Homecoming, Part 3

Hurricane Joaquin continues to charge across our landscape fast and furious and with new levels of spittle, angst and pin wheeling arms. I feel helpless in the face of his continuing unhappiness, especially since I am the only victim and reason for his pain. Any look, laugh, non-telepathic-intuiting of his immediate needs lends itself to body jerking fits, complete with whines and screams and snot. With Gregg he is primarily calm and happy. With me, that thin line between love and hate is continuously crossed...like a drunken man trying to walk at the end of the night, wavering between mushy love, self-pity and furor and occasional puking from too much vodka, or in this case, too much crying.

Madelena has continued to eat, sleep, play, talk, walk, crawl, laugh, clap, assert, hug, kiss and sing in the most charming of ways, unfortunately leaving her brother red-faced and sweaty and slightly less adorable by comparison. In those moments when she is tucked away in her crib and he has our full attention, Shawn Joaquin is able to remember the sweet child that he once was those many days ago and will suddenly put his hand gently to my cheek and kiss me with the passion only a three-year old can muster for his mother. Today, he tilted his head and looked at me for a moment as if considering my future in his life and then proclaimed "I love you, mama" and tackled me with a hug. I thought that perhaps this was our moment, when the devil child would fall away and my sweet boy would step out of that red, sweaty body that he's inhabited for the last week. Ten minutes later he was smacking my legs with propeller-like arms and screaming something unintelligible that might have been "I want cheerios" or "fear the priest, fear the priest!"

Each night we spend hours talking about how to help Shawn Joaquin through this time, how to be the best parents we can be when sometimes we just want to lock him in his room and put some ear buds in and listen to our iPods to block out the screams. How to comfort and hold him when at any moment he may backhand one of us — most likely me — or burst into tears or give a loud smacking kiss. And at the end of every night, we are just glad that his rage is not directed at the smallest among us, and that he actually seems to enjoy her company and want to touch her and kiss her and make her laugh. And just like that Southern heroine of long ago, we promise ourselves that tomorrow...yes, tomorrow.... will be a better day.