Company’s Arrived

 

No One Said It Would Be For Five, Ten or Fifteen Years

 When I Opened the Door There It Stood

 Puberty

I tried so hard to shut the door and tell it to go away - but it stood strong in defiance and in it came.

I had been given fair warning from his father. 

One of these days,  you’ll see, you’ll say good night to your  darling son, and in the morning a stranger will come up those stairs,  hair tangled, eyes expressionless (this would not be the day to remember that  the eyes are the window to your soul), no socks and looking for his shoes.

I approach with caution.

I greet the stranger with a Good Morning.

Silence.

Again, Good Morning.

A mumble returns and then followed by a Yeahhhh.

Excuse me, what have you done with my son?

I must admit, he looks similar, yet his appearance, his speech and oh yes, the big one, his attitude, have very little resemblance to my son of the past 13 years.

Again I ask what he has done with my son.

His father sat motionless, having his morning coffee.  His face hidden from expression behind the newspaper; but I knew he could not wait to remind me of his warnings starting some six months ago.

 It happens, one day you will not recognize him.  You will think that someone has kidnapped your precious, perfect son. What you have is the satisfaction of knowing that he will recover. He continued by telling me his story, and one that he sticks too, is that God comes down during the night and removes, for safe keeping, the vital parts of his brain. In about  ten or fifteen years you may be lucky and see some improvements  – he might remember our names and phone number, be grateful for this; but don’t be fooled.  God will return and replace all missing pieces when he is ready.

At that exact moment my son, walking up the stairs, the stairs that he mastered at age 3, proceeded to fall flat on his face. I walked to the stairs to see what he had tripped over – nothing.

What happened?

I fell.

How

I dun no.

You what?

I dun no.

I feel eyes penetrate down on me and I turn to see definite ripples in the newspaper.

Looking over, I address the newspaper; do you have something to add?

Without looking above the horizon of the paper I hear only - I told you so.

Without doubt I knew whatever was wrong; he must have inherited it from his father’s side of the family.

Over the next few weeks, I was busy replacing missing runners, pencils, books, school ID tags, security locks and back-packs, all of course not being lost by my son, but some aliens coming down and taking them.

I was now convinced there was a medical problem.  It is not possible a young productive, cooperative, mannerly, boy could loss most of his vocabulary,  resorting to a monotone tablet of  10 words or less;   his equilibrium balance has vanished;  and no longer having the common sense to remember running into a fence hurts -  all  over-night.

The rippling newspaper responded to my concerns only by telling me to take a pill and sit down.

I consulted our family Doctor.  I was told that puberty sometimes lasts maybe five years – this is the same Doctor that told me life begins at 40.

Standing at the living room window watching my son walk towards the house from the Highway, he suddenly disappeared, with no evidence of where he went.  Then the cotoneaster hedge moved – he had fallen into the hedge.  When he surfaced there were obvious scares from his battle in the hedge.

I had resolved, for my own sanity to self mediate these unexplainable occurrences and define it as being done at the hands (or in this case the feet) of an escaped Anteater.  My life had become one, without logic, so for the next few years I can live with blaming a wild mad Anteater.

Days, weeks, months passed, still not satisfaction that this was a natural occurrence so I Google my problem.

I read an article written by a PhD documenting how  many of his patients were in and around 13 years old;  critiquing them all  as coming from middle-class backgrounds, having nice neighbors,  many have privileges including travel with material goods and many social opportunities, etc, etc.

Good grief Charlie Brown - at 13 I could not tell anyone if I was from a middle-class family or what my material wealth was and if I had good neighbors.  My travels included a tent in the back yard.

Skipping past the definition a typical 13 year old I then read that a lot of the changes, both physical and emotional are attributable to -

the  frontal lobes of their brains are not yet fully developed.  They tend to be less impulsive, more reflective, more able to learn from experience and require less shadowing’ by adults.

