Dylan Stafford

I picked up my son Jack from daycare about 4:30 this afternoon. Mommy had to go directly from her work to her volunteering so I had Jacktivities from 4:30 to bedtime.

We drove down the 405 with the endless rows of red lights. After we pulled off the freeway we took a weaving route home so we could look for Christmas lights. Jack likes the window rolled down but I only let him do that on side streets. He was shrieking while alternating between putting his fingers out and then pulling them back and saying “Coooood.” He still doesn’t have much in the way of “L” sounds, so “cold” sounds like “code”.

At 27 months old, he is getting the hang of Christmas and Santa Claus and lights. We have a Norman Rockwall-esque living room with a Christmas tree and a fireplace and an extension cord with a step-on button so he can turn the lights on and off, and on and off. We got home and he stepped on the button so our lights would shine for other people.

We’d been away on a four-day trip to Arizona. We drove across the desert after work last Wednesday, suffering through Los Angeles rush hour traffic as the first 30 miles took an hour and a half. Jack was back in his car seat talking about “bijou” and staying up way past his bedtime. Bijou is one of his imaginary words right now. It doesn’t have any fixed meaning and he will use it in different ways. Bijou this and bijou that. He’ll sing bijou bijou bijou sometimes to himself. We haven’t taken him on that many car rides and he was too amped up to go to sleep at his usual time. It was bijou-tastic in his world.

I was going to Scottsdale to do a course called an “Incomplete Items Inventory”. It was a four-day look at anything from my 40 years of life so far that might be incomplete, and then a deciding of what to do to make it complete. Marisa’s job consulting is 3 days a week right now so she could take Thursday and Friday off and we could all three go over together. She and Jack visited her girlfriend while I did my course. She had to work Monday so she and Jack flew back together Sunday afternoon and I got up Monday morning and drove from Scottsdale back to Los Angeles by myself.

My mom grew up in Tempe, Arizona, and my grandparents are buried there. Sunday night, after Marisa and Jack had gone to the airport and my course had completed, I went to the cemetery to see my grandparents. It was about 10pm and the car gate was closed but the side door was open so I could walk in. I had gone to Taco Bell and bought three supreme tacos to take with me to see grandma and grandpa.

I had a little flashlight from the glove box and with my tacos I went to have some “Day of the Dead” time with my grandparents. Back in 1992, I lived in Mexico with a host family and I learned about Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. Mexican families go to the cemeteries where their family members are buried and they take the favorite food and music of their departed loved ones and have a  picnic. They tell stories and catch up and remember their loved ones. That night back home they leave out food and candles so the dead can come home and visit. When I first heard about this tradition I thought it was morbid, but over the years I’ve had a change of heart. I like to visit the cemeteries of my grandparents and my great-aunt, all those main people who made my childhood special.

I crunched along the Arizona gravel with my flashlight until I found my grandparents’ gravesite. I squatted down and ate tacos and licked salsa off my fingers. I said the Lord’s Prayer and then proceeded to update grandma and grandpa on my marriage and little Jackson. Even though I like going, I never know how to update dead relatives when I visit the cemeteries. If they are all up in heaven looking down on us all the time, then isn’t it kind of redundant to tell them what is going on? Since I was there and I had run out of tacos I took the opportunity to share with them that I am happy in my marriage and happy being a daddy.

Their gravesite is in Double Butte cemetery. It’s right in the middle of Tempe and the ambient light from the city keeps it from being totally dark. My eyes had adjusted and I could see around me well enough to put my flashlight away. All of a sudden the sprinkler system kicked on and scared the bejesus out of me. It made a strange shushing noise from all directions and I jumped up and spilled taco wrappers. I wondered if grandma and grandpa were chuckling as I gathered up my Taco Bell bag and said my farewells.

I got up at 5:00am Monday and was on the road before six to miss the traffic. I looked forward to some desert driving and solitude but was disappointed by how much of the 400 miles between Phoenix and Los Angeles is built up now. There were probably fewer than 100 miles that actually felt like I was out and away from all the urban buildup.

I called my mom on the drive and told her that I had gone to visit her parents. I told her that after the cemetery visit I had driven over to where their homestead had been. There is nothing left of it now and the location is an access road off the Superstition freeway. After looking at the location I had driven over to “Friendship Village”, the retirement home where they had lived out their final years. I told the security guard that I was a grandson coming by to pay homage to his grandparents and he let me in to walk around. I had not been back since 1996 when my grandmother had passed away. As it is December, there were luminaries lining the sidewalks like I remembered from Christmas visits when I was a kid. My mom got all choked up as I told her that I had made these three visits. The older I get, the more I cherish opportunities to do something nice for my mom.

Tuesday, today, was back to work and the regular routine of my life. I got Jack back home after driving around and looking at lights. Marisa was out volunteering so I had to prepare dinner daddy style, which tonight meant tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Jack doesn’t mind my low-tech, comfort-food cooking. I was tired from all the travel and when I get tired I often get lonely. I put the speaker phone on the table and Jack and I called my parents for some reassurance.

I talked to mom and then she passed the phone to my dad. He and I were talking and Jack was getting impatient. I had to tell him “It’s daddy’s turn to talk. Daddy needs to talk to his daddy. Daddy needs to do this to feel better.” Jack seemed to understand and he got quiet and let me finish speaking with my father. Dad and mom both reassured me that all is well and that there wasn’t anything going on that a good night’s sleep couldn’t cure.

After I hung up the phone Jack and I finished our grilled cheese sandwiches, dipping them in the tomato soup. He had a big red clown smile on his face by the time we were through.

“I missed you.” Jack looked right at me and spoke. “I missed you daddy.” He said it again, serious under his soupy clown smile.

“I missed you too Jack,” I replied. “I missed you a lot.”

It was the first time Jack ever said that he missed me. I caught my breath for a moment realizing I was hearing these words for the first time from my little son.

 “I missed Daddy.”

“I missed Jack.”

It was turning into too much of an emotional moment in my tired and lonely frame of mind, but before it could get too syrupy his little mind moved on to other things he missed. “I missed Gallop.” (A book of his.) “I missed chair.” He continued taking inventory of various kitchen items that he had missed and I let out a little laugh. He had missed his daddy, and he had missed his kitchen. It brought me back to earth and I gave him a hug and took him off to bath time and books and bedtime.