Tom felt so tired, sitting alone in his house. The television was on, but he did not even know what he was watching.
He sat with a stack of old photo albums and was spending the evening looking at the pictures, going back to when he was a little boy. As he flipped through the pages, Tom cringed in embarrassment. Every photograph he was in with another person, Tom had held two fingers up behind the person’s head, making bunny ears.
It made no difference who it was—his sister and brothers, parents, grandparents, friends and classmates. Just as the camera snapped, the bunny ears appeared. This was kind of cute when he was small, but his habit became annoying in high school. In the football team group picture, he stood next to the coach and gave him the bunny ears. At graduation, he managed to get his fingers behind the head of the class valedictorian as she gave her speech.
This became a serious issue on his wedding day. His mother-in-law did not appreciate it one bit when he held up the bunny fingers behind his bride, behind the minister, even his wife’s grandmother who had flown in from Alaska for the occasion. After a while, his mother-in-law absolutely refused to have her picture taken with Tom, no matter what the momentous occasion was. When she died, her husband and sons made a point to keep Tom out of every photograph taken at the funeral.
When his children were born, he held up bunny ears with his right hand over the baby’s head and with his left over his wife’s head as she joyfully held them for the first time in the delivery room. When his children stood on the front steps of the school on the first day of kindergarten, proudly smiling and wearing their backpacks, Daddy Tom was there with his fingers behind their heads.
At one point, his wife’s family began to compliment him on how well the pictures he took turned out. In fact, they said, no one could do justice to photographs taken at family reunions as he did. They thought he should take all the pictures because he did such a good job. Humbly Tom declined the honor because he said he never felt comfortable with cameras. The responsibility of being the official family photographer was just too great.
So he continued with his bunny ears at every graduation, wedding, funeral, anniversary and vacation stop. Who could concentrate on the beauty of Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore while Tom grinned and put up his two fingers behind every family member, no matter how old or how young.
The only time he did not bring out the bunny ears was at his wife’s funeral, but only because he was in no mood to be in any pictures at all. In fact, he hadn’t bothered to be in any photos at all since his wife died.
That was why he was sitting alone at home looking at all the pictures, wishing that he had not been so consistently infantile about reducing the commemoration of every one of life’s milestones into a sight gag. Tom pulled one particular picture of his wife from an album and held it up for closer inspection. Even after putting up with his foolishness for almost half a century, she still had the prettiest smile he had ever seen on a woman’s face. And he ruined it every time.
Tom’s face twitched with pain from his chest and dropped the photography, and he never was ashamed of his silliness ever again.
***
The funeral home was crowded the day of Tom’s funeral. Even his wife’s family was there, all lined up to give his grown children a hug and kiss. Eventually, the brother and sister excused themselves for a moment, and they went to the casket, which they insisted be left open for the service. Dad still looked very handsome, they tried to explain to the funeral home director.
“Quick,” his daughter whispered to her brother, “before anyone notices.”
The son pulled out his camera while his sister leaned over the casket held up her hand behind Tom head and made bunny ears. She looked at her brother and smiled, tears in her eyes.
“Take it.” She looked at her father. “This is for you, Daddy. We love you so much.”