HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SONNY-BOY, AJ. Yes, today is AJ’s birthday so I’m posting this instead of the next SHE saga. At 2:43 pm this afternoon, my boy will be 50 years old…yes, that’s FIFTY. I can hardly believe he’s that old or that so much time has gone by since his birth. On the big plus side, I have 50 years-worth of memories of this wonderful individual.
In the beginning, he wasn’t
too enthused about entering the world. I was having regular contractions, but
not dilated enough, so I had to walk the floor of University Hospital for
hours. After lunch, my doctor came in and decided to break my water, hook AJ up
to a monitor and start a Pitocin drip. As he left to go teach a class, he told
me, “I get off at 5:00 pm.”
Well, I loved my doctor
and apparently, so did AJ. There were only 11 contractions after the Pitocin
drip began and two of those were pushing. The chief resident couldn’t believe
it and wanted to keep the graph paper, but my doctor gave it to me. It still resides in AJ's baby book.
I hadn’t eaten since
dinner the night before and was so thirsty. Finally, John was told to go get me
some ice chips. That’s when the resident checked me and began yelling, “It’s
coming, the baby’s coming.” The next thing I knew, they were wheeling me out of
the room. John was plastered up against the wall holding the ice chips and
looking absolutely dazed. The nurse stayed right alongside me saying, “Breath,
breath, don’t bear down.”
In the delivery room, there
he was, the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen in my life. Fifty years ago, they
didn’t talk about post-partum depression or anything else having to do with
having a baby. AJ was not an easy baby. One doctor told me he was very
intelligent because he already knew there was more to life than being in a crib
and that more was my holding and interacting with him. This went on from about 7:00
am until 11:00 pm or later for over eight months. I was exhausted.
The first time he didn’t
get up at 7:00 am, a friend called and when she told me what time it was, I
dropped the phone saying, “Oh my God, he’s dead.” Well, thankfully he wasn’t,
but from that point forward he was the very best of babies.
I could probably write for
pages and pages and maybe even days and days to recall all the wonderful (okay
and some not so wonderful) memories I have of this man. Here are some of the ones
that always make me smile.
AJ and my dad were the
best of buddies. In fact, daddy called AJ Buddy all the time. I have a favorite
photograph where AJ is riding piggy back on Grandpa. They are both smiling and
looked so pleased with each other. AJ was only seven when Grandpa died, but he
has wonderful memories of his time with my dad. AJ made me cry before we even
got to the UW for graduation ceremonies:
“Mom, you know what.”
“No, what.”
“I wish Grandpa were here
today.”
I followed that with the
platitudes you always offer about the missing person being there, looking down,
watching over. AJ was silent for a minute and said, “You know what I really
wish? I really wish Grandpa had been able to watch me play ball.”
By the time we got to Hec
Edmondson pavilion, my mascara was washed completely away.
When AJ began school, we
found out he was dyslexic, but Shoreline Schools had a wonderful program. For a
time, most of elementary school actually, I didn’t believe AJ would ever read
for pleasure. In middle school, he discovered Stephen King and began reading
for pleasure. I remember him reading IT and it was so scary he wouldn’t
read during the day when no one else was home. As an adult, AJ began reading
mostly nonfiction books and introduced me to some titles I might never have
picked up.
AJ began playing
basketball in grade school. John diagramed a regulation half court in the street
in front of our house with the basket on the telephone pole. I always knew
where AJ was when I could hear the bounce of that ball. He played in several
leagues, on the middle school team and began playing as starting center when he
was a sophomore in high school…he was probably the tallest coordinated kid
there.
It was a joy to watch him
go up and down the court. To watch him pump fake and rise above the defenders
to put the ball in the net. I thoroughly enjoyed every single game and except
when I had pneumonia, I made every single one.
When he graduated from
high school, he went to work as a seasonal laborer for the Seattle Parks
Department. When fall came, he attended Shoreline Community College and played
basketball for them. He continued to work for Parks as his schedule allowed
until he received his AA. He knew what he wanted to study, but was told by
people in the know that there would be no career for a white boy in Native
American studies (even though he’s 1/32nd or 1/48th or
something Cherokee) or in Forestry. Even with a Ph.D., he’d end up in some
bayou in Louisiana or some such place.
Parks offered him a
permanent part-time position. He accepted. They wanted to know if he wanted to
pay back the percentage he got as a seasonal because the city didn’t pay into
retirement for seasonal positions. Yep, sounds like a good idea. For a time there,
I actually thought he’d have enough hours to retire before me. Soon, a
full-time position came open and he took it. Later on, he was moved to the HVAC
unit and the city paid for a number of trips and educational classes. One year,
a contractor who’d worked on one of the community centers tried to say it
wasn’t his company’s fault when something went wrong. AJ had all his notes and
information proving the contractor had to replace whatever went wrong on his
own nickel…proud of my boy I was.
He met and then married Angie
23 years ago this year and they’ve worked together to make a home and life
together. Angie’s been more like a daughter than a daughter-in-law, assisting me
and John as we got older and had needs with which she could help.
Then, blessing of all blessings,
they produced the apple of my eye, Haley Autumn. That was almost 19 years ago now
and there isn’t a single day I don’t give thanks for this beautiful young
woman. AJ has been a wonderful father to Haley and taught her so many things
that most young women don’t necessarily know. But she wanted to learn and he
was happy to teach.
I feel so very blessed to
have produced AJ, but the majority of the credit doesn’t really go to John and
I. It is/was AJ who made good choices. It was AJ who grew and changed and
became the responsible, honest, funny, loving man he is today. I’m sure there
are many many more wonderful and positive adjectives I could attribute to my
son, but I’ll stop here for now. What I think I’d like to do and may still do
is look back at all the photos and pick one memory per year. I wish I’d thought
of that sooner because what I’ve written today pales in comparison to that
idea. Of course, instead of being on page three as I finish this Word document,
I’d probably be on page 50…one for each year of AJ’s life…and that might have
been a few pages too long.
In any case, Happy
Birthday to my son, AJ…your Frankenma is wishing you a year full, no, a life
full of love, joy, magic, happiness, great health, and anything your heart may
desire because your mom believes you deserve it.
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