This is Part 2 of what is likely a 4-5 part series. You can catch up on Part 1 here.
It was a beautiful sunset. That is undeniable, but the sun dropped fast and we were separated by a 60-foot cliff. My son was at the top with the rope, and I was at the bottom. We were both helpless.
It was a great plan. I figured an hour was more than enough time to execute the beautiful father/son moment at the top of a cliff. Something he could remember, or more likely something I wanted to remember years from now while sitting on my deck somewhere quiet, near trees. I would have a memory of this moment, watching the sun go down from the top of a cliff with my son next to me.
My voice was calm but inside it was shaking. “I’m going to climb up over here to talk you through the next steps.”
“Dad,” his voice not so under control, shaky, and I wondered if that is what mine sounded like, “that looks too steep.” I was already climbing up. It’s so much easier to climb up. It wasn’t safe, but I needed him to hear what I had to say and the wind was blowing and the darkness was dropping on us, and we couldn’t hear each other through the wind and shaky fear.
And when you hear your kid say “dad” with that fear in their voice, you do stupid things.
I climbed up about 30 feet to a point where if I fell, I wouldn’t die, but there would be broken bones. I started to traverse a steep section that would get me closer to my son, and he stopped me, telling me again that it wasn’t safe. He was right.
“You’re going to need to pull the rope, throw it, and set up your rappel.”
“But I can’t throw it over the ledge.”
“It’s okay, you’re going to rappel to the ledge, re-coil the rope from there, and then throw it down.”
The seconds clicked into minutes, and one minute turned to five, then ten, and the sky went from deep twilight blue to shadowy gray.
I snapped a photo from the ledge. It’s a beautiful shot, but I don’t like to look at it. Why do we feel the need to document every moment? We have been conditioned to save all the beautiful, celebratory, sad, and yes, dangerous moments, filed away in the electronic memory of our ever-present camera phones.
“Okay, I’m on rappel,” he yelled over the wind.
I climbed down, sliding into bushes and catching myself from a 20-foot fall to the ground by grasping at dead grass and branches growing out of the crack in the wall.
He lowered himself to the ledge. He gathered the rope and tried to throw it. One end reached me on the ground, but the other was hopelessly knotted.
He shook the bundle of knotted rope, hard, as if the harder he shook it, the easier it would be to undo, but frustration and stress have never been a good strategy to untie a knot.
I decided to climb up the end of the rope touching the ground, the end that was attached to him, so he became my anchor.
I attached my belay device to the rope and started working my way up the wall by pulling down on the rope and walking up like they used to do in the old Batman TV show, but I’m pretty sure they filmed that on flat ground, then turned the camera 90 degrees.
There was a bolt drilled into the granite wall near the knot, so I was able to attach myself to the bolt and work on the knot.
Deep breaths and the oval of light from my headlamp helped me untangle the knotted rope and drop the other end to the ground. We both lowered ourselves to the welcoming safety of the ground.
I hugged my son, which I do a lot even though it’s usually one-sided. I mean he puts his arms up but there’s not much feeling in it. This time we hugged each other hard. I told him I loved him, but we didn’t have time to talk. We worked our way down the steep game trail with the help of my headlamp. On more than one occasion, he pointed the right way on the animal trail that hadn’t seen a lot of recent foot traffic. He’s better at route-finding than I am.
I wanted to write about how parenting is like tying a perfect knot, connecting father to son, parent to child. The more care we put into it, the stronger it will be. It’s a nice metaphor, but it’s not easy like that.
Parenting is messy, and no matter how great you are at tying this perfect knot, it usually ends up a tangled ball. No matter how many times you have tied it and re-tied it in your head, it ends up sloppy, the rope crosses over itself, and the knot looks like a chaotic mess to everyone looking at it, even to you and your kid, and you can only hope it holds, and thank God it usually does.
We don’t get to choose the lessons that our kids remember. I felt like I was risking my own safety with an act of courage by climbing up to my son without a rope. He remembers it differently. We both remember the same events, but it’s funny how perspective works. He remembers the picture I took. He didn’t feel my fear and he didn’t see what I perceived as a brave and selfless act.
In English class, he was asked to write about a life-changing event, and he chose this one. He wrote about being stuck on a cliff and how his dad climbed up this dangerous route without a rope just to get a better photo, a better angle.
My dad wasn’t around very much when I was growing up. I don’t remember many lessons that he taught me, but maybe I need to be easier on him. He probably tried harder than I thought he did. I remember the day my younger sister died. The rain bounced off the windows in her bedroom as she took her last breath. The only thing I wanted to do was get out of the room, and into the rain. I wanted to walk and be alone.
My dad drove up next to me and asked if I would get in his car with him. I didn’t want to, but I felt that I had the obligation to comfort him, so I got in. I’m sure he thought he was comforting me, or somehow saving me from the rain, or the grief. I know this was a memorable moment for him. He has talked to me about it, but at the time I just saw him trying to get a better angle.
My dad and I are not connected anymore. The knot was weathered, torn, and one day the rope just snapped. Neither of us cared to check it often enough, so now it’s just a couple of frayed strands, lessons of what not to do.
So, I’ll continue the check the knots between my son and I. I’ll keep practicing them in my head, over and over. I’ll stress about the lines I crossed and the sharp rocks that could cut this fragile connection, and if I’m lucky, he’ll continue to tie in with me, and I’ll pray that the knot, no matter how messy, holds.
3 Things I’m Loving this Week
Brendan Leonard never disappoints, and I loved this essay — A Pessimist Plants a Tree.
Sarah talks about climbing 14ers and makes some great points about the motivations to climb these peaks.
Baseball is life, and this Jomboy breakdown of 2 managers getting ejected is one of the best things I’ve ever seen on Twitter, and the lipreading skills are next level.
Thanks Dax. Special feelings I feel. Rope might be frayed and in some cases broken, but it remembers what it was and how it felt.