A series of fortuitous events had led me to wade up to my nethers in an increasingly chilly English Channel.
Here I was, pushing my lad out to sea in an outboard motor-driven, rigid dinghy that he’d saved up for and bought himself.
It was our third attempt at launching this bloody thing. The boat’s a little worn but in perfectly good nick. It was most definitely our shared incompetence and not the aged imperfections of the equipment causing the grief..
One last shove and off he went…
As he rowed away, out of my wading depth, and lowered the motor, ready to start the boat, cold anticipation crashed over me, literally. I was about to let my 16-year-old boy loose in the sea, the captain of his very own ship.
It is a metaphor that most certainly isn’t lost on me - not in the moment and even less so now. The thing is, he is more man than boy, and that’s when you have to let them go; all you can do is be there. It’s the epitome of bittersweet. You’re sad because your child is all but gone; you’re so very proud because the man he will become is shining through. Of course, you are still needed and will likely always be needed…it’s just a bit different, that’s all.
So, back to the freezing cold channel and the man-boy in the boat…
Try as he did, the engine wouldn’t start, two-stroke, petrol-oil mix all good but not even a splutter of blue smoke as he pulled the rip-chord time and again.
By now he’s drifting, the current pushing him 500 metres or so along the beach, and maybe 300 metres out to sea…it’s not happening; it’s getting dark, and as one with a mildly neurotic disposition around safety, everything’s become a bit squeaky bum time for me tbh. I’m about to call it and signal him to shore when he pulls the plug on today’s aquatic adventure himself and starts heading for the beach.
An attempt to take to the open ocean has ended in failure for the third time. Or has it?
I jogged along the beach to help him haul his ship out of the water and as we dismounted the engine, deflated the boat and loaded it all into the car for the third time that week without having really got going, I was struck by just how much I was enjoying this.
I approached the subject of disappointment, but he said the learning and the fact that we were doing this together made it easier. He didn’t particularly mean that it was my fatherly presence, rather there being two of us made it easier. But that’s the point isn’t it. Doing something together, regardless of familial relationships, makes even difficult and emotionally challenging things easier.
We’ll likely not have another chance until the late spring now and that bothers me a bit. I don’t know if it was the elemental nature of it, the male bonding thing or my need to continue to be a father… perhaps it is all three. Whatever the rationale, a third failed launch has proven a resounding success for me.
No one teaches you to be a parent. All we can do is let them go when the time is right, and when they start to drift, be there, ready to help them out and get them ready for another day. And if I can keep being here to do that then there’s not a lot more I could ask for in life, really.
