The Spooky Thought

It was a night in early October, I'm not sure what year, maybe 2012 or 2013. My wife had wanted me to put up some Halloween decorations before the theater was knee-deep in murder mystery shows.  After all our busy season was upon us. So, that morning, I had pulled the bins of cheap creepy doodads, Halloween super-store props, audio-animatronic toys and other assorted trimmings. With the task partially done, I went back into my office for a few hours to take care of some contracts, emails and other ghastly Administrativa. Eventually, my son, still very young at the time, came into the room and started annoying me. He climbed on the back of my chair desirous of play and attention, but I was busy and didn’t have time to be bothered. Finally, after 5 minutes of frustrating attempts to make him leave, I told him to draw me a picture. I grabbed a box of crayons and some printed paper off my shelf and set him up in the living room. I could tell he was not particularly sold on the idea, but he eventually went to task allowing me to return to my office for tasks of my own.

I sat down and started to read an email requesting an invoice, when I heard a strange noise. At first, I didn't know what it could possibly be. It sounded like laughing—Evil laughing. I got up and stalked around the dining room and heard it again. It was one of the stupid Halloween toys from one of the bins. A spooky plastic door knocker with an eye on it. It had turned on by itself and just as quickly, shut down again.  I was honestly surprised the batteries were still good after being in the attic for a year… maybe more.  Upon reflection, I didn't think we even pulled that one out last year. I leaned over to sneak a look behind the wall into the living room.  My son was still diligently drawing on an end table.  I quickly retreated back into my office. I read a few more emails, filled out a contract and hit ‘Send’ when I heard another eerie noise. I scurried back into the dining room where the haunted junk was piled up. This time it was a plastic haunted phone, made to look old-fashioned. It had started playing a canned sound effect of a spooky butler. Annoyed, I picked it up, made sure that the receiver was on the hook and put it back down. But after a moment my annoyance gave way to a concerning suspicion. These goofy things had been there all day but for some reason were going off all by themselves—now.

Once again, I shuffled back to my desk.  I tried to respond to an email but curiosity got me to go onto Google and inquire why and how Halloween props can fire off on their own. I read some chatter about inexpensive motion or light sensors, shadow movements, electrical interference, and even fluctuations in voltage from their batteries. Weird, I thought. But my list of things on my to-do list was long, so I went back to my emails. I even managed to answer a few before my son scampered back into my domain again. He was excited to show me his drawing. I tried to tell him I was very busy but it was of no use. In a moment his artwork was before me, his excited little face bursting with excitement. So, I looked at it. The picture was of me. A stick figure, with a purple top hat and a long purple coat. Silly, really—but cute. I had a big circle head with blue eyes and a big smile. Attached to my handless stick arm was a coat rack. The same one that was in my office next to my desk. I smiled. He smiled too. In the picture, he had drawn himself beside me. A little stick figure with a smile. Over the small figure was the word “Me” and over the big one, “Daddy.” I told him that I loved it. And I did. I scooped him up into a hug and carried him into the next room, where for a solid thirty minutes, nothing else mattered but us and his Thomas the Train table. Eventually, he began to play on his own and I was able sneak, ever so quietly, back into my office. I sat down, the picture he drew still sitting on my desk.

Then the thought came into my head.  Not a small thought, not a thought of emails, but a deep thought that paradoxically elicited a laugh as it entered into my mind. The picture he had rendered looked nothing like me, of course. It was a crude kid's stick figure, yet I loved it. He had drawn, not what I looked like now, but garbed in my signature costume for a show. He had drawn me the best he could from the heart. He put time and creativity into it. And I loved it. The thought I had was not that… it was something, I considered, more profound. If there were a god—ahh yes, the big guy!  If a benevolent God is up there and any of us humans made crude depiction of him, he wouldn’t criticize us for their imperfection. He’d not chide us for our own interpretations, the colors we chose, the style or what our imaginations crafted. He would love it. As he would know that we made it from the heart… as my son had drawn this from his. Strangely, this is how I came to understand the wisdom of perennialism. The one, however differently people might describe him, however different the image may appear, would still be full of love for us.

I took the picture he drew and stashed it away for safekeeping. I turned off my computer for the day just as another Halloween prop crackled to life.  I smiled—no longer spooked—just strangely grateful.