39

We gather and sit around the table, a ring linked by blood and history. Side by side by side, tied to one another by memory and plotlines and subplots twisting and intertwining and fading in and out of focus, decades deep, some growing darker with each passing month even as others flare bright to blinding with the vivid, unquenchable joys of being four and struck savage with wonder at the raw, unfiltered possibility of every new day: born anew with the fresh breath of sunlight pouring over a cold earth.

February in New England. A time of permafrost and yearning. Days that do not forgive. Not a time for birth, but we gathered in honor of one, forever ago, in days lost to photos where colors felt less sharp, the edges less crisp, the moments less real. Retrospect can have that effect, at times.

Thirty nine. Realizing that the numbers are reaching a level where age becomes less a measure and more an achievement. I've tried not to pay attention to them, but they become harder to ignore, after a point. Thirty nine years can sneak up on a man, if he's not careful. Or even if he is.

My father, at thirty nine, had two children of his own. His son, two years older than mine is now. He was a doctor, entrenched in a small office in a nondescript building, already years into a career that would stretch across decades — a wall of shelves growing thick with books and binders, prescription guides and sketches drawn by small hands. Every day, he wore a suit and tie. Thick black shoes. His broad, curious eyes hidden behind thick lenses. A ready smile hidden behind a title, and the weight of expectation that came with it. At thirty nine, he was older than I may ever be.

I remember that smile, those curious eyes. That brightness; that joy or anger. Spark.

The lenses are still thick, as I watch him - half a smile on his face - as he tries to follow the flow of conversation from across the table, that butterfly imprecision and staccato impact of three small voices, three sets of arms, three pairs of huge and chaos-driven eyes as they soar and stab through any sadly misconceived notions of propriety and give-and-take, competing for attention as they burst into story and song. They are all wild energy wrapped in fleece and free association, and as I watch him watching them I know: he is lost.

My father, at thirty nine, had an eight-year old son. Third grade. A child of the suburbs, comfortable in the broad green fields where Saturdays were for soccer, Sundays were for biking to a friend's house for hours of wiffle bat-rifle combat and an intricate system of baseball card barter, argument and exegesis. This was a world he had never known — one he had worked a lifetime, would work a lifetime, to make possible, but one that would never offer him true comfort and sanctuary. His dreams always returned to a city of decades gone by, a halcyon New York he might reclaim in fleeting glimpses onscreen or in the warm duotone photos that adorned books he collected like cards.

I wonder if I felt lost to him, then, already.

My son begins to sing. He is six, and will be seven soon. He is finally reaching a point where he not only learns the words, but begins to mimic the tune. To understand the interplay of words and music. After a moment, I recognize that he is singing "Put A Little Love In Your Heart" — and I am astonished. Two full stanzas worth, notes mimicking the flow of the song as I know it. Later, I discover that he has been learning the song in preparation for an upcoming all-class performance at his school, but in that moment I simply stop dead and soak in what I am seeing: my son singing a song I have never heard him sing before. I avoid my wife's eyes, because I know what she is thinking. She is thinking of years of carefully building, piece by piece, the constructs of language and social interaction. She is remembering days when four words strung together were akin to stumbling upon a diamond in the snow. She is reliving. Each. Day. We. Fought. And. Pushed. Each day our little man went to work. But I do not meet her eyes, because my eyes - like those of his grandmother, and the twin sisters who are and always will be his best friends - are focused only on him. His own eyes, closed. Following his voice. Finding his way along the melody.

He is beautiful.