Risky Business

I think the shock of what happened is starting to wear off. I tell myself that perhaps this is one of the longest crazy-ass dreams ever, and I’ll still be able to wake up from it. When I awake, it will be September 8th, the second day of school. I’ll be worrying about how to fit all the baseball and soccer practices onto the family calendar and wondering when sweater weather is going to start.

Jack will still be alive and well.

I think one of the biggest hindrances to getting me to stop rowing down the river of DENIAL is the fact that Jack was not a big risk-taker. He was not a real rough and tumble kind of guy. Jack was more comfortable building with Legos or sitting around on his friend David's back porch while they cracked each other up than being all that adventurous.

When I worried about Jack, which was often, it was that someone would DO SOMETHING TO HIM, not that he would be in an accident. My fears centered around bullying and sexual abuse since Jack was small for his age, quirky, and on the quiet side.

That's why we were careful about Internet use and choosing a summer camp, and were extremely selective and prayerful about sleepovers. I knew the statistics, and they weren’t encouraging. Tim and I were considered too overprotective by some.

So we did worry. But about an accident like this? So sudden? So violent?

Inconceivable.

As a toddler, Jack would walk to the very end of our little driveway and his toes would not cross an imaginary line there. When my friends found out I wasn’t a spanker, they would ask, “Yeah, but what if Jack ran into the street? Would you spank him then?” “Uh, well, I’m not thinking that’s going to happen,” was my reply. Naïve, perhaps, but he was just so cautious.

When he was in second grade, I did have to yell at him to be more careful on his bike in our cul de sac, but in general I spent more time trying to get him to be more adventurous than to be more careful.

“Jack, do you want to ride this roller coaster?” No way.

“Skateboard?” Not really.

“Go in the ocean?” No. 10 years of beach trips, and the sand suited him just fine.

“Shoot a rifle off of Uncle John’s back porch?” No thanks.

“Ride your bike outside our cul-de-sac?” Uh-Uh.

“Walk to a friend’s house in another neighborhood?” Nope.

"Go on a dirt bike?” Are you kidding?

This is the kid who, thankfully, was alarmed when his neighborhood friends played with matches and ran home to tell me immediately. “MOM, there was even lighter fluid nearby!”

After Jack completed the slowest time imaginable on the dinky go-kart track during a beach trip, his friend Nathan said, “Sorry you lost, Jack.” Jack was like “Huh?” The snail’s pace had felt plenty fast for him.

Jack carried his car booster seat with him on outings until he was a rising 5th grader, and even as a 12 year old felt the safety of the back seat suited him just fine, thank you.

He chose to attend the one-week session of his beloved summer camp rather than the two that most kids his age did, because the longer sessions had "high adventure" activities and he was worried he’d be pressured to do something he wasn’t comfortable with.

How different is childhood today from our childhoods of being outside all day long, our parents not having a clue where we were. Night sledding. Being dropped off at the mall. Getting rides home from goodness knows who. Going to the pool by ourselves all day, every day. Riding bikes to the 7-11 or into Washington, D.C., with nothing more than a dime in our pockets for a pay phone call.

Jack did love the outdoors, and the increasing freedom that growing older allowed. Unless, of course, there were bees around, which would send him running. He loved to geocache, hike, go caving and climbing. He and his friends climbed onto the neighbor’s (low) carport roof from a stone wall. He liked to climb trees and rocks. He loved to ski with his dad.

So he wasn’t a couch potato, but he was not a big risk-taker either.

I find it strange that in all my Mama-worrying, and I did my share, I was focused on social and sexual risks, but an accident like Jack's never crossed my mind. I still don't understand why neither I nor the other parents who let their kids play outside in our neighborhood that day recognized the risks, even those who knew the kids going to the creek.

So here I am, exactly 8 weeks after the accident, and I still find it so hard to believe that that Jack is the one who is gone.

I keep saying,

Jack?
Jack?
JACK???

Really???

