When we operated the Palmer House Bed and Breakfast, we first homeschooled our children in a room on the third floor of the house. As our family grew, we moved the schoolroom to a small bedroom at the back of the house on the second floor.
One day while in the third floor room I took a pencil and scratched out my three-year-old daughter’s height on the doorframe, which is properly called a casing. From then on, whenever whim seized me, I would stand the children against the door casing, scratch their heights with a pencil, and then add their names, the date, and sometimes the measurement in inches and feet.
One day while in the third floor room I took a pencil and scratched out my three-year-old daughter’s height on the doorframe, which is properly called a casing. From then on, whenever whim seized me, I would stand the children against the door casing, scratch their heights with a pencil, and then add their names, the date, and sometimes the measurement in inches and feet.
Years later, when we moved from Waynesville to Asheville, the new owner of the Palmer House kindly gave me permission to removed the door casing and take it with me. Carefully I pried it from the wall, removed the nails that had bound it in place, and have carried the board with me ever since.
I like to look at that casing every once in a while. All four of my children are now adults, and the board makes me smile to think of them. My daughter is thirty-three, for example, a wife and mother of six, yet here she stood at age three with her shoulders against the casing while I measured her. “Such a big girl,” I probably said.
Today is Father’s Day, June 19, 2016, and I finally understand how little those measurements mean. Were it possible, I would instead have measured the capacity of their hearts and souls. Today my children reminded me once again just how large those souls have become, how much they have grown.
I spent most of Father’s Day in a funk. On Friday and Saturday, I had checked my mailbox, expecting to hear from my kids, but no packages, no cards appeared. (A confession: I didn’t send my sons and son-in-law cards either.) On Sunday I woke, wrote, did some housekeeping chores, attended noon Mass, stopped at the High Five for a coffee, and came home. When I switched on my phone, I saw my oldest son had telephoned. I returned his call and he wished me a happy Father’s Day and invited me to supper.
I called my other three children—all of whom are parents—but no one answered. Then my second oldest son, Jon Pat or JP, as friends know him, returned my call. His wife Emily is expecting a baby in late July, and Jon Pat explained that after experiencing some severe abdominal pains she was admitted to a hospital on Friday, where she spent the night. It turned out she was suffering from an infection, and was now back home and doing well. As we spoke, Jon Pat told me he was on his way back to Hearndon from Front Royal, Virginia, where he and Emily rent out three apartments and a house to various tenants. He had gone to meet a prospective tenant, but she couldn’t make the appointment. We wished each other a happy Father’s Day—his son, Xavier, is a toddler—and I got off the phone gratified by his call and the way he took care of his family and his work.
Around five o’clock I left my apartment and drove to Jake’s home for supper. Like Kaylie and Mike, Laura and Jake have six children, five of them adopted. I never think of Aliyah, Manuel, Beckett and Bella, and Jude as adopted. They’re my grandchildren, plain and simple. Jake is a good father and has worked hard to build his law firm—four offices, five attorneys, and a squad of assistants—while Laura keeps their home as intact as is possible while raising six children under the age of eight.
On this particular evening the two-year-old twins were undergoing potty training and as result were darting around the house and the deck naked as the day they were born, two little cherubs, one with chigger bites, flitting through the evening sunlight.
It was during this visit that I found out why Father’s Day had taken a back seat this year.
Both Kaylie and Mike, her husband, and Jeremy and Mary, his wife, live in Front Royal. A couple of weeks ago, a priest in their area announced that he needed a family to foster four children for six weeks. Their mother, a single woman who had fled from a bad marriage, required hospitalization, and the children, ranging in age from six to nine months, needed a home until their mother recuperated.
After consulting with Mike, Kaylie threw her name into the hat for providing a home for the children. She was slated to fly to Milwaukee for five days to care for her invalid grandmother and had therefore requested the children not come to her home until she had returned. Through a miscommunication, the four children arrived just before she left for Milwaukee. She was taking her twin daughters, Maggie and Annie, on her trip to Milwaukee, but this circumstance still meant that while she was away Mike would be responsible for eight children, including a nine-month-old.
Here is where Jeremy and Mary stepped in.
Mary has spent her days this past week at Kaylie’s house, helping watch the children. When she returns home to Jeremy in the evening, she brings the nine-month-old to spend the night.
Both Mike and Jeremy are self-employed.
As I say, I acquired this information at Jake and Laura’s yesterday evening. Jake told me about it, and then both Kaylie and Jeremy called to wish me a Happy Father’s Day. They filled me in on some of the other details. Kaylie reported that her grandmother, Kris’s mom, was doing as well as could be expected and that she would be returning home on Monday to Front Royal, ten children, and I am sure, an exhausted husband.
“Why’d you do this?” I asked.
“I have a heart for single moms,” Kaylie said. “And it just seemed right. Crazy but right.”
Jeremy called next. He described Kaylie and Mike as saints—crazy saints, but saints. He and Mary were worn a little thin because the baby was apparently more of a screamer than a sleeper.
Between these calls, Jake, Laura, the kids, and I ate bratwurst and hotdogs, homemade fries, and fruit for supper. From start to finish, the entire evening was a circus of naked babies sitting on potties or disporting themselves on the deck, children gobbling hot dogs, Natalie reading a book she had written especially for me, spills, babies laughing and crying, neighbor kids, and phone calls from my children.
