april fool

Just as the snow from the last storm had nearly melted, in comes another one dropping its down, burdening bows and concealing any color that had begun to show. I’d seen crocus tips emerge from the earth the day before, which had given me some hope. But, so far we’ve gotten at least half a foot as the flakes continue their descent upon what has again become a black and white world. 

Sometimes I wonder if Calvin feels my despair over these long winters and earthly woes. This morning he woke to a partial seizure—his heart pounding, his lungs grasping breaths in fits and starts, the telltale fingers of his left hand pumping back and forth in his mouth. I gave his meds early and crawled into bed with him as he went back to sleep, his arms hooked around my neck. April Fool, I thought of myself, and as I finally drifted off next to him the clock struck five-thirty a.m.

By seven o'clock he seemed fine, just as the limbs outside were so laden with snow they nearly touched the ground. At eleven, though, Calvin was bearing his own burden again, and after a second partial seizure he began a downward spiral into some sort of illness or spell of withdrawal. He cried and rubbed his head as if he were suffering a migraine, perhaps needed to vomit, or both. I held him until he calmed then he fell asleep in my arms.

The white sky keeps sending its fallout. Lumps of it drop from sagging branches. The day before this storm was the first day in his life that Calvin walked in a snowy yard, the stuff having melted enough so that he could manage, while holding my hand, without falling or getting snow into his ankle-high waterproof boots. I wondered if he will ever walk well enough to traverse the yard without my help, and then I thought about what a friend said to me about having adopted our dog Nellie, who is calm, loving, cute and well-behaved:

"It was meant to be," she said, to which I expressed my dissent of her theory. I wondered if she might use the same logic regarding Calvin and his afflictions. The notion made me bristle.

Nope, I'm just an April fool, stumbling around in this messed-up world with my wonky kid, nature's accident being Calvin's endless seizures that march through one month into the next seemingly no matter what we do.