Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Refocus

The plan was to pick up Jeb from school and take him for a little treat. We could find some quiet spot, spread out on the grass, lick popsicles at sunset and enjoy a little mother/son time together.

But when he moves off the four-square court in the school yard and comes to me, there’s a shrug when I ask him if he’s had a good day. “Hmm…kinda.”

At the car, he pulls out the paperwork informing me that he was given a “refocus” in class, my signature requested at the bottom. Essentially, this is a second warning issued by the teacher that he’s close to having more serious consequences as a result of poor classroom behavior. It’s the yield sign, a kind of yellow light, you could say. He sighs, “Second one, ever.”

I’m not sure how to deal with this one. He seems genuinely remorseful, yet, under the circumstances, I question whether my plan for an after school treat is merited now.

Maybe it’s the wrong thing to do but I decide it’s ok if I make a mistake. Let Jeb buy the rainbow-colored popsicle with blue dye number 5 and, keeping it light (hah!), take him to the Japanese cemetery just outside of town.

It’s a quiet hill with scattered tombstones, most made from ancient lava rock and carved with Japanese letters. Moss grows and grass tangles at the bases, while plumeria trees bow at scattered junctures. Just beyond the fence line, the slope leads to the crater, beneath which once spewed hot lava exploding and seeping out to the sea. Today, it is long-past dormant.

I grab a beach towel from the back seat and spread it out between the headstones. Jeb’s lips drip and stain in lego-colored blue.

We’ve been here many times before. Jeb knows the story of this place. I want to keep this visit fresh and attempt an offering of sage wisdom.

“You know, Jeb, each stone you see means there is a human being buried underneath.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And each one of those human beings was like you and I. They had a life. They laughed, got mad, fell in love, had broken hearts. They had a mother and a father. Had their favorite foods. They wondered about the world…”

“Uh-huh…”

“So they lived their life and then it was over. Now they are somewhere else. But we’re still here, you and I.”

courtesy of Juhana Leinonen

The blond hairs on his forearm are soft in the sunlight. I reach out and touch him. “I still get to touch you, hug you. Hear you breathing. Because we’re still alive, right here, on planet earth…in this life. We’ve got to fully enjoy it. We get to feel love and share it.”

He hears me but doesn’t respond much with words. His eight-year oldness is soon pulled in directions beyond mom. Toward the base of the ironwood tree or the swinging gate. He meanders among the stones.

I sit on the beach towel, my heart beating.

It seems like part of being human is living with some veil of forgetfulness. I hear my profound carpe diem plea to my son as words moving through my mouth. But I’m not sure I really grasp the depth of what they mean.

Am I forever slated to live with breath as an assumption?

As I try to impart to Jeb the sacredness of each moment, I realize that don’t fully get it. Even in the midst of tombstones, there’s some sort of filter that fools me into thinking this existence is forever.

I come here to sit in peace with the dead. Try to refocus. But I only get so far.

 

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Seeing Stars

Deep prose stirs and crafts itself in the background of my days, but for now, in the foreground, business is at hand and being handled.

The Bohemian nurses me back to health over the weekend by simply steering the ship while I sleep at length, bonding with Jeb, all the while. In the midst of it all, he takes on the refrigerator defrost project, which does not mean simply piling all of our food into a couple coolers and unplugging the appliance. Each shelf and drawer are removed and the entire unit’s every nook and crease is cleaned to day-of-purchase perfection.

Adding flair to daily chores, as usual, the Bohemian whistles “When the Saints Come Marching In” with casual enjoyment, as he works. Shirtless, sexy, helpful – saintly.

Monday brings the pruning project, where an entire stand of trees are trimmed, a new garden bed mapped and plotted, and three loads of laundry washed.

In addition, the Bohemian follows up on his theory that Jeb has outgrown the bed he’s had since he was two, and coordinates a replacement. By day’s end, the sun setting, I’m helping haul a lightly-used king sized-bed from our neighbor’s house up our stairs. It’s so massive we have trouble cresting the stairwell and I consider giving up. The Bohemian is certain we can bend the mattress just enough to pass through.

My monkey mind has already jumped ahead to the box spring still waiting downstairs. Mid-mattress move, I protest, “If we’re having trouble with the soft mattress, we’ll never get the hard box spring up these stairs. I don’t think this is going to work.”

“It will work,” he assures, tugging the mattress just a bit more up the stairs.

I’m thinking he doesn’t understand my point. I try again. “But the box spring won’t give, and this mattress is only getting through by us bending it. How will we get the box spring up the stairs?”

Ever-patient, “Just push the mattress a bit more. Don’t worry about the box spring.”

Well, of course, the mattress makes it up the stairs with relative ease. And I, embarrassingly, discover that the box spring comes in two light-weight, dimensionally-friendly sections that the Bohemian can, essentially, carry under one arm.

Every crease of the new mattress is vacuumed with care. Jeb gets into the suction work, too, repeating, “This is so huge! It’s like a bed for a king.”

And the Bohemian is smiling, and I’m just shaking my head in awe, and then by night’s end we’re all just sprawled on this huge bed in the dark, trying to put Jeb to sleep but he’s wired. It’s cozy there with the three of us, though there’s still another good three feet of empty space. I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy family sweetness until Jeb pats me kindly and says, “Ok, mom, you can go now.”

Meaning he’s ready for mom to leave so the Bohemian can put him to bed.

It’s a sweet sting. The kind of hit mom’s take daily, and somehow welcome, because they know this is how it’s supposed to go. The weaning, that is.

At our house, we’ve got these charts on the refrigerator (which is now sparkling clean, I might add). There is a chart for each of us. And when we feel an appreciation for one another, we will announce that we are going to add a star to the respective person’s chart.

I’m feeling a lot of gratitude these days. Being constantly surprised, nearly not believing. For now, I don’t want to think about my the disbelief lurking in the shadows. How I fear that somehow I may be getting this all wrong. That this is just some dream I’ll eventually wake up from.

Right now I want to just rest in appreciation. Soak in the wonder.

Wow.

Let myself see stars.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 2 Comments

In Sickness and…

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

I’m under the weather
a mother
under cover
resting
and what I’m meaning
is that
there’s a Bohemian in the kitchen
in a bright
Aloha shirt
moving about
and pouring grape juice
(with ice)
for my son

I’m sleeping
mostly
except for this fine moment
with my one eye open
to spy
the soft flutter
of that tropical red print
in motion
by the refrigerator

11 years
he says
he’s had that shirt
long before Hawaii
“It’s been to the Hoover Dam!”

has its tour stopped here?
some permanent (working) vacation
now
in our island kitchen
gracing the sun-kissed shoulders
of the man who’s
closing windows from the rain
scooping tortilla chips
that I know
will be eaten in Jeb’s bed
while the two of them
talk Skylanders
and read books past bedtime

right now
I don’t care about crumbs

for the first time
in seven years
this mother’s resting in bed
and everything
seems quite
taken care of