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.