Never Live Through Your Children

Some small children -- say, third-graders -- bring cuddly stuffed animals to their first sweet, tentative sleepovers. They bring books! Bunnies, blankets or special soft pillows and blankets.

Merrick? Brings gas masks.

That's right -- slide in by your best buddy and hunker down for forty winks, safe and secure in your WWII style sleepwear! Bunnies and blankets? Why, they make excellent incineration material. And just to make that bed a special soft place, arm yourself well with various Nerf and Air Soft guns.

Then, there is Merrick in an upscale Minnesota grocery store. It is 9 pm, an hour in which most children are home hugging their bunnies and blankets, instead of on the road, buying donuts. Long story.

The important part is that he is wearing, of course, the camouflage footie pajamas. Some children wear uniforms to school. Merrick wears his everywhere else and it is one thing -- camo footies.

In the upscale store, he says loudly: "I should stwat sleeping with a wifle."

Pause.

Joyful: "I fowgot! I ALWEADY SLEEP WITH A WIFLE."

Scarlett (hisses): "You should be quieter about that."

Indeed.

This is a child whose intellectual needs appear to be a gun, a stick and a dog. So imagine the Matron's shock and unparalleled joy when, at his school conference, Merrick's teacher proclaims the young thug to be a bona fide artist. Not a potential felon.

Teacher: "Mary! Look at this poem! Merrick has a real gift for writing. I think he's an artist; I've never ever seen anything quite so sophisticated and well, impressionistic, from a third-grader."

Impressionism! Artist! Sophisticated! Oh, those Matronly knees shook. She took the poem -- its wrinkled, lovely self evidence that her son was (after all!) gifted.

The poem:

Sacred

Negligible

Outside

Winter fun

No one drove home faster than the Matron, armed with Genius. She could not wait to share the good news with her husband!

Matron: "Look at this! It's just so smart -- it lifts and soars, simple but wise! And the vocabulary! Negligible!"

John: "You sure he wrote that?"

Scarlett: "Mom. He can't even say INAPPROPRIATE correctly and he hears that word twenty times a day. Jack wrote it."

HWCBN: "Cheated. Definitely."

Undeterred, the Matron ignored the heretics and presented the poem to this artist himself. A disciple, she wanted to pay her respects to the Artist.

Matron: "Merrick, I am just SO impressed with this. How did you think of the word negligible? That's such an unusual word!"

Merrick -- pauses and inspects his prose for a long, long loooong minute. Sort of like looking at a interplanetary fallout and wondering where in the heck that stuff came from: "Oh yay. I just looked up wandom wowds in the dictionawy and wwote them down in a line. Miss XX loves it."

And with that, he grabbed his stick and trotted off, his mother's heart in his hands and a cloud of apocalyptic ammo dust in his wake.

Some news is simply too good to be true.

Talk of the Town

That's Merrick.

Today, he goes to school wearing a heart monitor. Yes, this strikes fear in that organ for all parents but the little guy?

He is proud of his status as cardiac patient. Really -- you're seven and you get to go to school fully loaded? Bells and wires attached to your very own body? What's not to love! The apparatus is almost as good as a bullet-proof vest.

Merrick has a heart condition which doctors assure the Matron he will outgrow. She's gotten second and third opinions. He has a premature, irregular beat to his plucky pumper which should just mysteriously go away or require 'a procedure' when he's a little older.

So when he tromps into school in two hours, he's the main event - show and tell, with wires and glue strapped onto his scrawny chest so that the doctors can assess if the condition has stabilized, improved, or worsened. She's here to tell you that it's not better than it was a year ago. The heart still thumps along in a markedly strange way.

But the Matron loves the joy that wires bring out in her seven-year old. The only person happy about his status as a cardiac patient is Merrick.

Merrick: "I'm like Rambo!"

If only he could bring a machine gun to school, his life would be perfect. But then he would probably be in jail.

Send good energy to that little engine that could, the tiny heart sustaining a huge, bountiful life --and the Matron's heart is bound up entirely with this one.

Actual Conversation

Oh, the realities of life. And death

Here is the Matron with 11 children in her house. School was cancelled on Monday and Tuesday due to the weekend blizzard. Guess who opened the doors to the minions? She is a little stir crazy and wildly happy that school is back on for all tomorrow.

