You can learn a lot about someone in 72 hours when you devote all your time and attention to be with them. That is what I had the privilege to do this past weekend after being invited to go camping with Carlos and his mom as they spent an annual gathering with her side of the family. Those of you that have followed the blogs by Gracie and me might remember Carlos is one of the fourth graders I student taught this past school year and the boy who opted to write Gracie a letter rather than making her a card with the rest of the class. He also is the student that lost his little brother in a tragic accident when he was hit and killed by a driver while riding his tricycle in front of his house.
I am not really the overnight outdoor type of guy. I like the comfort of my own bed, the indoor coolness my house provides on the hottest of days, meals that are made in the kitchen of that home, and the Misfits that share that home with me. You might remember how much I despise fishing but constantly get drug into doing it, mostly because I have friends who like to watch me squirm baiting hooks and catching fish. So why would I agree to camp outdoors, sleep in a tent, explore an island, and eat food made over a campfire? Because it was a pinky swear, and so far I have only ever broke one of them with Gracie.
"When I die Jett, when God tells me I am ready to start my journey with him, you cannot be sad. You have to be strong for my mommy and my daddy because they will need someone to help them remember all the fun times. And you cannot cry you know, because if you do, I will see you, you know."
I wanted to keep all of our pinky promises because I loved Gracie that much and I did not want to let her down. It was just too difficult, just as I cannot stop being sad and cry because I miss Joey and wish he did not have to leave me. I miss her, and I love her, and yes, I still cry when I lay down at night and think about how much I miss her. We literally have close to 100 pinky promises we made to each other, and if that is the only one I struggle to keep, I consider myself doing pretty darn well.
I was reminded of another one of my pinky promises with Gracie when Carlos' mom called to invite me on their camping trip with them. She had told me that Carlos was wanting me to go with them so he could sleep in the tent, like he used to do with his little brother, Manny, each year they went.
"We should pinky promise that you will have fun with Carlos sometimes so he can have fun and his brother can watch from Heaven and be happy that Carlos is smiling and laughing."
So my answer s yes, and I was actually very excited to go on this mini camping trip. All week I had been thinking about what I would load my cooler with and what I would pack in our grocery bags with for Carlos and I. His mom had given us the go ahead on anything we wanted. Carlos was free to junk food binge with me and he had two rules only this weekend. One was to watch his language, and two was to respect others. I was good with that. Carlos had told me from his past experiences of sleeping in a tent to remember to bring a long sleeve shirt and long sweat bottoms to sleep in, because it gets cold at night when the sun goes down. The Thursday before the Friday we were to leave I took my junk list and headed to the store to fill up on soda's and treats. Rootbeer, Grape, Orange, Mt Dew and some juices. Twizzlers, peanuts, orange slices, circus peanuts, a mixture of off the wall junk candy. The makings for s'mores, Hostess cupcakes, packages of crackers, and a few other assorted junk cakes. A bag of ice for the cooler. Now all I had to do was pack my backpack and wait for Friday at 5pm when I was to pick up Carlos and his mom and head for the camp ground. This was exciting and I could only hope that Carlos was excited as I was.
Once we had loaded up all the food and camping gear when I got to Carlos', him, his mom and I headed off for the short drive to the camp grounds. We would be there by 7pm and when we arrived their extended family would be there, set up for the weekend and ready for 72 hours of non-stop fun. Carlos and I pitched our two man tent, loaded it up with our cooler of drinks and our bags of groceries which we stored in a cooler from Carlos' house, "so the bears don't smell our food", he told me. WHAT? What do you mean bears? And at that moment we enjoyed our first of many laughs for the weekend.
I had no agenda for the time I would spend with Carlos and his family. This was his weekend, and his family was familiar with this area so he would know what he would want to do. He already knew I was up for anything he had planned, with the exception of getting bit by snakes, eaten by a bear, or sprayed by a skunk. I would put these next three days into his hands and whatever I walked away with from this bonding camp trip would be all bonus.
The relationship we were building on this summer was a bit non-existent outside of the classroom environment. We had bonded a bit with the death of his brother Manny, and my friend Gracie. Even that bond was weak as far as details went, but I was sure to get closer to Carlos heart then when we first pulled out of his driveway early evening on Friday.
We spent the first hour with his family, him greeting them and his mom introducing me to them. I figured I was going to have to make a lot of assumptions not knowing the family history of Carlos and the very first one I made was that Carlos was by years the youngest of his cousins, and the only male. I could see how he would want another guy this weekend to hang with, after all these girls were surely not going to want to hunker down and get dirty and binge on so much sugar we were sure to melt if we hit water.
