Alby blog - Freckers

Connect the Dots

The constant gastric distress was making Dad grow pale. Even his freckles, which had always given his fair skin a lot of color, looked faded.
“How about sitting on the deck with me?” I asked. Although we weren’t in the depths of springtime, it was a sunny day. “A little Vitamin D might do you some good. Especially since your next treatment is coming up.”
Almost a month had passed since his first chemotherapy session and Alby was growing very disinterested in just about everything. His pleasures were few and his discomforts many. “Think it’ll help?” he asked almost child-like.
“Sure it will. With your jacket on, you’ll be nice and warm and I think it will feel good on your face. C’mon,” I said, offering my arm for him to hold.
We went outside and almost immediately after he sat down, he turned his face into the sun. “What am I supposed to be learning from all of this?” he questioned. But it was not directed toward me. It was a dialogue he was having between himself and, as he liked to say, “The Man Upstairs”. He looked at me and said sadly, “I’m asking but he’s not answering.”
“You need to do what you always taught me, Daddy. You’ve got to connect the dots.”

I was eight and decided that I didn’t like having freckles, or freckers as my family called them. Actually, it was more than dislike; I thought I was ugly and that the freckers made me look different from my friends who had none. I grew angry whenever I’d look in the mirror and despite the fact that both my father and sister had them, I didn’t want those brown dots anymore.
“I look stupid!” I’d declare. “A stupid freckle-face.”
At the beginning of my rants, Mom was understanding and tried talking me through them. But as my petulance grew, so did her impatience. Eventually, she asked Alby to step in because clearly, she was making no headway.
“Mom tells me you don’t like your freckers. I guess it’s time for me to share a secret with you,” he whispered as he took a pen out of his shirt pocket. “You can’t tell anyone or else they’ll all want freckers and, well, that’s just not possible.”
He had the most solemn look on his face as he sat down with me at the kitchen table. “Do you remember when you used to draw pictures by connecting the dots?”
Of course I did.
“Well, you’ve got to connect the dots of your freckers because then you get messages.”
Now I was interested. Messages?
“From who?”
“From God, of course. And he doesn’t send these messages to just anybody, you know. He picks special people to give them freckers so he can write to them; you just have to learn to read his writing. Here, let me show you.”
He rolled up my shirt sleeve and with his pen, creatively “connected” my freckles into the shape of a heart. “See? God is saying he loves you.” He rolled up my other sleeve and drew a smile. “God wants you to be happy.” He pushed down my sock and drew a Star of David. “God doesn’t want you to forget that you’re Jewish.” He rolled down my other sock and drew an eyeball. “God is watching over you all the time.”
Wow! God was my pen pal! “How do I write back, Daddy?”
Alby didn’t miss a beat. “You don’t have to because God uses his God pen and reads your freckers without you having to connect the dots for him. God picks out only the most special among us to share this secret code.”
For many months after that I found myself drawing on my skin, making all sorts of pictures that I “saw” in my freckles and it was then, at the critical age of eight, that I learned being different wasn’t so bad after all.

With my pen I connected the freckles on his arm, forming the words “I LOVE YOU” from wrist to elbow. “That’s what you’re supposed to learn, Dad. You are loved unconditionally and you can count on it. You will never be alone.”
Alby took the pen and with a shaky hand, drew a tear drop on my cheek.
“It’s okay for you to cry,” he said.
So I did.