The Things He Carried

Ky was in between homes when he died. for a lot of the year he'd been living with Bobby Gardner and a roommate, but the roommate didn't want Ky to live there--and for a reason I didn't figure out--that kid got to call the shots. so Ky was staying a lot with Sean and then he was staying with Gabriel and Ali's family. some of his things--like his computer and his bedding and his green canvas bag--were there. and i think other things were scattered other places. he had his backpack with him when he fell.

Ky's dad gave him the green canvas bag. it is a handsome bag and Gear had had ky's initials embroidered on it: KCM. he gave it to Ky in anticipation of his future traveling. on the 7th of July last year, Gear picked up Ky's things in San Francisco and drove them back to LA. he transferred them--including Ky's computer and the green bag--to my car.

as for the computer, i had a techie friend clean it up. she gave me a CD with some of his files, organized the desktop with shortcuts, and counted his tunes, about 9000. i put the computer up in his/Sal's room and it stands there with the ghost slide show and as a repository of all his music. friends are welcome to come and make CD's.

it took a long while to look into the green bag, but Gear asked for it back of course, so i transferred Ky's things to a paper bag. since last July i had partially gone through it once or twice, but i'd not been able to sort the things and deal with them. similarly, i have not been able to go through Ky's drawers and closet.

on the anniversary of Ky's accident, i sat down with Devon and Flynn and went through the contents. in his sturdy green bag, given with so much love and hope from his dad, Ky had packed:

the incense box/holder MaryLou gave him on Christmas Eve

the refrigerator magnet that looks just like Toby that i put in the kids' stockings

the size 14 slippers than Gear had given him at Christmas 2006

his equally huge green flip flops

Bukowski's The Captain is Out to Lunch and The Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

Murakami's The Wind-UP Bird Chronicle -- the same one he'd given me for Xmas and had given Laura

the book: The Best Travel Writing, 2000 --another present from his dad

miscellaneous school papers and assignment sheets, kind of in a jumble

head phones

a small handout/poster of a June 8th concert, EEK-a-Mouse, Live at Shattuckdownlow

a small incense burner

a small travel cocktail shaker -- probably from me

a couple of keys

deodorant

spare underwear, a black tie, and a pair of cutoffs (stained with paint)--all his clothes still smelling of him


after Flynn and Dev and i were done, i carefully put everything back in the paper bag. i'm still not ready to make decisions about Kyle's things.

April 13, 1985

On Sunday, it will be Kyle's 23rd birthday. The picture above is of Kyle, minutes old, in the arms of his dad. Kyle was two weeks overdue. As a boy he used to laugh and say that he didn't want to come out because he was so comfortable in there. The doctor got concerned, so he gave Gear and I some articles to read about inducing and told us to talk it over at dinner and then if we were comfortable about it, to just head to the hospital. So late in the evening about 11pm, the nurses started to induce labor. That kicked things off and eventually I had about 10 hours of hard labor (less than with Miranda), but then pushed for 3 hours before the doctor said he was going to have to perform a Caesarean.

Kyle Campbell Whitham McLeod was born at about 6:36 pm. He was 22 inches long and weighed 9 pounds, 15 and 1/4 ounces. We were pretty impressed with that weight, but the same day at the Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital a 13 pound baby girl was born. If Kyle got to be 6'8" I wonder how big that girl is today. He had the biggest hands and the longest fingers and Gear said, "Piano playing power forward." Kyle was so wide awake under the lights in the nursery that the nurses had to take him into their dark station for him to get some sleep. Ky's big sister, Miranda, welcomed him home a few days later and just adored him. With our boy, our little family felt complete.

On Ky's birthday, I'll be up north in Cupertino attending a memorial event by the Musculoskeletel Tissue Foundation. There will be recipients there and there will be a slide show of all of last year's donors. It may seem a little odd to be doing this; but I'm feeling drawn up north again and I'm not put off by public grieving rituals. At least I'll be crying with a bunch of other people for a change, in a place where crying is expected. And I think it might be harder to be at Forest Lawn, which is where I'd be otherwise.

But I will celebrate a little bit at Forest Lawn tomorrow, before I leave town. I'm bringing some sandalwood incense to burn and a little battery run speaker (that I had given Ky) to play some reggae, and I have a tiny little bottle of bubble stuff--I'll probably leave that there for any of you who will be visiting him. I'll bring some flowers of course. It's odd not having food around when thinking about celebrating a birthday, particularly Kyle's, but of course you can't leave food around a grave, what with ants and coyotes.

