Elsewhere, the flares

We had a cozy Christmas inside our little bubble of an apartment, the four of us and one friend of my son's whose mother is away for the holidays, a young man who will be 21 in a month, who has slept on our couch for the past few nights and wrapped himself around our hearts with his cheerful spirit, his easy accommodation to whatever is, which may or may not be the way he is feeling inside, but it has been lovely having him here with us, all six-foot-nine of him stretched out on the long couch, under the gray plaid comforter, the life our family flowing easily around him. He and my son have been friends since they were 12 and 14, they met at camp, have spent many weeks together in the woods every summer, and they are as bonded as brothers. My son is a very loyal and loving friend, and he takes for granted that if he has given his allegiance, his family will, too, and we do.

My daughter and this gentle young man were at the kitchen counter last night, heads together as they worked out a solution to Einstein's famous quiz. Outside, the snow piled up, blowing furiously all through the day and night. We ate Christmas leftovers until, at nine in the evening, my husband and daughter decided to roast a chicken and bake potato wedges in rosemary and olive oil, and wonderful aromas filled the house. We dined at midnight then settled down to watch a whole new movie, since no one had to be up early the next morning.

I have often reflected on my son's gift for friendship. He is rock solid, generous, funny, kind. But he also chooses well; his friends give him back the same loyalty and love. I suspect sometimes that his closest friends are his soul group, that they have incarnated together many times before, and know each other at the core. His friends recognize and appreciate his constancy. They also understand his occasionally prickly and contrary nature, they shrug when he gets like that, they laugh and say, "Oh, that's how he is sometimes," and soon my son comes out of it, because no one is following him to his cranky country, they're letting him blow of steam there in safety and peace, and I could learn a thing or two from his friends.

We did venture out into the snow to check on my aunt, to bring her Christmas gifts and cookies and bites of food, but mostly we stayed cocooned in our bubble, puttering and cooking and working out puzzles and drifting away to different corners of the house and coming back together to talk and laugh and cook some more and watch movies and marvel at the snow piling up and up outside. My son, who ran to the store for his dad and sister, remarked this was more snow than he has ever seen in the city. And then we all told snow stories. It was all so stream of consciousness.

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But somewhere out there beyond the snow, I discerned the flares. Other people were having a very different kind of Christmas. One of my cousins was trying to steady her children for their parents' looming divorce, and her move this week from the family home. One of my nieces, whose wedding I was to attend in Jamaica next month, called to say the ceremony had been canceled, the reasons were personal and would not be discussed. She sounded strong, much stronger than her mother, whose heart is breaking for her, and my mother, who my brother noted takes on everyone's aches as if they are her own. My family in Jamaica was a little shaky this Christmas, pasting on a brave smile and pushing forward. My husband and his siblings were dealing with another holiday without their beloved mother, and the lonely silences that have developed in her absence. And in Virginia, my friend Tamara was sitting with her mother and sister at her dad's bedside, keeping the final vigil. She posted updates on Facebook that were full of sorrow and wonder and tenderness, a painfully exquisite record of the end of her father's life.

"He is speaking the most beautiful language that we cannot understand with his familiar gestures and facial expressions. It sounds like something ancient."

"We sit, one on each side, and listen. Just listen. It is ceremony. We are honoring and honored. Every moment shimmers."

I read her posts and wept for her, and ineptly wrote her my love and prayers. And then on Christmas day the status updates changed.

"Everywhere I look I see something he touched, made, fixed, loved. Daddy. I am never going to stop missing my Daddy."

And I realized he was gone.

Tamara, my beloved friend, I think you will understand my desire to repost your words here. I want to remember them, and to keep this record of the breathtaking way in which your shared your father's last moments on this earth with those of us who love you. Through your stories over the years, we had come to know the deeply good man who was your father. Such fathers must be held up to the world and remembered always. I send you love, dear Tamara, though I have no words to make your grief any less. How could we not grieve the loss of such a man as your father? 

I am holding you now. I hope you can feel it somehow.

The House is Full Again

My son and my niece L are back from college. My son's best friend E just graduated from boarding school and in the fall will be headed to the same college that my son and niece attend (it's really becoming a family affair). They and others of my son's friends, fresh from their first year, are often hanging out in my living room. My daughter's friends are also coming through to say hello to the college kids. My daughter asked if five girls from her high school could stay over next weekend. I said yes. I always prefer the party to be happening in my house where I can see what's going on. On the car trip back from picking our son up from college, she informed him of the sleepover plan.

