The Old Man: Me

I have come to many things in my life just a little bit later than others my same age. I never really noticed this until I was in my early or mid-twenties, so even that realization took a while to dawn on me. Looking back, it was most likely third grade before I really understood how to tie my shoes. I started college when I was 19 years old and even then started in January and not the previous August like most do. I married when I was well into my thirties. Maybe with this type of history, I never really gave it much thought when Hannah was born and I found myself well into my forties.

I think about it now though and sometimes when I do it really makes me feel old. Sometimes I think about it when I see the parents of some of the children the same age as Hannah. Some of them were just born when I was working my way through college. I wonder if they would ever appreciate the Three Stooges, Emmylou Harris, Members Only jackets or Polo cologne. They only know a life where their "good ole days" are populated with over-sized VCRs, clunky DVD players, big boxy microwave ovens and bag cell phones. There is nothing wrong with not knowing certain things from the past but when we are all sitting around waiting for whatever event we are attending together to end I am not sure how well my ability to discuss an Atari game from 1983 will be received. That can make a man feel old. I further realize I am old enough that I could be this dad's father. A few times I have even realized that their own father is younger than I am. Of course, that would mean that guy would be younger than me and would also be a grandfather, so maybe he would feel older than me.

 
I think about being an older dad sometimes when my bones ache or my body doesn’t bounce back as quickly as it did when I took my younger days, and the share of health I had then, for granted. My wife and I have both observed how we have some understanding of why God blesses younger people with children. It is because they are, in part, physically equipped enough to handle the non-stop activity children will bring into a life. Early in Hannah’s life, I often would jokingly tell her not to throw something in the floor because at my age I only had so many bend-overs left and I wanted to save a few. The truth is after a hard day at work and at my age, bending over to pick up a toy makes one wonder if you are burning away that ability. Admittedly, I don’t always see myself at the age I am. Some people seem amazed when they ask my age and I tell them.Well, either that, or they do that to make me feel good and I won't debate either argument too much. Frankly, my hair has remained intact and the gray hair has mostly held off for now. Truth is, I still feel young in many ways even though my body will give me a gentle, and sometimes, a not-so-gentle, reminder of how time is rapidly moving forward and pulling me along for that ride.

Some remind me that being Hannah's dad at my age may be God's way of keeping me young at heart. Maybe so. I do know I enjoy seeing things I sometimes take for granted, things I think I know so well, for the first time through her eyes. There is something timeless about that experience that words cannot fully explain.

One day my being older than the other dads of her friends may be an issue for Hannah. Maybe she will even call me “the old man”, a phrase my Dad and his siblings referred to their father as and a phrase I have never been able to call my own Dad. Maybe she will make fun of me to her friends about how I always talk about Polaroid cameras and long-distance phone calls and driving a stick-shift accentuating each thing I longingly recall with air quotes. She may even insert an eye roll and a heavy sigh right after saying those words. She might even verbalize to some stringy-haired boyfriend with wanna-be facial hair how out-of-touch and out-of-date I am with the hip-and-happening and whatever cool phrase-of-their-day that all the kids will be saying about themselves then.

And that will be fine. That seems to happen when different generations get in each other’s way. After all, on some level, most of us could say we have that exact same experience in our own past.

This blog post is scheduled to appear initially on Father’s Day, 2015. The previous two posts were about my father and his father. That said, this whole fatherhood thing has been on my mind for a while. The reality of fatherhood for me is that I am an older dad. For Hannah the reality is I may not be able to physically do all the things I could have as a father for her if fatherhood had come to me twenty years earlier. I am okay with that tradeoff because I understand and I hope Hannah comes to understand how that one thing takes nothing away from how much I love and care for her and it never will. While I am not sure I would ever be prepared enough to tackle everything that being a father has entailed so far in the nearly four years that it found me, I do know that being a little bit older when it did come has taught me a few things. One of those things is that how sometimes things happen late in life, maybe later in life than when society expects or even later than one would expect, but these things usually happen because the time was right for it to happen. 

Happy Father's Day 2015!