Road to Manhood Blog

The car windows are wide open. Jake turns down Jay-Z. “Dad? Last year when you took me to camp?” He turns toward me in the passenger seat.
Yeah? I reply.
“How times did you have to pull over?”
What do you mean?
“How times did you have to pull over??”
You mean for coffee?
“No, after you dropped me off at the Camp???”
…You mean pull over for gas? I close the windows to shield us from the summer heat.
“Just tell me.”
Okay. I had to pull over twice. Yep, I lost it. I was a mess.
“That’s what I thought.”
Does that embarrass you?
“Nope. Not at all. I actually love that about you.”
Then Jake reaches over turns up Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.”

It is the stone cold silence that hits me first. A quiet in the house where I can hear a City Bus five blocks away or the giggling conversation of two lycra-dressed mothers on a power walk, happy to have a few minutes away from their families. As I listen, suddenly our home feels like a fish tank. My heart and head searching for the faint remembrance for that toy that may have rolled under the couch, or kid’s shoes strategically placed in the major causeway that always trip me up. I find myself yearning for that distant call for attention – “Hey Dad!”

Nothing. The nest is empty. Now, this nest, our home is just a wood frame filled with stuff, not the usual memory factory.  A factory filled with Jake and Lily laughter. A wonderful place filled with their unexpected observations. Case in point, Lily’s recent comment to Jake – “When you have your first kiss, I want to be there.” Lily had witnessed most of Jake’s important moments in our house and it seemed natural to her she wouldn’t miss his first kiss. Yes, her comment drew hearty laugh and encouraging smiles.

My boy is away for two weeks. Luckily, Lily is with him. I have a profound sense of happiness and gratitude knowing that I can provide this opportunity for them. I know Jake will have a terrific set of experiences. All of his Hebrew School buddies are in his cabin. He is about to make bonds of a lifetime. I am just learning that I am not always going to be there. Maybe Lily and I both have a little growing up to do.

It is never good to hear a phone ring at one in the morning. Saturday night had just faded into Sunday morning. The tear-soaked voice on the other end of the line was my sixty-nine year old father telling me his “Daddy” just died. My grandpa was ninety-six. His ailing heart had had enough. At 12:15am Edward John Rehfeldt Jr. took his last breath.

Jake woke up the next morning and came into the bedroom. He looked at my face. Jake knew. “Great Grandpa is dead.” To the ears of a twelve year-old,  those words must ring with a stark finality. For Jake, this is his second direct experience with death. Five years ago we lost my grandmother. Death is not like in a Harry Potter movie. Some dark cloud does not swirl over your house and then, like crows born from a black hole, dark, cloak-draped skeletons descend from the heavens to look for you and your sick loved one.

In “real life”,  the news of a death comes simply, like a stray dog that walks into your back door unannounced. The information and the facts arrive in the most pedestrian way: a telephone ringing.

Lately Jake has been obsessed with listening to the Flaming Lips. Since we heard the news, I’ve caught Jake twice singing in the shower. The tune?  The Flaming Lips song is “Do You Realize.” Actually Jake has been singing it all week. In the shower, in the car and up in his room. At one point, while I was making dinner and I stopped to listen to him.  Then I finally heard these words:
Do You Realize – that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize – we’re floating in space
Do You Realize – that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize – that everyone you know someday will die
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes – let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

At twenty-five, I experienced losing my beautiful, graceful mother. Jake’s sweet voice brings back wonderful memories of my mother and grandparents and the terrific pain of their losses. I believe that love is transferred from us into the lives of others. When I Jake sings I know this could not be more true.

He is taller. As tall as my wife. When none of Jake’s friends are around he still slips his hand into mine. We will walk down the street holding hands. “Dad, I don’t want to grow up.” For those brief moments I flash backward: Jake sleeps in my arms. It is the first night of his life. His five macaroni sized fingers grasping my pinky. As we walk now, his long digits envelop my hand. I struggle to push away the thought of my boy as a man.

