Celebrate your child's love of learning

© Wondertime

Dad on a Lark

An unexpected thing happened at poker. I play with a group of guys, all in our late 40s. For four hours we drink scotch, tell stupid jokes, and trash-talk each other. We also keep the table loaded with junk food.

Most of the others have kids 10 years older than Larkin; my belated entry into the ranks of marriage and fatherhood provoked considerable mirth, since I'd been seen as a fairly hard case. The razzing can get raucous. But Paul, a college professor, doesn't joke much, so I didn't know what to think when he suddenly reached over, tore the bowl of Cheetos out of my hand, and said, "Stop."

"Huh?" I managed, baffled.

He asked how old my daughter was. Just over a year and a half, I told him.

"Well, my father dropped dead of a coronary when I was 17, and you can't begin to imagine how that affected my life." He waved the bowl of Cheetos. "You can't be eating this crap. You have to be there for her. And you're how old already?"

Being an older first-time parent can be funny, like the parenting class where we dads-to-be were practicing burping plastic dolls, and I realized that the guy next to me, all of maybe 23 years old, was closer in age to our impending newborns than he was to me. But other things aren't so funny. Mortality is a lot more on your mind. At 23 you think you'll live forever — and, barring calamity, you still have most of a lifetime in front of you. At 49, where I am now, well ... not so much. As my friend Bruce and I joke: Halftime's over, we're playing in the third quarter, and we've already used up most of our timeouts.

For me, these midlife intimations of mortality were magnified by dreadful occurrences before and after Larkin's birth. First my brother-in-law died of cancer at age 45. Then my mother died, also of cancer. And when Larkin was 5 months old, I was diagnosed with melanoma. The surgery took out some lymph nodes and a piece of my lower back. It also blasted a gaping hole in my sense of well-being.

My oncologist tells me there's a 90 percent cure rate. That sounds good. But it also means that in 1 out of 10 cases, the cancer will come back — in my liver, my lungs, my brain. I freak out about that. No new pain is innocent. What is this strange backache I've had for the past three weeks? Spinal tumors? Liver cancer? And what about that cough that's been bothering me?

My imagination runs wild. I sit on the side of the bed at 3 a.m., head in my hands. "I have cancer," I say to Molly. "I'm going to die, and my daughter will never know me."

"I know what you're going through," she says, holding me in her arms. "Having Larkin makes everything different."

It's true. I used to tell myself that if I were to die tomorrow, I'd die feeling lucky for what I have experienced. Love and friendship, travel, the rewards of work, the thrills of creating art. Sure, I'd like another few decades of all that; who wouldn't? Yet if it were to end, I could hardly say I've been unfulfilled.

But now that whole line of consolation no longer works. In those terrible moments at 3 a.m., when I imagine cancer wiping me out, just like my brother-in-law and my mother, what I see is Larkin ... and this empty space beside her. A father she never knew. It's melodramatic, but there it is.

The worst moment came after my initial diagnosis. I underwent a PET scan, and we had to endure a two-day wait to see whether the melanoma had spread. As cruel fate would have it, this was the same week my mother died. The night before we got the scan results, I imagined writing a series of letters for Larkin to open on each of her first 18 birthdays. I took out a beautiful little kaleidoscope I'd bought at a market in Germany, something I'd planned to give her on her third or fourth birthday. I wrapped it up. To Larkin, I wrote, From Dad. It was the first time I'd ever written "Dad" in connection with myself. I imagined Larkin opening it, and Molly telling her about me.

"I have to be there," I said to Molly, weeping.

"You will be," she said. "I know you will."

And so far, I still am. All the follow-up tests have been negative, and with each one, the specter of cancer recedes a bit more. Which leaves me free to worry about ... Cheetos. And that's a good thing. I can't control whether my melanoma will return. But there's more play with some other risk factors that determine how long I'll be around. It's time now to be a little less carefree with the lifestyle; to look at the trade-offs and rearrange my priorities. I've got high cholesterol, for one; and since neither of my parents did, that means it comes from all those scrumptious, artery-clogging things I like to eat. Yes, I love mayonnaise, eggs fried in bacon fat, monstrous cheeseburgers, the whole culinary-coronary house of horrors. But even more, I love the thought of being here 10 years from now, hiking with Larkin in Vermont.

"What," a friend jokes, "you think she's going to want to go hiking with you when she's 12?"

Maybe not — but I'd like her to have the option. Same with 20 years from now, at her college graduation. And 30 years from now, at her wedding.

One of my grandfathers died of a heart attack at age 63. When I am 63, Larkin will be 15. That's not good enough. So here's my New Year's resolution, for the year in which I turn 50: Take a pass on the Cheetos next time, and focus instead on being there down the road.

And thanks, Paul, for the kick in the pants.