Diamond heart

He began chucking rocks into the creek and Lily barked at them loyally, as if shaking her fist -- "and stay away!" I listened to the splashes of the rocks he was pitching, aiming at other rocks, or at unseen enemies, creation and destruction in the same breath. I heard the knock of one stone hitting another, and fingered the diamond heart he gave me that I wear on a thin gold chain around my neck. He bought it for me last Christmas, at the Mervyn's Holiday Sale. A few days before Christmas, he thrust the box at me. I turned away from it, because I wanted to wait till Christmas, but he ripped the wrapping paper off, and then opened the box for me. There was a small gold heart studded with diamonds, the exact piece of jewelry I had always wanted. He watched me with enormous pride and pleasure. "One hundred fifty-nine dollars at Mervyn's, Mom," he said, proudly, and added, "Retail."

I asked a friend of mine who practices a spiritual path called Diamond Heart to explain the name recently, because I instinctively know that Sam and I both have, or are, diamond hearts. My friend said our hearts are like diamonds because they have the capacity to express divine light, which is love; we are not only portals for this love, but are actually made of it. She says we are made of light, our hearts faceted and shining, and I absolutely believe this, to a point: Where I disagree is when she says we are beings of light wrapped in bodies that only seem dense and ponderous, but are actually made of atoms and molecules, with infinite space and light in between them. It must be easy for her to believe this, as she is thin, and does not have children. But I can meet her halfway: I think we are diamond hearts, wrapped in meatballs.

I would call my path Diamond Meatball: We would comfort and uplift one another by saying, "There's a diamond in there somewhere."

Still, on better days, I see us as light in containers, like those pierced tin lanterns that always rust, that let the candlelight shine out in beautiful snowflake patterns.

Sam raced ahead of me, and then slowed down, looking back to gloat at the distance he'd put behind me. He's very competitive, like me. Then he waved nicely, and went on. Oh, Sam: I worry that I was either too strict, or not strict enough. I'm not quite sure which. I've given him a lot of freedom -- he can take public transportation all over the county -- but I was also strict about manners, and church. You have to contain children, or you ruin them, and no one will ever want you to come visit again. But they go ballistic when their unfettered spirit feels constricted and picked on by horrible you. They like you less, but if you don't do it, it wounds them. "You shouldn't have even had children," they'll say with contempt. They'll comment on your clothes or butt, in public, and your hair, or your grooming. One day while standing in line at the movies, when Sam was 12 or so, I found him staring at me, judgmentally.

"What?" I asked.

He said, "When you got dreadlocks, you made a commitment to keep them groomed. But you've let them get all fuzzy."

It's such a mixed grill of sweet and nourishing and intolerable, sort of like life. You and your bright bonnie child walk hand in hand to the park, and then while sitting on a bench, you see his delight in hurting another kid. They go right for the vulnerability in other kids, ganging up on the weakest one, ditching or snatching things away. The very thing that makes them spontaneous and immediate also makes them monstrous. Life is not what one had in mind; it's not the TV sitcoms or the commercials, or the photo of the Sudan baby. It's punishing. It make you want to punish back.

There are times when Sam is so mouthy that all I can do is pray for a sense of humor and absurdity, even the size of a mustard seed. Otherwise, I look at C's on progress reports, and see him at 30 taking orders at Taco Bell. If, with his handwriting, he could even get that job. Or he gets sent home from school for participating in a mud fight, and I think, Tim McVeigh. Or I realize, I don't like this child, I shouldn't have had kids, and it's all hopeless. All I can do is pray: HELP!

Next Page: Sam is a swirl of every age he's ever been, like cotton candy, like the Milky Way

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