The spring season draws to a close. The days grow considerably longer in the Northwest. 10:00 pm is sunset. Jake and I often find ourselves in my two-seater truck at magic hour. It is my favorite time of the day. The truck windows are down and occasionally the dwindling sun glistens across his forehead. In that instant, I see my little Jake running to meet me down a long hallway. I see his cherub face looking up from his crib. Cut to: Jake in his “grown-up” bed. Pint sized Jake jumps on his mattress, excited for snuggles.

Snap – back. We are in the truck and the burnt orange-hues swipe across his forehead as his hair ruffles from the wind of the open window. In this moment, I see the Man. The Man he is becoming: a large heart, an enchanting smile, bushy hair and wonderful good looks.

I want Jake to stay frozen in time. As we walk together laughing we chat about Zach Galifinakis. I realize in that moment I will soon be able to turn Jake on to the humor of Animal House and the mastery of The Godfather. I’ve worked hard to teach him how to “watch” films and “hear” music. He just saw Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life.” After the film finished Jake was pensive. “Dad the film was like visual poetry.” Exactly. Hmm… There is a whole new world for us to discover together.

I am amazed. How did I become a father to such a remarkable boy? Fifteen years ago all I could hear the Doctor say was “you might never be able to have children.” That day, his hollow statement echoed off the antiseptic linoleum floor straight into my broken thirty-four year old heart. Miraculously, here I am now, zipping toward the fading sun in my 1996 Toyota truck listening to my sweet Jake loudly belt back CSNY “Helpless Hoping” with perfect pitch, word for word. I think how fortunate I am. How I need to fight everyday to live life with grace and gratitude.

I caught Jake whistling this riff  “Every-body-was-Kung-Fu Fighting…” What chopsocky disco-virus has polluted my son’s brain? Yes, my twelve year-old knows every note to the 1974 Carl Douglas hit. How is this possible? We have a dedicated sonic soundtrack piped in daily from KEXP. The radio station hums 24-7 inside our home. The station is our northwest arbiter of musical taste. If you walk by our house on any given day you will inevitably hear the distant interior echo of alt-country or Moroccan rap or urban Rockabilly music. ‘70’s disco, is rarely heard. I am puzzled.

I’ve started to realize that a parent’s media and art choices can define a kid. Jake was in Spanish class and there was an active discussion about the word  “concesión” or in English, “grant”.  Some kids were trying to get a handle on the usage of the word as a noun or a verb. Jake piped up from the back to remind everyone that the word can also be someone’s name. “Like Cary Grant, you know, the movie star that starred in ‘Philadelphia Story’ with Katherine Hepburn.” Later Jake told me exasperated “Dad, I couldn’t believe it. All the kids in the class had blank faces. I was like, come on, how do you not know who Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn are???”

When kids are toddlers, parents are told to encourage their child to move to the beat of music and dance with them. My wife was dedicated to a Mommy’s Group that taught pre-verbal munchkins simple children’s songs such as “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” How the hell did Jake pick up Thelonius Monk? I nearly swerved of the road one Saturday afternoon when a mixed playlist I had made shuttled to “Round Midnight.” “Hey Dad, is that Thelonius Monk?” How did you know that? I asked. “I don’t know, NPR?” Amazing. Our kid’s brains are like a vast memory chip that is always on. Our parental squawk box is etching permanently into our kid’s brains. Sort of scary and wonderful if you think about it.

Then it dawns on me that it all makes sense. Jake has his mother’s knack for Instant-Recall. My wife can hear 3 bars of a song and tell you who is singing, what song it is, when it was first recorded and possibly the name of the producer and the label. As a dyslexic, I’m happy when I can remember my name. When Jake was four we stood in line near the register at Starbucks and a track play lightly in the background. “Daddy, that sounds like Lucinda Williams.” “No honey, I don’t think so.” When I turned to order from the lip-pierced barista’s mouth was agape – “Sir, whoa, that is Lucinda.” I guess Jake has my wife’s genes.

As I write this, I hear my son getting ready for school. It is the same morning fire drill, every day: lunches struggle to be made and homework is soon to be not forgotten. Jake goes into the bathroom to brush his hair. The door slowly drifts closed and I hear … “Don’t stop believin’ — Hold on to that feelin’.” I stop. Journey? Really? Journey.

