The First Ten Years, Matthew Kennedy, Books, Real Stories

We just sat there at the kitchen table, my Mom and I, stuck between that moment of nothing really and a conversation. I was home for the weekend to see Pete, who was back home from being a big shot in Los Angeles. It wouldn’t be long before Alison and I were off to the west coast for law school. She was due in seven months, everything was moving so fast.

Mom has the tendency to ask the same question over and over, I think it is a hormone that kicks in when your children hit the age of twelve. We went from how Alison was feeling with the morning sickness to law school to getting ready to be a parent. Mom had eight kids, including my Dad, and a number of dogs so she had some insight that I really wasn’t ready to give her credit for. Funny how things change. She shares the normal things about responsibility, family always comes first and how we managed to make do on nothing, etc.

And then a veil passes over her as she talks about her kids, my brothers and sisters, having me and what it is like being a parent. There is a shift in the mood. She talks of heartbreak and pride and how they are somehow inseparable. I was at the dawn of a new era regarding respect for my parents, I just didn’t know it yet. Don’t get me wrong, my Mom drives me nuts in the worst way possible, but she was planting a seed here, one that wouldn’t take root until I had a child of my own.

On more than one occasion I have watched my mother struggle with her own feelings regarding sending my brother Pat away to school when he was a young teenager. It was different times back when Pat was in grade school in the '60s and '70s and teachers weren’t adept at handling learning disabilities and the discipline problems that accompanied them. Both of which my brother Pat had in spades. He had been kicked out of a number of school districts because of it and my folks had no options left. But, like all of us kids, he was going to get an education, even if it killed my parents or, more than likely, killed us.

With the help of my Dad’s cousin, Brother Michael, my parents found a school for boys in Albany, New York. It catered to discipline problems so it was perfect for Pat. It was called LaSalle School and it was run by the Irish Christian Brothers. I think their chapter was more appropriately known as the Children of God and Perpetual Pain to Students Order. The only rub, it was almost 300 miles from home.

She sat there having tea on a typical hot and humid Rochester day reliving that painful time. I’ve heard Mom talk about this time in her life on a few occasions, I could see she was sad and it weighed on her heavily. There was clearly conflict there, but other than feeling bad for my Mom and a tough choice she had to make, it just didn’t seem real to me. I couldn’t get my head around it.

Then I had children of my own.

After the Chief was born, and my Mom talked about this time in her life, it had an entirely different reality for me. It was the first time in my life that I really remembered physically feeling my heart sink for another. I couldn’t help thinking, “oh my God, I could never do that.” But you do what’s best for your child, or you hope you do. That is what she did. That is what my father did. They had to send their first born away to get an education, and it broke their heart, in a way I imagine you never come back from.

I now have a son and when I hear her talk about these feelings it kills me to hear. I feel it so deep in who I am and I just don’t want to feel it at all. My boy, my one love above all others, I couldn’t take sending him away. I learned a valuable lesson here, I learned that our parents are human and they love like we love and break like we break, maybe more, because they are our parents. I saw my mother so clearly as a person and had new respect for the power parents have and the bravery that it sometimes takes to make the right choices.

I know what heartbreak means. I have had loves who have “broke my heart” or people who have hurt my feelings but nothing prepares you for the impact your children have on your mind and your heart.

When the Chief was born, one giant inescapable truth became clear to me--I am in love. I am in love like I have never been before. I watched him come into this world and he broke me down and built me up in an instant. I have never felt anything so powerful and all-encompassing. It’s almost like that feeling wraps around you like a casing, and you’re responsible, this is your only job. It demands your attention.

There is a purity to this “thing” that mandates the parent honor it at all times. When it is somehow dishonored the heartbreak can be so debilitating. But when it is honored your heart breaks wide and takes over your whole being.

We were home from the hospital for a total of 20 minutes. We just sat there looking at each other and then at the Chief and then back at each other. He was in the combo car seat bassinet. I really don’t know what the contraption was, like all baby-sitting paraphernalia, it was bigger than it should have been, more cumbersome than it looked and damn near impossible to carry.

But he was sitting there, immobile because we had him wrapped so tight. I guess three-day-old babies don’t really sit, they just sort of plop. We sat on the crappy couch we had, each one of us getting up and down over and over. We were pretty clueless. He didn’t seem to care one way or the other. I’m sure at some super- human level he knew we were Mom and Dad, or at least that she was Mom.

