Something I like to do

My son is now three days away from finishing Kindergarten, and each afternoon as he arrives home he carries with him a new onslaught of artwork stuffed into his red backpack. Every evening, we leaf through the newest additions to the pile, often laughing and sometimes surprised by what we see. Most startling are the projects where his teachers had him draw something at the beginning of the school year - a self-portrait, for example - and then repeat the exercise now, placing in bold relief the sum of all he's learned, how he's grown, how his perception of the world around him has evolved and how his fine motor skills have developed and sharpened.

It's often kind of remarkable.

Today brought a new batch. And buried within the pile was a small booklet entitled "My Dad." A Father's Day gift, from my son to me. This is the first thing any of my children have ever made me, given me, for any occasion.

To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect when I opened it to the first interior page. His attempts at similar Mother's Day projects had yielded scattered results, with preprinted pages stating "I love my mom because" paired with a response of "we eat ice cream!" and a picture of a yellow cone and an enormous, brown scoop of chocolate. Cute - and, to be honest, fairly accurate - but as I don't really share their passion for chocolate or ice cream or chocolate ice cream, I wasn't sure what tribute (if any) I'd receive.

And then I saw it. And yes, I instantly flashed back to this post, this stream of thought. And before my wife could say anything I said "that's cute" and put it down and walked away. Because I felt myself on the precipice of something I couldn't name and there was suddenly so much dust in the room and I... I just didn't need anyone to see me that way.