"Twenty-five years.  A quarter century," he messaged very early. 

"Yes."

"It's not been a quiet one."

(laughing) "Nope!" 

Of all the adjectives ever linked to my boy, quiet does not pop up too often.  A fearless toddler, a wildly adventurous child with boundless energy, a teen who pushed past limitations… as well as pushing envelopes and pushing my buttons.  He was destined for big things – big trouble or big opportunity.  In the past quarter century he has seen some of  both.  Such is often the case for those with great drive, great intensity, great vision.  

His mind was and is still always brewing up a great idea or seven. He has been gifted with the fortitude to see those ideas through come heck or high water.  This year he is a college graduate, working fulltime, with a beautiful fiance, coach of a team of inner city basketball players, and partner in a new business. I don't know where the next 25 will take him but it will probably not be quiet because this boy of our's certainly lives out loud. 

Because he also lives on another continent my heart is a little heavy tonight. This morning when we talked he said I just want a birthday blog post, mom.  Make it a good one!  Since this morning I was remembering this story.  It is our story in many ways. So here you are Z.  Wish you were little enough to read to again.  In lieu of that, I wish you were here tonight.  The house is far too quiet without you. : )

Finton came into our lives one hot, muggy late 70's summer.  My grandparents had few neighbors and we knew them by name.  Just down the road was a retired university professor.  He wore a starched white button down shirt and suspenders while driving his tractor.  His adult daughter had seen much more of the world than most of us in that isolated pocket of Wisconsin farmland.  On her travels to Ireland she had befriended a family with a son not much older than I, whom she brought to the farm for the summer.

Since the neighbors had no children, Finton found his way over to our place quite regularly where he quite regularly drove.me.crazy.  He had a round freckled face, a head full of black curls, and bright blue eyes that danced with mischief.  All summer I was hyper alert, never knowing what lay around the next corner.  He might well be poised with one of the horses' water buckets ready to douse me.  He was always asking about 'the wee lass' a nickname my family adopted with glee.  That drove me nuts too.  They teased that he was sweet on me.  I was sure he had dedicated his life to tormenting me.

Finton loved British comedy and his family would send him little cassette tapes of his favorite comedians. I didn't really get it.  He said it was a British thing and urged me to just listen one more time.  I still didn't get it.  Some 30 yrs later I wish I could tell him my guilty pleasure is Mrs. Brown's Boys ; )) 

Finton was a Catholic and our neighbors were Protestant. I didn't realize at the time what an incredible cross-cultural connection was happening there, nor how incredible the whole exchange was, given 'the troubles' back home for him.  What I knew was that Gram and I took Finton to mass with us that summer.  On the drive back home one day the sky turned dark and Finton went quiet.  

The neighbor shared with us later that he was dreadfully afraid of our wild summer storms, the tornado sirens, how the sky could go from blue to yellow and sickly still, then erupt.  I didn't realize then how mild Irish weather is by comparison.  I guess I thought it thundered fiercely all over the globe.  But, it doesn't. That big boy-man trembled which softened my heart some.  

I don't know what happened to Finton, but I thought about him fondly when we had our first thunder here the other day, so much closer to where he came from than from where I did.  We pulled out Patricia Polacco's Thundercake and realized we had just enough of all the ingredients on hand.  So we baked. And we talked about scary things and being little and getting braver and growing up and going to Ireland. 

And then, the sun peeked out in time for cake. (recipe here)

Read with us?  Who better to tell the story than the author herself.