P.S. I Love You
Written By Kermit Pattison
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Once he was a husband who knew how to communicate. Now he's a father lost in translation.*
We were talkers before we were breeders. My wife and I discussed books and actually found time to read them. We lingered over coffee and the Sunday paper and didn't worry about someone shredding and eating the pages. We talked over candlelit dinners with no inkling that someday we'd end every meal on all fours seeing how much of it had wound up on the floor.
Somewhere in an upstairs closet, behind the cartons of toys and children's clothes, sit boxes of love letters. Words held Maja and me fast through years of separation as we moved around the country between jobs. When we wed, we read aloud passages from these letters. "Someday down the road, I want little ones bouncing into our bed and waking us up in the morning," I wrote in one. "I want to raise brilliant young kids in the most unorthodox ways. I'm counting on your genes for a little help."
Nature took its course, the children arrived, and now we really need help. I liken my marriage to a once-great civilization that was sacked when a horde of Viking dwarves came ashore and had their way with us. Since then, it's been a saga of trying to communicate while the barbarians are at the baby gate.
* From the anthology Blindsided by a Diaper, published by Three Rivers Press, June 2007. Excerpt adapted from the essay entitled "Harried with Children: Communication Breakdown" ©2007 Kermit Pattison.
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