So if you're in town and free on Sunday, the 13th, consider giving Ky a visit or-- wherever you are--maybe raise a glass to Kyle and say a few words. If Ky were here he would be partying: with music and friends and libation and laughter. And it would be all good, wouldn't it.

Dearest boy, I love you and miss you and carry you in my thoughts and heart every moment. Happy Birthday, Kyle.

Why the mailbox is dangerous

There's a whole lot about the donor world that I don't know. Obviously, there's no way to know about it unless you have been unfortunate enough to have a loved one die, but fortunate enough for that loved one to be young and healthy and die with organs intact--and for the death to be sudden but not so sudden that he cannot be rushed to the hospital and sustained on life support.

In my 6 months experience of being the mother of a donor, I know that there are two types of donations: organ and tissue/muscle/bone/etc. I get them mixed up. I get a newsletter every so often from one of them, with lots of information about grieving and what other families have gone through. And then, like last week, I got the wonderful gift of a recipient letter. (I've written back to him, BTW.)

But there's more: like the letter that came about an annual memorial to honor and remember the donors. There's one in March or maybe April up north in Hayward. Gearey expressed not being interested at all, definitely not wanting to become a part of some sort of movement. His grieving for Kyle is a very private thing. I'm sure to Gear it seems almost disrespectful to Kyle to meet up with a bunch of strangers. I don't know why, but I don't feel that way. I understand him completely, but I'm just different. Like on New Year's Day when I saw the Rose Parade float honoring organ donors and accompanied by recipients, I wanted Kyle's face on that balloon.

And then there was today. Another mail box surprise. I get a card addressed to Gearey but sent to my address. It's from the tissue & the eye bank people. It's a Save the Date card. For an annual donor remembrance. It says, "Invitation to follow."

Another event, I think. Should I bother to tell Gear?

And then I see the small calendar on the card.
There's a date circled with a red heart.
The event will be held on 13th of April.
Kyle will turn 23 on that day.

Except I'm supposed to say, "He would have been 23." We only count the years one actually completes, don't we. Yet I will have been his mother for 23 years on April 13th. His dying won't erase that. And he will be 23, except that he won't be here to party with us.

I wonder how many years I will be drawn to and fearful of the contents of the mailbox.

I just want my boy back.
I just want my boy back.
I just want my boy back.

Marking a Life

[kyle in Paris wearing dreads and anti-flag shirt, june 2004; is this at joan's family's home? this might be joan and her mother? who is taking the photo?]


gearey and i met at Advent Bronze & Granite and saw the marker. it is simple. dignified. tasteful. beautiful. we should go into the marker design business.

it will be delivered to Forest Lawn this week. then in "first come, first served" order, the marker will be placed on kyle's grave in the Abiding Love section. you won't have to search around or visit someone else by mistake any more.

gearey selected the quote, "It is a better thing to travel hopefully than to arrive." and miranda and i agreed wholeheartedly. by robert louis stevenson, my favorite poet as a child. i read child's garden of verses to the kids. last memorial day, when kyle was home, he patiently looked at my slides of Edinburgh, including a couple of the outside of Writers' Museum, where RLS and Sir Walter Scott and Robbie Burns are honored.

i was rummaging in ky's top drawer the other day. (of course i haven't gotten to the point of being able to sort his things yet.) in it were cards from gearey and i, including the ones which each held 1 of 2 pieces of a puzzle which, put together, held a promise of an airline ticket to a destination of kyle's choice. kyle was working hard at saving trip money and looking ahead to his travels.

i came across a letter gearey had sent kyle to one of his San Francisco addresses following kyle's trip to France in June of 2004. gearey posted it from Amsterdam. kyle had held onto it and even had it put away in his drawer. in it gearey wrote, "Taking off to a strange country, with only a passing acquaintance with a couple of people, not speaking a word of the language--all this completely on your own--took more than guts. It also took a deep and sincere desire to get out and experience the world on your own. This is an impulse I can definitely relate to, and I hope its just the first of a lifelong series of adventures. Nothing shapes the way you see the world like traveling through it."

the rest of the letter is equally wonderful. gear writes how proud he is of ky's accomplishments: finishing up his first year at college, finding his first apartment with andrew, getting a job to help support himself. over the next 3 years, kyle and gearey continued to get to know each other grown son to father, young man to man. they were at a good place when ky died.

although short, kyle's life enriched ours beyond measure. twenty two years of being our boy, of giving us love and laughter, of filling us with pride, of teaching us how to be better parents, of showing us what heart truly means.

we think kyle traveled well. won't it be wonderful if we all arrive at the same destination some day.