It always does the old man's heart good when he and the Mrs. hear from the grown children. Just a few nights ago, Number One Son Kevin checked in around 9:00........
Rewind to Sunday morning around 7:00 a. m. I began my morning routine. I came down, put on the coffee, emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, and went to the computer to check my email and play several obligatory games of Word Scramble on Facebook. When I lost.......er.......got tired of that game, I checked my home page. I scrolled and scrolled and read and read. Soon I came to a picture of someone's back with a tattoo on it...a globe with a sword through it. Pretty cool tattoo, I thought. I went to see which of my Facebook friends had posted such a sight. I should have stuck with the Word Scramble. It was Number One Son...... Within a minute I was able to close my mouth again, but my back began burning...and itching. My son's bare tatooed back was now on the Internet for the world to see. He now had a permanent tattoo. I read the comments under the picture and resisted the temptation to post one. I thought about the branding on his back, and then decided to process the whole thing for awhile. After all, I got used to the bleached hair on another of my children and the belly button piercing on yet another. Surely, I would adjust to this too.
Finally, Kevin called on Monday night:
KEVIN: Hey.
DAD: Hey, how are ya?
KEVIN: Good. You?
DAD: Good.............................So you got a tattoo?
KEVIN: Yea.
DAD: Star Trek theme, so I read on the Facebook posts..
KEVIN: Yea. I designed it myself. I figured you guys had seen it. I'm curious to get your reaction.
DAD: Did it hurt?
KEVIN: Well, let me just say this. All I could think about was that it felt like a ton of red ants all in one spot. It hurt a lot.
DAD: So, would you ever get another one?
KEVIN: Oh yea. I want to get one of (blah, blah, blah) and (blah, blah, blah). I was too taken aback by the disgusting red ants to even contemplate the thought of future tattoos.
DAD: Just do me a favor and don't get one on your face or your neck, okay?
KEVIN: Actually I always wanted to get one on my neck of a spider web. Suddenly my throat felt like it was closing.
I knew a Kevin tattoo was a strong possibility, for he'd been on his own for quite some time and hinted that he'd wanted one. Kevin was a great kid. I remember when we were expecting him. When he was in the womb, he was never 'the baby'. He was Kevin. Tests to determine the sex of one's unborn child existed, but were not as common as they are today, so we didn't really know he would be a boy. We had a girl's name picked out - Amy - just in case we were blindsided! But our instinct was right. He was Kevin!
Some of my biggest challenges in parenting were the firsts associated with Kevin. Of course, he was the first of our four pregnancies. It was a relatively normal pregnancy with normal ups and downs, and a glaring exception - a train wreck. No, not figuratively, literally! His mother was riding a train into Philadelphia when she was four months pregnant and she was standing. The train she was riding had a collision with another train. She fell forward to the floor, but miraculously both she and Kevin were unharmed physically. Many people were injured in that crash. We were so thankful!
Kevin was also the first of our children to go to Kindergarten, the first to graduate high school, and the first to be out on his own, enlisting in the Military at high school graduation time. The firsts of the first child definitely had the greatest impact and provided the greatest anxiety. We gained experience and wisdom through him, and hopefully didn't traumatize him too much.
Now he is the first to sport a tattoo. I'm settled now, remembering myself at his age. If I had been a loyal Treker all my life and wanted the repeated feeling of a ton of red ants in one spot, I'd have done it too. When the child with the belly button piercing reluctantly revealed the deed, my mouth eventually closed, I accepted it and I knew it could be removed with ease at any time if it became uncomfortable. When another child began to sport bleached hair, I knew it would grow out if its novelty wore off. A tattoo, though? I needed to research this. Tattoo removal can be done with laser technology, and the scuttlebutt is that it feels like one is being snapped by a rubberband repeatedly.
I am still learning to pick and choose my battles with all the children. They are each unique, and Kevin is no exception. I look at a fit young man, always well groomed, whether in his military uniform or his comfortable clothes, I listen to him speak with such purpose, intelligence, and clarity; and I think that his Mom and I, with all our successes and failures, have a son to be proud of....and when he decides the time is right, and he needs another red ant fix or even a snapping rubber band fix, we'll still love and be proud of him.
God bless you, Kevin.........................
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