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Friends...whether you like it or not

When I was a child, my brother and I were inseparable. This was both a burden and a blessing; it meant I never lacked for a playmate and that I was always responsible for someone else's behavior and possible injury. This was a lifelong pattern that began the first time he fell down the steps while in my three-year old care, and did not end until his unexpected death nearly 35 years later. In between we fought like rabid dogs or protected each other from outsiders with the same fierceness; for a few years when he was at his worst, our contact was limited and snarling and ultimately frustrating for both us, but was occasionally broken by a sudden realization of "oh, you're just like me" when talking about our reaction to relationship stress or our view of our often crazy and temperamental mother.

In high school I was often blackmailed by my brother, negating his need to actually work since my hard-earned money could often be extorted from me in order to maintain my good-girl status. My senior year he found my birth control pills hidden in the lining of my purse, and often quietly threatened me by saying "B.C., Paige, B.C." if he felt I was about to rat him out to my parents for ditching school, stealing my money or hiding a bottle of tequila in a speaker in his room.  One day I came home to find my parents waiting for me in the living room, both clearly angry and crushed and accusatory; between them sat my birth control pills. Apparently, my brother had gotten bored. 

All was not evil and contrary between us, however. In my junior year of high school, a former best friend was making my life so miserable that I had something of a breakdown and my parents decided that the best option was for both my brother and myself to transfer to another school. All I had to do was make it through the last 60 days of the semester, and then I'd be off to a better school and far away from the person who had cast me out from our circle and warned all that speaking to me would earn them the same punishment. 

Not too long after a particularly painful and inflammatory public humiliation, I was pulled from my class by school security, the handsome Manny that I had had a crush on since 7th grade and his partner, Jess. Apparently my antagonist's car — a 1970 cream-colored VW bug that I had long coveted and had in fact learned to drive stick shift on — had been tampered with, and I was named as the prime suspect. I stammered and cried my way through a clearly honest denial, and they were forced to let me stumble back to my philosophy class. As I rounded the last corner before hitting the classroom, my brother stepped out from behind a gate, hands in pockets and looking left and right while he cupped a cigarette in his hand. He pulled me into the shadows and asked if I had talked to security yet. I was both buoyed by his concern and dismayed by his insider knowledge and the possibility that he would somehow turn this into yet another blackmail opportunity. It was then that I learned he had completely rewired my enemy's car during second period, and had done such a good job that it took her mechanic step-father over a week to repair it. 

This was one of the moments in which I was reminded that through our many moves — we had lived in 11 houses and attended nine schools in less than seven years before finally settling in San Diego — my brother had always had my back with outsiders, even if occasionally stabbing me in it at home. We were a team, and as often as I might call him an idiot or malcontent or evil incarnate, that was MY privilege and right and no one else was allowed to denigrate him in any way. I can only hope that Shawn Joaquin and Madelena have that same loyalty to one and other outside of our house if not always in it; I see how she leaps up to help him, her older brother, when he struggles with something, shouting "I help you, 'mano." How he tackled a visiting child who pretended to shoot Madelena with a finger. How her laughter at his antics can elate or devastate him, depending on whether he feels laughed with or at. How every time I give anything to Madelena - food, toy, book or a drink - she immediately says "para 'mano, Mama?", never wanting him to miss out on anything.

While Shawn Joaquin occasionally feels ripped off having to share the center of my world with Madelena, my hope is that long after I am gone they have each other and the knowledge that regardless of who else may come or go in their life, their sibling is always there. Yelling, screaming or hugging, but always one of the people who loves them best. Until death do they part.

He ain't heavy

Being "different" is okay, I tell myself. I have always felt like an outsider, a little unusual, listening to a drumbeat somewhere outside of the norm. I have always completed tasks in a unique but — in my eyes —  ultimately successful way. I understood that while I was not always understood, I was always confident enough in myself to be okay with it. I always imagined my children would be much the same, making their own decisions about what is right or wrong or in fashion or in need of changing, listening to their own hearts rather than some preconceived notion of what was "normal." Yet when I find that my child really is "different", the word takes on a new and painful meaning. It conjures up labels that no one wants applied to their child, visions of playground altercations and name-calling, his slowly dawning awareness of what he can't do versus celebrating all that he can do, and a new focus on "what is normal" and learning outcomes that are provided to us on an accusatory piece of yellow paper. Sometimes, when applied to the sweet five-year old you would lay your life down for, "different" is just scary.

