Just for context, that I’m sure you’ll figure out, I wrote this all in one day about two weeks ago when my kid was still in school and I’ve kept it fairly untouched. So this is definitely an instance of The Diary I’m Currently Writing, which is nice I think. Nice that through an initial plan to look back in order to better move forward I’ve also increased my appreciation for living more fully in the moment and then capturing it when it moves me to do so. This morning I was moved to do so and I’m so happy about that because of the simple joy and happiness I experienced this morning.
This morning I volunteered in my youngest son’s kindergarten class. This is something I signed up for a few weeks back as my schedule has opened up and become more flexible due to other recent life choices and changes that I’ve made, which will be the topic of numerous other entries I’m sure. The task I would be assisting with was to help the kindergarteners (man that’s a long word for such a young age) plant flowers and veggies in the beds in front of the school. Fantastic! We plant a garden at home and the topic of planting bushes and plants has recently come up with my youngest son as he has been learning about it at school and wanted to plant something with his Dad (that’s me). Fantastic and perfect!
When I got to the school this morning I joined four other Mom volunteers in the back of the classroom and one of the students yelled out to my youngest, “Your Dad is here!” and he sees me, from his front row seat that is the closest seat in the room to the teacher, and yells out “Dad!!” and has a look on his face that seems to consist of equal parts joy, confusion and concern. A look that says, “Cool my Dad is here, but wait, why is my Dad here, what did I do?” all at once. One of the Mom’s who was there before me would later tell me that one of the students had said they thought they saw me a few minutes before I actually walked in and my son said, “Why is he here????” That all makes sense.
We received instructions from the teacher that each student would be planting two flowers in the beds in front of the school that were right outside of their classroom. Given we were volunteering we would start with our own children and would also get to plant a tomato plant there as well. The teacher had a ton of shovels ready for our use, a bucket full of water with watering cups and flats of flowers. My son was sent out and we hugged and got started by grabbing our shovels and planting the tomato plant in it’s designated spot.
Then we picked out two flowers and he got to decide where he was going to plant those. I had to provide a little bit of influence as my son, of course, didn’t entirely want to adhere to the idea that these flowers should be planted in the front of the bed so they could be seen well from the parking lot and front of the school. Had I told him we should plant the flowers in the back of the bed where no one could see them he probably would’ve suggested they be planted right in the front of the bed. Actually, who knows, with this kid he may have said, “That’s a great idea Dad, let’s plant them where no one can see them.” Any how, he did a marvelous job and it was super fun picking out the color flowers he was going to plant and then picking spots for them, one in the front of the bed (win!) and one randomly somewhere in the middle (compromise!), then digging out the dirt, getting them situated in some good loose soil and finally given a little drink from the water bucket.
After I was done with my son I, and the other volunteers, would then help the others kids one at a time until we were through the entire class.
The door to the “garden” was right off of the kindergarten class, which is awesome, and remained open while we were working. My son decided to set up shop right at that doorway by putting a chair there and then working on the things they were working on in class while the planting continued.
He made his way closer to the door and then just sort of wandered out and about as the planting was taking place. It was pretty laid back and it was cool that he was around while I was working with some of his classmates. He was doing a fantastic job of just being there and not trying to hog my attention or anything along those lines, but just generally wanted to be out there in the garden with all of us I think. I had him dig up some milkweed his teacher said we could remove as there was so much of it in the beds. At one point he said, “Dad, come here, look there’s some sort of milk or something here in the soil.”, at which point I told him, the thing he was digging up was called milkweed and showed him some more of the “milk” at the base of the plant he had removed.
Eventually, the last boy that I was helping came out and picked out his flowers and he was a cool talkative kid. He had some sweet crazy socks on as it was crazy sock day at the school. My son also had some sweet crazy socks on and I decided I would participate too.
The kids had been previously told they could bring gardening gloves in if they had them at home for the planting day. I had brought my own gloves and I was wearing them as I helped the kiddos. Well this fella rolled out and, understandably like a lot of the kids, didn’t have any gloves (weird that these five and six year olds didn’t have a plethora of gardening gloves at home, or not weird given I only got my first pair about 4 years ago and into my 40’s, and during this day was actually substituting mechanic’s gloves as my gardening gloves). I had been encouraging the kids to get their hands into the dirt, gloves or no gloves, and explaining, in my opinion, that part of the whole experience of gardening is to get into the dirt and to feel the earth and the roots and the plant and all of that fun stuff. The kids were great and were getting it done and getting into it. This little dude was also getting into it but verbally noted that he didn’t have any gloves and also the first time he touched the dirt he immediately wiped it off on his shorts and then put his hand in his pocket.
So I told him it was ok if he got his hands into it and got a bit dirty and told him I would take off my gloves as well. My youngest was nearby and was pacing about kind of interacting with us and also doing his own thing. As I took my glove off it fell into the hole we had just dug to plant this little dude’s flower into it. While the glove was sitting there I said, “Hey (insert little fella’s name), wouldn’t it be funny if we planted my glove and it made a glove tree. That would be cool wouldn’t it.” My son was within earshot and they were kind of laughing at it and then this little guy quickly jumped on board and quipped, “Yeah, that would be good, then I could just grab a pair of gloves off of it and use them right now.” Then the three of us joked about the glove tree a bit, we got our hands into the dirt a bit more and finished our planting.
