Epilogue

HOME. ROOMS.

To look deep into your child’s eyes and see in him both yourself and something utterly strange, and then to develop a zealous attachment to every aspect of him, is to achieve parenthood’s self-regarding yet unselfish abandon.

—Andrew Solomon, Far from the Tree

I’m opening paint cans and spreading tarps as Sean sleeps deep and teen-like on his futon.

He’s lightly snoring, a shirtless tangle of scrawny arms, bruised and bony legs, a thrash of greasy hair, a sheen of sweat across a dark-fuzz lip, my little dude on the edge of manhood. As I always do when I watch him sleep, I flash back to that hospital room, Sean tethered to monitors and Mary asleep in a foggy slump beside him. In the dozen years since, hardly a day has passed without my thinking how close we came to losing him. Would he always be that broken six-year-old boy to me?

We’d decided it was finally time to paint over his graffiti. Yesterday Sean made the ceremonial first roller swaths across bubble-fonted Aztecs. Today I’ll finish the job.

I’ll also replace the shredded door that I’d kicked through. And I’ll trash Sean’s defaced closet doors, the sliding panels that look like a 1970s New York City subway car. I look around at these walls and doors blanketed by graffiti, hidden scribbles from friends, assorted non sequiturs: “Stay dipped in butta,” “Lorax,” “pimp juice,” “I hate boredom,” “poop!” My gaze finds the 1970s wooden skateboard propped on a shelf, a gift from a friend during our cross-country skate trip, a Hobie model just like my first board.

Lately I’ve found myself lingering on the contents of my boys’ rooms, items I’d overlooked during my drug-bust searches. Sure, I keep looking for house rules violations, a self-flagellating habit. But my heart’s not in it as much. Sometimes I feel like an ER doctor, anticipating the next gunshot victim, in perpetual triage mode, unable to be just a laid-back family doc.

I sift through Sean’s bookcase, through books and notebooks, finding bus passes, birthday cards, skate photos, including one of my favorites, a shot of Leo and Sean in midair, holding hands in a tandem kickflip off the top of a three-stair. They’re flying. And I think: it’s all gone by so fucking fast.

I turn on KEXP and listen to the Saturday reggae show, stirring my paint. I hate reggae, but today it feels appropriate. Sean keeps snoozing as I paint over one Aztec tag after another, and in no time I’ve got one wall covered in safe, soothing beige. I feel giddy, like something has shifted. That morning I’d read the New York Times coverage of the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, and I mooned over the explosion of rainbows on my Facebook and Twitter feeds. Today feels like a day of inclusion, tolerance, togetherness.

I take a coffee break, and something pulls me up to Leo’s room. He’s also still asleep, a question mark curl beneath his blanket. Instead of snooping through drawers I start scanning his walls, too.

A tiny Inner Space T-shirt hangs above his bed, signed by pro skaters from one of our first Seattle skate events. A “Sk8 the St8s” deck hangs beside a board with a photo of a lion eating its prey, designed by a cousin’s friend who was killed while skating through downtown Chicago. Atop stereo speakers sit a pair of Independent trucks, a gift from Michael before he died. An orthopedic boot leans in a corner beside a graffiti-covered bookshelf crammed with stacks of skate magazines, a collection of snap-back caps, favorite skate shoes, and a few books. Skate stickers and Acres tags cover the desk and dresser, and the posters spread across the walls tell a story of boyhood aspirations—Big Lebowski, Biggie Smalls, James Bond, Times Square, Muhammad Ali, plus a half dozen pro skaters in action. Tacked above his pillow is the dream catcher he made during summer camp a decade ago—the same summer he made me two T-shirts; one said TIGHT, the other said CRAP.

This weird inventory, this evidence of a life, of a skate boy’s life, of my child’s childhood . . . I realize these memorials of all things Leo won’t hang here forever. My little man, one of my three best friends . . . this won’t be his home much longer. I’m mostly okay with that. I’m happy for him. I’m girding myself for his moving-on-up . . .

As I quietly close the door I catch Bob Marley’s eye, staring out from a poster above the quote that reads, “When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.”

Let’s hope so.

Days later, I drop Sean at the airport and drive toward work when KEXP’s morning DJ spins David Bowie, singing about these children, trying to change their world, immune to our consultations—quite aware of what they’re going through. I try to sing along—Ch-ch-ch-changes—but out of nowhere the song grabs me by the throat. I choke up, and then I’m crying (again), and I have to pull over because I can’t see a fucking thing.

My eldest is headed overseas, to spend the summer working and traveling through Spain. We’ve never been so far apart.

And it’s only just beginning. A month after his Spain trip, Sean will fly back to Europe with Max and another friend to skateboard through Amsterdam, Prague, and Berlin. Nine months after that, Leo will launch his own European summer adventure, touring with a friend from Amsterdam to Prague, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Germany.

And just like that . . . our little Peter Pans are out past the borders of Neverland, out in the world, Lost Boys on their way to becoming men, becoming themselves.

I assumed I’d be ready, even eager, to set them free. But now? Who will I even be without my boys? Without being immersed in the daily churn of their chaotic existence?

We gave them so much freedom, hoping they’d learn what to do with it, hoping they’d get some things out of their system. It wasn’t always pretty, but we stuck by them, stuck with them, and we emerged on the other side of it all, messy and loving, battle-hardened and intact.

Some nights I celebrate the weirdness of who we are, convinced that the skating, the street smarts, the travel, and the independence are the muddled ingredients of an exuberant life.

Other nights I worry for them, for their future. I try to keep it to myself, careful to protect their spirit, their late-teens vulnerability.

I’d long believed that skating had prepared them for the streets, for the out-of-bounds places, for the shadowy edges. But for the real world? During their tenuous exits from high school, I’d noticed something new. My sons, who rarely exhibited fear or caution, seemed tentative and unsure. They were outsiders emerging from the bubble they’d created into the world they’d avoided. From the fringe world they understood and controlled into the mainstream, a place that’s scary and new, rigid and full of rules and expectations.

Watching them stand at the edge of their lives, suddenly hesitant and sensitive . . . I realize I’ve done all I can do.

But I want to give them one last nudge. I just want to tell them . . . You’re doing great, boys. You’re amazing.

Just lean forward. Just drop in.

Image from author’s collection.