Sweetening the Pot

A new friend told me the other day her top reason for loving her dad is he loves Boston Terriers. My new friend is only seven, but she seems very wise.

My father was a bit too fastidious to be a dog fan, but I know he would have loved each of my dogs with all his heart. Love me, love my dog. My mother -- the one who plucks microscopic bits of lint off carpet and scours her toilet after each flush -- let my boxer puppy lick her face a few weeks ago. My love for her (my mother, not the puppy) reached new heights. If my mother were a tall, dark, handsome man with boatloads of money I would marry her.

Back to my new young friend, the one who knows quality in a man when she sees it. She also knows where she is going to college and she already has her wedding dress picked out. I don't have the heart to tell her that it is a woman's prerogative to change her mind, and that her plan is merely a work in progress. She seems as comforted by her sense of certainty as other kids are with their belief in the tooth fairy. To interfere with that would simply be cruel.

When my first child lost her first tooth, my parents happened to be in town visiting. Competition with the real tooth fairy became fierce; in an odd game of fantasy poker being played beneath my child's pillow, the pot exploded to twenty-seven dollars. Sure, it interfered way too soon with my daughter's belief system, but twenty-seven bucks seemed like a fair trade for a loss of innocence.

I suppose unconditional love makes us all do strange things. Stranger, even, than outbidding the tooth fairy. We lose irretrievable hours of sleep to crying babies, we trade in careers for thousands of miles logged behind the wheel of a minivan, our lives revolve around unruly and demanding beings who, as they grow, often have a hard time seeing past our stupidity and our peskiness. They forget, at least for a while, that we would do anything for them, like love Boston Terriers, or even let a dog whose mouth has been to all sorts of unspeakable places lick our face.

And my new young friend would probably love her dad even if he preferred chihuahuas, or cats  (although I admit that's a bit of a stretch). She will change her mind about college and she will pick a different wedding dress, or maybe no wedding dress at all. But she won't change her mind about her dad. Children are wired that way, to love us in spite of our shortcomings. As my children have grown, I have marveled at their ability to love, if not unconditionally, at least with a capacity to put the needs of others before their own. Sometimes too much so, but I cannot help but feel proud that they somehow learned to err on the side of grace, forgiveness, and generosity. I pity the tooth fairy who tries to stiff one of their children with nothing more than a few shiny coins.

We are the lucky ones, my young friend and I. We have people in our lives who love Boston Terriers and who would let our puppies lick their faces. People who will stop at nothing for us -- even if it means shaming the tooth fairy.