Crash

I was dreading this trip. The last time we drove to East Berlin was for the funeral, only a month or so ago, but driving those roads again makes me ache for Kitty, who I just can't wrap my head around not ever seeing again. I even asked Sam if he wanted to go without me, just with my mom and grandmother to visit his cousins. Of course he said no, and truthfully I don't think I could send him off in a car to another state without me anyway.

So uneventfully we go the the assisted living, open Mother's Day presents with my grandmother, see the renovations and the new puzzle room on her floor. Back in Mom's brand new car, the four of us ride quietly. I sip my big Diet Coke in the backseat and think of Kitty, while Sam taps away on his Nintendo next to me.

At the crossroads, we stop and my grandmother exclaims "Well, how fast he going!?" And then, a deafening crash, the vehicle spins, the car is flying down the embankment and straight ahead, I see a tree. I am punched in the left side of my head by the airbag, stunned into silence as the window glass shatters. The air bags cast a sick red glow inside the car. Mom swerves and avoids the tree and we stop, tires stuck on the rocks.

"Is everyone ok?" I hear myself say. Sam begins to cry, to wail, he is terrified. Mom is bloody and crying; she looks backward at me and seems so small and frail. Mom-Mom is shaken. Sam unstraps himself from the car seat and gets out onto the rocks, sobbing. I get out as well, open the front door. Mom-Mom can't get out, and neither can Mom, whose door is smashed, its lock torn clean. People start coming to us, drawn by the siren of Sam's sobs. I settle Sam on the hill at the roadside, call Randy to tell him we have crashed several miles from his house. He will come to us, but I am too confused to explain where we are.

The EMT units arrive, the State Police arrive. I hear a new term, "t-boned," which is what we have been, by a red truck going 60 mph. I can't reach Eric but leave him a message: there has been an accident, we are all alive, Sam is ok but scared. Everyone is drawn to Sam and me by his continuing wails. Several EMTs asks Sam questions; I know they are assessing his mental status but I don't tell him he has Asperger's, don't want his terror dismissed as a special-needs quirk.

Mom is shuttled quickly into the first ambulance. I catch the word "flight" and wonder if she is being flown to a trauma center. Mom-Mom is strapped to a guerney in another ambulance, and Sam and I are deemed well enough to ride along with her, though still as patients. Sam is horrified by the lack of seat belts in the ambulance, and clings to the stuffed animal the EMT gives him. I answer the medical questions and hold Mom-Mom's hand, though she is in good spirits and, Garp-like, thinks it's exciting that she is getting her first ambulance ride in her mid-80s.

Hours at the hospital later, there have been CTs of heads and necks and xrays of shoulders, elbows and hips. Mom has a minor head injury and superficial injuries, but the rest of us are ok. Eric comes to get us and takes a circuitous route back to Baltimore, thankfully avoiding the accident site. Randy stays with Mom-Mom, and gets a call that my cousin Ryan has just been crowned Prom King. The car is of course totalled. The EMTs tell my mom they are amazed there are no serious injuries, looking at each other and saying in unison, "air bags." We learn that without the airbags my mom and I would likely be dead.

Assorted Sam-politicalisms

Listening to NPR in the car pre-election, we hear a story a story about Proposition 8in California. I ask Sam what he thinks about this, and clarify that it is a law about whether a man can marry a man or a woman can marry a woman. He pauses for a moment and then seriously says "that should be a law for the whole world."

**

A few weeks ago, Sam asked for whom I would be voting. WHen I said Barack Obama, Sam said, "Well, good, then you'll be voting for me."

**

On the way to school, Sam asks how much we owe on our mortgage and how long it will take to pay it. Then he muses that when that happens, we sure will have a lot of extra money each month, and gosh, couldn't we give him some of that money? I informed him that he will be 26 then, and while he did say he would have a job (as a cake decorator), apparently he will stll be living with us.

**

Election night, E and I are watching the returns after midnight and Sam stumbles out of bed, calling me to come upstairs. I ask him to come downstairs and tell him Obama won. The three of us snuggle on the sofa and watch Obama make a victory speech. I hope it's something Sam always remembers.

Not-to-be #1: David

Don't ask me why, but I have been fixating recently upon the several boys/men with whom I almost had a thing, but didn't. There are three. First up, David.

I met David in 8th grade. He was handsome and very very smart, goofy and nerdy, just slightly full of himself in that first-born Jewish male way. I don't remember how we got from mutual crush to "official item," but we were there very, very briefly. I don't think we ever even kissed, though I still have the "hug card" with the blue koala that he gave me. We would talk for hours on the phone, play songs to each other (I distinctly remember playing him "If I Fell" from Rubber Soul), talk about duetting on flute (me) and piano (him). We wrote each other poetry. He was adoring, brimming with love, barely containing his elation. He was driving his sister nuts talking about me, and I am sure his parents were amused though slightly terrified. But it was all too much for me. Foreshadowing a future pattern in my adult relationships, I wanted someone like David--attentive, kind, enthralled with me--but when I got it, it freaked me the fuck out. So much so that my feelings for David basically went completely numb overnight.

