Boys' trip

God sent us a river, and the boys ran through it.

My beautiful and kind friend Lise offered us her house in Vermont Memorial Day Weekend.  Yusef had a tournament in Vermont and Hanni had just come off a terrible week.

Yusef, through the generosity of the other parents and his club team's scholarship went to Maryland to play, and Hanni and I accepted Lise's offer to go to Vermont.

It was a last minute decision, made Thursday afternoon. We're sincerely financially strapped right now. I had a very scary financial week. The kind when all the chickens (tax collectors) came home to roost. I did a good job of keeping my chin up and faced it all.

Hanni got injured, again, on Sunday and felt frustrated about these repeat injuries, and guilty about missing his family, whose calls he hadn't been returning. This ended in a lot of buried anger which manifested into a minor fight on school property.  It took him a while to connect the injury to missing his real mommy to feeling like he couldn't call her to feeling angry and frustrated to pushing the kid who got in his face, but he did. He made the connection.

I decided that we needed to get Yusef off to Potomac with one of the parents, and get in a car and out of NYC with three of Hanni's closest friends, the dog and very little cash. We made it late Friday night and for about an hour after we got here, I decided I'd done what my former therapist refers to as, "starting something without realizing how hard it's actually going to be". Things settled, and we made dinner and settled into watching a movie.

This house and the land around it are really beautiful. There's something magically healing about this spot.  It's so aesthetically and physically different from where we live every day. I walk outside, barefoot, into the grass and try to get the sheep and their new babies to say hi to me. The hills are grassy, dotted with trees, beautiful purple and yellow flowers growing.  There isn't another house in sight. I feel as natural and at home here as I do in my apartment in Brooklyn.

My four city boys, two from Yemen (Hanni and Achmed), one from Jamaica (Chevon), and the last, my Hondurian son (Paulo), are remembering where they grew up and offering advice on how to deal with snake venom. SUCK THE BLOOD OUT. SUCK THE BLOOD OUT.

I walked them to the amazing grass soccer field in view of the house. Yes, there's a soccer field in front of Lise's house. I know. They played man in the middle with Opus-dog in the middle-and I see what his breed is capable of. He runs, and runs and runs, surprisingly good off the leash. He's an incredible defender. He gets the ball easily from them. When Opus got tired of the excericse, we walked over to a creek that I later learned was a shallow part of the West River. I encouraged Opus to get in. He grew up in Brookyn so he looked at me like I was crazy, but he eventually the lure of the water overcame his city ways, and he found a way over the rocks and into the water. The boys ran over, and encouraged by the dog, followed suit.

It took Chevon a while to get up the courage to get in the water, but this river has become their thing.  They spent the afternoon chasing their soccer ball down the course of the river, and now, I hear their laughter and taunts echoing in the distance as they swim up and down as the current takes them.  They called to me when the curve of the river put them close to the front of Lise's property. Opus and I walked down. My city boys, walking on the bank of a river, They looked like a scene from the movie, "Stand by Me". They're having an adventure.

Opus and I are back at the house, under an umbrella. He's killing flies like it is his assignment for the Federal Government. I'm eating chocolate and drinking coffee.   I hear them coming back, baaing to the sheep.  They're happy.  Going to shower and get in the hot tub.

I keep stopping, mid relaxation to think about this image of them walking down the river. It will be a memory.  Their memory. Where will it sit? They're teenagers, all from difficult up bringings, each making different decisions about how to transition into adulthood.

One of the parent's from Yusef's team said to me when I returned from my week alone in Jamaica, "we don't travel without our kids. we figure there will be plenty of time for that later". I wanted to give him the finger, but I see a point to what he is saying now.

I brought Hanni and Opus on this trip to Vermont because I felt they needed it. And I prayed that it would be healing for them, and that I would be here to make it as fun as needed (and safe). Lovingly providing and staying out of the way.

Growing up with my sister, who was eight years younger, I was obsessed with the concept of making memories for her. Mine were wrapped up in my parents agonizing drama.  I frantically threw her the best birthday parties, would visit her school with surprise lunches for her and her closest friends, supervised her 'cool' parties, went to every celebration and hooted and hollered from the stands, hovered and took pictures. Made her parties for graduation, gave her gifts.

Now I have Yusef and Hanni.  Any of these trips I "give them" are memory makers.  Anything we do together becomes a part of their historical fabric.  Everything, unfortunately, including my verbal temper.

There's nothing to do here in the country of Vermont.  But God sent them a river to run through, and they couldn't be happier.  They have the memory of their adventures along the river, and I have the memory of the four of them walking away from me, intent on their journey down the bank. Lise gave us the house we could never afford, God gave them the river, but I brought them here.  That feels better than any part of my trip alone to Jamaica.