The world does not deliver meaning to you. You have to make it meaningful.
—ZADIE SMITH
NOT EVERY OUTDOOR ADVENTURE HAS TO BE EXOTIC. SOMETIMES I’LL just head out into the suburban/industrial wastelands around our home. Medical offices, auto repair shops, a FedEx distribution center. But near those rectangular monstrosities is a wedge of dark pine forest. A swampy, cattail-choked seep. Waving fields of goldenrod.
One day, Finn and I headed out to explore the waterfront of the lake near where we live. Formerly an industrial waterfront, now it sports a bike path and scrubby woods. Its history as a shipping port remains in the name of the strip of sand nearby, however: Texaco Beach.
We walked through the waterfront park in a drizzle. The dog—finally a bit subdued after a visit to the beach for a swim—trotted contentedly. Finn looked out over the gray lake. I followed his gaze and could just barely make out the tiny rock island known as Oodzee-hozo by the Abenaki people, the creator of Lake Champlain at rest and admiring his creation. Finn kept sauntering down the path along the water. At thirteen, he is on a precipice with childhood on one side, something more complex and heavy on the other. His body is lean and kid-like, but the swim team has started to give him solid, rounded shoulders that weren’t there a few months ago. He is leaving me, in a way. Packing on muscle for his launch into the world. His orbit grows.
He stands looking out at the waves. His body is always moving, his arms swinging, his hands grabbing branches and leaves. Legs running or kicking, too much energy to stay still. He has so much life it overflows the brim. Coming back to the bike path, he speaks conversationally.
“Dying is probably just like before you were born. You’re not even there. It’s nothing.”
My first thought is, Shit. I can’t do this This could be that pivotal moment in his youth where I help him frame the reality of our own mortality. That our lives are finite. That we will, in fact, one day die. What should a father say? How can I give this boy assurances I don’t have myself? I say the first words that come to my lips.
“I prefer to think of it as ‘the time of no waffles.’”
“What?”
“Dying. It’s too weird to think about. Too scary. So I just call it ‘the time of no waffles’ in my head. Because I don’t know what will happen, but I’m pretty sure waffles aren’t involved.”
I acknowledge it was a lame joke. Not my first, by any stretch. I probably should’ve been more open instead of deflecting the topic with humor. Been more vulnerable, more accepting of his need to talk about such things. But looking back, I realize two things. First, I was speaking the truth. There are no waffles in death, so it pays to take every chance to eat them while you can. This is just pragmatism. The second realization is that I’m not scared to tell him that death is inevitable. I’m scared to tell him that life is so, so short, and we seem designed by some perverse logic to never realize how precious the moments are. One minute you’re bouncing a baby on your knee, consumed by trying to control the sheer volume of diarrhea and vomit spewing from its orifices every time you try to sit down at a restaurant; the next minute that infant has grown up and is walking away from you down the sidewalk to catch the bus to the mall to meet friends, ingest a billion calories of highly processed fast food, and keep the wheels of the American economy churning by buying cheap plastic crap made in China.
I flash back to a memory of years ago. Finn had been diagnosed with cholesteatoma, a rare ear disease that required multiple surgeries. We took him in early in the morning for the first operation. He played with blocks and tumbled around on a brightly colored mat on the ground while his mom and I sat tensed and worried. Eventually, the surgical team arrived, and I walked with them all to the operating room, dressed in those goofy suits and booties and hair nets to minimize infection. His doctor was there—Dr. Barrington—patiently explaining the procedure to me. She was a small woman, with straight sandy hair tied back in a simple ponytail. She had the most piercing, intense eyes I’d ever seen. I didn’t hear a word she said, and could only instead stare at my son, this fragile kid now lying on a hospital gurney. As we talked, the anesthesiologist lowered the mask onto Finn’s face, and his eyes slowly closed.
One of the nurses—and holy shit, am I grateful for those humans—led me back out to where Cynthia, my wife, was waiting. I tried to keep my voice steady and calm, told her that Finn looked fine and the doctor said everything was going to be okay. I then went to the bathroom. I shut the door and broke down, great toddler-like sobs coming out of me. I squatted on the floor, chest heaving and my whole body shaking. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so scared in my life. I understood at that moment why events like this drive people to religion. But I didn’t believe in anything like that, so I just let loose great racking sobs. I didn’t pray to God, but I wished with atomic force that Dr. Barrington had studied hard in med school and had her game face on.
He was fine—if you can call two more surgeries fine—but I couldn’t help but dive into the memory of that awful morning even as he stood there in front of me, rain plastering down his hair, grinning and chucking pebbles far out into the lake to watch the splash. I wondered if in my head he’d always be that little kid, defenseless and on a hospital bed, and me standing there useless as life took its course around him.
I don’t want to tell him that life can become an endless progression of moments that feel largely meaningless: forty minutes on the phone arguing about a $250 deductible for windshield replacement with some insurance clone; fruitlessly scanning inboxes for messages of good cheer; filling out some endless survey from human resources designed expressly to make you want to eat your own soul. He deserves so much more than that.
He smiles and chuffs a polite laugh at my lame joke as we continue walking. After a few moments he says, “How do you know there aren’t waffles?”
I smile and raise my eyebrows conspiratorially. I think, Please let this moment be all moments Don’t screw this one up. Please let it last. The rain, the lake, the dog. Oodzee-hozo. Walking with him, seeing him strong and healthy, life in front of him. I try to hang on to the feeling.