I’ve Never Been Particularly Good at Knowing What Two-Year-Olds Are Thinking. Why Do I Keep Trying?

Left side opened w/car inside; right side closed w/car outside

This is how our garage looked, all my growing up years in the house where we now live. Well, except for the cars. Not for the years and makes of them, but just the fact that they’re there. My Dad would get up each morning, open the garage door and go out to get the newspaper, and leave the door open. After he left for work, it stayed open, all day, as did most other garage doors on our block. He closed the door each evening after dinner. The right-hand door wasn’t opened very often, as there wasn’t a car there.

It’s a habit I can’t seem to shake. It just seems right…you know. The kitchen seems too dark when the garage door is closed. Closed garage doors seem a little bit, well, unfriendly. And we always knew what sort of person was wanting us: Folks who rang the doorbell? Strangers. People who knocked on the kitchen door, in the garage? Good friends. Now, I’m afraid I’d be a little anxious if I heard a knock on the kitchen door, unless I was expecting the arrival of my own family members.

These days, the other garage door is never opened. David parks his car outside because, well, it’s a garage, and there’s … stuff in it.

Right side garage door–always closed

Not lots and lots and lots and lots of stuff. But enough stuff. And, because it’s never opened, we’ve not fixed the wonky electric garage door opener on that side. The door goes up just fine (as when happens when friends do come to the kitchen door and misinterpret the garage door opener button for a doorbell button and press it). They are somewhere between startled and alarmed when the garage door begins to rise, but they relax when they realize their mistake.

Then they knock on the door and (and here’s the more startling and alarming thing) press the button again too make the door go down. Now, the door will go down. But when it gets to the “closed” position, it immediately begins going back up again. Where it stays. A fine and quick hand is needed to press the button, again, at just the exact moment to get the closed door to remain down. David is the only person who can do this. Not I, not my sons, not their wives, not my sister or anyone in her family. The rest of us just keep punching and trying and, finally, we usually succeed in getting the door to stay down at almost the bottom. But there’s always a foot or so open, and we just have to leave it that way until David comes home. Maybe Peter will develop the skill.

And speaking of Peter, that’s where this ends up. He’s here for a few days, and Wednesday, as we pulled out of the garage, he said, “I want to go in Granddad’s garage.”

“You go into Granddad’s garage all the time,” I said, understanding him to mean the part of the garage where the door stays closed. The door David parks his car in front of. “You play with your trucks in the sand in Granddad’s garage.” He seemed a little skeptical.

Yesterday,  we were taking things from my car (in the garage) into the house, and he walked out to the driveway. He stood in front of the closed garage door and said again, “I want to go in Grandad’s garage.” “You go in Granddad’s garage all the time,” I said again, pointing. “It’s right there.”

But later, I finally got it. At least I’m supposing I know what the two-and-a-half-year-old is thinking. He thinks that door goes to a different place. Maybe a Narnia-like place. Maybe a ToysRUs sort of place. He’s intrigued. There’s a door that they won’t open. What’s back there???

So I did the sensible thing. I led him to the door and said, “This is the front of the door.” Then I led him around into the garage and pointed to the back of the door. “That’s the back of the door. It’s the same door. This,” I said, sweeping my arm around, “is Granddad’s garage. You play in here all the time.” His little face looked thoughtful, considering what I’d said. I’m not sure he believed me.

And I thought of all the ads and promotions and billboards and fliers and come-ons and e-mails that promise the quick and easy way to becoming rich and/or famous and/or thin and/or younger-looking and/or electable (okay, that’s only for a few folks, but I bet there’s stuff out there like that).

We’re vulnerable to taking the risk to see “what’s behind Door number 2!” And most of the time, we’re foolish about it. There certainly are ways to become rich and/or famous and/or thin and/or younger-looking and/or electable. Almost all of them are neither quick nor easy.

When we’re searching for the door that leads to our becoming all-that-we-can-be … it’s easy to find.

 Jesus told him, “I am the Way—yes, and the Truth and the Life. No one can get to the Father except by means of me.

John 14:6 (The Living Bible)