On Today's Wind

If you click on this photo, it will enlarge, and if you look hard, you may see the hummingbird, grey and green, in the center of the apple tree.

I saw another hummingbird today, outside the windows at the building in the Presidio where hundreds of us gathered to support the family of the precious young life so recently lost, to suicide, at age 14.

We all came in one sense to ask questions and find answers, but there are no answers to be found to such questions, and so, only the questions remained there once we had left.

We also came just to be where we needed to be for this boys' remarkable parents and older brother; to in some physical way demonstrate that we are witnesses not only to their ineffable pain but to the wonderful boy they raised, a child who overcame many difficulties, including hearing loss, weak vision, and other physical challenges to become a star athlete, and one of the most socially gifted youngsters it has ever been my pleasure to know.

I loved this kid and I observed everything about him closely for years. From my own deaf cousin, I saw this boy, at an early age, becoming a lip-reader. Later, he had hearing aids, but that technology is imperfect, and he continued to rely on other senses to know when something was being said outside of his range of sight or hearing, and turn his head in that direction, hunting down the origin of sounds that once he located them in space, would quickly reveal their meaning to him.

Sometimes, he spoke very loudly, not knowing he was doing so, and we had to remind him to speak a bit more quietly here in my small apartment, which he visited so many times over the years.

We shared pizza and spaghetti often enough that it must have bored him -- I am not much of a cook -- but he always thanked me and he always seemed to enjoy the food, whatever its quality.

The last time he stayed over was just a few months back, the first week of the new year, actually, and a time that I was not at the top of my game. But he, as always, was a welcome member of our family, part of the posse of boys in the living room watching movies and playing video games -- one of a group of young people I wish could keep coming here forever...

But of course, nothing and no one is forever. All that we know and hold dear is temporary.

***

I did my best to hide it but for five straight hours today I cried. There is only one person who noticed every teardrop, and later, linking her 12-year-old's arms with mine, we shopped. I was buying salad before dinner with old friends; she was seeking food color for the vials of bubbles handed out at the memorial service.

Her idea is to create colorful art out of those bubbles.

***

My youngest son has been among the many walking wounded since his friend died. The two of them had been together just hours earlier that awful day, but my son had sensed nothing wrong. Since then, I have watched and known that my son has been doubting his own ability to sense what others around him are going through. He is himself such a gentle and sensitive person I know this is making him ache in ways he has no words or tools to express.

But I was proud, very proud, to see him slowly walk up to his friends' parents, bend down (he is much taller than either of them) and embrace them after today's ceremony. There were not any words he could speak, but there was a hug he could give, which spoke louder than mere words -- much louder.

And he did.

***

I saw another gentle little woodpecker today. In the middle of the service, borne on the wind, it hovered outside the window from the room where we had gathered. Inside, there were no answers to be had, nor will there ever be.

Outside, there was a tiny bird, and life on this planet continued as it always has, and God-willing, will continue to do so, even as we, one by one, pass away from this place and this time and this pain and these many joys.

All things must pass. But remember that you are never alone. No, no, no, you're not alone.

-30-

Life Colors

An emotional week; the kids are all tired and disoriented. The memorial service for their friend is Sunday.

At last night's spring concert, a bunch of last year's 8th-graders sat together, remembering their friend, and watching this year's classes perform. I sat with them, high above the stage at the lovely old Herbst War Memorial Theater.

My daughter sang, which was not a surprise, and then played the drums, which was. She doesn't think so but she was good on the drums, setting the beat and keeping it going in style.

As some kids sang onstage, and others watched offstage, my mind began to wander away from the moment. It was my birthday. The boys both forgot to say anything and then felt bad.

But I didn't mind. This week questions of life and death are very much on their mind. Birthdays, by contrast, are silly luxuries.

To still be having birthdays by my age is a feat of its own. But in the news I read of the oldest man in the world dying at age 114. Compared to him I am indeed very young. His life spanned three centuries, surely one of the very few people ever having accomplished that. He lived and died in the upper midwest -- Montana in the end.

My eyes wandered to the ceiling of the old theater. My mind wandered back through years and decades to my own childhood, and the defining events, including many deaths on my father's side throughout my youth.

Two uncles in accidents, one when his car was crushed by a train; a cousin, his car also hit by a train, then more uncles one after the other, then my grandmother. Then my mother's side started passing on.

