Common Ground

When I was younger, my friends and I would often talk about the struggle to connect in a meaningful way with our fathers. They were so different from us. Our fathers didn’t like the way we dressed. They didn’t understand our slang. They couldn’t wrap their minds around our hobbies. Our world views and politics were foreign to them. How could we ever find common ground with them?

As an adult with a child of my own, I would often sit at work and listen to the view from the other side. Fathers complained that their sons didn’t listen to the common sense advise they were trying to provide. They felt disrespected by the lack of reverence shown to their worldview. Their kids were wasting their time playing video games and watching superhero movies, when there was so much world out there for them to see and experience while they had the time and freedom to do so. Why didn’t their sons understand that they were just trying to help?

I didn’t participate very much in those conversations. Sure, there were occasions when my son did something boneheaded that I had to share, but for the most part it wasn’t like that for me and Austin. All we had was common ground. We loved many of the same things and enjoyed the some of the same hobbies.

Based on my conversations with other dads and my own experiences growing up, I understood how precious this was. I was lucky. The relationship I had with Austin wasn’t the norm, it was an outlier. Our shared love of movies, videogames, and superheroes gave me a unique opportunity to connect with my son and I took it.

I loved going to the movies with him not just because of the awesome cinematic experience, but also for the conversation in the car on the way home. We would dissect the narrative, analyze character choices and motivations, and daydream about what we wanted from a potential sequel. Each of his answers gave me just little more insight into the person he was becoming.

This didn’t just apply to movies. We would often play video games in parallel and have the same conversations. I loved watching him grow up and form his own opinions. I relished learning not just what he thought about a particular scene, but also why he thought that. Whenever he told me what he was thinking, I always peeled the onion back another layer and asked what made him feel that way.

One game that we bonded particularly deeply over was Marvel’s Spider-man for the PlayStation 4. It features a sprawling open-world environment and bombastic action sequences that really nail what it feels like to be Spider-man. It also delivers an emotional narrative that makes you empathize for the man under the mask. One scene in the game and the subsequent conversation about it really encapsulates the power of shared interests and common ground.

Spider-man stands at the bedside of the woman who raised him. Aunt May is dying from a plague that was released by the supervillain, Dr Otto Octavius. Her only hope is the lone vial of antiserum that Spiderman secured after the game’s wild final boss encounter.

The problem is that Aunt May isn’t the only person infected with the plague. The last vial of antiserum is needed to synthesize a cure for the millions of others that have been infected but making the cure will take many hours. Hours that Aunt May doesn’t have. Peter makes the only choice that a true hero could. He saved the world, just not his world.

I’m in the living room when Austin finishes this emotionally charged scene.

From behind tears, he says, “Oh my, God.”

“You ok?” I ask.

“It just makes me really sad,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because no matter how hard Spiderman tried, he couldn’t save Aunt May.”

Seeing an opportunity to teach a life lesson, I said, “I think that is the moral of the story. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, bad things are just gonna happen. What’s important is what you do about it.”

“Pardon the language, but that is a shitty lesson.”

I laughed and said, “Yeah, but life is like that sometimes. Just remember that no matter what happens, it’ll get better eventually.”

He nodded, put his headphones back on, and went back to playing the game.

A couple of years after that conversation, Austin and I saw an ad for the remastered version of Spider-man coming to the PS5. Being one of our favorite games, we were both naturally pretty stoked to replay it. Austin said he was going for the Platinum Trophy in it. (A Platinum Trophy means you’ve completed the game 100%, finishing literally everything it has to offer.)

I never could find a PS5 in stock anywhere while Austin was still with us. I got one a few weeks after he passed away. I didn’t even take it out of the box. Everything that I once loved felt so hollow and meaningless. In the months after his passing, I was drowning in my grief. Any time I thought about him, even the good stuff, I cried. I was really struggling to find a way to connect with him and not drown in grief.

Then I hooked up the PS5. I couldn’t decide what to play first until I saw Austin’s copy of Spider-man. When I started it up, something kinda magical happened. I was able to relive some of the good memories without feeling guilty for being here without him. I remembered the smiles, the laughs, the conversations, and all the common ground.

Then I got to that scene.

I thought about all the terrible things that had happened in the last couple of months. I thought about how I couldn’t save the one person in my life that I should have been able to. I was forced to reconcile my failures as a parent against the reality that sometimes bad shit happens no matter how hard you try.

Austin was right. It was a pretty shitty lesson.

But I was right, too. Terrible things happen, but you have to figure out a way to move forward. You must remember the good times and cherish those memories, not hide from them. You have to forgive yourself for not being able to change things that no one could have changed.

Today would have been Austin’s eighteenth birthday. He would have unwrapped that PS5 today. He would have played Spider-man. We would have talked about how awesome it was. There would have been hugs and laughs and chocolate cake.

But none of that happened.

I woke up before the sun rose, stumbled downstairs with tears in my eyes, and turned on that PS5. I stared at the Platinum Trophy for Spider-man. I got it a couple of weeks ago. It didn’t fix anything or change what I was feeling, but it made me smile. Just like he always did.

I don’t know how to move forward, but I think that smile is the key. For me, I have to embrace the good memories and revel in them. I have to remember the common ground.