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Category: brothers

May 27, 2011

valedictory

absolutely, and without debate, there has been in our house one recurring theme in the chapter called “high school.”

it would be that phenomenon in which light shines from under the crack of the bedroom door till 3, then 4, and sometimes, ’round 5 (A!M! lest we be unclear), when the first rays of sun begin to dance amid the plugged-in watts of the desk lamp.

and even then there is no clicking off that fool light.

it is a cultural oddity that pulls the grownups out of bed, groggy, at wit’s end, wondering when, oh when, will this cruel and unusual punishment come screeching to an end.

you can stand at said bedroom door, and plea, and scrunch your face, and beg for mercy: “honey, PLEASE, go to bed.”

but no, the typing continues. the boy is hard at work. pounding thoughts, meeting deadlines.

and you, poor grownup, tired grownup, grownup who will wobble through the whole next day under cloak of stupor, you will grow accustomed to this high-school theme: the all-nighter that would not end.

and so, as if a 21-barrel salute to the end of that sweet sad sorry sobering chapter, the boy i love declared somewhere deep inside that he’d go out as he’d carried on all along: all-nighter on the last night of high school.

why, had you thought otherwise? had you fooled yourself into thinking this ONE time that ol’ eight-page paper would be typed, stapled, turned in one sweet minute before the schoolbell clanged time-out, game’s-end?

and so it was, after weeks and weeks of dropping hints (nabokov? checked in with nabokov any time recently?), the dear boy, breaths away from graduation, sat down at 9th hour to begin to type. to see how close he’d come to driving mama over the brink, into the seas of madness saved for those who set expectations foolish high.

and as if to amp the fun, he retreated from his room, settled in full view, just off the kitchen, where i could watch the lines unfold, where i could watch him type his way toward high school conclusion.

look ma, he seemed to type, i can dash off eight pages while you polish off your nighttime bowl of popped and fluffy corn. i can squeak in under the wire, while you witness the whole event.

alas, i could not stay awake past page five. and so i climbed to bed, tossed and drifted to a foggy-not-yet-sleeping place.

i had implored, “wake me at the end, i want to be there for the final period of high school.”

and so, when at 11:53 he wandered by the precipice of my mattress, stood ever still, and whispered, “hey mom,” i barely startled. just rolled over and uttered, “huh?”

could i give it all a read, he wondered, this paper that dissected four plays by nabokov, this paper due third period on the last half day of high school?

without thought or grumble, i ripped back the sheet, pointed my stiff self toward the stairs and down i climbed. i read, i turned small letters into caps, i marveled (or at least i think i did, as sleep was clearly fogging up my eyes and brain).

i slapped the boy upon the back, returned to stairs and up to slumber.

when i awoke this morn, i found the eight pages, printed out, in a folder, tucked one last time in backpack. and off my boy loped, high school all wrapped up in one last all-nighter.

so this is it, the hardest chapter yet, now writ.

the boy who started high school with an undetected fracture straight across his thigh bone, the boy who set out to get straight As, to take the hardest classes offered, he struggled and survived. he learned much, and so did i.

he set out to test his arc of limitations, as emerson once challenged. and hanging on the post beside his bed, five medals, bronze to gold. though the silver that he wanted never came.

he found three close friends, in a sea of 1100. and a boat full of “brothers.”

he has cried in my arms, and raised his fist in triumph.

in the end, there will be no valedictory speech, no fireworks to light the sky.

but in past weeks there have trickled in emails from teachers, tracing back to freshman year, remarking on what a kid he is, and how much he will be missed.

in the end, i’ve realized, it is the typed words from souls who’ve earned his respect over long semesters, over years, that constitute the prize of prizes.

the boy i love, the boy inclined to type all night, he’s triumphed in the end. and i could not be more proud.
nor love him any wilder.

here’s to a summer of no worries, no tests, no papers.

just joy and laughter, and the sweet glory of the journey shared, straight up to the last sure dot on the page.

–the end, sweet will, the end–

this one’s mostly just to record the moment, lest anyone ever debate that the end of high school quietly lulled to closure. there are souls all around this time of year, wrapping up chapters hard and not-so-hard. it is the time of year for looking back, then launching forward. to ends that mark beginnings. tell me what headlines your end of schoolyear, start of summer this time round?

