He's Almost There

Isaac says we are a little like roommates.

It’s an idea I have been fostering in him for over a year,

I knew I had to get him to a place where he could cook and clean and do laundry. I also knew I had to draw him out of his shell and get him engaged with the world.

In mid June he will be in this house all by himself.

OK... Brenda did first say she would move in here for the month... but I told her I’d rather she didn’t. She conceded she could spend two days here and then two days there, to and fro...

He needs a chance to learn to not follow all my dictates, desires, casual thoughts... And he’s getting there.

The last few days he has slowly been repeating the idea I planted that we are roommates now. We are the two people living in this house, and running this house and it isn’t about having to do chores. There are a lot of things that simply need doing. If you see it needs doing, do it.

He is 18. He is graduating (a regular diploma!!!!!!). His next task is to learn to work.

I told Brenda I’d like to see her spend as little time here as possible. She will. I know. At first she will be, rightfully so, anxious that Isaac is OK. Proper meals and such (speaking of which, I am getting a touch lazy there!). She will spend a night or two here.

But she will start to see that he is already nearly grown up, and though he may have a hard time remembering and staying focussed, he will get it done.

It’s healthy to embrace a little imperfection (after all, doesn’t God Himself embrace us?). It’s OK if he doesn’t do it perfectly right. She will see he can make do, that he won’t starve and that he is learning.

Her sense of responsibility, guilt, will relax. I doubt she will spend a night two weeks after I’m gone.

He’s starting to get the idea of money now. I really cut him off... He has to do something for me beyond the running of the house to get pocket money. (He’s going to wash my van tomorrow!).

Yesterday I was mowing. He brought me gloves to wear. Today he turned in pop cans and mowed a neighbor’s yard.

This all sounds like little stuff, I know, but he hardly mumbled two years ago, and now he’s doing so much better.

I talk to him pretty frankly. About how how things work, checking and savings, carbon filtering, faith, insurance, cold fusion, our feelings, my plans, his. (He doesn’t catch it all the first time, but he gets most of it. I think.)

I always did. I often spoke to him about parenting, what lesson I was trying to teach him, what I wanted him to learn next, what his next freedom can be.

I can see he isn’t too far from learning what he needs to have his own life.

He’s excited about the strawberries my garden will produce this summer.

I need to get around and write about the two gardens. I planted them both last weekend. The Metaphor Garden is worth a post.

Anyway, I wander... his thinking is becoming a little future focussed. I’m proud of him.

Isaac may not be able to do many things, but he has a big heart, he is honest and eager and kind. Those are traits that will serve an employer well.

He hurts very badly for his mother, he misses his brother, but he really believes that what has happened is best for all of us. She and I could not work it out. We just aren’t even reading the same book, much less on the same page. He believes she’s going to be better. He thinks Jeremiah is going to be better. He thinks he is going to learn to pull his weight.

What more could I want? What a great kid I have!

I prayed for so long for children. I asked for that blessing so many times. The day before we were to hire an attorney, to begin the adoption of Willy, The Dream came. So we did.

I had become fascinated by Abraham. The father of all western, and middle eastern, faiths, and his desire for children. I argued with God that He had promised me children. That He had to keep His word.

And He did, and we adopted that newborn (Lord, bless that young woman).

A year and a half after Willy died, when word came about this boy needing a home, I was ready to say yes before I heard his name.

“His name is Isaac,” she said.

Brenda may be bitter toward that woman, but I am grateful.

Isaac.

Willy was Ishmael, Isaac is Isaac.

I will be on the other side of the planet, he will be here.

I know, I know... wandering again... One more story and I’ll call this a post and throw it on the blog pile (this is once again one of those posts not as pithy as usual).

The first time I saw Isaac the missionary lady was bustling about, shaking our hands with her wet ones, juggling laundry, fixing a lunch for 20.

“Do you want to see Isaac? I think he’s up.

“You can see him through the sliding glass door. He’s in the bedroom on the other side of the patio.”

I strode forward, looked at the bedroom beyond the swimming pool, cribs lining walls. The crib nearest the glass door had a little boy jumping up and down, waving at me and shouting.

“Daddy! Daddy! DADDDDDYYYYYYY!”

It’s been fifteen years.

I sure love that boy.