Ode to Joy/Jay

Today, we celebrate the life of my brother Jay. Jay, who will always be a boy, and now always a man. He is made up of contradictions: the dual desires of his four year old and twenty-one year old selves together in one brain, the Jay who shaves and takes cholesterol medicine and the Jay who wants a child’s bedtime story about visiting the fire station. But there is joy.

I remember the first time he embarrassed me, and it goes back earlier than you might think. We were at the mall, my mom, myself, and Jay, still in a stroller. The sales ladies thought my mother was his grandmother (which annoyed her) and that I was some unwed teen mom (I was 16) with a child of a different color. I explained, many times over, “He’s my adopted brother.” And I still say it. That was way before we knew he was different. Way before. I spent a lot of years praying for his brain to be healed, but maybe he has never needed such a thing. Perhaps it’s the rest of us who needed healing and understanding, those of us who thought that to be a whole person, one must be able to read, drive, hold a job, cook one’s own supper. Many years were spent apologizing for Jay, and being embarrassed by him. But I learned.

Today, Jay has friends apart from his family and those who are paid to take care of him. He is a whole person. I am not embarrassed by him. Today, his friend the policeman will take him for a drive in his squad car, just because he likes Jay for who he is. This is something Jay has always dreamed of – not only riding in a squad car, but being a real policeman with a police dog. I’m delighted that he has the opportunity for this experience, and more delighted that it’s because Jay is loved, and not because we asked the policeman for a favor – it was given from a friend to a friend, on his birthday. Those bittersweet times, when it slaps me in the face that Jay can enjoy something like a ride in a squad car (in his own eBay-bought uniform and pretend badge) – he can enjoy it for today, but he can never be a real policeman – the bittersweet is gradually losing the bitter and becoming only sweet. Today we will gather for a party, and it won’t just be family. The guests won’t be people who are coming out of obligation, but his friends who love him. Much like my five year old son, whose birthday party this year was the first time his friends were invited, Jay has friends now, too. Those friends will joyfully put on their toy police badges and plastic handcuffs and shower Jay with his favorite things (cologne and watches), and ride bumper cars with him and generally act like kids, all because they love him.

I often hear how much Jay inspires others with his exuberance, his optimism, his pure joy for so many things. He is charming, witty, friendly, sincere, and I’ve seen him as the life of the party. And at almost 21, he is still learning, becoming more skilled in living and more articulate all the time – I can’t help but think that his many friends are teaching him with every interaction. It’s pervasive development disorder – delays in learning, not a cessation of learning. Although his progress is slow, it has become less important in the grand scheme of things, because I see that he has so much joy and brings so much joy to others – as he is.