John

Isannah

Last week Mary Ann and I traveled to a nearby town to visit the Scott family with whom we have become fairly close.  Mary Ann took a job with this family as a respite care provider for several hours a week the week before John’s accident.   The Scott’s have a wonderful family, not the least of whom is their six-year old daughter, Isannah.  Among many wonderful qualities, Isannah has Down syndrome.

Last week was her birthday, and we headed down to take her a present and have some cake and ice cream with her.  We got there just as Muffles the Clown was finishing a play session with her, and we sat on the couch and watched her interact with the very nice clown.  I remembered how much John distrusted clowns.   Whenever we found ourselves in a restaurant with a clown, we would all duck our heads low to the table and whisper “Clown alert, clown alert” in hopes he would bypass our table.  John could always be heard to say “No clown!” and he meant it.  It was fun to watch Isannah interact with Muffles, though she was distracted by our arrival.

After presents, all of which but one seemed to follow a Barney  theme (another character  John mercifully disliked),  we went to the table for cake and ice cream.  Isannah finished hers early and walked around the table to where I sat with my back against the wall.  She raised her arms, and I realized with some surprise that she wanted me to pick her up.  I say surprise, because this had never happened before in our visits, and it is Mary Ann she interacts with every week, and with whom she has a great relationship. 

I picked her up and put her in my lap, not quite sure what to do with her.  She reached for a small round purple plastic brush with soft white bristles and began to “powder” my face with it.  So of course, I demanded my turn and powdered her face which tickled her, and so we were off playing “powder.”  Then she discovered my shirt pocket, and decided to hold the brush in the pocket, “hiding” it and I was to look everywhere for it, and be delighted when she pulled it out of the pocket to show me.  Most parents have played a similar game with their children, a simple dumb little game that both Isannah and I found amusing.  In fact she laughed so hard that she wet her pants, which meant that she wet my pants as well.  Everytime I  would express my delight, she would say “more”, meaning “let’s go again.”  John’s word for the same idea was “again.” And so we “mored” for at least thirty times.  Finally, I thought we had better think about getting back home, and I told Isannah that we could play “Purple Brush” one more time.  She said, “No, two more,”, and I said OK.  We finished our two more times, and she looked at me and said, “No, three more.”  Since Mary Ann and Ginny were still talking, I said OK, and we went three more times.  Finally, Mary Ann agreed we had to go, and Isannah said, “No, four more times.” Since I didn’t know how high she could count, I said “no” it was time to stop, and she climbed down and hid under my chair when we realized she had wet.   After we convinced her that it was all OK, she went off smiling to use the bathroom and change into her pajamas.

As we drove home, I thought a lot about this silly little game and how much she had enjoyed it.  I remember thinking how good it felt to have invented a little game again with a child who had so much fun.  And then, like that unseen bigger wave hiding behind the one you do see, it crashed over me:  had I been unfaithful to John?  I had never made up a little game like that with anyone else.  How would John and I have played it?  And then, there was a tremendous ache and a great desire to hold John one more time and to play any stupid little game we had made up.  I remembered right away the train ride to Chicago banging my head against the window as John laughed and laughed and said, “again?”   I remembered the pillow and balloon fights, the monster hunts, the snuggling in front of the fan. The realization that whenever the two of us were together, some sort of game was likely to break out.  How I missed that!  How I missed him.  For as much fun as Isannah and I had together, I returned home all the sadder, aching for my son.  I decided that I would have to be more careful in the future not to let myself wander unthinkingly into such a painful area.  An area I didn’t even know existed. 

This, unlike the hug from Melvin, had been a “presence of John moment” that was painful and saddening.  Things are never so simple as either / or.  This moment of  presense led me into an awareness of something that was missing from my life that I had really enjoyed, and that could not be replaced.  Making a child laugh, a thing that had been so natural and brought such good feelings would now carry with it a measure of hurt.  I vowed right there and then never to duck from a clown again.  If I were to have a clown face, like Emmet Kelly, only a sad one would match my situation. Not to stop trying, but to recognize the cost involved with so simple an act.  One does not get over, one learns to move and to live with.  Call me Sniffles the Clown.