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Barb Law Shelley asked me tough questions and Rase Littlefield took great pictures, but I always feel a little sad about what I put photographers through. I’m truly grateful they want to take my picture, but I feel like I don’t give them enough to work with.
It’s like when my barber spends a half-hour making the couple dozen hairs I still have on my crown stand even and at attention for my usual hair cut. Over the years, too many follicle soldiers have fallen from my formation and retreated down my back, but my barber still gives it his all.
It’s the same for pictures. I’ve gotten better at smiling, but it wasn’t for any reason I expected. It was because my young teen son Sam had been pissed off at me for a while and when he finally told me why it took both of us some time to work through. Mostly because I didn’t realize I still did it.
Sam thought I enjoyed punishing him.
I don’t, and it stung to hear. Normally, I’d have set it aside as an in-the-moment barb, a teen’s reaction to a restriction, the more adult-child cry for lightning to strike me because he didn’t get his way. But something was different. When our argument reached its crescendo, it wasn’t the generic “I hate you” it was specific and chilling. “You always smile when you punish me like you like it.”
It took a few weeks to circle back to it. I haven’t talked much to my boys about my parents. All they knew was that my father passed away before they were born, and my stories about growing up focused on things I learned and a few funny stories. But I wrote a book about it and both my boys can read.
When Sam and I were ready to talk about hard things we did. For my part it started and ended with “I love you” and it went like this.
I’ll tell you a story that isn’t in my book. I smile when I hurt the most. I wish I didn’t, but it’s true. I think smiles should happen when we’re happy, but when I was a lot younger than you, my punishments were brutal and severe. I wasn’t allowed to show anger or fear, or cry.
If I did, my punishments were so much worse. It wasn’t a great way for a kid to grow up. But I learned that if I stayed calm and smiled, no matter what happened, the beatings quickly ended. Eventually, I was able to get away and get strong enough so that never ever happened again.
I try hard now to smile when things are good, and I’ve gotten better at it.
But when I’m hurting the worst, I still smile. I know how screwed up that is, but that calm, maybe even that smile has gotten me through some pretty terrible things. Sometimes I was even able to use that calm smile to think and not react and stop bad things from happening.
I wasn’t punishing you because I enjoy it. I’m your father, and enforcing the rules is part of my job. I know that you’ve seen me smile when things were the worst between us and that it hurt you. But not everything is what it seems.
We agreed to work together, and Sam seemed genuinely relieved. There are great things on the horizon for us, and I want to be able to smile right for them when we get there.