I just never would have guessed that.

Here's hoping I blog in my sleep and this is all just a very bad dream.


P.S. Roller blading was something Jack wasn’t sure he wanted to try. Look at these pictures of Margaret helping him out at a birthday party in December. Blurry but so sweet And that's not a miniskirt he's wearing; it's a long t-shirt.

Untitled

We'll talk. We'll talk about the regrets and what-ifs and the senses of foreboding. We'll talk about an ache so deep that it can't be named. We'll talk about the excruciating pain of looking at neighborhood kids playing outside my window today, on a day that is impossibly, infuriationgly sunny. And the feeling that I want to hug those kids so tightly, or scream at them because they are alive and my kid is dead. Or both. We'll talk about backpacks still on hooks and clothes in the laundry basket and favorite foods in the fridge. We'll talk about how my kids' blog names were different from their real names so no one would come murder us in our beds. We'll talk about how I really don't give a shit about that now. We'll talk about news cameras. We'll talk about neigbhors holding us up when we couldn't stand. But for today, my friends, when THERE ARE NO WORDS, I'll share with you what I read at Jack's service yesterday. Because, though spread far and wide, though we may not have met in person, you ARE my friends, my people. And when I was speaking in the church, I was speaking to you too. I love you.

"It’s impossible to sum up what Jack meant to us, and I know you understand that. Some of you knew him from school days where he was lively and fun and, if rumors are correct, where he may have driven at least one preschool teacher into early retirement. Some knew him through church, scouts and baseball, where he was quiet and reserved. Many of you are family and friends, who were able to see other sides to him, and some of you never had the chance to meet Jack at all. Thank you to those who have shared Jack stories with us. Please keep them coming.

Now we’d like to share a tiny bit of what he was like with us, in our family, in our HOME.

Jack was a witty, creative, sensitive and loving son. He loved the rituals of family life, whether it was holiday traditions such as going on a poem scavenger hunt to find his “big” present each Christmas, eating our annual Christmas Eve lunch at Chevy’s Mexican restaurant, staying until the very, very, very end of the Halloween Parade no matter the weather, or enjoying ice cream for breakfast on the first snow day of the year.

But he also enjoyed the simple, everyday rituals of family life such as always sitting in the same place in the balcony Sundays at church (POINT TO BALCONY), and discussing the Yankees box scores in the paper with his dad each morning. He loved the four of us squeezed together on the couch, our dog Shadow at our feet, as we watched our favorite shows. On weekends at dinner he would just say, “Tonight?” which was shorthand for “What are we going to do together tonight?” Jack loved this family. When he asked whether he could do something that we didn’t want him to, we just said, “That’s not what Donaldsons do.” And he didn’t argue about it. Not once.

You already know Jack’s passion was Legos, but he also enjoyed board games, doodling, logic puzzles, hot wheels cars and using his imagination to create clever games with his little sister. Those of you from school, fondly remember the games he made up just for YOU, and the strange, new words and phrases he introduced into your vocabulary like STEBE and “What the Johnny?” Thank you for letting Jack be Jack. He loved you.

You will hear a lot today in conversations about how funny Jack was, and he did keep us laughing at home, but you may be surprised to hear he was not a natural clown or even an optimist. Jack faced personal challenges that made certain situations quite difficult for him. Sometimes he wanted to be a more happy- go-lucky kid, like those he saw around him. I’ll never forget when he said to me, “Mom, “I know I’m a glass half-empty kind of guy, but I’m trying to be more glass half-full.” And he never quit trying.

I remember telling him, when he was very upset about something, “Your emotions may seem too powerful to you, and that is hard, but they are part of what makes you YOU. I love you, I love the way you are made, and I am proud to be your mom.” During these times of struggle he never said, “Why me?” but instead leaned on his special verse from the Bible, “Nothing is Impossible With God.”

