dear finnegan

i wish i knew you better. though perhaps i did without really knowing it, until now, maybe. until having been compelled to think of you more deeply since your passing last month, which was far too soon. i wish i had carved out more time to be with you. in the same way i wish i could with my own son, i wish i knew your innermost feelings, hopes and dreams. in each case, that will never be. still, i miss you, and the world misses you, too, finnegan.

i think i knew you mostly through knowing your people. like your kin, you had a special kind of pull. like gravity on tides. a vessel's longing for water. a river to open ocean. waves yearning for the shore. and, like your family, you were a poem.

like your mother, my dear friend lucretia, you were generous. blushing. earnest. nurturing. hard-working. beautiful. welcoming. creative. down to earth. maverick.

your father, michael, was in you too. you were gifted. adventuresome. athletic. artistic. handsome. industrious. clever. funny. loyal.

like your siblings, seamus, maeve and daire, you were an old soul from the beginning—wise beyond your years. genuine. kind. humble. pure. accepting. thoughtful. intelligent. insightful. tender. caring. exceptional.

and, yes, you were exacting too.

yesterday, at your memorial, hot apple cider was served in paper cups under a peaked white tent atop a slope. school buses parked aside the field having just shuttled scores of mourners eager to celebrate and remember you. men in woolen shirts and boots gently poured watery rings around the modest bonfires they'd built, the crackling timber turning satin-black and ashy white. smoke and its consoling aroma lingered before dissolving into the chill. as the ceremony got underway, hundreds of folks began streaming downhill toward the podium. from the center of the crowd, i waded crosscurrent hoping to reach the edge, slowly weaving between people as best i could to avoid disturbing the flow.

i stopped alongside a low wire fence flanking a field of windswept grasses. the crowd stood silent on three sides of me, a sea of winter jackets, and hats with fluffy pompoms. there were people of all ages. many of them dear to me, though most of them unknown. as a dozen or so of your closest friends shared stories of knowing and loving you, finnegan, i listened while sometimes gazing out over the pasture. i imagined you running its length as a child. perhaps doing cartwheels and somersaults on days like these. at that moment, the meadow—which just three weeks earlier had been shrouded by a river sky—resembled a vast channel. its tufts of windblown straw appeared as gently rippling rapids, though golden, each wave cresting in the same direction—downstream. thirty minutes on, i glanced back over the field to see the half-moon rising in the southeast. a tiny cloud or two drifted amid the liquid blue sky, the sun nearly kissing the earth as if mother and child. thinking of you, finnegan, i was moved. bowing my head, tears dropped onto soggy reeds beneath my feet as i imagined standing in a river next to you.

at your gathering, a wise, gentle woman said that grief's element is water. i don't know if that's true. but it makes sense to me, finnegan. grief and loss, like water, can knock us down like a breaker in the sea. i know. it can move us and move through us, like a drink. i know. and as tides and rivers are wont to do, grief can bring us somewhere new. i know well that truth; my own river—its headwaters born with calvin—continues. but if anyone had the ability to move others in life and in passing, clearly, finnegan, it was you.

blessings

It was bound to happen, and it did so at three a.m. His scream was muffled, thus barely arousing me. Half asleep, Michael and I caressed Calvin as he seized, then I crawled in with our boy and held him, where I could hear and feel his pounding heartbeat. Our heads rested together on a soft cotton pillowcase that belonged to our dear friend who took his own life last summer, and whose birthday it is today. Somehow, it felt safe and right putting cheek to fabric that in sleep used to touch his well-missed face.

During Calvin's last spate of seizures, I grieved. In my mourning, I told someone that when I see Calvin suffer miseries such as seizures and night terrors, I am more accepting than usual of the real chance he might not live out his childhood years; no one wants to see their child suffer repeatedly. She said his death would be a blessing. She used that word. Others have, too. Rather than admonish her, I simply disagreed. And though her words stung, and though they were ignorant, I knew what she was trying to say and I knew they came from a place of love.

