All I can say is: Sorry, pop.
You go through life having your parents tell you that one day you’ll understand. One day you will have kids and get it. One day you’ll know what they went through. You’ll know what you put them through, from heartache and shame down to simple little things like hopping on them and crushing life-necessary organs.
Sorry, pop. Never understood why you walked funny.
I finally had that first moment — that first realization of what they meant. That first grasping of the sacrifices a parent has to make. It struck me (literally!) as my daughter straddled my stomach and repeatedly slammed her full weight into my rib cage. It was like a truck dumping a load of bricks onto my mid-section over and over again. My spleen was ejected out of my body, and my snapped ribs concaved into my body, looking like the Grand Canyon.
All I could think to say was, “Criminy!”
I don’t even know what “criminy” means, or why I would say it. Maybe it’s that all of the good words I used to yell while in pain are now banned. “Criminy” is about all I have left.
So I’m lying on the floor screaming, “criminy” as she plays jackhammer on my rib cage. And this 20-month-old thinks it’s funny. She thinks this is great fun, and more importantly, that I’m enjoying myself.
Why?
Because of the “unbearable-pain laugh reflex.” Ever heard of this? It comes in many forms.
Sometimes it’s caused by a child pouncing on your chest so hard that the air expelled from your lungs sounds just like a wheezing laugh. You can try to scream in pain or cry, but it’s impossible. The laughs keep coming, which is an indication to her to keep on hopping.
I know that was the way it was for my brother and me as kids. Partly, you look at your father like he’s invincible and unbreakable. You could jump on him from the back of the sofa like some wrestling move you saw on TV. You could wrap yourself around his ankles just as he started going down the stairs, causing him to tumble down the whole flight. You could run and jump on him when he least expected it, usually just as he was taking a bite of a sandwich or clipping a fingernail.
Criminy!
The unbearable-pain laugh reflex kicked in and he rolled around on the floor in hysterics, clutching some part of his body that might have been detached or now bleeding. Yet, coming from his mouth was laughter. He was laughing!
So we interpreted this as a sign that he was enjoying it, and that we had to take it up a notch, just to keep the good times going. Wouldn’t want to disappoint him. That’s when we jumped feet first on him.
Dads just take it. They come out of a play session looking like a prize-fighter who didn’t win the prize. Their eyes are the color of an eggplant, they have bones sticking out at funny angles, and they’re pretty sure only one kidney is working. But they’re still snickering.
Stupid unbearable-pain laugh reflex.
And, oh man am I paying for it now. All the wrestling matches where I bit toes or fish-hooked a nose. Dads have to just lie there and pretend that the tooth they lost wasn’t really that painful at all.
Now I’m in that same boat, as I found the other night as I was lying on the floor, my little bag of concrete trying to pound me flat. The unbearable-pain laugh reflex was kicking into high gear, and I kept thinking about how what comes around, goes around.
Sorry about all the bruised ribs, pop. And do you happen to have an extra spleen I could borrow?