“oh ho, alas alas” ~ john berryman
my first ever no-capitalization post, i think. i am playing e.e. cummings for a few paragraphs and oscar is dead. i write only because i need to release a few things tied up inside me…
andy picked jonah up at anserson this morning and the other children in his house had been picked up the night before (we have yet to even attempt an overnight visit), and the ride up was okay. quickly things went south, though, once they got to albany, and jonah spent the majority of his time weeping uncontrollably, despite presents from santa and bath and turkey sandwich. he wanted a car ride to the train (which never came) and at some point during the ride, inexplicably, his face froze and melted into sadness, anguish, pain. he wept and wept, then threw his coat, shoes, and socks at andy – most of which i was able to deflect.
Eventually there was nothing to throw. So Jonah kicked the back of the seat, hit hard at his window.
Andy pulled over so he could hug Boo, but Boo pleaded mama? so I got out of the car and I opened Jonah’s door and leaned in and hugged him tight. Then tighter, giving him sensory pressure, loving him loving him loving him, until finally he un-tensed, collapsed into me, and wept harder – crying and sobbing. We cried together, the back door open on the side of the road. Then we’d calm him down and we’d get 500 more feet down the road and it would happen again. No go back to Anderson? Hot dog? Bath? Pa comin’? — confusedly, desperately.
Andy drove, and I cried, and Jonah alternately calmed down (and even giggled once) before again becoming angry and then falling backward into something like despair.
Inside my mother’s house, after the car ride, he punched me hard in the face and and kicked me in the ribs. He head-butted Andy, trying to bite, enraged and frustrated. We had to just lie with him on the carpet for a good long while
and whatever it is I’d pay a million dollars to fix it. He breaks my mother into a thousand pieces, every time.
There is too much to say and who the hell wants to read about this anyway on Christmas Day?
I will post something better, later. Funnier. I’ll be David Sedaris. Just not on this particular December 25th. Lo siento. And I cannot forget Connecticut; I pick at its horrific entirely like a scab, imagining the families, those familes and their unthinkable Christmas pain.
We sometimes mourn for what we do not or cannot have any longer, or at all — for things and concepts; dreams, wishes, and people – we mourn for what is irrevocably gone. But also we mourn for what will go on and on and on and on, painfully and unceasingly beyond our capacity to fix.
I’m so sorry, Boo. Mama loves you.
God please help him.
Help all in despair this day.
The Never Normal 