Carlos taught me a lot on this weekend get-a-way from pitching a tent to walking quietly around the camp ground in efforts to sneak up and scare the comfort right out of the adult relatives of his. I was excited to learn how to pitch a tent and cannot wait to impress my 5 year old nephew with my new found skill. He's been trying to get me to sleep in his tent since Papa Jake bought him one. I learned so much more this weekend then just things regarding camping. Sure all that was exciting and fun and I got to live it from the perspective of a soon to be fifth grader. I've found out quickly how much more fun and exciting things are through the eyes of a child. Not just with Carlos, but with my nephews and nieces as well, and I cannot leave out Gracie, who taught me so much about my faith then I thought I ever needed to know.
Because Carlos and I were up late into the overnight we would nap and lounge around during the day when the sun was at its hottest. This allowed us to get to know more about each other. Our fears, our dreams, our goals. The things we had in common, and the things that made us different. I had already decided I was not going to push Carlos into any conversations but would engage myself in anything he wanted to share. It wasn't long before he was talking about his brother who had died tragically after being hit by a car. Carlos started to share with me all the things he missed about his brother being gone.
"He was my best friend even though he was my brother."
"We always played outside together and had lots of fun."
"We would fight sometimes, but mostly we got a long good."
"It was fun teaching my brother things and helping him learn lots."
Endless talk about how much he loved his brother and how much he misses his brother. Thoughts about where his brother might be now and if he is in pain. Questions about heaven and how that works when you get to heaven. A bit of anger about how this could be allowed to happen to him and his mother. I just listened for as long as he needed to talk. I remained quiet as he spoke, but my mind was reeling with memories of how much I missed Joey. Listening to Carlos was like reliving those days. The things he was saying were almost identical to the things I had gone through in my mind after Joey died. I still hold on to many of those questions that are still not answered. I thought about how Carlos was eight when his brother died and I was 14 when Joey died. How I am soon to be 20 and I still miss him terrible. I think about how long Carlos has to go in his efforts to understand such a sad time in his life. I feel bad for him, knowing that the sadness never really leaves you, you just learn how to continue on without that buddy that got taken away so quickly.
Carlos goes quiet and I ask him if he is OK? He shakes his head yes, but him and I both know, this is not going to go away anytime soon. I took the next few moments to express to Carlos how I share many of those same thoughts. The whys of it all, the what ifs of it all. We talked about those feelings for a bit before we decided we should chug on some soda's and dig into our sinful cooler full of the awesome foods only allowed on rare occasions like family gatherings and holidays and treat days at school. We were full of junk food the to point of over flowing belly's. We kicked back on our air mattresses inside the two man tent that held our coolers of deliciousness. We both drifted off, quietly, probably each of us thinking about the sadness we carried in our hearts. When we woke up, it was time to join his family for some campfire cooking. "Hurry and eat", he would tell me, "we have lots to do!"
It was a great 72 hours of fun and we fit so much exploring and food into it the weekend seemed to be here and gone before we knew it. It was Monday and we had eaten lunch and decided to rest up inside our tent, finishing off what soda and snacks we could. I pulled out my backpack and took out a journal I had brought with me. I opened it up on one of the coolers and begin to write a few thoughts down regarding this trip. Inside my backpack was another journal, one I had bought to give to Carlos if I felt the timing was right. It was a camouflage journal with a pen that was red, white and blue. I was unsure if I would give it to Carlos but when he came over and sat down next to me and looked at my journal I thought this might work out after all. He was questioning about my journal and when I told him this was "our" journal, the journal of the journey of Carlos and Jett, his eyes lit up a bit.
I explained to him that I am a writer, an aspiring journalist who someday would like to share my journey on earth with others. I explained that my journals are my story and it is a way for me to not only capture my thoughts but to also learn more about myself. I explained that I had well over 100 journals that I have written in or am still writing in. How I have a journal for each person in my life that I felt has gotten me further along in my faith, and my goal of getting to someday walk with Jesus when this journey has ended. My very first journal was the one I wrote in after Joey died. How I decided that I needed to be able to express myself openly without someone offering me some sort of comfort. That after he died, everyone had advice for me and told me do not cry, or do not be angry. How they would tell me I need to accept he is gone, and move on. So I decided that one thing that would not talk back, try to comfort me, or try to convince my sadness was holding me back from having fun and moving on, was me, talking to me.
