My Baby Boy

By Ennon

a/n- a look back at the life of Zeek by the one who knew him the longest. I own and claim nothing and apologize if I don't quite get all the show points right.

How we survived the Depression, I'm still not sure but I was never like other frilly girls afraid of worms, bugs or mice. Perhaps because they shocked others, that's I embraced them in spite of Daddy being an exterminator. Everyone called me a 'tomboy' and an 'oddball' and Mom was sure I'd wind up an outcast old maid but I knew I'd find my own kind of love. That's why everyone was surprised when the scion of the well-heeled Bravermans, Aaron set his cap for me. Oh, everyone thought Aaron was too handsome, tall, conventional and straight-laced to want to take any interest in me- much less defy his stuffy folks and marry me but he did –even if we had to move clear out to the West Coast to make our own way! We had two boys [Arthur and Benjamin] in two years and, the docs all said that was all I could have but then, Pearl Harbor happened. In spite of having two babies under the age of two at home, Aaron wasted no time in signing up to enlist but that didn't mean we didn't do our damnedest to defy them Japs [sorry but we'd just been attacked by them] and console each other one last time before he had to leave. Yep, even before Aaron stepped on that train to take him to Basic Training, I knew I was going to have another boy at age 21 and I hadn't even had any of the 'signs' I'd had with my older boys. Although, this would be easiest of my pregnancies with only some weight gain, etc., if you took one look at Zeek and wondered how he came from ME, that's how tough his birth was for the both of us. Hell, he took about twice as long to make it to the outside than even Arthur had, he was so big! Mother came in and took care of the older babies while I went to the hospital. She always understood them better than she ever did me. Maybe they were conformists she'd always wanted. Although catty neighbors tried to say that the iceman had made an extra delivery, Zeek took after Aaron's bigger than life dad Adam at least in size.

I bore him October 1,1942 and named him Ezekiel because the one thing that kept me going through that 40 hour labor was singing and clapping that Negro . .er African-American spiritual song 'Dem Bones' (which kept talking about the Old Testament Ezekiel and the dry bones) over and over again between the contractions. Yep, the whole maternity ward and all the other mothers thought I was a kook (and I kind of wished Mother hadn't been tending the boys so I could have seen her face at seeing a daughter of hers sing that song) but I didn't care and it was only the first of many times Zeek and me would make spectacles of ourselves. Truth be told, after two conventional and conformist boys, I'd wanted a radical girl but I got Zeek who got as close to my personality as any Braverman could have imagined.

How did he get called Zeek [with a double 'e' instead of with an 'e-k-e']? That was because his middle brother Ben was somewhat put out by no longer being the baby and seeing how full Zeek's diapers got, teased him by calling him 'Leaky Zekey''. As soon as Zeek got old enough to understand Ben's teasing and how to spell, he insisted that it had to be spelled with the double 'e' so no else could follow Ben's lead. Of course, by the time Zeek was six, he was already bigger and taller than his older brothers and not only did he beat them up but they even would ask him to beat up other kids picking on them!

Aaron returned home from the War by the time Zeek was four and, in those early years, Zeek was thrilled to have a Daddy around and couldn't get enough of Aaron's uniform or war stories. Of course, as Zeek got older, he saw Aaron being somewhat like his brothers being all straight laced and uptight who he had to defy and show who the boss was. It soon became me and Zeek against Aaron and the other boys and none of us really won.

Still, Aaron used his old man Adam's clout to get Zeek a spot in West Point which made Aaron a hero again to Zeek until Zeek realized that, even though West Point had the cool uniforms he liked, it had even more rules than Aaron which he hated.

To his older brothers' envy, Zeek never had problems finding girls interested in him and he was a Casanova even before he was in his teens. I knew Zeek would never really settled down but I wondered if he'd stay a rolling stone his whole life.

When he was on West Point's last legs, he was sent on a recruiting drive to Philadelphia but instead of recruiting more soldiers, he found a high school senior who'd painted a mural taking up an entire wall glorifying American Revolutionary soldiers to welcome him. Yes, her name was Camille Crosby and he was even more impressed by her talent and initiative than just her blonde beauty. Typical Zeek eloped with her just days after they met in '64 [and they barely got her dad to sign off instead of pressing charges] but they barely got to know each other before Vietnam tore him away while she got pregnant with their firstborn. Her naming him Adam impressed Aaron and even though the baby took more after her own dad's side of the family, I could tell he was more like Aaron in personality than either Zeek or Camille could have imagined. More than once Aaron used to tell Adam they got along so well because they had a 'common enemy'. LOL. Their nextborn baby Sarah had both Zeek's defiance and Camille's artistic side even if she looked like one of my own late stuffy mother. I knew Zeek couldn't abide being a 'typical 2.5 average household' forever but I was a bit surprised when they had their third child ten years after Adam and eight after Sarah. Of all of them, he looked more like Zeek than the others and even though they named him for Camille's family [and not the "White Christmas" crooner], Crosby was as much a handful to everyone from Day One as Zeek had been. Who else would have thought to have given an 80-something old lady something as useless as multiple egg poacher for her birthday( not like I was going to open a bed and breakfast in my garage)? Zeek that's who! And Crosby got my love for offbeat music,too. Then just a few years later, Camille surprised everyone by having their fourth baby Julia who Aaron would have loved had he lived to see her because she had his logical and determined nature even if she had Camille's looks- in addition to getting a good part of Millie's heart.

