Sons - part one

This is a three part blog about my sons. The first one is about my son, Donald.

Donald recently started a new job and has been coming home exhausted. I realize and comprehend that he is frustrated, angry, and somewhat depressed. He misses Austin, his friends and his old job that did not require him to be on his feet all day, stocking and waiting on rude and narrow-minded people . As he says, he was done with that kind of work. In Austin he worked as a contract coordinator for the owner of a wrecker service, signing up businesses to have unauthorized vehicles towed away from their properties, and he was about to start classes to get his real estate license. So being here, doing this kind of work, again, is a big step back - years back.

I appreciate everything he is doing and the sacrifice he has made to leave everything and everyone behind to come and take care of me, when, as he says, it shouldn't have been necessary.

Donald is my firstborn. I was a very young and immature girl of seventeen when I had him. His father was a young, handsome Italian boy that I met at a summer dance. When he found out I was pregnant he cried; he kept saying he wanted to do the right thing, but he was terrified of his father, an emotionally and physically abusive man. He didn't know what to do, but he promised he would tell his parents. I didn't hear from him after that. His family had the phone number changed and I heard from a friend of his that they moved away. So I sucked it up and told my grandmother. She told my mother and I ended up being sent off to live with my dad and his family in California.

I had Donald on May 7, 1969. I didn't even know how to hold a baby or change a diaper. But with the kind and patient help from my dad's wife, my wonderful step-mom, I learned how. Donald barely had the chance to cry as he was constantly surrounded by my siblings. They held him and fed him and played with him. He was a living doll!

Growing up, Donald was smart and witty, and very independent. He was nobody's fool, and he has those traits to this day.

The teenage years are rough for most parents and kids, so it's not fair to gauge relationships based on those times when kids are undergoing so many changes - physically, emotionally and morally. I once heard a psychiatrist say that if a grownup was to act the way a teenager does he would immediately be institutionalized! How parents survive the anger, the resentment, the eye-rolling and muttering and even name calling, I don't know. It really, really has to be the unshakable love we have for our children.

The things I remember the most about Donald when he was a little boy is that he loved to read and for me to read to him. He loved Donald Duck, so I bought him a transistor radio in the shape of Donald Duck's head and he carried it everywhere, even to bed. I know this is hard to believe, but he was quite a show-off. He loved to show that he could read better than anyone else. He had a temper, but it was slow to show, and he was very forgiving.

I think the thing I loved the most about Donald as a child was his humor. He loved to laugh and he would act silly just to get me to laugh too. Even as a very little boy he did things that were out of the ordinary, like the time he woke up early from his nap and caught me napping. He found a marker and set off to decorate my face! I woke up to him giggling and at first I didn't know what he was laughing at, but then he said, "mommy funny face." It took days and lot of hard scrubbing to wash off the marks.

While I worked, Donald, and his brothers, would spend summers at my mom's house, playing with my siblings, who were just a few years older. When they did things that got them in trouble, Donald was usually the instigator, the deviser of plans and schemes.

He may be an adult now, but he is still my little boy. He may growl and grumble when I tell him stuff, as moms forever do. I have grown apprehensive about offering advice as I have been harshly criticized for it recently, but when I do Donald never takes it wrong or resents me for it. In fact, he says that he knows I'm only trying to be helpful, which is exactly what I am trying to be. I believe that it is unforgivable to just stand and watch and do nothing when you know that a kind word, gesture or suggestion can help. A counselor told me that only a very insecure and immature person rejects or resents help. Donald never makes me feel rejected or resented.

I feel bad that I have taken Donald away from his hometown, job and friends, but I am grateful. It is not something he was obligated to do. He did it out of love and concern, and I love him all the more for it. He truly lives up to the meaning of his name: of Scottish and Gaelic origin, the meaning of Donald is "great chief, or "world mighty-or world rule" and also "brown-haired warrior."