Zoey & the Ducks vs. the Red Wings & Mom

So the Red Wings win Game 7 and Zoey refuses to go to bed. She refused a long time before Dan Cleary chipped in the game winner with a little more than three minutes left in the Wings 4-3 Game 7 win against the Ducks, in fact, she started refusing before the game even started. She refused all through the first period and through “Coaches Corner” and into the second. She refused all throughout the third period and then long after the post-game pressers were done. She refused long after Daddy went to bed and she refused much longer than Mom wanted to deal with. She refused through boobs and walks and baths and running water…that kid just flat out refused. Then she woke up this morning with a huge smile and a well timed giggle and her Mom melted. Dad felt something akin to watching his best slugger slip out of a slump by whacking a game winning Grand Slam and then tripped off to work happy and OH-SO impressed with the fortitude, patience, strength and perseverance of his wife. And you thought the Red Wings depth was impressive, you should sit back and watch the absolute wonder of a Mom’s love/patience combo in action. You’ll feel two inches tall.

I couldn’t do what June does, just as similarly Scott couldn’t do exactly what Stacey does, or Kevin accomplish what Aimee manages, or Arvin tackle all that Sam wrestles to the ground etc…mind boggling etc…Mom’s are just, I dunno, impressive beyond all measure. It’s been the privilege of watching June in action that’s convinced me of the differences between men and women (a broad, sweeping generalization), and the arguable superiority of the gender in many not too surprising ways.

I haven’t the patience June has.

I haven’t the capacity to put things in perspective as she does.

I don’t often see things as simply as she might.

It’s unusual for me to manage more than a few dozen minutes with an upset child while June tackles entire hours.

As a father I’m sure I could be better but as a mother I’m sure June is delivering the goods in an unfathomably impressive manner. I know that, at the very least, I’m not as good of a person as she, not in this regard…not when it comes to giving yourself over wholly to the task at hand. Watching June parent humbles me a little and I sometimes wonder if that’s the normal way of things. Is that the father’s path? I know that there are many things that I do right and good and maybe even, at times better than June…but I also know that she notches up many more. I’ll even throw into the equation my time away from home and it’s imbalance with her time spent with Zo, but the ratio still doesn’t explain away the absolute power of her presence with our daughter. Zoey loves Dad’s voice and she likes to play and is distracted by my very presence…I think when she’s older, when she’s walking and talking and fully capable of following and clinging and attaching herself to her father that I’ll be knee deep in daughter, and I know that I’ll be a dangerously effective Dad, but right now she’s the profound by-product of a mothers love and attention. I haven’t been quite so absorbed by a single person in my entire life, and it surprises a great many that it’s not my daughter. June’s capacity for inspiring love and awe in me is interminable. I’ve said it a dozen times here if I’ve ever uttered it once.

June missed the entire hockey game last night, as any parent knows they might, and as surely as I would have too, but she did it with a grace and ambivalence and an attention to her daughter that I might have struggled with, no, that I certainly would have struggled with. I’m sure that says a lot about me but I know that it says more about her. Last night Zoey refused to give in but her Mom refused more. It was more impressive than the game on TV.