Despite its lifetime warranty my bathroom scale is broken. No matter how many times, or how gingerly I step on it, it keeps telling me I weigh more than I do. Also, my clothes are all shrinking, despite labels which clearly state they are machine wash-and-wear.
My problem is not weight gain. It’s defective merchandise.
Okay, the concept of weight loss is not that difficult, just challenging. Eat less, exercise more. What could be so difficult? All I want now is to get back down to what I said I’d never get up to. So this past Father’s Day I decided to forgo the “all-the-donuts-I-can-eat” tradition and work out in the basement.
Father’s Day Challenge #1: Health
Years ago I made the unfortunate discovery about myself that I am less the natural athlete and more a natural couch potato. Thus I have developed my well-known personal interior decorating philosophy, which involves surrounding any and all television sets in the house with exercise equipment.
My Schwinn Recumbent Cycle is the best piece of exercise equipment I own. The workout itself is not spectacular, But it’s very comfortable to sit in, and perfect for watching television. It’s like a lounge chair with pedals.
So on the morning of my seventh Father’s Day, with the boys I love beside me, I began my First Annual Father’s Day Workout. Out of respect for the widely accepted traditions of fathers’ birthrights, I also commandeered the television remote. I chose something we could all enjoy – the CNN News Update.
Regardless of Father’s Day tradition, it wasn’t long before Tyler and Joseph, sprawled on the floor in front of the screen, were complaining about my God-given right to choose the TV show. I capitulated and switched to the Cartoon Network, which was broadcasting some inane piece of animation I’d never heard of. Evidently the boys must have found it boring, too, because pretty soon they were arguing so loudly that the character dialogue was moot.
My kids have me at a disadvantage when I’m working out, and they know it. When my breath gets short, I can’t yell at them so loud. Also, there’s always the chance that if I get up to discipline them and interrupt the workout, that will be the end of it. But this time the combat escalated to the point where I had to actually get off the bike to bring them into line. Which brings me to something ironic….
Father’s Day Challenge #2: Children
I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said, “Never hit a child – except in anger.” Having gotten up, I was angry all right, angry enough to threaten bodily harm. But I’m not a fan of corporal punishment. My parents, if not big fans, were at least mildly enthusiastic camp followers. Back in those days, my father didn’t own any exercise equipment, so I think his major cardiovascular workouts consisted of the time he spent spanking my bottom.
Ann and I don’t rule out spankings entirely, but more often we fall into the “Time Out” philosophy of our generation. In a burst of enthusiasm for parenting during the first six months of Tyler’s life, we listened to numerous tapes of experts with “parenting” advice. The main piece of wisdom we acquired from the hours we spent listening to these experts was the location of the perfect place in the house for “time out” — the bathroom.
According to the experts, the bathroom is the most boring room in the house, the perfect place for quiet reflection. I suspect this to be true, because despite the inevitable first few minutes when my boys seize the opportunity of bathroom confinement to take care of essential bodily functions, they soon lapse into the crying and complaining that let us know the deterrent is working.
Regardless of whether it works, it’s strangely satisfying. As I closed the bathroom door on my battling boys, a warm feeling came over me. Maybe I should have put them in separate bathrooms. But that particular nuance was not covered in the parenting tapes, and it’s easier to put them both in the closest one. After a while they seemed to quiet down into the appropriate reflective mood, so I let them out and resumed my workout.
In a familiar routine which constitutes the classic defense for corporal punishment, Tyler and Joseph soon launched into another argument, which unfortunately coincided with my noticing that the pulleys on my Joe Weider weight set were broken again.
That did it. I turned off the TV. “Stand up!” I ordered my boys. My face was dripping with perspiration, my teeth clenched in anger.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to play on my weight set?” I demanded.
It was a rhetorical question, but Joseph, my four-year-old, took me literally. “A million times,” he replied meekly. “You have to tell us a million times.”
I smothered a smile and kicked them both out into the back yard. My decision was final. This Father’s Day, I wanted to spend my time as far away as possible from the two people who had made me a father. I told them in no uncertain terms not to interrupt my workout again – unless it was an emergency.
Fifteen minutes later, Joseph came running into the basement. “It’s an emergency, it’s an emergency!” He pulled me into the back yard, and there, away at the bottom of the hill, were the bodies of Tyler and his friend Sami Leonard, lying prone on the ground. They didn’t appear to be moving.
I fought my instinct to run down the hill. This was something you learn as a medical student at Grady Hospital. One night as I was urgently wheeling a gunshot victim toward the O.R., a surgical resident flagged me down. “Don’t rush when you are in a hurry,” I remember him saying.
When I got to the bottom of the hill, I saw that the boys were not injured or unconscious, but simply lying on the ground talking to each other and looking at something. Their faces shone with wonder. They had found a turtle.
Challenge #3: Life’s Interruptions
“A turtle does NOT constitute an emergency,” I told them. They disagreed. The turtle needed water or it would die.
Miffed at another interruption, I still noticed how excited they were over their discovery of a turtle – a memorable event in the life of a child, unexpected, but not to be ignored. I studied it with them for a couple of minutes before advising them, for the turtle’s sake, to send it on its way. As I turned to leave, Sami whispered conspiratorially to Tyler. They turned to me, they wanted something, but were hesitant to ask. Tyler mustered up his courage: “Can you write a story about this?”
“What?”
Sami was more enthusiastic. “Can you write a story about us finding the turtle and include all our names, including our last names?” asked Sami Leonard. That’s Leonard, L-E-O-N-A-R-D.
No way! was my first thought. But their faces shone with such hope I couldn’t say no. They cheered wildly when I acquiesced. The day had deteriorated into one long string of dead ends, irritations and interruptions. It was not inspiring material.
But as I surrendered any intention of completing my workout, and sat down to try and put this all into perspective, I began remembering. It was seven years ago that we discovered Ann’s unexpected first pregnancy. I brought her to Grady for an ultrasound. There in her uterus was a fetus smaller than a fingernail, the beginnings of my son Tyler, his fluttering heartbeat almost imperceptible. And although I was a physician specializing in obstetrics, the miracle suddenly had arrived in my own life.
For the past seven years, I have watched my children grow and become individuals, God’s works in progress. And occasionally, in watching them, I chance to remember everything that I have ever known to be true: That what we call the challenges of life, often unpleasant, are its gifts as well.
God sent the turtle. The boys saw the gift right away. It took me a little longer, but I finally got it.
-Dr. Mike Litrel
