I held my breath as the first volley of fireworks went off, waiting for Sam to wig out.
He is, after all, my son, and I have a vivid memory of huddling in the car with my Mommy, covering my ears so I could see the fireworks without being afraid. And since I remember it, I had to be 6 or 7 years old at the time. He's all of 19 months.
But it seems that my wimp genetics are blessedly ending with me.
"Kay?" he said in a small voice as the first bombs echoed.
"Yes, Sam, it's OK," my wife said.
Then the second round of fireworks went off. He made not a peep.
I glanced over, and immediately understood why. He was flat on his back, pillowed on top of "Chelle" -- one of my daughter's best friends and, to this point, the love of Sam's life. My daughter's other best friend, Sami -- the second-best love of Sam's life -- was nestled in beside them.
His face was that of a little boy taking the first lick of a giant ice cream cone.
"His first fireworks, and we don't even get to experience it with him," I said to my wife.
"I know!" she said, half-exasperated and half-laughing. "I want to hold him. I really didn't picture it this way."
That, however, was rather the norm in an evening fraught with oddities.
We had gone to visit my parents in Grove City for the holiday, met my brother and his family there, then parked behind my ex-wife's house because she lives just up the alley from where they light the fireworks.
That was weird enough, because my brother hadn't seen my ex-wife in 12 years. Then I discovered my former in-laws on the next blanket over. I was glad it was dark.
Then Sami and Michele ("Chelle" in Sam's monosyllabic lexicon) showed up, greeted us like family and absconded with Sam, despite the fact that my daughter -- their primary link to my family -- was still at work. What a gathering we were!
It got only stranger after the fireworks were over. My son wanted to show my nephew a video game, and they disappeared into my ex-wife‘s house. The girls -- Sami, Michele and my three nieces (who had never before met Sami or Michele and who, like my brother, had not seen my ex-wife in a dozen years) -- trailed in behind them, taking Sam with them.
My wife and I were left standing awkwardly in the alley with my brother and sister-in-law, wondering what to do next. I felt like laughing, with five of my worlds colliding: my own immediate family; my brother and his family; my ex-wife and her husband and their son; my ex-wife‘s family; and my daughter's best friends. There should have been some massive psychic explosion or something.
But you know what? I can probably learn a lesson from Sam on that one.
He didn't care that his Chelle is not a relative. He didn't care that there were less-well-known relatives around. He didn't care that his sister -- the reason he knows Chelle in the first place -- was not there. He didn't even care (sniff!) that he was not with Mommy and Daddy.
He felt safe and loved, everyone around him cared about him, there were pretty shooting lights to watch and the noises were "kay," so why worry? He saw nothing strange about the collection of people there.
Would that we could all judge others on such simple criteria.
Besides, as I noted to my wife, "with all the relatives around, he picked out the two teenage girls who are not related to him and hung out with them."
She chuckled. "Pretty smart, isn't he?"
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Posted
Jul 10 2008, 11:41 PM
by
Virginia Linn