He's 20 now

Gabriel turned 20 yesterday.

It's hard to believe that two decades have passed since that April day, so sundrenched, so lovely, in which not even an entire day's labor brought this child, this being, into my life. He was born at home, in our very ramshackle cabin, barely an hour and a half after my midwife and her helper rushed in.

After the tumultuous events of his older sister's birth in the same cabin--the stuck shoulders, the intricate cord wrap, the near death of mother and child--Gabriel's birth was so easy. He slid into a welcoming world, embraced by my midwife's assistant, who sang a welcoming song to him.

I was busy comforting his big sister, who was just barely 4, another April's child. She'd been wakened from her sleep by the noise of the birth and cried with her newborn brother.

But mostly there were smiles.

Gabe was the easiest of my children; nursing him I would find myself drifting into a world of peace and sweetness that was unlike anything I'd experienced. When my brother came that summer to help build a needed extra room he said "he's your favorite, isn't he?" I denied that (and still would) because finally my mother's "All you children are my favorites" made sense to me. But it was undeniable that Gabriel calmed my soul.

It wasn't until he was 6 or 7 months old that the likelihood Gabe was more unusual than I'd thought, that there was something...very different...struck my dazzled mind. And when I realized, sure, I mourned. I cried all night for my Down Syndrome child, I rocked with fear.

And I won't say it has all been easy. There were the years of pneumonia and the lack of sleep. There were the infinite challenges no one had prepared me for.

There were the moments of pure joy.

So he's 20. And we went to the ocean the day before his birthday, taking the dog, smelling the salt air. I caught a few smiles. We had some pizza. A nice woman complimented his favorite shirt, which has Winnie the Pooh on it.

The winter was hard. The spring has been sweeter, kinder. We see more smiles. Gabe doesn't talk these days, though he sang happy birthday to his sister last week, full on, on key, happily. We work with books and words, we draw, we play games, we walk. He gazes at his father in particular with a funny expression--as if he knows something beyond what we know. And perhaps he does.

The night of his birthday I tucked him in bed with his new Ken doll and his bunnies. He smiled and went to sleep with ease.

The simple moments, the good moments, feed my heart

(my lovely daughter has been scanning her baby journals into her myspace; the photo I just popped into the top of this was taken the day after Gabe's birth; fey sister has been gathering forget me nots in the woods; Gabe is sleeping in my arms)

the day of the good and evil drawing

On one side of the drawing board, the right side, Gabe has made a swirling vortex of lines, circling a central eye, like a storm or a ball of yarn. Black circles connected, intermingled, tangled. And there is an eye in the center, unblinking.

On the left side Gabe has drawn an equal armed cross.

At the bottom of the magnetic drawing board are rows and rows of his earnest blob shaped people-figures. Some reach up their arms. Some stay still.

At the top of the board there are cloud shapes. At least I think they are cloud shapes.

He shows me his drawing with a quiet smile. "Hmmm," I say. "Can you tell me about this?"

He points to the vortex, makes sure I am looking at it, and says with vigor, "Evil."

And then he points to the cross and says "Good"

And then to the clouds: "Heaven"

And then to the rows of people: "People, they choose."

He points again to the choices: good, evil. "People choose. Always". And, as always, he erases his drawing.

He draws hundreds of things each day, but on his magnetic board, where the lines flow very smoothly, and where, it seems, the impermanence is part of the delight. Sometimes, with a lot of persuasion, I can get him to draw on paper or cardboard, and I save these more permanent works. An artist I know, whose work is in galleries throughout the world, sometimes comes by to beg for one of Gabe's permanent works--and I've given him some. The artist always tells me "don't think Gabe doesn't know--he's right there, right at the center where the rest of us struggle to go". Gabe enjoys spending a few moments with our artist friend, partly because the artist never tries to make him do things one way or another, but simply shares. Here's a picture I did; I like your pictures too. But Gabe resists permanence--he loves the flow, the dance, he doesn't seem to want to be held back to one moment, one drawing, one thought.

When he comes up with a philosophic drawing in the midst of dozens of cars, penises, cats, cartoon figures, dogs, trees, and whatnot (Gabe has a wide range) I am once again reminded that my so called simple child does spend a lot of time thinking about big questions, and I am grateful for the brief sharing of those thoughts.

The day of the Good and Evil drawing happened to be his 19th birthday. As is my custom I took a moment to talk about the day he came into our lives. I walked with him by the pomegranate tree and we fed the blackbirds, and I told him how flocks of blackbirds had been singing the day of his birth, how his father always recalled the song Blackbird, how indeed we had been waiting for him, for this moment to arrive.

I told him how my midwife's assistant, Kate, had scooped him up into her strong arms moments after his birth, while I tried to calm his sister. Someone had stepped on Laurel's hand as she slept and she woke to witness the birth of her brother, and she had cried. I'd gathered her, barely 4, into my arms as Kate held my calm new son. Gabe was amused to hear that Laurel had been woken, that there had been drama.

Kate sang to him, and each year I tell him "you were welcomed in with a song, a beautiful song". And he smiles, because he really loves music. And I tell him, which is true, "you were the prettiest of my babies" which also makes him smile. At birth he looked like a calm little Buddha, with his beautiful slanting eyes and his fair, fair skin and delicate features. He brought a sense of peace into the room in which his sister dried her tears and leaned against my breast, in which his older brother & father stood in wonder. And Kate sang.

The night of Gabriel's 19th birthday, after presents and cake, we took another walk together. The crescent moon was high in the sky; the air was sweet. Look, I said, look at the moon; it's a smiling moon tonight.

