Letter to My Heavenly Sweetheart

Letter to My Heavenly Sweetheart

Chapter 4

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body. - Elizabeth Stone

My dearest grandson _______ :

On February 15, 1999, you were pushed out of your dark organic snugly into the dazzling brightness of this outer word. Suddenly your lungs, deprived of the warm fluids of the womb, imbibed the cool dryness of the air - and you were here - a miracle of God, and you were loved. We were at your birth, your mother and I, as well as one of your mother's friends. Another of your mother's friends, supposing she had time for a quick smoke, came in the room only minutes after your arrival.

Your mother was petit, a "skinny little thing" before she carried you. I often remember telling my friends that hugging her was like hugging a rack of bones, she was so thin. But she gained weight as she nourished your developing body and when I hugged her now there was substance on her back and for once she felt healthy. But this healthy body was a facade, not reflective of the spirit within.

I think your mother tried to love you but she was overwhelmed. She was so needy herself, she had nothing to give to you. Her anger at the world left her without love to give to another. She was angry at me and everyone else in this world but I don't think she was angry at you. She just didn't know what to do with a baby.

When she brought you home - to my home - your mother was restless and easily irritated. She complained of not being able to sleep and her irritation intensified. Your crib had been set up in her room but she was annoyed by even your tiniest nighttime noises, and when you cried she was not able to respond.

I was concerned for you and your mother - Your mother needed her sleep and I wanted her to be rested so she could tend to you in the daytime while I was away at work. So I took you into my room, you slumbered with me in my bed, and I fed you and changed you through the night. At this point, I did not understand your mother - you were such a precious soul, how could she not want to hold you and love you the way I did? How could your mother, flesh of my flesh, not be drawn to you. It was difficult and it took time before I could even begin to understand, your mother's issues and accept her limitations.

She called me at work so many times those first few weeks of your life begging me to come home to help her. At first, I did, but later I told her she needed to handle things on her own. I remember one day she called in a panic. You had eaten a trailing house plant - successfully chomping it down so that only a few broken and bedraggled sprigs survived, laying defeated in the scattered soil in the pot. I told your mother the name of the plant and instructed her to phone poison control immediately. And when your mother phoned back to tell me you would be alright, I was relieved but at the same time I felt so helpless chained to my job across the harbor from you and her. From this incident, I was forced to realize that, for you to have consumed the entire plant, you must have been left unattended, and perhaps hungry as well, for a considerable amount of time. I was concerned and my vigilance intensified.

Many mornings your mother hardly awoke. Often, I struggled to get her up to mix your pablum, to fed you before I went to work. But more often than not, she put you in the activity center, handed you a cookie and stomped off to her room slamming the door behind her. Accepting the fact that your mother was unable to function, I would quickly bundle you up, run off to the bus stop with you, and take you to work with me. Luckily, my boss was supportive and generous. She immediately had a crib assembled in my room and you became the youngest member of my preschool class.

_______ Samuel _______ _______. Your mother chose your birth names, I don't know if these are your names now, but these were the names your mother chose, and I know she pondered considerably on their selection. Surely this is a reflection of her love for you!

His first name is to be spelled with "i" not "e", your mother insisted. This was the the Celtic spelling for "poet". She insisted on the Celtic spelling to reflect the Celtic roots on both sides of your family.

Your great- great grandfather, my father's father came from Scotland when he was 18, or so I was told. He was a short, dark Scotsman with a hawk nose who loved curling, the Regina Rough Riders football team, and collecting stamps. Though I have no personal memories of his curling, I do remember that when I was only six years old my grandfather injured his shoulder and his doctor demanded that he stop swinging the heavy curling stones. Around the same time, he retired, and I remember my lively cheerful grandfather abruptly changing into a sullen old man. As for the Regina Rough Riders, my grandfather was well known to the football team, the coach, and the team doctor and he religiously attended every Grey Cup Game no matter where it was being played across Canada.

Stamps collecting was also his passion. I recall him sitting on the putty colored carpet of his living room floor, pounding the metallic keys of a small green typewriter, with a flurry of "first day envelops" scattered around him. I recall thinking this a strange position to find ones grandfather in. Sprawled on the floor, like a child at serious play with his toys, he meticulously pounded out the exotic addresses of stamp collectors around the world on envelopes richly embossed with illustrations that either matched or complemented the illustration of the newly issued stamps. (In turn, these collectors sent him first day envelops from the corners of the globe.) Mixed within the exotic address were three mundane addresses, mine, my brother's and my sister's.

Addressing these many envelops on time for postal cancellation on the first day of issue was a big job for one elderly man, but it was a task that, despite my grandmother's constant nagging about the mess, my grandfather seemed to relish.