With the help of professionals, we are in the process of defining some of the learning challenges that Shawn Joaquin faces; while a very bright and imaginative kid, sometimes concepts are unintelligible to him and thus are met with a verbal straight-arm: "I can't do it. No. No. No."  I watch his sister immediately grasp these same concepts and I start to blame myself for not seeing much sooner that Shawn Joaquin was on a different path, so blinded was I by my overwhelming love and confidence in his rank as the smartest, sweetest and most beautiful boy in the world. 

Part of the cognitive assessment process is starting with where your child is and looking at his strengths; I appreciate this approach immensely not only because it reminds me of all of the best pieces of Shawn Joaquin but allows me to share them with someone without being called a braggart or even just a boor. His imagination, poetic nature, passion and interest in hearing every story about my misguided youth are appreciated and lauded. His ability to sit for hours and "read" books, his enthusiasm for dancing and all things with rhythm — even if he has none of his own — are held up for admiration and insights into how best to let those strengths assist him in areas where he is weaker. I leave each session dizzy with knowledge and questions and hope and sadness — eager to do whatever I can to ultimately help my son feel successful and confident and happy with who he is. But it is a long and painful process and not one I can approach like one of my strategic decks, laying out the objective, the strategies and the tactics that will ultimately get us there. It is a murkier area without a clear timeline; it involves waiting for audiologists, psychologists and occupational therapists to get faxed orders, find dates in 2009 when they can fit you in and negotiations with insurance companies in the hopes of keeping your house while you try to help your child learn to say, with bold confidence, "That is the letter M, and it's red."

In the meantime we play I Spy to work on our colors, bake cookies to help with motor skills, and spend at least a few minutes everyday cuddled up and talking about the time I had three cats in a row named Claude, rode my bike to MacDonald's while my mom secretly tailed me, or when I was spy at the tender age of eight and fell through Mrs. Wolfe's patio cover while watching her in the bath. And, of course, loving all the parts of him that are normal, different or exceptional. Because all in all, they add up to the boy I love most in this world...my perfect son. 

Adult humor, child's voice

Hoping to avoid the debacle of last year, Gregg and I talked to Shawn Joaquin about what he might want to ask Santa for at Christmas. After we made various suggestions that included Diego, Backyardigans and books, he announced what he would like. 

"I would like something....not broken. And hard. That's all."

And with that he set up a full night of lines that could only be finished with the classic: Yeah, that's what SHE said.

Grace has fallen

Part One

When I was single, my friends and I used to amuse ourselves playing something we called the Corpse Game. We'd determine how long it would take for any one of us to be found if we died in our homes. My average was five days. If I died on a Friday night and had no plans for the weekend, it would be Monday before anyone would notice I was missing. Coworkers would assume I'd just called someone else to say I was sick or late. On Tuesday, my boss or HR would call my house. It would be Wednesday before anyone ever actually showed up at my house. And depending on the situation, they could get in then or maybe that night. So five days from death to discovery. It was all very, very amusing. Until it took five days to find my brother's body. 

***

I am often overwhelmed by images that may be of a past remembered or a past desired. Images of late afternoon sunlight through a car windshield, my mother's profile, songs sung on winding roads that follow the curving path of a river. How much of it is true and how much of it is the memory of the childhood I often wished I had?

Everything unwinds like a damaged film too long stored in a damp closet. Held up to the light, some images are true and clear and others are spotted and faded and others gone entirely. Frames missing. If they ever existed at all. 

The one true thing was my brother. He is in every memory, every event, every frame that I can pull up with breathtaking clarity. Fourteen months younger than I, he was my responsibility for as long as I have memory. He was my witness, my confidant, my best friend, my enemy, my playmate, my accuser, my tormentor, my steadiness, my pride, my responsibility. He was my brother. 

In the weeks following his death, I didn't think I could live through the grief. It's an ache that never leaves you, even in your sleep. I tried to slip deeper, where it couldn't touch me. But it slid beneath my clenched eyes, past my dreams of grocery shopping and walks and Christmas dinners and a time before it was all changed. It slipped past the home movies I so desperately tried to play, soundless yet so filled with my brother's laugh...the sound and temperature of a compelling spirit and sweetness tinged by darkness and pain and angst that begged to be held and understood and seen. 

Then one day the ache left me for a moment as I smiled at a stranger, and the loss of the ache itself hit me. I was sick. I was weak in the knees, nauseated and spinning and wondering if this moment of grieflessness meant I was forgetting. And that thought was more unbearable than the grief ever was. 

_______________________________________________

This is the first in a series of not-so-funny remembrances about my brother and his death. I apologize for those who come to laugh, but this story has been a long time coming and perhaps shows a different side to the mom who has been known to call her son a freak but loves him desperately and with all her heart. As she did his namesake, Shawn. As we draw near to what would have been his 43rd birthday and the anniversary of his ruthless separation from us in December of 2001, more excerpts from "Grace Has Fallen" — a book of short stories...some fiction...some not — will appear here. Thank you for reading.

