Us and Jacob

Good morning. Just me. Think it will be a short entry this morning. We would like to think through a visit that we had with our youngest son, but very little is coming through to our memory at this time. It was the same driving home last night. We couldn’t bring to recall what had been said.

The visit turned out to be about 4 ½ hours, plus there was about an hour and 15 minutes driving time each way. We got there as scheduled and he met us as we were walking toward his building. We found a Chinese buffet quite by coincidence, then afterward, I went to his room where we were able to talk longer. On the way back we stopped at the bank to make a deposit and pick up a sandwich.

I hadn’t seen Jacob, nor heard from him for at least five months. The last time was having been out to dinner with him after watching his football game. He is the one who is a cheerleader. Or, at least was. He went three years, but after this last season a very poor administration fired their coach and the team broke apart. The kids respected their initial coach and were very upset that he had left. Hmm, if you hadn’t figured it yet, Jacob is in college. He’s in his junior year of a five year plan after switching majors from computer programming to psychology.

While driving out to his place, we had a very serious conversation with our selves that involved some tears. We wanted the meeting to be a good one, because we’ve only been able to see Jacob once or twice a year. With his brother Tanner, the visitations and contacts were lower. Jacob is the youngest of my three sons and Tanner is the middle. By contrast, I have been seeing the older son Macadam one or two times a month.

Macadam explained and it was confirmed by Tanner that the reason Tanner doesn’t see us is that I am too big and not taking care of myself. By that, he means I smoke. I am big. There is no doubt there, but it was very hard for me to think a cosmetic difference was keeping me from being seen or accepted by my two younger sons. Between the two older sons, I was told that Tanner believes that my weight added to medical problems was going to cause my death in two or three years and due to that, Tanner didn’t want to be in a relationship with me. He then added, he has a big problem with death as well with his paternal Grandfather who is going through his last fight with cancer. This was of no consolation to me, of course.

Jacob wanted me to separate himself from Tanner on this note. I have always known the boys to be independent, but I made sure he knew, that separating hadn’t been done before, because their behavior (no calls, visits, or holidays) had been the same. I think I talked about my feelings as well about this, but that I’d tried to respect their boundaries. I also throughout tried to use "I" instead of "you" language. That was an important thing to do. I think there was a point of being pretty upset and angry not at what he was saying, but in explaining my experience with this. I tried to explain it from the reference of knowing my boys. Not in the manner I knew their thoughts or actions, but down deep in valuing their persons.

There were a lot of things said, most I thought constructive. Through the process, he introduced me to more of his life. The boys, their three younger cousins, and Tanner’s girlfriend are all connected by a system where they can hear each other or talk. He talked a lot about the game they were playing and more importantly how it made him feel to be so close to each other. He talked of their combined strength on terms of playing "the game." Tanner is, of course, the leader, but the boys live in this other fantasy world where orks and trolls are valued. There is always the good guys and the bad. The boys hold an account on each side to better understand both. They work as a team and protect one another. It is a closed system though. They are very intent.

Jacob showed me one other thing he was interested in. It is an video game operating system connected to bongos. That turned out to be pretty fun. He taught me how to do it and we actually we’re playing! I enjoyed stepping into his world for a small bit of time. We were able to talk of other relationships he had or had not with people, learn of his excitement in learning, listened to his problems ... in general do things that felt very Mom-like. I was meeting for the first time, my Jacob who has now turned 21. He’s no longer "the baby." He’s come a long way. I continue to like my kids more and more. There’s a lot of things I don’t understand, but given the opportunity to communicate, I will always be there for them. I think sometimes, they forget, or like Jacob said, "Wow, I know ... guess this is what they mean by saying ignorance is bliss. I think he forgot to remember how able I’m able to match his thinking and thought processes, maybe forgot how much I could care. In general, it was a good visit and we felt hope.