80-50...

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

                                                                                                                                                           Traveling back  in time, I am driving my son, Justin, to his first day of first-grade in Newton, Massachusetts.  His  little bibb-overall blue-jeaned legs are dangling off the front passenger seat.  He is darling, sweet natured, innocent, affectionate and very excited to begin school.

We pull up to one of those magical looking New England elementary schools.  There are all manner of 'first timers' gathered with their mothers, clutching their shiny new lunch boxes.  Justin and I join the throng of some giddy and some distraught children saying good-bye to their mom's as they are heading for the steps of the 'magic kingdom' of education.    He and I stand amongst some of the happy-go-lucky boys his age.  I can tell he is excited to make new friends.

He gives me one of his precious hugs and begins to saunter off with the happy-go-luckies.  As he takes another few steps, he turns and shouts, "I love you, Mom."  The other boys stop in their tracks...he has made his first unsuspecting faux pas.  The boys near him laugh and give him the painfully obvious 'sissy look'... he looks undaunted by their jeers and truly confused.  As he moves along with the children and enters the school's front door, I am feeling painfully responsible for teaching him to love so freely, to express his love so openly. I was totally caught off-guard--oh, god, now what do I do to not disrupt his spontaneous voice of affection and still not feed him to the lion-cubs...

Before I return to pick Justin up after school, I put on my Sicilian Mother-Tiger Thinking Cap and come up with a plan to hopefully 'reframe' (therapist lingo) the experience into something new to our relationship: private codes of communication.

Justin alights at the school's exit and looks to be delighted after his first day.  He has drawings to show me and first day of school stories to tell me.  At bedtime, after I read him his beloved Frog and Toad book,  I venture into my own story-telling: "You know, Justin, I was thinking that if the biggest number there was for me to say how much I love you was the number 50, then, to say that you and I knew I loved you wayyyyyyy more than that, the number would have to be more like 80!  So, from now on, when you hear me say "80-50", its really my own way of telling you that I love you really Big.  Venturing out closer to where I was hoping this 'code' might land, I said, "I am going to practice it tomorrow morning when I drop you off at school and just see how it sounds."

The next morning, we pull back up to the school.  Some of the same lion-cubs are gathered and upon seeing Justin, already seem excited to see him or are they just waiting for another front row seat to prey on his sincere salutation.  I do sound a bit 'paranoid' here (more therapist lingo) but, then again, I am just shockingly learning that 'cruelty' can be meted out at any age.

We both jump out of the car and I am hanging back a bit to give him space to freely enter his domain of continuing to make new friends.  He turns and waves to me...and before he can say the 'inevitable,' I shout, "80-50" and he doesn't miss a beat:  "80-50 mom."  I don't know if I want to laugh or cry. He got it!  He did it!  He loved it! The happy-go-luckies look on with, this time, more of a sense of bewilderment.  One of them says to Justin, "what's 80-50?" I was not able to hear his response, but somehow the ground work had been laid for creative alternatives to speaking, in code, different languages for love.

Fast forward: Justin has loaded his truck for his driving excursion to Eugene, Oregon where he will attend college.  His most amazing of dogs, Marco, is along for the ride.  The two of them have their heads hanging out the window and as they pull away, Justin is waving and shouting, "80-50" mom!  This time, there is no confusion about if I want to laugh or cry---I just do both.

Gracie Garp