Jack loved his neighborhood, and was a homebody at heart. We decided to cancel our pool membership because Jack just couldn’t be bothered with going ALL THE WAY across town to the pool. When his dad and I talked of getting a new house someday, Jack said we shouldn’t, because we could never find a neighborhood as nice as ours. His happiest memories this summer were playing with the neighborhood kids and his sister, whether it was soccer in the Smith’s yard, playing Manhunt at night, having lemonade stands, or swimming in the neighbors’ pools. I think he would be proud of how our neighborhood has come together to show so much love to our broken little family during this horrible week.

Jack was a great big brother to Margaret. One of his favorite things about our annual beach trip was getting to share a room with her. He thought she was cool. He appreciated how she wasn’t a “girly girl” and would gladly play pretty much whatever he dictated. They had very different, yet complimentary personalities—vivacious Margaret and more serious Jack, a little like their Mom and Dad, you know?

Often, when he wanted to see if someone in the neighborhood could play, he brought Margaret out as a scout to do the talking for him. She also tried to help keep him organized by helping him turn in permission slips that otherwise would have sat in his backpack for a month. I think they knew each other better than most siblings do. Margaret was constantly giving Jack unsolicited advice about his hair. Speaking of hair, let’s pause to remember Jack’s great head of hair. Margaret and I liked for him to keep it short, so we could always see that cute little part in the front that we called “Jack’s Floop.”

We were so happy to have the kids in the same school so they could be together and share those memories. It’s something that helped keep our family close. We were looking forward to 2 more years with them together at school. This year I asked if Jack would tutor Margaret in Latin. I offered to pay him $1 to tutor her, and pay her $1 to PUT UP with him as a tutor.

The most tender part of the day for Jack and his dad was their evening catch in the yard when they talked about his Lego creations, their fantasy baseball team, and the Yankees.

The most tender part of the day for Jack and me was bedtime, when we would snuggle in the dark. This is when he would open up and really talk about important issues. Each night, whether it had been a great day or a hard day, ended with my telling Jack how much we loved him and how very proud we were to be his parents.

And we were, ALWAYS-- he was so quirky, and tender and gentle toward us. The whole family got excited about what Jack was excited about, whether it was playing Macbeth in the school play, or trying to predict who would win America’s Got Talent.

Our time with Jack was too, too short, but I’d like to tell you a story about some bonus time I got with Jack that I cherished. One summer I was driving Jack to camp in Pennsylvania. When we pulled up at the gates, there was no one there. NO ONE. I looked at Jack and I was about to cry, because I had gotten the day wrong! He gave me a HUGE smile—a cross between “my mom is a nutcase” and “hey, this is pretty cool!” We got to spend a day and ½ hanging out in a little Pennsylvania town together, having rare one on one time, and we even went to Frank Llyod Wright’s Fallingwater, a dream for Jack, the budding architect. Bonus time. Precious time.

You’ve heard that Jack was a deep thinker. He wondered about a lot of things. In fact, as a five year old he said the first thing he would ask God when he died was why the heck He created mosquitoes. I think he knows now. The rest of us will just have to wait.

I want to tell you that the concept of eternity scared Jack. It just seemed, well, a little too long to him. Then, 2 years ago at summer camp, he had a conversation with his counselor. They discussed heaven and eternity in a way that helped Jack to stop being afraid. In fact, he was excited about heaven! He didn’t understand why people were afraid to die because he truly believed that there was no better place.

Sometimes at funerals, people tend to portray the person who died as perfect. Jack, who consistently insisted on the truth, would not have approved. We would all agree that Jack was NOT a perfect person, nor are you, nor am I. We do not have to be. But we do know Jack was an amazing, generous, gentle, loving child who blessed our lives and was the PERFECT son for this family.

Our handsome Jack, our sweet boy, died in a tragic, senseless accident. We all wish we could turn back the clock. Our hearts are breaking for what could have been.

But you know what? We truly believe our homebody Jack is HOME now, in a better HOME than any of us could ever imagine."

For more about the service, please see my friend Glennon's blog.