Calming Effect

I called home and G. answered. He said, "Oh, Dad, you wanna talk to Mom, right? Hang on." Then, I heard him yell, "Hey, Mom, it's Dad!" He told me she had just walked out the door for a walk around the lake.

I could hear her come in the door and exhange a few words and exchange a few words with G. and then G. said, "Oh, happy Father's Day, Dad."

Proper B. always making sure the kids say the right thing at the right time. Then, she came on the phone and had that wonderfully relaxing tone that her old friends refer to as her "calming effect."

It comes with the softest, most reassuring touch in the world -- something I noticed the instant she put her fingers on my forehead to relieve my headache one night at dinner when we were first dating. She told me to close my eyes and I did and the next thing I noticed were the tips of her finger on my forehead and that instead of jumping away at the suddeness of it, I let her continue.

Fingers on, fingers off, fingers on, fingers off. On various spots of my forehead, my face and my neck. Then she told me to open my eyes. Headache gone. Well, not totally gone, but so diminished as not to be a factor. Like two aspirin.

I loved seeing her, smiling, across from me, inquiring, "How's it feel now?" I married her not too long after that.

Well, I meant it to be a Father's Day reflection, but it turns out to be a reflection by father. You never know how it'll take shape.