On the Steps, Waiting for a Bus

It’s transition season in Oregon. The mornings have settled on being cold, but the afternoons remain indecisive. Autumn is crowding the portcullis with her pitchforks and battering rams, but summer is rallying for one last defense.

Jack and I sit outside in our short sleeves, watching our breath and waiting for the morning to turn. It is transition season for us, also. His bus is coming. I have a bus coming, too. One I’ve been waiting years for. It’s almost here. And my heart feels skittish and jittery.

This morning, Jack is as keyed up as I have been. He doesn’t speak, but shrieks, with all the syllables jammed together into one. If you don’t know him, you wouldn’t understand a word. “Happy Feet is coming!”

“No,” I tell him in something just above a whisper. “That’s not a choice.”

“Turbo deleted!”

“Let’s think about something else,” I say. Movies, after all these years, are still his go-to fixation. When he’s happy, he wants to watch them. When he’s upset, he wants to yell about them. About the order in which they appear in his iTunes library. About the ones he wants but doesn’t have. About the ones he has, but wants to hide. Or about the ones he hid yesterday but wants to see again. No one ever said anxiety was rational.

“Here, sit down with me,” I say, and he sets his backpack on the step and slides onto my lap. I rub his back gently.

“Are you happy about school, or are you sad.”

“Sad,” he says.

“I’m sorry. Sometimes I don’t like to go to work, either. Sometimes I wish I could just stay home.” He quiets down. I keep talking. “Are the other kids nice, or are they mean?”

“Nice.”

“Good. Is your teacher nice, or is she mean?”

“Nice.”

These one word answers aren’t always accurate. Sometimes he just repeats the second option. We’ve tested this many times by flipping the choices. Sometimes his heart isn’t in it. He’s just giving us what we want. We like words, and he obliges us. But this time, I can tell he means it.

“Can you tell me the names of any of the kids in your class?”

I’ve asked him this one before, but it’s been a bridge too far. Even now, he stares out at the road, offering no answer. I look away for a moment as my mind starts to wander. I begin to think about my book, and whether anyone is talking about it on social media. About all the things I feel I have to do to make it a success. It’s a well-worn, anxiety-ridden neuro-path. What if no one reads it? What if they don’t like it? Or, what if everyone reads it and likes it, and they start to think I’m some kind of expert at being a dad? What if they think I’ve mastered all the sorrow all the time? What if they think I’m a better man than I really am?

And then I slam on the breaks. I stop my mind from wandering before it gets too far, because I want to believe my son might actually give an answer to my question. I want to keep on believing that he can grow in his communication skills. That means when I ask him something, I stay present. I exercise patience, and I expect an answer, even while I doubt. This is how I honor him. I wait and see.

He doesn’t respond today. Not with words. So I speak again. I tell him what I always tell him: that I love him dearly. That I am so happy he is my boy.

Then I notice how he he leans into me and rubs his forehead on my beard. I feel how still he has become with my fingernails grazing his back. His misty breath is steady, and his muscles calm. These are his words today. His silence washes over me; his stillness forms a psalm of contentment. “It’s going to be okay, because thou art with me.”

My heart knows this song well. I’ve sung it a thousand time and forgotten it a thousand more. But it’s transition season, and my bus is coming, and I needed to hear it again; to sing it once more to my own Father, and to let my heart be still.