Scarlett: "Maybe there won't be school again tomorrow!!!"

Matron (snappish): "It doesn't matter. I'm dropping you at the door at 8 am and returning at 3:30. I don't care what happens in the interim. There's a coffee shop across the alley if the building is closed."

Scarlett: "Mom! You're scaring me!"

Uh, yes. Everybody's scared--including your mother. Four snowbound days are three days too many.

In the midst of the mayhem -- which includes the sixty-five pound bloodhound puppy's newfound ability to stand on the five feet of snow and simply graze on over the fence to run wild for blocks, the fray of children, the need of neighbors for shoveling and food, and the Christmas tree that keeps falling over -- Merrick came to the Matron with this. And really -- there was mayhem. Dog lost, almost a dozen children to feed, nearly 300 assignments to grade (so not done).

Merrick: "Mama? Will I die? If I die, will I nevew have my thoughts again? I'm wowwied about my thoughts. And my bwain."

Friends, the Matron - I -- wanted to sit down and weep. There was terror on his face. He had three friends in the house and a lot of action, and this was on his mind.

Matron: "Merrick, everything dies. Plants die, people die, bugs die, grass dies, flowers die. Everything alive dies."

And she's really sorry.

Merrick: "But what happens to my thoughts when I die? Will they go with me? I can't think of not being with my bwain."

And the Matron pulled this seven-year old onto the couch beside her, next to a blazing fire and house full of children and great good human energy, and had a long, loving --and optimistic -- talk about the unknown. She spoke of reborn spirits (remember, she's a Buddhist so hopefully she'll return as the first female president), but she didn't lie or revert to religious views which are foreign to this child.

Merrick: "Dying is pwetty scawy. Can I love up evewybody wight now to make up for the west of the univewse?"

Darling, darling child. She never wants to part from you. Please, love us up. And thank you, Merrick, for making tomorrow a different sort of day. She plans to consider eternity every day for the rest of her life.

Actual Conversation

Merrick: "Is there weally a Santa Claus? A weal twue Santa who brings pwesents?"

Matron: "Santa isn't quite what you think. Don't imagine a big fat guy in a red suit. Santa is different. He's more of a spirit. A collective entity."

Merrick: "What is 'entity'?"

Matron: "Group spirit."

Merrick: "Is that like God?"

Matron: "We're Buddhists. There is no God."

Merrick: "I'm a Chwistian. God lives in my heawt. God died fow my sins."

Matron: "What's a sin?"

Merrick: "What God dies fow."

Matron: "Where did you hear that?

Merrick: "Gwandma. And my fwiends at school."

Matron: "Okay, can we talk about Santa?"

Merrick: "Isn't Santa and God the same thing?"

Matron: "Not really."

Merrick: "But do they wide in the same sleigh on Chwistmas night?"

Matron: "God doesn't ride in a sleigh, if he exists."

Merrick: "Weally? How does God get awound?"

Matron: "Can we go back to Santa?"

Merrick: "Isn't that God?

Matron: "Santa and God aren't the same thing."

Merrick: "Who is bettew? God ow Santa?"

Matron: "They're both amazing but I'd give God the first ticket."

Merrick: "Are God and Santa bwothews? "

Matron: "Look at the time! Bed!"

Merrick: "And God and Santa will be with me."

Matron: "How about the tooth fairy?"

Merrick: "Oh, she's alweady asleep in my bed. She lives wight undew my pillow."

Actual Conversation

The Matron and Merrick are at the locally owned, natural foods co-op, as in organic food, hippy-dippy sort of place. This place is populated by all kinds of cool, free-spirited people (and the Matron would like to count herself as one of them). Merrick spies something of interest.

Merrick: "Mom, can we buy some fag newtons?"

Matron: "Pardon?"

Merrick: "In awt class, we learned all about how the old people -- like a million yeaws ago in Gweece --ate the fags. I'd like some."

Matron: "You mean fig newtons. Those are figs."

Merrick: "Yup. Fag newtons. I'm a big fan of fags."

And an older man, listening, leaned into the conversation, held out a dollar, and said: "Me too. Those fag newtons are on me, buddy."

The Matron let him keep the dollar. And smiled for about two hours afterward.

You're Not the Boss of Me

Perhaps Merrick did not read his letter.

