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Lessons from the van, Part One

I was tired.

It had been a long, long day.

School. Work. Latin. More Latin. Homework.

Then the, "Honey can you pick up the kids?" phone call.

Thankfully, the parking lot of Incredible Pizza is big and they don't mind if you hang out in the fire lane (at least as long as you stay in your car).

So I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The kids didn't want to leave. Karen went back inside for a meeting, and Zach wasn't happy.

More waiting.

Then, the storm.

For some unknown reason, the youngest Carter — now sporting a bad attitude and three teeth — started crying. The cries quickly became a scream.

A real, loud, destroy-your-hearing scream.

Seriously, Zach was not happy — he went from screaming to crying and wailing, then he broke out the soul-wrenching, window shattering unhappy screams.

Now I understand why some parents murder their children.

Nothing I did, absolutely nothing, could make Zach happy. The screaming -- at several decibels higher than the average Van Halen concert -- continued non-stop for 10 minutes.

The kids arrived.

I shoved them in the van, slammed the doors shut, and drove quickly to the exit. Home was only a couple of miles away, but already my teeth felt like I'd eaten several lemons.

More screaming.

Then, from the back, I heard Sara say quietly, "Sing Ethan. That always works."

Softly, my 13-year-old son began to sing the folk song, "Big Rock Candy Mountain" to his nine-month-old brother.

Sara joined in. So did Clayton.

Their voices were low and, as I looked in the mirror, each of them sang directly to their little brother. They touched his tiny hands and looked directly at him.

I continued to drive, then realized that several minutes had passed and Zach had calmed down.

No more screaming.

Just quiet.

Then only sounds were those of my children singing a song by Ben Folds to their now sleeping baby brother.

They didn't see me smile. They didn't understand that by their simple act, they'd taken me full circle again.

You see, it was 13 years ago, on a cool fall night just like this one that, I, too, had driven the streets of Oklahoma City singing to a tiny red-haired boy who was screaming at the top of his lungs.

The song was by Gordon Lightfoot. And, after a while that tiny boy had also gone to sleep.

Funny, that little boy was now the one doing the singing.

And I simply smiled in the dark.

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