A Child Goes To War

On Monday, a kid I know left for boot camp. In my eyes, he's just a baby. There doesn't seem any way in hell he's capable of knowing what it is he's getting himself into. But when he told me he was joining the Marines, I didn't tell him any of this. I did ask him why; he said he needed to, so he could get the government to pay for his education.

This kid is too young to share a beer with his dad before he leaves with his troop. He's too young to vote, and he hasn't got a drivers' license. Even cigarettes are illegal for him. Yes, indeed, he's 17 years old.

Up til now, this "child" entrusted his well-being to me whenever we were together. Those were the rules; I was his coach, and I was in charge. When there were questions, he came to me and I answered to the best of my ability. Is it wrong to have favourites? He's right up there with "Dude".Suddenly, we're going to entrust our national safety and security to him? This ... boy?

There's a part of me, cerebrally, that recognizes that he's on his way to becoming a man. There are other people in charge of his life for the next while who will help him on his way. They started helping him weeks ago, locally. I recognized the changes, and I didn't like it. I don't even know why. It started with his gradual slimming down; then it became a squaring of his shoulders each time he spoke to me. Then, the relentless, "yes ma'am". STOP IT! STOP IT! For this hour, right now, you're still a kid, you're still playing, you can let go and let the pressures of what you're going to do slide off your very young shoulders, and have FUN with your peers, doing something you love.

Do they know what they're getting into, these children signing the next years of their lives to their country? Are they truly cognizant of the deep-seated danger of where they're going? Have they thought it out? Did they decide to do it despite the danger, or because of it? Is it need? Or is it a true desire to serve their country?

Sometimes I wonder if the youngest ones have some sort of romantic notion of war; maybe they've seen too many movies where it's all action, all the time. Then one day, you're out in the trenches in a gun-battle when your friend fighting next to you is shattered by shrapnel; you crawl through the dirt and use one arm to cradle his head, and the other to apply pressure to the wound oozing from his belly. His eyes meet yours and you promise, promise, promise, you won't leave. You hear nothing around you but your heart beating, and his...

Suddently reinforcements arrive and medics take over, pushing you aside and administering aid. You follow them to the 'copter, head ducked low, and they take pity on you, letting you in with them. A life is saved, and later, much later, you're both awarded Purple Hearts...

But from what I hear and read and watch, it's not so much like that. This war we're in now~it's more like long periods of boredom and then wickedly unpredictable attacks out of nowhere, and sudden combat for hours and hours. Soldiers are more likely to be killed while driving, or walking to their mess hall, than in actual combat.

The men they're fighting against seem to have a different agenda. While those coming from "our side" are, for the most part, doing their job according to a strict set of guidelines laid out by the United Nations for war (how fucking odd is that?), the other side doesn't seem to be so bothered about following the rules. The key difference? In my head, I don't think that the American Soldiers want all Iraqis dead. However, I DO think that the Sunnis want ALL Americans in Iraq dead~not only dead, but in the most painful, horrifying ways possible. Mass death, great. Dragged to death, great. Hung in effigy, great. Beheaded, great. Burned to death, great. A lesson to the world on the internet, great.

This post is not a forum for whether or not I agree with the war in Iraq. I believe that would be a disservice to the young man who has decided to make the Marines his career.

I'm so scared. For weeks before he left, my husband and I discussed it, each time wishing that there was some other way he could fund his education, as that was the reason he gave for signing up. But in retrospect, I also know that the country needs young men and women to defend it's borders and it's citizens. I don't have the luxury of deciding who's going to do it.

In the past few months, too damned many young men and women have been returned to their families and their country in a box. To me, it seems like they're all coming from HERE. Then when I think about it, I realize that when 2500 brave warriors have died, it IS going to seem like they've all come from one place. What does stand out is their age: 20, 21.

I believe in God and I don't have answers about why bad things happen. So instead I just pray for his family and his safe return; I pray that something will change either here or abroad so that he doesn't have to leave the country. Seriously, what are my options?

