Life Lesson #1 - Everyone needs a "Secret Store"

To know me is to know my dad. I'm Ed's son. So much of who I am, so much of what I do, has been formed by my dad. These posts are a series of reflections on some life lessons my dad taught me. They are based out of the eulogy I did for my dad's memorial service on April 7, 2010.
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Life Lesson #1 - Everyone needs a “secret store.”

When I was little, dad would take me to a convenience store. It was about a 10-minute drive from home... out of town, over a bunch of windy roads. The funny thing is that we actually drove by several stores to get to it; I always thought that was strange.

But this wasn’t any store.

This was the “secret store.”

Now, there really was nothing secret about it. Of course, Mom knew about it. She also knew when we were going and how long we would be there, what we would buy (usually chocolate Yohoo and something called a "Slim Jim" – an oddly-flavored meat product with a shelf-life just 15 years shy of a Twinkie). So the secret store wasn’t really much of a secret to anyone.

But, of course, to a 7-year old boy, everything is much cooler if it is a secret.

In fact, we had secret stores, secret snacks, secret sandwiches, secret adventures – which I honestly only realized the other day that our "secret adventures" now seem remarkably like pulling weeds on the back patio of our house. (Wow, our secret adventures were actually my dad violating child labor laws. But at the time it seemed fascinating! And it was a secret!)

So Dad and I went to the secret store... because everyone needs a secret store.

Of course, only in college did I discover the real secret.

The real secret was not the store.

The real secret was the 10-minute drive from home; out of town, over windy roads. Just my dad and me. I found out later that the store was partially chosen for that very reason. Another investment of his life into mine. A break in our lives where, for 30 minutes or so, a dad had the undivided attention of his little boy.

And so now, every Saturday morning, the tradition continues.

Now, every Saturday morning that I’m in town, since my now-5-year-old daughter was 3-months-old, I’ve taken her out to breakfast.

She calls it the “House of Breakfast.”

It's really a secret store.

And the secret is, of course, that it’s a 15-minute walk.

And I grab my daughter’s hand... and I feel that little hand in mine. And I pray that time would stand still.

She jabbers on about squirrels and worms and about her pretend friends...

At least that is what she talks about for now.

But one day it will be about boys, and body image; peer pressure and life plans. One day she may need to talk to her dad about hard things and will need an opportunity for that to happen.

And it was my dad who taught me how to create the kind of space for that kind of conversation to happen.

One of the things I appreciated about my relationship with my dad is that we lived with no regrets. When my dad died, there wasn’t a single thing I needed to say to him that I hadn’t said a dozen times. There wasn't a single thing I needed to hear from him that I hadn’t heard over and over.

Maybe that was the real secret of the secret store.