TIME-TO-SEE-36
Hugo & Family
The doctors and medical staff finally left. Kevin and the boys and Jake with his friend, Craig, remained to visit with me. I didn't want any of these people to leave me-- maybe they could spend the night by sleeping on the floor or something I dreamed wildly. It was a wonderful night, and I didn't want it to end.
Kevin said, "Jake, I'm so glad you decided to bring Craig to visit with you. We have been missing you and looking forward to seeing you over the holidays."
"Well, like I said, I had no idea that you were planning a Christmas party. I really didn't come prepared," Jake answered.
"You brought yourself and a surprise guest what better preparation could you have made?" Kevin chided him.
"Okay. You just wait. I'll catch YOU TWO when you aren't expecting it... and make you understand how important you are to me too."
I asked, "Craig. How long have you known Jake?"
"Only two weeks," Craig answered, smiling and looking over at Jake who smiled back.
"Do you work in the hospital?" I asked.
"Oh, no, Hugo. I'm not medically inclined at all," Craig replied.
Everyone laughed.
"Really," Craig continued. "I'm just about as far from a health care 'techy' as one can get. I have a little florist shop over in the new mall... Artsy stuff is my thing," he said and smiled.
Going on Craig asked, "Hugo, you did all of these Nutcracker Watercolors on the wall? I mean, I assume you did them, having seen the beautiful portraits you made of the doctor and Jake."
"Yes. If you look closely you can tell that they were pencil sketches first, but I just had to accent them in bright colors after listening to the Nutcracker Suite, to bring them to life like the music does! The music was so beautiful, it made the pictures explode in a blast of color in my mind."
"Well, they're really extraordinary," Craig said.
"I can see a place for this kind of art work in my floral commissions. When I need to develop a theme, if I had both this kind of art along with the flowers, I could create some attention-stealing results," Craig went on to compliment me.
"I really think you do striking work, and I am quite serious when I contemplate consulting with you to create complementary art for my floral contracts. That is, if you would be interested..." Craig said looking at me with some hopefulness in his eyes.
I answered quite surprised by his remarks, "Oh, wow! I don't know what to say... I've never thought that my work might have any value to anybody else. It was just something I did when I felt I needed to say something, when I was not actually able to say anything at all. It gave me a kind of voice," I explained.
"Sure," I continued... "Why not? I can't guarantee anything, but it sounds like fun."
"Terrific!" Craig said as his face beamed with a bright smile. "You just gave me a wonderful Christmas present: the chance to do something really original in my floral business."
Kevin had been organizing the boys for a second wave of Christmas frenzy while I was talking with Craig and Jake.
In just minutes Jilder came up and interrupted Craig and me to say, "OKay, Hugo. We wanna give you YOUR Christmas present... Ready?"
"Sure," I said. "I can't wait."
With that Jilder ran to the door and let in Nicky who was carrying a huge box as big as himself. He brought it over to me and placed it right in my arms, a huge, colorfully wrapped package!
I sat down on the floor myself and began opening the wrappings. Very slowly, the contents were laid bare: I saw the word FENDER on the box underneath the colorful paper. "Ohhhh, Babe! Jilder, Nicky! You are all so wonderful-- A GUITAR!!!! Thank You,...Oh, Thank You...."
For sure Guillermo's visit wasn't going to be for nothing. I couldn't wait to open the box and examine its treasure. I tore the box open and withdrew the beautiful, shiny instrument, with a silly, happy smile set on my face
Inside was a beautiful black lacquer finished, concert guitar, which is what Guillermo had recommended to Kevin. It was much larger than the one Guillermo had let me play, but I mounted it as best I could, trying the moves that Guillermo had shown me, and very soon I was strumming and singing my way through Silent Night... It was the happiest night of my life.
Everyone listened quietly until I finished the first verse, then Jake and Craig and Kevin began singing the second verse, which I didn't know. However, I was more than happy to play the accompaniment. Jilder and Nicky nuzzled up to the guys, as they sat on the sofa singing, Nicky to Jake and Jilder to Craig, like two of our fuzzy family members might have done were they to have been present.
When we finished. We all just sat for a moment silent, watching the tiny tree lights twinkling and the tinsel twisting around on the Christmas tree. Jake reached over and pulled Craig to his chest, and they sat there holding hands on the sofa. Jake kissed Craig's hair and down behind his ear.
Kevin came over to me and put his arms around me from behind, "Merry Christmas, Babe. I love you."
No more than a few moments passed in silence before the boys, unable to contain their energy any longer, spoke: Nicky said "Hugo, where did you put Kevin's present? We want to give it to him... OKay?"
Kevin interrupted and said, "Wait, wait. Hugo and I are going to give YOU GUYS YOUR Christmas gifts now... So, stay seated on the floor and don't move."
With that Kevin went over to the tree (Really behind it on the floor), and he pulled two identically wrapped boxes large boxes, both in silver paper with bright red bows of ribbons on them, and two smaller boxes, each wrapped in colorful Christmas prints. Each box had a tag that read, "To my loving son, Jilder," or "To my loving son, Nicky," "From: your Dads." We had signed the cards for each boy named separately.
Of course they tore into the packages like two bulldogs after a t-bone steak. And their exclamations exploded simultaneously, only to be extinguished immediately when they clamped their hands over their own mouths. "SSSSssshshhhhhhh!" they said to each other!
I nearly cracked up at how funny these two were together, so unselfconscious in their exuberance and candid in the heartfelt expressions of their feelings.
