The wooden paneling of our family room surrounded us with warmth. The couch, in an old ratty plaid fabric, sat against the wall facing the television set. It was the room where some of my earliest childhood memories were made. The time my brother threw himself off the couch in a tantrum and cut open his head on the corner of the coffee table. The time we were playing in the toy cabinet and I moved a lock of his hair so it fell to the other side, saying I liked him better that way, and the way he smiled and chuckled at such meticulous behavior. And the time that my Dad, when I was too little to know how precious the act was, peeled grapes for me so I didn’t have to eat the sour skins. My legs, chubby and far too short to reach the floor, fit on the couch cushion beside a bowl filled with grapes.
Like so many things about my Dad when seen through the prism of childhood, this was another moment of pure magic. He’d pluck the grapes from their shriveled vine and, with the delicate and sure maneuvering of a doctor, in a few quick motions he’d have them peeled and ready for devouring. They were so much sweeter that way, softer and smoother too, and for a kid that was divine. We sat there together, probably only going through about six or seven of them – how many grapes could a little boy eat? – and I would call out for more. I couldn’t even form the word yet – all I managed was “geeps” and my parents would echo that attempt whenever I wanted a grape.
A man of few words, my Dad said more to me in peeling those grapes than I could ever muster in years of blabbering and writing. With each peeled grape, a little ‘I love you’ was given from a father to his son. The very same love that was in our after-dinner walks for ice cream in the summer, or when he’d let me ‘help’ with mowing the lawn. Mostly I just stood there, at a safe distance, but feeling like I was doing something. A good father knows how to do that – to make his child feel safe and important.
It remains one of my happiest memories, and on this Father’s Day I wanted to say thank you to my Dad for filling my childhood with such treasures.
