How perfect would it be if we could instead of looking at our past could look at our future and then learn to control our past?  If one could simply look ahead and not behind, if you could see what was coming, not what had already passed you by.  How then would life be?  Could you miss a car wreck, plan the perfect date, could you pick the winning lottery numbers.  Just think of all you could do.  Sadly though this is not how life is, yet in many moments of life, I wish it was.

It was a cool summer evening, my grandmother was busy in her room for hours talking to herself as she stood stoically in the mirror, changing her outfit at least 10 times and then reverting right back to the first set of clothes she started with.  Curlers in her hair and all kinds of weird fruity smells engulfing her body.  I was with Foxy just watching as my grandmother seemed more concerned with her lip paint then with the fact that her toes were separated in toilet paper, which we just did not understand.

My grandmother just kept saying to me over and over again, “Don’t fight with the babysitter, I need this night out.”  It was like she thought I didn’t hear her so she just kept repeating it and repeating it as she looked down at me with a look of pain and pleading.  Just a few days prior to this evening I had pulled off one of the most epic “Problem Child” moments.  You see at this point in my life I was not welcome at public schools and so I was forced to be home taught and babysat while my grandmother worked in the days.  I wasn’t a fan of this in any light and did all I could to share this opinion.

On Wednesday I had had enough of the teacher/babysitter and set a plan in motion to expel her from my home.  Through careful planning and exact timing I managed to get her to leave the house just for a moment, but before I did this I handsomely stole her keys to both her car and our home.  Once she was outside I simply locked all the doors, ensured the windows were locked, sat back and watched as she frantically searched for a new way into our home to no avail.  She was successfully expelled and I never saw her again.  Her among several other in house care givers lasted only for a few days and some even hours, as I managed to expel each of them one by one.

Yet this summer evening I felt something different, like a need to just let my grandmother have this evening out, that is until I saw why she was so methodically preparing for the evening.  Just moments after I had told myself I would comply with her wishes our door bell rang.  We had just moved into a new apartment, now no longer in my grandmothers fancy condo.  With all the outside battles grandmother was forced to quit her high roller job and take a job that was less intense and so we lived in a small 2 bedroom twin home with a small living room and an even smaller kitchen.  One bathroom and small hall that connected the house to the main door.  Getting around in the home took only but a second, yet once in your room you felt tucked away and secluded from the main entrance.

The door bell rang again, my grandmother still had all that toilet paper shoved in her toes and her hair was wrapped in a plastic tent.  She looked down at me, “His early!  Go to the door let him in and keep him in the living room.  I will be there is just a minute.”  I slowly got up, grabbed Foxy and headed to the door.  Before I opened the door I took a peek and saw the frame of a giant standing on the concrete porch.  He had to be at least 9 feet tall.  His arms were the size of my entire body and his legs were like trees with shoes on them.  His hands were ginormous and his head was the size of one of those pumpkins you saw on tv!  “Wow”, I thought to myself, who was this man and what did he want?

I carefully opened the door and then his voice came down from the clouds, “You must be Wesley,” he said with wind gusts nearly blowing me away.  “Is your grandmother here?”  I froze, just starring at his bulk wondering why my grandmother wanted this tree man in our home.  He wasn’t wearing anything special, no badges, not even a name tag.  Foxy didn’t seemed bothered by him, yet I just didn’t like him.  Something didn’t seem right and after what felt like hours I looked up past his inflated chest and replied, “No she left a few hours ago with some guy.”  With in seconds the man’s pumpkin head turned tomato red and his trees for legs, fell down off our porch.  His arms reaching for the sky and he turned, looked at me and then just walked away.

Done I thought, one less thing to worry about.  Just then my grandmother came out from her room, “Where’s Harvey?”  Harvey?  “He left,” I stated as I headed back to my room.  With in moments I heard the front door open and then slam.  Minutes passed and then what seemed like hours.  I climbed up on our couch, pried the curtains opened and watched as my grandmother spoke to the tree man and kept grabbing his hand.  Then he wrapped his couch sized arms around my grandmother, picked her up like she was a small teddy bear and they both started walking back to our front door.  Foxy and I quickly jumped down and headed for safety.

We darted to my room, past the kitchen and hiding back behind my grandmother’s flowery pasted bathroom wall.  I quickly closed my door and jumped into my bed. Thinking that if I just could get to sleep I would avoid any trouble and escape what was surly to become one of those long parent talks.  I failed miserably and standing above me was my grandmother and behind her that giant tree.  Foxy squeezed out of my room and headed for safety.  My grandmother pulled back my covers, looked me in the eyes and said, “Wesley this is Harvey.”

Thats it?  You tell me the tree man’s name and we’re done?  A small tear filled my grandmother’s eye.  She popped up, “I will be gone for the evening your sitter is here, I will see you in the morning.”  With that she turn to the door, flipped my light off and left.  I just laid there motionless wondering why I got off so easy.  I had obviously not only irritated my grandmother, but had shown this ‘Harvey‘ what a little brat I could be.  Moments after my grandmother left my babysitter came in, handed me my ‘candies’, a glass of water and then exited just as my grandmother had.  After this I laid on my bed and felt my eyes become heavy as they closed for the day.

It wouldn’t be until years later that I understood what the tear in my grandmother’s eye meant and why she cried that night.  In the short time I had been with her, I had exhausted her and that night I had helped her realize that she couldn’t help me on her own.

The above all sounds like a common little prank, yet it is an example of what I was doing and who I was becoming.  The ‘candies’ only seemed to help me forget, not manage my past.  The doctors and weekly meetings just gave me a place to play with legos and talk about my fits.  My anger, hate, fear and pain was no longer child like.  I was showing the world that I was in control, I would have the final word.  I would do what I wanted to do and nothing could or would stop me.  No one would have control over me and no one would have the power to hurt me ever again.  Yet I was as wrong and as powerless then as any other time in my young life.  My out of control behavior only made my life that much more out of control.

If I knew that night what the next 12 years of my life would be like I know I would have handle Harvey so much differently and shown my grandmother a new side to me.  As it stood Harvey would become a part of my life and would control more then I could have ever imagined.

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