Yes, Aaron had died of a heart attack at only 62 in 1980 but he'd left me with enough capital to relocate to Arizona. He'd urged me to do so to keep the arthritis from getting the best of me but I'd resisted being away from Zeek and his growing family. Was it just the sunny, desert weather that prompted me to amscray to Cactus Country, you ask? Not exactly. About two years after Aaron's death, I started dating on the sly and Zeek just about tore the house apart when he found out. He and Aaron hadn't gotten along from the time Zeek outgrew him but Zeek just couldn't see me with anyone besides Aaron[ and for once Arthur and Ben agreed with him].I'd loved Aaron because I needed his stability and he loved me because he needed my quirkiness. We'd been married 41 years and had gone straight from my Daddy's house to Aaron's so now that I was 58, I was damn sure I was going to live my life on my own terms. So I've lived in the retirement community ever since and ,while I've never been tempted to remarry, I was happy to see how other temptations might work out without my boys being a peanut gallery.

Oh, Zeek and Millie would visit [and I was touched she soon called me 'Mom' since she had an even worse time with her own than I did with mine] and I loved seeing their family grow with all its struggles and quirks- even if it was from a distance. Among others of my great-grands from him, others may think Max was an irredeemable monster, but, hell he's the only one of my descendants to appreciate bugs and other creepy crawlies like me. Jabbar and Aida have taught me so much getting to know them. . Drew may be quiet like Camille but he has heart. I think Sydney and Amber are closest to Zeek in personality which could make them or curse others.

Speaking of curse, these last few months have to have been amongst the worst in this rollercoaster of my life. Camille and Zeek called me with the news of Zeek having gotten that heart defect. Here Zeek after all these years thinking him being bigger and stronger than Aaron would keep him living forever but now turning out to have inherited that heart defect in addition in addition to the Braverman name. Now that I'm in my 90's I can't travel as much as I used to and I suppose I would have gotten in everyone's way but how I wish one of the grandkids had offered to take me from Arizona to see Zeek in that hospital after that heart attack! He may have been 72 years old, but he was my baby boy! Speaking of babies, Amber's news of making me a great-great-grandma had kept me going. I wasn't going to quibble about her not being wed to the daddy. Hell, her own parents hadn't done so great being wed when she came along. I admit I was quite moved that she named my firstborn double-great grandchild after my baby boy Zeek even if he does carry the surname of his deadbeat Grandpa Seth. Yeah, with that newfangled contraption Skype I was able to see little bits of my own baby boy in his great-grandson. Perhaps I was just hoping he'd overcome the other seven-eighths. Well, at least Baby Zeek is the son, great-grand- and double great-grandson of soldiers!

Speaking of overcome, now I have to face the worst nightmare of my life that I don't see any end to. Just weeks after Baby Zeek was born, Camille called me. Even without the iPhone's Caller ID, I knew who it was and why she was calling. In fact, just minutes before that call was made, I felt a warm embrace from thin air then . . .nothing. I know that sounds screwy but that's what I felt and it didn't take an Einstein for me to work out that somehow My Baby Boy was saying goodbye to me in his own way. I swear that embrace even had his signature pressing of the upper shoulders because he was too tall to hug me anywhere else. Poor Millie was so inconsolable that she couldn't even say one word on the line and, she just choked and sniffed, and neither could I but we both knew what she was trying to tell me and we'd shared a bond via Zeek that nothing was going to get rid of in this life. A few weeks later, they invited me to some ballfield to scatter his ashes but I couldn't. I managed to get a flight to Frisco and went to the memorial service that, of all folks, my granddaughter-in-law Jasmine's mother's minister conducted but seeing that urn and just not believing so small a vessel as that could contain everything Zeek Braverman had been and all the 72 years he'd lived. He'd never been that small even when I bore him! I know 'ashes to ashes' and all that stuff but I just couldn't dig it. So, in spite of my nonbelief in whatever Jasmine's mother's minister was saying, I took comfort in her and the others trying to console me- and, after that service while the others went to the ballfield, I blew several months' budgets by hiring a car to drive me to every spot in the Bay Area that Zeek had shown me and Aaron when he and Millie first moved there back in '64. Some were gone, some were altered but in every spot I could hear Zeek's voice telling me everything he wanted me to know about his plans for the future and his dreams in his new home with his pretty, teenaged bride. Then, after a few days staying at Millie's new place and seeing that part of the clan, I flew back to Arizona.

At 93, I've outlived my parents, Aaron and virtually everyone who knew me when I was young and none of those losses were easy [and I know Millie, the grands and greats won't have it easy] but none of that compares to what it's been like having to have my baby go before me.

Yes, I have comfort in Zeek's three generations conquering the world and, yes, I still have Zeek's square older brothers and their families around but none of that will make up for my having to live in a world without Zeek every day for the rest of my life.