Finally, two entire generations had vanished, leaving me as an elder.

Now I sit way up in a family tree with six children, four grandchildren and a fifth on the way. My role is that of the keeper of our history, the story-teller.

I tell stories -- that is what I do. Plus I drive kids to and from school and soccer. I shop, I cook, I clean.

Sometimes, people pay me to help them tell their stories. More often, I help them tell stories without pay.

Within me, stories scream to be released. Novels. Crazed voices, tender voices, stories of betrayal and stories of peace. The words form themselves into sentences that remain unwritten.

Tales untold. Will they be told? Should they be told? How will they get told?

The chard ripens red, a tiny plum forms on the tree. Something catches my eye -- a hummingbird, green, buzzes into position to slide his long slender beak into an apple blossom, which quivers as he enters her. She gives up her nectar.

Far overhead, a jet banks, reaches the coast and begins its journey across the Pacific. The phone rings; a bill collector's fruitless quest remains unanswered. Unanswerable.

Who owes whom? Why should I pay them when Virgin hasn't paid me? The richest one percent of Americans are millions of times as rich as the 90% of us who have grown poorer under Republican tax policies. Our Democratic President, so hated by the right that they pursue conspiracy theories about where he was born, making themselves ridiculous and pathetic in most of their fellow citizens' eyes. They have no viable candidate; Obama will sweep to victory next year in a landslide.

Donald Trump?

That's a good one. Almost as funny as Sarah (Stupid) Palin.

I don't care about politics, and I certainly don't hate Republicans. My Dad was a Republican and I have pulled the lever for Republicans.

I don't much like Democrats, actually; I'm an Independent voter. But I like Obama, even though his inexperience has led him to mishandle the politics of his first term.

So he will get a second, of that I am certain. Mitt Romney? Give me a break. There are no viable opponents.

A song is playing somewhere in the distance. What is that music? Only a note drifts in, then another, nothing long enough to identify. Maybe it is a fairy crouching in my bamboo, a tiny woman strumming her harp, singing the songs of Asia. Maybe she is imaginary, but if so, maybe too am I.

Perhaps none of this exists, except for the hummingbird, he of the long slender beak. Maybe he alone, sucking sweet honey in an afternoon sun, has received the sustenance to go forward. Maybe we, by contrast, are dying of thirst and foolishness, never even hearing the song that could have carried us to a better day.

But the beat goes on. The drummer stamps her foot and waves her hair, she hits this drum and that one, building a tempo that has the crowd's heartbeat rising. We get ready to rise and cheer our throaty cheer. We are aroused.

The beating heart. Your beating heart. My beating heart. Your story; my story, our story.

That beat goes on.

-30-

Please Join My Boycott of Virgin America!

Do you see that little search field up in the left-hand corner of this blog? If you enter the word "virgin" you will access the five previous articles I have written mentioning Virgin America, four of which were quite positive.

It has been said that you can suffer no great disappointment with someone or something unless you believed in them or it greatly.

Or if it hasn't been said before, I've just said it.

The first time I flew Virgin, I easily fell for it. Who wouldn't? The airline is as user-friendly as any I've experienced, other than Singapore Airlines, which is my personal all-time favorite.

But I digress.

Here is why Virgin America has made me very sad and mad.

The week before last was spring break for public school students here in San Francisco, and I took the opportunity to let my youngest son drive down to Pasadena with my oldest son to visit the latter's lab at Cal Tech.

In order to get the former home, we had to find a one-way flight from LA to SF that was affordable.

The boys and I searched every airline that flies that route and picked Virgin because it offered a fare (~$185) that was competitive, and a time that worked with our mutual schedules. Plus I and my kids all wanted to support what we thought was a very cool company.

As part of making our choice, we of course investigated whether his age (14, just a week shy of 15) would classify him as an "unaccompanied minor," which would not only be embarrassing to him, but utterly inappropriate, given his many travels by air, here and overseas.

Every other airline site we visited clearly stated that the "unaccompanied minor" age ended when a kid turned 12. Although Virgin's website did not explicitly confirm this (because it said nothing at all about this issue), we assumed that they too conformed to the industry standard.

We were wrong, and that proved to be a very expensive mistake. When my oldest son took my youngest son to LAX to catch his flight home, they were informed that Virgin, alone among all domestic airlines, considers a child an "unaccompanied minor" until he reaches the age of 15.

