Mark always swears that, for one disconcerting moment, he thought the surgeon had pulled a miniature version of my father from my abdomen during Ava’s delivery on September 17, 2004. He says that Ava looked just like her “Poom Poom” (the name my father actually WANTS Ava to call him) in those first few seconds after birth, and she does, indeed, look like one of us Klevars, with round, full cheeks to prove it. Now it turns out that Ava’s also inherited the Klevar gift for gab, proudly passed down from one generation to the next–father to daughter to daughter.
Those who know me well would probably admit to being a little embarrassed, on more than one occasion, by my overly social public demeanor. What can I say? I like people. I like to talk. I like to talk to people! But I can’t even count the number of times I’ve struck up a conversation with a stranger in public, only to catch, out of the corner of my eye, Mark grimly shaking his head at me, hoping to mortify me into silence. In those moments, I’ve understood the shame and irritation my father must have felt when my sister and I would try to head off his overly chatty overtures in airports and restaurants and grocery stores.
Luckily, this is one parent-child indignation I might never have to suffer at Ava’s hands, since it turns out that she likes talking just as much as my father and I do. During our recent Colorado vacation, Mark and I were amazed to witness her hitting up everyone she could–old and young alike–for a little small talk. Her conversations always began the same way. Mark and I would catch her eyeing someone, and then she’d loudly ask the hapless stranger, “What’s your name?” If they replied, which they almost always did, Ava would follow up with, “Do you have any doggies? What are their names?” Once, she mixed it up a bit by asking an older Colorado farming woman, whom we saw in a Subway restaurant, if she was “a grandma” and pressing the woman for the names of her four grandchildren.
Usually, these strangers were surprised and delighted to be so boldly approached by a diminutive two-year-old, and they would respond with kindness and care. During each exchange, Mark and I would eye each other with a flush of pride, and just a hint of “can-you-believe-this” embarrassment, as we watched our daughter working the crowd. However, I felt something else in those moments, too: I felt fear. It wasn’t the fear of “stranger danger,” though, God knows, I should be worrying about that as well. It was a fear of the future. A fear of the first time that someone rejects my baby and hurts her–of the first time a person looks at Ava’s open, beautiful face and then just looks through her. It was my fear of all those childhood bullies who will taunt her for her friendliness, her sincerity, her vulnerability.
In those few moments on the trip when someone didn’t hear Ava’s greeting, or didn’t respond, I would look at her waiting, curious expression; I would hear her sweet voice lingering in the air, unanswered; and I would want to grab those people by the collar, tough-guy style, and say, “Listen here, Bub, my daughter just asked you a question! NOW ANSWER THE KID!!!”
I just have to hope that when those inevitable moments of hurt and rejection come for my daughter, as they do for all of us, that the power of our love, passed down from one generation to the next–father to daughter to daughter–will carry her through.