You & Me

by Tal Bauer

Being a parent is like driving a car without brakes. You grip the wheel and hold on tight, pray you don’t crash too hard.”

Did he remember he had picked it out, or was his choice simple genetics, pieces of me floating around inside my son and popping to the surface like bubbles on a pond?

How do fathers and sons speak gently without words? I ran my hand over the clean counter.

“You’re classically handsome. You have the face that all men want,” I said, grinning at him. “But there’s so much more to you. Your looks would be empty on anyone else. It’s who you are that fills everything in.”

“I can see your dedication in the lines of your face. Your work ethic in the cut of your jaw. I know you love life when I see you smile, and even when you’re not smiling, the laugh lines show you’d rather be. I know you’re a father when I look into your eyes, and I know you’re a good one when I see those eyes are kind. When you’re you, you light up, and all these different parts of you combine, and everything that you are bursts free. You’re like color exploding in a black-and-white world.”