We stayed friends, and David was the model of maturity, but I'm sure it must have been heartbreaking and confusing for him. He was briefly angry with me, but he put it aside so quickly. I wince to think how painful that must have been for him. If only he knew all the awful things that lie behind our breakup.

We went to different high schools, but the schools were next door to each other and I saw him a lot. In 10th grade, we became close again and hung out often after school and on weekends. We were both "recrushing" but of course he kept some distance. My ring dance was looming and I took the plunge and asked him, and he quickly said yes. I knew we were on the cusp of a "real" relationship and it was so exciting and thrilling.

The dance was scheduled for a Saturday night on a weekend when David, who was religious, had a youth retreat in another state with his synagogue. He begged his dad to let him come back early for the dance, and his dad agreed to drive down to Virginia to pick him up on Saturday. Then my stupid school changed the dance to Friday only weeks before. There was no way David could get out of the retreat on Shabbas. We were both quietly broken.

David insisted I ask someone else to the dance. I took Sean, a guy I had met at work over the summer and briefly dated. He was very very cute (think teenage Timothy Hutton) and nice enough, but there weren't a lot of sparks. I was frankly stunned when he said yes. We had an ok time, though the highlight for me was the party after, where I met for the first time my bad boy crush Andy B., who took me into Ben's bedroom and shared his bowl with me, only mentioning after we had smoked for an hour that he might still have strept.

I don't know why David and I never pursued things after that. He was probably waiting for me to act and I was probably waiting for him. I regret that it never happened. I would have liked to have felt his strong arms around me, basked in his adoring glow and felt cherished and loved. And I bet he was a really, really good kisser. Just a hunch.

Irony

Sam has been out of control all week at home. We have had some colossal screaming fits both morning and night, and two at drop off in the morning. This morning the screaming started when he got up, continued throught breakfast, during the entire 30 minute car ride, on into school, and was still going on when the AP shooed me out the door (hats off to you Ms. Mari S, by the way!!)

Tonight when I came home, incessant whining started almost immediately: girls are mean, too many new girls in my class, I don't like the lunches except when they had something I liked and they ran out, I want Lincoln Logs, I don't want to brush my teeth, I'm still hungry, only one chapter???

But here's what happened today at pickup: Sam and three girls were singled out by their teacher as "the very best behaved all week." He got a cool Spiderman coloring book with stickers and a big cheer in public.

What the ??!!?? Thanks for saving the "best" for us, kiddo.

First day, with worry

My worries on this first day of first grade were far greater than any of Sam's. He was happy to have the teacher all the kids seem to prize, the one who runs the Chess Club and shakes each kid's hand every morning and every afternoon. But almost all the kids from his kindergarten class are together in a different room. His two closest buddies are in there, and I know how he already felt a little left out in that trio since the other two are so close. Probably two thirds of his old class is still together. It is not lost on me that those kids are the higher-performing ones in their grade and I wonder why Sam got left out, when I know from his summer program that he is reading on a 3rd grade level and was in the very small kindergarten group doing 2nd grade math last year. I am sensitive to him being placed in lower-performing groups because of his "special ed" label, though part of the reason he qualified for an IEP in the first place was because of the discrepancy between his high IQ and his "just above average" performance. I trust this school and these teachers and keep telling myself to just get over it. I hope his little friends from last year don't forget him and that he is happy in his class. All I know so far is that his day was the standard "great" and that he is sitting next to Madison, a very sweet girl from his class last year who looks eerily like him.

I suppose I will worry about something no matter what, so this is pretty small potatoes, even compared to the worries I had the last two Septembers.

Another Baltimore girl

Kim is gone, her sons now have no mother. Her siblings have lost another. She had so many people who adored her, and I don't think she even knew. She crashed to the bottom and clawed her way back, and then crashed again. She never got to be a nurse, and she would have been a really good one. She did buy a house, get her boys back, see one graduate from high school and get a scholarship to Georgetown. I hope he goes back and becomes the physician she hoped he would. I hope her younger son can make it through adolescence safely, with no more bullies or suicide attempts, no further sinking into the abyss that awaits Black male youth in Baltimore City.

I can only hope she had some peace, and that she is able to watch over her sons from wherever she is now. Kim, if you're listening, I hope you know I tried my hardest. I wish I could have given you more of whatever it was you really needed. We all love you and will forever miss you. It's hard to believe you're gone.

Artist of the Week

Sam's camp has an artist of the week. At breakfast I asked who it was for the week, and Sam told me:

Andy Warthog.

Separation

I should have felt free, joyous, relieved. Instead I felt panicked and lonely and untethered, scrambling to get my feet to touch the ground. I thought I wanted to be with J but it was very quickly, very clear to me that he was just an excuse. Woodenly I rode in his Beretta, then sat in an apartment eating egg rolls and watching movies, counting the minutes.

Late that night I struggled with the front door lock at Hannah's parents' house, my emergency landing pad. I was in tears when her mom opened the door for me and wrapped her arms around me, held my sobbing form. I don't think any of my friends would have known what to say to me, but she understood, intuitively.

I went home the next day. It wouldn't be the last time I'd leave, and I needed to go, but I guess I just wasn't ready.