Boys' Week

The past week has been full of boys.

Boys as in "long ago boys." Boys as in "they are all grown men now." Boys as in "they were at various times a huge part of my life and my world."

Boy #1 was Jacob.

Boy #2 was Sam.

Boy #3 was Danny.

Boy #4 was Ben.

[Note: They are numbered in order of chronological appearance, not in any priority.]

Let's start with #1, Jacob. Our Symphony just last week closed out its 40th Season with a truly stunning concert. How stunning? Two world premieres for compositions, one world premiere of an orchestral version of a composition, one world premiere film by a (truly) world renown photographer, and the professional orchestral debut of a pianist performing George Gershwin's "Concerto in F" (which is no walk in the repertoire park).

The pianist making his professional debut? A DMA student at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, an amazingly gifted performer. Here is a link to a snippet of his rehearsal with the orchestra (You do not need a Facebook account to open it):   https://www.facebook.com/centralohiosymphony/videos/2154174351363365/?t=0  The pianist bringing the concert to a halt at the end of the first movement because of the storm of applause, and then receiving a shouting, cheering standing ovation that lasted several minutes? The pianist walking into our after-concert reception (in honor of all the artists and our 40th season) to wild acclaim? That one?

It was Jacob. Jacob who I have known since he was 4, Jacob who I coached (along with my son Ben and several other brilliant, gifted students) for five years in Odyssey of the Mind and Destination Imagination, Jacob who at one point as a young adult in his 20s walked away from piano totally. That Jacob.

We hugged repeatedly Saturday night at the party, both of us over the moon and not a little dumbstruck that, after so many twists and turns for each of us, here we were celebrating an event that at more than one point in our respective pasts neither of us were ever sure we would ever see, Jacob for personal reasons and me for health reasons.

That Jacob. That boy.

Sam was #2 last week. Sam my youngest son, Sam my son who became a welder, Sam my son who sometimes is just a blur. Sam popped up out of the blue in my mailbox. Oh, not because he wrote me a letter. Oh, no, no, no. My sons (plural) do not write letters, a clear failing on the part of their mother. Instead, he popped up because the grandmother of one of his childhood friends, Clayton, has been winnowing out the decades (decades) of accumulated papers, clipping, and photos in her home, and whenever she comes across ones with either of my children (Ben was in her preschool, so pictures of him surface from time to time too), she mails them to me.

I suspected what was in the envelope before I opened it and I was not disappointed. There was Sam, maybe 5, maybe 6—all grin and skinny. One photo was taken on a school bus, the other at one of Clayton's birthdays. And suddenly we are back 23, 24 years and my youngest boy is just that: a little boy.

I mailed the photos on to Sam, who is almost 29 and long grown. With them I included a letter from mom, commenting on this or that, nothing too weighty. I plan on being out in the Pacific Northwest later this summer, and we will talk and laugh together then, that boy all grown up.

Then there was Danny, Boy #3. Danny was Ben's first best friend when we moved to Ohio. He lived across and slightly down the alley and they became friends when the weather warmed up (we had moved into the house in January) and the kids were finally outside. Danny spent hours and hours in our house, playing with Ben, fighting with Ben, tormenting Sam (when Sam was a baby and unable to tell on him), causing havoc, causing joy, causing all kinds of things. Ben tolerated a lot from Danny over the years, but they were genuinely close. All the same, there were limits even to Ben's patience.  I was at the kitchen window looking outside the day Ben finally punched Danny in the face, after years of being pinched, punched, kicked, and laughed at.  I admit it, I cheered (and so did Bethany, our next door neighbor, who came running into our house to make sure I'd seen it). Danny and Ben drifted apart as they got older: Danny was a year ahead in school, his family stayed in the neighborhood but moved farther down the block, and there was a painful rupture between the adults, but over time we (we meaning his father Ted and I) reestablished a connection, so I often knew of Danny even if I didn't see him. And not unlike the other boys in this post, Danny had his own twists and turns as he moved from childhood and teen to adult.

Ted just retired from OWU after 30+ years of teaching in the sociology department. There was a packed reception for Ted and another sociology retiree; Warren and I dropped in briefly to say congratulations. I saw Ted's daughter Allie and son-in-law Joe right away, but not Danny. "Around the corner," said Joe.

I headed in that direction and saw Danny talking to two of his dad's colleagues. I stayed back, watching him laugh and interact as an adult. Then he looked up and saw me. His eyes grew big and he excused himself from the conversation.

Oh my gosh. Danny, Danny, Danny. A long hug: is it really you? We laughed, we talked quickly and excitedly. Danny said, tears in his eyes, that when he thinks back to his childhood, it is our house and time spent at our house that he remembers most vividly, not his childhood home. I told him I still have the dining room table that he deliberately and methodically defaced with fork tines over the course of several months. Danny turned bright red. "I'm sorry. I was really awful." "Yeah, you were sometimes."

We only talked for a couple of minutes, maybe three, maybe five. He asked about Ben and asked me to tell Ben hello. Then it was time for both of us to turn to something else—the guests in his case, leaving in mine. Another long hug, kissing one another on the cheek. "I love you," we said, simultaneously.

When I got home from the reception, I texted Ben about seeing Danny and all the memories. Warren was taking apart a marimba he had to transport the next day and was surprised to see me crying when he looked up (the marimba was in our living room—isn't everyone's?). He was concerned: was I okay?

Yes, yes, I was okay. I was just caught in a long look back over 28 years, over my sons' childhoods, over the old neighborhood, over the delight of seeing Danny not only grown to man's estate but looking and sounding grounded and healthy and positive. "I miss my sons," I said, and burst into tears.

And that brings us to Boy #4, who popped up this morning, not directly like Jacob and Danny, but through another medium, this one Facebook. A Facebook friend posted this meme:

I immediately sent it to Ben's page, with this tag: I read your very first book to you (Are You My Mother?) when you were less than 48 hours old. I believe we sailed past the 1825 mark long before your 5th birthday. Hell, we may have hit it by your 2nd birthday. Thinking of you with lots of love and memories. 

And that is true. 1825 books? Piece of cake. Ben was the child I read to all the time. All. The. Time. Don't get me wrong, I read to Sam too, but as soon as Sam gained mobility, he chose chasing after his big brother to sitting still and being read to. But Ben? Daily. Daily. And it was something we kept up until he was in almost in high school—not because he couldn't read, not because he didn't devour thousands of books under his own power, but because reading connected us in some deep, inherent way that we both needed. Books were our safest harbor in a house filled with turmoil and conflict. Books kept us alive and I will always, always feel that way.

But that was then. That Ben is as long gone as that 5 year old Sam, as that Jacob playing Sam's small cello while on his back (I have photo proof), as that Danny who left his permanent mark on the table. (Danny just bought a house in Las Vegas, where he has lived for several years. I told Warren over lunch that I am strongly tempted to box up the table and send it to him as a housewarming present.) That was then and this is now.

All those memories. All that love.

All those boys.