Every weekday morning, Anna races downstairs making sure she gets a chance to give her Boogie* a hug before his bus arrives. It makes my heart melt. No matter what’s going on in our family, our country, or the planet, I try to pause and enjoy the love that these kids have for each other. Siblings/best friends – the strongest bond I’ve ever witnessed. I’m a lucky mom.
That is all.
Love, Jess
* Jack AKA Boogie, Boogie Brown, Boogs, Boogs McGee, JackO, WackO, The Weasel
My 30th High School reunion is coming up and I’ve been a little nervous about going. As I watch the stream of old photos get posted on the SHS Reunion Facebook page, I can’t help but be apprehensive. I keep looking at the photos thinking about who I was thirty years ago, who I am now, and where I thought I would be.
I’m guessing/hoping that I’m not alone.
It’s not that I’m ashamed of who I was during my high school years, it’s just that I am not particularly proud. I never felt like I had a real “roll”. I did have a group of amazing girlfriends (many still close friends), but I never felt like a star student or a dedicated athlete or a talented artist — and that was one of the few things I was kinda good at. I was a solid C+ across the board.
Maybe no one really felt completely confident in high school. Maybe everyone cringes when they think of themselves as a teenager. But, when I look at the old pictures being posted on Facebook, there are a few faces that not only always looked happy with who they were, but they seemed to own the room. I look at the pictures of me and, maybe to the untrained eye you can’t see the insecurity in my 16 year-old smile, but it screams out to me now.
And, it’s not just who I was in high school that has me uncomfortable about this reunion, it’s who I am now. At our 20th reunion Jack was just out of the hospital following his stem cell transplant. That reunion was a blur (and not just because of the wine). I didn’t know what to say when people asked what I was doing with my life.
“Married, two kids, live in Maplewood, still work on my photography. Oh, and my son has a disease called Adrenoleukodystrophy. He just got out of the hospital where we’ve been living for two and a half months. I know how to change a g-tube and hook up an IV.”
Trust me – I got a lot of awkward hugs that night.
Today, I’m more comfortable in my new life and know how to share answers to “What are you up to these days?” in a way that makes people comfortable. Or, as comfortable as you can make them (sometimes it backfires – stories about a 19 year-old’s potty habits aren’t always a hit). Even with my new found confidence, I’m nervous about walking into a room full of people with memories of teenage Jesse Cappello and questions about middle-age Jesse Torrey.
I know some of my old friends are feeling the same way. Facing a room full of your childhood can be intimidating. It’s not just that you worry about how people will react to who you were in high school and who you are now, but it can get you thinking about who you thought you would be thirty years later – what your story would be. Things as shallow as what you would look like and what you would drive and things far deeper like what you would have accomplished and what you would have done to better yourself/others/the world.
Reunions have us all looking in the mirror, but maybe that’s a good thing. Everyone has a story. Perhaps it’s good for all of us to go back sometimes and evaluate who we were and who we’ve become, even if it means we need to swallow hard along the way.
So, I’m going to the reunion. I hope I come back with no regrets. Grateful for spending time with old friends and having relived some old memories. Maybe even have made some new ones.
Love, Jess
I have a hair appointment scheduled for next week. I may not have the best answers to “What’s going on with you these days?”, but at least I can cover the gray.
Jack’s progress doesn’t always follow a straight path. Brain injuries are complicated, and sometimes things move forward and then backward. Sometimes even sideways. It’s only after months of consistency with something new, that we feel comfortable that it’s here to stay. Perhaps that’s why I waited to share this story. But just this week I was given more proof that Jack has found a new skill. Typing.
I will start at the beginning.
Jack has been using an app called Proloquo2Go for 6 years. It’s a communication program that uses words and symbols that when touched, speak for him. Every speech therapist Jack’s had since he has gotten the app has been excited by the possibilities and worked with it hoping to make communication easier for our boy. Each therapist has played with the format on Proloquo2Go —making words/symbols bigger on each page, making words/symbols smaller again, limiting the amount of information, increasing the amount of information, etc.
There’s always hope, and there have been times over the years that we have seen some improvement, particularly at school (like all kids, Jack does more at school than at home). Although there have been some successes, I’ve never been 100% convinced that his “successes” haven’t been a little guided. When Jack uses his iPad he needs someone to support his elbow — it helps with accuracy. I’ve always worried that his guides might be guiding more than they realize. Like when you use a Ouija board and subconsciously you direct the movement (unless the spirits are really sending subtle notes like GET OUT to every teenager who has ever played with a Ouija board).