"Wow! a laptop COMPUTER! Ohhhh, Dad, THANK YOU," Nicky said with a smile as bright as the bushy red mop that bounced around on his head.
"Ohhhhhh, yeah! THANNNNNKS! DAD, HUGO.... This is awesome!" Jilder said.
Craig and Jake looked over the boy's shoulders as Nicky and Jilder pulled their laptops from the packaging and pushed the ON buttons.
Jake looked at me and said, "Might as well say "Good Night" to these guys. They'll be on the hospital wifi for the rest of the evening..."
Kevin said, "Yeah! We knew there'd be a down-side to these gifts, but over-all, we thought that they would benefit from having access to their own computers. You can be sure there will be some kind of instruction we'll work in to add to the value of these things... The boys don't care at the moment, but I see these as investments of an intellectual sort... Okay. Okay.... Maybe I'm being naive, but I'm trying to do the right thing... :-)"
Jake laughed and said, "Sure, sure, sure, Dad... and you've never heard the words 'adult website' either.'"
"Oh, please don't talk about that in front of Hugo. I don't want to give him a panic attack! That might shake up his new hearing nerve cells!..."
Everybody laughed except me...."All right, you guys, who's worrying about bringing up these young men properly... ME!" And I tapped myself on the chest as I said it.
Well, it was true. The boys were plugged in to the internet for much of the evening, after they both ran out to the nurse to get the hospital passwords... Now I didn't suggest that they be given free access to the hospital system, but hey, who was it that said "It takes a Village" to raise a kid?
Those nurses live in my village right now; so they have to take some responsibility I'm thinking... (I'll remember to tell them that after Christmas.)
Alright, guys, now you did open your biggest gifts, but don't forget you've each got a little one. We'll wait for you to open them too.
The boys both put their laptops aside very carefully and searched for the whereabouts of the smaller boxes. Finding them stacked together beside my bed, they made short shrift of the wrappings on these puny packages.
"Shoes?" Nicky exclaimed... "Nike's!" was Jilder's take. They ripped off the tops and looked at the contents somewhat stunned!
Indeed, inside were shoes, Nike shoes, but these were a very special model that Kevin and I had just fallen in love with. We didn't care whether the boys liked them or not, WE thought they were coooool; so that's why we bought them.
Examining the shoes more closely, the boys discovered that they were the ELECTRIC kind.
"Dad!!! Are we supposed to WEAR these???" was Nicky's query.
"Dad, Hugo!! Do we have to turn on the little lights when we wear them?"
Kevin was beaming and about the split a gut to see the boys try them on. "Well, OF COURSE! You didn't think we wanted you to just put them in your room and LOOK at them, did you???"
"BUT, DAD! LITTLE BOYS WEAR THESE KINDS OF SHOES!" Nicky exclaimed.
"Yeah! But aren't they COOL?" Kevin replied.
"Kevin, don't we EVER GET TO GROW UP?" Jilder said with exasperation.
"NO!" Kevin answered... making both boys jaws drop and their eyes get big.
"YOU WILL ALWAYS BE OUR 'LITTLE BOYS', OUR 'SONS', and I don't want you ever to forget that you are our kids, even when you're both 45 years old and totally grown-up, and we'll love you forever!
Both boys were touched by Kevin's honest remarks about how important each of them was to us, and they put on the shoes, turned on the blinking lights, gave us each a hug, and went into the other room to show the nurses their electric shoes.
After only a few minutes they came bursting back into my room because Nicky remembered something he'd promised me. "Hugo," he exclaimed when he realized he had more to do for me...
"I'll get our present for Kevin now. Is that OK?"
"Sure," I said. "I think it's a good time."
Nicky didn't go to the tree. Instead he went outside of the room again, and in a moment, he returned with a huge 18" by 24" framed portrait that was an enlargement of a sketch I'd done that Kevin hadn't seen. It was a family portrait with Kevin on the right end, me on the left, and both boys between us.
The scene was not of 4 separate images, but of one integrated scene showing all of us together looking at one another. I know that I ought not comment, but I was particularly happy with this sketch. I captured the delight in the eyes of both boys, the love in Kevin's, and the utter devotion that I felt toward all of them. It was truly our family portrait.
Kevin reached over to me before he even went to the boys who held the picture for everyone to see. He put his arms around me, and his head on my shoulder and said, "You and the boys are all I want. You couldn't have given me a better Christmas present. Thank you, Hugo."
I squeezed Kevin saying nothing, just savoring the wonderful love that we shared. Nicky reached up to grasp Kevin and give him a hug all by himself. He said, "Thank you, Dad, for my operation, and for everything."
No sooner had Nicky finished hugging Kevin than Jilder took over where Nicky left off, taking Kevin for himself, hugging him and saying, "Dad, you have given me my brother back after he was lost and deaf. Now I can talk to him and tell him I love him, and he can HEAR me. Thank you."
The night seemed endless, but when I glanced at the clock, I realized that it was nearly midnight. If I hadn't been in the hospital, I'd have been at Christmas Eve Mass at this hour.
I was beginning to think about the tattoo on my neck again. I looked in the mirror and saw the close cropped hair that made me think of the way I looked and felt when I first met Kevin. Now I wanted my hair to grow back, and I wanted to be rid of the tattoo on the back of my neck. I was a different person who shouldn't look like that person who met Kevin not so very long ago.
Really,I suppose, I must have been the same person I've always been, but way back, I had just decided to be angry and frightening to look at, some distorted gang-banger, attack-image. I was recognizing and returning to the person God had made and leaving behind the person that I had made. And the recognition of my Real timeless self was wonderful.