Missing Brain

"Mom, Oswald* has been teaching me bad stuff and bad words like "guns" and "stupid." He is teaching me! My heart is trying to go the other way, but it keeps following his around and around and around, even though I don't want it to. Mom, when other kids teach you bad stuff, part of your brain falls off--and you can hardly see it anymore." -Cass

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of those involved

Talking Trails

Cass talks constantly. Never stops. Even when he's hiking or paddling against the wind in a too-big canoe, the pint-sized pontificator is lecturing his parents on the difference between the sound of a cricket and a rattlesnake tail and posing obscure questions about the sleeping patterns of chipmunks. Today, we took the boys to some trails in Ann Arbor, and I tried desperately to take notes from his uninterrupted stream of consciousness. A few sparklers from the running commentary.

Technically, this one was still in the car, en route: "Can girls go in manholes?"

"Awww, look: it's a baby lily pad. It's so cute."

"I need some bug spray. I'm tripping over all these bugs."

"Don't trip over the dragonflies. They're gorgeous."

"Watch out for the leafcutter ants. They're everywhere, and they can be very, very dangerous."

Peering over a stream: "Come on family, we need to find some fish to eat for dinner. You don't kill animals unless you're going to eat them."

"I'm getting splintery from all the woods."

While petting a patch of moss: "Mom, look: it's nature's carpet!" [[totally not making this up]]

While picking wild raspberries: "It's so pickery, I almost broke my thumb off!"

"I don't think Ollie wants anymore raspberries. You better give that one to me."

"I just had an idea. Whoever has the walking stick gets to lead." [note: he had the walking stick.]

"This is a beautiful cone flower. I think we should capture it and take it home and put in a vase." [hands me flower] "There. Put it in your pocket, ok?"

"Hey there, how bout we trade sticks?"

"Everyone, be extremely quiet. I have news. There's a fox trail."

"Look at that huge hole! A giant must have stepped there."

"I bet those lily pads go all the way to Maine."

"If you want to find some animals, you need to find a hole in a tree. That's where they sleep."

"Mom can we sit down on this bench and relax?"

"Dad! Don't let the boat hit the lily flower!! Watch out for the flower! Watch out for the flower!"

"No, I'm not going to paddle. It's too hard."

After the canoe trip, Cass met some nice Japanese guys who couldn't speak much English. It did not deter him. He waxed on and on and on about all the various sorts of trees he saw on the trails--black willow, white oak, shagbark--and tried talking to them about the fish under the bridge ("I bet there are hundreds of them!". But he wasn't getting the response he wanted. But before giving up, Cass makes one final attempt to dazzle:

"Your shoes are awesome!"

Joy

The stream of sirens--ambulance, fire truck, four police cars, maybe it was five--is the first thing that snaps me into reality. The policeman said someone was watching out for us up there, that's for sure, because we shouldn't be walking away.

When you come terrifying close—fractions of a second—to unthinkable loss, you gain a sudden, deep-down-profound appreciation for what you have—and how lucky you are to have it. For all those little things that come and go unnoticed, set aside or admired briefly before being let go—like a balloon floating so quickly into the sky, its shape disappearing into a pin-prick until it’s so small that you can’t remember the joy of the thing in the first place. 

The policeman said he hadn't ever seen anything like it.

So we give longer hugs. We stare at them in their sleep. We watch fireflies instead of rushing upstairs to brush teeth and take a bath by the stroke of bedtime. We answer Cass' circular barrage of strangely connected questions without irritation. I let Ollie unravel the toilet paper just so I can see that glimmer of joy and mischief behind his eyes, and then I scoop him up for a giant belly laugh. We don't complain, wouldn't dare. We let Cass slip and slide in finger paint. We play in the flowers and dig dirt trenches in the vegetable garden. We jump on the beds. We build a fort at 6:30am. We look at each other, shrug our shoulders and let them have a little fun, because why not. We hang onto that feeling of gratitude for another day, hoping it doesn't slip away. Hoping we never have another reason to cradle a trembling child in a grassy meadow full of muskrat holes, beside a pond painted with pussy willows and lily pads, and sob openly for the lives we nearly lost.

The policeman said we are unbelievably lucky.

We promise each other we will not forget.