Silent Night (click on the title to hear the family version.)
I don’t think I’d ever really been scared before December 13th, 2004, the night meningitis tried to take Max down. He was just nine, Jake still eight for three more months, and it was Jake who woke me up complaining that Max was laughing at him, at 3:30 in the morning. It was rictus from the seizures, not a smile, and choking, not laughter that had woken Jake. A 911 call, a surreal ambulance ride, pediatric ICU, ventilator, coma.
It was days before we knew if he’d live, more days before he woke up, and still more to find out how much damage had been done to his swollen brain. It would be years, really, until we got that full answer, and in the mean time there would be visiting nurses, a mini geriatric walker, meds for kidney failure and seizure control, learning to swallow, to walk, to write, to follow a conversation.
Max made amazing progress in spite of multiple complications, and with good insurance and medical treatment he was released to home care only 12 days after being admitted. We got home Christmas Eve day.
The next year was spent rediscovering Max, and helping Jake find his way back as well – it would be a long time before any of us slept easily again.
I clicker trained Max to sit up and to hold a pencil with the click of a ball point pen and pieces of Oreo cookie broken into a bowl. Jake was learning to play the flute, and I hired someone to come and teach Max how to play piano and read a little music, good for the brain and the soul, I thought.
Max finished his 3rd grade project that spring along with the other kids, and Addie came home to join Betty as family dog and companion that summer. Fall brought 4th grade, lots of tutoring and extra care, leaps in physical health and gradual but steady progress in thinking and concentrating. His smile came back. He and his brother were once again inseparable and connected in every way.
As Christmas approached I found myself holding my breath – what had once been a happy vacation was now a milestone loaded with implication. I’d almost lost him, but he’d made it home in time to sit by the tree and slowly open the presents that had waited for him through that uncertain, horrible 12-day night, to cuddle with me and Jake on the couch.
We decided to go into the studio and record a song, Max on piano, Jake on flute, my father playing his classical guitar. We were still a couple, my new roommate and I, and he lay down the guitar and bass foundation. I was mom, herding kids and grandfather and dogs in and out of various rooms, positioning and showing how to work the mic, encouraging and joining in a quiet last verse and shaker. Jake learned to multi-track his parts and Addie, standing just outside the studio’s open door, made it all the way to the end before giving a, “what about me?” yelp and wail. The tape still running, I cued Betty to bark so no one would be left out of the song.
Each Christmas has felt like a milestone marker to me since, an affirmation that we made it, that I still have my boys. The three of us have spent lots of couch time together during Christmas breaks since, watching stupid TV or each on our own computer but leaning together as we do nothing much, necessarily. I’ve never wanted to go anywhere during Christmas, never wanted to move far from the tree and the couch and that pile of boys and dogs.
So this sudden change in family holiday time is taking its toll, walking through it alone an extra twist. I haven’t really seen the boys all week, won’t see them until tomorrow, Christmas day. Seems like a long time ’til then. While they’re gone I’ll stay home, with a short visit to my father’s to make him happy. But mostly I’ll be here, sitting with the dogs and waiting for the real Christmas gift to come through the door.