Weirdness of Children
My earliest recollection is crossing the South Claiborne pedestrian bridge. It was deconstructed in October 1952. I was born in august 1951. My sisters brought their sons to visit. Mercedes brought 5. Lu brought 3. They played with my two brothers. Ricky often slipped away and drew pictures for me on our little upright chalkboard.
Until my first godchild was born, that was my total experience with children. Though I was 16, I didn’t babysit. I held her at the christening ceremony and a few other times. When she got old enough to ask for things, she did. I don’t know if it was what she wanted or if her mother told her to ask. I know Sarah told me to get a Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy birthday cake for their third birthday. When I went to pick it up from Gambino’s, a white woman saw it and wanted it, and the clerk told me they didn’t have an order for me. That was 1971.
My second godchild was born in the early ‘70s. His mother wanted her best friend to be the godmother, but I’d asked first. I was unaware until the day of the christening. I saw him a few times before I left New Orleans. I’m sure the best friend took care of him. I hope so. If I ever get rich, I always figured I would leave a bundle for him or his progeny in my will. Names on paper. What exactly does it mean? Like marriage licenses, baptismal certificates.
My third godchild was actually born in one of the plain states. I saw him when he was in elementary school in Atlanta. We kept in touch on and off while he attended Jesuit High School in NOLA and perhaps annually after he grew up and got married a few times.
Cristina was my fourth godchild. She asked me to be her sponsor at confirmation. In her country, the sponsor is the godparent. I was honored. I took her to New Orleans Centre for lunch and window-shopping. She asked for a $250 stuffed bear from FAO Schwartz. I didn’t make that purchase.
Three and a half babies before I had my own. I did have one other encounter at a shower. One of the ladies had a toddler. Everybody held her and she cooed. She wouldn’t even come to me. After the gifts were opened, she toddled over to me and held her hands up in the traditional fashion of pick me up. I did. I set her on my lap, she peed on my new outfit, then slid down.
I had my first at thirty. Neither her father nor I knew what to do with her. We were both the youngest in our families, but fortunately, he liked babies. She was perfect for a few days, then we had to have her eyes checked. She was allergic to all soaps except glycerin that costs more than we could afford. My friend said, “Be glad she’s not allergic to your milk or cow’s milk. My Vanessa can only drink goats milk. With all the animals I have, I don’t have a goat and don’t know where to find one in Clearwater.”
My daughter was different from whatever I expected. By age three, we knew she had some sort of power. We met a Kabbalistic Jew just before we left Northern California who said, “She’s got a gift. I would love to teach her.” He didn’t say what or how, and we were too dumb to ask the questions we needed to find another interested person when we moved again.
When we got back to Georgia, she walked around my mother-in-law’s property, always looking down. She stared at a spot for so long, we [i]moseyed over to see what she saw. After about five or ten minutes, she reached down and picked up a piece of quartz. My husband and his six brothers said they’d played and dug around every inch of land growing up and never found quartz. They watched her do her thing, then had a brilliant idea. They investigated a part of the yard while she was inside. They found no quartz. Then I brought her out and they walked with her to the perused site. She stared at the ground and soon stooped and picked up a piece of quartz.
Another of her abilities is a connection to me that was so strong, I could feel her when she was away from me. She knew when I was close by. If she was with her father or someone else, when she reached a certain range, I knew she was close.
After the third day in the nursery, the daycare workers watched her closely. They said they’d never seen anyone like her. Her pediatricians told us to always let her know what we were about, so we did. When I dropped her off at daycare the first day, her dad and I explained that we would be at work and I would return to get her at five thirty. Her caregivers were concerned because she refused to eat all day, then at five thirty, my six month old daughter, stood up in her crib and stared at the door. I opened it and entered. She did this every day. Eventually her dad and I must have said something about food, because she began to eat in the day time, but always stood and watched the door just as I entered.
At four years old, I bought her a Burger King milkshake while we waited for the KART (Kings Area Rapid Transit) shuttle. As was her nature, she slurped it down quickly. Then she regurgitated. I found she was allergic to milk. She still insisted on eating ice cream. When I was 3, I belched then threw up every time I drank milk. I prayed to God that I would not belch.
When I was 4, my nine year old brother and I walked to the library. We saw downtown buildings being drawn swiftly, as if a giant artist’s invisible hand reached down from the sky and created tall buildings among the flat ones with which we were familiar. The buildings are still there. We both stared. My brother said, “I didn’t see anything and you didn’t either.” Had he seen something like this before and denied it? Had he and our older brother seen something and my older brother told him he didn’t see it?
My son was gray when he was born. The doctors whisked him away, and after what seemed forever to me, he let out a high pitched wail. The medical people brought him to me, stating, “You must have had the worst heartburn in history. We’ve never seen hair this long.” It looked short to me, but one of the doctors grabbed one of the curls and unfurled it. It was coarse and almost eight inches long, but coiled so tightly, it looked like a cap.
My son’s ability was empathy and during his childhood, this empathic gift was quite painful for him. He taught himself how to not feel other people’s emotions so well that by the time he got to high school, this talent was relegated to close friends and family only.
Number three – I think being born in the Devil’s Triangle in the year of the dragon on the winter solstice was important to this one, because 12 years before, her dad (whom I had not yet met) and I were both en route to Miami when our paths shifted direction.
She looked like my baby picture sans freckles, but I had a disturbing feeling that she was my mother. She looked the same everyday for six months, but when we woke on the summer solstice, I didn’t recognize her. Changeling? I searched the house. All the doors and windows were closed and locked. Our apartment had no chimney. I talked to her. She cooed, giggled, and crossed her eyes as usual. Her thighs were huge as they had been, but she wasn’t even the same color. My six year old son joined me at the crib—looked at her, looked at me, stared at her again and asked, “Is that Ronda?”
As an adult, she looked exactly like me, so what happened to the first baby or do miracles happen like that and we decide what to look like? At what time does an infant, toddler, child, become the person they are meant to be?
During her early childhood, I saw people staring at her. I stared at them. When I turned away and turned back, they stood next to her and said quietly to me, “Take good care of her. She’s blessed by The Lord.” But aren’t we all?
My grandson wasn’t quite three when he frustratedly said, “I wish I was big again.” This was his fourth odd statement since we could understand his speech. But while his parents watched a movie a few months later, he said, “I like this part.” My son asked him when he’d seen the movie. His answer, “I was watching this just before I died.”
Recycled people?
Who are we? From where do we come? Are we all the same person? Is Adam still in the garden playing what if with God?
“Well, Adam, what do you want this one to look like?”
“What if the eyes were like water, the hair like silk, and was yeigh tall?”
“I think we already have four of those. What if the eyes were like flower petals, hair like lamb’s hair, and we make it wider and taller?”
“I know we have a lot of those already.”
“Well Adam, we have several billion all different in some way. What if we erase this lot and start over?”