When I was in high school I was never a big fan of the jocks and the cheer crowd, or the cool kids in general; they were sort of the OPPOSITE of the crowd who I ran with. Well, I wasn't what you'd call the bottom of the food chain either... I was more like, somewhere in the middle. That invisible group of kids that just gets by largely unnoticed.
I wouldn't say I was bullied by those other kids, but I certainly wasn't welcomed into their inner sanctum. I had my own friends, we weren't really outcasts, we just avoided the humiliation of trying to fit in with those whom we clearly didn't. Those cool kids were usually arrogant and tended to have disdain for those not already in their circle. The girls in that clique were some of the WORST, particularly the cheerleaders – but as a former teenage girl, I concede that girls generally ARE bitchier; I blame the hormones we deal with through puberty (and a lot of times, our overly judgmental mothers – though mine wasn't like that, not usually).
Yet somehow those puberty hormones seem to have the opposite effect on boys in general; not all, but most. But the guys, just like the girls, tend to naturally act like sheep and fall in line with whatever their 'leaders' tell them. I think within those groups it's still a lot of peer pressure, of going along to get along, to continue being accepted. Sometimes I think it's just teenage stupidity and-or lack of proper parenting.
Anyway, I guess in some ways I envied those cool kids. In other ways, I despised them. But then, if I were being totally honest with myself, there was always a tiny part of me that secretly sort of wanted to be them. Mostly I just did my best to avoid them and not regard them in the least. I studied and read a lot – I was a bit of a bookworm, lost mostly in romantic novels and my own imagination. I enjoyed music, poetry and art (though I wasn't particularly good at producing any of it), and after English, astronomy was probably my favorite class – certainly was my favorite teacher.
My family was salt of the earth, simple folks. Good, honest, hard-working, blue-collar types. Daddy was a machinist in a steel fabrication plant near Cleveland (he actually designed, built and maintained the machines used in the plant) and my mom stayed home to raise me and my older sister Betty. Dad made a decent wage but had a pretty far commute so we didn't see much of him until the weekends – and even then it was mostly Sundays since he often worked overtime on Saturdays.
We never had much in the way of extras growing up, but Dad worked hard and provided enough for us to have what we needed. There weren't many (or hardly any) family vacations or extravagant gifts. We couldn't afford those types of extras. So even if I'd wanted to join the softball or volleyball teams, or try out for majorettes – all those activities required more than just parental involvement, they involved money. And while we got by comfortably enough, there just wasn't room for too many bells and whistles for any one of us unless it was something to benefit ALL of us. So I never joined any of the clubs I might have had an interest in... instead, I had sour grapes for everyone I knew who was able to join. Especially the ones who really couldn't truly appreciate the perks they were given and took it all for granted.
I had hoped by the time I was older, married and had a family of my own, we'd have a little more cushion in the finances, be able to provide just a little more for our kids. But LOVE was more important to me than anything – well, that and knowing that my future husband would be my perfect match. My rock, my partner in everything... my soulmate if I was really lucky.
I know I found all of that in Christopher. I just wish he'd have stuck around long enough to be part of his son's journey and eventual interests...
As it happened, my married family ideal was just a pipe dream in the end that ended before it really began. I didn't realize my PRINCE would be this little baby boy that I'd be left alone responsible to care for myself. Yes, we've always had love by the boatload, but we're still pretty broke. My clothes are a decade old (though they're a little newer than my car) and so is my hairstyle.
As a single widowed mom, I work a LOT to provide for my son, and anything extra I do ever have goes to him first. Raising a boy to be a man on a part-time schedule is a real challenge, especially when you have to work so many jobs or extra long hours to cover the rent and groceries for said boy to grow up healthy and safe and happy.
At least I got lucky when we moved to Lima that between old Mrs Johnson next door and Norah Puckerman down the street, I had free childcare most of the time... As for the rest, I've always done my very best to fill both roles for Finn as mom and dad.
The early years before then were some of the emotionally hardest years of my life. I'd barely known how to be a wife and only had this idea of how to be a mother. While I had an innate comfort level in how to raise a daughter, I'd always relied on the notion that Chris would be there to help raise our sons if we had any. When reality finally set in, I had to truncate my grieving in order to learn to be a mother to a son who wouldn't ever know his father.
The week of croup when Finn was barely six months old was hell. I already had trouble sleeping thanks to my grief, but the many nights of Finn wailing like there was no tomorrow were just more than I could bear. Fortunately my sister came to stay for a few nights and I could finally get some sleep while she tended to my little screamer. I wasn't so lucky when teething hit (and the fevers that came with it). Childproofing was loads of fun too, when I really didn't know how to use power tools or build those nonsensical baby gates – but my landlord took pity on me and helped out when he could.
