Sluggish

When my oldest daughter was four or five years old, she loved to go outside on those warm humid Carolina summer nights and look for slugs on the driveway and the sidewalk in front of our house. She would pick them up, sometimes several at a time, and just look at them, totally fascinated by the shiny and slimy little (well, sometimes quite large actually) creatures.

One night after she and I had returned home from swimming at the neighborhood pool, she found a large slug on the driveway and immediately picked it up (much to the delight of the slug, I am sure). She brought the slug over to me and asked, "Daddy, would you like to hold the slug?"

I responded, "Umm, no, that's okay. You can hold it."

She then said, "Well, I know it's because you're busy or you have something else you need to do, because I know you're not afraid of holding a slug."

That precise instant was one of those defining moments when the dad knows what he needs to do even though it goes against all those voices crying out in the back of his mind that are saying, "Ewwww!"

With a calm voice and perhaps a hint of bravery or bravado that was not so unlike Clint Eastwood in the movie "Dirty Harry," when he utters the fabulous line beginning with, "I know what you're thinking. Did I fire six shots or only five," I replied to my oldest daughter, the first child who was going to test me with my first real opportunity at being a hero (in my eyes) and a normal father (in her eyes).

"Hey, can I hold that slug?" I asked.

Delighted, she carefully peeled it off of her palm and placed it in my open hand. She looked at the slug, then she looked at my eyes, and then she looked back at the slug.

In her eyes there was no hint of acknowledgement that what I had done was brave on my part. I was doing just what a normal dad should do. She picks up and holds slugs. Why not her dad?

There's a lesson in here somewhere. What are the opportunities in daily life where my action appears to be just what is expected, what a father should do, but where in reality it takes a lot of courage or strength on my part?

Is it how I respond when I'm tired and worn out from a long day's work, and a kid asks me to go out and play ball in the backyard? Or it's late at night and I want to go to sleep, and a kid asks me to proofread a paper or for help on a homework assignment?

How do I spend my time when no one else is in the house? Am I being productive and being a useful and helpful dad, or not?

Do I muster up the strength to meet a kid's expectations, even when there's no promise of a medal or a pat on the back because I'm just doing what I'm supposed to be doing, or do I get annoyed or snappy or grumpy because I'm not having my own way with my own time?

Nothing profound here ... just something to think about.

By the way, holding a slug was pretty cool!