Christopher Grady
Stars and Steps
If I were to rate my son's journey here's how I'd score moments we've shared:
Presentation:
No noticeable deformities when he was born. I counted ten fingers and ten toes. Ten reasons to see a better version of myself in him: all-star athlete, five-star grades, and a kid who had a dad to take him fishing on the weekends. I planned to teach him to stand tall. No need to learn alone like I did.
Five stars out of the womb.
Performance:
His attitude wasn’t what I expected. A boy who hated fishing or playing catch with his dad? I couldn't even get him to mow the lawn without complaints about the sticky Florida heat. preferred to play with Barbie dolls and sing Beyoncé with his mother. Maybe that was the problem: I was letting him be for too long. He shouldn’t have wanted shoes brighter than bubble gum. His toys should have been action figures fighting, not dolls hugging. But I thought I could save him. As his father, I had to help him become the man he was supposed to be.
Three stars for the pink chaos in his room.
Connection:
I’d only caught fragments of his world through his mother's words. Last month, I stopped letting him leave the house if he was only hanging with girls. I cracked down on his foolish vocabulary like “ate” and “tea.” Fewer unrecognizable words left his mouth, though it became rarer to hear him speak when I was around.
I made him join the track team. The boys called him a “sissy,” a name he’d screamed at me for using. Some days passed in heavy silence. The quiet hung over the dinner table like a thick fog. I told myself it was his fault for struggling to accept how the real world worked. But I couldn’t ignore the way his fishing rod gathered dust in the garage corner, untouched and forgotten.
One star for miscommunication.
Originality:
Undeniable. His whole life played like one of his loud, over-the-top school performances. Each phase a new act, each retort leaving me to figure it out. One week, he was a vegan protesting how I was eating oysters, supposedly the ocean’s “biggest hero.” The next, he returned to pop music after becoming a temporary “punk.” With each day, I saw a future closer to Broadway or New York Fashion Week than to a sports scholarship. It all started with “Papa;” now he rarely calls me “Father.”
There was so much about him I didn’t know. So much of my effort wasted in trying to shape him into a different son. One that wasn’t mine.
Five stars for unwavering authenticity and self-confidence.
Final Assessment:
No quarterback to honor my name on a jersey, just a dancer with electrifying spins on stage. I wanted to spend more time with him, but each time he made other plans on the spot. He was noticeably happier outside of the house, where his flamboyant steps and high-pitched voice was surprisingly accepted. My own failures as a parent, perhaps. What he was perfect at being: himself.
Two stars for how long it took to let go.
Total Score:
For days I wondered if the world would let him be who he was, or would it chew him up and spit him out. Yet like a bitter general on the sidelines, I watched from the porch as the other kids chased him home, his eyes fixed on me. Those moments I dreamed would change him permanently like they had me. I thought of my own father, who never let me cry, never let me dance, never let me be anything and reiterated his lessons with his belt. Maybe that's why I spend so many weekends with an old scorecard, tracking hopes I will never fully understand.
No star rating can capture the love I hold, only the lessons I'm still learning. Maybe one day, I’ll learn to let go of the scorecard entirely. And maybe, one day, he’ll let me back in.
Christopher Grady is an LGBT Black teenager from the United States, residing in Virginia. He is a writer aiming to entertain readers and grow his expertise in varied prose and poetry. Some publications include The Disappointed Housewife, Bending Genres, Young Voices of RVA II, Screen Door Review, and Flash The Court.
