YOUR OWN HERO

Dear Spike:

It all kind of happened in slow motion.

You were sitting on the playground, minding your own business, running your fingers through the tanbark near the base of the slide. All of the sudden, a boy about a year your senior grabbed a handful of bark and, point blank, threw it in your face.

Maybe I'm a bad father, but I didn't really do anything.

It's not that I didn't want to. Every basal impulse in my body was telling me to march right up to that little punk, grab him by his Gymboree jacket collar, and toss his smug little mug into the mud. And that impulse was even stronger after his mother, who watched the whole thing unfold just as I did, sauntered over to let me know that her little pookey "probably didn't mean to hurt your daughter."

So your kid's not savage, just stupid? I should throw you into the mud too, lady.

Luckily for all of us, you were none the worse for the wear. A little stunned, maybe, and with a mouth full of playground nastiness, but not in any sort of pain, so far as I could tell.

I suppose I could have jumped into the fray — I could have swept you up from the spot where you were playing next to that cruddy little kid and whisked you away. I could have run you over to the park restrooms to wash out your mouth and wash off your face and hair, which had little pieces of bark dust stuck in it. I could have packed you back into your stroller and headed home for a bath and a change of clothes.

Maybe any of those things would have been the right thing to do. But I didn't do any of those things.

Instead, I sat back and watched as you looked dumbfounded at the boy and then, quite calmly, went back to digging your fingers into the dirt.

I'm not sure, but I think that was an OK outcome. You took a lump and kept on going — and, at least in a very small way, figured out how to handle the situation on your own, without daddy sweeping in for the rescue.

Someday, I imagine, you're going to need me to sweep in and do what big, angry men do — to thump my chest and pull you away from danger and right the wrongs and generally take care of business.

But most of the time, you're going to need to be your own hero — to remove yourself from danger, to right the wrongs that can be righted, and to generally take care of your own business. Or, when appropriate, to just turn the other cheek as you did today.

Sometimes, I think, you know better than I do. Thank goodness for that.

Love,
dad