Mr. Tom brought over chili so we had something to eat and we all hung out for a bit. We cooed over the Chief, “he’s so cute” “Oh my God, his little fingers” and on and on. I have been around newborns plenty and the truth of it is, I just don’t think they are that cute, but shock of shocks, the Chief really was. It was irrefutable. Seriously, he was beautiful.

After a while it was just us three; there was no family to help. Now what? We changed him, Alison breastfed him, he had no problem latching on, and if I didn’t know better I would say he was part remora fish. But we were back to the same question after we accomplished those goals, now what? Oh man. We watched sports for a bit, my beloved Packers just gave the Carolina Panthers a well- deserved whuppin that day. They were going to the Super Bowl. So I could always watch the highlights. Everything we did was a test in some way, even watching football highlights; it was all new with a baby.

Alison was understandably exhausted after that excruciating stay in the hospital. Since we really didn’t know what to do, bed seemed like the best thing. And that brings us to the first significant hurdle for all parents, sleep, and are we ever going to sleep again?

After his quick “snack” we got him settled in his crib. This thing was ridiculous, it took me and a team of 17 architects, 42 helpers and the astronomical technicians from Stonehenge to put this thing together. It was a gift from her mother and, as such, it was top of the line. The damn thing was big enough to sleep a family of 12. I mean, for Christ’s sake, it was like having an ocean liner in your bedroom.

We knew it was solid because it could handle the megabeast, Fatty, our cat. She was fat, lazy, unaffectionate and not crazy about the addition to the family. I have no idea why we even had her. She wasn’t really a pet, it was like Jabba the Hut (the cat version) had moved in with us.

Anyway, we managed to get Ronan settled in the “S.S. Babytania” and we laid down for some well-needed rest. She teetered on sleep immediately and I just laid there. I had a huge swelling in my chest for Alison, simply because I could not believe what she had just done. I know millions have before her and, God willing, millions will after her, but this one was ours and she toughed it out big time. I couldn’t even stay awake and she was in labor for 36 hours. She should sleep, long, hard and peaceful.

As for me, I was lost and I was worried. What am I going to do? As it turns out, I didn’t have much time to think about it, because I sensed a presence in the room. It wasn’t human, Fatty! What are you doing in here? You can’t be bothered with us, in fact you can’t stand her and barely tolerate me. It was Ronan, Fatty was up to something. But what? What was she after?

She was like Mama Cass, all 22 pounds, no muscle, crazy hair and too lazy to really keep herself clean. What a mess. This cat was so lazy, she couldn’t even move to greet someone when they came in the door, she would just lift her gigantic head off the ground and make some kind of snort. She was so fat she had a hard time breathing. You could hear her huffing and puffing all the way across the room.

What made her even more amazing was her complete lack of agility and I thought all cats were agile, even fat ones. Once, in a sudden burst of energy, she ran across the room to jump over the stereo table. I have no idea why. The stereo table was about 18 inches off the ground, an easy task for any cat. Most cats have this down in their sleep. Not Fatty. She hit her front legs on the front of the table and went ass over head crashing into the wall. It was just like a cartoon, she hit the wall, slid down to the ground and never moved from where she landed. She didn’t even have the pride of most felines, who would act like it never happened or scamper off to another room, she just went to sleep. That was Fatty.

Alison didn’t hear the beast slink into the room. I have no idea how she slept through all of Fatty’s huffing and puffing. Then the amazing happened, Fatty jumped, I heard the familiar grunt that comes before she jumps. It sounds like someone got punched in the stomach. The cat tried to land on the corner post of the crib, which was right next to our bed. She just didn’t have the skills. She tripped over the top of the guard rail and right into the crib.

The crash startled Ronan and he started crying. Thank God she missed. I jumped up to check on the Ronan, he was ok but crying. Fatty was trapped, she couldn’t get a foothold to jump out. I picked up Ronan and we put him into bed with us. What else were we going to do? She desperately needs sleep and I didn’t trust Fatty, so the Chief was in with us and God help me he never got out. I pondered leaving Fatty in the crib, but relented and gave her the boot.

We’re just laying there, Alison is back to a deep sleep and I am terrified of rolling over on him. And then it happens, God helps you out, because you can’t get out of your own way. Call it silly or a little to heavy handed, but Ronan was right next to me and all I could smell was that new baby smell. It was the most overwhelming thing I have ever felt in my life. It just takes your senses over and pulls you in. It was all his own and completely unearthly.

