Hold the Light

Many father-son relationships can be defined by a single group of words.

“Luke, I am your father.” (Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, 1980)

“Daddy’s gonna kill Ralphie.” (Ralphie Parker and The Old Man, 1983)

“You can’t see the line, can you, Russ?” (Clark Griswold and Rusty Griswold, 1989)

“Hold the light.” (KC and myself, 1987*-present)

When something breaks around the house, KC generally tries to fix it. Oftentimes, the fixing must take place in a dark, hard to reach location where his mole-like nearsightedness and sausage-like fingers prove to be extreme handicaps. Fortunately for KC, two things happened. One, his wife bore him a son. And two, Conrad Hubert invented the flashlight in 1898. So when the going gets dark, I get going. Meaning that I shine a flashlight on whatever it is that KC is trying to fix.

Over 20 plus years, Holding the Light has evolved into a ritual. KC tries to do the work without my aid, but realizes that he “can’t see shit.” He finds me somewhere in the house and asks me to Hold the Light. I dutifully Hold the Light. After about three minutes, my mind wanders and the flashlight beam does the same. KC, usually lying on his back with sweat pouring down his face and the blood rushing to his head, calmly reminds me to Hold the Light on The Work. The beam continues to wander. Then he breaks down and shouts, “Seth, HOLD THE LIGHT. ON THE WORK” and I re-engage for another three minutes.

Really, these situations are more than a ritual. They are an allegory for our entire father-son relationship. KC proactively struggling against Mother Nature, his heels on the edge of the abyss. Me adding to his insanity by not exactly doing as I am told and second-guessing many of his decisions.

“Are you sure you want to use that wrench?” “It would probably be easier if you sprayed WD-40 on it first.” “Are you sure you want to take that off?” “Why didn’t you do this first?”

I have no business back-seat driving these situations. Despite years of Holding the Light, I know very little about home repair; certainly less than KC. But the man has a track record which suggests he could use some help from time to time.

Like when he was working on the underside of his Ford Bronco but forgot to engage the emergency brake. Our basketball pole was the only thing that stopped the car from plowing through a fence and coming to rest at the bottom of our neighbor’s swimming pool. Or the time he tried to remove an axle head from the same Bronco. The greasiness caused his hands to slip, and he punched himself in the face with a closed fist. Or the night he tried to turn off the water valve in our upstairs bathroom. The toilet overflowed. Everyone was in bed, and the front of the house was a swamp before my mom heard the water running down the inside of the walls . Or the time. . .


*Date is an estimate. I was born in 1985, and I figure that by age two, KC would have judged my hand strength sufficient to hold a flashlight.