Caring for Ben
A Walk Down Memory lane
It feels good to be driving through my hometown again. I remember how we used to run this town. North Woods was our stadium, the residence our fans. They say it takes a village to raise a child, we defiantly had the support of the village. I turn on to my street, Penny Lane. I used to hate this hill when I had to walk up it on the way home from school. But we did love riding our bikes, skateboards, and Rollerblades down it. We would even sled down it if they didn't plow to early. North Woods provided me with the perfect childhood. I never wanted to go back to my days in this town as much as I did tonight.
#56, my home away from home growing up, two doors down from my actual home. I have spent countless hours in this house. Ryan is sitting on the front porch when I pull up. As he hears the car he picks his head out of his hands, runs his fingers through his hair (which needs to be cut) and then stands to greet me. He walks towards the car as I walk towards him. With every step my emotions grab a stronger hold of me. By the time I am finally in his arms I have lost it. He holds me tight and it finally hits me, his Dad was right. Ryan is not a little boy anymore, he is a man. He is now a head taller than me and strong. Then I realize something else for the first time, Ryan is crying also.
By the time we both pull our selves together I had been there for half an hour. "Come in?" His voice is deep and as he turns to the light coming from the doorway I realize that he has grown a goatee. Why have i not realized until now that my little boy has become a man? Have i been in that much denial?
He walks into the kitchen and pours us both some coffee, we sit and B.S. about the old times, Patrick and Ben do not make their way into the conversation, at least not about their current medical state. Actually, I almost forgot about them. Ryan has me laughing so hard that I am crying, when I wipe my eyes i look at the clock, 4 Am. "Oh wow!" I say, "It's getting late, You tired Kiddo?"
"Honestly...I don't think I can sleep. But you can hit the hay if you want"
"Nah I'm with you buddy, what'd you wanna do then?"
He hesitates then replies "Cards?" When Ryan was younger he was obsessed with cards, we spent numerous summers playing cards, learning new games, doing family tournaments. The grin on my face is enough of an answer for him, he immediately jumps to his feet and searches for the deck. We sit at the table playing cards until the sun comes up over the backyard, the backyard where i learned to do a flip on the trampoline, where I had a bucket of pee thrown at me, where I learned to swim, dive, and jump off the diving board. Where we had played so many kickball games, so many games that we had made up ourselves, so many games where our imagination ran wild.Growing up that backyard could become a whole other world, a world I wanted to escape to right now.
"What are you looking at?" That deep voice brought me back to reality, we aree no longer little kids, we are adults. Adults living in the adult world, not that of our imagination. Adults dealing with adult problems, dealing with life or death.
#56, my home away from home growing up, two doors down from my actual home. I have spent countless hours in this house. Ryan is sitting on the front porch when I pull up. As he hears the car he picks his head out of his hands, runs his fingers through his hair (which needs to be cut) and then stands to greet me. He walks towards the car as I walk towards him. With every step my emotions grab a stronger hold of me. By the time I am finally in his arms I have lost it. He holds me tight and it finally hits me, his Dad was right. Ryan is not a little boy anymore, he is a man. He is now a head taller than me and strong. Then I realize something else for the first time, Ryan is crying also.
By the time we both pull our selves together I had been there for half an hour. "Come in?" His voice is deep and as he turns to the light coming from the doorway I realize that he has grown a goatee. Why have i not realized until now that my little boy has become a man? Have i been in that much denial?
He walks into the kitchen and pours us both some coffee, we sit and B.S. about the old times, Patrick and Ben do not make their way into the conversation, at least not about their current medical state. Actually, I almost forgot about them. Ryan has me laughing so hard that I am crying, when I wipe my eyes i look at the clock, 4 Am. "Oh wow!" I say, "It's getting late, You tired Kiddo?"
"Honestly...I don't think I can sleep. But you can hit the hay if you want"
"Nah I'm with you buddy, what'd you wanna do then?"
He hesitates then replies "Cards?" When Ryan was younger he was obsessed with cards, we spent numerous summers playing cards, learning new games, doing family tournaments. The grin on my face is enough of an answer for him, he immediately jumps to his feet and searches for the deck. We sit at the table playing cards until the sun comes up over the backyard, the backyard where i learned to do a flip on the trampoline, where I had a bucket of pee thrown at me, where I learned to swim, dive, and jump off the diving board. Where we had played so many kickball games, so many games that we had made up ourselves, so many games where our imagination ran wild.Growing up that backyard could become a whole other world, a world I wanted to escape to right now.
"What are you looking at?" That deep voice brought me back to reality, we aree no longer little kids, we are adults. Adults living in the adult world, not that of our imagination. Adults dealing with adult problems, dealing with life or death.
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