My 5-year old son shows me one of his drawings.
I notice the criss-crossed lines across the sad face.
Why is he sad?” I ask.
“He got hit in the face with a tennis racket,” he says.
“Dad, tell me what should I draw,” my six-year-old daughter says.
“Um, I don’t know. Draw Joe jumping into a volcano.”
“Who’s Joe?”
“He’s from a movie. Joe jumps into a volcano to save an island.”
My daughter puts pen to paper. She quickly finishes her artwork and laughs as she shows me her masterpiece:
“That’s not Joe. That’s me jumping into the volcano!”
“Funny, eh dad?”
Yes, funny. But it makes me think at a deeper level. How would I face an impending death due to brain cloud? Would I discover meaning? Would I jump into a volcano? Would I learn how to live? Would I realize my Meg Ryan is right in front of me? And if I would, if I could, I should be able to now—in the present—without a brain cloud.
My six-year-old daughter is learning how to write. This is what she writes:
She thinks it’s so funny.
After she shows me, she takes a blank page to write it again.
I say, “You know, sometimes the things we write come true.”
She looks up, her eyes wide with fear.
I say, “Be careful at school today. You might poop your pants.”
Teaching Michael Fleming 