This led to a whole series of problems for all of us on both ends of this journey, and also to an extra charge of $75!

I can't express how angry this has made me, and all of the members of my family. We feel totally ripped off. If Virgin had had the decency and honesty to have revealed on its website that the true cost of flying from LA to SF for a 14-year-old was not $185 but $260, we would have chosen one of the many alternatives, most likely Southwest.

As it now stands, I have decided to never again fly Virgin America, and I ask anyone who reads this post to join me in this boycott.

What do you think? Your comments are welcome.

p.s. The Virgin representative who helped me fill out all of the ridiculous paperwork to be able to meet my son when he arrived told me she could not believe that her employer was maintaining such a "consumer-unfriendly" (her words) policy.

p.s.s. I think I deserve to get my $75 back. I will cancel this boycott when and if that happens.

-30-

Another Year Passes

The past few days, seeing this city through the eyes of my friend, as she visited here for only the second time in her life, San Francisco reminded me why I love it. That may sound strange -- loving a city -- and often my feelings have been more ambiguous about the experience of living here for so long.

I don't expect to live here forever, any more than I expect to live forever, but for a while longer this will be my home base.

This is a birthday week, always a time of mixed emotions. It was nice, and a bit strange, to have a woman on my arm again; it feels as if it has been a long time that I've gone everywhere alone.

Downtown life, from a small hotel; breakfast at Sears; dinner in North Beach; a walk in the park, including the arboretum and tea at the museum cafe.

It was a chance to go to places I used to like, and start to like them again, free of unpleasant associations.

But hovering over everything this week is the tragic loss of the young man who made so many visits to my apartment over the years, playing games and watching movies with my sons.

The grief counselors are meeting with the kids tonight; a little memorial has been set up at the school they all shared for nine years; next Sunday a family memorial event will take place.

When a child takes his own life, it casts a long shadow over many of the values all of us hold dear. We have to believe in the future, in some sort of future, in order to be parents; we have to find ways to hold onto hope in dark moments.

Most of us know how it feels to lose love, to lose jobs, to lose friends. Most of us understand the pain that betrayals inflict.

Everybody hurts sometime. Everybody hurts. Hold on.



-30-

The End of Spring

Yesterday was my youngest son's 15th birthday. He's a gentle giant, over six feet tall, self-nicknamed "Ginger," with his curly red hair, a kind, thoughtful reader, video-game player, and loving uncle.

It should have been a happy day, but when he called to be picked up early from school, he was staring straight ahead, disoriented. He'd received the tragic news that shook our community of friends to the roots yesterday morning -- one of the small circle of boys he'd grown up with, gone to school with from kindergarten through 8th grade, had shared play dates and overnights with forever, was gone.

Suicide at age 14. This loss is incomprehensible. For his loving parents, a pain that will never go away. For all of us who loved him, questions that won't be answered.

The children knew, one by one by one, faster than a hurricane blows. The remaining blossoms on the trees fell quickly to earth. The wind itself finally, came to a stop. All was silence.

I tried to comfort my son. He wouldn't eat, he said he didn't want to see anyone. But he did start texting, and once that started, he and the others began to gather in virtual space. Then, later, together, at a mutual friend's house, the kids came from all over the city.

Eventually, a page went up on Facebook. Hundreds and hundreds of kids posted messages to their departed friend. In their own way, both together physically and virtually, these children began their mourning process together.

We decided to go forward with the family birthday party at my son's favorite restaurant in Japantown. Every now and again, he displayed much more emotion than is usual for him -- breaking into a kind of nervous laughter than resembled crying -- "This is a really bad day."

Afterward, back home, his big brother took him under wing. "Hey, let's go for a walk." I watched the two tall redheads walk away into the night, teens out into the hazards of a big city, with drugs, violence, and broken hearts all around. But also hope, promise, and the best yet to come.

The future.

They'd lost a friend; we all have. The young man who took his life was an amazing human being; someone who could literally have been anything he desired. His charisma at an early age touched all who knew him.

But he is gone. His parents are left with the ineffable. No words can be spoken. As a 16-year-old walked with slightly younger brother, through the night air, a small crescent of moon illuminated their way and kept them safe, while I waited alone at home for their return.

