My Hero

He teaches fourth grade in the public school. And he’s good at it. He should probably just be a hero for that. But since he commutes 45 minutes across the border into Maryland, he thinks it’s important to have his wife at home base for the children. So he works another job as well. It’s mainly a summer job, working for his father-in-law as a landscaper. But to insure his summer position, he works Saturdays in the busy seasons of spring and fall. Not only that, he’s also the coach of his son’s baseball team and the assistant coach of his daughter’s softball team. My husband is my hero. This is what I was thinking as we enjoyed some conversation on the back porch Thursday night. We were talking about our oldest daughter. It was “Take Your Child to Work Day,” and Solanna spent the day with Matt on the job. For about two weeks now, she has been struggling with some anxiety. It is most prevalent when she’s alone in bed, thoughts storming in her head, and she just can’t calm her mind and get some sleep. Matt knows all too well about battling anxiety. The night before, we laid in bed wondering why it has once again reared its ugly head in our daughter’s life. Was there something going on that we didn’t know about? It had been so long since she has struggled with this, and it was discouraging for her to discover that the war wasn’t over like she thought is was. While we were discussing it in bed the other night, Matt remembered that the last time she had this issue she was coming to the end of fifth grade, anticipating middle school. The looming transition seemed to put her anxiety on alert. Now, here she is three years later loving middle school, and about to transition into her high school career. I hadn’t made the connection. Matt then made some other connections of social changes in Solee’s life, and it all became pretty clear. He said he would talk to her in the morning on the way to work. When they arrived home from their take-your-daughter-to-work bonding, they shared funny stories from the day over dinner, and then Matt and my son, Haydn, were off to practice. Solee said that she would walk the dog with me. My brain was pretty fried from my day, but Solee was chatting away for our mile walk. I sensed that she had something more important she wanted to share with me, but I sadly didn’t take the opportunity to lure it out of her. I gave in to my mental fatigue. Later on the back porch with my husband, after all the kids were in bed, I heard about their discussion. I was in awe as my husband told me what he shared with Solanna about the connections he made--the struggles that he and I went through growing up, bad decisions and their consequences, the reality of life, the gospel, and the love we have for her no matter what. I wasn’t surprised, however. Matt is so good at talking to the kids. Now I realized Solee’s eagerness on our walk. She probably wanted to talk more about it with her mom. My wonderful husband, who was undoubtedly exhausted from his day, took the time to talk about things that may have even been a little uncomfortable for him. At the end of their talk, he encouraged Solee that we are both there for her anytime she needs to talk. And then I vegged out on our walk. Ugh. Of course, I’ve had plenty of deep conversation moments with Solee in the past, but I lost that opportunity. Matt doesn’t blog about being a good dad. He doesn’t write books on how to talk to your kids, or how to live out biblical manhood. He just works hard and loves hard. He’s my hero.