Yesterday, I wrote to an acquaintance who lost his grown son a few years ago:

your loss of your son resonates with me on some level. i think of that poem, "Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night," by walt whitman, which i post on my blog most memorial days. in it, he speaks so tenderly of his "boy of responding kisses." with our sons, i believe we both have experienced losses of our own kind. and though we feel grief over those losses, maybe we have gone on to have relationships with them in unexpected, deep and meaningful ways—yours perhaps developing even after his death, and mine with a non-verbal, severely disabled one who i can never truly know or understand. of course, nothing can replace who or what they might have gone on to be, but somehow, despite that, perhaps we still have profound connections with them.

Still, I can say unequivocally that the loss of a child is no blessing.

A blessing is a seizure-free child. A blessing would be a planet without hunger, poverty, bigotry or disease. A blessing would be a world where men don't rape and abuse girls and women—at home, behind dumpsters on college campuses, as a tactic of war. A blessing would be a world where spirituality, brotherhood, love, acceptance and connectedness replaces religious dogma, its fears, its wars, its patriarchies, its contempt and conceit, its divisions of all the world's people. Blessings are in birdsongs and stars. A blessing is a cleansing rain. A blessing is a break in the clouds. A blessing is a good night's sleep, a healthy child, a loving husband. A blessing would be a hate-free world. A blessing is an old friend connecting again, enough food on the table, a soft pillowcase, a warm bed. A blessing is a breeze coming off open ocean. A blessing is freedom, justice, peace, equality of people, a place without greed, deceit and exploitation. Blessings are cherished memories of loved ones who've passed away. A blessing is a son who can verbalize what is hurting him. A blessing is a child who can run and play.

A blessing is kissing and holding your child closely, as if it were their first or last day.

a danger within us?

Way back when Calvin had tried and failed his first several antiepileptic drugs, I learned about the VNS (vagus nerve stimulator), a device much like a pacemaker surgically implanted under the collar bone with a wire that wraps around the vagus nerve in the neck leading up to the brain. The device, as I understand, sends regular electrical impulses to the brain in an effort to thwart seizures before they begin. When it was suggested as a possible therapy for Calvin's epilepsy, my gut told me, no way.

My misgivings and questions were many: How effective is it? Are long term side effects yet known? How long do the batteries last? What happens when they fail? I don't want my son to go under the knife; on account of his fucked-up brain, his flawless body is most sacred to me.

I've stuck with my position all these years, having heard since then about mediocre results and nagging side effects of the VNS in children whose parents I know.

Yesterday, my dear friend Elizabeth Aquino alerted others in her blog post about some dangerous findings—cardiac and otherwise—resulting from implanted medical devices, in particular the VNS.

You can listen to the Fresh Air interview below, in which medical journalist Jeanne Lenzer, whose recent book, The Danger Within Us, exposes these risks. You can also click on the title of the episode to read the transcript from the show.

vigil strange I kept on the field one night

Every Memorial Day, I post this passage by Walt Whitman for its beauty and poignancy. While my mind is focused on veterans of war who have died on the battlefields, the images this writing provokes give me pause to remember and honor all of the children my friends and loved ones have lost. This goes out to their parents, as well as those lost in war:

Vigil strange I kept on the field one night;
When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day,
One look I but gave which your dear eyes return'd with a look I shall never forget,
One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach'd up as you lay on the ground,
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,
Till late in the night reliev'd to the place at last again I made my way,
Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body son of responding kisses,
(never again on earth responding,)
Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the moderate night-wind,
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battle-field spreading,
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night,
But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed,
Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my chin in my hands,
Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest comrade—not a tear,
not a word,
Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier,
As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole,
Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death,
I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall surely meet again,)
Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear'd,
My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop'd well his form,
Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and carefully under feet,
And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in his rude-dug
grave I deposited,
Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle-field dim,
Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)
Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as day brighten'd,
I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket,
And buried him where he fell. 

—Walt Whitman

Confederate dead, Chancellorsville

lessons on war

Today I readied Calvin for his school’s Civil War day. The students were allowed to choose sides, to soldier for either North or South. I clad Calvin, no doubt as a Yankee, wearing a navy henley with metal buttons that I’d bought at Salvation Army, then put on his matching canvas cargo vest and rugged boots. Just before we put Calvin on the bus, Michael lovingly instructed Calvin to go kick some Confederate ass. As the bus pulled away, I wondered what the school might be teaching the students about the Civil War, about war in general, and wondered—doubted actually—if they'd be focusing much on slavery's part.