As powerless as only a parent can be.

They came back. "Sorry to keep you up, Dad,"

"It's okay."

It will always be okay. Just keep coming back to me. May the future be yours to know. May the past be mine to forget.

-30-

Rosemary on Water

All you can know for sure is that time passes. The herbal stand blooms. The wind peels away its petals and drops them onto the surface of the pond waiting below.

As they drift aimlessly, the fish look up. They know this isn't food.

The sun looks down.

The camera clicks.

A friend's husband has cancer, and it sounds bad, very bad. It's the aggressive kind.

You think back over decades about the ways in which this friend has helped you and you have helped her.

You remember her joy at finally finding a good man when they'd both reached an age where this kind of love story seemed impossible.

But, for them, it happened.

For a while, all seemed possible. They both have been in fantastic shape for their ages, which are measured by the scores, not the decades.

Still, time catches up with us all. You remember moments, when you all mixed happily. You and your partner and she with hers. There was an ethnic, national, and cultural parallel in your choices.

Your choice turned out to be a fool's choice. Hers turned out to be about true love.

Now she faces the prospect of all too soon losing her husband forever.

By contrast, you have no one like that left to lose. That's because she chose wisely and you did not. All is in balance in the end. So your heart goes out to her, for that is the greater loss, the loss of love shared compared to love imagined, but never shared at all.

For the former, memories worth sharing.

For the latter, only silence, and the utter lack of any meaning whatsoever.

The again, friendships endure. Imposters disappear. And God is watching.

-30-

Family Sunday Night

A visit to our neighborhood from one of the elite boys' teams from Manchester, U.K., tonight led to what my 16-year-old soccer player called the "most exciting Sunday night" he can ever remember.

For hours before the game, he couldn't restrain himself or stay inside -- he was racing around with his soccer ball, kicking it against buildings, fences, and practicing his many moves, balancing the ball on a toe, twirling it up to his forehead, dropping it down on the opposite heel, curling it around a leg, feinting as if to pass it one way, stopping the ball in mid-pass and reversing it.

If you've never watched soccer players as they fool around with the ball, the closest comparison I can make is with ballet. Arms and hands are strictly for balance; everything relies on your legs and feet.

In a way it is like revisiting our ancestral heritage as primates in forests, who developed startling skills with their lower extremities that no longer are required for our survival -- except on the soccer pitch.

As the two teams prepared for tonight's match -- a friendly challenge -- Aidan and his teammates were joking about how big some of the Manchester lads were. Aidan pointed to the biggest of them all, number 11, and told his buddies, "Watch, that will be the guy I have to guard."

Sure enough. As a center back, he usually draws the toughest player the opposition has to offer.

It was a fun game to watch. The English players were terrific athletes -- fast, strong, and used to playing an extremely physical game. It became obvious early on that they would win this game, but it was equally obvious that our local team was improving right before our eyes and could match up athletically, on a skills level, with a team where several of the players are already signed on with professional English soccer teams.

After the game, Aidan was all smiles. He knew he hadn't played a perfect game (#11 scored one goal on him), but he also knew he had played extremely well, disrupting at least a dozen scoring opportunities for Manchester, and more or less boxing #11 out of the game except for that one time, when the English kid made a great move, a great shot, and a well-deserved goal.

***

This, for us, was a family affair. Our extended family reaches around the globe when it comes to soccer. Little Luca was on the sidelines, cheering for his Uncle Aidan, as were his parents, and Grandma from France, herself a soccer Mom of a great player, now executive of another English team, in Liverpool.

Meanwhile, the youngest attendee by far was little Sophia, who at the age of nine days was also present at her very first soccer game! When she got hungry and started crying, the half of Aidan's team sitting nearby on the bench all turned their heads in her direction.

The sound of a baby that young is a very special thing to hear. And if you want to talk about primal reactions, try letting a bunch of teenage boys, in possession of physical powers they do not yet even comprehend, hear the sound of a newborn nearby when they otherwise would be intently watching their teammates on the pitch.

And then ask yourself what fathers are all about.

***

The game ended when the city-mandated curfew arrived and the field suddenly went dark. As he jogged off the field, coated with sweat, to greet his extended family (who were all shivering in the night air) on the sidelines, Uncle Aidan scooped up little Luca in his arms.

You know what? That was my favorite moment of all...