Oddly enough, even with his safe return, I don't relish the changes I'll see. There's no way he's going to be a kid anymore, or even a young man. If he does see time in Iraq, he'll be a man, old before his time, having seen things that no one should ever have to see. We'll more than likely have lost touch with him, since a coach doesn't usually stay in touch with her players once they've moved on.

What I DON'T want, is to stay in touch through another front-page headline.

At the risk of outting myself, but needing to give him the honour he deserves:

William Zanabria ~ come home safe.

Parity

How do you put a price on a child's life?

Yesterday morning, a detective phoned Dude's mother and asked her for an update on his injuries. He wanted to know if Dude was up and walking around yet (!); she laughed rather bitterly while telling me of this exchange and told him to, "grab a pencil". Then she started on one side of his body and worked her way down and around, and up the other side.

The purpose of this? He needed to make a report to take to the drunk driver's bail hearing. They wanted it as high as possible.

Ultimately, it ended up at $100,000. The idiot, who is from out of state, and has no insurance, was unable to make bail. He is behind bars. At this point, they haven't discovered if it's even his car.

I wonder what he's thinking about, sitting there in jail. Is he feeling like he's a victim? Or is he feeling like he made a mistake, and he's sorry for it? Do you suppose he's decided he'll NEVER do this again, or is he pacing the cell with pent-up fury, waiting to be released, so he can head straight to another bar and get drunk again? Is he thinking at ALL about the kid lying in the hospital?

The kid in the hospital is going to be ok, eventually. Right now, he's still a mess. We saw him again today; it's a long, drawn-out process, as only two at a time can go into his room, and there's always a waiting room full of people waiting to get in. Yesterday he was awake enough to recognize some of the people and it agitated him to the point where he started ripping lines out of his body and trying to get out of bed when they left. He felt he needed to leave with them. He has no concept of where he is, or why. No recollection of the accident. If his buddies are leaving, then he needs to be leaving with them. While he's able to mumble short sentences, they're generally odd, such as wanting his mom to bring his soccer bag because he thinks he's got a game, or telling her that the nurses are going to jump him; today they sedated him back into oblivion. It's the only thing that's safe for both them and him.

He's noticed his lack of teeth, but doesn't know why. When he woke up, briefly, he said to his mom, "mom, look at my grill!" It came out rather stilted and muffled, as his mouth is swollen and the teeth are gone; but he kept pushing his tongue through it and half-giggling, in a stoned way. Today he recognized that he has glass and scabs in his back, but he has no clue why. His whole face is slightly yellowed, and his eyes are blackened.

I guess Dude, locked within this haze of drugs and pain, is as much a prisoner as the man who got drunk and hit him.

Somehow, it doesn't seem fair.

Expectations

I'm not sure what I expected when I walked into Dude's hospital room. I surely wasn't expecting the rigid security~the phone by the door, the pass clipped to my lapel. I surely wasn't expecting the third degree by the young woman sitting at the desk right outside his room, young enough to be my daughter, asking what my relationship to him was, and if I had permission from his family to be there. That should have been obvious, since I was wearing a pass...

That's all irrelevant. All of it is for his own good, and I knew that going in.

But what shook me to the core was the sight of this very vital kid, a kid I'm used to seeing moving at full speed, lying there in utter stillness, with only his chest rising and falling. Blood was caked around his lips, and the tube running into his lungs. His mouth gaped open slightly, showing the loss of several teeth~at least six. Lines ran into his body at various points, with monitors all over the room. His name was on the top of one, indicating his heart rate.

The left side of his skull has a bump at the temple, where the skin is grazed. There's a bit of dried blood in his ear, from the fracture in the left side of his skull. His wrists are strapped down, because even though he's in a medically-induced coma, he still fights the intubation when any procedures are attempted.

He's got pressure socks on his legs to keep the blood from pooling in his legs; but what I notice is the weird angle he's laying. People don't lay at weird angles like this. His legs are bent and he's sort of on his side, with his head back. It just looks awkward.

But what made us stand stock still and stare ... is that his hair is still upright and spiked. That's Dude's trademark. We never see him without it, and despite 24 hours of medical tests, scans, x-rays and MRIs, his hair is still holding strong.

Deep down inside, I believe he will, too.

Dude, Where's Your Car?

