Son’s Return From Adolescence Is Best Father’s Day Gift

I received the best possible gift for Father’s Day. I got my son back.

No, he hadn’t gone anywhere. He wasn’t kidnapped or in a coma.

He had just disappeared into adolescence.

As teenage years go, Miguel’s have been relatively mild. No arrests. No running away from home. No serious truancy. Just typical teenage stuff. The sarcasm. The selfishness. The know-it-all attitude.

I had always believed that the best way to improve society is to raise happy, well-adjusted children. But I began to wonder where I went wrong.

Whatever happened to the curly-haired toddler who could count on my arms reaching out whenever he asked to be carried? Or the struggling Pony Leaguer who was so grateful for my coaching that he promised to place his baseball glove on my tombstone when I died? Or the inquisitive child who asked about God and Santa Claus and always expected me to tell him the truth, as if knowledge was a birthright?

Miguel’s now 18. Seems like years since he’s come to me for answers. What did I know, anyhow? I was so uptight. So out of it. Such an old-fashioned stickler for rules. Why should he have to take his stinky feet off the coffee table, or take a shower before going to get his wisdom teeth pulled?

We argued as I drove him to his orthodontist’s appointment just last week. We always argued. About his manners, his study habits, his duties around the house. Or shall I say, the lack of all three.

In truth, I wasn’t expecting much for Father’s Day. But my son surprised me.

Instead of zooming away on his skateboard as usual, Miguel invited me to brunch. I wanted huevos rancheros so we cruised to a tasty Mexican place in Gardena.

The drive was quiet. The big chill was barely thawing.

Miguel ordered a burrito which he considered too humongous to eat by himself. That’s a switch. His appetite for once was less than all-consuming.

And not just for food.

Recently, he dropped in on a struggling new skate shop to buy a pair of shock pads for the wheels, at a buck apiece. The dealer was willing to give him half off the purchase. But Miguel turned down the discount.

Normally, he told me, he’d have jumped at taking any break he could. This time, he thought twice: “What do I need another dollar for? I need to worry about everybody else because, like, I’m doing OK.”

I had often preached to Miguel about the need to think of others, not just himself. Don’t wait until the last minute to buy a birthday gift (on my credit card) for your mother, who dotes on you.

Weird. The message sinks in now, when I think he’s not listening. Why’s that?

“Because, like, when you’re on your own, you just think more about why you do the things you do. You know, your motives. And I just want my intentions to be good.”

When he saw me taking notes on a napkin, he guessed my intentions, with a teasing tone: “You gonna write a Father’s Day column?”

I feared he’d throw a fit, like before. But he was big about it. “That’s OK. That’s your job.”

We decided to catch a matinee. Flashback to the time when I’d drag him to the movies, just to expose him to uplifting rather than downgrading entertainment. He’d gripe and moan, but often wound up enthralled by the family films I forced on him.

Sunday, we compromised with “Gone In 60 Seconds,” an action film that glorifies auto theft and family values simultaneously. Still, we had an hour to kill. Miguel suggested we drive to a record store, but I balked.

“What else are we going to do?” he asked as we passed the mall.

“You could buy me a gift.”

“I have gifts for you,” he said calmly.

We stopped for gas and I handed Miguel my ATM card. “I wish I had money to fill up my tank every time I was empty,” he mused.

At the record shop, he picked out three rock and rap CDs, one more than he could afford. Strange, I said, when you don’t have gas money.

“Dad, you’ve got to learn to pri-or-i-tize.”

I chuckled and he put the rap one back. Even his musical tastes are changing.

We talked about girls and cops and we even laughed at his bathroom humor, inherited from my Dad. At home after the movie, he handed me my perfect gifts: a black pullover, a beautiful guayabera shirt and a book about Bob Dylan.

“Thank you for being a great Dad,” his card read. “And thanks for letting me be here. I like it.”

We hugged. But moments later, I wondered what he meant.

“Here? As in letting you live at home?”

“No. Here,” he said, extending his arms out as if to indicate our spinning planet. “Alive.”

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Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com.