/ Partly Sunny

I went to my first wedding this year. It was lovely and uncomfortable because no one ever taught me the difference between the salad fork and the others. I just got back from my first funeral. It was heart breaking and uncomfortable because no one ever taught me the difference between life and death when you are only nine years old. Last night, Tristan’s friend Chaim spent the night, and they kept waking and waking us, and our dreams were unsteady and the light was too harshly filtered between tall reed grass and steep reflections off the water. We went to buy some books and stuffed animals to donate to homeless children, in the names of these kids who are gone. I was so tired.

Today is a birthday, isn’t that the way the old Sugarcubes’ song goes? Today is a birthday.

There are balloons at birthdays, no? There were at Tristan’s, and they guided, and there were today, and you could just barely snap the photographs in time to see the guidewires fade into blinding light. Today was his birthday, and he was late to his own funeral.

Tristan and Chaim went off into the little room where the 5 year old was held in an open casket, and they asked me if I wanted to go with them, but I said, ‘No, you go. I’ll be here.’

Does this make me a bad father, that I couldn’t muster the courage to see what I am working hard every day not to see ever? He described how his hair was combed, and the state of his eyes, and how he felt like being sick and crying at once. Was I supposed to be there at his side, at that moment, whispering words of encouragement?



During the prayer, he reached for my hand, and he grabbed on to my index and middle fingers and squeezed them to his cheeks and was crying, and I almost said, ‘This is why I cannot go in that room.’

We got lost in the cemetery, which is a terrible place to lose your direction, because the speed limit is just 5 miles per hour, so you wind up driving oh so slowly through all these tragedies and carefully manicured lawns and meticulous oaks.

Does it make me a bad person that I am jealous that he has been through all this tragedy already? I am not inviting sorrow, but there is something fulfilling about loss. If I had died at 9 years old and been buried on my tenth 25 years ago, my own father would still be oblivious, and not looked to the clouds and thought, ‘Maybe that shape means something.’

Yes, if it’s sunny, it means he is happy. But had it been overcast, I would have said something else.

It was so sunny today. We needed shade from all the happiness, how it burned.

/ Cradle

You could hear more than the ocean, you could hear children riding broomstick seahorses, channeling their imagination through the waves, leaving your ears damp with saltwater spray. This is why it is so difficult to find them along the shore, they with no intention of living quietly. The intensity and volume of their existence could hardly be contained.

There was a time when I myself would have found it difficult to avoid exploring the ocean, were I invincible and the sight was close enough to be all but an invitation, and these waters empty into the sound, and the sound is deep and full of mystery. There was a time when I would have put the water between my ears and the cries for dinner time, and there was a time when there was no consequence for a long, solitary adventure. The ocean seemed so very close.

Her seizures are nearer together now, and postictal follows her in wider, wider circles, sometimes we put a bowl of water in her arc, but she splashes through, and then leaves wet paw prints around the couch and under the table, and we take turns following, making sure there is nothing sharp in her path, which will not be recharted.

I imagine she is at the bottom of the ocean, looking for some ancient cradle, because it is so awfully tiring, trying get through these last stages. Sometimes she returns, and we come into the house, and there are saltwater tracks throughout, as though she were young, and chasing seahorses through kelp beds and up coral reefs. She is exhausted. She has been walking and walking.

No wonder, we find it so hard to return from our delusions of grandeur, they are the endorphin rich dalliances that test our loyalty to heaven. Sometimes, she stops for a moment to rest, but then gets up on unsteady legs, and, always clockwise, like a baby from the north, like a sailor set out for the new world, she starts her circles again. She sees the landscape in so few colors, if at all, because she is blind, now, for the most part. We call out warnings, but she is deaf. She can only recognize us by our scent, and we must be very close, must stand in the way of her forward progress. It makes us feel like we are holding on too long.

If maybe, for a moment, she might remember that we took her from her siblings and her mother, and placed her in a shoe box, how tiny she was, she might stop walking in circles, out towards the ocean, maybe wonder if her brothers and sisters were taken quite so far from the sea, if they are still out there. She might reject us as she prepares her return, but then she seems to come through the fog, the heaving of her chest slows, and she lies at our feet, as though she is the one who is grateful.