I spent the evening up at the hospital with my family, trying to figure out the randomness of stupidity, and life in general. Last night, I was at a wind-up party for the team I coach. Included in this party was a nice young man I'll call "Dude". Dude is one of my favourites; he's got a great attitude, good sense of humour, works hard, comes to practice, and is skilled. Aside from that, he's a close friend of my son's. Also at this party were two other young men on the same team who have been in car accidents in the past two weeks. One put his face through a windshield. It doesn't seem to bother him much that he's in for many months of plastic surgery. The other young man is more responsible about it, and is working to pay for the car, and accepts culpability (he didn't have insurance).

Back to "Dude". During the party we discussed these two accidents. There's nothing unusual in this. No foreboding. Can't say there was any karma or voodoo or impending sense of doom. It was just us doing what we do: shooting the breeze.

Tonight I got a call from one of the other boys on my team. He was obviously upset, and asked if I knew that Dude had been in an accident. Turns out this other fellow had been trying to reach me for several hours. Dude was in critical condition at the regional hospital and things didn't look good.

What the fuck?

Fractured skull, bleeding into the brain, elevated heart rate, lowered blood pressure, broken collar bone, bruised heart, and suddenly, a lung that was collapsing. What the hell is this shit? Yesterday we sat and lamented his inability to play the last tournament with us, since his mother was taking him out of state. Now this? What could happen in such a short period of time? Well, I'll tell you what could happen.

Drunk drivers, that's what could happen. Drunks who just have to believe that they're manly enough to swallow half a dozen Coors before heading home. Drivers who insist on drinking and getting behind the wheel of 4,000 pounds of steel and then jetting out onto the pavement at 50 miles an hour while imagining they are in total control of both it and themselves. Well guess what, asshole: the scrawny boy lying up in intensive care, with a tube shoved down his throat, and medications being pumped through tubes to syphon blood out of his ever-swelling brain doesn't think you're as good a driver as you seem to think. And while his truck was flipping end over end, the boy in the passenger side didn't think you were that good, either. Remember him crawling out while the truck was upside down, and screaming at you? Remember him kneeling on the ground and begging his buddy not to try to get up, not to try to speak, until the ambulance arrived? No, you probably don't. You were probably too damned busy trying to figure out how you were going to weasel out of this mess.

But the rest of us knew. Every one of the thirty or so people gathered in that room waiting for SOME sort of update knew what you didn't: that you weren't in control. All it took was a flip of your wrist, and your car tucked itself under the left side of his and sent it sailing. And while we sit there and watch Dude's mother and grandmother making a vain attempt at bravery, you go home without a mark.

She looks so tired. She comes out every so often and gives us as much of an update as she can, this motley group who's been thrown together by tragedy. It's all we really have in common. I don't know many of them, and they surely don't know me. What they know is that I came in looking frantic and saddened~and so did all of they. We're bound by our caring of this active party-boy who wants nothing more than to get better and get on with the business of living and driving and putting this tragedy behind him~provided he gets the chance.

And you? What do you want?

Maybe what you want is that in a few years, no one gets drunk and takes it out on YOUR child. After all, no matter how much I despise you right this second, I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

Raggedy Ann

Did you ever see Raggedy Ann after she'd been left out in the mud and mauled by dogs a few months? That's how I feel

The "exes" have all gone. The weekend spent with them, for all intents and purposes, went swimmingly, with the exception of my exhusband's new wife. My ex-MIL and FIL were charming and kind; shame they weren't like that when we split up.

I spent the week before they arrived in a high state of mania. I cleaned/worked for hours on end and slept minimally and fitfully. I lived in a constant state of agitation and irritation. My skin hurts. My hair hurts. I can't breathe. Still can't.

Having my older children arrive was both a blessing and a bane, as I always do my damdest to sheild them from the craziness that's going on inside. I didn't do so well this time, as on Thursday morning, my oldest son got a fairly good look at it. He simply watched and said he didn't know what to do. Honest answer.