I started to write messages to myself on individual pieces of paper. I liked that I could write down anything I wanted and my journal could not talk back to me. It became a better listener to me then the people around me trying to comfort me. The first Christmas after Joey died, when I had already moved to Boston, my brother gave me a journal and a pen. I often take that journal out and read it, and compare my feelings then to my feelings now. I told Carlos how it just snowballed from that point on and here I am almost 6 years later and I have over 100 journals. Some became so full I had to start a volume 2 to keep up with myself.
I explained to Carlos that I just did not journal the great times in my life, that I also wrote down things when I was sad, or angry, or confused, about the things happening to me. I explained that there are times when I take out my "Me talking to Me" journal just to write a message to myself, because sometimes, you just want someone to listen, and not offer any advice, or try to fix you.
Carlos was listening to me now, as I had been listening to him all weekend. I grabbed my back pack and pulled out the little gift I had brought for him. I asked him if he felt he might like to try starting a journal, where he could write his feelings down, and just get it out of his mind without having anyone offer him advice or comfort of how they think he should be dealing, or what he should be feeling. He gladly accepted this gift and moved back over to his end of the tent, pulling the second cooler closer to him and right then and there he begin his first journal.
We spent the last hour together in that tent, quietly writing in our journals. I have no idea what Carlos was writing but he was working away dutifully. I watched him as he shut his journal and put it along with his pen into his back pack. I put my things away as well. We loaded up the truck, broke down the tent and loaded that up as well. We said our goodbyes to Carlo's family and hit the road for the short ride back to our homes. I dropped Carlos and his mom off at their house, unloaded their things and thanked his mom for inviting me to join them, and I thanked Carlos for everything he taught me in the past three days. A knuckle bump and a hug and I would climb back in my truck and head for home.
I sat in their driveway for a few minutes to reflex on my relaxing, no worries weekend with my newest little friend. I buckled up my seat belt and was about to turn my engine when I heard a little knock on my driver side window. I looked, it was Carlos. I put the window down to hear what Carlos had to say.
"Thanks for the nice weekend Jett, I'm glad you didn't get eaten by a bear." Two of the biggest smiles in the world were now looking at one another. "It was fun Carlos, I will call you in a couple weeks and maybe we can go see a show. Oh, and yeah, I'm pretty stoked I didn't get eaten by a bear."
I drove off looking back in my rear few mirror. I would come back this way again very soon, and hopefully I would help make fun memories for Carols to write in his journal and many things to add to my newest journal, "The Adventures of Carlos and Jett".
I am not really the overnight outdoor type of guy. I like the comfort of my own bed, the indoor coolness my house provides on the hottest of days, meals that are made in the kitchen of that home, and the Misfits that share that home with me. You might remember how much I despise fishing but constantly get drug into doing it, mostly because I have friends who like to watch me squirm baiting hooks and catching fish. So why would I agree to camp outdoors, sleep in a tent, explore an island, and eat food made over a campfire? Because it was a pinky swear, and so far I have only ever broke one of them with Gracie.
I wanted to keep all of our pinky promises because I loved Gracie that much and I did not want to let her down. It was just too difficult, just as I cannot stop being sad and cry because I miss Joey and wish he did not have to leave me. I miss her, and I love her, and yes, I still cry when I lay down at night and think about how much I miss her. We literally have close to 100 pinky promises we made to each other, and if that is the only one I struggle to keep, I consider myself doing pretty darn well.
I was reminded of another one of my pinky promises with Gracie when Carlos' mom called to invite me on their camping trip with them. She had told me that Carlos was wanting me to go with them so he could sleep in the tent, like he used to do with his little brother, Manny, each year they went.
"We should pinky promise that you will have fun with Carlos sometimes so he can have fun and his brother can watch from Heaven and be happy that Carlos is smiling and laughing."
So my answer s yes, and I was actually very excited to go on this mini camping trip. All week I had been thinking about what I would load my cooler with and what I would pack in our grocery bags with for Carlos and I. His mom had given us the go ahead on anything we wanted. Carlos was free to junk food binge with me and he had two rules only this weekend. One was to watch his language, and two was to respect others. I was good with that. Carlos had told me from his past experiences of sleeping in a tent to remember to bring a long sleeve shirt and long sweat bottoms to sleep in, because it gets cold at night when the sun goes down. The Thursday before the Friday we were to leave I took my junk list and headed to the store to fill up on soda's and treats. Rootbeer, Grape, Orange, Mt Dew and some juices. Twizzlers, peanuts, orange slices, circus peanuts, a mixture of off the wall junk candy. The makings for s'mores, Hostess cupcakes, packages of crackers, and a few other assorted junk cakes. A bag of ice for the cooler. Now all I had to do was pack my backpack and wait for Friday at 5pm when I was to pick up Carlos and his mom and head for the camp ground. This was exciting and I could only hope that Carlos was excited as I was.
