“Where We Going Daddy? My Life with Two Sons Unlike Any Others”. What would your life be like…”

The book never names the specific medical conditions his sons are coping with.  Their French disability cards simply say “marked musculoskeletal impairment”.  We learn that they can’t hold their bodies upright without metal braces.  The oldest, Mathieu, can hardly speak at all.  The youngest, Thomas, can use a few basic words, but is incapable of conversation.  Their growth is severely stunted.  They cannot attend regular school.  And they will never get better.  There is nothing to be cured.  No dramatic medical breakthrough can help them.  There’s just the unfolding succession of days, hemmed in by the confines of their small malformed bodies and infantile minds.

Fournier gives us slices of his life with Mathieu and Thomas, served up in vignettes lasting anywhere from a few paragraphs to a few pages, arranged chronologically.  Though not a tear-jerker, the scenes are at times heartbreakingly sad.  They can also sometimes be quite funny.  ”I make fun of my own children,” he writes, “It’s my privilege as their father.”  The book is engaging and evocative.  It’s filled with poignancy, humor, and beauty.  I recommend it just for the pleasure of the reading.

As the father of a normally developing child, I wanted to read this book because I wondered if a parent’s love could be big enough and strong enough to encompass even these really difficult children.  I love my son dearly, but how much of that is because it’s fun and easy most of the time? My son and I play and talk and read and sing together. I get to hear my son say “I love you”.  It’s easy to feel good about parenthood when it’s like that.  But what about when it’s hard and you know it’s never going to get better?   Fournier writes of his sons, “you will never know how to conjugate the indicative mood of the first person of the present tense of the verb to love”.

Fournier’s sadness and disappointment never go away.  He does not have any sort of heart-warming realization that his unusual children were a special blessing.  There is no happy ending or cheery sentimentality.  Instead, he copes with his situation using a combination of irony, detachment, fantasy, speculation and humor.

The opening chapter is addressed as a letter to his sons.  In it he writes, “I haven’t been a very good father; often I just couldn’t take you, you were difficult to love.  The two of you needed the patience of an angel, and I’m no angel”.  However, after reading the book, I’ve come to see the way in which Fournier was, if not an angel, then a terrific father.

Most importantly, Fournier demonstrates an ability to observe his children and meet them right where they are, without being overwhelmed by bitterness, blame, resentment, or self-pity.  He is fully “present” to himself and them.  He is very aware of his feelings, but in his awareness he is not subject to them – he doesn’t lash out, or withdraw.  His clarity and acceptance leave him free to relate to them lovingly and realistically.  One phone conversation Fournier had with Thomas when he was at school went like this:

“How are you, Thomas?”

“Where we going, Daddy?”

“Have you done some nice pictures for Daddy and Mommy…?”

Silence.  Just labored breathing.

“Are we going home?”

“Have you done some nice pictures?”

“Martine.”

“How’s Martine?”

“Fench fies fench fies fench fies.”

“Did you have French fries?  Were they good?… Do you want some French fries?”

Silence…

“Can you give Daddy a kiss?  Can you say good-bye to Daddy?  Can you give me a kiss?”

Silence.  I can hear the receiver dangling on its own, voices in the background.  The teacher’s on the phone again, telling me Thomas has dropped the receiver, he’s gone.

I hang up.

We’d said all the important stuff.

I love the last line, which works at a couple different levels.  The conversation was, to us as readers, nonsensical.  We know from elsewhere in the book that the things Thomas said on the phone are stock phrases that he says when he speaks, and they are usually said without context or meaning.  They’re familiar vocalizations that he makes when around people, but they don’t convey or seek information.  So, at one level, Fournier’s closing line can be seen as an ironic, perhaps even bitter or mocking conclusion.  It also works for humor – “that was the important stuff?!?”  But in fact, from Fournier’s position, that WAS truly the important stuff.  Thomas seemed to know his Daddy was on the phone.  He used his voice to interact for a moment.  He left.  That’s who Thomas is on his best day.  The conversation let Fournier knew all was well with his son, and that indeed was the important stuff.  And Fournier was perfectly OK with that.

Our children, no matter where they are on the developmental curve, are often different from what we expect or want them to be.  Whether it’s that they tend to be slow to get dressed in the morning, or they speak in a way we consider disrespectful, or they otherwise misbehave – no parent is free of disappointment and frustration.  Though most of us don’t have to face difficulties on the scale of Fournier’s, we all have to work through situations where our kids aren’t who we wish they were.  When these situations arise, I hope that I can be as present for my son and myself as Fournier is.  Can I observe the behavior clearly, without labeling it as “bad/disrespectful/lazy”?  Can I put it in context – is it developmentally typical? is it in character? what else is going on for my son at that moment?  What’s going on with me?  What is it about his behavior that is provoking me to become upset?  What am I afraid of – being late? cleaning up a mess? that he will never learn if I don’t teach him this lesson right now?

If I can be completely present and clear, I hope that, like Fournier, I can then act in a way that meets my son where he is, aware of and motivated by my emotions, but not driven by them.  Fournier never stopped wishing his sons were like other children.  But he accepted that they weren’t, and loved them and related to them as fully as he could through every difficulty and disappointment.

And that’s the important stuff.

Where We Going Daddy?: Life with Two Sons Unlike Any Others, by Jean-Louis Fournier.  Written in French and published in France.  Winner of the French literary prize “Prix Femina” in 2008.  The English translation, by Adriana Hunter, came out in May 2010.  107 pages.