"I like this!"
"Are you sure?" I asked.
“I do, I like it! I like that! ”My 12-year-old daughter chanted, pointing to an assortment of spades dangling from the wicker wall of a retail store. I paid for the shovel, and we entered the parking lot.
The drive home was entertaining and animated, ending our perfect father-daughter-lunch. We came home safe. When we entered our house, I asked her to wear “walking clothes”. These were code words. They mean that we were going to walk along the big bay that adorned our view of the porch.
My job as a travel nurse took my family, and I had many places, but settled near the San Francisco Bay, was our favorite. Because of this traveling lifestyle, my wife and I chose the home school of our daughter and her younger brother. We all spent many hours walking around the edge of the San Francisco Bay, but this walk was supposed to be different.
My daughter hit the wall with her education. She lacked focus and lost her drive. Always a good student, now I could hardly get her to read without friction or conflict. It came to a limit.
No threat, barter or deal changed anything. Given the heavy discipline of my youth, I was desperate to find a way to motivate her. Not with the stiff stance of shaking a closed fist, but with my knee bent offering an open hand of understanding.
Then the idea stuck with me a month before our wonderful dad-daughter-lunch. When preparing my lesson plan for creative writing, I met an old adage. He said: "The pencil is easier to shovel." I realized that my daughter did not understand this concept.
In the end, for me it was like that. I spent my 13th summer working with my father when he built a church from scratch in the small coastal town of North Carolina. I missed work when the project was completed, but I realized that I did not like this work. Experience was among the reasons I went to college. I had to teach my daughter the difference between a pencil and a shovel.
Skipping to my long steps, she brought our new shovel. We walked for about 15 minutes, when we came to the clearing. Then we left the strike and sat down on a log from a tree that had fallen long ago.
When she remained isolated, I stood up and measured 3 feet by 3 feet on the ground. Then I picked up a nearby branch of a tree from the ground and marked the length of 3 feet. Finally, I shoved a spade into the central soil of the measured area and announced a lesson plan for that day.
With love, I said: “You will use this shovel and cut a hole 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet.
I sat on an old tree when she went out and took a wooden handle. There were many questions on her face, but it was time to dig her. When she returned the first shovel filled with fresh turf, I pulled a paperback book out of my pocket and began to read to myself. In silence.
I am sure that the next hour and a half seemed to her longer than I did in California that day in July. From time to time, walkers passing nearby look at us with curiosity to continue their journey. “Why is a grown man sitting on a log reading a book while this young girl digs a deep hole?” Asked their faces.
The answer came after I measured the dig at a depth of three feet. I freed my daughter from my new instrument and asked her to sit on a log to rest. I started to fill the hole again. Sweat glistened on her face and hands in the shining daylight. Her breathing was heavy. I had close attention.
I said with love: “It doesn’t matter to me how a person chooses to make a living for himself and his family as long as it is legal and does not harm innocent people. Better make sure you know what I want to do. Are you going to pick a pencil? Or are you going to pick a shovel?
My daughter had a quiet and retrospective rest of the day. Perhaps she did not speak to me. It was a risk that I had to take.
The next morning, my fear appeared. What would she choose? She met me at breakfast with the same beautiful smile with which I look forward to every morning. We discussed the event of the previous day over several bowls of cornflakes. She told me that she understood what I was trying to do and promised to forgive me as soon as her back stopped hurting.
She began her studies and never looked back.
Four years later, she attends a public school and flourishes. She averages 2-3 books per month, has a GPA greater than 4.15, and is the student's editor at her school newspaper.
I hold her shovel and pull her out when I need to dig a hole or two. She just smiles and leaves her. Perhaps I will give it to her as a gift one day. Maybe the day she graduated from college.
