When is Tomorrow?

The house we live in was probably old already when Grandfather was young. Five-foot-tall field stone basement walls support thirty-foot hand-hewn beams which in turn support the rest of the house. The studs in the wall indicate a time when a two by four actually measured two inches by four inches. Three by five rafters that are notched to overlap at the peak then held together with a wooden peg hearken back to an era when framing practices were radically different from today. Twenty-four-inch roof decking held down with square nails confirm that the surrounding forests and manufacturing practices were also quite different from our time.

To heat our house and garage takes a one and a half yard hopper of scrap wood from the truss plant per day. It takes about thirty minutes to scoop it up with a shovel in the wood shed, carry it to the outdoor furnace, and fling it in. In the winter, chore time is our children’s favorite time of day. As soon as each child learns to walk and speak, he or she goes along each evening, rain or shine. When they are old enough to help with housekeeping, they need to stay inside, so usually the smallest children go outside with me. I feed the animals first, then fill the furnace. The girls seldom attempt to help throw wood into the fire box. They busy themselves with trying to find the prettiest piece of wood or with relating all the day’s events to Daddy. They know the exact spot between the woodpile and the furnace where I can always hear what they are saying.

Scooping wood is also the best way for me to relieve the stress of the day, so too many times I don't really pay attention to what is being said. I make eye contact on each pass and say, “Oh wow” or “That's neat” without knowing what is wow or neat. Occasionally it gets me in trouble when they have asked a question and I say, “Oh wow.” After a few giggles, they'll resume the story as if nothing was wrong.

It has been very interesting to see how differently our son responds to life than our girls do. As soon as he was steady on his feet, he wanted his own shovel to help with chores. At two years old, he was part of a manly team. He tried to hold his shovel exactly the way I did, scooped into the pile right beside my shovel, and even tried to grunt at exactly the same time I did. Now we work mostly in silence except for the scrape of steel on concrete or the clatter of wood into the furnace. Occasionally he breaks the silence to ask when he may have a pony or a puppy or a forklift ride.

One evening I stepped back into the wood shed to find him sitting on some boards with his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees, staring straight ahead. “What's wrong, Sonny?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he replied, continuing to stare straight ahead.

On my next pass he suddenly asked, “Daddy, when is tomorrow?”

I chuckled nervously, remembering that my standard, absent-minded answer to his questions had recently become “Maybe tomorrow.”

My mind raced, trying to find a good answer he would understand. “Well,” I replied, “Right now is today. Pretty soon we will go to bed. Then when we wake up and it is bright outside, that will be tomorrow.” His face brightened up and he ran off to find a sister to play with. I resolved to do better at paying attention to questions and giving honest answers.

I didn't realize how hard it would be to get “tomorrow” out of my vocabulary. I hate disappointing our children in the little things that mean so much. It feels wrong to say, “I'm too busy,” or “I don't feel like it today.” When I say, “Maybe tomorrow,” the disappointment is tempered by the fact that I didn't say “No.” There is still hope that it will happen.

Our situation turned into an all-out crisis. A few days later Zachary remembered the conversation and asked excitedly, “Daddy, is this tomorrow?”

“No,” I replied, “This is today.”

“But Daddy, remember you said that when we wake up and it is bright, then it will be tomorrow.”

“That was yesterday, so this is today, and when we wake up it will be tomorrow,” was my response. His two-year-old mind was thoroughly confused now. Truthfully, I wasn't sure how to get out of my predicament.

How could I explain this abstract concept in two-year-old language? I completely scrubbed “tomorrow” from my communication with him in hopes that it would blow over. Unfortunately the damage had been done already. “Tomorrow” was when all the stuff he dreamed about was going to happen, and he desperately wanted to know when it would come.

It came to the point where his last question at bedtime was “Daddy, when is tomorrow?” We tried various explanations, but none of them made sense to him, and he couldn't forget about it. He sort of understood that the day after today is tomorrow but couldn't understand why when morning came it was today again.

One Saturday morning I went into the bedroom to get the baby who had just awakened. Zachary rolled over groggily and cracked his eyes open. Suddenly he popped up straight with shining eyes and asked excitedly, “Is this tomorrow?”

Remembering that only a few hours before at bedtime we had told him that the morning would be tomorrow, I affirmed that this was indeed “tomorrow.” He bounced all over the bed with pure joy, reminding me of all the things I had said we would do “tomorrow.” Then he jumped out of bed and ran for the kitchen. Knowing what would happen, I followed close behind, motioning for Karen and the older girls to stay quiet. He informed everyone excitedly that this was “tomorrow” and listed all the things he and Daddy were going to do.

We didn't accomplish everything that day that he wanted, but it was a turning point in dealing with the problem. We basically eliminated 'tomorrow' from our vocabulary and instead used names for the days of the week. I also try to be truthful instead of just giving vague answers.

The best part of this ordeal was coming face to face with one of my glaring weaknesses. I tend to focus so much on trying to not offend anyone that sometimes truthfulness doesn't get the preeminence that it requires. It is disappointing how many times I say, “I'll think about it,” or “I'll talk to my wife about it,” instead of being honest about my true feelings. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get this figured out.