The forgotten child

This summer my father had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of being our nanny for a week and as he ran screaming from the house he left the kids a departing gift: new Indian names, as he had once bestowed on myself and my brother...aka Running Fox and Moss. Upon Shawn Joaquin and Madelena he bestowed the following: Dark Cloud and Sunshine. 

Sunshine often gets short shrift in this blog and among tales told to friends; Dark Cloud's heightened sense of drama and passion often overshadow her happiness and general brilliance. They're both terribly interesting people, yet she has consistently ended up with fewer photos, baby book entries and stories. So let today be her day. 

Madelena is fully bilingual, as I realized in a moment of her total frustration today. She asked Gregg multiple times for something he couldn't understand — galletas, bocadillos, almendras — and then stamped her foot in annoyance and shouted SNACKS, Daddy!

She knows all of her colors (in Spanish) and counts up to 13 in both languages. She can glance at a picture and say "Hay quatro elefantes" and be correct 100% of the time. She laughs like a monkey and says "oh, that's funny" at every opportunity. She talks to strangers and asks them "hey, man, what you doing?" and says "hasta luego" while giving a beauty pageant wave. She loves to jump off high and dangerous places and to shout "corre!" and take off before you know what's happening.

When her brother cries she immediately goes to him and hugs him, saying "lo siento" even if it's nothing that she caused. She has many opportunities each and every day to do this. 

When offered a shirt she doesn't like she'll say "Éste? Hmmmm....no thank you" rather than just tossing it to the ground like other children in the house. She says "discúlpame" at the end of her meals and after burping and either "oh, that's so nice" or "gracias, mama!"  for any item handed to her, no matter how crappy. She sings constantly, mixing the phrases and words from Pío Pío Pío with Pop Goes the Weasel. 

When put to bed she shouts "night night" and then proceeds to sing for the next 90 minutes. Should you cough or sneeze in another room, she breaks her song to shout "SALUD!" She insists on 15 kisses at bedtime, to include eskimo, mariposa, cabeza y boca on demand. She says "te quiero" often and rarely cries, though in the early morning she is known to shout "NO DADDY" and wail if the wrong person walks in to get her dressed. 

She is our Sunshine in all ways, so aptly named by my dad. It took over two years to bring her from a concept to our a beautiful daughter, and if I forget to record that she walked at 10 months and learned her letters at 24, I will never, ever forget that the first time I saw her picture, I knew she was ours.

Te quiero, mi hijita. Te quiero. 

When not to date

There was an interesting article on CNN this week about five reasons to not go on that first date; the reasons were as follows:

1. You're lonely

2. You're desperate

3. You're infectious

4. You're not over someone else

5. You're drunk 

While these reasons are all well and fine (though I do question the last one - who says that blowing chunks on your date or being unable to recall his name will not test both his compassion and provide endless fodder for dinner parties for both of you?) I had a few more that I felt should be added. 

6. You're married. To someone else. Even trying to date your spouse is challenging and often not that fun, let alone trying to be interesting for a new person. Plus think of all the new underwear you'd have to buy. And remember that conversations among marrieds tend to wander back to kids and the next day's trip to Home Depot — and you often find conversation outside of THAT too mentally exhausting. So why waste anyone's time, money or Friday night effort on a date when you could spend it picking up ten thousand pieces of crap left around the house by the kids or drinking a bottle of Two Buck Chuck while folding stained underwear.

7. He's a big fat loser. We've all had that cringe factor before a date that we know will lead to nothing, but feel we're being too judgmental and need to broaden our horizons...accept facial deformations, poor grammar, bad manners or interesting body odor because you know WHAT, if you open your heart...THIS JUST MIGHT BE THE ONE. Ha. Stay home. Eat ice cream. Watch Weeds on your DVR - you'll save everyone some heartache and yourself from listening to a possible mouth breather say "You got a pretty mouth" while visibly chewing gum.

8. You're the parent of small children. When your kids are little you fall into the habit of referring to yourself in the third person and speaking casually about verboten topics, and it's hard to break in public spaces. And no one wants to cop a feel or make out with someone who just said "Mama needs to go tinkle and wipe the oogity boogities out of her nose, so wait RIGHT here."

Add this all together and you have a hallelujah from me, thankful to be a smug married who is in fact not so smug at all, and realizes that while being married is hard, hard work each and every day....I never again have to put on a brave face, straighten up my back, take that last glance in the mirror as I walk out the door and say "you can do this. Maybe it won't be so bad after all."