From the Mountaintop Archives

One Last Post

So I'm back here and it feels like home, like returning to Watertown, even though my parents don't live there anymore.

I wanted to thank this site--ClubMom, you, and the words recorded here--- one last time before I move. Wanted to linger in my old room and write a note in the closet: Christy Everett lived here, as honestly as she knew how. She learned as she wrote. As she loved her small but humongous son.

I'm off now, but not through, I'll still be Following Elias.

My new home's not quite as organized yet and I still have some decorating to do--some quirks to figure out--but I hope you'll join me when you can.

Following Elias

I'll be candid, I don't do transitions well. I resist while I jump. Pulled between the calling of traditions, of normalcy, of home, and the echo of the unknown bouncing of canyon walls. I want to investigate every possibility but I don't want anything to change and this ambivalence often paralyzes me until there is no time left for grace.

Just a wild leap with a prayer.

What I'm getting at, with an awkward circling of the edges, is that I'm leaving ClubMom for a different home. Not out of discontent but because I followed an opportunity that came to me unexpected. Like this life of mine. Just hold on and remember to breathe.

I won't say this is my last post because endings are even worse than transitions. But it might be. I'm not sure when my account will officially close.

My hope is you all will follow me, follow Elias, to see where this story leads. I can't yet share the official link for the new blog  but I can direct you to my CafeMom page where I will post more information as soon I get the word. If I'm able to post it  directly here I will. I apologize for my abruptness, for making you hop around, and for my lack of grace.But for the sake of the boy that could I hope you venture over when you can.

(http://www.cafemom.com/home/4Elias) (Scroll down to the journal section and I'll write my new info there.)

Thank you to ClubMom for inspiring me to write for an audience for the first time instead of filling notebooks to hide under my bed. Thank you to all of you for telling me again and again that what I write makes sense, that you understand, that I can do it even when I don't think I can, and for cheering on Elias from all across the globe.

And of course to Elias, you are bigger than I could ever dream.

Circling the Ring Bearer

When I wrote about something unexpected arising on wedding days I was thinking about the random drunk guest hitting on the married bridesmaid or the ministers’ Freudian slip, not the ring bearer falling in the irrigation ditch.

But let me back up to the rehearsal dinner.

During the block-party luau, we took turns watching Elias careen down driveways with his walker, the old point your toes and roll technique he’s mastered during this extended trip.  In typical Elias style he fell more than once only to rise and do it again.

On Grandma and Pop’s watch, also known as the parents of the bride, he fell and hit his mouth on his walker. Neither Nick nor I saw the crash but we counted teeth and checked his mouth. We confirmed he bit his tongue but seemed unfazed.

The next morning-- the dawn of the big day-- he woke with a gigantic fat lip.  The inside of his right upper lip, swollen and purple,  made his face lopsided. His expressions not his own.

Since he swatted the ice I tried to hold to his lip, I fed him vanilla ice cream for breakfast followed by an orange Popsicle. He smiled and said "popical," but I still didn’t recognize him.

And then to make the transformation more dramatic Nick and I took him for his first professional haircut at of all places the Alaska Style Hair Salon, a barbershop decorated with pictures of grizzlies, glaciers and bearded men holding halibut. With  swollen-faced Elias on my lap, I asked the barber to just trim his hair and even-out my rough cuts for the wedding.

After gently trimming the sides, the white-haired former Alaskan man said, “Time to take some off the top.”

My stomach sank as Elias's blond waves fell into my hands.  He did not trim. He chopped. My baby’s locks. And returned an unrecognizable little boy. On the day of his Ring Bearer debut.

My tears fell with his curls as soon as I shut the door to walk to the truck. Now he really didn’t look like the Elias I knew.

Luckily the wedding didn’t start till 6:30, which gave his lip time to de-swell, and me time to adjust to his altered look. With Elias dressed in a white shirt and light blue plants for the 3:30 photo shoot we had three hours to keep him clean. This meant no crawling and no falls. We took turns hovering. Hyper-vigilant. Stressed. Me especially.