This summer, Jack’s speech therapist added a keyboard page to the Proloquo2Go mix. I thought she was reaching a little. If Jack can’t consistently articulate a sentence when given entire words, then how could he manage to type in a whole word? But, instead of arguing, I said what I usually do to his eager, optimistic team, “THAT sounds awesome!”
All summer both Jack’s aide, Monica, and his therapists swore that they were seeing improvement, but I didn’t pay much attention. Until . . .
Last month, Monica took Jack on an adventure to pick something out for his birthday. As they wandered through the mall to find the perfect gift, they walked into a store that had a large selection of socks. Socks are the new cool thing for teenage boys, and Jack seemed excited to take a look. He searched through the rack of socks before grabbing a pair that had a pattern with something that Monica didn’t recognize. She said, “Jack, do you know what that is?”
Jack smiled and nodded his head so Monica took out his iPad and asked him to spell out the word. This is what he wrote:
Marijuana has helped Jack so much for the last year and now it’s helping prove to the rest of us that Jack’s progress is real!
I loved this story, but I tried not to get too excited. At home, Jack focuses very little on the keyboard page on Proloquo2Go and more on the I’M HUGRY and I LOVE YOU buttons (that’s a good one). I’ve been waiting for more proof that the keyboard might really be the key to something. I finally got some proof this week. Jack’s speech therapist sent me a note sharing with me that she was telling Jack a joke and handed him his iPad for a response. Jack typed “LOL”. Maybe not as impressive as “mariguana”, but I will take it!
Love, Jess
* Monica is not just Jack’s aide. She’s his school mom and my dear friend. And Caitlin is Jack’s therapist who cracks jokes and makes magic happen.
* Okay folks – laugh all you want. I know that it’s funny that MY son has taken up a hobby that involves spelling. I’ve confused pallets with platelets and angels with angles and wander with wonder. I’ve never claimed to be a good speller and apparently Jack hasn’t perfected it either – but we both get our point across.
As if leaving Block Island isn’t hard enough, we had a doozy of a ferry ride home on Sunday. Within a few minutes of leaving the dock, the boat was pitching frantically over the angry ocean and water was pouring in the open windows. Then, the vomiting started. At one point Keegan’s leash slipped out of Anna’s hand and he slid across the width of the ferry. Fifteen minutes into the hell, a young man next to us took his head out of a garbage can to announced, “We have 45 more minutes of this.”
We had known that it was likely to be a rough ride. Our friends had left the island an hour earlier and reported back that their journey to the mainland had been a nightmare. Dan sat with Anna and the dogs and I chose a seat where I could brace myself while holding onto Jack and we could sit facing the horizon. I was worried about Jack getting sea sick, but once we started moving I worried less about a little vomit and more about a seizure. He was sitting between my legs and I could feel the sweat pouring down his neck and his body melting. Jack’s body isn’t built for stress. He has Addison’s Disease (another gift from ALD) and his body doesn’t produce cortisol to help deal with added stress to his system. A seizure can be a result of his body being overwhelmed, and a boat that’s slapping in the water at strange angles is not an ideal place to manage a seizure.
My mind was racing with planning how to get Jack to a safe spot to lay him down and how on earth one of us could manage to grab his emergency medication that was in the back of our over-packed car two floors down. I was in a panic, but as always, my family calmed me. Anna kept looking over and whispering “I love you.” and “Boogie’s going to be fine.” And, Dan knowing that I can get hysterical fairly easily, kept saying things like, “This isn’t so bad.” – he admitted later that the ride was the worst he’d ever experienced and that Jack’s face (that I couldn’t see) had been a bright color of green. Jack also managed to keep me calm. I spent the hour whispering into his ear that everything was going to be okay. His trust in me and little squeezes back let me know that it was going to be okay.
We were literally thrown back into reality. I haven’t been that scared in a long time, but we survived. No injuries. No seizures. No vomit.
It took a couple of hours before we could recover and returned to our usual chatty car-talks reliving our Block Island adventures, but we are determined not to let that last hour ruin an amazing two week vacation.
Two weeks on Block Island where life is slow, days are long and sunsets are pure magic. Beach time, kayaking, tennis, biking, hiking, puzzles, cards, weaving, paddle boarding, large meals, large cocktails, even a reading of Smiles and Duct Tape at Island Bound Bookstore (thanks to all who attended). We had time with family and friends and, besides the extra few pounds around my belly, we are bringing back a load of good memories. Thank you Block Island for recharging us. And, thank you PopPop and Sue for hosting.
Jack and Anna are back at school, Dan is in Chicago, and I am working on my list of fall “to dos” (lots going on with Smiles and Duct Tape and a new project underway – I will fill you in later).
Welcome back to reality folks.
Love, Jess
smiles and duct tape 