I lay there thinking that this is how they snare you, the senses. Of course they can see, but they can’t really recognize you. They can’t really speak unless it’s some sound of discomfort to tell you they are hungry or uncomfortable. I know they can feel, but other than breastfeeding, they don’t make any overt attempts to touch us. I’m sure they do all these things in some way that is just too subtle to pick up on, but smell, there is nothing subtle about it.

It just is there and it demands to be reckoned with. I don’t know why the lure is so powerful, but it is. I have to pick him up, I want him to be close to me. She got to carry him for nine months and give birth, none of which really seemed to be particularly great, but it was a connection that I would never get to have. I hold him with his forehead right on my chin. I just take it in.

I feel myself falling apart, it’s as if I am peeling away. It’s me and the Chief, who really wasn’t the Chief yet, but it is so hard for me to think of him as anything else. It is late night or early morning, I’m not sure which at this point. Me and the Chief have been up and down most of the night, I didn’t want to let him go.

He had to eat a couple of times and I marveled at how She had become so adept at it already. He was down in position and latched on while She lay with him. After he was done, he would doze for a bit and She would find her way back to sleep. I couldn’t sleep. I thought I could but I was excited, tired and ecstatic all at once.

Then he started to get fidgety and I guess this was his way of telling us, “I don’t want to lay down anymore.” It was about 4:15 in the morning. So I picked him up, hypnotized by that smell and brought him into the living room to watch SportsCenter.

Like most American males who watch this show, we seem to think somehow that it will be different in the next hour it is on. I felt it was my duty to show Ronan that lesson. So, we watched it repeatedly, until 8:00 in the morning, the same show over and over, just me and Ronan. They were all the same, but I held out hope that they would show something I missed. They didn’t, but that doesn’t mean that as males, we don’t have a duty to watch and watch just hoping that it will be different. It is insanity, you do the same thing again and again expecting a different result, but no, it will be different the next hour and I have to show Ronan.

It didn’t matter. It was so beyond words. Just me and the Chief up all night on his first night home. That smell pulled me in and never let go. There was no one else in the world that night, except me, my boy and God. This was the first time my heart breaks, it allowed him to fall into me and for my heart to wrap around him. We were connected and I was in love in way I could never have imagined.

But the heart always breaks, it’s all it ever seems to do. The funny thing is, kids break it so many different ways, when they are sad, happy, mad and just being. It is a sneaky thing, I think of it as God’s way of checking to see if you are paying attention.

And it never breaks in ways you expect. O’Leary had been home only a week. She needed a break and wanted to get out for a bit Her Mom was here, and I guess she needed more stress than a newborn and a two and half year old could provide. She wanted to go for a walk with her mother. I offered to push her off the porch, God knows it would be a lot less painful. But I guess at times like this, a woman wants her mother around for some reason.

Who was I to argue? I didn’t just give birth. The truth is, if you listen to most women, the men really don’t do anything, and I was no different. So it was the Chief, the newborn longshoreman O’Leary and me. It was about 7:30 and Ronan was just starting to wind himself up for another night of chattering and most importantly no-sleep.

O’Leary was a different matter altogether. As a newborn he wanted to eat and sleep, and whether he wanted to or not, he went to the bathroom. Alison was out the door for a well-needed break and Ronan wanted to watch Dexter’s Laboratory. O’Leary just ate so he wanted to lay down and gurgle.

Between Dexter and Ronan the rambling never stopped. Dexter was always going on about the “secret lab.” We just laid there on the bed and listened to how Dexter was going to do this or that when, of all things, Ronan started to fall asleep. He was lying with his back up against a bunch of pillows like some kind of sultan and his body went limp against my back.

After a few minutes of Dexter, perhaps the loudest cartoon ever made, I felt that familiar body twitch, the involuntary jerk he always makes when falling asleep. Ronan was out and off to La-La land. It was just me and O’Leary.

I figured he didn’t really care about Dexter so I surfed the channels for a bit. Somehow I happened upon ESPN Classic, it seemed to make him happy, in any event he didn’t object. I couldn’t believe it, the Ice Bowl was on. Wow I thought, this ought to make O’Leary really happy. It was the greatest game ever played in NFL history, “the savage ballet on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field”, as the dramatists would call it, the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys.

