The Sixth Sense…
To those who know of him, most people would describe my almost-three-year-old son, Sterling, as boisterous, energetic, a bit uncontrollable at times, social. When he walks into anyone’s house, he acts like he owns the place. “Let’s see what I can touch, pick up, destroy.” Shy or pensive would most likely not be the first words that would come to mind.
More about him later…
A neighbor a few houses down died about a week or so ago. His name was Angelo, he was 59, and he most likely succumbed to the severe stress of coping with the impending demise of his own mother, who, coincidentally, died the very next day. He was survived by Marguerite, his wife of many years. Whatever lies in her near future is uncertain, but she currently lives by herself in the average-size, single-story, ranch-style home they shared.
During the multiple funerals and services that were held, she came to my wife and asked that I watch her house while she was gone, paranoid that the house would be ransacked by burglars who apparently watch the obituaries and prey on vulnerable widows and widowers. She said that we were the only people in the neighborhood she trusted, even among her immediate surrounding neighbors. Whether or not those rumors had any validity, or were the result of watching too much Hard Copy, I obliged.
I first checked the front of the house, winding up the pale green garden hose strewn across the concrete walkway leading from the slightly sloping driveway to the front porch in order to avoid any accidental injury upon her late-night return. The side gate was unlocked, as most are, so I opened it and walked through to the back patio. I never knew what Angelo did for a living or if he even worked while I knew him, but he certainly enjoyed collecting antiques and odds-and-ends. The lattice-covered back patio was filled with various piles of furniture, unfinished projects, and unidentifiable metal objects, all covered with assorted plastic tarps. It was chaotic, yet somehow I still perceived a sense of order about it. The house seemed secure, and I went back home, re-latching the side gate and checking the immediate neighborhood for unusual cars or activity. I repeated the trip three or four times that night until I knew she had arrived home safely.
Marguerite’s had the usual problems with insurance companies — they lost the fax, can’t find the policy, etc. — so yesterday she asked my wife to fax the document copies to them. She agreed. Due to the insurance company’s strange internal regulations, she had to fax the documents early this morning. She did, and went back down the street to return the documents. Sterling, in his usual demanding manner, insisted on carrying them.
He walked up to the open front door, put one foot on the stoop, and stopped. He was shaking, petrified. “Wassat? Wassat?”, he cried. Mom replied, “It’s OK, she does have any dogs, no pets at all.” He was looking up, not in front of him or down where a dog or pet might be. “Wassat? Wassat?” His entire body was shivering. His hands, when he put them out to give the papers to Marguerite, were shaking uncontrollably. “Wassat? Wassat?”, he cried again, pointing to the empty living room. “Wassat? Wassat? Monster! Monster!”
He refused to enter the house, very un-Sterling-like behavior.
My wife picked him up, still shaking. She went inside, tried to put him down, but he would have no part of that and clung fiercely to her. “Monster! Monster!” She gave up and sat down with him in her lap, attempting to have a normal conversation with Marguerite. Although he had calmed down somewhat, I would presume that it would be difficult to have a normal conversation with a small child in your arms quietly repeating, “Whossat? Whossat?” while pointing to the corner of the room. The corner of the room in which Angelo always sat, a fact my son would not have known.
By then, the thought had entered both their heads that Sterling was perceiving something they weren’t. “Do you see Angelo?”, my wife quietly asked. He didn’t reply. Instead, he sat up and looked around. “Whossat?” He pointed down the hallway. After another failed attempt to put him down on the floor, my wife got up and, with Marguerite’s permission, went down the hall with Sterling in her arms, straight to the bedroom where he led her. He asked the questions over and over, pointing. They went back to the dining room, where Marguerite starting freaking out. “Do you see Angelo?”, my wife asked again.
He wouldn’t succumb to his ordinarily robust curiosity and touch everything in sight. He wouldn’t run uncontrollably around the house. He wouldn’t move. “If you see Angelo, tell him ‘Hello.’” Tell him that we love him and miss him”, she said. Sterling still wouldn’t respond, and merely clung to her.
“Whossat?”
Marguerite just cried.
In a world overrun by computers, cellphones, concrete, crime, and Starbucks, it is indeed humbling when you are forced to remember that some things are beyond our control, beyond our perception, beyond our understanding.
whoa!!!