Calvin is borrowing a Union cap for the day. He’ll be all dressed up in his uniform just like the other girls and boys, and they’ll wage a fake Gettysburg battle. Unlike the others, however, he’ll be oblivious to the lesson. He won’t learn about the bloody conflict between the boys and men from the Northern states and the boys and men from the South, about the vicious clash over slavery, about the Confederacy's stubborn and greedy refusal to end the barbarous institution.

This morning as I dressed Calvin, I heard a story on National Public Radio about President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, the first visit by a sitting President since the United States dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities in August of 1945 killing as many as 220,000 Japanese and Korean men, women and children. Yesterday, I’d heard an interview with Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor who had been a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl when the first bomb was dropped. She described the horrific event:

In that moment, I saw the bluish-white flash in the windows.
 
And the next thing I felt was floating in the air—obviously the blast of the bomb flattening all the buildings in the city. And the building I was in was falling, and my body was falling together with it. So when I regained my consciousness, I found myself in the total darkness and silence. I tried to move my body, but I couldn't, so I knew I was faced with death.
 
Gradually I started hearing faint voices of my classmates who were with me in the same room in the dark. They were whispering, mother, help me. God help me. I am here. I can still hear the voices.
 
Then all of a sudden, a strong male voice said, don't give up; I'm trying to free you. And somebody was shaking my left shoulder from behind. And he said, you see some sunray is coming through that opening; get to that direction as quickly as possible. Crawl.
 
So I crawled in the total darkness, and I got to the opening. And by the time I got there, the building was on fire. That meant most of the girls were burnt to death. Although that happened in the morning, it was already very dark, like twilight. And the two other girls managed to come out, and three of us looked around. And in the darkness, I could see some dark moving objects approaching to me. They happened to be human beings shuffling from the center part of the city to where I was.
 
They just didn't look like human beings. I called them ghosts, ghost-like people because their hair was standing up. They were covered with blood and burned and bludgeoned and swollen, and the flesh was hanging from the bones. Parts of their bodies were missing, and some were carrying their own eyeballs in their hands. And as they collapsed, their stomach burst open, intestines stretching out. Everybody was slowly shuffling. Nobody was running and shouting for help. Nobody had that kind of physical and psychological strength left.
 
Well, we three girls were reluctantly in good shape. We could walk. We could carry. So we went to the nearby stream and washed off the blood and the dirt from the bodies. And when the darkness fell, we just sat on the hill, and all night we watched the entire city burn.

Her story moved me to tears, and as I helped put Calvin's thin arms through his sleeves, I thought about war and about murderous bombs with names like Little Boy and Fat Man. I lamented domination, racism and bloodshed, demagogues and bullies, fearmongering, jingoism and powerlust, and I shudder to imagine a reckless, callow, bigoted, impulse-driven, insecure man like the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, with his finger on the trigger of our nuclear arms.

Then I ponder my little boy, his missing white-matter, his seizures, poor vision, volatile behavior, protracted development, and wonder what it was that all went wrong. Was it some sort of chemical that blunted his brain? Something in the air, in the water, in the food we consumed? And I imagine his small body shivering in the wind today, out on a vast field where little kids re-enact a bloody war, my son an innocent bystander as miniature troops storm by, many dropping like flies, and I mourn those lost in innumerable wars and in places like Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan.

And then I was soothed by the memory of a passage from Leaves of Grass, written by Walt Whitman, whose dying son he held vigil for on a cold night during the Civil War. He says, in part:

Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people ...

And I realize that if we could live by these words, perhaps there would be no war, no battle lessons, no thirst for power by tyrannical men, no desire to keep some people out or to box others in, no fear of persons different from ourselves, no contempt for those who have little nor praise for those with more, no scorn for unfamiliar beliefs or hunger to oppress the weak, the poor, or those with darker skin. If we learned our lessons once and right, this place we call Earth could be one big loving world.

