Taking control of the memories I’m creating.

A couple of days ago, I was driving my son, Nicky, to kindergarten. This is something I get to do now. A few months ago, at the same time of day, I would have been checking the emails that had come in since leaving the day before. As we turned a corner toward the school, he looked up and said, in his uniquely filterless way, “Dad, I’m going to school now and you’re going to work,” the words taking a direct, unobstructed path from his brain to his mouth. For the record, I had told my children that I was laid off, but I guess he had forgotten. Then he remembered.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, his voice trailing off. “You don’t have a job.” So I tickled him and he screamed a high-pitched squeal that might have shattered a lesser windshield.

Since the layoff about two months ago, I have also been taking Nicky to his twice-weekly karate classes. Watching five and six year olds learn karate is hilarious. They’re simply not coordinated and don’t have the focus to excel in it. (Which is why we take them to karate.) Probably even more hilarious, though, is me trying to help him practice moves with names like “snap kick” and “switch kick.” Karate fits me like an undersized blazer, so it’s a case of the dorky leading the clumsy, but it’s a lot of fun for both of us.

And last night, I was questioning my wife about my daughter’s various responsibilities. At the time, Tessa, who is 12, was upstairs sorting her laundry and cleaning up her room, as I had instructed her to do. “I asked her about homework and she said she didn’t have any,” I said. “What about practicing her flute? Has she practiced this weekend?”

My wife, Julie, just looked at me and said, “What are you, the Mom now?” We realized that, since I was home more often, I was simply more aware of the details about what my kids were doing, their studies, their friends, everything. When I was working, my awareness resulted from a nightly response to the question, “How was your day?” over dinner. Now, I am living within my children’s lives. And while I will tell you I’ve always been close with my kids, we are even closer now.

Eventually, I’ll find a job and start working again. However, because of this time I’ve had with my family, I have a better understanding of the standard I want to live up to as a parent once I’m working again.

It occurs to me that I have a choice to make about how I will remember this time a year from now, ten years from now, on my deathbed. I don’t want to look back on this and think of it as a time when money was tight, or the job market was frustrating, even though those things are all true.  Instead, I am choosing to create memories that I will value forever, and that my kids will, too.

Now if you’ll excuse me, they’re home from school now, so I’m going out in the back yard to play for a while!

Advertisement