The Matron watched with no small degree of fondness while her youngest devoured a big bowl of ice cream at the kitchen table last night. He licked the bowl. She's sure lice fell off his head into the bowl, but that's another story. He rolled the spoon around in his mouth.

Then he put the spoon on the table and dashed off to play.

Matron: "Merrick, please put your bowl and spoon into the sink."

Merrick: "No! You'we not the boss of me!"

Matron: "Merrick, please put your bowl and spoon into the sink."

Merrick: "I TOLD YOU YOU'wE NOT THE BOSS OF ME" (remember, he's seven).

Matron: "Actually, I am. I am the boss of you. And you need to put the bowl and spoon into the sink."

Merrick, stopped dead in his tracks: "Weally? You'we the boss of me? Weally?"

Matron: "That's right. The parent is the boss. Like any good organization, underlings have input, but I'm the boss."

Clearly stunned by this revelation and contemplating something, Merrick slowly slugged back into the kitchen and dejectedly put the offending items into the sink. Then he fell into the couch with a serious look.

Ten studied minutes later.

Merrick: "Mom?"

Matron: "Yes?"

Merrick: "Is Minnesota pawt of Amewica? I thought I was a fwee man."

Gotta Love This Guy

He Who Cannot Be Named (new readers -- this is code for oldest child who doesn't want to be blogged about) needed red baseball socks, for well, baseball.

The Matron went on a trek for the socks. She took Merrick with her to a mega-sports store.

Merrick: "I want to be in and out. In and out of the store."

Matron: "Great idea! Me too. What do you mean by in and out?"

Merrick: "In and out means buying MY EQUIPMENT FIWST."

Guess who left with a hockey puck, baseball bat, basketball, tennis racket, tennis racket carrying bag and red baseball socks -- all within 10 minutes.

In and out.

And 75 dollars. That's the price she is prepared to pay for sanity and convenience . . .

She's really not proud of this character flaw. It's why retirement will be slim.

Where the Boys Are (Not)

The Matron is currently teaching a basic writing and research skills course, one that constitutes the bread and butter of her English faculty existence.

Graduating from this particular college? First, you must pass English 1009.

Merrick: first you must learn to read! That seems like a separate story, but is it? A steady fretter about her youngest, the Matron has long worried that her son's disdain for all things academic is simply setting him in the middle of the male pack.

And just how is that pack doing up the road--the boys in college?

Please do return to the topic of English 1009. In her online sections of this class there are 57 registered students. Of those 57 students, just 14 turned in rough drafts of the first paper. It's okay to gasp here. She did and had to steady herself on a desk.

Of those 14, guess how many were women?

The ONE man to turn in a rough draft is an adult student pushing forty. The Matron has barely heard from the 18-24 group. The English 1009 Online Discussion Board?

Courtney to Elizabeth; Brandee writes to Deirdre; Sandy asks Elle a question; Veronica to Brittany (one of the thirty); Katie queries Catherine.

You get it.

This trend is not simply anecdotal.

More women than men graduate from college.

Scrolling down a decade to the college student in the making, the Matron has been scheming for ways around Merrick's deep tissue resistance to reading--to touching a book, even.

The person to finally make the most significant breakthrough to date is a family member about whom she is not allowed to blog, HE WHO CANNOT BE NAMED (because the neighbors are watching) and the only person in the family advancing to a regional scientific competition and currently the proud possessor of grades that only include straight A+s. . . . (that's a plus, folks, not that she's bragging? well, sorta). . . .

Merrick has been introduced to the magazine version of Think Geek.

This magazine features gadgetry and gear beyond all measure! Light sabers, pepper shakers in the form of R2D2, mini Darth Vaders, lights, lasers, mini-cameras, key holders, spy cameras, thermometers . . . you name it!

Yesterday, not once, but several times, the Matron came into the kitchen to find Merrick at the table absorbed with the turning of pages.

"Mom? Does this mean fowty dollaws to buy?"

! Yes! He now knows some numbers!

"Mom? This wowd is 'sale' wight? Does that mean we can buy it?"

Merrick can read. Still below grade level. Still stwuggling. But the child has discovered the world of shopping by catalogs and cannot be restrained. Better than nothing. The Matron is thinking of this breakthrough sorta like her son's own little rough draft, turned in.

Team Player?

