The sons part 1

JAD, was the youngest and first to die. His life was blessed as his name implied;  delivered by God, a gift I had waited for my whole life. A biblical name, taken from James Joyces', Ulysses, was the perfect name. It came during my natural childbirth, while I was still on the table with him on my chest. I planned him by seducing my husband after throwing my diaghram out the window. He came to me, perhaps from a karmic event, short but sweet. His smile radiated joy, his usual view of life. Born to two hippy parents—a love child.

I was a teacher in Silverlake, a section of Los Angeles, east of Hollywood in a school called Mid-Town. Each building was its own classroom and was made up of an octagonal shape with heated floors, surrounded by glass windows and had a ceiling that lifted with a flip of a switch. Very modern in the late 60's. It was an alternative school built by a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright. It was considered a free-school, kids were allowed to blossom into their true creative selves.

As a teacher, I too was allowed to experience my creativity. I learned ceramics and the art of the kiln, even though I burned it up the first time I used it. Luckily, the school was rich enough to buy another one and I took lessons from a artist friend. I brought a young calf into the classroom to teach science and care of animals. We fed the young bull with a baby bottle, it was sweet and a good lesson in animal husbandry. I returned it to the dairy when it became too large, and it began to run through the classroom. It thought it was a bull—oh, it was a bull.

Soon after JAD was born, my husband and I decided to move to Hawaii where some friends had migrated a few months earlier. We wanted to live off the land, develop a community and start our own school. Landing on the Big Island of Hawaii with the hot humid air blowing my sleeveless dress, JAD in my arms, felt like an out of body experience. I was used to the warm climate of California, but this was different. The warm breezes, the palm trees and the soft air on my skin felt wonderful, sweaty but somewhat soothing. Then I heard the "pidgin" (Hawaiian slang) and saw the vast cultural differences, it was like I was in another country.

"This is suppose to be part of the United States, but no one looks or talks like us," I told Bruce, my husband. In fact, the first time, while in Hilo, I tried to take JAD to the bathroom at a gas station, the Portuguese woman in the office refused to give me a key. This time I felt prejudice against me, not because I was Jewish, but because I was Haole (a white foreigner). I was the minority.

For a month we shared an old plantation house in Mountain View, up the road leading to the active volcano, Mauna Loa, with a family who drew us to the Islands. This was the rainiest road, maybe, in the world. That's how it felt, even if it wasn't a fact. They had the same aged kids as ours. Bruce's son from his first marriage lived with us and our son shared rooms with their kids. It was tight quarters, but we got along well. We soon found our own place up the mountain in the town of Volcano. It rained there for the first forty days.

The first day the sun came out, JAD was ten months old and took his first steps alone. Bruce and I beamed with pride, took photos and chased him from then on. By this time, my thick brown hair was  waist length, I wore a spaghetti strap mu mu I had designed and sewed and granny sun glasses. I had begun to make all our clothes and shoes, having learned the art of shoe making when I was pregnant. Bruce donned a George Harrison mustache and had hair to his shoulders.

JAD was active from his first breath. It only became dangerous after taking his first steps. He was like a tight little bomb shell looking for a destination. He excelled from walk to run in sixty seconds. By the time he was two, he toilet trained himself and could speak in full sentences. By four, he was preparing his own breakfast of cream cheese and jelly on toast. This would keep him content until it was time to manage the ten puppies, downstairs, under the farm shack we lived in.

Our German Shepherd, Sitka, had ten pups, which we were raising until they were old enough to sell. JAD self-imposed-in-charge moved them from place to place each day, all day. They were as tall as he was when carried. He would hold them under their front legs, dragging them from their beds to the mint laden fields, where the white mare grazed, and back again. Ten pups took most of the morning. Then it was lunch time. I attempted giving him a nap, when I could. His focus was those pups and rest didn't come easy for him...or me.