And I loved every minute of it.
When I arrived home, I looked at the board with the names and heights inscribed on it and realized my children had handed me the best Father’s Day gift I could ever receive.
They have given themselves to life, passion, work, and love. They have found solace and strength in their Faith.
They have grown beyond this board.
They have grown beyond me.
They have become themselves and I marvel at what I see in them.
And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
I like to look at that casing every once in a while. All four of my children are now adults, and the board makes me smile to think of them. My daughter is thirty-three, for example, a wife and mother of six, yet here she stood at age three with her shoulders against the casing while I measured her. “Such a big girl,” I probably said.
Today is Father’s Day, June 19, 2016, and I finally understand how little those measurements mean. Were it possible, I would instead have measured the capacity of their hearts and souls. Today my children reminded me once again just how large those souls have become, how much they have grown.
I spent most of Father’s Day in a funk. On Friday and Saturday, I had checked my mailbox, expecting to hear from my kids, but no packages, no cards appeared. (A confession: I didn’t send my sons and son-in-law cards either.) On Sunday I woke, wrote, did some housekeeping chores, attended noon Mass, stopped at the High Five for a coffee, and came home. When I switched on my phone, I saw my oldest son had telephoned. I returned his call and he wished me a happy Father’s Day and invited me to supper.
I called my other three children—all of whom are parents—but no one answered. Then my second oldest son, Jon Pat or JP, as friends know him, returned my call. His wife Emily is expecting a baby in late July, and Jon Pat explained that after experiencing some severe abdominal pains she was admitted to a hospital on Friday, where she spent the night. It turned out she was suffering from an infection, and was now back home and doing well. As we spoke, Jon Pat told me he was on his way back to Hearndon from Front Royal, Virginia, where he and Emily rent out three apartments and a house to various tenants. He had gone to meet a prospective tenant, but she couldn’t make the appointment. We wished each other a happy Father’s Day—his son, Xavier, is a toddler—and I got off the phone gratified by his call and the way he took care of his family and his work.
Around five o’clock I left my apartment and drove to Jake’s home for supper. Like Kaylie and Mike, Laura and Jake have six children, five of them adopted. I never think of Aliyah, Manuel, Beckett and Bella, and Jude as adopted. They’re my grandchildren, plain and simple. Jake is a good father and has worked hard to build his law firm—four offices, five attorneys, and a squad of assistants—while Laura keeps their home as intact as is possible while raising six children under the age of eight.
On this particular evening the two-year-old twins were undergoing potty training and as result were darting around the house and the deck naked as the day they were born, two little cherubs, one with chigger bites, flitting through the evening sunlight.
It was during this visit that I found out why Father’s Day had taken a back seat this year.
Both Kaylie and Mike, her husband, and Jeremy and Mary, his wife, live in Front Royal. A couple of weeks ago, a priest in their area announced that he needed a family to foster four children for six weeks. Their mother, a single woman who had fled from a bad marriage, required hospitalization, and the children, ranging in age from six to nine months, needed a home until their mother recuperated.
After consulting with Mike, Kaylie threw her name into the hat for providing a home for the children. She was slated to fly to Milwaukee for five days to care for her invalid grandmother and had therefore requested the children not come to her home until she had returned. Through a miscommunication, the four children arrived just before she left for Milwaukee. She was taking her twin daughters, Maggie and Annie, on her trip to Milwaukee, but this circumstance still meant that while she was away Mike would be responsible for eight children, including a nine-month-old.
Here is where Jeremy and Mary stepped in.
Mary has spent her days this past week at Kaylie’s house, helping watch the children. When she returns home to Jeremy in the evening, she brings the nine-month-old to spend the night.
Both Mike and Jeremy are self-employed.
As I say, I acquired this information at Jake and Laura’s yesterday evening. Jake told me about it, and then both Kaylie and Jeremy called to wish me a Happy Father’s Day. They filled me in on some of the other details. Kaylie reported that her grandmother, Kris’s mom, was doing as well as could be expected and that she would be returning home on Monday to Front Royal, ten children, and I am sure, an exhausted husband.
“Why’d you do this?” I asked.
“I have a heart for single moms,” Kaylie said. “And it just seemed right. Crazy but right.”
Jeremy called next. He described Kaylie and Mike as saints—crazy saints, but saints. He and Mary were worn a little thin because the baby was apparently more of a screamer than a sleeper.
Between these calls, Jake, Laura, the kids, and I ate bratwurst and hotdogs, homemade fries, and fruit for supper. From start to finish, the entire evening was a circus of naked babies sitting on potties or disporting themselves on the deck, children gobbling hot dogs, Natalie reading a book she had written especially for me, spills, babies laughing and crying, neighbor kids, and phone calls from my children.
And I loved every minute of it.
When I arrived home, I looked at the board with the names and heights inscribed on it and realized my children had handed me the best Father’s Day gift I could ever receive.
They have given themselves to life, passion, work, and love. They have found solace and strength in their Faith.
They have grown beyond this board.
They have grown beyond me.
They have become themselves and I marvel at what I see in them.
And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.