Jon was asked by a friend to write something for her blog, so since he wrote it for her blog...he may as well write it for my blog. So, this is posted by Jon.
I am short. I stand a mere seven inches above five feet, and I haven't grown since I was in the ninth grade. My height was something of a challenge for me as a teenager. I grew up in Indiana, the heart of basketball country, and I had no vertical jump or outside shot to make up for my lack of stature. In pictures with my friends, I look like I'm two grades behind them. And I spent the night of my prom looking up at my date who was a good four inches taller than I.
I always felt somewhat inadequate because of my height. I compensated in other ways by focusing on academics and theater while in high school—neither of which made me part of the “cool” crowd but both of which gave me a sense of identity and influenced my current career.
Today, I have four children, three of whom have chocolate-brown eyes, inherited from their mother. In many ways, their nature is also similar to my wife’s: unassuming and confident. I get occasional glimpses, but rarely do I see in them the insecurities that plagued me at their age. My oldest is already a good four inches taller than I am and the next two are on track to make me look like a hobbit in future family pictures.
My youngest son, however, is my spitting image: blond hair, blue eyes, and--if his measurements at two years are any indicator—small stature. It’s not hard to notice in school performances where he stands about as tall as the kindergartners (he’s in second grade right now). In the last couple of years, since he started noticing his height deficiency, I’ve seen him trying to compensate just like I did, but since he’s so young most of his attempts are in the physical realm. He wants to race the car down the block when we drive home from Grandma’s house; he wanted to earn a pogo-stick world record so he jumped 12,000 times in a row; and, like his older brother, he takes karate lessons.
This week I watched him participate in a karate tournament. One event had him wrestling with a competitor that was easily a foot taller than he. As I watched the other boy literally lift my son off the ground and spin him down to the mat, I had flashbacks to my own frustrations as a child. As he left the mat in defeat, I was pained to see the tears in his blue eyes—tears of pain, I knew, but also of humiliation. I comforted him the best I could.
Less than five minutes later, it was his turn to face another competitor—and, yes, this one also stood a foot taller than my son. But without hesitation, my son wiped his tears and stepped onto the mat again. This match was pretty much a repeat of the previous one, and as he left the mat in defeat again, I was reminded of Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, who defined courage as knowing you’re licked before you begin but seeing it through anyway. I realized that, tucked into my arms was a little 8-year-old version of Mrs. Dubose.
How thankful I am for weaknesses that push us to excel, that give us a chance to develop the courage we’ll need to face daunting odds in life. I don’t worry about my son, even though I fear he may be frustrated with being short for a long time. Eventually, he’ll learn to define himself another way, just as I did.
I know he will. I see it in his eyes.
