My father turns seventy-nine this month. When I was small, he and my mother would take turns reading to my brother and me at night, one parent in my room and one in my brother’s. My father had a wonderful reading voice, and we took a mutual delight in the antics of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. As I grew older, he picked books out for me as gifts. They were always good.
When my wife, Sarah, and I first met, we were eighteen years old. During a twenty-hour van ride from Minnesota to Washington, D.C., we discovered we had loved many of the same books as children and teens. She was the only person I’d ever met who had read as much as I had in childhood. A photo taken by our friend Michelle VanNatta on the trip shows the group standing behind the van, looking tired or cool (it’s a bit hard to tell the difference). Sarah and I have our arms around each other and are beaming.
My family’s last name, Matanah, is Hebrew and means “gift from God.” We took it when we adopted our children in the year 2000. They were twenty-eight months and wanted to be either eating bananas or running full tilt around the circle of our dining room, living room, and entrance hall. Sitting and playing, or quietly investigating, didn’t happen for a while.
Sarah and I soon found that reading was an activity that brought us all together and settled us down. Storytelling did the same. Stories, in particular, gave us a way to tame the chaos, to frame emotions, and to create our family story. (Thanks to Jan Norman and the Family Attachment Center for the support we received with this.) Mo and Flo, our dragon mascots, originated with stories Sarah would tell the kids.
When I read aloud, I hear echoes of other voices and other cadences. My father’s is at the base of them. Like many parents and children, he and I have sometimes struggled with each other’s stories. He has become a strong supporter of Rainbow Rumpus, which I deeply appreciate. Happy 79th Birthday, Dad. May the coming year bring many good stories your way.