I told him "I'm sure the world is glad you are here". He gave me a sidelong glance, looked down, and smiled again.

crazy quilt days

When I was in college I saw a low budget indie film called, I think, Crazyquilt. Black and white and all about creative angst and stirrings of feminism, as I recall..I don't recall much, just the framework, the quilt, and the feelings.

I was working on my own actual crazyquilt in that period of time, living with my grandmother after a heartbreaking love affair, working in a library, saving money to go off on my first European tour. The bits in my quilt were mostly very tiny, postage stamp sized. I had no formal sewing training or experience and the quilt showed it--staggering stitches, puckers, big frayed corners. I worked on it while sitting with my grandmother in the evenings after work, as she watched the Lawrence Welk show and we talked about life.

"You are very patient" she said, looking at my growing coverlet.

It was probably the first time anyone in my life had accused me of that virtue.

All the bits came from my old dresses, worn out shirts, childhood scraps. My uncle, stopping by, noted that the quilt had no red in it. It is true, it started with mainly a sea of green and blue, a bit of yellow, but when he noted that I dutifully found a bit of red to put into the mix.

I worked on the quilt for...well, let me think...probably three years, maybe four. I finished it off on the east coast in a hard winter, embroidering all the edges carefully.

And it traveled with me, back to England, back to California. It shredded a bit and bunched. And when I was pregnant with my first child I took a corner of the torn quilt and made a baby blanket from it, backing the scraps with soft yellow flannel, embroidering more over the little squares. It wrapped him well in those early days.

I've made other quilts--yes, as imperfect and strange as the first one, over the years. The metaphor of piecing together a pattern--always a strange pattern, for all my quilts have been free form, crazy--of the pieces of a life, of bits from a past and present--seems such a true metaphor for my life.

These past few days I have had a few experiences that seem to want to come together but--I don't know the pattern. I just feel some odd connection.

My friend the beekeeper came by with a jar of purest sunshine. Pale yellow, sweet. Honey from the hives he has out where three rivers flow together. He said he thought the honey came from the wild owl clover that blooms there, purple and sweet. I held it to the light. I brought it to my youngest, and told him that Seth's bees had made some honey for us. We had toast with sweet light drizzled over it.

My friend the vegetable growing poet came by with a basket of small white peaches, and news of his bear.

Our bears have been coming by with regularity; what can we do? The little print of a small bear marks the back of our car; the dogs bark late into the night.

Out of nowhere "bearsmoma" left a comment back on a February post...the one about Jacob and Ida Hardi and their marriage certificate, which I rescued from a thrift store. In the post I mused about love, about family, about history, and wondered what sort of life the young lovers had. I imagined a happy one for them. The comment came from someone who said--yes, they lived in Dallas, they had 7 children. 6 grew to adult hood, one remains alive--his or her Father in law. And there are 15 grandchildren. One of the sons, for a time, lived in the city near me, and perhaps that is how this lovely certificate, all forget-me-nots and hope, came to the thrift store. I left a comment in return, telling my contact that--if it were desired--Ida and Jacob's certificate could go home. We'll see if I hear more. I was so pleased--the end of a story I thought I'd never know.

And a week ago I sat with my youngest son and a psychologist for an exam required in the latest "jump through governmental hoops" phase of our lives, now that Gabriel is 18, an adult. In a previous phone conversation I'd been promised games. But there were no games, just most of the same questions I've answered in writing 3 or 4 times in the last year or two.

Gabe sat in Sara's chair. The psychologist sat in the rose chair. I pulled up a stool. Champ the pitbull inspected the psychologist and found him worthy.

Gabe answered a few questions himself: favorite food (Pizza), name of brother. He drew a circle on request. He was asked to draw a square, and he drew...lines. Lines at the top, lines at the bottom, lines that curved into some private realm.
He was asked to draw a triangle. He stared at the doctor and drew his face, a frowning face.
It was about then I got to answer all the questions. Can he....No. And...No. And...No. No, he doesn't understand money. No, not at all. No, he does not jump rope.
Two hours of questions. A few jokes between--the guy was trying to be nice, respectful, and professional.
He'd talk to Champ now and again as well, which I am certain Champ liked.

After he left--no games, not necessary, everything very clear to him, though possibly not to me, I wanted to sit and cry. Not because it was uncomfortable, though early on the doc said "hmmm, you aren't used to thinking in these terms, are you?" No, I said, no I'm not.

I live with my son day to day. We have honey on toast. We go for walks. Sometimes I can coax a smile from him; often he is far away.

I realized from the questions and from the psychologist's response that, when the reports come back, it is likely my boy will have yet another label. To Down Syndrome will be added, perhaps, autistic spectrum disorder.

Nothing has changed. It is only words. And I love words; they are the other bits of my crazy quilt life. Little bright counters in a game. Things to roll on the tongue. New concepts to explore.

And life goes on, with sweet honey, with odd connections.

In my first quilt, when it was finished, the dark green wove through in a pattern like a river. I hadn't planned that,but as it grew the river moved through it nicely.

In my crazy quilt life I am not certain what color or pattern is weaving through it all. But I think maybe it is okay, maybe it will be, at the end, a surprise and a joy.

A little update:
I posted this, then checked my email, where another comment had arrived from someone connected to the marriage certificate. And this evening I looked into the gentle eyes of Jacob Hardi and the lovely, intense eyes of his bride Ida in her gown of patterned lace, with a billow of a veil and flowers in her hair. Jacob has a fine waxed mustache. The year is...I think 1910. This is the photo that went with that certificate. And tomorrow I will try to box up the framed celebration of that marriage and send it home. That family's historian told me a bit about her family; that Jacob was a baker; that one of the children, a girl, died when she was 10, and more.
I am thoroughly delighted at the strange connections made through this universe.