The Guitar Incident

One of the most interesting and surprising moments I've had as a father happened this past summer.  I've dubbed it "The Guitar Incident" but it was more like a pass/fail parenting pop quiz with an audience and no preparation.  I'm happy to say that I passed this one with flying colors!

This story starts without me, sometime in the early 1980's when my wife was just a baby herself.  Her parents raised her within a Pacific Islander culture of close friends and family that she eventually shared with me and later, our three sons.

Culture of any sort was a new concept for me to grasp, my family was white on one side and hispanic on the other, but neither side had anything but very vague cultural influences on our day to day life.  Not many family or culture related recipes, traditions, activities or discussions ever occurred in my house growing up - not that I felt I was missing out on anything.

I didn't really expect anything to be much different from my family experience the first time I was brought to one of her "extended family" parties.  Silly me...

Needless to say, if you haven't been exposed to Pacific Islander culture, especially as the Haole boyfriend dating the beautiful teenage niece/daughter/sister/precious flower/apple of everyone's eye - you probably don't understand the depth of my experience...

Ten years, three children and countless memorable shared moments later - this is now part of my culture, and a part that I cherish immeasurably!

One of the family traditions that I've become part of is the yearly visit to the Ho'olaule'a (and YES I can pronounce that correctly in case you're wondering, I'll confess that took me a few years to learn...) - the biggest Pacific Islander festival in the south bay.  Two days at Alondra Park filled with all things Hawaiian, Samoan, Tahitian etc...  Everything from wonderful and authentic food, treats, games, live music and dancing to vendors selling apparel, jewelry, hand-crafted specialty items, plants, etc...  Almost anything you can think of - wrapped up in a bunch of smiles, hugs, kisses, laughter, pigeon accents and beautiful hot weather (most years the weather cooperates anyway).

There's always a day one after party/bbq at her uncle's house on Saturday night where we bring out our instruments, have a couple cold ones and share good times before we all hit the sack exhausted ready to do it all over again the next day.

This past summer was no different, aside from the growing number of children we brought with us.  So there we were enjoying ourselves amongst some of the greatest people we know, sitting on folding chairs in the front yard with the bbq smells filling the air.  Roman (our two year old) was playing catch with uncle Howie.  Samson (our five year old) was running around with his cousins, Anissa was holding Tyson (our one year old) and I was playing my guitar as usual.

A few minutes later Samson had the baseball and underhand tossed it to Anissa, dangerously close to the baby and to my guitar a couple feet away.  She tossed it back with a few words of caution about throwing a hardball anywhere around the baby or daddy's guitar and before I could comprehend what exactly she was saying, I felt and heard a crunching WHACK and realized that something had struck the guitar in my hands.

All the music and conversation stopped abruptly.  I looked down and saw a giant crack on the face of my guitar (the beautiful Martin I had bought myself less than a year earlier, the nicest guitar I've ever owned - my baby) and the baseball that had cracked it resting on the grass below.  I looked up to see the look of mortified panic on Samson's face with tears welling up and immediately my heart sank.  Not for the guitar that was damaged, but for my son who obviously couldn't handle what he was feeling and needed someone to rescue him from the moment. 

Before anyone could say anything I called him to me, set the guitar down and wrapped my arms around him and whispered in his ear, "It's ok son, it's just a guitar."  He spoke while he cried and said, "But it's broken, that's your new guitar.  It's the special one.".  I kept telling him it was just a thing (an expensive thing, yet just a thing) and I was glad that he didn't hit a person with the ball, or the windows on the car a few feet behind me in the driveway.

A few minutes later he slowly stopped crying and was reassured that we could probably fix the guitar and reminded that he shouldn't throw a baseball at anyone who didn't have a glove on.  It took some time for the shame to dissipate and for him to feel comfortable enough to move away from my embrace, but eventually he did and ran off to play with his cousins once again carefree.

I re-tuned the cracked guitar and played it the rest of the night and the next morning at church (I lead worship with that same guitar every Sunday at church) with no problems and got it fixed the next week for less than $100.

When I think back on that day I chuckle and thank God that instead of flying off the handle in anger to further embarrass my son in front of friends and family, my heart was filled with compassion for him and I was able to be a better father than guitar owner.

I don't know what the people around me thought, but I was proud to have passed the parenting test of that day - besides, every musician knows a guitar doesn't play or sound that great until it's got a battle scar or two!  My Martin didn't have a blemish or any character before that day, but now carries the mark of one my favorite memories as a father and is a reminder of the kind of love being a parent can provoke in me.