A Cowboy King Dreaming in a Pleasant Seaside Meadow

The First:

I was a child with a child.  You were perfect.  I was terrified.  A support team suddenly emerged.  Our medical bills were paid. A bundle of baby clothes left anonymously on my front porch one morning.  My bachelor neighbors' tender watchfulness as I grew before his very eyes week after week.  He would sit on his patio next to mine and smoke a pipe or cigar.  Our little decks, a rectangle of slotted wood about two feet by six feet, held a chair for each of us with a  view of the tiny courtyard below.  I was young, single, living alone and pregnant.  He never asked questions.  We actually never spoke. His scented smoke clouds felt like a blanket of security hovering across my door. When most of my peers were out at clubs, I was spending my Friday evenings dividing up my cashed paycheck into jars marked; rent, food, gas, crib. 

A “Gerber Baby”, the little king, the golden boy, puppies, blue skies, parks, hunting squirrels, red wagon rides. PBS was the only option on our television.  Idyllic, if sparse, childhood.

It changed.  

So much, yet never too much.

You kept yourself whole and the spirit of that beautiful boy present in the now man. War death, young death, senseless death, needless loss.  Your smile, infectious, the twinkle in the eyes, duplicated from past generations. I know all is well when I hear you  whistle.

The tough stuff, I think, is all in your tattoos.  Plastered across strong arms, proud broad chest, and powerful back. Someday I hope to find amongst these graphic visual testimonial scenes of warriors and of latin phrases, a dime sized yellow smiley face, or even better, a small heart filled with  “I Love Mom”. 

Two years, 8 months later

The Second: 

You came to me in my dreams, heavily pregnant and splayed out on the salmon colored  italian leather sectional sofa.  You came in the sweltering heat of early July, in a 100 year old brick house with only a slow, low fan and a bowl of ice cubes in front of it, doing nothing but reminding me how much I wanted air conditioning. 

I’d catch a glimpse through one opened eye of the two year old “king”, soon to be dethroned, scooting around the floors on his yellow plastic push car.  It was 2pm, nap time, a tradition, a medicine, a breath in a house of children.  I know the “king” most likely wouldn’t be sleeping but scooting, yet maybe I can just close my eyes for one minute more….

“Not Adam , Addison”, you told me ever so soft and sweet yet sharply  clear. Your white blonde hair, crisp blue eyes, a true indigo child you stood before me. “My name is Addison”. 

We had already agreed on the name Adam, however how could I go along with that name choice now after such a dream?  With your auspicious arrival on 7-8-90, the last sequential date for quite some time,  my dream infused name change decision didn’t get through to the powers of bureaucracy.  Apparently a heavily pregnant woman in July cannot be trusted to make such decisions as important as a name, yet we can create that unnamed in our bodies.  So we came home with one Adam, clearly typed on a crisp mint green oddly sized paper  birth certificate. 

Three months later we announced it formally to the world.  His name is  Addison.  

In the middle, the pickle in the sandwich - between the King and the Cowboy, not always the most comfortable slot.  Sometimes overshadowed and under seen, always quiet, questioning, loving, sensitive, and friggen hilarious.  Firmly planted there in the middle, you held your own.

You found your calling as a pied piper early in life.  “Beloved by the Littles”, your official title.  Who could blame them for looking upon you with such iconic status.?  You are 6’7” after all, a literal giant to them.  Their favorite sport is to hang on your long limbs like animals in tree branches. A scarecrow jungle gym, full of small, giggling, humans.  They are the ones to pull you through your existential bliss. 

21 months later 

The Third: 

“Cowboy Cole was a rodeo soul and a rodeo soul was he”.  As the eldest recall it, this tune echoed from the pavements of Sesame Street mimicking the British nursery rhyme of Old King Cole (first attested in 1708) from a heavily moustached muppet complete with a ten gallon hat, kerchief bandana and vest.  “We should name the baby Cowboy Cole!” they exclaimed in unison.  Cowboy Cole.  And so it was  (sans cowboy)

His youthful feistiness was countered by me repeatedly in his younger years.  My mantra to him when he would push the boundaries, “This will serve you some day, but not now.”  Pushing the boundaries throughout most of his early lifetime. Yet, now  is now, and you are soaring.  Letting that questioning arise.  Let it serve you. Challenge the norm and the “popular”.  Your trademark push back landing us in your gauntlet, simultaneously captivated by those glistening and disarmingly long lashed framed, baby blues.  *insert twinkle* (cut to close up of 1960 Sweet Polly Purebreds sparkle eyeball, complete with cartoon blink sound effect)

A depth of knowledge, immersive and always entertaining.  Expressive, outgoing, friends surround, thrill abounds.  Those that meet you don’t forget you.  You leave a wake of fascination behind you as you glide forward and through.  Never giving up, tenacious as hell, tough as nails, adrenaline junky, river rat extraordinaire, keeping pace with the older ones, flourishing on being out and with the crowds, shining your light brightly wherever you go.  

I watched from the wings in awe of your courage.  Your wisdom and maturity growing through the years.  Like the characteristics of a cowboy, you’re a true leader, unafraid to take the reins.  Tough, dependable, skilled, never intimidated to get into the mix, get your hands dirty and get ‘er done.  You carry the image of the American Cowboy, freedom, values, new frontiers, and rugged individualism.  Cowboy Cole. 

The youngest, until you weren’t

To be ahead of the crowd, you always are.  

Nine years later 

The Fourth: 

“The Chateau Marley in France” he says

“A pleasant seaside meadow” the book says

“Aiofe, beauty of the flight on Air Lingus” she says

Odds were, she should have been a he.  Eyes that glistened like blue marbles,

the last of the litter, the girl of the bunch.

Most of your childhood was spent around adolescent boys in cars filled with stinky soccer gear duffles, and moldy school lunch bags. The extra row of seats filled to the maximum with boys in carpools.  Your carseat solidly wedged into the midst of them.  Pudgy little legs swinging to the latest boy band jam, in between rounds of Joshua Giraffe, absorbing the chatter, chiming into the banter, pink tutu, fairy crown, boldly and firmly established in the testosterone rising mist surrounding you. Driving to piano, soccer, field trips, dentist appointments, high school graduations, prom pictures, here there and everywhere, little sister came along..

I would ask her often “what does it feel like to be so loved?”  

A toss of coiffed curls and a signature fairiesque grin would be her answer.

The artist, the blonde redhead, graceful and elegant.

She glides along. Life opens before her,  heavy red velvet curtains parting to expose the marvel of the world.  A renaissance queen of dragons of her own making.  

An introvert by nature.  The chunky baby legs have given way to skinny green timber shaky legs of teens, and now to the long striding legs of young womanhood. Stepping into herself, firmly planted and confident in the world - she embarks.

To love and be loved - oh she is.