While I was unpacking groceries on a Sunday afternoon, Mark shouted those instructions to me from a few rooms away. He was relaxing on the couch, with beams of long-awaited sunshine bouncing at him from all sides. A few seconds passed before I understood his directions. It wasn't until I heard some very familiar voices ringing after him that I knew exactly what he meant. Hearing the voices of Dory, Marlin, Nemo and his aquarium friends quickly transported me back in time eleven years. They took me away from my present kitchen, surrounded by boxes of cereal and jars of peanut butter, to the front seat of my very first, and perfectly clean, mom-car.
Those characters project the voices of Reese's babyhood. The voices that soothed him during the countless long drives we took between our home and his grandparents' homes two hours north. That movie played on repeat for many months before we ever took it out of the van and into the house to watch it on a real television. Mark and I had memorized every single line before we ever viewed any scenes with our eyes. That movie and those voices represent such a memorable point in our lives: the extremely short period of time when our family was only just beginning, when there were just three of us.
So, on this recent sunny winter Sunday, when Mark stumbled upon Finding Nemo on TV, he instinctively quit flipping channels and called me into the room. When I stopped at the carpet, I expected to see a few of the kids sitting on the couch with him, or sprawled out on the floor. Except nobody was around. The kids were nowhere to be found. It was just Mark...watching Nemo...alone.
Curiously, I asked, "You're watching this all by yourself?"
"Yeah. It's such a cool movie. It's so colorful," he said.
That's when I gazed up at the television with him and realized he was right. The movie is breathtakingly beautiful. The bright and vibrant hues reel you in, making anyone watching feel entranced by the pure artistry. I snuggled down under Mark's arm, and we watched that familiar cartoon...together...while our four children were playing somewhere else in the house.
I held Mark's hand and secretly reminisced about Reese's baby years. I thought about how much he has grown and changed since he went everywhere in his car seat, with our fluffy golden retriever at his feet and the soundtrack of his life being the fish from the reef in Finding Nemo.
In half a year, he'll be a teenager. In just a few more, he'll be the one driving the car. How did that happen? As Marlin cradled Nemo in his fins, I wondered if Mark was thinking about his own relationship with our sons. Dads know they need to let their boys become young men, yet how do they know when and how and which way is best?
Is it strange that we're so attached to this movie and these memories that it brings up that we would watch it by ourselves? Who could have known that when our new mini-van included a free copy of Finding Nemo, it would have woven itself into the fabric of our family for so many years to come?
Do you have a movie or show that reminds you of your children's baby years? Do you look back on it fondly or wish you could break the disc in half?
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