At about 8:30 this morning, Matthew boarded a bus for Capital Camp. Jon & I might have looked like all the other parents waving goodbye to their kids, but I'm pretty sure that our experience was different. After all we've been through, it seemed like a miracle even to be standing in that parking lot. Maybe it felt that way for him, too. Through those long, endless hours and days in the hospital, enduring endless treatments, it never seemed we'd reach this point. Yet there he was, getting on the bus, just like he's done since he was 10. Miraculous.
Matthew's been looking forward to camp, but his excitement is mixed with trepidation. He knows it will be hard given his hearing loss. It's almost impossible for him to hear anything in a group situation - and camp is a group experience pretty much all the time. But he says he's lowered his expectations. He's not looking for the best camp experience ever; he's just happy to have some freedom and independence - and an opportunity to be with other kids.
Last week, we drove up to camp for a pre-meeting with the directors and counselors - to give them a heads-up about Matthew's needs. We walked up to the dining hall just as all of the campers were gathering to go in for lunch. All of the kids were lined up by bunk. Some of Matthew's friends saw him and ran over to greet him. Just at that point, the the song, Seasons of Love, from the musical Rent, started to play on the loudspeakers:
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
If it sounds melodramatic, it was. I welled up in tears. Matthew was already caught up with his friends and too busy to notice.
Danny's in camp for one more week. So, for the first time in 18 months, I have a bit of time on my hands. I'm planning to help my mom, catch up with some of my own long delayed medical appointments, visit with friends, and get back into exercise. After this week, Danny will be home and we'll make plans together. Sounds pretty good.
I leave you with a poem I heard Garrison Keillor read several years ago on Writers Almanac. I loved it then, and it's even more meaningful now:
"The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb," by Sharon Olds.
Whatever he needs, he has or doesn't
have by now.
Whatever the world is going to do to him
it has started to do. With a pencil and two
Hardy Boys and a peanut butter sandwich and
grapes he is on his way, there is nothing
more we can do for him. Whatever is
stored in his heart, he can use, now.
Whatever he has laid up in his mind
he can call on. What he does not have
he can lack. The bus gets smaller and smaller, as one
folds a flag at the end of a ceremony,
onto itself, and onto itself, until
only a heavy wedge remains.
Whatever his exuberant soul
can do for him, it is doing right now.
Whatever his arrogance can do
it is doing to him. Everything
that's been done to him, he will now do.
Everything that's been placed in him
will come out, now, the contents of a trunk
unpacked and lined up on a bunk in the underpine light.