Ever since I was a little boy, ever since I could remember, I have loved the Green Bay Packers. It has been the kind of loyalty and love for a team that would always make me question someone else’s sanity for liking any other team. It just didn’t make sense, who on God’s green earth would like some other team than the Green Bay Packers?

When I was six or so I got a Green Bay Packers belt buckle, sweatshirt, and winter hat for Christmas. It was the greatest Christmas ever and I was only in first grade, nothing could top this. But then later on in the day Aunt Betty showed up, she was an Avon Lady, a little crazy but still the best. She put me right over the edge, when I unwrapped my Christmas present. “Oh my God,” it was something every first grader wanted. My very own officially sanctioned Green Bay Packers cologne, I couldn’t believe it.

It still sits on the back of my toilet, a black container with the replica of the Lombardi Trophy on top and a circular decal of the Green Bay Packers on the black bottle. Every now and then I open it to get a whiff and I am confronted with a perplexing dilemma, did it smell this bad when I got it or did it spoil? Does cologne spoil? The eternal questions that could only be answered by the Avon Lady.

I figured it was my God-given duty to expose O’Leary to the greatness that is the Green Bay Packers and no time is too soon. I did it with Ronan on his second day in this world by watching the 1997 NFC championship game between the Carolina Panthers and the “Pack” and a week has already passed since O’Leary got here, I must be an awful father.

So we hunkered down for the complete showing of the Ice Bowl on ESPN Classic. Things were aligned just right in the world. He was fed, the Chief was sound asleep, the diaper was tight enough and it was just me and O’Leary.

I pulled him close and it was so odd to lay in the bed with my boys. It just hits you out of the blue and you think at that exact time, “Oh shit, what am I going to do?” and “Oh shit, this just isn’t real”, but everything is perfect. There is nowhere to go, nowhere you want to go and everything is clear, the world was just washed over and the shine is blinding.

The bed was a giant ocean, the Chief in one corner and O’Leary next to me on the other half of the bed. He is so small, so helpless and so dependent. He is swimming in the bed.

I get him close, I am on my side and pull him close to my chest and we watch the game. I like to think we watch the game, but it probably is just me. They have dialogue and commentary from players and fans who were at the game. I keep checking with him to see if he can hear what they are saying, “You hear that O’Leary”? Or “oh man, watch out for Bob Lilly.” I am pretty sure he didn’t care but he was getting all the right information.

I was holding on to him and the top of his head was just under my chin. That smell, it just lays you out. I manage to keep quiet for a just a moment and I start to feel something I can’t understand. It’s as if I have a pulley inside of me, like the kind of chain that pulls a roller coaster up the first hill. But this one is quiet and more subtle, but it just continues to tug at me and I am trying to figure what it is. It’s the repetitive kind of tug that lulls me, sort of like a drug, one that paints a picture of this other world and brings on a reverie.

It starts to get louder and the volume on the TV gets lower. It has a beat and timing to it that I can feel and I notice that O’Leary is wide awake but completely relaxed. He is making noises that newborns make. I know what it is but I can’t believe it.

Somehow, some way our hearts were beating at the same time and the rhythm was completely hypnotic, I was lost to it. I laid there and felt his heart beat with mine, with his back to my chest we laid there for what seemed like forever. I don’t know when I started crying, but I know I had tears and was beyond content or happy, it was something else altogether. O’Leary went off to sleep after a while but to this day I swear I can still feel that heartbeat.

The greatest thing is, although we were together at that moment, his heartbeat was and always will be his own, as much as we love him and are one with him, even at one week old he is his own person.

And through their little lives they always pull you in only to break you down. The Chief is almost five now. He is at the point where he realized that tormenting his brother is his favorite thing. The problem is, he is not a natural tormenter. To make matters worse, O’Leary is.

It was a Saturday morning and we had waited for Mom to get up, which seemed to take forever. Alison needed her coffee to loosen the hold of the fog. It was a crippling sight to see her wade her way through the morning. She never really saw the point of getting up early if you didn’t have to. We did, the boys and I know how important it is to see SportsCenter before anyone else in America.

Before she makes her way out of the catacombs, the boys would just sit on the couch with me, we would relax and watch whatever got their attention. But, as soon as Alison made her way out of the bedroom, all bets were off and it was time to run around, which is what they did. Once they started, it was like watching her get electro-shock therapy, all the energy and no coffee yet, very funny.