This might explain why  I had been called into the vice-principal’s office,  told that my son had been removed from class because he had, after being told by a substitute teacher,  that she did not like his attitude;  he, without hesitation,  responded  that he did not like her attitude either.  

I could not leave him to the administrative Wolves – I would stand at the firing line and take the smoke - I admitted that my son, over the past month, repeatedly had heard that exact same comment at home and I can only image that he was only mimicking his mother.

I’m wondering if this frontal lobe is related to the more in depth description given by his father at the beginning of all of this.

Note to self – measure the circumference of my sons head – weekly.

He had been a master of creation in science projects, introducing us to the Komodo dragon, the migration of the African Elephant, the Polar Bears, the complete history of Canadian Politics and the learning handicaps of right-brained students in a left-brain class room.  (The school administration found no humor in his project, yet could not bring forth any arguments dismissing his findings.)

Now, his favorite topic of conversation is the Sloth. 

O course, I Google the Sloth.

 A picture on the screen came up of a long haired, short legged, long clawed animal hanging from a tree branch defined as sluggish, inactive, slow, lethargic, lacking concern and indifferent.

Well, that sums up the physical and mental characteristics of my son - a Sloth.

I no longer ask where the seven plates have disappeared to – I retrieve them each Sunday when I enter his room. I don’t ask why socks filled with water bottles are hanging from the trees - they’ll come down in the next wind storm, or, where the missing duct tape is – I know I’ll find it,  wrapped around something he has created and resolved will change the world - where’s the cat?

I no longer get excited when he and his buddy’s are camping out in the back yard, not having the sense to get out of the tent when there are lightning strikes grounding out beside the spruce tree – which their tent is under.  I stand on guard, holding the door open as their screams are at an octave very similar to that of his female cousins as they enter the house.

I managed to convince me that purple hair was not a good color for him and  if we do go down for piercings I will be the one who picks out his earrings.

I conceded, like it or not, this stranger, living inside my son’s body, would remain in our home for the next few years.  I diarized the potential departure date making sure my son would be in the right line for parts replacement at the end of puberty’s visit.  I met with my son, outlined the ground rules of our operation for the next few years, gave him his deadline and agreed; for the next few years, so not to embarrass him, I and my safety net would follow at a respectable distance.

I did take notice early in these years to all the advertising  on TV, radios and along every counter  in the grocery store, all focused at the generation suffering from temporary frontal lobe disorder,  how their lives would be so much better if only they consumed a variety of products. Products that after opening the box exploded with colors, fireworks and happiness.  Bottles once opened with all their sparkle and fizz promised to carry you leaps and bounds far beyond any vision of Disney.   I became addicted to  watching a crane sized pitcher , with short legs, filled with color  (not part of nature’s rainbow)  jumping up and down, under a sunshine sky, running across a lawn, with all the neighborhood children in pursuit,  exploding  through walls, all to get to a pool sized vat of ice cubes.    I’ve seen this before - oh yes, The Pied Piper.  

At a safe distance, for the following years, we agreed that any colors put on our dinner table, if not provided by nature, were few and far between.    I was not about to totally deny the joys of teenage years  so when  the sparkle, the fizz and all the goodies inside the pressurized bags  exploded we made sure the  rise and fall was all in the safety of a child proof  back yard.

Our home has now celebrated its seventh anniversary with Puberty. Thank goodness, all early indications are that my son had arrived in time and was in the right line to start the process of having the beneficial parts returned to his frontal lobe.

When I get ahead of myself like this and belief that the last of the parts are in;  I am quickly reminded by his father that signs of sanity and sensibility are rare and I should not count on this condition to continue – consider it a trick.

No sooner than that said my son rises to announce that he will not be able to attend classes today; he has a cold. From what you might ask, good question – from falling into the icy pond after bouncing on the ice until it broke open.

So, I rise from the kitchen table and retrieve my safety net and anxiety pills.

Maybe I should learn to get more enjoyment from the Newspaper.