The new wife made her presence known as soon as she walked into my home. I had been getting ready for the grad, and was ironing clothing for the group; I had fifteen minutes to spare, and two pairs of pants and three shirts left. One of my sons brought me his shirt, and it had a tiny hole in it. I mentioned it, said he needs to do better on preparation for big events, then let it go. I ironed his shirt, gave it back and he put it on. The hole, no bigger than a pinhead, was barely visible. Then I went back to my work.

But when the new wife walked in, it was the FIRST THING she saw. She didn't say hi to anyone, just SON YOU HAVE A HOLE IN YOUR SHIRT! BO, GET ME A SEWING KIT. I'LL FIX THAT. SON, WHY WOULD YOU BRING THAT. Well, he didn't notice it. It was small, and this is a mildly learning disabled child who's just turned 21 and is finding his way into adulthood. He doesn't much care that there was a tiny hole in his shirt. There are plenty of other ways that he's doing absolutely fantastic and a tiny hole is really not the end of the world. Anyway....JUST BRING ME THE WHOLE BOX, I'LL FIND THE RIGHT COLOUR.

Well, I had the right colour from something else, and thought, what the hell, let the bitch sew if she wants to. But what she did, right off the bat, was walk into my home and show immediately to my ex-inlaws that she is a better parent than I am. It burned. How it burned! Because I can act, I let it go, told her thank you, and it looked lovely, and moved on. But inside, I was pretty much on fire.

Then she told him that it was nice he got his hair cut before he came to see us. Except.......

He got his hair cut WITH ME...the day before. It just doesn't occur to her to ask.

During graduation, as my husband stood during his 10 second window of opportunity to take pictures of our graduate, she took that opportunity to ask him about the price of laptops and what brands to buy..........

After we got to the restaurant we had picked out, she criticized that. We went to a rather upscale restaurant in our city. She decided it was loud and left ear plugs in her ears and made a production of pulling them out each time someone spoke to her. When her meal came, and everyone was ooo-ing and ahhhh-ing over theirs, she poked at hers and sent it back: "This is not chicken breast. I cannot eat it." Now it's of interest to note that on the menu, it is not DESCRIBED as chicken breast.

When we finally left that evening, we thought we were done; nooooo. We were invited for brunch the next day. 9am at IHOP. Ok, fine. But at 8am we get a phone call from her saying that she was walking to Starbucks for coffee and muffins. Uh....how are we going to have brunch at Starbucks?So I talked to the graduate and he just decided to push the group back over to IHOP. SHE, however, did not attend. She left to watch tv in the hotel. We thought....ahhhhh, this will be nice!

Unfortunately, halfway through breakfast, she showed up and started tasting and criticizing food. Didn't order her own, just tasted and criticized everyone else's. I had been talking to the ex's parents, and was actually enjoying it. I thought maybe they were, too, but once she got there, that stopped fairly soon. She's not good at not having the spotlight on her.

Oddly enough, or fittingly enough, she and the redheaded girl get along GREAT.

Once at the airport, my ex got all the boarding passes for six people for three legs of a trip....that's 18 boarding passes. They were in an envelope together. What did she do? Yanked them out and dropped them on the table, and started flingling them about. His face fell a foot. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" She said, "Handing them out." "They were in ORDER!"

Well, not any more. It took 30 minutes to get THAT mess fixed up. It's the first time I've ever seen him actually ANGRY with her, but it's a classic example of the type of shit she does.

Now I'm home, and I'm alone. My baby will be gone soon, and the redheaded girl has kept him out of the house constantly for two weeks, and when she doesn't, he manages to do it alone. He's popular, and all his friends are having parties all over the place. I don't begrudge him that. But I feel like I have nothing left, and the mania of the past two weeks has crashed in a most spectacular manner. Six hours of rocking, crying, snotting, keening tears last night; I'm highly medicated, but it's just barely keeping me on track. It's sorta....walking a tightrope. I'm not sure what's going to happen in the next few days or week, except that my husband and I will talk about how to get the little redhead chick out of our house.

I'm so lost. If anyone has a loader, I'd pay good money for them to come move this rock off my chest and help me get back on my feet and show me where I am.

Bo

A Rose By Any Other Name

There's something eminently cleansing about having your hands in dirt~at least for me. At a time when so little seems to make sense to me, and my mind is again on hiatus, I get satisfaction and relief by digging in the soil.

