"Arugula is the best word," said the Boy. It is and it is part of the best line from the otherwise indistinguishable movie, My Blue Heaven.
For his second to last home cooked meal for weeks, the Boy chose pasta, our default meal dinner during the week when we don't have energy to cook something else or go out to eat. I thought it was an exceptionally uninspired choice when we could have had steak or gone to Frank's for dinner. I suppose the Boy will miss the most what he eats the most.
After dinner, Jack and I went to Met Market and bought him a slice of tiramisu for dessert. "Tiramisu is the only dessert," the Boy has said before. The Boy was sluggish coming downstairs after dinner, too busy looking at his phone. When he did come down, he and I sat down while he has dessert, one bite at a time. When the last bite was left, he stuck his head down on the plate and covered his mouth over the chocolate, coffee and cream filled dessert. I laughed.
"I was planning to that for the whole time I was eating," he said, "but I wanted to wait until the piece was small enough to fit in my mouth."
I think this was his going away present to me, making me laugh.
When I went to say good-bye to him Saturday night before I left for the condo, his teased me.
"Don't cry."
"I am not crying."
"Yes you are."
I took off my glasses and showed him my face.
"This isn't me really going. I am just going to Ski Camp. Next week, you can cry. It will still be annoying, but it will be more appropriate."
The next day, the Boy drove to the airport. His father hates it when the Boy drives too fast, so he kept the needle at 55, even though he was passed by every car on the highway. At the airport, The Boy carried his equipment to the baggage check and dealt with the agent. It was hard to believe that this polite, independent and sensible kid could be so down that he sat around for months playing video games and watching Breaking Bad in his underwear and didn't get out of bed except to ski and go to Driver's Ed.
For the first time in nearly nineteen years, I have no kids. There was one vacation/work trip Jack and I took to Paris for five days when my parents watched the kids, and there were two summers where they were both at camp at the same time.
This is different. This is Day 1.
(Okay, that was dramatic. This Practice Day 1 because the Boy will be back in a week and then we ship him out. And it is not like he is leaving the solar system. He is only going to the moon.)
So far, I've walked the dog and watched the Seattle Fire Department's Heavy Rescue team climb up the old viaduct for I don't know what purpose. It was the first time I've seen a hook and ladder in action. When the Boy was a toddler, he had a giant Tonka hook and ladder from his grandmother. He loved that truck so much.
 |
| Not the hook and ladder, but the Boy with a different truck. |
Anyway, Jack and I were talking last night after he read yesterday's blog post. Over the course of the past several months, I have felt Jack and I have been more adversaries than partners in getting the Boy into treatment. Jack seemed to think that I was relying on my friends too much for advice and suggestions, that I valued their opinions more that I valued his.
After he read the blog post, he had an insight that I didn't have myself.
"You were the only person who was going to guarantee that the Boy was going to get help. A teacher or counselor or grandparent wasn't going to advocate for him the way you would. If you didn't help him, no one else would."
The first rule of hiking in the wilderness is don't get between a momma bear and her cub. The same applies to moms in Northeast Seattle. I wasn't acting as a civilized, rational human being. I was reverting to instinct that goes so far back in my DNA that it links me back to the earliest mammals. (Interesting. I never noticed that the first five letters of mammals are "mamma.") In short, don't fuck with my kid or I'll tear you apart.
I might be a little bit more shrewd than ripping someone from limb to limb like a grizzly bear, but the idea is the same.
My friend Betty said to me years ago when her first son was born that she loved her kid more than her husband. I thought it was a crock: how could she love a newborn that couldn't speak and kept her awake for hours more than the sane, rational man she chose to marry? Now when I think about that, I think about the thousands of different loves there are in the world: the love for friends, the love we have for our parents, the love we have for places and pets.
The love for kids is something altogether different. It is a love to see them gone and out of the house exploring the world and kicking ass (like Claire-Adele), and then also a fierce protective love that kicks in when one of them in vulnerable or in danger.
That fierce protective love overrides everything. Love of husband, love of country, love of friends.
I took a women's mythology writing class where we learned about the direct and steady focus of Diana, the hunter, the single, unattached young warrior woman versus the diffuse focus of Demeter, mother of Persephone.
Like the mother grizzly, my attention is both diffuse and focused. All of my alarms are on high notice. I notice everything and I am single minded in getting my kid help.
And now I need to rest and recover, come back in and get ready for the next battle.
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