(Forget parents of the bride: Parents of the Ring Bearer--Hollywood has missed the opportunity to capitalize on the woes of this particular wedding role.)

An outside ceremony, the aisle consisted of gravel and stepping stones lined with orange marigolds from a garden to the front porch of the groom’s parents’ house. During the rehearsal, Elias could maneuver over and through the stones with his walker but he took a few too many detours into the aisles and he stood dazed without walking for too long. So instead of his walker we opted for his walking poles  with Nick’s guidance.  When his moment came I forgot all about the fat lip and cropped bangs .

 

I cried different tears, proud and humble, when I saw my baby--I mean little boy--walk down that aisle. Not only did he make it the whole way with only one social visit—"Way to go Elias," Judy said  and Elias stopped looked right at her and repeated, “Way to go Elias"-- but he even sat on the steps for a few minutes and said aloud, “Doing a good job,” before he became too active and distracting. At this point Nick scooped him up and delivered him to Nana and Papa in the back row.

Which brings us back to the irrigation ditch.

During the reception I delivered Elias to my parents with the words, “Do you mind watching him for a while?”

“We expected this,” my mom said with a smile.

“Well, it is your last day with him for a long time.” I said.

My parents followed Elias from the backyard, down the driveway, to the other side of the dead end street where he discovered the ditch and his favorite activity of throwing rocks into water.

“You got him?” my Dad asked before turning away, before Elias fell in, before my Mom jumped after him, before my Dad carried a soaked boy back to the party.

“Yias go nimming,” he told me as he shivered in my Dad’s arms.

“We screwed up,” my Dad said.

“You’re not going to trust us anymore,” said my Mom,  “We made it through the whole bike trip with no accidents and in two days look whats happened.”

We joked about all the grandparents being off-duty. “You’re fired,” I laughed as I snuggled with Elias, warm and mostly dry, dressed in his back-up party clothes.  With wet tussled hair and tired eyes he looked like the Elias I remembered. My baby. Who later fell asleep next to the dance floor across Grandma and Pop’s lap, redeeming them for the swollen lip.

Elias woke late Sunday morning and said as he stretched, “Went all the way in. In ditch. Went nimming with Nana…Nana, Papa…” But Nana and Papa were already on the road to Seattle, preparing to fly back East, not to be seen again till March. They weren’t here to know they’ve been pardoned. That their role awaits them.

And that we’ll feel the vacancy every time Elias, the former Ring Bearer, calls their name .

Just a Doorway to a Life

Six months after Elias birth I returned to Pacific Northern Academy, a small private day school, to teach one class of Creative Nonfiction to Juniors and Seniors. I made a promise to my students that any writing I assigned to them I'd complete as well. They learned a lot that year about Elias and pregnancy and loss.

I knew nothing about Elias's special needs then, only that he had a high chance of facing all kinds of issues. I was still pumping and hoping he'd learn to breast feed. Still grieving the birth I planned. The natural one with a midwife as opposed to the emergency c-section in the middle of the night on an operating bed in Providence so filled with urgent medical personal and the terror of Elias breached at 24 weeks that when the anesthesiologist told me he needed to knock me out I agreed. I knew I needed to be gone so my body could stop shaking.

Gone. For the birth of my only child.

Months later, I talked to a fellow teacher, a mother who also experienced an unplanned c-section, about my regret--about the loss of my dream of pushing my child into the world so I could hold him to my breast and know he's mine. After listening empathetically, she said something I'll never forget:

Putting all your hopes and dreams into the birth is like putting all your energy into the wedding and forgetting about the marriage.

During the days before the ceremony, it can be hard for a bride and groom to remember that they aren't committing to sign on as party planners. They will not be sitting down to dinner each night with all their extended family, friends, neighbors, and the people they had to invite. They won't be bombarded by  decisions about table cloths, vows, and dance songs. They wont be parading past white lights with caked-on smiles till death do them part... It doesn't matter how laid back the couple or how casual the wedding or how much love they harness, the days leading up to this age old ritual stretch and fluster and rattle. And yet no matter how detailed the plans, when the day appears, something unexpected arises.