The yard abounds with pretty flowers and rocks; it looked ok before, but it looks much better now. Nary a stray leaf lays in the planters. How would it dare? I work myself to exhaustion, because it's the only way my mind will stop the wild ramblings of the mad. It's rarely been this bad for so long. Usually I can find SOME form of relief, but these days, if I'm not working, insanity creeps in within minutes. I must keep working, working, working. Don't stop. Dig, plant, rake. Change something. Weed, water, replant again. Do household chores then start it all again.

The frustration I feel this time is that I cannot escape. Each time I stop working, that insanity jumps in: mania, in it's most irritating, agitating form.

A Little Work is a Joyous Thing

For the past three days, the little red-headed kid has worked 8 hours a day.

I heard today that she has Monday off, then works most of the rest of the week. I'm in heaven! As a bonus, when I phoned home this morning, I'm almost certain I interrupted something that shouldn't have been going on anyway.

Chalk one up for the old lady.

Til Death Do Us Part

"Can I get a ride to work, Bo?"


"Sure."


Now why I thought that today would be any different than yesterday, I don't know. But it wasn't. As soon as the doors closed on the truck, her mouth started flapping. Nonstop. Question after question after question. I thought that if I answered them in single-word monotone reactions long enough, she'd get the hint and just sort of leave it be. But unfortunately, that simply escalated it into another ... well, semi-confrontation. Despite me saying I didn't, couldn't, do it again, we had to.

What's interesting is that this child has won. She knows it, I know it. There's nothing left but the burial. While asking today AGAIN why we couldn't simply get over this and put it behind us, she mentioned that she would move out if I wanted her to. She's been offered a place to stay with her best friend. The best friend's mother is one I've heard about a LOT. She's adorable, she's loved, she's fabulous, she does EVERYTHING for the Redhead. She's everything I am not and never have been, except that my door was open, as was my wallet. Anyway, she can go there, if I want her to. That's when she slipped ... just a little bit ....

"Actually, it's my choice, not your choice..."

I don't think she even recognizes the implications of what she's said. Wait a minute. It's YOUR choice if you stay or go? Have you had a vicious blow to the head?

One of the things that got to bothering me yesterday when she and I talked about my son was that she continues to tell me how, "he had no friends when he got here. He sat by himself all the time til I introduced him around and got him into my group." She uses this, over and over, as a tool to bind him to her. I don't believe he recognizes the damage she's doing to his self-esteem each time she uses it. *I* didn't, until yesterday. Sometimes it takes longer for those things to sink in, when we're on the inside of the mess. Yes, he's shy, but I have to tell you, there are a TON of kids hanging around him now, and the majority of them are girls, and if they were given half a chance, they'd trample her to get to him. I've seen THAT in action. But she forgets that~or maybe just refuses to see it.

Apparently "The Boy" has told her that it might be in her best interests to move. Tonight when he gets home we'll see what he says. Maybe he'll approach me on his own. Why don't I approach him? Because my wires have gone crossed again and the red is plugged in where the green should be, and the blue is where the white should be, and the yellow is just hanging there, loose, along with a couple of screws. It's not an easy time to deal with it.

And why is all of this happening NOW, you might ask? Well, that's easy, even for a lunatic: all the attention is on HIM, or at least it should be. It's his graduation. We can't let that happen, can we? We've got to get everyone focused back on the wicked little attention whore as quickly as possible, before someone else usurps even a fraction of the glad tidings being spread around....

I wish someone would shoot me.

So Proud I Could Kill Him

It shouldn't surprise me that on any given day, I'm struck by the urge to alternately hug and strangle my child. After all, isn't this the nature of the beast, to some extent? For all intents and purposes, I've been extraordinarily lucky in raising my children, right up until *she* came into this one's life. There's no question in my mind that had she not, things would have gone swimmingly until he graduated this year and gone on to college.

Today, after several more weeks of barely civil silence, she decided to confront me while she had me cornered in the truck. You see, she doesn't like our house rules, and it creates strife between she and my son, and that creates strife between he and I, as he's busy trying to placate her, rather than telling her to pull her head out of her ass and grow up. ANYWAY, yesterday they were in her bedroom discussing an, "issue", which is against a house rule. So I went up and promptly brought him out. This did not sit well.

