one day his mommy didn’t come home, and we shared our sweet times in deepening shade which became the night that separated us.
These facts about the haves and have-nots and what was taken, change things here…
For now, let’s just say there is a lion, padding its umber paws along our street. We can see its slack tummy tucked inside its ribs and slowly rotating hips as it paces on claws thick and dark as rotten bananas and we need to either feed it or flee, but we’re not as fast and Mommy’s bus will drop her off her right in the lion’s path.
So, shall we go for a walk? You’re at the door, repeating walk, walk, walk, and pounding.
All I know is that the lion had a daddy once and drank milk from its mommy and this knowing is a key. Let us learn how to feed it, scratch its sinewy back, stitch closed flesh opened by a scourging, trim the midnight edges around its shaggy mane, and walk beside it in the twilight to understand its roar. Take my hand and do not be afraid. Mommy will be home soon, but the night is coming and there is work still to be done among you, me, and the lion.
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