7 Comments
May 20, 2011

practice

just to see what it feels like, i find myself walking past the bedroom beside the landing on the way up the stairs.

i peek in and see the bedclothes unrumpled, just the way he left them. or maybe the way the cat did, as that old striped fellow wriggled out from his No. 1 curled-up napping place.

sometimes, if i’m drawn in, i take a few steps beyond the door, look around, breathe deep of what it will be like.

my firstborn blessed child is away this weekend, will be gone for a whole string of days, and i find i am practicing what it will be like to have him swirling about me, but not here.

like all important acts in life, we practice. try on the costumes. memorize the lines. we stand amid the darkened stage, look out on all the empty rows, imagine our part even when we’re mere supporting player.

in just two weeks my firstborn child, the boy who’s held my heart since long before i held him in my arms, he will walk across the stage and close the page on this chapter called being-at-home. he will move swiftly toward the day we pack the car, lock the latch and drive toward mountains in the east.

and for me that is a rather large bump to get around, so i am already hard at work, imagining my days without him in the deep of my midst.

i am loosening the cords of my heart. i am knowing there will be long strings of days when i don’t feel my arms wrapped ’round his now-broad shoulders. when i don’t see him leaning up against the kitchen counter, filling me with stories, with questions, with laughter from the bottom of my belly.

long ago, i set out to love this child with all the love that i could muster. and i have done just that.

oh, it has not shielded him from the arrows and the sharp knife edges that i had intended to keep from him. and it has not kept his days free from shadows dark and thick and, on occasion, frightening.

but because i set those roots so deep, because i planted him in the richest ripest place within my heart, i will need a little time, a little practice, to right myself, to be steady when he is gone.

so this weekend, then, is rehearsal. is practice. is learning how to be.

just a short while ago, as i futzed around the kitchen here this afternoon, when suddenly i heard a funny beepy noise, i discovered that he was sending me that new-fangled smoke signal known as a “text.” as i groped for my old phone, i found, lo and behold, he’s been sending me poetic texts since last night.

as he rolled, near midnight, through pitch-black kentucky, land from which i hail. and as he rolled this morning into the great smokies, where i lived when i was 3. and he gloried at the hills.

and in that beepy noise just a short while ago, he wrote that he had rowed the course in tennessee — clinch river, its name — where the race will be, come sunday. and the boat “felt really good,” he wrote, then added one last word, the coda to his stanza: “fast.” and i, nearly 600 miles from that river, read plenty into those four letters.

and so i am learning that he can stir me even in typed text on the keypad of a phone. and i will learn, i now know, to pay attention to my phone. to look for telltale signs that he’s dropped in.

if not to the kitchen after school, if not to the side of my bed late at night, on those rare bedtimes when he plops in the armchair, or on the window seat, to unravel his heart… even if not all that, i now know, i am learning, he will still — and always — find ways to stir me.

because when you give birth to love, and you spend years rocking it, and staying up all night with it. and when you walk it into the school house door, and let go of its chubby little hand. and when you sit along the sidelines of the ballfield, and wince, as he strikes out again and again. and when you watch him catch the wind, find friends, think in ways that make the teachers send you notes, when you watch him grow and stretch and never ever shrink from those things that would make you wobble, well, you discover that even when the bedsheets stay unrumpled, and even when the cat is the only one who stirs in that boy-filled bedroom, you cannot help but be stirred by love.

the love that always and forever wears the name of the baby boy whose head you kissed once upon a birthday long ago, as you anointed him with the one word that would forever be his and his alone: will — my sweet, sweet will.

row like the wind, my beautiful boy, while i take a crack at being home without you, without you coming or going as the sun comes up and sinks down low again……

do forgive this long strung-out love parting, as i–like the monarch caterpillar–find myself wriggling out of my skin five whole times before the chrysalis comes, before the stained-glass wings of the butterfly take their shape, soon to catch the wind.

and since i never want this to be about me and me alone, what have been the acts in the story of your life for which you too found yourself rehearsing, so when it came you might know your lines. or at least begin to understand your new part…..

5 Comments
March 24, 2011

operation cupcake

i call her delicious cupcake, that girl so scrumptious, that girl so far away, along the coast of maine.

it’s been too long. so we are winging our way to delight in her extravagance for the weekend, as spring break is upon us and we are putting our world on pause, my firstborn and i.

as delicious as the cupcake promises to be–and ohhhhhhhh she needn’t promise, for me to taste already the buttercream deliciousness she holds–it is the time in flight with my firstborn that thrills me, that has held me steady through this long wobbly week of too much to do, too many bumps in the road.

my little one isn’t too very tickled that i am–for the first time–leaving his side. but he’ll be home with papa.

and a mama needs a trip through the clouds with her firstborn, when college already is whispering his name. when the next trip we take will be to deliver him to his ivy-covered dorm.

