Christmas Spirit Nov. 2009

Each week my 5th grader brings home a hand written report detailing events of the past days at school. His accounts are brief and chock full of misspellings. But what they lack in flourish and perfection, they often make up for in thought and spirit. “What I Did This Week” generally involves a list of the sports he played at recess. Followed by the “What I’m Proud of This Week” which is frequently tied to some success at the sports at recess. It’s all rounded out with the “What I’ll Work on Next Week” section which almost always involves a variation on the theme, “I will try not to talk while the teacher is talking.”


But these little reports also contain tiny little glimpses into my 10 year olds’ psyche. Like the day he wrote that he was proud he tried a new food at lunch—but didn’t like it. The day he wrote that he was proud he finished a book and followed that with the enthusiastic report that it was the best book he’d ever read. But occasionally there is a little gem of a story, scrawled in heavy hand that I tuck away as a little Christmas Present no matter what time of year it is. Like the day he wrote, “I’m proud I worked with the new kid at school today.”

When I asked for details, he shrugged and said, “Oh, yea, no one wanted to be his partner so I said I wanted to be his partner.”

“Wow, John, that was really cool of you,” I said.

“Yea, and mom, he is really nice and funny and I want to have him come over and play sometime.”

With Christmas just weeks away our conversations frequently turn to buying gifts and writing wish lists and getting it all done by the big day. But we also chat about generosity, and giving, and the real meaning of Christmas. The thing is, I believe it’s a year round lesson and that growing a generous spirit can’t be cultivated in just a few weeks before Christmas.

Among the dozens of collections contained in my youngest son’s room is an ever expanding rock collection. At bedtime he will frequently tell me he’s given away his favorite rock or fossil because a friend didn’t have one. Most times his action is completely without thought of what he is giving up and that is occasionally followed by second thoughts at bedtime. But, in the end, we usually agree, it feels pretty good to give someone a special thing that has meaning to us and he falls asleep happy.

Each night I search these blue eyes that stare back at me at bedtime, for the little daily Christmas Presents of a spontaneous kind heart, and generous nature. I squeeze my eyes shut tight when they wrap their arms around my neck. I think how much I love their kind little souls and feel proud that this week we nurtured their generosity beyond the Christmas spirit--the best Christmas gifts they could ever give me.

Planet John Aug. 2010

From the moment his feet touched down on this planet, our youngest son Jake has been drawn by one gravitational pull only. His entire world spins on the axis of one taller older mirror image of himself, his older brother.

It is exactly what I had dreamed of 10 years ago when we decided to see if a second child would become a part of our future. I remember the exact moment I knew for sure I wanted to try for a second baby. I was watching out the kitchen window as our first born sat alone in the sandbox in the back yard digging in the sand quietly. He was a happy contented child, but I knew the moment his brother appeared in the hospital room and, just a few hours old, turned his head toward the first sound of John’s voice, that my wish had been granted. John would never again be alone. No matter what happened to me and his dad, he would always have this little blond headed spitfire dashing about his world to be his friend, his team mate, his confidant, his brother.

This fall Jake is finally able to join John in the time honored tradition of wearing shoulder pads and a helmet and for the first time, playing the sport he seems born to play alongside his older more seasoned brother. He’s watched from the sidelines for the last two years, eagerly longing to strut about, padded from head to toe, but mostly just longing to be with John.

But now for the first time in 9 years something else is happening this fall. John is going off on his own adventure to experience a new phase of his life. He’s become a Middle Schooler. For every way he’s been building up to this new change, his brother has watched and anticipated by his side as he checked out his new locker, the new hallways, the new school.

What Jake didn’t anticipate is how his world would start spinning a little differently. For the first time he is just Jake, not Jake and John. At church when it came time last week for the kids to go to Sunday school, the Middle School students sat tight. They have their own time and space now away from the younger kids. Jake, who normally bounces off without even a glance back at me, turns his head in a steady even stare and says, “I’m not going.”

What he means is, “I’m not going without John.”

He would not be convinced. That’s when I realized, the world as he knows it is stopping on a dime, and no one could have prepared him for it. The walk to and from school is without the pal to tell stories to and confide secrets to along the way. Lunch time won’t include the traditional bump or high five from the cool 5th grade friends of his older brother.

In fact, the very way he looks at himself is changing. As much as he wants to fight it, Jake is learning to be Jake without John. A completely foreign and uncomfortable adventure he would rather not be on. And as patient and tolerant as his brother has been all these years of having this little shadow tag along through life, now, Jake is neither.

It isn’t easy to see him struggle through these days, but in the end I know he must become his own man and that only comes from times like these. I know that not every family has siblings that are this tuned-in to one another with so many similar interests and a real mutual desire to be together. I am certain that the planets must have been in line the day Jake was born and I remain grateful that the gravitational pull of his brother is no less strong today than it was the day Jake searched the room for that familiar voice that would become the center of his universe.

Middle School Maze

There is something about taking a walk in crunchy leaves that is nostalgic. Each crackling step conjures up a thought or memory like a flash of sunlight through golden branches.

In a blink, there you are as a child romping in the leaves raking with your grandpa and giggling cause he uses swear words your parents won’t use; a second later you’re playing hide and seek with your own tow-headed toddlers delighting in the piles for diving and rolling about; and just as fast you’re on a romantic Door County walk, fingers entwined, in a life less complicated long ago.

I have time most days to treasure these walks in the last warm days before the cold chases me in too fast to enjoy a daydream. I always share my trips about the neighborhood with my furry pal, Bucky, the family golden retriever.  Today I noticed he has licked a sore spot on his back leg. Craig says it’s because the last few days I’ve been called away to other appointments and have missed our daily walks and, in fact, quite a bit of the day altogether. “He misses you,” Craig says.  “He follows you around all day every day, and when you’re gone he doesn’t know what to do.”

While it’s flattering to be needed, it also brings a sense of responsibility to do something to help, even when you know you can’t.  And Bucky will have to take a number.  I’m already plenty busy with that very same feeling with my oldest and his first weeks in the turbulent waters of middle school.

I would love to know if anyone anywhere would go back to those days, knowing what we all know about it now.  And yet I have all this wisdom, but I am on the outside looking in, watching it all unfold, and wishing I could do something to make all the transitions easier, all the kids friendlier, all the homework simpler, and all the confusing changes just happen, without the risk of failing and without any pain at all.  But I know my boy who I want to protect with every fiber of my being, instead, has to navigate this house of mirrors on his own, like it or not.  And so I spend hours at night thinking of ways to help prepare him, to arm him for disaster, and to give him some sort of defense when I feel so completely defenseless.

And oddly enough, while I am riding this enormous wave of turmoil, I am certain, he has no idea I am a bit worried.  He shares with me, wide-eyed, stories of how different things are, of new teachers and so many new kids.  And even though he’s been slow to accept change ever since he was a baby, and taking risks doesn’t come naturally to him, he’s stretching just a bit, to try all the new things so many others have embraced from the first day of school. 

I am filled with pride and fear all at the same time.  I would like to do it all for him or at least with him.  I would like to be right there all day long, every day, with him following me around the house and taking walks in the leaves.  But instead, he is there, sweet and vulnerable, living through it, learning, sponge-like, the ins and outs of life in middle school.  And I’m here crunching leaves, trusting fate to smile on him kindly and day dreaming big for my precious cargo to sail through it all smoothly.