Dad, Part 2

Here is the one I wrote a couple years later, graciously much shorter:

April 2008:

The other day I was helping Henry get on his pajamas, which has become something of a ritual for him: he picks his sleepwear carefully and insists that all of his clothes come off before any new clothes come on—to mix pajama shirt with jeans would be heresy, even if only for a moment. Usually when I put on his pajama bottoms, he looks for something to hold onto so that he won’t fall, and this particular evening he asked, “head?” so he put both hands on his head while I put on his pajama bottoms. Perhaps because it was a sentimental moment with my son or perhaps because it was part of a pseudo-ritual that at least Henry deems sacred, but I was astonished at how familiar, and how comforting, someone’s hands on my head had become.

Family generations are not something that I think of very often, and unfortunately it seems as though “generations” is a concept that is only associated with staged photographs, but with Henry’s hands on my head, I had the distinct feeling that there was something crucial in a generational line. I have no answer to what is crucial about it, but I certainly felt that way at the moment. Of course, I have felt hands on my head before, and they were usually Dad’s hands, and I assume Dad grew up with Grandpa’s hands occasionally on his head as well. The actual sense experience of having hands blanket my head might be too difficult to describe, but let me try it this way: when I greet Grandpa, he holds my hand, often for a very long time. After the initial warmth of holding Grandpa’s hand wears off, I realize he isn’t done holding yet, and the touch transforms into a sacred plea to never let him go. His hand lingers in yours, and it comforts and pleads. That is the way Dad’s hands usually felt on my head.

I have often put my hands on other people’s heads, and the experience is slightly different—your hands are the ones doing the comforting and pleading, and it almost always seems like work, as I suppose it should. I have also put my hands on Dad’s head, and the experience was different still. I was trying to do the comforting, pleading, and blessing, but all those things were coming back to me in ways I had never, and have never since, felt. Dad was doing the work for me even though they were my hands on his head. That is, the power was reciprocal and the work was lateral. I hope there is a larger analogy to be drawn with all of this, something about temples, God, families, generations, service, work, and blessings, but I am not confident enough to make all those connections. Rather, I just wanted to point out the ineffable power of rituals, fathers and children. When Henry put both his hands on my head to steady himself while I put on his pajama pants, I guess it all seemed carefully structured.