Alone and Together Again

How to ever capture the emotions of a day? So many ups and so many downs. So many lonely moments and so many warm, intimate moments?

The most important thing about today, and this date, is it is one of my kids' birthdays. I remember the day he was born. It had been 13 years since I'd had a child, and when he arrived, he became my second son.

But he wasn't my youngest for long. Within a few short years, he was the oldest of three. A middle son, with two older sisters and one younger sister.

This weekend, he will become the head coach of his younger sister's soccer team, even though it will be another year before he will no longer be classified as a "minor" himself.

Tonight, at our little family birthday party, his oldest sister and her two young children came to celebrate at his Mom's house. We decided it would not be safe to gather at my house, where tensions on the street out front remain high, amidst a string of retaliatory gang-related murders that took the life of one of my neighbors last week.

While playing with his nephew and niece, the birthday boy also received an energetic call via Skype from his other two nephews in Sacramento, the children of my middle daughter.

This all gets confusing sometimes, this family story. Yes there are a lot of us, which is ironic, given my status as paternal head of the family tree. After all, I live alone, am single, and am a writer -- the epitome of a lone wolf.

Check out my career as an investigative reporter, and the improbability of all of this becomes clear.

Yet nothing I've ever done, or no label ever applied to me has ever felt real to me. I'm none of the things others ascribe to me. I am, have always been, and always will be a complete outsider, except in one very special sense.

And that is when it comes to my family.

But this is not about me. This is about my son's birthday. I picked him up from a friend's house after school and drove him to the Haight. We bought a few items of clothing from the stores he likes best there. As we walked back to my car, I showed him the flat where his older three siblings grew up, just half a block from the corner of Haight and Ashbury.

Back at Bernal, we ordered pizzas. His Mom brought cupcakes, like she did when he was small. We lit candles and sang the song. He smiled and played happily with his three-year-old nephew, who was in a rambunctious mood.

When it was time for the little guy to leave, with his Mom and baby sister, he looked out of the window and saw the strange night sky of lights twinkling through the fog of Twin Peaks.

His eyes got huge and he started to feel scared.

His uncle gave him a big hug and told him he would be fine. His Grandpa scooped him up in his arms and carried him out into that dark night, to secure him in his seatbelt.

"We have to be careful in our car," he told his Mom.

His uncle jogged back up the stairs, as his Mom drove him off into the night. After one more round of hugs, I did so as well.

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