so here we go, to savor, to walk, to talk till late in the night. to sit down to deliciousness cooked up by my extraordinary brother. to awake to the sounds of cupcake herself, nearly two years old.

we will wander farmland, and atlantic coast. i will slip into their world for a few short days, and be home in time to start the week of spring break.

but mostly i will breathe beside my firstborn. i will take in all his wonders. i will freeze each and every frame. and hold him deep inside my heart.

and carry home morsels of my cupcake.

whatever you’ve got pencilled into your week ahead, i hope it brings you bliss, and dollops of buttercream. see you back at the table. love, auntie babs

1 Comment
March 18, 2011

the magic of mexican fried steak

it’s not happened often, but every once in a while, a boy runs out of gas. tank drained. big empty. not one ounce left.

and so, you tuck the boy in bed. even when he’s longer than the old twin bed. even when his past-noon* feets dangle over the edge.

you tuck him in and let him sleep and sleep and sleep.

you worry about his weary self. you check on him, from time to time, just as when he was a dimpled little boy. you touch his brow. and when you’re sure he’s in a deep, deep sleep, you kiss him on the stubbled cheek.

while he dreams the morn away, you wend your way to the butcher shop. you browse the steaks, the marbled slabs of muscle. you pluck one that’s on a bone.

you decide that in the hierarchy of mother’s magic potions, you are well beyond the need for oatmeal, you’ve climbed the charts to up where red meat looms. only cure that’s surer is one involving hypodermic needles. and needles make you queazy, so you stick to steak and its soul-restoring powers.

this is wise, because when you dare to rouse the sleeping man-boy, you have arsenal in your defense. you have new york strip to dangle.

why, you’ve seen the circus trainers do the same: dangle steak in front of cats, big cats, cats with killer teeth, to turn them into docile kittens.

not that any boy i know would growl or snarl or bite my head off. but when awaking worn-out, on-empty man-boy, i find a steak is handy.

and so on the edge of bed i sat, whispered words of red meat. i saw the smile spread across his lovely face. i saw the eyelids flutter open.

“if it’s too much,” i said, “we can go with oatmeal.”

ah, no, he answered rather sprightly. “au contraire. quite the opposite.” a steak, he said, was in his dreams.

but not just any steak: a mexican fried steak, was what he had in mind. so, with the click of that magic phone that coughs up all the answers, he typed in spanish words, came up with the abuela’s path to steak perfection, or in this case milanesas empanizada. that is, mexican fried steak.

with one swift leap, he was out of bed and down the stairs. he was talking bread crumbs, garlic, egg bath. red meat. meat so red i swear it moo’d.

we put our little heads together, he and i: grabbed a loaf of challah. swiped off the shelf the dusty mini-processor, a chopping-blending whiz my adopted jewish grandma gave me once upon a time.

we splitzed in bread. we added cloves of garlic. we inhaled. we sighed aloud.

we cooked our way to cure. we shook in cumin, poured in salt, cracked pepper. for good measure we added a little packet of something called “milwaukee avenue steak seasoning,” a smoky rub named for a windy-city thoroughfare where you can’t help but stumble over steaks of every stripe and cut.

“it’ll be chicago mexican fried steak,” declared the sous chef, smiling down on me.

and so, through that alchemy that is the holy work of kitchens, with a little splitzing, the cracking of two eggs, and the bathing of that steak, first in yolky goop and then in silken challah-garlic-cumin-milwaukee crumbs (that sous chef dabbed on quite a blanket there of crumbs), we turned the noontime into one of pure true joy.

we were cooking side-by-side. we were laughing, leaping out of sizzling oil’s way. for that deeply adorned steak, what with its eggy under-garments, and its crumby top-dressing, it was dropped in pool of hot corn oil, and it was turning into resurrection breakfast, served at 12:15 on what would have been a schoolday, restoring life to the once-nearly lifeless.

i never cease to marvel at the powers that rise from stove or oven. how what goes on there truly fills our pores, our weary bones. and most of all the tickers deep inside.

by lunchtime’s end, as the man-boy rubbed the last red drop of beefy juice right off his plate, as he sipped the last of his orange juice, he was joyful once again. he was ready, one more time, to take a lap on the track called life.

i rinsed the plate. i put away the fixings.

and i whispered a thank-you prayer to the abuela who’d led us to the restoration grotto, where miracles come to those who wield the fry pan.

