mysteryoriley

When Nat was born, I fell in love with him.  The kind of fallin’-in-love only a mother knows.  That kind of love, the mother-child love, often relegates fathers to playing second fiddle.  Some fathers can play second fiddle brilliantly, and be happy and fulfilled with their place in the newly created family because playing second fiddle is still at the top of the assembly of musicians, and the chart is more important than the slot one occupies.  Others can’t.  Plain and simple truth here.  Ask a  mother.

We’re having a hard time, now, Nat and I.  Not between the two of us, but in the world.  We’re closer than ever, and we no longer seem to fit in anywhere.  Partly, this is the bane of the bereaved (especially in untimely, unexplained, and young deaths) to be sure, but it’s something else, too.

We both fell in love with Owen when he was born.  Nat, as an older brother, may never have talked about it that way, but as their mother, I can tell you straight out – he was more proud of Owen, more protective of him, more desperate to show him the good stuff in life, and determined to keep the Devil at bay, than most parents I observe nowdays.  They had good times and hard times, but they had times.

As the passing of time and the breakdown of our immediate family would have it (Michael and I were divorced when Nat was 9 and Owen was 5), and the continuing downfall of many of our social structures, Nat and Owen grew up as brothers do.  Sometimes they were each other’s best friend, sometimes they were competitive with each other, and sometimes they saw the world so differently that they could barely have a conversation.  Their competition was mostly contained within the arenas of “Who does Mom love more?” and “My world is better than your world.”  As Dave (their second dad) said at Owen’s memorial service, “You were both right, and you were both wrong.” 

I couldn’t have loved one of my children more than the other.  I could only love them as individuals, and in whose presence I was blessed as simply, mother.  I became the second fiddle, each of them playing “first chair” in the orchestra of our family, each with his own musical instrument.

They worked hard at maintaining their places in the orchestra of life.  Owen’s instruments were the piano, the violin, the guitar, his drawings and paintings, his rage when confronted with wrongs, his writing, and his voice.  Nat’s instruments were and still are, his odd and bold sense of humor, his grace in the face of adversity, and like his little brother – his rage when confronted with wrongs, his writing, and his voice. 

Dave and I were just happy to play in the orchestra.  The beauty of playing in an orchestra, is that you’re part of a larger opus (an organism, even), the symphony of life.  The Conductor allowed us to participate, because our hearts played more strongly than our talents.

Song for the night:  Baby Don’t You Cry (the pie song), Quincy Coleman (from the movie “Waitress”)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inqd00PuNqQ