If Wishes Were Horses

Last month we loaded up Leslie and the kids and went back to Nebraska for a long weekend.  While we were there, Pierce fell in love.  We had gone back for my niece's wedding and as everybody knows, the feelings of love and hope and new beginnings spill over onto everybody as they watch two people promise to love and adore each other for all time ―  as they support their loved one's head over the toilet during bouts of vomiting, as they refrain from commenting on bad haircuts, as they gag discreetly during stinky farts, as they monitor out-of-control nose hair and yes, even as they silently eat their own soup while listening to the rhythmic slurping from across the table.  Even four-year old Pierce, who asked his mom to please ask the beautiful flower girl to dance with him, felt the love. 

I think this was Pierce’s first falling-in-love experience and when he did, he fell hard and he fell fast.  One look and it was over for him.  It was a transformation as miraculous and unexpected as watching a fat, slow and awkward caterpillar emerge from a chrysalis as a bright and graceful butterfly.  One minute this boisterous, teasing, monkey-like four-year old was chasing his sisters, the next he was standing quietly, eyes wide with adoration. 

You think he was looking adoringly at the beautiful flower girl?  She was beautiful, but his heart was not hers to take.  Even before he’d met and danced with her he had given it to somebody else.  He had given his heart to somebody he barely knew.  Somebody he’d met for the first time the night before ―  his Great Uncle Dave.  You might wonder what would cause Pierce to make a man he’d only known for a few hours his new best friend.  I’ll tell you.  A combine.   One nanosecond after Uncle Dave opened the door of a gigantic metal building and showed Pierce his big, red combine … and semi … and tractor … he became Pierce’s best buddy.  

And then … Uncle Dave opened another door to another big metal building and there was … ANOTHER tractor.   By then Pierce was looking up at Uncle Dave with unabashed adoration in his eyes. That is until Uncle Dave took him "to town" in his pickup truck and bought him a bright red toy combine just like the one in the building.  That's when the adoration turned into worshiping.

And then … later that morning … the heavens opened and rained down candy and puppy dogs.   Uncle Dave drove the tractor out of the building and took Pierce (and his sisters) for a ride up the road.  I can only

imagine that Pierce was thinking how great it would be if only  his dad could fit a gigantic metal building in their backyard so they could have a tractor too.

I worried a bit that being tossed aside like a rusty Hot Wheels and replaced by Dave might hurt Dean’s feelings but it didn’t seem to bother him.  And then it dawned on me that he might have fallen in love
too ― with that gigantic metal building.  He acted like it was just any other metal building you might see on any other farm, but I saw that droplet of drool fly from his beard as his body started twitching when he looked at all the space inside those four walls.  I know he was thinking about all the useless junk unique found objects he could store in a place like that if only … oh, if only… he had a building like that. 

During the trip back home Dean was reinstated to his previous status with Pierce and all was back to normal.  During a ten hour car ride there's plenty of time to be alone with your thoughts and I have a feeling both Pierce and Dean were thinking about combines and tractors and gigantic metal buildings.  I can't swear to it, but during that one quiet moment when the Netflix movie wasn't playing on the Kindle Fire, Myra wasn't trying to convince her mom she "wasn't criticizing" and Emerson wasn't wishing my iPhone battery hadn't died during Angry Birds ... during that single quiet moment, I think heard "if only ..."

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If Wishes Were Horses