Full Circles

"Tree of Life"

It's four am and I should be asleep.

I have a long day of driving ahead of me, up to the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts and then back home again.

I am taking Jacob up to camp.

It's the same special needs program at the sweet, wonderful Jewish sleep-away camp he went to and loved last year.

But still, sleep is not coming.

On top of everything else that is making me anxious these days, there is this:

Even though he went last year, even though he is a year older and his communication skills have jumped leaps and bounds over where he was a year ago?

My son Jacob is still quite autistic; still unable to reliably report on his activities; still as likely to answer "yes" to any and all questions asked of him, because he knows that answer makes us questioners happy, as opposed to trying to represent some sort of truth.

"Did you do math is in school today, Jake?"

"Yes!"

"Did you play basketball today?"

"Yes!" 

"Did you go to the moon today, Jake?"

"Yes!" 

(So my son is still an astronaut.)

And also, though he can say "I want..." this or that, will tell you "No, I don't like that!" if he hates something you've given him to eat or wear... still, he doesn't really know how to thoroughly advocate for himself yet.

I worry.

And I'm struck once again by how different my feelings were two nights ago, preparing to send his twin brother Ethan off to HIS one week sleep-away camp; the excitement, the certainty that he would be having a good time, easily able to let the folks there know what he needs, to take care of himself.

Twins. But so different.

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On road, in the early morning of what is sure to be a beautiful day, Jake is in the back seat and we are listening to pop music on the radio.

Driving up to New England, the highway passes through the Riverdale area of The Bronx; means I pass right by the exit I took to go see and take care of my parents for two years, in this, their old car, now mine. Today the exit sign for 254th street brings my heart into my throat, tears burning my eyes.

My mother so diminished and frail now, hurting and in the hospital. I am contrasting that with visions of my parents when they first moved here, back from Florida together, the two of them. So much younger, so full of life in 2005.

Seven years.

And he is now gone and she is in the endgame. And my children are now ten, double digits; on the precipice of launching into teendom. Life flowing in two directions all around me.

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It has indeed turned out to be a beautiful day, the finest of this whole hot miserable summer. I am sitting on a bench in the outdoor sanctuary at Jacob's camp. In the place where, as 14 year old, I had lain a mosaic; now long gone, replaced by a lovely tree of life ark.

This camp has changed over years since 1974, yet also so much remains the same. Walking past the old red barn, chills ran down my spine, memories shuffling past. Last year the special needs camp was held at this camp's sister location nearby. But this year: here.

Last year the opening ceremony was lovely, but did not evoke the past.

This year I sit in this exact same spot as my fourteen year-old self, and past and present swirled together like the light and dark sections of a mixed pumpernickel bread. As we sing the the words of the prayers, my arm around Jacob who is leaning deep, snuggled into my side, I am crying.

Growing up in non-religious household, going away to this camp at fourteen was the first time I was really exposed to Hebrew and prayer. That one summer, four and a half weeks, really, have remained a deep & meaningful time, are a part of shaping who I am.

Not particularly observant now, there is still, somewhere in my core, a rooted sense of Jewish self, an unshakable identity. And I know my one month here at Jewish sleep-away camp instilled that.

People have asked me why my near fervently non-religious parents had sent me here, of all places. And there was the official, and I'm sure true reason: I had always wanted to go away to camp, they wanted to give me what I wanted before it was too late, and this was the cheapest camp they could find.

But I also have to think that they somehow knew, maybe even subconsciously, that I needed this, needed to belong to something larger than just myself and my tiny nuclear family.  

And now I sit, my son at my side, my mother in a hospital bed, physically distant but ever on my mind. And in front of me, in this sanctuary, is a beautiful, sculptural Tree of Life.

A visceral image of what I sit in the middle of every day, these days, caring for the young and the old. Looking backwards and forwards.

But today, trying to be just here. In and of this moment.

And then my son hops up, heeds the call for campers to make their departure. He plants one more kiss on my chin, runs up the hill to the awaiting counselors. Just when I think he's off with nary a glance back, he turns, offers me a big smile and wave and happy "Goodbye, Mom!" shouted at the top of his lungs.

And he's gone.

Jake waving goodbye

I am linking this up with my friend Heather's Just Write

A Real Nail Biter

Sometimes change creeps up on you so slowly you don't even notice it, but there's your kid, seemingly suddenly different.  And you know it's truly not sudden, that it has been evolving for some time, but you've missed it, even though it was going on right in front of your nose. 

