Goodnight Moon!

As a child, most things in life don't seem to make much sense, you just go along with the flow like taking baths or eating vegetables or brushing your teeth.  These things never really seem to matter much in the end to you at the time, but you comply and shake it off and move on to the next thing.  These things I miss as a kid, life seemed so simple, so relaxed, so unhinged.

My father, in many ways, allowed his inner child to live through us, to help our imagination run wild and to take advantage of the stress free time we as kids had.  It's as if his internal clock knew that eventually our time would run out, we would need to finally grow up, be adults and start carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders.  Weekends at dads was a dream for any kid and probably a nightmare for my mother.  We ran loose, jumped in man made lakes, caught frogs and snakes, sold weeds out of a run down van, climbed trees and roofs, rode turbo wheels in the house, stayed up late, watched movies we shouldn't have, jumped on the couch while listening to the Doors, drank all the soda we wanted and as Shane would say "had a really hot babysitter" for the nights dad was at work.  Our nightly meals consisted of pizza on Thursdays, McDonalds on Fridays and Saturdays was a flip of the coin, most likely not a healthy option.  We also had daily trips to the candy store to pick not one, but two types of candy....my father knew how to live!  Weekends at dads was like a playhouse for kids and where I was allowed to truly use my imagination and explore my inner creativity.

Shane and I would build treehouses, imagine we were on a plane using the staircase, make parachutes out of trashbags, set up race tracks using the lines on our fathers old desk, create homes using couches and the dogs, turned our bunk beds into movie sets, catered to movie stars using my Fisher Price kitchen and made up musicals from the soundtracks of Top Gun and Pretty Woman (movies I probably shouldn't have seen before I turned 10).  All of these things allowed my inner child to run wild, to dream up things that weren't real, that were all imaginary and limitless.  This is where my inner creativity was born and I credit it to my dads willingness and encouragement to let it run free.

My most memorable imaginative moment being a kid at my fathers was my relationship with the moon.  At the age of 9 or 10, I imagined that the moon was more than a light but something bigger, something spectacular.  Being in the casino business, my father often worked weekend nights since it was the busiest and most profitable time for the casinos.  I was sad on those nights before I would go to bed since dad was not around to kiss me goodnight.  He was great at that!  He would bundle me up, check under the bed for scary things and then kiss me on the cheek. I felt protected and secure to shut my eyes for the night knowing he was only a few doors down.  My father was my world.  When I got sad on nights he was not there, I started writing letters to the moon before going to bed.  I would put the note out on the driveway and place a rock on top of it to not blow away.  My thought was, if I could write a note to the moon saying goodnight, when my dad looked up at the moon he would get it.  It would be our way of communicating.  I remember waking up the next morning and running outside not expecting to see much change.  I couldn't believe my eyes!  The note was gone and replaced with candy.  I remember smiling, grin to grin screaming through the house, its a miracle!  I thought the moon had communicated with me. It was almost as cool as the tooth fairy or even Santa!  Shane thought I was crazy, but I was convinced he was just jealous he didn't think of it first.  For months and months, my father would come home late into the morning hours from work,  pick up my note and place candy on the driveway.  He was my moon.  He carried a plethora of candy in his trunk to make sure I would not be disappointed each morning I woke up and to help keep my imagination running wild.  I remember years later he mentioned that as he opened the trunk one night he realized he had forgotten to replenish his candy stash and so he got back into his car and to drove to a 24hr store to grab candy for me.  It was one of the cutest stories I have heard my dad tell.

I still look at the moon, but not with as much imagination as I did when I was a child.  When I do glance up on clear nights and see it shining, I remember my dad.  I remember this story and having a great childhood.  A dad who allowed us to run free and be kids, even if it meant communicating through the moon and spending ridiculous amounts of money on candy.