Oh well.

Jake stands twenty feet away from the Sonic Boom Records counter. He has his zine “Worldopolis” in one hand. He and one of his best friends created the 30 page comic by hand. I nudge him to go for it. He approaches the sweet twenty-year-old hipster behind the counter. She is just finishing with another customer. “Hi, my name is Jake and I created this zine, (nervously stammering) would you, could I, sell my zine in your store?” “Let me take a look.” She leafs through the pages of twelve year boy humor complete with celebrity caricatures, intestine sized mazes and, of course,  the cornerstone of the Zine: a retelling of the world’s destruction in 2012.

Wow, this is great. How much were you wanting to sell it for? “$3, it takes $2.60 to make it at Kinko’s and we want to make a little bit of a profit.” “We sell our zines for $4.99 , is that price good for you? We take a $1 on every copy, you keep the rest. I will take five copies.” “That’s great.” Jake’s face lights up.  He looks like he just got shot out of a roman candle. An entrepreneur is born.

It started with doodles. When the distinctive artwork got shared, Jake and his friend comfortably made suggestions to one another about things that could be improved. They enjoy working together. They quickly realized that they were on to something. They put together an approach. 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar and the destruction of the world would be their MAD magazine banner. One of the other kids suggested that they should ink-in the pencil drawings. He became the inker. Another kid had some ideas about how the issue could get laid out and prepped for printing at Kinko’s. Jake made him the Managing Editor. The first issue came out with limited parental interference. The boys are now running an operation that is in it’s third issue.

The apocalyptic theme of “Worldopolis” interests me greatly. For a twelve-year-old, the world they hear about comes from the random dispatches on NPR or scant threads of political conversations their parents have on their phones or around the dinner table. It is a world fraught with tsunamis, earthquakes, terrorist agendas and political hate speak. I ask Jake why they chose that theme. “Dad, the Mayan’s believe that 2012 will be the end of the world. We thought we could make fun of that fear.” Do you worry about your future? “I don’t want to grow up. It’s too scary out there. I want to stay a kid a while. The zine helps us poke fun at all that responsibility.  We know we have to face it when we grow up. It is fun to do and it makes us laugh.”

When kids are young we try to keep them from media. When Jake was three he mistakenly heard the news account of a couple holding hands as they stepped out of the 105^th floor of the World Trade Center to their deaths on 9-11. My wife still recounts how she heard his little voice from the backseat of the car – “Mommy why did those people have to jump out of the building? The driver of that plane needs to say he’s sorry”

As adults we constantly push our children to stand up straight and listen. We want them to be responsible. We fill their heads with a playbook of the life that we think they should hear. Our fear is that they will repeat our mistakes. Contained in our cautionary speak is an inner dialogue about the parallel road they should avoid and ways we think they should behave. Our world is so damn complex –  even for an adult. I’ve pulled back from putting so much on Jake’s shoulders. All things, in due time. I’ve learned to listen and watch closely to what my son says or draws. I’m astounded by the wisdom contained in a simple zine.

It is the wanna-be Miami Heat dancers clapping and yelling that throw me off. They follow the Bar Mitzvah Boy out the double doors into the party space.  I look around the room and take in all the jewelry and tight dresses worn, not by the kids, by the South Florida Moms.  It is then that I realize that I am experiencing a Bar Mitzvah – east coast style. Westin Florida is flashy enough to contain LeBron James and plenty of snapping Everglade turtles. Our cousin’s Bar Mitzvah theme is “Backstage.” My wife is asked by a glitzy mother “what is Jake’s theme”?  She struggles and replies “A…Bar Mitzvah?”

I’ve got to admit the SoFla party is terrific. My brother-in-law is one of the biggest concert promoters in Florida. He has pulled out the stops for his sweet son. Complete with event “security” and laminated passes. This Northwest Squarepants is just not prepared for the professional dancers and leather Mommies. Yep – a Mother wore a form fitting, uber-short, leather mini-dress. Plus a couple of Mom’s were in full on evening gowns. Jake is mesmerized. He asks me “how much of this dressing up is for our Bar Mitzvah cousin and how much is for the grown ups?” I replied – everybody is dressed up to celebrate.