Part of the picture shaping yesterday's existential funk, had nothing to do with matter or molecule or the meaning of being, but was the landscape of more ordinary concern.

Over this one.

Here he is, cute as all get out, getting the very chic Kindergarten Graduate button applied to his little lapel.



Here he is doing what he does best at school: instead of paying attention, he's trying to chat up the cute blond next door!



The Matron has admitted -- more than once -- concern over Merrick's complete disinterest in the all important Word. Books are made for stacking, climbing and conquering in the physical sense.

Imagine the following taking place against a backdrop of weaponry, dog assault, gymnastics, and the all time favorite (and THE 'push Mama's buttons' game) The Pummeling Thrashing Fighting Brothers.

"Merrick! Could I read this new library book to you? Look at the cool firetruck on the cover."

"Merrick! Did you see this cool book I bought you? Wow! I can't stand it, this is so funny."

"Merrick! Do you want to snuggle on the couch and read for awhile? With cookies? Candy?"

"Merrick. I'll give you $5 if you sit here and read a book with me."

This child -- as children will do, Free Will and all that damn it -- is not adhering to the Family Narrative, regarding narrative!

But the Matron is pretending that she's all sanguine and 'it's just a matter of time' and not concerned about her youngest's anti-academic bent. The disinterest in reading extends to the general field of School, except for gym, lunch and recess. Whereas the Matron has never been able to LEAVE school for more than a summer. Sometimes she reads French Feminist Semioticians, just for fun!

Remember the glory days, academics in the room?

Sweet digression. . .

So while the Matron is trying to be sanguine and to see the Life Lesson in being allotted her polar opposite as a child, she got her son's teacher assignment for the next THREE YEARS. In their public Montessori classroom, students are in the same room with the same teacher for three years. It's a lovely mix of ages and creates a great community, providing you get the right teacher for your child.

Here she needs to tread carefully because she's not quite sure who's reading.

So let's say, hypothetically, that your child is assigned to a teacher who you believe is NOT a good fit for your child? Let's also flesh out this Scenario and pretend that your older two children scream in terror of said teacher assignment and also Protest: Bad Match. This is a teacher who is the only one out of the bunch that you felt would NOT work out. Not because he/she is a bad teacher (far from it) but there is that Matronly Mama Maternal Gut Level Radar beeping in the worst way.

Sigh . . . .

Let's also say you have a reputation for serving the greater good in that school and being willing to follow the rules -- not one of the parents who stand up and scream: ME, ME, ME and my child!!! Pretend that your child and family are a welcome addition to a classroom that might need an influx of new blood and parental involvement.

Moving a child out of an assigned Montessori classroom -- in this school's culture -- is no easy task.

What would you do, readers? Make the fuss up front and start the process now? Or give the teacher and his/her classroom, a chance?

The Matron feels the stakes here are high, as her guy needs to turn around his beliefs about the unpalatable nature of school rather than having that view reinforced.

Nostalgia

When Merrick was 8 months old, his beautiful little left eye reddened and swelled.    The Matron could not quite understand this as he had no other symptom and the eye didn't appear to bother.  But over the course of a single day, that little eye puffed like kangaroo pouch and beat crimson.  This didn't look like pink eye or strep or anything the Matron had seen.

So she grabbed her guy and took him to the Emergency Room.

Imagine the odds!  Her very own pediatrician was walking out of the building just as the Matron and Merrick walked in.   The doctor-- a lovely woman (younger and far better looking than the Matron oh curse her) stopped to say hello and then?    The doctor stopped and took a long, concentrated look at Merrick.

Doctor:  "Did this happen quickly?"

Matron:  "Why - -yes.  His eye was fine a few hours ago."

So the doctor nodded and  snatched that child out of the Matron's arms and turned, heel on a dime, back into the ER.  "Follow me."

Oh my!  The Matron followed!  Her heart?  It had resituated itself in her throat - and was pounding.

The doctor blew past all Nurses and Procedures--Merrick firmly in arms-- and said in a loud firm voice:  " I need blah- blah-blah, and blah-blah-blah -- and this other mega-thing -- right now.  Not in one minute, now."

Now, the Matron can't remember the precise drugs the doctor wanted to immediately administer because she was already numbing into a state of shock as medical personnel dropped what they were doing and descended upon her baby -- who disappeared in a sea of pea green and chemical blue scrubs.

