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Fatherhood

The School of Life By Greg Blake MillerPublished: July, 2003

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Our ladybug tree is an Arizona Ash, 15 feet tall and growing swiftly on our backyard grass patch. I live in one of those new neighborhoods that never quite gets traction in the world. Three years on, and most of the back yards are still desert dust and rusty construction nails. In this neighborhood, our ladybug tree is heaven, and the ladybugs know it. In May, the juvenile leaves are still curled. The ladybugs peer out from them like slumber party kids from sleeping bags. Every leaf has a ladybug. My 2 1/2-year-old son likes to ride my shoulders across the yard and take a long look. "Wanna look at the ladybugs!" he says. We look at the ladybugs. "Hi...lady...bug!" he says. Phrases, greetings, sentences - they are just coming to him. My son was not one of those easy early speakers. My parents wondered when the words would come. They suggested it was a question for the pediatrician. But the words have come. My son has something to say. He has been spurred to speech by the ladybug tree, by the haven and spectacle of our lucky back yard. Next to the Arizona Ash is a California Pepper Tree. In springtime, the pepper tree fills with buds. I call them "the peas." When my son is not asking to look at the ladybugs, he is asking to look at the peas. "Shoulders!" he says. I lift him up. "Look at the peas!" We go outside. Two days ago, he counted the ladybugs to 10. It was his first time to 10. Yesterday he got down from my shoulders and began picking peas one at a time and bringing them to me, counting as he went. He said all the numbers between 1 and 20, though between 10 and 20 the numbers were in no particular order. He began to bring peas to me by the bunch. I told him not to do that. "The ladybugs need to eat them," I lied. This morning, I was brushing my teeth and my son was beside me and then he was not. I went to the family room and it was empty and the back door was open. I looked into the back yard and did not move, did not call out, did not do anything that might break the moment. One by one, my son was picking the pepper tree peas and carrying them to ladybugs grounded by a late night gust. He made trip after trip, picked pea after pea. "Here you go, ladybug," he said. He said it again and again.

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