I have vivid memories of our anniversary trip from 2001 for a couple of reasons. We descended upon a Swiss style bed and breakfast just outside Amish country in Lancaster, Pennsylvania for a weekend alone, away from our two young children.
We spent some time shopping and touring, and visiting for a few hours with a college friend my wife hadn't seen since graduation. I even convinced Lisa to ride in a golf cart with me for eighteen holes. True love knows no bounds, evidently.
There was another significant reason for our trip other than fun and relaxation, however. In the weeks leading up to this late September weekend, we were trying to decide whether or not to have another child. Lisa always wanted a big family, but after two C-sections and a lot of scar tissue, we just couldn't decide if we wanted to go through the whole thing all over again. During this time, we planned to pray fervently and make a decision about it before our return.
We had fun. We cast the die. There would be no more biological children in our future. After weeks and even months of strain, finally peace settled over us. The answer seemed so obvious after our weekend together. One girl and one boy would compose the sum of our family forever.
Eight and a half months from that day, I stood over my wife in a hospital operating room sheepishly peering into her open belly at the hairy creature inside. The whole time we were making our big, future plans, God had already made his.
His name was Thomas Jordan and he was a little miracle of sorts-- a miracle because of our conspiracy against him, a miracle because the doctor said he had never seen a uterus so thin that hadn't ruptured, a miracle because any child's birth really is anyway.
He had lots of hair...lots of dark hair. So much so, I could literally see it on top of his head before he was cut from her womb.
Finding common ground with this boy has proved mostly elusive in our nearly eight years together. While his brother is scoring a super bowl touchdown in the backyard and sister molding some colorful clay in her bedroom, he's quietly reading a book in a lonely corner of the house. Instead of going to Busch Gardens for his birthday, he wants to visit the Smithsonian. While his brother prefers to play with whatever ball is in season, Thomas likes instead to watch the night sky with a telescope.
He's unconcerned with conforming to anything other than his sensitive ideals of right and wrong. Unlike his older brother and sister, appearances account for very little to him.
So it came as a little surprise last night as rain postponed Luke's ball game that Thomas asked to go fishing. This peculiar child so different from me, so comfortable in a library and so anxious on a baseball field, wanted to ply some lake with his old man while his older brother chose home instead.
This son, so hard for his father to know, was trying to find something we could share together.
We loaded the truck and prepared our equipment. At six yesterday evening, the boat hit water.
It didn't start well. For nearly an hour he threw a crankbait and retrieved it without as much as a peck. He put his pole down and sat for a few minutes looking through his binoculars at the shore for signs of life. The fish were aggressively biting my plastic worm, so finally I decided to tie one on for him knowing it would be difficult for him to feel a bite let alone hook the ones that did.
Soon the fish began biting his worm and several times he got them close to the boat, but never in it. Tears filled his eyes as he lost his third fish. I'll admit in a selfish moment, I begged God to please let Thomas get one in the boat.
I mean, catching fish from a trout farm on a piece of corn or a bedding bluegill on an ultralight rod with a live cricket is one thing. But, fooling a wild bass on an artificial lure all by yourself is a milestone in any fisherman's life.
Number four was the charm.
"I got one, daddy."
I jumped down from the front deck into the bottom of the boat.
"Easy son, easy now," I said. My heart was pounding hard as the fish jumped right beside my outstretched arm. I grabbed his line and airplaned the fish onto the floor.
His face lit up the dusky sky.
It might as well have been Moby Dick to that kid. It was a bass, his first and he had caught it all by himself.
"Has Luke ever caught a bass on a worm?" he asked.
"Once," I said. "He was about your age when he caught it."
"I can't wait to tell momma."
"Me either," I said.
We fished for a few more minutes and also happened to see a small, black bear in the woods above the lake-something, that for now anyway, we share exclusively. As I loaded up the trailer, he could hardly sit still. We got the phone out and he called his mother first and then his grandfather to share the news.
I had a weird, momentary feeling of deja vu as I recalled my first bass. I caught it in the same lake on a plastic worm nearly thirty years earlier. If you would have told me then about this night now, I would have laughed all the way home.
Amazing, the course we can hardly imagine.
We kept his bass and a few other small ones for our annual, fall fish fry. When we finally got home and put the boat in the garage, I snapped a quick picture with my phone of Thomas and his trophy. Soon he sped inside to recount his excellent adventure to the rest of his family.
I fell asleep quickly last night as all that adrenaline finally left me. Before I did, however, I had to offer God some thanks. I thanked him for black bears, largemouth bass, and the ones that didn't get away.
Mostly I thanked him for the unexpected blessing of a peculiar boy named Thomas, for our springtime fishing trip, and the common ground we found together one cool night in April.
Psalm 127:3
Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him.
