The Dad Sweet Spot

The ghosts demand to be paid. It is an unfair trade.

I mow my lawn on average of twenty-one times a summer. Every time I mow, I mow with ghosts of the “Dad Sweet Spot” where the kids were a certain age, the trees were a certain height and I made my way through the lawn around and through wading pools, swing sets, trampolines, art projects, campfire sites, dog toys, lawn sets.

All gone now.

Except for their ghosts.

At first, it was mowing over the brown circle in the lawn where the wading pool sat all last summer, that summer that was the last time I would fill a pool, only I didn’t know it was gonna be the last time. Then it was moving the trampoline from one side of the back lawn to the other to finish mowing the yard. I would assemble it early in the Spring and move it around until it was time to blow the leaves in the Fall, where the jumping on the trampoline would be replaced by running jumps into the pile of leaves. One summer, the trampoline didn’t get assembled, the next, garbage men were flinging it into the trash truck and crushing it.

As trees were removed and stumps ground down, the mowing paths changed from circling the trees to mowing straight through. With the trees went the leaves in the fall, down from blowing leaves every weekend to twice a year. There are no longer flying bodies to worry about, but it is an unfair trade.

The yard got gradually quieter until there was no laughter and chatter of children’s voices, eventually replaced by the monotonous noise of a mower engine, being drowned out by the unsettling thoughts of a dad aware of the rapid passage of time and increasing loneliness. Nature is impartial and oblivious; the lawn still needs mowing.

As I walk behind the mower, I wander across the landmarks when I was hitting my “Dad Sweet Spot,” that short period of time between when the kids think you can do anything and you embarrass them. Two trees stood there, that stump is long gone, this used to be the only gate to the back yard, those shrubs were not there, the driveway used to be more narrow.

This is where I tell new dads who are in the “Dad Sweet Spot” to appreciate this time because it will be gone too soon with remarkable speed. It doesn’t happen gradually, it will just slam shut. But they won’t listen just as I didn’t listen. I didn’t know the furtive and constant activity that produced the backtrack of life wouldn’t always be there and how silent life becomes when two small beating hearts move away. It is remarkable how much noise just the presence of another human being makes and how eerily silent space becomes when they leave.

I mowed my yard yesterday. The words you are reading poured out of me in a mix of humid sweat and tears, only made possible by the lived experience of the “Dad Sweet Spot.”

It, too, is an unfair trade.