Charlie's Guardian Angel

This Sunday happens to be Father's Day. It also would have been my Dad's 68th birthday. For those who don't know, my Dad died on October 3, 2013 after a quick but valiant bout with lung cancer. 

Charlie was named Charles after my dad. It was not something that my Dad asked for or even mentioned before we did it. Instead, it was something that Caroline and I decided to do pretty quickly after we learned that we were having a boy.  Rather than telling everyone what Charlie was going to be named, we kept it a secret during the length of Caroline's pregnancy with Charlie.  The name was finally announced to both of our families in the waiting room at the hospital after I had carried Charlie into the nursery while Caroline was recovering from labor.  It is genuinely one of my more exciting memories remembering the look of all of our family members as I carried Charlie into the nursery for the first time and then walked into the waiting room to announce his name. I remember vividly the sight of seeing all of our family talking in the waiting room and then quickly turning around as someone first saw me.  Upon hearing the name, Dad didn't say anything about the name to me, but I know he appreciated it.

I never knew what kind of Grandfather that my Dad would be. He was all that I could have asked for and more in being a Dad but I didn't know how he would relate with babies and young children as a grandparent because I had not seen it before. I quickly learned while watching his interactions with Charlie and my niece Ella that he was a great and loving Pop Pop.  The grand-kids came along right when Dad was retiring from his job and upon that retirement it became clear Dad was going to enjoy his retirement through travel with my Mom, playing golf, and spending time with his grand-kids. Dad seemed to cherish his time with the kids and loved being a Pop Pop. He seemed to have a particularly strong bond with Charlie for whatever reason and Charlie seemed to reciprocate even at a young age. We have several great pictures of Dad and Charlie sitting together or playing together and you can see the bond in both of their eyes.  Much of that may come from the fact that they also have similar looks but I think there was always more of a connection..

Below is one of my favorite pictures. I took it from the nursery when I was holding Keller after she was just born and Mom and Dad brought Charlie to the hospital to see her. The fact that Dad is holding Charlie and Charlie is smiling while Dad's picture is a bit hazy just strikes me well.

As I said in my eulogy for my Dad, I won't forget my Dad's reaction, and my Mom's for that matter, when I let them know that Charlie was on the spectrum. It wasn't that I was embarrassed to tell them or scared to tell them, I just didn't quite know how to tell them or know how they would react. With that said, I can still picture the phone call and remember both of their responses upon hearing the news.  There was immediate support extended to Caroline and I and assurances that Charlie would be ok.  This support and caring morphed over time into my Dad's ever present interest and encouragement with Charlie's therapies.  As an example of that, Dad drove from Charlotte to Greensboro one day just to babysit Charlie for the afternoon so Caroline could do something. Babysitting that day entailed mainly sitting in our house while Charlie napped but Dad was still willing to do it.  As a coincidence, that day happened to be Charlie's first day of speech therapy.  Dad got to our house early enough so he could happily watch the therapy and see what kind of services Charlie would be getting.  From that point on, in every conversation I had with Dad he would always ask about what progress Charlie had made and get excited and supportive at hearing the new things that Charlie was doing.  One of my final good memories that I won't forget is how happy Dad was during the summer he was going through chemo and we stopped by the house on a Sunday on what was one of his good days and Charlie expressed all of his interest in my Dad.  Upon getting out of our van, my Mom and Dad were on the sidewalk waiting for us and Charlie ran straight to Dad and called him Pop Pop. Dad seemed so happy to be in the spotlight with him. 

Unfortunately Charlie probably won't have many, if any, memories of my Dad. My Grandfather died when I was four and I don't remember him at all. Charlie was younger than that when my Dad died so I worry it will be a similar situation. However, I know that Charlie always has my Dad by his side. Not to get into the the entire story but it came clear towards the end that my Dad was going to die. Having this knowledge, we have two very good days with Dad that allowed us to say Good Bye to him. In one of the discussions I had with Dad when he was in hopsice, I told him that I knew that Charlie was going to need a little extra help going through life and that I knew that although Dad may not be here to give Charlie that help that Dad would be somewhere such that he could always be there for Charlie. I made Dad promise to do that for me and he agreed to do so.

And now, I know that he does that everyday.  I know he is there helping Charlie find the right words when he is trying to express his thoughts. I know he is there helping Charlie make the great advances that we and his teachers are seeing as we see the therapies making a great difference. I know he is there helping Charlie to become better at interacting with his friends. 

Not only do I know that Dad is there based on my faith, I sometimes see it in looking at Charlie. Charlie's eyes are a splitting image of my Dad's. Moreover, Charlie has somehow adapted a lot of the mannerisms of my Dad's that were familiar to us.  This makes us able to see the connection even more.  Sometimes Charlie will just give me a look and it is striking how similar it is to a look I would have gotten from my Dad. And, its not just me who notices this. My Mom has also seen it. She had Charlie at the playground one afternoon and he was off playing. She turned to look at him and says he was looking back at her in a way just like my Dad always did. 

Call me quirky or crazy, but I have no doubt that this is not just a coincidence. Instead I have the utmost confidence that Dad is always there with Charlie, helping him succeed and grow in this world. At a minimum I know he has and is at least helping Charlie because I know I am a better Dad to Charlie because I learned from the best.