Photo by Mary Booth Scarponi

all the little children

Though still icy and white outside, for some reason the world looked black to me this morning. Perhaps because it was so goddamn windy, the temperature still hovering around nine degrees. Or, perhaps because of Calvin, the reason I can never sleep in past five o'clock these days. Maybe it was because I hadn't had my caffeine or that I’m weary walking circles with my disabled boy, of spooning in his seizure medicines and of wiping away his drool.

When I finally sat down and read the news about seven siblings who perished in a Brooklyn blaze early Saturday morning, it made me think of what Michael had said earlier, hoping to ease my way: things could be a whole lot worse.

After Calvin left for school, I downed my coffee, had a bite to eat, then bundled up to take Nellie for a walk. I strolled slowly, studying the pitted frozen pools at my feet. I kept imagining all the little children, ages five to sixteen, and wondered how their parents and their sister are going to cope.

As I walked, I held a kind of silent vigil for them and for all the lost children whose parents I’ve known. I first thought of Kari, a bright, most beautiful girl whom Leukemia claimed when we were both teens. I thought of Jennifer, who at seven lost her battle to cancer, too. And of Rainier, who, in the wee hours after entering the world early, couldn’t hold on. I recalled Lily and Rose, flowers of girls who never breathed their first breath, and of little Katie, too. And of sweet Kelli who epilepsy took when she was just fourteen. At twenty-three my friend Martin went down in a plane along with his dad, and the maid of honor at a wedding I was in lost her nine-year-old girl to a bullet at Gabriel Gifford’s ordeal. Childhood friends lost their young son to kidney failure, others lost their children to drug overdoses while still others took their own lives.

When I got back from my walk I remembered last night on the futon when a smiling Calvin was smothering us both with hugs, Nellie by our sides. I had said to Michael that we have a nice family. As I cleaned up this morning’s dishes and hung sopping bibs to dry, I considered my boy Calvin, who, though he will likely never utter a word, is here now, and is as pure as the rain which I hope will soon be melting away this icy cold.

vigil strange I kept on the field one night

Vigil strange I kept on the field one night;
When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day,
One look I but gave which your dear eyes return'd with a look I shall never forget,
One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach'd up as you lay on the ground,
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,
Till late in the night reliev'd to the place at last again I made my way,
Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body son of responding kisses,
(never again on earth responding,)
Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the moderate night-wind,
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battle-field spreading,
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night,
But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed,
Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my chin in my hands,
Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest comrade—not a tear,
not a word,
Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier,
As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole,
Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death,
I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall surely meet again,)
Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear'd,
My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop'd well his form,
Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and carefully under feet,
And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in his rude-dug
grave I deposited,
Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle-field dim,
Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)
Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as day brighten'd,
I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket,
And buried him where he fell. 

—Walt Whitman

Confederate dead, Chancellorsville

inhumane

I know what it’s like to feel a being die in my arms, to assist in the taking of a life, the life of a thirteen and a half year old, arthritic, lame, nearly deaf, visually impaired, incontinent, well-loved companion: our dog Rudy. I know what it's like to see the pink poison bleed from the syringe into his vein, to hold his happy head in my lap until it is lax, to sense his breathlessness and to be told that he is gone. It’s miserably sad, leaves a hole in my heart and a sour pit in my stomach. I miss him. Yet, it was the humane thing to do for an old dog who spent his final days in much pain. Still, I hesitated, it was not an easy thing to do, and my melancholy lingers like smoke from dying embers.

When I read the news of last week's botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma, I literally felt sick to my stomach, my mouth watering as bile rose in my esophagus. Though his crime was indeed heinous, I was reminded of how loathsome it feels to live in a country where capital punishment is still legal, while the rest of the civilized world has banned its inhumane use, and in the face of overwhelming evidence that the barbaric practice is no deterrent to crime, of mounting proof of its innocent casualties, of the tremendous monetary cost to society as compared to issuing life sentences without parole.

“We live in a vindictive society,” Michael says to me, and I ponder the hypocrisies of some—not all—who claim to be pro-life but might gladly strap a fellow human being to a gurney and shoot him full of lethal drugs, or lash him to an electric chair or stand him before a firing squad or hang him at the end of a noose or lock him in a gas chamber; all methods still used in this country. And though I’m not a Christian, I find myself wondering about the fate of the accused in a majority Christian nation, and I think I know the answer when I ask myself, what would Jesus do?