"Thanks for the heads up," he told her. "I'll make myself scarce."

"No you won't," she informed him. "You're the reason they're coming."

At which point he declared how offended he was that she was using him as a "trophy brother."

It's so hard being beautiful.

My son will working at the sleepaway camp he's attended every summer since he was 11, but that job doesn't start till June 12. He's a full-fledged counselor this year, instead of a counselor assistant, as he's now 18. He'll make at least enough to buy his books for sophomore year. A lot of close friends from his camping days will also be working, including some who live as far away as London and Rome. The camp, located by a lake in the Connecticut woods, is very much "their place." I think when my son looks back on his youth, it will be enormously significant in terms of friendships, mastery of self, and survival skills, both social and wilderness.

My niece L is working as a photographer's assistant, a job that is turning out to have quite a few perks as the photographer does many celeb shoots where there is beaucoup swag. My magazine hires him sometimes to cover events, and he'll say to my niece, "Your aunt hired me to do so and so, please tell her thank you." They both know I have nothing to do with the hiring of photographers! We're tickled that my niece, who is very petite, is doing this job, which requires her to cart all the photo equipment and do set ups and set break downs. But she's a strong girl. She's the number two ranked women's squash player back home. She has muscles!

With all the activity in the house, my daughter, the only one still in school, is challenged to keep her homework going, but she seems to be managing. Last year was the same thing, and she ended the year very nicely, on the honor roll. I hope she'll be able to do the same this year. She has also once again negotiated what now seems to be an annual Greenport trip with her longtime friends from elementary school, despite impending finals. It worked out okay last year. In fact, she studied harder for finals to prove I hadn't made a mistake in saying yes.

She was looking up the schedule for the Hampton Jitney last night, and assured me she would pay for it with her babysitting money. There are a couple of adorable little girls upstairs who keep asking their parents if my daughter can babysit them again. And, I will admit without shame, I also hired my daughter to do the laundry weekly. Yes, I pay her. That way she is obligated to do a good job and carry on through from start to putting-clothes-away finish. It works out well, because I passionately hate laundry and she doesn't mind it. And she likes making money. She buys her own clothes these days. So grown.

Our friend Jax from Antigua, who introduced my husband and me, was also in town for a few days. We dined out, did Broadway (we saw Fela! with my daughter and my niece, then had a late night Japanese dinner), grooved in jazz clubs, shopped and just walked the city sidewalks. It is such fun to do the city with Jax. She is so excited by it all. She gives you the experience of seeing it anew, and getting excited again, too. New York is electric. We take for granted how alive it is at all hours of the day and night. Being with Jax reminded us. It also helped my husband and me plug back into "our story," the magic and romance of it, and that always makes everything shimmer just a little but more.

I also love when the house is full because my husband and daughter get inspired to create in the kitchen. They love an audience, the more the merrier. Last night my husband made ropa vieja and jasmine rice, specially requested by our son, while our daughter experimented with a raspberry jam crumb cake, which was beyond heavenly and did not last the night.

Containment

My son is coming home for a visit from college this weekend. I'm so excited to see him I could practically levitate. But of course, I will contain myself. I will act merely casually happy so as not to suffocate him. A bunch of his friends at different colleges are coming into the city this weekend, too, so I'm sure this trip home is about them, not us. Nevertheless, we will find a moment to sing him happy birthday over cake and candles, as he will be 18 one week from this Sunday.

You know, when your kid goes off to college, you go into a kind of mourning. It almost like the phantom ache from a missing limb. You just hope and pray he makes smart choices, is kind to his friends, is purposeful about his studies and enjoys his life. But other than sending money, there's hardly anything more you can do.

My husband and I are also having dinner under the stars (as in, on the rooftop of our friends' apartment building) on Friday night with a bunch of friends. Our progeny are all in high school or college, pursuing their own lives with increasing degrees of independence, and we are feeling a loss of community. You can tell because when any one of us issues an invitation to get together, the rest of us happily accept.

I think we're all in transition, glimpsing the empty nest looming in our future and the need to reinvent our calendars. And we understand what this moment feels like for one another better than anyone.