The red knife

The man and the little boy looked down through the glass display case and saw row upon gleaming row of shimmering stainless-steel spectacle. On purple velvet rested knives of every imagination. Huge knives. Modest knives. Specialty knives. Knives with ivory handles. Knives for skinning, for whittling, for cutting rope. Knives for the sheath and knives for the pocket. And one stood out from the rest, tiny and red, its little blade scalloped and keen.

“That’s the one I’d want,” whispered the man, his hand on his boy’s shoulder. “Can you imagine having such a wondrous thing?”

“Yes,” the boy said, softly, his eyes never leaving the glimmering edge.

On a white tag tied to the handle with white string was the staggering price: twenty-five dollars.

The boy looked up, determined. “I’m going to save up for it, Dad,” he said.

For the next several weeks the boy scurried about in his off-time, bent on industry: mowing grass, helping his father build a shed, running errands for his mom, watching his baby sister; rushing from job to job, his pockets jingling with quarters and dimes, each night his jar slowly filling.

“What can I do today?” the bright lad would ask each Saturday morning, and then he would take his marching orders and hurry off to his tools and his toil. Always happy. Living in the dream of things wished for.

After a while, the man forgot about the knife. His work was hard and his days were long and filled with the troubles of industry and the troubles of others. He came home each night weary and quiet, bearing the invisible load of the hours on his shoulders, and fell asleep in a chair. In the next room, his little boy stacked quarters four-high and dimes in piles of ten.

One hot day the man came home from work early. He climbed slowly out of his old car and into the blazing afternoon. It was so hot he could smell the sun. And as he walked slowly and wearily toward the house and his chair and his nap before supper, his boy came running from the back yard, skipping and leaping and calling his name.

“Dad!” the boy yelled. “I did it!”

And the boy ran up to the man and said, “Hold out your hands,” and the man dropped his briefcase in the dust and held out his cupped hands and the boy gently laid in them the perfect small red knife.

“Oh, son,” the man said, the heaviness of the day magically lifting. “You did it.” And he turned the knife over in his hands and opened and closed its ambitious little blade and marveled at its craftsmanship. And then he marveled at the boy in front of him, craftsmanship of another kind, now happily wringing his little hands and rising up and down on his little toes as if about to fly away in a cloud of giggles and smiles.

“I am so proud of you,” the man said, folding the knife carefully and holding it out gently for his son.

But the boy didn’t take the knife. He put his hands behind his back. Looked down and scuffed at the dry brown earth. Wiped his dirt-smudged cheek against his shoulder. Then he looked up and squinted into the blazing sun, his baseball cap on a little crooked.

“I got it for you, Dad,” the boy said. Then he turned and ran off to climb a tree.

The man stood in his driveway holding the tiny gift in his trembling hands, his briefcase lying flopped over beside him in the dust of the burning day. And his tears fell through his fingers.

Almost twenty years later, the man tried to put down on paper the story of the little boy and the gleaming knife and the weeks of toil and the blinding sun and the weariness of a dusty afternoon, and he toiled hopelessly with nothing but words to describe how it felt to hold the love of his little son in his hands. And his eyes welled again as he remembered, and his hands trembled and vision blurred, and he leaned in close and strained to see the words as he typed.

And his tears fell through his fingers.

Confidence in a can of latex paint

I have a teenage daughter.

Amanda came to us in the usual way, all pink and wiggling, and within moments she held our hearts fast in her tiny fingers.

I wrapped her up in a blanket and brought her close.

“You can do anything, little one,” I whispered.

She was six minutes old.

Fast-forward fifteen years and she’s proving me right. Smart, assertive, charming, witty, tenacious—she’s got the world by the tail.

Ask Mandy what she’s going to be when she grows up and she says, “Whatever.” But it’s not the typical, flippant remark of a teenager, accompanied by the eye roll and toss of the hand. She really means it. Limits? What limits?

About a year ago, Mandy caught me into my office. “Dad, I want to paint my room.” A reasonable request, I thought, so I said, “Sure, sweetie, go for it.” But she wasn’t done. “I want to paint words on the ceiling, too.” I looked at her for a good long time, sizing up the situation, trying to figure out if this was one of those times when I should put my foot down, or let her go. I let her go.

The scheme was shades of purple, blue, and sea spray. Very aquatic. When you walked into her new room you felt like if you held your breath you might get a chance to swim with dolphins.

“Don’t you feel like you’re sleeping underwater,” I asked.

“Yeah, isn’t it cool,” she said.

And there, across the sloping ceiling, from wall to wall, were her words. Big, rounded, sweeping letters—bold pronouncements: Friendship, Passion, Optimism, Curiosity, Laughter, Love, Creativity, Hope, Loyalty, and Confidence.

Vibrant, colorful caterpillars strutted across the tops of some of the letters while huge, flamboyant butterflies flitted around near the walls. The symbolism was not lost on me.

“Gosh, Mandy, you’re amazing,” I said, pulling her in close.

Then, just three weeks ago, she said she wanted to paint her room again.

“Oh, but Mandy, what about your words?” I asked, trailing off into sadness.

Now she gave me the eye-roll. “Oh Dad, you’re such a sap. I can get more words, you know.”

So off she went with a fresh gallon of creativity, this time in flat white.

She appeared an hour or so later, sleeves rolled up, hair pulled back and held in place with a purple elastic, white splotches in accidental places, holding the brush with one hand cupped under the leaky end. There was no smile.

“Dad,” she said, bristling. “I just can’t get rid of my confidence.”

Sure enough, the white paint just wouldn’t cover it—that big, bold word kept oozing back to the surface. So I helped her and we put on another coat. And another. I tried going over the word with a stain-killing white primer, then another finish coat. “That ought to do it,” I proclaimed. Nope.

In the end, over the course of several days, we put over a dozen coats on that ceiling. On the last night, as Mandy prepared for bed, it finally looked like we’d won the battle. White. Everywhere, white. A clean, fresh start.

“What are you going to paint on the new ceiling, Mandy? I asked.

“Not really sure yet,” she said. “But it’s going to be great!”

When I came home from work the next day, there my daughter stood. Hands on her hips, toe tapping, shaking her head, and scowling.

“It’s back, Dad. My confidence is back. Ugh!”

I put my hands on her shoulders and looked deeply into those determined eyes. “Daughter, life is full of troubles. Persistent confidence is just something you’re going to have to live with.”