Coming Late.

I come to things late in life.

Like coffee. And chess. And beer.

Coffee because, like many things, I liked the idea of it, but not the taste. Until one night, at 38, I had a writing deadline and drank eight cups. Wow, man. I went from McDonald’s coffee to Americanos in a matter of hours. I have not looked back.

Regarding chess, I don’t take directions well. Directions for games, or driving, or assembling things. I figure someone else will listen for me. But at 38, I sat still long enough for a junior high kid to teach me. I think it is amazing. Whoever thought of chess had a great idea.

Beer is more involved. I grew up United Methodist and alcohol was not looked upon kindly, thus it didn’t figure into my faith line-up. And I’ve become aware of how big alcohol companies target advertising in poor communities. But starting in my thirties, I started to enjoy a beer once in awhile with friends. Is sticking with smaller breweries more ethical? Is Leinenkugel’s a small brewery? I am not in danger of becoming drunk, however, as I get sleepy after one beer. I wouldn’t be able to stay up long enough to become an alcoholic. Benjamin Franklin, a fine statesman and inventor, but not-so-hot theologian, tried this route: “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Um. OK. Maybe.

I’m sad that I missed out on these “social lubricants”. I mean “social lubricant” in the best of ways. A vehicle to sit and talk. I read an essay by a woman who wished that she smoked cigarettes. She longed for the “do nothing”, no-excuse-needed, sit-and-chat opportunity that the “smoke break” afforded her fellow employees.

I come to things late in life. I’ve also come late to coming to terms. Introspection. But I’m starting now that I’m almost 40. Some evidence of that is, uh, crying at movies. It’s only been a few. Really. Two or three. Four tops. It started with the film Big Fish. Especially the scene at the end where the father’s larger-than-life life is coming to an end, and his son carries him to the river. I could hardly see the road driving home from the theatre that evening. My wife was good about not laughing at me. And, it wasn’t a fluke. Every time I’ve watched it since, I can’t hold back. Other films, too, like Finding Neverland, Second Hand Lions, Forrest Gump, the 1950s version of Cheaper by the Dozen, life insurance commercials, etc. You may think I am a nancy-pants, or overly-sensitive. I swear that I am not. But someone said that if you find yourself choked up, or in tears, you should camp there for awhile, as it’s probably the signal of a spiritual break in the dam. The writer of one of the wisdom books in the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes, said, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.”

The common thread throughout these? Fathers and sons. Loss. Not a place I want to camp. But the truth is I miss my dad. You’d think he was dead by what I said, but he is not. He will not eat most fruits or vegetables, but he is alive and well, enjoying retirement. Golfing. Trying to thwart the squirrels at the birdfeeders. So more accurately, I missed my father. By that, I mean I missed out on close proximity fathering because my parents divorced when I was in middle school.

This is not an indictment or way to garner pity. It’s just reality. It—this thing that is missing, or that I missed--didn’t register until I was in my thirties, after I became the father of a son.

(Last weekend I went to a funeral visitation with my middle school daughter. Her friend’s dad died at the age of 42. So, this boy and his mom had to stand next to the casket for five hours while people filed through trying to offer some word of comfort. And, the boy, in a jacket and tie, kept saying “thank you for coming” while fighting back tears and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. My daughter and I just hugged and cried a little bit after we got through the line. “It’s a sad, lonely, rotten world…it’s a sad, lonely, rotten, damn world,” musician David Wolfenberger sings. That is one of the truest songs I’ve ever heard. It’s true for sons, and it’s true for dads.)

In my line of work, I am around a lot of middle school guys whose fathers are out of the picture. These boys don’t do very well. The statistics are ridiculous. Luckily, my dad was close by, and tried, and took us places and all that. I love him. But still, I think, with divorce there are things that are missed, or forfeited. I have always wanted more with my dad. He is going to be sixty-seven this year. As I turn forty I want to make it a priority to get to know my dad better. I don’t want to say, “Well, it is what it is.”

One Wisconsin value is: “Do the best with what you have.” Usually that’s a good reminder to persevere and be creative. Like using bread bags as liners in winter boots. Or like the “mock chicken legs” we had for dinner growing up. No one’s heard of them in Illinois. But these grease fried, ground veal and pork creations, molded around wooden skewers to look like chicken drumsticks, were the product of a time when chicken was expensive. A little more time spent on naming them would have been worth it, but they were pretty good. Someone did the best with what they had.

Sometimes, though, “Do the best with what you have” is the very opposite of perseverance and creativity. It is the white flag of settling. A dull and slothful response to life. Worse, a complete lack of faith. As if this is the best we can do, while we live Thoreau’s life of “quiet desperation”. I don’t want to settle. But maybe even the desperation is evidence of something more. Sam Phillips, a favorite poet of mine, wrote, “If love never did exist, how could we know its name? …Love is not lost.” That’s good news for me. I have a longing for more with my father because I believe there is an innate sense of God as father. That opens up at least a few possibilities. I’ve come to this realization late, but I don’t want to miss the opportunity.

Someone told me a few years ago that one doesn’t really become a man until his father dies. I have no idea what that means, but I hope that it’s not the case—his death any time soon, or the idea that my maturity hinges on that event. I think next time I visit him in Wisconsin, I will see if he wants to go have coffee. Or a beer.