Joshua

In the beginning, there was indifference. There were two people who had absolutely no understanding of each other. This woman was wounded, damaged, mad. This man never once attempted to understand why, or how. In their home, this caused a tempest in a teapot. This home was my home. In my formative years, I was never allowed the privilege of empathy. My days consisted of madness and alcoholism and infidelity and anger and fear and disappointment. What I learned from my father are the things I seek today of total antithesis. I remember knowing at a very young age that I would never marry a man like this. What I learned from my mother are the things I attempt to be keenly aware of. Things like addiction, and the understanding that all things that temporarily ease your pain are a privilege and the abuse of that privilege will inevitably lead to addiction. I learned to also always be keenly aware of mental illness. There are many things I learned from growing up in my little house of horrors that I espouse in my present and everyday life, however, they are perpetually attached to nightmarish memories. For instance, I intentionally and with much forethought raised my daughter completely the opposite of the way I was raised. One of the most important things I learned from my experience in Hell House is how to judge people almost immediately. As I am a writer, I would never advise judging a book by it's cover, so that is not what I mean. I was gifted with incredible intuition, more than likely from my mother, so this is a tool I utilize often in my people selection process. This is, however, but one of the many tools at my disposal. I feel very strongly that after the lousy hand I was dealt in regards to family, I deserve to have good people in my life. Thank God I'm at that place in my life where I get to choose them. This is how I perpetuate this: I will meet someone and pay close attention to my first reaction to them. Usually, due to my ability to gauge a person immediately with aforementioned intuition, I will either fall in love at first sight or not care if I ever see you again. My next step involves the close observation of the person. For me, it doesn't really matter if you've gone to college or drive a fancy car. I am the one paying attention to the way you deal with your people. For instance, a huge turn on for me is your ability to love deeply, protect fiercely, share your knowledge because you want me to know what you know. After a little time collecting my data, I will usually feel comfortable enough to ask you for your advocacy. Yes, I suppose this is a sort of test, but I have no choice but to need to know that the people in my life will have my back, as this is something I lacked, considerably as a child. There are some people I have let in my life that have passed this test so exponentially, that I remember every moment in the advocacy as if it were a movie I am watching over and over. 
A few years ago, when my beloved yellow Lab died in my arms, I called my best friend. I cannot begin to describe my unabashed agony in the loss of my soul mate. My best friend listened to my tears, and then he suggested I return to my hometown to be with my daughter and her family, purchased my plane ticket, and wired $1000 to my bank account. This is the only person I will ever trust with my advance directive. He is beautiful and strong and faithful to our friendship to the ends of the earth. He has earned my trust and my loyalty, and most of all my love. There is nothing I will not do for this man, as long as I live. And by the way, it was love at first sight for me. I even fought my husband for a very long time for this friendship. As much as I loved my husband, I told him flat out, I will NOT give up this friendship. Over thirteen years later, he is still my best friend, my husband, however, is now my ex-husband.
So, here in lies the other part of people selection process. Many of my people are simply a gift. I believe these gifts have been given me as a sort of compensation for the evil I was born unto. I have always seen my daughter in my head. I knew what she would look like and that she would be my daughter. One day, at University of Houston, I was hanging out in the quad and I see this man standing on the other side. Something inside me clicks and I walk over to introduce myself. We became friends and remained so for about a year. He was not someone I was extremely fond of or anything, but I was certain that he was supposed to be the father of my daughter. We finally consummated the relationship in March the following year and in December, my beautiful daughter was born. I have been so blessed by this child that I can hardly contain my emotion when I speak of her. My little gift slept all through the night from the first day I took her home. She has always been one of the strongest people I have ever known. She never got arrested as a teen, finished high school, and learned how to drive a car in my five-speed sports car.  In November of 2007, she gave me the greatest gift I have ever received-my grandson, Joshua. Joshua is one of those people, like my best friend, who loves with the greatest depth anyone has ever known. One night, while preparing dinner with my daughter, Josh came downstairs and trotted into the kitchen, "Hey, Mom, I just wanted to tell you that I love you", turned around and went back upstairs to his room. His creativity is even deeper than that of most men my age. Knowing that I am a writer, Joshua, one day proceeded to give me an amazing story involving a military action on an island with a volcano. "Make it into a movie, Gramma." He was four at the time. 
Joshua's beauty is obvious, both the inner and the outer. When he is runs to you and says, "My brother is being mean to me!", he's not saying it because he wants to get his brother in trouble. He's saying this because he is truly hurt by the meanness. Joshua wears his heart on his sleeve. His awareness of the world around him is stunning. He pays attention to everything, without ever missing a step. He observes. He is a pretty good judge of character, however, he will take his time to gauge the worthiness of you. If he deems you worthy of his love, he will never let you go. He is extremely smart. I have sat with him, going over his lessons and it is unbelievable to see him want so badly to learn from me, because he knows that will make me proud, and he does this because he loves me. In other words, it is not so that he can feel my pride, he does this because he knows that it will make ME happy. And all of the people he loves, he wants to make happy. To witness such a capacity to love and care in someone so young is utterly life affirming for me. My grandson has taught me that love is necessary and existent. 
Joshua is one of  eight (of my total of about twelve) loved ones born in November. It was my grandmother, who shares a birthday with Joshua, who took me out of my childhood hell. She had already raised twelve kids, but she took me into her arms, her heart and her home and re-taught me how to be a (functioning) member  of society. She was strong and secretive and had the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen. Of all of her grandchildren, and she had about fifty, it was I with whom she connected to the most. We had always understood each other on a metaphysical level and my grandmother knew empirically that I appreciated the depth of her love, protection and commitment to me and that was very, very important to her. I'm not exactly sure which way this has always gone for me, am I immediately drawn to people like her because I love her so much, or have we always loved each other so much because of said understanding? Perhaps it is a little of both.
My grandmother and my grandson are gifts of the Gods for me, because they are MY Scorpios. They have always belonged to and loved me, so I never really had to work that hard to get them to let me in. I am the one person on earth that my grandmother shared her long kept secrets with. The day she shared those secrets is another day I remember on a loop. It was a truly special day. Theirs is a love I was gifted with, and will always work to deserve, but a gift, none the less. My other Scorpios, I have had to work for. That's just how they are. But the payoff received from the work put in is so worth it. There is not one of them I would not lay down my life for, and vice-verse, I'm sure.
I could spend the rest of my life writing words and never be able to completely express the magnitude of the gift that my own grandson is one of these people. He is six years old today. I have the unequaled pleasure of watching a person with the greatest capacity to love there is, grow into a man, the kind of man I have fallen in love with at first sight, three times, who will protect and love my daughter to the ends of the earth. And I get to see the kind of love I never experienced as a child.
Certainly, this is the way in which one's life is balanced. The way in which we are rewarded for surviving the others.
My darling Joshua, you make up for all the indifference.

Happy birthday, my love...

-by Deannalynn Arzola