If you’ve ever gone through divorce, you know too well the toll it takes on you both emotionally and financially. Mine drained me, literally. However, the hardest part was explaining to my son, Nick, why his dad would no longer be living with us and why we had to move places and leave a huge house for a tiny one, which he, by the way, didn’t like.
I was left to drag our belongings all by myself. And that’s when one of the next-door neighbors, Joseph, offered to help, and by sunset, he already moved all of our furniture inside.
Joseph was an easy-going man, but because of some reason, he kind of look sad to me. Who knew, maybe something was troubling him. But he was always there to lend a hand with some quick fixes around the house, and I was grateful for everything he had been doing for us.
Then, one day, Nick got into the house and said something along the lines of “The apology man waved at me today.”
“The who?” I remember asking.
“The apology man. Because he always says he’s sorry and I think he’s talking to the fence.”
That sounded really strange so I asked Nick if Joseph had ever scared him. Nick said no, but then said the same thing I noticed myself, that Joseph was always sad. That’s when I told him not to go visit or play in his yard if I wasn’t there myself.
A few days later, I was pulling weed from the garden when I heard Joseph saying, “I’m sorry, buddy. I should’ve answered. I’m so sorry.”
I got closer and peeked through the fence when I saw Joseph speaking to himself while kneeling and holding an old kid’s bike in his hands. I got scared, because Nick was always around him and somehow, I trusted him with my child, and now he was there crying over a kid’s bike.
At that moment, Nick got out of the house and asked me if the apology man was crying again, but I told him to get inside the house.
Not sure what to do, I called one of the neighbors, Susie, who happened to know everything about everyone. She just said Nick was completely safe, that I shouldn’t worry, and that she was coming over at that minute.
She really came in no time and told me Joseph’s life story. Sadly, he happened to lose his son, Anthony, from an undiagnosed heart condition. At the time, he and his wife were going through a bitter divorce that involved a nasty custody battle. So when Anthony got sick, his wife tried to call him, but he didn’t answer because the two weren’t in good terms. After some time, he received a message that his son passed away. He had been blaming himself for the tragedy for years.
As she was talking about Anthony, Susie turned to Nick and said, “Know what? Anthony had a stubborn cowlick right at the front of his hairline, just like you.”
And then everything made sense. Nick probably reminded Joseph of the son he lost, and that’s why he was sad around Nick all the time.
That evening, I went to Joseph’s place and told him how Nick called him and that I saw him with the bike.
“Is Nick afraid of me?” he asked. I told him he wasn’t, he was just confused.
Joseph seemed crushed. “I never intended either of you to feel unsafe.” He suggested that I come with him to the back porch, where the perfectly clean red bicycle stood against the steps. He placed his hand upon the bike seat. “Your boy looks just like Anthony did when he had that cowlick on the side of his head.”
He explained had happened on that day that Anthony died. “I thought Carla was only trying to argue with me about custodial rights. I listened to those voice-mails too late. I didn’t kill him, but I failed him in the end.” And I understood then that he wasn’t apologizing to the bike for its loss; he was apologizing to someone who could never forgive him.
“Joseph,” I said, “You can’t mourn your dead son through my living one. Nick is not Anthony.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes. You are right. I won’t ever forget that again.”
A few days after the incident, something else made me reflect upon guilt and boundaries. It was a Saturday and Nick sat by the window with his backpack, waiting for his father to pick him up. Alex was already an hour late when my phone rang. As always, he was busy working and couldn’t come. There was yet another promise that he’d take him somewhere special the following weekend.
When I told Nick his dad wasn’t coming, he did not cry. He only lowered his head and asked me, “Was Daddy not coming because I spilled cereal on his car seat last week?”
I felt my heart shatter. I hugged him tightly. “No, honey. Absolutely not. There’s nothing to do with you in it.”
“But dad was sad when I did that.”
Recalling the image of Joseph praying by the bicycle, I realized what unresolved guilt could do to a child. I fixed my gaze on him. “Grown-up sadness belongs to grown-ups. You don’t have to carry mine, Daddy’s, or anyone else’s.”
The following week, we threw Nick a party in the backyard to celebrate his sixth birthday. As soon as Joseph came through the gate, Nick said, “There’s the apology man.” Joseph laughed and then gave Nick a wrapped gift: a bicycle bell shaped like a dinosaur.
He then turned and pointed to his truck, where a brand new, blue bicycle with training wheels was sitting. Before he unloaded the bike, Joseph said, “If you say no, I’ll take it back. But if you say yes, it’s a gift for Nick. Not for Anthony, and not for me. Just for Nick.”
It was an important distinction. “Thank you, Joseph.”
While Joseph bent down to attach the bell, he whispered that he had called his ex-wife that morning. For the first time in seven years, he genuinely apologized for letting their marital warfare get in the way of being present when their son was alive. Alex heard that and went quiet.
A little bit later on, Alex approached, knelt down in the grass, and held the back of the blue bicycle steady while Nick learned to pedal. That day, nobody blamed anyone, no one made excuses, and no one did any finger-pointing.
Nick pedaled enormous, lopsided circles, smiling widely with his cowlick bobbing around in the sunlight. And for the first time in an awfully long time, the adults behaved as they were supposed to have done from the start.
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Bored Daddy
Love and Peace