While the flurry flew, the doctor took the Matron aside:  "Mary?  Complete gut instinct.  I think he has periorbital cellulitis, an infection of the optic nerve that can spread to the brain.   Again, just instinct and nothing to write home about, but I think the infection has settled in pretty well and is moving quickly enough that we want to bypass all the administrative stuff.  We'll pump him full of antibiotics and watch that optic nerve behave in no time.

It did not take the hypochondriacal (but very smart) Matron long to understand that periorbital cellulitis can kill or blind you.

And those antibiotics?

Did not work on Merrick.

The Matron's child hung in the balance, in the hospital, for three excruciating days while the doctors waited for that antibiotic to work.   

For some reason, that eye continued to bloat and beam.  So the breast-feeding Matron lived in the hospital (again -- this was Merrick's second stay and there's another story), sleeping on a cot at her child's side and trying to keep an unhappy, feverish, 8 month old happy for 16 hours a day while worrying about his very survival.  The Matron is the kind of mother where those things counter each other:  A) why can't you be happy and sleep all day instead of being uncomfortable and needy for 82 hours?   and B)  if you cease to exist I shall perish.

And she endured this without wine.

Merrick slowly, eventually recovered.   When he was in process, the Matron pulled that child and his army of IVs, and poles and medications, around the hospital in a little red wagon.  She knew they looked ragged. 

But still?

One day, a man in the lobby  tossed a $5 bill into the wagon. 

And Merrick got better.

Six Years Ago at this Very Moment

The Matron was hugely pregnant. And forty. And 8 days past the baby's due date. Let us just pause and digest that!

Friends, she was also crabby.

How crabby? After her last appointment with the midwife (sorry, Mary, that cervix is closed tight), the Matron went right to her local corner store and purchased a pack of cigarettes.

She thought she'd smoke it out. Being an ex-smoker gave her the wisdom necessary to create this very fine theory.

Please don't yell at her for baby abuse. Because just half a cigarette felled the mother herself. All those years of cleaner living must've given her back her senses. She fell to the ground, hacking.

Since that didn't work and she wasn't in the mood for vodka, she picked up the phone and called her acupuncturist, Bill. Because she suffers from not one, but two inter-related autoimmune diseases (some people have all the luck!), she used acupuncture to buoy the body during the pregnancy.

Matron: "Bill! I am totally completely desperate. You know all those points you don't prick because they will induce labor?"

Bill: "Yes?"

Matron: "PRICK THEM NOW! Please!"

Bill: "Darling, I am in Houston but I hop on my plane in half an hour. I'll meet you in my office at 4:00. I'll use electricity of wish. We'll zap that creature right out, promise!!"

He was giddy.

He hooked up the Matron and lit her like a Christmas tree. Her body was covered in shining needles. When the treatment was over, he said this: "You should go into labor within 24 hours."

Matron: "I better!" Boy, was she crabby.

Merrick? Even better! He was born 12 hours later. Thanks, Bill!

Tomorrow, she celebrates her baby! Her great big old six-year old. Sniffle!

The End of the World As We Know It

I can't possibly post a poem for every time Merrick discovers one more angle into death. Two weeks before his 5th birthday, and his inevitable demise has settled across his shoulders, sits at our kitchen table, sleeps in his bed.

Last night, he poured himself into my lap: "Mama, when you die do you still think?"

Me: "Yes, you still think. I think. But in a way that's absolutely different than now. A hard to imagine way. Who 'you' will be is different too."

Merrick: "The thinking is important. I like my thinking. It's the best thing, and I'll miss it the most when I die."

Me too, sweetie.


Suppose Death Comes Like This

Suppose it is the sound of a window opening
the scrape of wood against wood and the
weight dropping along the groove in the sash,
glass rattling in the frame? Or suppose
it is a man, coughing in the other room,
the rasp of is throat sawing through
the thin wall, there, just above the mirror?
Or suppose it is a telephone ringing
from the house next door, and the blur
of bird wings crosses silently through it?
Or an engine overhead, riding unevenly
in thick clouds, a steady hum coming on
so gradually? Suupose you fail to hear it?
Suppose it is as unportentous as that?

Joyce Sutphen (again!)
Straight Out of View
Holy Cow! Press, 2001