Once we had loaded up all the food and camping gear when I got to Carlos', him, his mom and I headed off for the short drive to the camp grounds. We would be there by 7pm and when we arrived their extended family would be there, set up for the weekend and ready for 72 hours of non-stop fun. Carlos and I pitched our two man tent, loaded it up with our cooler of drinks and our bags of groceries which we stored in a cooler from Carlos' house, "so the bears don't smell our food", he told me. WHAT? What do you mean bears? And at that moment we enjoyed our first of many laughs for the weekend.
I had no agenda for the time I would spend with Carlos and his family. This was his weekend, and his family was familiar with this area so he would know what he would want to do. He already knew I was up for anything he had planned, with the exception of getting bit by snakes, eaten by a bear, or sprayed by a skunk. I would put these next three days into his hands and whatever I walked away with from this bonding camp trip would be all bonus.
The relationship we were building on this summer was a bit non-existent outside of the classroom environment. We had bonded a bit with the death of his brother Manny, and my friend Gracie. Even that bond was weak as far as details went, but I was sure to get closer to Carlos heart then when we first pulled out of his driveway early evening on Friday.
We spent the first hour with his family, him greeting them and his mom introducing me to them. I figured I was going to have to make a lot of assumptions not knowing the family history of Carlos and the very first one I made was that Carlos was by years the youngest of his cousins, and the only male. I could see how he would want another guy this weekend to hang with, after all these girls were surely not going to want to hunker down and get dirty and binge on so much sugar we were sure to melt if we hit water.
Carlos taught me a lot on this weekend get-a-way from pitching a tent to walking quietly around the camp ground in efforts to sneak up and scare the comfort right out of the adult relatives of his. I was excited to learn how to pitch a tent and cannot wait to impress my 5 year old nephew with my new found skill. He's been trying to get me to sleep in his tent since Papa Jake bought him one. I learned so much more this weekend then just things regarding camping. Sure all that was exciting and fun and I got to live it from the perspective of a soon to be fifth grader. I've found out quickly how much more fun and exciting things are through the eyes of a child. Not just with Carlos, but with my nephews and nieces as well, and I cannot leave out Gracie, who taught me so much about my faith then I thought I ever needed to know.
Because Carlos and I were up late into the overnight we would nap and lounge around during the day when the sun was at its hottest. This allowed us to get to know more about each other. Our fears, our dreams, our goals. The things we had in common, and the things that made us different. I had already decided I was not going to push Carlos into any conversations but would engage myself in anything he wanted to share. It wasn't long before he was talking about his brother who had died tragically after being hit by a car. Carlos started to share with me all the things he missed about his brother being gone.
"He was my best friend even though he was my brother."
"We always played outside together and had lots of fun."
"We would fight sometimes, but mostly we got a long good."
"It was fun teaching my brother things and helping him learn lots."
Endless talk about how much he loved his brother and how much he misses his brother. Thoughts about where his brother might be now and if he is in pain. Questions about heaven and how that works when you get to heaven. A bit of anger about how this could be allowed to happen to him and his mother. I just listened for as long as he needed to talk. I remained quiet as he spoke, but my mind was reeling with memories of how much I missed Joey. Listening to Carlos was like reliving those days. The things he was saying were almost identical to the things I had gone through in my mind after Joey died. I still hold on to many of those questions that are still not answered. I thought about how Carlos was eight when his brother died and I was 14 when Joey died. How I am soon to be 20 and I still miss him terrible. I think about how long Carlos has to go in his efforts to understand such a sad time in his life. I feel bad for him, knowing that the sadness never really leaves you, you just learn how to continue on without that buddy that got taken away so quickly.
