The Smartest Person I Know

Five years ago yesterday, a very pregnant Liz and I had just placed our order for dinner at the neighborhood IHOP. The waiter brought us our drinks. I gazed lovingly at my pregnant wife. She gazed back and said, “I think my water just broke.”

Now, things like this tend to happen during pregnancies, so it wasn’t completely unexpected. But it was thirty-two days ahead of schedule. Which is why I think it was very reasonable that my first thought was, “how do we undo this?” Instead, I said, “do you want to go the bathroom and double check?” She nodded, stood, tied a sweatshirt around her waist and hobbled off. I sat at the table and tried not to freak out.

The moment, was of course, completely ludicrous. I knew full well that Liz knew full well that her darn water had most certainly done broke. Yet, neither of us were ready to find out if we were in fact ready to become parents. Of course, biology has a much different idea of “ready” than does the modern human mind. Liz eventually came back from the bathroom and confirmed what didn’t need confirming, Golden Boy was on his way. So we made some hasty comments to the waiter who waved us out of there like the was waving a green racing flag, and we hightailed it back home.

Our hospital of choice was 30 minutes away from home and we still hadn’t packed hospital bags. So once we got back to our apartment I sprinted up three flights of stairs and immediately placed a call to the OB’s answering service. I huffed and puffed into the phone about our situation and the operator, mistaking my lack of physical conditioning for panic, told me to calm down. As distracted as I was, I forgot to tell her to bite me.

It was a little over an hour after the start of labor that we arrived at the hospital. Twelve hours after that, Thomas was born. Exactly one month early and except for a little jaundice, perfectly healthy.

And he’s been in a hurry ever since. Curious and inquisitive, he hunts down knowledge like a Tyrannosaurus rex hunts down meat. He corners some poor unsuspecting sap, usually me, and unleashes a thousand penetrating questions. It’s how he knows the difference between Memorial Day and Veteran’s day. (Because he needed to know why there was no school that day.) It’s how he knows the circumstances of the my father’s death. (Like how the brakes were bad on that truck.) It’s how he knows that Santa Claus is really just an idea and not a real person. (Because why would a strange man leave gifts in our home?)

It’s the reason why there is no magic of any kind in this house. Because magic is an unsatisfactory answer. Magic is no answer at all. Instead there is a rotating earth with an orbiting moon. Banks that hold money and give loans. And people that die and never come back.

(There are subjects I refuse to discuss, the whys of war, for example. Or slavery. And yes, those subjects do come up, when explaining Veterans Day or watching a documentary about parks that shows Martin Luther King Jr. giving his “I have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln memorial. “Is that a park? Who’s Abraham Lincoln? Why does he have a big statue? What is that man saying?” Bah.)

Sometimes, most of the time, I worry, that it’s too much. That I shouldn’t be answering these questions that are too big for a boy who is just five years old today. That he should be dreaming of Santa Claus and be oblivious of molecules and their states. (What is steam?) But then I look at my boy and I see the satisfaction on his face when he feels he understands something. The truth, explanations that make logical sense, they give him comfort. This is what Thomas needs to feel right with world.

Today the smartest person I know is five years old. Happy birthday Thomas. I promise to always answer your questions with the truth as long as you keep asking them.