* “past-noon” referring to the size of a foot is a favorite family expression, coined by a state-street shoe salesman who once measured my husband’s size 13s and declared, “oh, you’re past noon,” meaning higher than 12s. we have loved that phrasing ever since. and now two of three boys around here are past noons. and one is approaching as swiftly as he can…

what foods in your arsenal hold the holy cure? for the days when those you love can barely make it from the bed? and why do you think the kitchen is one room that holds such mystic powers??

oh, because we’d never keep a cure from you, here’s abuela’s milanesas de res empanizadas, as translated from the original.

ingredients:
1 / 2 Kilo of beef for breading Steak (that’s just about a pound, people)


2 eggs 
Bread for breading (we used three-day-old challah)


Ground Pepper 
Salt 
Oil
(we added a dash of cumin, two cloves garlic, and a few shakes of milwaukee avenue steak seasoning, a heavenly smoky rub from the spice house in evanston, ill.)

preparation:
for perfection, you want to toss bread, garlic, and seasonings into mini food processor. splitz, or blend, in pulses till the aroma makes your knees wobble, and you consider stuffing fistfuls straight to your mouth, skipping the steak altogether.

Season the steak with salt and pepper. 

(you’ll want two bowls: one for eggs, one for bread crumbs; this is a two-bowl process, although abuela won’t tell you so.)

The eggs are stirred well with a fork, and the steaks are passed in the egg, then go through the bread crumbs and fry very well on both sides. 

Served and garnished with lettuce, tomato slices, onion slices.

you feel better already, now don’t you?

2 Comments
March 11, 2011

freeze frame

i am holding onto moments, freezing frames, as if compiling a loop of kodacolor film i will hold, rub my thumbs along, raise up to the light, memorize, when he is gone.

i am stopping at the edge of his room, soaking in the tableau–the jumbled socks, the soggy towel–knowing that in half a year, there will be no messy room.

i am driving to his school, climbing stairs, entering the gallery where his art hangs on the wall. i am standing, neck tilted back, looking up, eyes wide, soaking in the art, his words, his name on the label on the wall.

i climb downstairs, take my seat in the dim-lit auditorium, look toward the stage, see the curl of his bass, the slick-down curls of his own head, still wet from the shower after rowing.

i lock my eyes on his silhouette in the darkness, as the stage lights come up from behind, as i study that head that i have held, have known, since the hour when i reached for him, newborn, and took him in my arms.

nearly 18 years i have loved him more than anything, have been a player in the story of his life. have known the scenes, most every one. and now, the ones i enter into, i hold onto in my mind, in my heart, as i commit to memory, yes, but even more to soul, the whole of this chapter of mothering. of being the moon to his orbit, his every day rotation.

i hear the drumbeat in the background. soft at first, muffled, but getting louder by the day. as if the dial’s being turned.

the last this. the senior that. final season.

two months and two weeks till graduation. all around me, high school swirls. he swirls. my firstborn, love of my life.

i pore over each and every frame. take time. stop, in mid-conversation, as he lies, stretched out at the end of a long day, reaches for my popcorn, tells me silly stories. i stop and marvel. take in each syllable, but witness too the quirks and gestures i have known for so very many years. the way he taps his thumb, crosses his leg and kicks his foot.

i marvel at the mere fact that at the end of these long days we can unspool together, i can hear in real time, without phone line or typed email. i can, for a few more short months, take in his life in 3-D, full-plane topography.

and so, as if storing for the future, for the days when he won’t be here, won’t be coming home soon. for the days when i ache to see his shining eyes, when i’ll give anything for a jumbled pair of sweaty socks to be dropped across his room…..

i am gathering the frames, the moments of his wholeness, one facet at a time. i am doing what we do when someone we love is leaving, and we are making room inside our hearts to store the memories, the sense, the wholeness.

i am holding onto time as i feel it slipping through my fingers. i am scaffolding my heart for when it’s aching, and these days are no longer……

the window up above, with the candles and the russian cross, that is one of will’s six photos in the art show. or it’s a part of a photo, taken at a louis sullivan russian orthodox church on chicago’s west side. i sat up in the choir loft as will clicked away in the jewel-box of a church, where sunlight played on golden threads and gold-painted doors.

as i try to wrap my head around this leaving, around this chapter coming to a close, i can’t help but reach for words, to try to shade in the outlines. i know there are those who’ve walked this way, did the letting go settle in slowly? did you keep watch as the time drew nearer? or did it come up from behind and catch you unawares?