As I said, the glove tree kid was the last kid that I was helping as the parent volunteer super squad had gotten through the entire class at this point. I hugged my kid, told him I loved him and how much fun I had, he hugged me and asked me if it was over, and I said yeah. Then, with his face pressed into my leg he started to cry, something I didn’t notice at first but when I did I scooped him up and asked him why he was crying. He said that he didn’t want it to be over and didn’t want me to leave. I got some tears in my eyes (yeah, I know, I’m crying again, big surprise) and then I said something that I recently saw and thought it was amazing. I’m sure it’s super simple and everyone has heard it before and will be like, “You’ve never heard that before, you’re lame.”, but so be it. I had some loss recently, again a topic for another entry, and I think it was a part of that experience that I saw a quote that said something along the lines of, “Don’t cry tears for the fact that I’m gone, smile a smile for the time we spent together.” I found that to be just a simple yet profound statement that captures the light and the truth in, at least to me, an elevated manner. Having just done a little research it appears that maybe some version of that is attributable to Dr. Seuss, which makes it even cooler in my opinion.
That thought or concept bubbled up and I said something like, “Aww buddy, I’m going to see you later, we’re going to go to your football practice and have fun. Look, just think about how cool it was that I was able to be here for this and we were able to spend this awesome time together. Don’t cry because I’m leaving, smile because we got to do this together.” Then I told him he was going to have an amazing rest of his day and he should keep his head up and have fun. When I left him he was building with some building bricks with some of his friends and smiling.
Ultimately, this was a small and simple part of my day that was absolutely amazing. I think in all it was about 45 minutes of my day, small as it pertains to time, however it will easily be the best 45 minutes of my day. It makes it super easy to remind myself that my recent actions and choices to considerably change my life were not only to chase my dreams but to do this exact thing. It was intentional to spend time like this with my family, with my kiddos, to soak this in and to make an impact to it and to be impacted by it, the experience that is.
Something struck me while my son was tearing up and I was holding him in my arms and talking to him. One of the super kind Mom volunteers said to my son, “You know, it’s super cool that your Dad was here, everyone else had Mom’s here and I know my son would’ve wanted his Dad here too.” It’s kind of crazy that this statement is true, it was surprising that I, as a Dad, was volunteering to help in the classroom. It’s almost always Mom’s that volunteer for this stuff, or at a minimum it’s the majority of the time. I had an outstanding time being there and interacting with these kiddos, my own for sure, but I even enjoyed planting with all five or six kids I got to plant with. So I guess maybe there’s a message, again not that I’m some sort of genius of these things (especially since they tend to dawn on me retrospectively) and I appreciate I’ve also put myself in a position out of design where this is easier done, that Dads should get more involved with this stuff where and when they can. I’m not trying to preach or be accusatory or anything along those lines, but just share that it was super cool. I don’t relate to the word joy very well for some reason but I think this brought me genuine, and simple (I don’t know why but I keep gravitating to the word simple in explaining this but it captures it so well) joy. Equally, we are clearly still living in a society in which this is deemed, pick your word, easier/expected/part of their role for Moms, and as a result I’m guessing some Dads, maybe not even deliberately, just think it’s easier to not get involved or don’t even know “how” (read as being “scared” or out of their element) and may need some guidance or coaching on such things, by the skilled and involved Moms maybe. As I said, I put myself in a position to be able to more easily be able to do these types of things, but I also signed up to do this probably ten days ago, and then I put it on my calendar like any other meeting. I put it in next to “Meeting with Insurance Guy” and “Pay the Bills” and once it was there, complete with travel time, it became a part of my day. It was set in “calendar that rules my life” stone. I don’t know, at this point I think this thing has gotten away from me and my intention in capturing it wasn’t to make some “grand” point or to berate Dads to do more, but having just had the situation play out as it did it became part of the experience that made an impact on me I suppose. I also appreciate that if it’s not normal to get involved then a cycle might have to be broken and a new cycle created and that might take some bravery and some assistance.
While pulling out of my son’s school parking lot I found myself taking multiple glances at the garden we had just helped beautify and the windows of my son’s classroom behind it and realized that I too didn’t want my time there with him and with his classmates to be over. I was looking back wondering if my son was watching out that window and hoping he felt as great as I did. I smiled the smile appreciating how great the time was that I got to spend with him and to do this and then I thought of the glove tree and decided that was something I needed to draw. I thought, at a minimum, I would draw it for my son and his friend to keep the joke going a bit, but then quickly realized I wanted to do more than draw the thing and also wanted to capture as much of the experience as I could in words within this space, which, honestly, and it might be because I’m an awful writer, doesn’t come close to truly capturing my feelings or the experience.
Joy, a funny and strange little word.