luna’s lessons

Frank sighed as his beautiful 4-year-old started off on another tangent about how the rainbow is the best color. He plastered a smile on his face and nodded a lot. He had stopped listening a few minutes ago, but as long as she didn’t know, he didn’t think it really mattered.

“And then Lucy said my favorite color was stupid and that the purple wasn’t the best color. So, I pushed her down.” Luna continued brushing her barbie dolls hair with the fine-tooth comb that came in the box.

“Wait what did you just say?” He pulled himself from his thoughts about his own life and put his attention back on his little girl.

“Ugh, daddy, you never listen.” Her lip started to tremble and Frank could see she was seconds away from tears.

“Woah, woah, woah. Hold on. Let’s talk about this okay? Are you okay?”

Luna nodded slightly as Frank brushed away her tears and kissed her on the nose.

“You said that Lucy said your favorite color was stupid, so you pushed her down? Right?” Luna nodded again. Her curly blonde hair moved with her head. She wiped her nose with her hand.

Frank looked his daughter up and down wondering why her nanny hadn’t brought this up to him when he got home.

“Luna, did she hurt your feelings when she said your favorite color was stupid?”

“Yes.” It was soft, but it was a reply. He was trying new parenting techniques to avoid the explosive episodes that typically set her off. Checking in on her and finding some resolve before administering a punishment. It worked. Normally, she would be screaming so loud right now, he would just stick her in her room and leave her there until she was done.

“Okay. Did it make you feel sad maybe? Or angry?”

“It made me feel angry that she didn’t agree with me. You always agree with me.” Frank had so many thoughts running through his head.

When Luna was born, he never expected to be parenting her on his own. Hell, he didn’t even know about her until her first birthday, when his ex showed up on the doorstep with her, and said she was going to rehab. He couldn’t believe it. This perfect little bomb, dropped in his lap. In the middle of a date night too. It was certainly nothing he was ever expecting, but now he couldn’t imagine his life without her. He just hadn’t been ready to take on the single dad role.

“You’re right, I do typically agree with you, but I don’t agree with this behavior. Do you know why?” Luna’s head moved back and forth.

“Am I in trouble?” He watched tears reach the brim of her soft green eyes.

“No, but we do need to talk about it. Sometimes in life, people are going to make us really angry when they don’t agree or things aren’t going their way. When that stuff happens, we get these feelings that come in different forms like anger, how you felt today. Then this big feeling inside us starts to get a little overwhelming and we sometimes want to do something about it, like push someone down right?

“Yeah. That’s how I felt.”

“Do you think that was a nice thing to do?” Frank pressed his lips together hoping for the right answer.

“No.”

“Would you like if someone pushed you down for not liking their lunch?”

“I would get sad.”

“It’s an amazing thing to be different.”

“It’s good to be different?”

“Oh yes. If we were all the same and all liked the same things and did the same things. Talked the same way, worked the same jobs, we, as humans would be super duper boring. Do you like robots?”

“Only the really pretty sparkly kind.” There was a twinkle in her eye.

“Okay well imagine a super big room, as big as your classroom all filled with boring grey robots. That’s what it would be like if we all liked the same things. Does that sound fun?”

“No!”

“So, it wasn’t nice of Lucy to call your favorite color stupid, but it was okay for her to disagree and have a different favorite color. You know how you don’t like ketchup with your chicken nuggets but I do?”

“Yes, because I think ketchup looks like blood, and that’s yucky. It’s like you’re making the chicken nuggets all bloody and then eating it.” Frank felt his stomach turn and had a feeling they would be avoiding anything requiring ketchup for the next several weeks.

“Right…My point is, I don’t think it’s stupid that you don’t like ketchup. Do you think it’s stupid that I do?”

“I think it’s yucky.”

“But that’s not the same thing. Yucky is your preference, stupid is also a preference when it doesn’t hurt someone. My point is, we respect each others differences. I appreciate why you don’t like the ketchup and that means more for me! Now Lucy could have said many other things, but she didn’t. So, we take this as a learning opportunity.”

“Okay daddy.”

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Frank was nervous. He didn’t know if this was working but he was trying.

“I think so. You’re saying that it’s okay if we all look at the world a little differently so that all its beautiful spots get seen. Because sometimes we miss them on our own.”

“That’s the right idea. I love you my moon.” He pulled his little girl in tight. This was love he thought. This was what he was missing.

“I love you too daddy!”

* * * *

As he climbed into bed that night, that thought drifted back into his mind. ‘She was the love he had been missing in his life.’ But something about it still didn’t feel right. She had become his world and yet a piece of him was still absent. He wasn’t sure how to get there or how to grab it, but he knew that he was close.