Having to learn fast on my feet, things like potty training was a pretty interesting time (any mother of a son knows the utter JOY that is explaining why mommy pees sitting down but big boys don't). Later on came the really REAL interesting parts of the job, like explaining what's happening in his, ah, underpants while he sleeps at night, for example. That was something I'm glad I only had to do once (and believe me when I tell you, that book I bought him was a saving grace – for both of us I think).
Chickenpox SUCKED. Yes, it sucked for Finn, I know my poor little guy was miserable, but guess what's worse? Being a single mom with ADULT CHICKENPOX! Yes, it seems my sister and I were the (un)lucky ones who never contracted the damn disease as kids. Betty so far still remains unscathed. Thankfully Grandpap Hudson took pity on me and kept Finn for a full week since he'd already had the pox TWICE and felt pretty certain he wouldn't get them a third time.
Oh my goodness, then just when I thought we'd survived the worst after the chicken pox outbreak, we moved into those years I dreaded most. Growth spurts, voice changes, and shaving – the trifecta of scary puberty boy stuff. At least I didn't have to buy extra maxi pads, but sometimes I think it would've been so much easier to raise a daughter through those years. I can explain boobs, pantyhose, cramps and tampons in my sleep. Explaining why his voice sounds like Mickey Mouse one minute and Darth Vader the next? That was a little less in my wheelhouse, but I managed.
I remember the first time trying to teach Finn how to shave using balloons and disposable razors. He drew a 'Finn Face' on the balloon (it was HILARIOUS you should see the pictures!). I don't know exactly how much shaving cream I wore from all those exploded balloons, but better me doing extra laundry and picking shredded latex from our hair than Finn sitting in the emergency room with a gash in his carotid artery or scars all over his face.
When a couple balloons in a row finally got their clean shave without exploding, I remember how embarrassed he was when I used my own leg as his first real-life prop to experiment on. Once we ran out of balloons, I stocked up on band-aids (which to be fair, I had to do ANYWAY because Finn was never the more graceful child from the moment he could crawl). I figured holding his hand in mine so he could get a feel for how much pressure and what angle to hold the razor was the easiest way to explain things – especially over the knee. I figured that was the closest thing to shaving around a jawbone or a chin that I'd ever get, and if I still had my kneecaps intact I must be doing something right, right? Well, I must have since he hardly ever nicked himself, even on the first try. Score one for Mom!
And can I just mention, regarding his height... Chris was tall, yes, but he barely capped at six feet. His father, however, was a giant of a man, over six and a half feet tall. I remember how intimidated I'd been the first time I met him. But then he turned out to be as sweet and gentle as a breeze and he called me Stop Light, because 'nobody else makes my son stop whatever he was doing and light up the way you do'. At the holidays I was quickly dubbed his Christmas Carole and he sang to me and made me sing along. He always had a huge crooked, dimpled smile and a warm bear hug waiting for me (oh, you thought only Finn had those characteristics?) and I loved the man every second after that until the day he passed on. I miss him dearly, as much as I miss Christopher and my own father.
. . . . .
Though the first few years without Christopher were so terribly hard, it was at least a comfort to have all our parents nearby to help in raising him. I worked two and sometimes three jobs to provide for us (I really hated relying on any of the parents and only accepted the bare minimum financial help when absolutely needed) and Finn spent much of his earliest years in the care of his grandparents while I was out earning the bacon.
Finn was a precocious little boy with an innate curiosity about EVERYTHING! Soooo many questions, like where do bubbles go, or why don't people have wings and feathers like birds? Why do spiders need eight legs but snakes and worms don't need any? Or where does rain and snow come from? The hardest ones to explain was why we can't breath under water like fish, and NO, fish cannot talk under water, and the ENDLESS debate on whether mermaids were real or not (thank you very much Walt Disney – between Nemo and Ariel I had a BLAST teaching my son the difference between real and make believe).
He always wanted a pet in the worst way because grandma and grandpap Hudson had a little dachshund that was a year older than Finn. He so adored that wiggly little pup and the dog adored him – they were inseparable when they were together. Problem with us getting a pet of our own was that we lived in a tiny efficiency apartment and simply couldn't have pets (and couldn't afford them, even if the lease allowed). Not to mention how often I was at work – it just wouldn't have been fair to the animal to be left home alone so much.
There was one time at grandma Hudson's when my clever little man, then around the age of three, decided to help himself to a bottle of squeezable butter, and proceeded to squirt it all over the kitchen floor. Grandma was only off using the bathroom for a minute, but that's all the time it took.
When she returned, she was greeted by a greasy floor, a guilty-faced grandson and a dog with a face full of butter whiskers. When questioned by his grandmother WHY he would do such a thing, his answer was, logically, that Zippy was hungry of course. She pressed on, asking how he could know the dog was hungry, and Finn looked at her so earnestly and said "because he looked at me with his tail wagging and said SLURP." (According to my mother in law, he didn't just say the word; he punctuated it with a big sloppy tongue-waggling demonstration.)
