A pear and a bear

My step-son is a bit of a prickly pear. His name is Benjamin, and for the six years I’ve known him, his glass has been half empty.

I have difficulty with prickly pears. I’m the kind of employee bosses describe as having a cheerful demeanor, positive attitude, and can-do spirit. I’m not kidding. These are the phrases that pepper my performance appraisals from years’ past, and I sure as heck wasn’t working as a Disney guide. I am just this way.

Toss me into the ring with a prickly pear, and I shift into cruise director mode. “Let’s go bike riding!” “I’ll make you a dinner so delish you can’t help but grin!” “Want to go to EPCOT???”

My parents should have named me Pipi.

Benjamin attends a university that takes a four-week winter break. That alone would turn my smile upside down, but not so for our boy. Although the University of Eastern New Mexico has poor food, weak instructors, and below average students (Benjamin’s assessments), he longs to return.

Two weeks into his visit with us, and I’d about given up on recruiting Benjamin to my happy tribe. Instead, I busied myself with holiday plans and skulked around the house to avoid unpleasant conversation. I counted the days remaining.

Kennedy marched in my front door about a week ago. I said, “Kennedy! This is Benjamin. He is a very nice young man, and you will love him.”

Benjamin mumbled, “I wouldn’t talk it up quite that much.”

Kennedy put her hands on her hips, looked him up and down, and headed off in search of other trouble.

That day, we had a full house: eight adults, a teenager, Kennedy, her baby sister, and a very large dog. As has been his habit throughout his visit, Benjamin mostly retreated to the upstairs loft, only coming down for human contact when he was hungry or bored.

Kennedy wasn’t having it. Every so often, she’d look up from her book, toy, movie, or conversation, scrunch up her wee face, and ask, “Where’s Benjamin? Let’s go find him. Is he upstairs? Let’s go upstairs.”

Eventually, she decided his name didn’t suit him at all, and she began calling him Benja-bear. “Where’s Benja-bear? I want to see Benja-bear.”

When the time came for her and her parents and her baby sister to go, we all gathered in the foyer for good-byes. I asked Kennedy if she would give hugs, please, as Gramma loves her Kennedy hugs as much as anything on earth. She pursed her lips and looked at the circle of tall people gathered around her.

She launched herself at Benjamin’s thigh and said, “G’bye, Bear.”

I hardly knew what to make of this. Benjamin didn’t outright rebuff her, but no smiles were forthcoming, that’s for dang sure.

Someone once told me that children are drawn to affection. They want attention, warmth, and encouragement.

Benjamin wasn’t offering these gifts to Kennedy or anyone else that day. So why did my baby girl seek him out? Why did she choose to give him her only hug, the one person who would not kneel down to return it?

It would be sweet and easy for me to say that God wanted to give a bit of warmth to our prickly pear, for He is not put off by grumpiness.

Could be.

Or maybe Kennedy recognized something in Benjamin that we all share, a kind of dissatisfaction with the world and our lot in it. For truly, in spite of my affinity for cinnamon tea and happy endings, there’s much in this world I despise. I don’t get why some people are so goddamn mean, or why addicts choose destruction when beauty is right under their freaking noses, or why we (and I mean me) don’t mind so much that two-thirds of the people on our planet live in squalor.

Frankly, there’s a lot to be angry about. Really angry. One might even say “prickly.”

Here’s something I believe: the very youngest among us are the most spiritually sensitive. I believe this so strongly that every time I hold Brooklyn, I whisper, “Hey, you. I know you were hanging out with God just a couple of months ago. Please tell me … tell me everything.”

Kennedy nick-naming Benjamin? Her insistence on keeping him nearby? Her knock-him-over hug?

I think her little self, the one who so recently ran in the fields of eternity, was saying, “Bro, I get it. There’s so much suckiness. But, hey, let’s tough it out together.”

Melissa, here’s an idea. Bear the burdens of the people I’ve given you to love. This is a good plan, My plan. It doesn’t take a lot—your presence, a laugh, an endearment. You can still play with your toys and read your books and watch your movies. But make sure that your tribe is intact. When you forget how this works? Watch Kennedy. (Galatians 6:2)