A friend went into hospice Monday night, and it's not easy to focus on Christmas but I'm trying.
B turned eighteen last month. I was of two minds about it. One, big birthday, big party! And two, time for a freakout, because I'm completely unprepared for my child becoming an adult. Unequivocally unprepared, categorically unprepared, unambiguously unprepared, and I can keep the adverbs coming forever if it will slow things down, and this is the kind of nutty thing I walked around muttering to myself for awhile last month. Meanwhile, B invited a dozen friends over for a pizza, movies and music, and that settled things, thank god.
That night I sat in the kitchen with some other parents, talking and listening to the laughter and shouts we could hear over the music. One dad was telling us war stories about his college-age son (co-ed sleepovers at home, holy cats) when B and a few friends burst into the kitchen full of helium, singing Music is my Aeroplane. Hey, if that doesn't make a successful party, I really don't know what does.
On his actual birthday, I made a deal with the new adult son. It goes like this:
1) Okay!
a) Piercings
b) Modest tattoos
2) No sir young man!
a) Getting married
b) Enlisting
It wasn't really an official deal. I posted it on his door; he pierced an ear, declined the tattoo, and began to tease me daily about how easy it would be to wander into an enlistment office or get married. I think we're good.
************************************************************************
I have an October tradition of taking inventory of my losses. Because there are too many to count on my fingers. Because it's preparation for the gratitude and wonder of the holidays. Mostly because I just do. It's emo month.
Before this, I haven't counted the losses to come, but this year B leaving for college was on my mind. I raged at the universe a little - I want a mulligan, those horrible terrifying years shouldn't count! I was messing around in the kitchen one night, thinking these thoughts, when a tune I hadn't heard in sixteen years floated downstairs - a song from an old Louis Armstrong song we had on CD back then, a song that brings back B as a toddler, he and his best friend wobbling around their blissful parents.
Grab your coat, grab your hat, leave your worries on the doorstop. Just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street.
The cat followed me upstairs, and we both sat on his bed and listened. He doesn't often play jazz. For every loss, there are blessings. It's a shame that the two don't cancel each other out.
