Tears for fears

Do you ever cry? Cleo, 15 solid months old and a stubborn toddler in training, is something of an expert in the art: today, it was the fact that I wouldn't let her filter all of the sugar in the sugar jar through her tiny hands, as if she were weighing grain, while yesterday it was my dictatorial insistence that we leave the zoo before its door closed and sealed us in with penguins, cheetahs, and lemur. In each case, a torrid protest, accompanied by heartbreaking pearls that course down her little cheeks. By contrast, I'm usually dry of eye: in fact, I can only think of one moment in the past month when I've followed my daughter's lead and let a tear run down my cheek.

It was at the pool, a few weeks back. For the second time this summer, I saw a father of about my age in the pool, with a boy of about 5. All well, I'd thought when I first saw them, as the father slowly guided his son through the mild chaos of water wings, beach balls, shrieking kids, and Pilate-toned moms. But wait: the boy's expression wasn't quite what I expected. His eyes rolling back in his head, mouth hanging open, he seemed vacant, inattentive, absorbed in some infinitely distant reality. In fact, he reminded me of this detail in Raphael's Transfiguration:

I won't diagnose - I don't know how, and it's not my place - but it was clear that the child was not entirely present. Repeatedly, his father lifted the boy's right arm, to prop it up on the side of the pool - only to watch it sag back into the water. Repeatedly, the father spoke, in soft tones, to his son - and yet the son never responded, never looked into his father's eyes. Slowly they began to move again through the water, father holding son, and son limp, unacknowledging, silent.

It's hard enough to parent a fully healthy, fully responsive child. Doing so without the small and precious rewards of an occasional grin, or a voiced 'Dada,' or a task tried, and tried, and finally learned, seems almost incomprehensible. I felt a deep, deep love for the father's patience, and was reminded of Kierkegaard's phrase: the knight of infinite resignation. But what fate decrees that he, and not I, was the one to be resigned? And would I really handle such a challenge with such grace?

The tear suggested perhaps not.