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Flashback Friday - Happy Birthday Brendan

Like my buddy up North in BFE says when catching little fish, "Anyone can catch a big one..." .  The same is true of my son Brendan.  Anyone can have a conventional kid.  One who plays catch and doesn't crucify himself when he makes a mistake.  One who goes to school dutifully and handles the work and then comes home and spends time with the family.  One who wants to wear the latest teen fashions.  One, who on weekends, will go with the crowd to skating parties or scoop the loop with his buddies.   




It takes someone special to do their own thing.  Anyone can be average.  Brendan was decidedly unconventional.  




I'm not sure what this is all about.  I don't think it was true Goth, but maybe a derivation of some sort.  But painting his nails black and at one point his hair blue was the order of the day.  He was 10 years ahead of his time with the hair color, as today it seems many young people like to have all variants of hair color.  




On weekends his time was spent doing what is called AMPTGARD out at Lake Story.  AMPTGARD is a role-playing medieval sword and sorcery activity that he and dozens of his friends did.  I still don't understand it but these guys were reading books full of characters and memorizing their personal traits.  They would last all day and there were even groups from other towns that came down. 

Brendan wasn't interested in school.  He and his Mother kept me out of the loop a lot on whatever was going on at school and his various adventures.  Suffice to say, he found his needs were met in other areas.  After that, he impetuously married and while that was not altogether successful, he did bring Michael into our lives and later, a daughter, Alhanna.

Then he joined the Army and served two tours in Iraq,  obtained his GED and is presently a student at Saint Petersburg College.  Not a bad turnaround.    

Today is Brendan's birthday.  I'd would like to say that at this point in time the dye is cast and that I know what he will do/be as an adult.  But I can't.  He keeps me gloriously off balance.  What I do know is that I have an unconventional kid.  He remains for all intents and purposes "off-the-grid" in many ways.  There are more questions than answers on his 27th birthday.  

This is what I am sure of.   He is his own man.  When you hear the phrase "March to the beat of a different drummer",  Brendan is the different drummer.  Smart,  handsome and funny.  I'm sure of all that.  I'm also sure that he is steadfastly loyal to his friends, eminently kind to ladies, and possesses an Arthurian vision of men, knights and chivalrous conduct.  

What I am not so sure of could fill a book.  But Brendan has to write his own chapters.  Hope I'm around to see him win.

A smart, loyal and long-time friend, who also marches to a different drummer found this for me.  I'm no poet, but if I were I would have written this for him.  

Happy Birthday, Brendan.

Brendan



Jupiter in the western sky

and my

son walking

with the wide arc

of the sea behind him.

Above his head
the fishing pole
bent as if to catch
the day-lit star
hovering
on the broad horizon.

The mere shape of him
in silhouette
I love so much.

The whip of his wrist
and rascal slant
of his cap

like some
hieroglyph
of love I deciphered
long ago
and read to myself
again and again.

When I first heard
him in the fluid darkness
before his birth,
calling to his mother and I
from the yet unknown
and unseen world
to which he belonged,

I could not know that
particular
slant of his
face or hand.
I could not know
how he would speak
to me.

Our love then was
for an unknown promise,

but just as strong
as if the promise was known.

May all our promises
from now
be just as strong
as they are hidden.

For no imagining could have
shaped you my boy
as I shape you now
with the eyes of a fatherly
love that must be
shaped itself by your growing.

If I was asked
what my gift had been
I should turn
to look at you.

You and your beloved
fishing pole
casting for a star.


       from The House of Belonging
          Poems by David Whyte

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