12 Comments
March 4, 2011

pulling rabbits out of hats

it is what mothers do. on a rare day, on a day when stars and moons and jupiter and venus all align.

it is what mothers wish they could do every breathing day–make it all all right again. pick up the pieces. clean up the mess. shake off the bits of gravel from there on the sidewalk, where the grit scraped the knee. kiss the hurt, slap on a bandaid. make it all right again.

we know, those of us with half an ounce of living, that more often than not, we can’t right what’s wrong. can’t make the mean girls go away. can’t shift the score of the ballgame. can’t even chase the mean coach into a corner, make him tremble for what he’s done to someone we love.

but, once in a while, when the pile of wrongs piles too high, we swoop into action. we make like houdini. pull rabbits from hats.

and so it was the other morning, when i got to breathe deep of that rare sense of glory, of having triumphed, mended a hole in the day of a kid i happen to love more than life.

here’s the simple story, told only to remind me and you that we really can, every once in awhile, grab onto our britches, dash out the door, and make like a hero for someone we love. and of course it’s not about being the hero, it’s about that rare chance to do as we wish others might do for us, be for us. that rare chance to live the magnificent, luminous goldenest rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

how often have we found our sorry selves at the end of our ropes, and wished upon stars that someone would leap to our rescue? and what a beautiful thing when we find that we can do just that. for no reason other than through-and-through, inside-and-out, plain pure love.

so this boy who i adore–you’ve heard me write of him over the years–he is this week about as neck-deep in plain old unfiltered stress as a senior in high school can be: he is in the thick of tryouts for crew, a sport that has kids pulling on oars till they literally see stars and crash to the floor (don’t get me started); he is also in dress rehearsals for the spring musical; and cranking out not one but six art pieces for AP photo class, with a gallery show opening next week.

and so of course this is the week his phone, a fifth limb if ever there was one, decided to sputter and gasp and utterly die.

now a boy without phone is, i quickly realized, a boy whose life is verging on crumbling.

for one, he had no way to wake up in the morn, as that phone serves to jangle him from deepest of sleep, with its haranguing alarm that wakes the whole house–except, of course, for the intended sleeper.

for two, since the world has been stripped of pay phones, he couldn’t call for a ride, or tell me what time to be where.

and the mere look on his face, the oh-my-god-if-one-more-thing-goes-i’m-going-too, it stirred me to muster some forces.

as i dashed in his room that dreary morning, just after he’d trudged off to school, and suddenly i spied the dead phone stiff on the desk, i charged into supernurse mode. i dialed the phone store (from a phone with a pulse, thank you). i made an appointment. i squeezed in a triage, smack dab in the thick of a workday. the dear man at the store, he pulled out a toothbrush, of all the high-techy tools. he oohed and ahhed at all the gunk that had nestled into the cracks of the phone. and then, in unsparing words, he looked up and declared: “this phone has come to its end.”

he rattled through options. i attached price tags to every last one. but then i thought of that kid, i thought how little he asks and how hard he tries.

i told the man i’d like a replacement, didn’t care much that it’d cost more, by a long shot, than popcorn and movies.

the nice man played a rare card: without my even asking, he rang up the bill, and as he punched in the buttons asked me something about was the battery working. i said i really didn’t know the state of the battery, but then when he showed me the final sum, he’d sliced off a whole $120, because he deemed it a “battery issue.”

then he handed me a brand new phone, and i brushed the tear from my eye, sprouted due to his kindness and the mere fact that not even dollars would keep me from fixing a hole in the skin of my kid.

i walked out of that store as if on a hovercloud, my chest nearly heaving at the rare joy of success, my mood downright giddy. what had felt like a mountain just hours ago, was now whittled down to a clearing. i couldn’t subside the pure joy of lifting the load from my boy. knew, through and through, there’d be more times than not that i’d stand on the sidelines helpless, while the stretchers were rushed on the field. but for now, there was only delight.

and that night, when that tired tall kid strode through the door, expecting to spend yet another long night without phone, he looked at his bedside table, and there, lit up and flashing the time, he spied the fruits of my motherly labors.

he practically rubbed at his eyes, as if he couldn’t believe what he saw: the one thing he wished for that day, the one thing he couldn’t possibly have carved out a minute to do, it was lying there, shiny and new, just waiting for him to pick up and text.

it’s a rare and heady day. but oh how glorious a gift to get to play like a mama magician and make one bumpy life all smooth again.

no old hare ever looked so magnificent, no matter the hat from which it was pulled.

have you yanked any rabbits out of hats lately? anyone pulled one out for you?