You'll be relieved to know, Zippy recovered (after vomiting three times, once on grandpap's favorite hunting boots) and I spent the remainder of that evening explaining how BUTTER is not an appropriate meal for a dog and just knew the idea of pet ownership for us was a LONG WAY down the road... if ever.
The day I wanted to cry was the day at age four when he cut his own hair. From the time Finn was born, I'd never really gotten him a haircut. Yes we trimmed it a tiny bit to keep it out of his eyes, but he had such a beautiful, full thick head of slightly wavy hair and I just adored running my fingers through it (he seemed to love it too – especially on the nights when he had bad dreams about the scary closet monsters).
Well, he'd watched some barbershop cartoon and decided he could do that for himself. It was about two in the afternoon when I received a terrified phone call at work from my mother, crying about how Finn had basically given himself a reverse mohawk and she swore it wasn't her fault. This is how Finn got his first real haircut in a real barbershop at age four – a buzz cut. He cried for a week about how short it was and swore he'd never get another haircut again.
After that, I only got him into a barbershop about every two or three years until around sixth grade, when Puck started telling him he looked like a girl. By the summer before seventh grade he insisted it was time for a change and the 'fin' atop my Finn was born.
. . . . .
As Finn got a little older, his interests started evolving. I could see his independence burgeoning, bubbling, trying to come out. Things were so easy when he was very young; after all, every preschooler loves Sesame Street and Looney Tunes. But before long, matchbox cars, legos, and crayons were gradually replaced with music and drums.
I only have my mother to thank (or to blame?) for the drums, by the way. Mom played piano and accordion, and I kind of hoped Finn might gravitate to something like that (if anything musical at all). Oh, but no... she took him to a music store when he was five and introduced him to several different instruments. Guess which one he latched onto? Yeah. Maybe me and my eardrums should've reconsidered that idea.
Mom bought him his first very basic three-piece drum set for Christmas that year ('he's my only grandson, Carole, let me spoil the boy a little!'), and for a short while, the kit stayed at grandma's house... but that only lasted until we moved out of the tiny efficiency apartment in Norwalk near my parents and relocated to Lima for the new job I found that paid three times as much as I'd been earning at the diner. (Certified nursing assistants were hard to come by in Lima and the nursing home I found there offered to pay for the training while I worked. It wasn't my first choice career move, but it paid the bills – enough so that I was able to upgrade from an apartment to an actual house).
Over time I added a couple more pieces to that damn drum kit. I even managed to pay for a few private lessons myself. The instructor said he was a natural and even discounted his fee when Finn started sitting in and helping him teach younger kids the most elementary drumming techniques. (Too bad that instructor was married... he was quite good looking and certainly made MY HEART beat to his sexy rhythm!)
. . . . .
So growing up, Finn had drums, bike riding, and playing sports (and other general mayhem) with Noah. I tried to get him into gardening with me around the time he was going to junior high, but he had a terrible brown thumb. Killed every one of my azalea bushes and I still can't figure out how the petunia beds were so easily destroyed.
He learned to push-mow the lawn easily enough, but the grass was so splotchy and half-dead, like a brown and green checkerboard – probably from that giant crab apple tree in the front yard – that it got to be pretty embarrassing watching him out there basically mowing the DIRT. The neighbors complained after a couple of really dry spells when the dust storm wafted over to their porches and outdoor patio furniture. I eventually had to splurge a couple of times on some professional lawn care help.
That's how I came to meet Darren from Emerald Dreams... THAT asshole (don't get me started, that's a story for another day). Anyway, when Darren would come to take care of the lawn, Finn followed after him like a little puppy. The pair of them would take care of the grass and jam out to classic rock songs.
I will say, Darren was NOT the best boyfriend material (by a million miles), but he did connect with Finn like a kid brother and didn't mind at all his teaching him some things or answering questions that I couldn't. Finn seemed to enjoy his visits, and for a little while so did I... at least until that bleach-blonde skank caught his attention! Never mind... as I said, story for another day – and water under the bridge at this point, anyway.
. . . . .
The summer Finn turned 16 brought the next scary step: driving lessons. Oh my god! We were BOTH lucky to survive that! And so was our mailman, quite frankly – although I still think he's partly (largely) to blame for not looking before jaywalking out into the street!
My car wasn't quite as fortunate though, nor were my insurance premiums that went up after paying the medical claim for one broken arm and six months of chiropractic care, repairs to a dented hood, the replacement of a front grill, one headlight, and one busted windshield. Not to mention, countless hours of lost sleep when Finn awoke screaming from night terrors for the next few months. I considered adding counseling for Finn to that list of consequences, but he assured me he'd be fine.
At least in the long run, Finn learned a valuable lesson the hard way and is now possibly the SAFEST (and maybe slowest) driver you'll ever meet.
. . . . .