But often when they return to a twosome, eating toast and taking the dogs for a walk, that something will make them smile. And if not, they have years to widdle away the memory until it becomes just one of a collection of moments from a shared life. The wedding, like a birth, lasts but a day. The real work belongs to the marriage--to the child-- because with care and time they deliver more than confetti, more than pain, more than a party, but a promise of hand that fits into yours.

(Today Nick's sister Lyndsay and Neil say, "I do", and regardless of how the wedding unfolds, I'm pretty sure the two of them will fill their days with love, laughter and good work.)

Past my bedtime

So we've been goin' to sleep before 9:00, with all of us piled in the RV we need to settle in when Elias does. But tonight we're not in the rented motor home with the blown-up picture of Portland Headlight on the side-- a reminder of southern Maine, my first adult home. Tonight we stretch out in Grants Pass, Oregon, with Grandma and Pop, in the same well-tended home that warmed Nick when he slept in an Elias-size bed.

We arrived this afternoon after three and a half days of straight driving. A shock to our systems after spending our hours pedaling.

Just sitting.

And sitting some more.

And listening to the rattle of the stove-top, the squeak of the bench seat, the tortured growl of some unknown thing in the ceiling, and rocking with it all. Don't get me started about the rocking and the swaying, especially the day I made the mistake of sitting in the backwards seat for too long. Oh, I could go on and on with my complaints about the drive from Kaycee Wyoming to here on back roads that snaked over mountain passes but the thing is my three year old son did not complain. Not one tear or festering whine.  Not one.

So I think I should just thank the road gods for delivering us safely and go to sleep with my husband. In a room with a door. And no ceiling two feet over our heads. Where I can't hear the rustle of my parents sleeping bags every time they shift positions. And they can't hear mine.

Where the Water Leads

(Written June 29, 2007)

We made it.

We biked over 1200 miles from Puget Sound to Kaycee Wyoming in less than a month. We hugged and kissed in the Exxon parking lot after taking pictures under the sign for Kaycee: population 249, elevation 4660.  Miles of dirt roads lead to my great aunt Lois and Crow’s ranch so we chose the small town as our final destination.

As my Dad began loading the bikes, I still straddled mine, holding the worn handlebars gently with both hands.

We considered downing shots of whiskey at the Hole in the Wall Bar to celebrate but decided against it. Instead we all loaded into the RV and drank water from our bike bottles. Sweaty and dusty, we drove along the sagebrush to the Gordon ranch.

Lois and Crow greeted us with a house of our own, complete with a stocked refrigerator, laundry, and private bathrooms to shower. Later that evening we joined them for pork loin and potatoes with Key lime pie for dessert. After dinner, on our way back to the guesthouse, Elias said, “It was fun to meet them.”

This morning we strolled around the property, greeting ranch hands, horses, cows, and chickens as our bikes rested on the back of the RV.  “Normally we’ be getting on our bikes about now,” I said as we meandered towards the Powder River.

“Yeah, its about that time. “ Nick answered. 9:00 am. And already hot. Not one of us seemed anxious to ride. We lingered in the shade of a large Cottonwood tree that grew next to the bridge over the river.

“Water on both sides,” Elias said as we peeked over the edge. “Go see other water.” He craned his head and pointed to the other side of the bridge. My Dad turned the stroller around.

“It’s the same water,” my mom said.

“Water goes UNDER bridge.” Elias replied. And I thought about his brain, his so-called damaged brain, and how much information it already holds, all the associations and connections, the language and pictures, the memories and faces, and wondered where it will lead him.

Where will he lead us?

“So this is the same river from Powder River Pass,” I said, stating the obvious as usual.

“Yep, it starts somewhere up in those mountains.” My Dad answered, pointing towards the Big Horns that surrounded us. The same mountains that almost broke us two days earlier as we climbed them on our bikes. 

And here it is, the life source of Lois and Crow’s 3,000 acre ranch, winding through the pastures, providing food for the cattle, showers for weary travelers, and sun-baked iced tea in the heat of the afternoon.