We are preparing for all these departures with no excessive fanfare, but simply holding our ears to our pillows, as we turn away each night, dreaming in unsteady waves like rivers to the sound.

/ Friday

"Dad, can Cameron spend the night?"

Dear Tristan, I hope one day you will realize how much of a decision this actually is, allowing another human being who is as loud and messy as you to stay in our home rent- and consequence-free.

"No."

"Pleeease!"

"Ask your mom."

"She said to ask you."

Overheard from the other room, "I said 'NO!'"

"Then no."

"PLEEEEEASE!"

"Fine. Now shut up."

Dear Tristan, I hope one day you will realize that adults who are losing their hair require silence in the house above all else. This requirement is non-negotiable at 3 AM.

"Hey! What is the racket?"

"Cameron keeps telling me jokes!"

"Sorry!"

"Okay, here is a joke: Knock knock."

"WHO'S THERE???"

"SHUT THE HELL UP AND GO TO SLEEP!"

"I like it when your dad says bad words!"

Dear Tristan, I hope one day you will realize how much I always liked saying bad words in front of you and Cameron.

"Dad?"

"What?"

"Cameron was wondering if you had any batteries. The flashlight doesn't work."

"Sometimes the light goes out too soon. That means it's time to sleep."

Dear Tristan, sometimes the light goes out too soon. I am sorry for this.

* * *

"Dad?"

"No."

"Can I go to Otter Beach with Cameron?"

"Sure."

"Really?"

"OF COURSE NOT."

"But Cameron is allowed to go!"

"Look, you may not realize this, but do you know why we do not allow you to go out all over the place by yourself?"

"Because you love us?"

"No. Because exercising our authority at home is how we release our frustrations from being told what to do at work."

Dear Tristan, of course it is because we love you.

* * *

"Tristan!"

"What?"

"There is a four year old kid underneath the kitchen table!"

"That's Sean."

"Oh, that's Sean."

"…"

"Tristan?"

"What?"

"WHO THE HELL IS SEAN?!?"

"That's Cameron's brother."

Dear Tristan, if you ever let your younger sister out of the house, you will be reading this from the Witness Protection Program.

"Hey, guys, would you stop running out onto the dock?"

"Why?"

"Dad, tell them about that kid who drowned here!"

"Tell us!"

Dear Tristan, there are some things I didn't tell you and Cameron about that kid who drowned. I didn't tell you how I could hear his mother screaming from across the lake. I didn't tell you how every one of us wanted desperately to dive into the cold, dark waters. I didn't tell you how helpless we felt, how my own near drowning as a child has never wandered far from my memory, how I could never think about that kid without imagining my own children off that unforgiving shore. This was just last weekend, and as much as I was desperate to frighten you back onto dry land, it was your tenth birthday, and I didn't want it to be burdened with lessons disguised as warnings disguised as our own worst fears.

"Dad?"

"Yes, son."

"You heard about Cameron and Sean?"

"Your mom told me."

"Even the kids who didn't like him today were crying."

"I know. I know."

"Were you crying?"

"I was crying."

"I'm going to hang up now. I can't talk anymore."

"I know, sweetie."

Dear Tristan, some children grow up so very fast we cannot possibly keep up. It may not seem fair how dimly we want you to burn, how long, how close to home, close enough to hold you out of the winds, in our hands, nearer to our chest, in our laps, our sight, our hope.

Know this about your friend. He was the oldest nine year old I ever knew. He said hi to me almost every evening I came home from work. He called me by my first name, and he had earned it. Once, I came home after dark from a run, and I saw him walking home by himself. I picked him up and drove him the rest of the way and it reminded me of when I was that age, and we were allowed to roam miles away from home. I never begrudged him this freedom any more than I restricted it from you. There are no easy rules when it comes to how we raise our children.

We are richer for our friendships in life, however brief they may be. We are some of us so very much richer than others, however much it may not seem.