"Jump, Baby. Jump."
Feet flat on the floor you bend and straighten your knees. Bend and straighten. You smile and bend and straighten your knees again. Your enthusiasm is unmistakable and your motions are accurate but your musculature is underdeveloped.
Not to worry. Your muscles will develop. Keep your laugh going and eventually you will beat this gravity thing and lift yourself off a planet spinning at 1,038 miles per hour for the sole purpose of keeping you grounded and your spine compressed.
Your dad is about to get laid off. It is still six months away, but the executives (the guys who park in spots called "Reserved" and who ride in corporate jets) have made the date known. This is when most people feel like the Earth is spinning so fast that they will involuntarily hit escape velocity and fly off the surface. But your dad skips certain "stages of grief" when it comes to white-collar misfortune. He goes straight from denial to -- skip anger, skip bargaining, skip depression -- to acceptance.
But not everyone at your dad's work is so lucky. The amount of personal tragedy stacked upon personal tragedy starts to sound like a rendition of This Little Piggy.
This laid-off daddy had a mild heart attack
This laid-off daddy started beating his dog
This laid-off daddy left his girlfriend with three children
This laid-off daddy went off his meds and killed himself
And this little CEO went, "Wee! Wee! Wee!" all the way to the bank
Perhaps your dad did not completely skip the anger stage. Unless the above observations are indeed still a part of acceptance. But your dad is doing okay. He is teaching you how to pray. And when your mom and dad pray over your food, they are praying for the means to keep food on the table.
But it is finally time for your dad to make a career change. To write and to write for real. All he has to do is keep laughing and bend his knees and jump. Just jump.