3 Comments
January 28, 2011

angels among us…

might as well find feathers falling past your windows, that’s how rare it seems these days to find an angel in your stepping path.

but, oh, when they appear, wings spread wide, head cocked at full attention, offering up the whole of their heart and soul and thoughts, well, it’s enough to take your breath away.

and inspire you to be the same: be the angel in the hard-trod path of someone else’s life.

and so comes the tale this morning of the doctor, the medical doctor with the jam-packed calendar. so hard is it to score an appointment, or even a phone call with this busy bountiful someone, that you will pencil in her name on your calendar after turning page upon page. or you’ll wait days for a call to be returned.

it’s not–not at all–that she doesn’t want to fit you in. it’s that she can’t. she is too darn booked.

so imagine this: in an email dispatch sent across the wires on a sunday, no less, she asked if perhaps a certain boy i love might meet with her for coffee on a thursday evening. it would be a fine time for them to catch up, to see how things are going, to see if perhaps there is any tweaking she can do to his medical plan.

imagine that: a coffee call.

in an age when house calls are all but extinct (try finding the box to check on the insurance forms for that one), a revered and blessed doctor–one who surely trekked off to med school to join in the art of healing–offered up a winter’s evening, to share tea and words with a teenage child.

in my book, that’s an angel all right.

can you imagine the message it sends to a kid? you are important enough, i care about you enough, to give up an evening of my time.

not because you are paying me. not because the insurance company will have a clue what to do with any sort of billing code–as if she’d submit one.

because you are a patient—a human soul and body that needs a tad of tinkering to make things flow as they should flow—and i, as a doctor of medicine, have the knowledge and the life’s practice to steer you on that path.
imagine that.

i, for one, cannot stop thinking about it. i can’t forget the smile spread across my firstborn’s face when he bounded in the door, snowflakes on his shoulders, ice clomped on his boots. he had a deeper understanding of how things worked, and how the medicine might be calibrated to fine-tune the machine that is his lovely self.

it makes me wonder just how many angels are out there, sprinkled on our paths.

it makes me want to start to track them, their meanderings through our days and nights.

for surely, they are here. planted unsuspectingly among us, for the work to be done here, can’t be done by mortals all alone.

i am starting here, a list of angels and their stories. we might all sprout wings, if we begin to understand that the fine line between heaven and earth is bridged by those among us who live with wings spread wide and luminously.

add your angels here:

1 Comment
January 14, 2011

sometimes we forget the power of a hug

it was last friday night, i am nearly certain, when my little one, who sometimes is a prophet, climbed into our bed. he wanted snuggles, he said.

and then, as he was wrapped from both sides by arms that have held him since the shaft of light in the middle of the night shone that long-ago hot august vigil on his slippery, pink, eight-whopping pounds, he spoke the words that have blanketed me all week:

“i like when you hug me. i feel like the whole world is around me, and i feel like nothing could ever hurt me.”

i know that’s what he said, because as he spoke those words in that pure-hearted voice of a boy who doesn’t censure a syllable, the words–a mere two dozen, swiftly chosen, unfiltered words–pried open my heart, whirled to that place where they will forever live, and i let out a sigh.

it’s not every night you find yourself wrapped around poetry.

“i like when you hug me. i feel like the whole world is around me, and i feel like nothing could ever hurt me.”

i am certain those are the words he spoke because i wasn’t about to leave anything to chance, there in the dark. or to the soft spots in my memory.

i asked for the phone (yes, in the dark). i dialed my number at work. and i recited the words into the phone, knowing i’d etched them into the digital memory that is my work voicemail.

that sweet little boy didn’t know—nor did any one of us–how powerful those words would forever ring, especially as they came just 12 hours before a madman lifted a gun called a glock (a name that sends shivers down my spine, the sound of cold-blooded crime locked in its clipped hard-edged consonants), and sprayed bullets into a crowd, into the heart–yes, the heart–of a 9-year-old child.

“i like when you hug me. i feel like the whole world is around me, and i feel like nothing could hurt me.”

so we hold our breath and pray.

so we wish.

so we fool ourselves every time we wrap our arms around the ones we love.

as if it’s a shield that cannot be shattered. as if impenetrable walls are forever wrapped around the ones we love, the vulnerable ones, the ones who do not–do not–have rhyme or reason to be taken away.

lord have mercy.

my little boy’s words, now a refrain that i tumble round my brain, like some succulent fruit whose juice i cannot get enough of, his words are what we pray for.

his words are what we need to remember.

isn’t that the prayer at the heart of all our comings and goings?

