Therapy

Therapy comes in a lot of different shapes and sizes. My friend, Michael Jackson, once told me ‘you’ll never see a motorcycle in a therapist’s parking lot’. The more I travel down the road as a human being, the more I see the truth in his statement. It’s a bittersweet thing that I no longer ride, which I recently explained to Atlas.

We were driving along the road, and he excitedly pointed out a motorcycle passing us. “Dad, a motorcycle!” he shouted. It wasn’t long before he started talking about Snakebite; the bike I rode before he was born. I told him the story about how I took her for the perfect ride one afternoon, and the next day…she was gone.

Atlas asked me if I did anything to the people that stole it, and I let him know that I was thankful it had been stolen. He didn’t seem to understand why, so I explained it to him.

“Atlas, if I had Snakebite any longer, there’s a chance that I would have gotten into an accident, and it’s more important for me to be alive for you, than to ride a motorcycle.”

While we we driving, I explained to him how dangerous a motorcycle was because there’s nothing around the rider to keep them safe in the event of a car crash – noting that even helmets and protective gear weren’t as safe as the protective walls of our Volvo XC90.

“Dad, I’m glad those bad people stole snakebite.”

“Why, Atlas?”

“So you can be here with me.”

While it’s not as flashy as a Porsche, I picked the XC90 because it was the safest car possible to carry a child. Volvo made a goal that nobody would die in an XC90 (https://www.raychapmanmotors.co.uk/news/volvo-xc90-is-a-genuine-life-saver/) and to date, there’s only been one fatality on record for the XC90. Not many car companies can say the same for their vehicles.

My life has been shattered by two events; the loss of my Dad in 2007 – followed by the loss of my family in 2021, when I watched Atlas be jettisoned out of the country by his Mom, only three weeks after he was born. It was the most painful moment in my entire life. The most painful series of months and years, if I’m honest.

I had hoped that his birth would be the start of a new chapter in my/our life; one of happiness, joy and quality family time together. Instead, the initation of becoming a Father involved the court system, establishing paternity – due to uncertainty he was, in fact, my son – and a court order that requires me to pay a reasonable sum of money every month – with jail-time and loss of visitation with Atlas if I’m negligent.

That’s not how a family is supposed to be. None of it. Now 38, I often struggle to pick up the pieces of the life that I’m left with, as well as reconcile with the pain of returning Atlas every few days, as if he were a libray book with a return date and time.

Through all of it, I have managed to find joy. However, the moments are fewer and more far between than I often feel I’m able to withstand. Few things are more painful than waking up to a beautiful morning with him – filled with laughter and play – only to hit the pause button on all of it (or STOP) and drop him off in the parking lot of a police station at 9am.

Therapy can never fix the pain of it all, no matter how expensive or profound it may be. It frightens me to think of the pain he will carry as a result of the circumstances he was born into.

“Kids adapt” I often hear. “They weren’t supposed to.” I think, in response; no more than an amputee learns how to have a ‘normal’ life when they lose both of their legs.

As the years have gone by, I’ve slowly learned how to cope with the perpetual pendulum that swings between joyful moments togehter and excruciating moments apart. It doesn’t get any easier with time, any more than a diabetic gets ‘used’ to jabbing themsleves with needles several times a day.

Ahead of a police station drop-off this morning, I prepared my ‘therapy’ the night before; ordering a new kitchen sink faucet to install. If there’s one thing the last few years have taught me, it’s that turning ‘work mode’ on right away isn’t healthy when I need time to resttle my mind after days of being in my happy place; being a Dad.

The faucet fought me with every step of the install; beginning when I first attempted to remove the existing one. Within thirty minutes, I sent out a flare on Facebook for help, feeling as if I were in over my head as I struggled to remove the faucet. Within a few minutes, I was in touch with somebody who said they’d do the whole job for $100, and I promptly gave them a green light.

[Un]fortunately, they ran into a delay and weren’t able to make it over for several hours. That’s when I heard my Dad’s voice, reminding me to ‘use the right tool for the job’ – which I discovered I didn’t have; a basin wrench – available for $17 from Lowes. Without hesitation, I let the booked plumber know that I was going to attempt to fix it; half-joking that these projects are a form of therapy for me. “I totaly get it, man. Let me know if you get stuck.” he replied.

I often get stuck on household projects, lacking the knowhow, tools – or both – to feel competent with whatever task I set out to do. Every time, it strikes a nerve in me because it reminds me that I no longer have a Dad around who aways seemed to know how to fix things. More often than not, I find my sweat mixing with hot tears and today was no exception.

Staring at the wall of plumbing wrenches at Lowes, I heard a familiar voice call out to me: “How are you doing today? Can I help you with anything?”

Kevin, an older employee who had recently helped me find nozzle adaptors for an aquarium pump, stopped to check in and see how he could help me; giving his advice on which of the tools would work best for the faucet removal, ultimately deciding the ‘fancy’ Kobalt remval tool wasn’t large enough for my faucet.

As I turned to check out, he stopped me. “Hey, don’t forget to get penetrating oil. It’s in Aisle 5, and you’ll want to make sure you get the WD-40 that says ‘penetrating oil’ not just the regular stuff.”

I thanked him for the suggestion and charted my course for aisle 5, before turning around and stopping him again.

“Hey Kevin, I wanted to let you know that it’s help like this is the reason I shop at Lowes instead of home depot. One time, somebody went out of their way to help me with a project. In 2007, I lost my Dad to cancer, and the way you guys help me here has really helped a son without a Dad.”

“Thank you…that really warmed my heart.” he said, noticably caught off guard.

When I got home, the first thing I did was soak the nut with the oil, while hastily attempting to remove it before it had time to set in. It didn’t budge. Frustrated, I called the plumber and asked if he could come to finish the job. He told me it’d be a few more hours. So, I gave it one more shot…

“Use the right tool for the job.”

In this case, it was 5-10 minutes of time, which is what the penetrating oil called for on the instructions.

The nut budged. Eventually, it slipped off and I was able to remove the fauctet and install the new one in a matter of minutes. After tightening everything together, I cautiously turned on the hot/cold water and checked under the sink for leaks. There were none.

The job was done.

Life gives us a lot of tools for various circumstances and trials we face. In my case, the hours I spent replacing the kitchen faucet could have easily been hired out – but, that would have eliminated the lesson in patience, conversation with Kevin and newfound knowhow of replacing a kitchen sink faucet that I now carry.

Therapy. It comes in all shapes and sizes.