That happened recently with Jacob.  I looked down at his hand the other day and noticed his nails were dirty.  Wait - what?  They were long enough to be dirty?  Jacob's nails?

Yep, long and dirty; and I had to double take.  Not because I knew I had cut them recently, but because I haven't seen them this long, haven't had to cut them for two or three years.  Ever.

Because Jacob, you see, is a nail biter.  He is a really bad, constant nail biter, down to the quick and sometimes beyond.

Make that "was."

Jacob loves to pet our cat.

And somehow whatever had propelled him towards nail biting in the past, presumably anxiety, has abated.  I am so happy about this, grateful even, and also somewhat sad that I hadn't noticed until now.

You think you are watching your kids so carefully, but some things just do slip through the cracks.  Especially with Jacob, who doesn't talk about the "why" of things.   We are often left guessing as to exactly what's going on.

Three years ago, we had never gotten an answer as to why he started biting his nails.  Never knew what was at the core of his unhappiness, that the biting of his nails helped with.  Also, at the time he hated having nails that stuck up at all, and biting certainly kept them super short all the time.  So it might have started as a sensory issue that then fulfilled an emotional need too.

Which is the cart, which is the horse?  Don't know, probably never will.

But now?  He's happy to have them growing, a little annoyed at me cutting them, but OK with it when distracted by TV.  Why?  What changed?  Good question.  We certainly don't know now, may never know.

Sometimes with Jacob detective work actually helps us to figure out what's going on.  Sometimes an answer appears weeks, months later, out of the blue.  Yet other times the mystery is just that, remaining mysterious, locked inside Jake's head; his inability to explain, a wall of silence.

Three years ago, shortly after Jacob transitioned from pre-school to elementary school, he had a backslide in his toileting habits.  Jake had toilet trained easily, when he was completely ready, at age four.  Really, one long Columbus Day weekend intensive and he was done.  Zero accidents, dry at night just weeks later, too.

But a few weeks into Kindergarten?  He was having poop accidents.

It appeared he was withholding and then when he couldn't hold it in any longer, it was coming out in skid marks.  And of course, once poop is withheld, it gets backed up, becomes hard, painful to release and a bad cycle has begun, difficult to break, especially with a child who cannot describe what is going on with him.

And we couldn't for the life of us figure out what was going wrong, what had set all this in motion.  That school was not his current wonderful school, communication was not a strong point with them. They were getting mad at me, thinking I had lied about him being thoroughly toilet trained.  I was starting to wonder if something really bad was happening to him in the bathroom at his school.  It was NOT good. 

About three months into this, I had taken Jake to the movies.  We were in the bathroom, he had pooped, and when I went to wipe him, he yelled "NO!"

And as I balled up the awful cheap movie theater t.p. in my hand I suddenly had an epiphany:

"Jake is this toilet paper scratchy and yucky, does it hurt your bottom?"

"YES! Hurts!"

"Is the toilet paper at school like this?"

"YES! Hurts!" 
 
Whew!  Mystery solved.  At home, we used soft, moist flushable wipes and our t.p. is the soft expensive kind, too.  I never would have figured this out except for that moment of serendipity.

Jacob, at eight is now able to communicate much more, often initiates conversations.  But still, mysteries abound.  Like the nail biting.  I am happy it is gone, but a small part of me would still love to know why?  Why?

But asking is going to get me nowhere.  Because about important things like this?  Conversations still often have a circular quality to them:

"Jacob, why are you crying? What's going on?"

"I'm crying because I'm sad Mommy."

"Yes, honey, I can see that. But why are you sad?"

"I'm sad because... I'm crying mommy."

"Oh, honey you are crying because you are sad.  But why are you sad, what is making you feel sad? Did something happen?"

"Yes, Mommy."

"What happened?"

"I'm sad, Mommy.  I'm crying, Mommy."

And on and on.  And I can't make suggestions, because anything I suggest he will agree to.  He would make a terrible criminal suspect, easily confessing to the most heinous of crimes, just to please his questioner, to be able to put forth an answer.

I discovered this the hard way a while ago when trying to get a sense of what had happened during a regular day at school.  I had asked:

"Did you do math, today?"

"Yes mommy I did math"

"Did you read?"

"Yes mommy I did reading."

"What did you read, Jakey?"

"I read a book, Mommy!"  OK, that's likely, and details are not his strong point.

But then to test if this was real information or just agreeableness, I threw in a ringer:

"Did you go to the moon, today, Jakey?"

"Yes Mommy, I went to the moon."

Damn!  Back to square one.

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