“i like when you hug me. i feel like the whole world is around me, and i feel like nothing could hurt me.”

we are, sadly, old enough and battered enough to understand the limits of those words, a child’s words, to run our fingers along the sharp-edge where our prayers fall off, and pure chance reigns.

but the words are worth remembering: it’s our place in the world, our place by the gift of being grownups, to wrap our arms around our children, around all those we love, the ones whose breath we depend on, the ones whose stirrings matter.

it is all our children ask of us, in the end, to be their shields from the darkness, to chase away the ghosts and goblins, the creaks in the hall in the thick of the night, the ones that scare them to no end.

they lean their little bodies into us, into our soft chests. they ask for so little: wrap me, make me feel safe, shoosh away the monsters.

and while there might always be madmen, and madwomen, who steal the light, who shatter the morning’s hope, our jobs do not cease.

our arms are forever needed, and the hearts that beat in the middle:

“i like when you hug me. i feel like the whole world is around me, and i feel like nothing could hurt me.”

make it your job to hug the ones you love today.

even when they don’t put words to it; the little prophet reminded me the other night in the darkness.

who did you hug this week? how did the heartbreaking news of the week toss and turn in the shards of your heart?

as promised last week, when i feel the rumblings of something to say, i will put fingers to home keys. i will write as long as what’s here doesn’t feel too lean. and bless all of you who took the time to let me know you are out there….i can’t give up on a place where civility and deep thinking and heart have always reigned. bless this place in the world, and my prayer is that we can take it beyond.
i found myself this week making it my personal mission to add extra doses of decency and kindness. i looked more people in the eye, other riders on the el; i said thank you in a deeper way to those who unfolded kindnesses, large or small. i can’t turn around a nation’s civility (or lack thereof) but i can make sure i act with wholehearted dignity and grace. at every turn.
how bout you?

6 Comments
December 24, 2010

making my list and checking it twice

i know how the fellow feels. being something of a list-maker and checker myself.

poor chubby ol’ elf. all those roofs on which to glide to a stop. all those sooty old chutes to get stuck in, what with a whatchamahoojie poking out from the pack.

after all these many, many christmases here, the jolly one is still making appearance. the little one teeters in that netherworld of probably not believing when he’s out on the school yard, but here, where it’s safe, where it’s home, where there’s no harm in extending the tease, he plays like he’s a believer.

uncanny, i know.

but sweet.

and so, as in so many uber-sized catholic families, as in the town where i grew up, when the gap between the top of the dozen and the wee one at the bottom was maybe 18 years, or 15, or for the gestational superstars, perhaps only 12, we are sending one off to college with drop-down from santa.

it’s the morning of christmas that has long been my favorite, those wee early hours stitched with suspense, with waiting, with listening for footsteps from the rooms up above.

i will be the earliest riser, if my christmas wish comes true. i’ll be alone in this old house where the whole of the morning wraps me in comfort and tidings of joy.

i’ll tiptoe down in the near-dark of dawn, plug in the lights on the tree. turn up the flame under the banged-up pot on the stove, the one that holds “smell,” my now legendary mix of orange peels and cinnamon sticks, bay leaves and cloves, all simmering in a murky pot of boiled-down clove water.

i’ll kerplunk into boots and trudge out in the snow. the birds, top on my list, as i call out, “merry christmas, babies, here’s breakfast.” i think for the holiday i’ll dump cranberries in with their suet bits and sunflower seed.

back in the house, now that the chimney will have been cleared, i’ll lay down the logs and kindle the flames. no fires allowed till the wide elf makes his delivery, but i’ll be the first to see that, by then, he’s sprinkled sweet somethings all about the room, one pile per each boy.

i’ll check the cookies and milk, left out the night before. and sure enough, there will be nibbles, and a ring in the glass. that ol’ elf never fails to leave crumbs and a dirty glass, besides.

but it’s all right, we understand. he’s places to go, and chimneys to climb.

won’t be long till i hear the percussive thud of the boy in the bed leaping awake (the one rare morn when getting him up does not involve trumpets and icy buckets of water). next up on the sound panel will be the little one begging the big one to please please get up. and the big one, inherently sweet, will oblige, will slide in his slippers, will wipe the sleep from his eyes, and together they’ll tromp down the steps, round the bend.

and i, in classic santa mode, will stand back and beam, watching the boys who i love with all of my heart take in the wonder and loot that fell from the sack.

and for the 18th christmas that i’ve been so blessed, i’ll feel my ol’ thumper fill up and spill–the magic of santa, indeed and indeed, is that every once in a very rare while we get to step into magic and let it play out.

same props. same story. year after year after year.

and may we all live happily ever after.

merry blessed christmas to you and to yours. to the little wee ones who fought to get here. to the big kids who climbed their own mountains this year. whatever are the stories that brought you to this holy winter’s morn, hallelujah and joy everlasting. may you find your bliss this christmas.