Carlos goes quiet and I ask him if he is OK? He shakes his head yes, but him and I both know, this is not going to go away anytime soon. I took the next few moments to express to Carlos how I share many of those same thoughts. The whys of it all, the what ifs of it all. We talked about those feelings for a bit before we decided we should chug on some soda's and dig into our sinful cooler full of the awesome foods only allowed on rare occasions like family gatherings and holidays and treat days at school. We were full of junk food the to point of over flowing belly's. We kicked back on our air mattresses inside the two man tent that held our coolers of deliciousness. We both drifted off, quietly, probably each of us thinking about the sadness we carried in our hearts. When we woke up, it was time to join his family for some campfire cooking. "Hurry and eat", he would tell me, "we have lots to do!"
It was a great 72 hours of fun and we fit so much exploring and food into it the weekend seemed to be here and gone before we knew it. It was Monday and we had eaten lunch and decided to rest up inside our tent, finishing off what soda and snacks we could. I pulled out my backpack and took out a journal I had brought with me. I opened it up on one of the coolers and begin to write a few thoughts down regarding this trip. Inside my backpack was another journal, one I had bought to give to Carlos if I felt the timing was right. It was a camouflage journal with a pen that was red, white and blue. I was unsure if I would give it to Carlos but when he came over and sat down next to me and looked at my journal I thought this might work out after all. He was questioning about my journal and when I told him this was "our" journal, the journal of the journey of Carlos and Jett, his eyes lit up a bit.
I explained to him that I am a writer, an aspiring journalist who someday would like to share my journey on earth with others. I explained that my journals are my story and it is a way for me to not only capture my thoughts but to also learn more about myself. I explained that I had well over 100 journals that I have written in or am still writing in. How I have a journal for each person in my life that I felt has gotten me further along in my faith, and my goal of getting to someday walk with Jesus when this journey has ended. My very first journal was the one I wrote in after Joey died. How I decided that I needed to be able to express myself openly without someone offering me some sort of comfort. That after he died, everyone had advice for me and told me do not cry, or do not be angry. How they would tell me I need to accept he is gone, and move on. So I decided that one thing that would not talk back, try to comfort me, or try to convince my sadness was holding me back from having fun and moving on, was me, talking to me.
I started to write messages to myself on individual pieces of paper. I liked that I could write down anything I wanted and my journal could not talk back to me. It became a better listener to me then the people around me trying to comfort me. The first Christmas after Joey died, when I had already moved to Boston, my brother gave me a journal and a pen. I often take that journal out and read it, and compare my feelings then to my feelings now. I told Carlos how it just snowballed from that point on and here I am almost 6 years later and I have over 100 journals. Some became so full I had to start a volume 2 to keep up with myself.
I explained to Carlos that I just did not journal the great times in my life, that I also wrote down things when I was sad, or angry, or confused, about the things happening to me. I explained that there are times when I take out my "Me talking to Me" journal just to write a message to myself, because sometimes, you just want someone to listen, and not offer any advice, or try to fix you.
Carlos was listening to me now, as I had been listening to him all weekend. I grabbed my back pack and pulled out the little gift I had brought for him. I asked him if he felt he might like to try starting a journal, where he could write his feelings down, and just get it out of his mind without having anyone offer him advice or comfort of how they think he should be dealing, or what he should be feeling. He gladly accepted this gift and moved back over to his end of the tent, pulling the second cooler closer to him and right then and there he begin his first journal.
We spent the last hour together in that tent, quietly writing in our journals. I have no idea what Carlos was writing but he was working away dutifully. I watched him as he shut his journal and put it along with his pen into his back pack. I put my things away as well. We loaded up the truck, broke down the tent and loaded that up as well. We said our goodbyes to Carlo's family and hit the road for the short ride back to our homes. I dropped Carlos and his mom off at their house, unloaded their things and thanked his mom for inviting me to join them, and I thanked Carlos for everything he taught me in the past three days. A knuckle bump and a hug and I would climb back in my truck and head for home.
I sat in their driveway for a few minutes to reflex on my relaxing, no worries weekend with my newest little friend. I buckled up my seat belt and was about to turn my engine when I heard a little knock on my driver side window. I looked, it was Carlos. I put the window down to hear what Carlos had to say.
"Thanks for the nice weekend Jett, I'm glad you didn't get eaten by a bear." Two of the biggest smiles in the world were now looking at one another. "It was fun Carlos, I will call you in a couple weeks and maybe we can go see a show. Oh, and yeah, I'm pretty stoked I didn't get eaten by a bear."
I drove off looking back in my rear few mirror. I would come back this way again very soon, and hopefully I would help make fun memories for Carols to write in his journal and many things to add to my newest journal, "The Adventures of Carlos and Jett".
