“The cup of a carpenter.”
For as long as I can remember, and as most certainly confirmed by the remnants of my blogging years, I’ve romanticized the idea of finding my soulmate, settling down with her, growing a large family together, and aging gracefully into our third act, surrounded by a dozen grandBenchlys who are gobsmacked by my 2nd-grade-level magic tricks, bemused by my bad jokes, and susceptible to giggle fits whenever in my company.
A friend once told me I’d be a good dad. I wanted to be a grand one.
I had visions of greeting the grandBenchlys by lifting them up, turning them upside down, and joking that I was hoping some spare change would fall out of their pockets. I planned to take them to their first baseball games, as my father had taken my children, as his father had taken me. I’d even help them to understand the infield fly rule, calling it just the tip-of-the-iceberg proof that baseball was the chess of athletics. I’d take them on train rides. I’d keep the candy bowl filled in the kitchen. I’d let them stay up late.
A friend once told me I’d be a good dad. I wanted to be a grand one. The Caucasian Russell Huxtable, father to Cliff, grandfather to Rudy. Adored by the live studio audience that was my family.
“We named the dog Indiana.”
For as long as I have been chasing this holy grail dream, fully realized in my head, it was all going to start with a daughter named Eleanor.
In these daydreams that peppered my life—before I became Grandpa Benchly, after we became Mr and Mrs Benchly—we were going to have a girl named Eleanor. (We would have named her Agatha, but Mrs Benchly vetoed that idea by way of assigning that name to our dog.)
I don’t know why Eleanor, to be honest. Eleanor Bartlet? Doubtful. Eleanor Roosevelt? Maybe. Eleanor Rigby? Possible. All I know is, she was going to be Eleanor Elizabeth (ee for short), the first in a long line of quirky, imaginative, precocious daughters with no brother in sight. I’m also not sure why I could never imagine having a son. All I know is I was fully prepared to be surrounded by an armada of powerful Benchly women. And then the strangest thing happened. The armada was built, just not how we expected it.
Over the years and through marriage, we became the proud aunt and uncle to a long line of strong, phenomenal, precocious nieces—eight to be exact—with no nephews in sight.
“At my age, I’m prepared to take a few things on faith.”
The last of our nieces, Niece #8, joined the world around the same time Mrs Benchly and I realized that a daydream should never be mistaken for a map with an X marking the spot. She was born after we had begun to come to terms with that word that does not mean what you think it means. After we had composed an email with the subject line “Interested in adoption.”
Six months later, we took a leap of faith and two years after that, Baby Benchly, a curious, brave, precocious boy, arrived to say we had chosen wisely. And boy, had we ever. These last five years sitting front row to his motion picture have been pure joy.
“Indiana, let it go.”
It’s a funny thing what happens when you finally take a sip from the holy grail.
For the last five years—though it has, at times, felt like 700 years—Mrs Benchly, Baby Benchly, and I have been anxiously awaiting the next ship of our armada to set sail. Eleanor or not, we were convinced we were a family of four ready to not be three. You could even say we were so focused on what we were seeking, we began to ignore the boundaries of our own mortality. Months stretched into a year and then more and eventually, we could no longer ignore the arithmetic in our head or the achy joints in our bodies.
You see, no cups in our home give everlasting life.
Yesterday marked Baby Benchly’s fifth birthday, which is fitting. Because five years ago today we sipped that holy grail and today we’re ready to let it go. To publicly acknowledge the illumination that we’ve known in our hearts for some time now. We are no longer reaching, grasping for that cup. Instead, we’ve turned around to embrace and celebrate that of which we are so proud: our beautiful, strong, one-of-a-kind, three-ship armada.
Benchly'sword 