Holding Hands with a Martian

Ok, I have it listed as one of my favorite movies in my Blogger profile because I assumed that-- given the premise of the movie--it would be.

And it now is.

I have also joked that the screenplay for this movie must have been lifted from the pages of my life. After all, I am the only single, dog-owning, adoptive father I've ever known.

"Martian Child" is a movie based on the true story of a single dog-owning author who adopts an abandoned Martian wannabe. I'll spare you the many similarities between taking on an eight year-old Martian and adopting an eleven year-old "wizard," but what struck me the most in this movie was a scene that so many might have missed.

In that scene, the young boy, Dennis, is walking about a half step behind his adoptive father. You see John Cusack's character (David) reach back to get his keys out of his pocket. In that same instance, you see that little boy instinctively reach for his hand.

But the hand that little boy reached for went right back to the coat pocket.

Early in our life as father and son, I barely caught a similar moment as we were leaving a grocery store. I had reached out to keep him from getting ahead of me as we crossed the parking lot, and as I was reaching to stretch my arm across his chest, I saw his little hand raise up in an effort to take hold of mine. It was a quick action, and once my hand had reached its destination on his chest, he quickly lowered his hand to his pocket.

I'm not always the quickest thinker, so this took me a second to process. But had I not caught that little motion of his hand being lowered back into his coat pocket, I might have missed it completely. Just like David (John Cusack's character) in "Martian Child." He didn't know to look for it. He wouldn't have been expecting it. But it was there. If you've seen the movie, maybe you missed it, too.

I figured it out before we proceeded to cross the parking lot, and placed my hand on the back of his head and brought him closer to me so he wouldn't get hit. I could literally feel his neck relaxing against my palm. I remember being a little surprised. I had assumed my touch, and any effort to physically "control" him, would be met with some resistance.

Maybe I put too much thought into it, as I'm fairly certain my son wouldn't recall this quiet little gesture on his part. But the message was--as I think back on it--nothing short of monumental.

That was the first time he reached out to me. I interpreted that as the first time he had sent a signal that he trusted me to keep him safe. I'm not a psychologist, but I know how difficult an issue trust can be for foster children. I didn't know what that sort of signal might look like.

For biological parents who have held their children's hands since they began to toddle, this would have been an instinctive, everyday happening, and probably would have ended about the time your child entered a double-digit age.

For me, holding my child's hand began when he was eleven.

I thought about this the next time we crossed a street together. I was a little afraid that he wouldn't reach for me again, especially since it didn't exactly work the last time he tried.

So I held out my hand as an offer to keep him safe with me. He accepted it, then gently and patiently rested his head against my arm until it was safe for us to cross.