I can’t say how I’d feel if I were the mother or the sister or the daughter of a murder victim, but I hope I wouldn’t elect to snuff out the life of another as a way to teach society that murder is immoral, as a way to right a wrong, as a way to get even. What message does that send to our children? There is no justice in that, particularly when studies are beginning to reveal the significant number of death row inmates who are innocent of their crimes, a disproportionate number likely being black.

When I looked at some statistics, I learned that men favor capital punishment over women, conservatives over liberals, the less educated over the well educated, the old over the young, the states of the South and Midwest over the East and West. Still, it's difficult for me to understand anyone advocating for the taking of another human being's life in an attempt to make things right. I wonder, too, how victim’s families feel when the accused are executed. Do they really feel better? Do they feel vindicated? Righteous? Do they sleep at night? Can they live with themselves? What are their fears? What makes some of us so vengeful, so eager to delight in others' suffering, so ready and willing and justified in taking another human life?

And then, as always, I think about Calvin and about people who'd consider themselves suitable to decide whether children born like Calvin should live or die. I've heard them talk on the radio, their voices always sounding the same—boorish, small-minded, big-mouthed and vile—and I hear them cast aspersions on the innocent, hear them damn select groups of society, hear their hateful vitriol, and I wonder if they ever had someone—anyone—die in their arms, how might they feel?

photo by John Thurston

a good day to die

The day my father died I spoke to him on the phone. He’d been battling multiple myeloma for five years, since he was sixty-five, and it was the first day in months that he’d spent time alone in the house. He’d recently recovered from consecutive bouts of pneumonia which had landed him in the hospital, and for months he’d been drugged up on morphine to blunt the pain in his bones. Our conversation went something like this:

    “Hi Dad. It’s me.
    “Hey, Shorty.”
    “I’m calling from New York. What’re you up to today?”
    “Well, I swept the garage and brought in some wood for your mother, then I checked the oil on the car.”
    “Wow, that’s great! Is Mom there?”
    “Nope. She went into town to do a couple of errands.”
    “How’re you feeling today?”
    “Pretty good ... I think I might’ve turned the corner.”
   
I told him that I loved him and he said it back. I hung up the phone wondering which corner he had turned. Later that night I got a call from my mom and my brother telling me that Dad had died. It occurred to me that it was a good day for Dad to die, one in which he felt worthy, accomplished things, and felt good enough physically and lucid enough to do so.

This past weekend Michael and I watched out thirteen-year-old chocolate lab Rudy hobble around on his weak, arthritic legs, one of which he suddenly can’t put much weight on anymore. Last week he stopped eating his breakfasts. He’s lost some weight and has long been incontinent. A visit to the vet on Thursday resulted in a substantial increase in painkillers and anti-inflammatories in a last-ditch effort to get our Rudy back into decent shape. Our strategy didn’t work, and after a lot of thought we decided that today is the day we’ll be putting Rudy down.

It pains me to do so. Every cell in my body wants him to get better, wants his elbow to miraculously improve. I know deep down inside, however, that it won’t, that he is in pain, even though he wags his tail, still enjoys munching on dog biscuits, still wants to follow us around the yard even though he is terribly lame.

Today will be a good day for Rudy to die because yesterday our friends Brian and Joanne, Luke, Sarah and Jacob, Matt, Macauley and Carol and their black lab Millie came by separately to say their goodbyes to Rudy. There were tears and wags, and glasses of beer and bourbon. As Rudy and Millie sniffed each other, Macauley recounted the legend of the Oglala Sioux warrior Low Dog, who was thought to have said before going into battle, “It is a good day to die.”

Today will be a good day for Rudy to die. The ground has finally thawed. The fragrance of spring is on the wind. Birds are chirping. The vet is making a house call. Rudy is still in good spirits. But as I write this I can’t help but weep. He’s been such a good boy, friendly to everyone, loving, loyal, affectionate, well behaved, albeit stubborn in his final months. We’ve been lucky to know him and terribly sad to see him go. But as he goes, he’ll have the sun shining on his chocolatey coat, the grass as his bed and Michael and I there hugging him goodbye.