Later Jake stands alone at the mini-burger stand. A cute girl, a foot taller than him says “you have beautiful eyes.” Jake stammers “Thank you.” Ten seconds later Jake asks to see me outside. “Did I respond correctly?” Yes. “Do I have to ask her to dance now?” If you want to. “Holy cow, are all the girls here so direct?” I’m not sure. I do know you have nothing to lose if you ask her to dance. “I have to think about it.” Jake did not have that opportunity unfortunately.

Jake’s Bar Mitzvah planning is in full effect. My dear friend is a TV personality who has built her career on event planning, she recently came to our house to talk with Jake about his Bar Mitzvah vision. She knows how to throw a party right. She asks – What are your favorite things Jake? Jake ponders. Just stack rank your very favorite things.  “Hmmmmm… first I like reading. More than anything… second has to be music… then if I had to pick a third thing, it would have to be street magic. Not David Copperfield — David Blaine.” So now we know. We are planning a quasi-intellectual party with a great playlist and street thugs doing magic. No dancers.

I have not known the love of a little sister. For many brothers it must be a magical thing. For others it could be seen as a mild annoyance. For Jake it is a matter of pride.

Jake’s love for his little sister Lily is the stuff of family legend. When he was not quite two he nearly tore my arm off in the hospital parking lot running to the maternity ward. Little Jake could not wait to see his newly hatched sister.

They have always had a connection. It is the stuff of genetic fairy dust. Year after year, especially in school, Jake has looked out for Lily. Jake’s respectful way with Lily garners the mass admiration of girls in his class, many of whom, I know, have torturous toddlers or mini Mussolinis waiting for them at home.

Recently I was cleaning up the loose items around Lily’s homework and I came across this story.  She submitted this in her fifth grade writing class.

The Super Hero Story – by Lily Rehfeldt (not edited)

Have you ever felt brave and powerful like nothing can stop you? I have. The time when I felt these things are when I am with my brother Jake. We always have the greatest times together. Even though we fight and disagree sometimes, we always find a way to get along.

There was one time I had an especially great time with Jake. That was when we played Super Heroes in the basement. Jake showed me his Marvel Encyclopedia. Every Superhero is in it. We tried to find a Superhero we liked the most. I usually picked Dagger – she can fly and make ice force fields. Hey Jake, which Superhero are you going to be? I asked. ‘I don’t know… though I really like Captain America.’ He looks awesome, I say with a smile on my face. ‘Cool I think I’ll be him’ says Jake.

We start playing and we hear this BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of a car alarm outside on the street. Jake and I stop in our tracks. We look at each other and then swing our capes behind our backs and jump off the couch and race to beeping sound. Right there in front of us is EVIL Sir Smackbottom (he is really invisible) trying to make a bomb go off.

Nice to see you again Sir Smackbottom, I say. With that I spray ice all over Sir Smackbottom. Sadly, Sir Smackbottom has a forcefield protecting him and the ice bounces off and hits me in the face and I fall to the ground. I can’t move.

Luckily Captain America is there to save us. Captain America takes his sword and shield and goes over and attacks Sir Smackbottom and says ‘You are about to die!’ Then he cuts through the forcefield and stabs Sir Smackbottom in the heart.

Suddenly the ice on me has melted. I am soaking wet (not for real.) Jake comes over to me. He leans down and gives me his hand. I take it. ‘Let’s go upstairs and get something to eat, that was too much fun.’ Ok, I answer.

I will never forget that day. It will stay with me forever. That is when I really felt like nothing could stop me. I was brave and powerful. I would never have felt that way without my brother beside me.

So thank you, Jake for being there for me when I need it. I love you and once again, Captain America – thank you. Written by Lily

I had not known the joy of having a sibling until I was eighteen, when my brother was born. Even though we were thousands of miles apart and had different mothers I still felt a deep connection to him. I remember seeing his infant picture for the first time.  In that moment I thought — we will always have each other. For Lily and Jake that statement is so very true.