A few years ago, okay it may have been more than a decade, we went to Ohio to have Thanksgiving with our kids, Josh and Jerilyn, when they lived in Dayton. My nephew, Jack lives near Cincinnati and he came over with his son, Shane. Shane was nine, just the age to appreciate Dennis's jokes, not that Dennis's sense of humor is juvenile, but then, if you've ever met him, you understand.
Dennis: If it takes two-and-a-half chickens to lay two-and-a-half eggs, how many pancakes does it take to shingle a dog house?
Shane: Huh?
Dennis: Thirteen because bananas don't have bones!
Shane: Ha!
Dennis: What has four wheels and flies?
Shane: Don't know.
Dennis: A garbage truck.
Shane: Snorting and laughing.
Dennis: Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells and one stupid petunia.
Shane: Can't answer because he is rolling on the floor laughing.
It went on like this the whole day and into the evening. Shane thought Dennis was a rock star. None of our grandkids were born yet and Dennis was drinking in the adoration. It was a great week-end for all of us.
We went home, Jack and his family went back to Cincinnati, and the years went on during which Jack made Shane wear his helmet when he rode his bike, come inside when it got dark, look both ways before he crossed the street, brush his teeth, wash behind his ears, get to school on time, do his homework, ask before he petted a strange dog, never talk to strangers, get his Halloween candy checked by an adult before he ate it, and walk on the side of the street facing the traffic. He ran behind Shane's bike holding onto the seat till the wheels stopped wobbling, sat in the passenger seat with his right foot practically through the floorboard on the phantom brake when he taught Shane to drive, made Shane wear his seat belt, call when he was going to be late and promise not to text while he was driving,
We didn't see Shane again until last year when the skinny little kid I had been remembering had turned into a tall, rock-hard, muscular young man on leave from the Army for my mom's funeral. The grin was the same, though, and I enjoyed lots of hugs before he left to go back. If the pattern holds, I guess it will be another ten years or so before I see him again.
Last week my sister, Shane's grandmother, came through Tulsa on her way to see Shane graduate from Army Ranger school. He was one of only fifty who finished in the class that started with one hundred forty-one. The Ranger site on the internet says "Rangers are a special operation force, lethal, trained to carry out assaults deep inside enemy held territory. They seize, destroy or capture enemy held facilities, overcome impossible odds". It said "Surrender is not a Ranger word." Soon Shane will be deployed to places his family will not know about. Rangers don't get that send-off from the local airport with the media covering the tearful good-byes.
My nephew, Jack, messaged me on Facebook awhile back when Shane started Ranger school. He had been thinking, no doubt, of nights walking the floor with Shane when he had fever from baby vaccinations, and grabbing him before he toddled into traffic when he ran down the sidewalk after the dog, and holding tight to his hand on his first day of school. He said, "How do you spend more than twenty years doing everything you can to protect them from danger, coming between them and anything that might hurt them, holding them tight when they have nightmares or real-world scares, and then just stand there and let them go?"
Good question. I don't think there is an answer to that one.
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