UPDATED: I took out all the Dingo Baby silliness from the top of this post. It was selfish and stupid. The point was meant to be how PROUD I am of these boys and how funny and beautiful I think these writings are. Here they are, without the previous, ah, intro:
Dear Nana,
You are the best grandparent I could ask for. Being in 5th grade, you are at a lot of other kids houses and you tend to meet their grandparents and let me tell you, they are no fun at all. Some just sit on the sofa. Others just talk on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on — it never ends. Others are always grumpy. But not you. You and PopPop always have funny stories to tell, fun games to play and most of all, arent grumpy.
Love,
Joseph
Hahahaha! May I just say I love the whole “being in 5th grade” thing, like, he’s been around, you know? And the “let me tell you” — what is he, 85?? And the “on and ons”? I counted. There were 13 of ’em. They took up two whole lines of the paper, so it just looked hysterical.
Patrick, my older nephew, is the one who reduced me to tears, though. He’s 14, with all that involves. He is too tall and too gawky. His hair is too bushy and his feet are too big. He is mostly too quiet, but sometimes, too nonsensically talkative. He is too shy around his peers, too afraid to go to casual get-togethers. He is too apathetic about everything, unless it’s basketball or video games, about which he’s too obsessed. Everything is too “too” right now. We all worry about him, of course. Think he’s never coming back to normal. Worry about just what the hell is going on inside him. Worry if that boy we all knew is in there anywhere.
He wrote this for my mom:
Million and One
A million green leaves
A thousand bristled pine cones
And hundreds of golden summer days
The green of the plants
never looked greener
The golden sun
never shone brighter
The blue of a puddle-shaped pool
was never quite as nice
The white water falling over rocks
has never sounded so soothing
as this Sunday of memories
Out on the back porch
One can almost hear
The children’s laughter
The splashing of pool water
The creak of that old tree swing
That hasn’t been used in years
The bounce of balls or the spring of the rim
Out on the back porch
One can almost smell
The chlorine-soaked towels
The paint of a million pictures
The peach cobbler cooking
The pines as they sway and shed
Or even the glue of a thousand messes
A woman sits on that back porch
She watches the leaves
The leaves that flicker with golden sun
From under a bush
runs a squirrel
He stops for only a second to push
and the long-lost plastic egg, rolls
But one he has pushed too hard
and weighted with metals inside,
the egg rolls into the blue pool and slowly sinks
and the woman watches the egg
And in the pink plastic she sees
a million and one
of the purest memories
The plastic egg image kills me. I can’t get past it. Every Easter my parents have an egg hunt, hiding them all over their huge yard. As the kids get older, the eggs are plastic, filled with coins, sometimes bills. And dad always loses a couple of them. Always.
And now I know Patrick is in there. He’s in there. And I am crying because he is such a great kid and because I love him and because I think this is beautiful. He’s not dead inside; he’s alive. He’s gonna be okay.
He’s gonna be okay.
He definitely shares his aunt’s talent for writing. Wow. 14? Really?
An amazing poem… at 14 no less. Wow.
Precious boy.
He’s observing right now, deciding who he’s going to be next. He’ll be himself in the end, no worries. With talent like his… it might just be that he’s slightly uncomfortable with his own genius. Maybe his intellect scares him because it’s so advanced. He doesn’t feel quite normal. What incredible introspection for such a young man. Brilliant.
“And on and on and on and on…” LOL!!!
There ya have it, it’s all genetic! Piper shares your sense of humor, Joseph has your wit (I laughed at the on and on’s too, THAT was funny!) and Patrick has your style/introspection.
Jr. High is just a hard stretch…he’ll make it! I see a career in writing in his future too.
Darn it Tracey, you’re making it all dusty around here. =)
Please put this in “Favorite Tales”, so we can read it again and again. Amazing.