4 Comments
December 17, 2010

tears of joy and the sound of a broken heart

these things come in emails now. no fat or thin letter to weigh at the mail box.

the mail box is the one on your flat little screen. that’s where the news from colleges lands.

and so, at last, after all the years and months and weeks and days of wondering, worrying and waiting (and not in that order), there came the email that appeared from first glance like any other: sender, subject line, date, time.

the boy on the verge of college discovered it there in his in-box in the thick of 8th-period art class. he yelped, but did not open. he yelped only because it was there; he saw the name of the college, the one he’d decided was first on his list, the one he’d promised to go to, should the letter read the way he hoped and prayed it would.

the boy, not wanting to be surrounded by classmates as he got the holy word, turned off the little black phone. tucked it away. and once the school bell rang, he called for a ride.

that’s where i slid into the story. i was the driver.

but the boy wasn’t looking.

we were heading toward home.

once in the house, in a rare series of tending to hanging up clothes, he slung his coat on the hook, tossed boots in the tray.

oh, lord, why now must he decide to be tidy?

the little one, i noticed, was already pacing, walking in the circles that come when you’re worried.

his father, home with a nasty case of poison from food, had to bite his lip to keep from chiding, wondering aloud if the one with the email could go very much slower?

and then, at last, he carried the laptop down from his room to the old kitchen table where you still can find my third-grade cursive pressed into the maple planks. he flipped open the lid. and couldn’t get into his email account.

the little one paced. the father bit lip.

try no. 2, the back door into email.

at last, there it was, the email marked “amherst college early decision notification.”

he opened.

he read.

someone—i have no clue who–yelped.

that’s when i saw what the little one did: he threw his arms and half of his chest over the shoulder and back of his very big brother, his brother who, as of that email, was really and truly headed to college.

at first not a sound came from the little one. but i saw the arms and the t-shirt starting to shake. then the muffled sound came, the sound of a sob so deep and so piercing i will never forget it.

his face, buried in his big brother’s neck–the neck once broken, now mended, except for the crick that he cracks now and then–soon showed the tears that were pouring.

he hung there for what seemed like half of an hour.

maybe it was less. but time, when it hurts, feels like forever.

and so it went most of the night. tears off and on, all around. joyful ones, mostly, from me. ones that washed out all the oh-my-lord-how-did-we-get-here? and ones that swept over the hours and days when it seemed we’d not get here–ever.

sorrowful ones from the sweet little brother whose world has just shattered. or at least that’s how it feels.
you see, that little brother was the dream come true, the rest of the picture, the missing piece, when the college-bound kid was just a third-grader.

until now, somehow, we hadn’t realized that the equation would twist in the middle, and the little one who’s only known full, who’s only known what it is to have a big brother just down the hall and two steps away, well he now is trying to make sense of how that room can go dark, how the place at the table won’t be set for months on end, how he’ll get through the weeks and the weekends without his big tall brotherly hero?

some time after dinner, as i was cleaning the sink, the big one said, “gosh, i’d never thought that’s how it would be when i finally got into college. there was so much sadness mixed in.”

i looked up from my sponge, and said, “life is like that, isn’t it? so rarely pure anything. so often, a soup.”

later that night, when the little one went in to say goodnight to the college-bound brother, the tears started up again, in a quieter sort of way.

the big one melted.

it was 10 minutes past 9, so i looked at my watch, wondered aloud, “how long would it take to go get a slurpee? bedtime can wait.”

so the two curly-haired boys, one with his heart full of very good news, one with his tank nearly on empty, arm in arm, they trudged out into the dark and the cold.

the little one treated. the big one slurped.

they laughed. they came home. the big one tucked the little one safely and snugly into his bed.

life is like that, isn’t it?

tears of joy, muted by the sound of a near-shattered heart.

it’s tough, this spell right through here, where so many kids i have loved for forever are feeling their futures laid on the line. too many kids are hearing words like rejected, deferred, not yet. hold your hopes. we are counting our blessings, and whispering mountains of prayers for each of these kids. the world out there needs some kind of miracle: and i know a whole bunch of those miracles, kids on the verge of going to college. for those kids, for the teachers and lights in their lives. for the mamas and papas who’ve loved them and worried, and coached and cajoled. for the patience lost and the love discovered again and again. for all it, i pray.

we’re in year five here at the chair. not sure if i will stick to fridays, or just write when the spirit moves me. come take a peek.

and a prayer, please: my dear dear beloved friend katie. her blessed m.c. is 18 and fighting a cancer that will not go away. mightily, please, pray.

and bless you for stopping by here today…..

8 Comments