His little green typewriter is the only memento I have of him. My grandmother gave it to me when he died and I guess now, in this time of computers, it has become quite a curiosity. How strange, typewriters that were once so common when I was growing up are now unknown, ancient technology to your generation.

Though I appreciated having my grandfather’s typewriter, I wish I had been given his red suspenders instead! Why those suspenders impressed upon my mind a closeness to him, I do not know, but somehow they did. I remember him puttering around his house and around his garden with these red suspenders, stretching them out as one stretches ones muscles after getting up from completing a job.

But I did not ask my grandmother for those red suspenders. In those days, I was still very shy and I paid the consequences of my shyness: afraid to ask my grandmother for this memento, it is most likely that these suspenders, so precious to me, were bundled off with the rest of his clothes to the Salvation Army or some other organization to be picked over by strangers who could never know or appreciate their sentimental worth.

I remember, at first, as your mother was deliberating over names for you, that your name sounded so foreign to me. When she settled on _____ Samuel, I teasingly threatened to call you "Sammy".

But I didn't. In fact when you first came home, "Our Song" quickly evolved. It was a song that emanated from my soul as I cradled you in my arms. This was to be our special song sung only by me, and no one else, I emphatically instructed, not even your mother, was to sing it to you:

I love you. I love you. I love you very much!
I love you. I love you. I love you very much!
You're my sweetheart from heaven, and your name is ______ .
I love you. I love you. I love you very much!

For Valentine's day of your second year, I constructed a large homemade valentine with the inked phrases of "our song", cut from bright yellow paper pasted across the surface. I hung it on the wall over the sofa where it hangs still. Often you would stand on the couch and point to your name - yes, though you were only two years old, you knew exactly where your name was - and you, not quite able to pronounce your name would proudly say "__bi__" and I would "sing our song" to you.

I never called you Sammy or Sam but I do remember going through an evolution of pet names for you. During your first months home as I tended to your needs and tried to cope with your mother, I affectionately named you "King Tut" and your mother "the Queen of Sheba". You were the boy-king who justifiably needed to be waited upon. And your mother was the queen who expected to be waited upon.

"Pookie" and "Sweetie" were two other names I recall having for you. But when you were separated from me in that foster home, pet names seemed to become foreign to your ear. Sometimes you would point to yourself "correcting" me saying "__bi_. Me __bi_". And I would reply, "Yes I know you are _____ but you are still my Sweetie."

Your second name, Samuel, "heard from God", was a surprise, as was your mother's consideration of other biblical names including Zechariah, and Ezekiel. This surprised me because your mother had become bitter against God, at times, adamantly professing that she no longer believed. Today I am sure she would continue to own this statement. Yet despite her many claims of disbelief, with no warning, your mother would suddenly share insights of miraculous encounters that confirmed a faith still battled for life within her. It seemed to me that her selection of the name Samuel, and her consideration of these other biblical names, suggest that your mother had not totally detached herself from a belief in God. Some day, I hope your mother will share with you her miraculous encounters. They are awesome and it baffles me how anyone can continues to run from such experiences. Maybe some day, she will stop running long enough to share these miracles with you.

Your third name was your father's surname. Though your mother was not on good terms with your father when you were born, she believed it was important that you have your father's name, not as a surname or a hyphenated last name but as a middle name. I thought this was noble of her. In this act, she set aside her personal anger and pain, and put your right to have a connection with your father, albeit a symbolic connection, first.

At the time of this writing, I'm not even sure if I know where you are or who is bringing you up. All I know is it hurts to think of you now. I am a strong person, but when I allow myself to think of you, the tears flow.

Forgive me my little love, my Pookie, but as a survival mechanism, I've had to purge my memories of you from my daily mind. But I have never given up trying to find you. I loved you and I love you still. You were happy in this house, your first home, you smiled in this house and you were happy here. When you were taken to a foster home and had to leave my home after an access visit you sometimes would "hide", your face in a corner, or you would hide under the table, thinking in you child's mind that if you could not see that you could not be seen and taken away.

This broke my heart because I was helpless to rescue you and I had to hand you over to people who had no reverence for the bond that existed between Grammie and grandson. My every movement, my every word to you was noted, scrutinized and more often than not misrepresented in the official case reports.

What a relief it was when finally those awful people were gone and I could relax and be your Grammie free from those unfriendly eyes. But I was deceived - As the court sessions wound down, I was suppose to get regular weekly access and my lawyer assured me that I would remain an important influence in your life. But before the last court date, both you and your father disappeared and no one - lawyers, courts, or Children's Services took responsibility for your return. And ever since, I have been looking for you and I have been trying to get back into court.

Have you forgotten me my darling? I haven't forgotten you! I never will.

All my love

Grammie