The Call

I put the burgers on.

Now, that’s not a casual thing.  Grilling burgers is a science … a crucial mix of commodity, spice, temperature and time.  If any of the four are mismeasured, well … let’s not even go there.

So when Cindy called from the house, I listened with half a brain, the other half monitoring the quartet.

“Doug, telephone!  It’s Eric. I think you’ll want to take this.”

“Huh?!” I thought.  Odd that Eric would phone and Cindy be so insistent. The burgers … she knows we can’t interrupt the burgers.  Plus she likes them rare.

Then I realized.  It was The Call.  We’d been expecting this at some point. Eric, my daughter Meghan’s boyfriend, was calling to ask the question.

Burgers or deal with The Call … the choice was clear. Eric’s question can wait, I reasoned. It’ll give him more time to think it over. Just to be sure. After all, if you’re lucky, you only pose it once in a lifetime anyway.  No need to rush.

“Ask him if we can call him back in 15 minutes,” I yelled.

* * *

If you’re a dad, your mind holds a box of memories for each child.  And if you’ve done a decent job, that box is so very full.

Meghan’s box, like son Zach’s, brims over … a rich mix of laughter, some tears, a dash of stubbornness, layered throughout with love – so much love.

There are many Meghans.  The young writer. The swimmer. The soccer player.  The singer and actor. Now the geologist. Soon, a grad student. Eyes so deep blue as a child that friends would marvel. Hair of tight curls when young but so much straighter today.

And such a dreamer … but in a very concrete way.  She chases her dreams, sure.  But unlike many of us, she catches them, consumes them with zeal and then dreams anew.

She already has seen more of the globe than I expect to see in my lifetime. She found Eric at a geology dig in the Turkish desert. Or Eric found her.  Either way, it was perfect.

One of my best Meghan memories involves the child carrier that I’d strap on my back.  It was of blue cloth, I remember, and an aluminum frame with legs so I could sit it on a table.

Meghan, a toddler then, loved it. I’d slide her in, turn around, back up to the table like a truck to a loading dock, and thread my arms into the straps.

Then I’d stand tall.  Meghan would grab my curls – I had curls then, too – like grabbing reins on a horse.  But being a good rider, she never tugged needlessly.

And the two of us would walk. That is, I would walk.  Sometimes to magical places; sometimes on very long treks.  And we would talk to each other along the way, especially about objects and new words. 

“See the bird, Meghan?” 

“Bird,” she would say in her soft voice.

“Did you hear that car honk, Meghan?  Can you say ‘honk?’”

“Honk!” she’d say, triumphant.

And such patience. Our walks could go on for two hours sometimes.  And Meghan would talk, then sleep, then talk some more. But never complain.

To this day I wish I could have seen her as she saw everything … to marvel at what she found marvelous. But like a horse, I could only face front, twitching my ears back to catch her every murmur. 

Today, Meghan is a woman of 24.  She and Eric are on the road today – two cars, boxes of clothes, two bikes and two bunnies – from Kansas City to Western Washington University, where both will be graduate students in the geology school. 

She left a steady job with a Tulsa energy company.  But Tulsa couldn’t compete with the wonder of the Northwest and the beauty of Bellingham, which sits just 90 miles north of Seattle on Bellingham Bay.

Those dreams again.

Plus there is the promise of a new field for her, coastal geology. So appropriate. Water sustains Meghan.  There was nary a drop in Tulsa. At Bellingham, water is its lifeblood.

Happily, her dreams this time include another – dreams she and Eric share.  

* * *

The Call came from Michigan.  Eric and Meghan were camping near the cottage a week ahead of our trip up there. Cindy, Zach and I would join them at the cottage for another two weeks.

Meghan and Eric love Michigan for many things, but especially the countless rocks rubbed smooth by Lake Michigan. The rocks layer its beaches, each rock a unique shape, texture, color.  Each rock a story.

Meghan will tell you those stories.  She knows these rocks – sifts through them easily, deftly lifting from the water the most interesting, most vivid.

She’s loved the rocks ever since she could stand on her own in Lake Michigan’s waves.

For Meghan, rock-hunting is like playing a never-ending game of Where’s Waldo, and Waldo is everywhere.

Her ultimate quest? Each visit, it’s the Petoskey stone, a piece of fossilized coral formed by Michigan’s glaciers. With its hexagon-shaped pattern, it is hard for me to find … though Meghan mysteriously has no trouble plucking them from the surf.

Last summer, Eric visited this part of Michigan for the first time.  This summer, it was the ideal place to ask the biggest question of his life.

But first, he had something to ask us.

* * *

I brought in the burgers and covered them tight with foil.  I knew this might take a few minutes.

“Okay, let’s give him a call.”

Cindy handed me the phone.  Zach was in the next room, watching TV but watching us as well – he had a slight grin … knew what was up.

“Don’t you want to get on the line, too?”  I asked Cindy.  I think she thought I’d want to go solo … you know, that dad traditionally gets fielded the question.

“Oh, yeah, I guess so,” she said.  She grabbed the other phone.

Then I found Eric’s number on caller I.D. and dialed it.

“Hello?” he said. 

“Hi, Eric,” I said. “It’s Doug and Cindy.”

He was nervous … you could tell.

“I have something I wanted to ask you … could I marr ...”

Now, before I go on, I need to mention two things:

First, that while Eric had been stewing the last 15 minutes, I was using the same time to prepare for this exchange.

Maybe it’s a guy thing or a dad thing – you know, just wanting to make sure Eric knew that I was the dad here and that these kinds of traditions don’t always pass easily. That I wouldn’t simply roll over.

Second, more important, that Eric’s a great guy – solid, smart, dependable, loving, curious about life. I like him a lot.

Anyway, now I was ready.

“I have something I wanted to ask you … could I marr ...”

“What’s that?!” I said, kind of loudly, like this was a B-grade phone commercial.  “What’s that?!  We can’t hear you … the connection seems … kind of bad.”

And he started again. 

“What’s that?  What??”

Needless to say, this couldn’t go on for long.  Cindy stepped in … put an end to my misbehavior, though in my defense just when I was going to fess up and truly listen.

Free now, Eric quickly got the question out, though I think he was a bit rattled.  My fault.

“I want to ask Meghan to marry her.”

We knew what he meant.

“Eric,” I answered. “You absolutely have our permission.” 

I added: “There’s not another guy out there who I would trust more with my daughter’s future than you.”

The words weren’t rehearsed. They were heartfelt … true.

We talked a few more minutes, then hung up.

Eric was relieved, I think; we were happy.

“Nice job, Dad,” said Zach, who always has his sister’s best interests at heart.

Time to eat.

* * *

Eric would later propose to Meghan, knee bowed, on the shores of Lake Michigan, at a favorite beach of ours called Esch Beach.  I can hear the surf now.

He was pretty clever about how he went about it, I hear.  But that’s for them to share, not me.

Oh … and Meghan would say yes.  Nice.

Now I wonder if I fully prepared Meghan for that moment.

I wonder if ever, with our word games, I fixed on that symbol of this all-important covenant between two people … the one that binds them with love, trust, integrity.  I think I did.

“See my ring Meghan?  Can you say ‘ring?”

“Ring!”