Today she decided she needed to know what it is she can do to "fix" our relationship. She wants us to be closer. Be friends. Be mother/daughterish, if you will. And all this will start if I'll just TALK to her. TELL her when things are bothering me! Why won't I DO this????

Well, honey, because it's a waste of time. Disaster strikes when I try to talk to you. It will end in a fight, or you stomping out and taking off, or crying, and I'm sick to death of the fighting. I'm too old for this shit, and my mental health just ain't good enough.

But WHY? I don't GET it, she says. Just TRY. I'm going to be here forever, because he wants me and blah blah blah blah.....

So I said, Ok, here it is. You know how on Sunday, when you came home...you came in and didn't bother to greet anyone? You were grouchy, you informed him you were grouchy, and then let him spend the next five hours trying to coax you out of a bad mood. At one point you slammed out of the house. He was expected to follow. You slammed back in. Why? You were tired. But it was allllll up to him to figure out what it was and FIX it for you. It wasn't his problem, but you expected him to just do everything in his power to make YOUR bad mood go away. That's one of the problems. The drama. You ask me what I want for my son? That's one of the things I want: No drama!

And I set house rules. You don't like them, but you know what? It's my house. It's S's house. We pay the bills. It doesn't matter if you like them. I have a sense of morality and ethics and I am tired of watching the two of you flaunting your sexuality in our faces. I already spend most of my time locked away in my room so I can avoid seeing it, but when ever I'm out, I have to see it. I tell you two that you're not allowed in each other's rooms, and where were you last night? In each other's rooms. I didn't say there were exceptions. I said NO exceptions!

My son is not my son anymore. I don't get to spend time with him; we used to have a good relationship and now his time is monopolized by you. From the minute he walks in the door til the time he leaves, you're by his side. He doesn't get down time. There's never a moment that I get to spent time with him alone when we can talk. I miss that. He's MY BABY, and I've lost him, and he's losing the ethics I raised him with.

Her response? So why didn't you spend time with him on the weekend while I was gone? And why doesn't *S* ever talk to him? And why does he roll his eyes and sigh every time I talk (because it's constant)? Why don't we ever go on family outtings? Why doesn't *S* ever talk to me (who gets a chance)?

My answer? I DID. I offered to do things with him. He locked himself in his room with his school books and a movie until we took him out to dinner. We offered to take him to a movie but he wanted to go home in case he could make plans to go out with friends. I wouldn't stop him from doing that because he rarely gets to see them as-------SHE DOESN'T LET HIM. Did I forget to mention that you needed to call him three times a day? That's not conducive to a social life without you.

Her response to me? Well, I guess he'd rather spend time with me than you. I can't help that. I even tell him that he should spend time with you, like go to a movie or something, but he refuses (bullshit, bullshit, bullshit).

Beyond that, she also said that we treat her rudely, are uncivil, that she and my son would NEVER have any fights if it weren't for S and I, and that she really, really feels bad that she's made me cry now...

This entire conversation has been interspersed with wickedly hurled invectives at me for bringing up their sexuality at all, and how dare I talk about it when their love is about SO MUCH MORE than that. Really? That's all it looked like when she was sitting in his lap rubbing one out for him on the sofa that night.....

So tonight was his school's awards night for graduation, and the little bastard managed to come up with about half a dozen. I was expecting one or two; but not five or six! Now I have to figure out how to manage my anger alongside my pride. It's a weird, weird feeling, wanting to smile and hug him, then make snide remarks.

At one point this afternoon, when the fighting was over, I realized something, and it hit me with a bleakness I haven't felt in quite some time: she's beaten me. I never thought it would happen, but it has. I've reached a no-win situation, and she's beaten me. My son-my sweet, sweet boy-has been taken by this vicious, conniving pied piper pussy and can see only as far as his next hand job. And yes, I hold him as responsible as she is, and I hold myself as responsible as well. Had I kept him in his native country where he belonged, none of this would have happened.

As always, hindsight reigns supreme.