gift

things you might need if you know a twelve year old boy:
http://www.adoptashark.com/
http://www.superherosupplies.com/
http://www.howtomakevampireteeth.com/

you haven't met my doppelganger, have you? says the original supernatural nephew and i tell him maybe i have. the nephew turned twelve two days ago and we have been talking back and forth on the phone about a boy i know, another twelve year old, who is not at all happy with the way things are going all around him. he is a boy i met a few weeks back at school when he was being suspended for a variety of offenses, some of which involved saying very ugly things to quite a few people. his first words to me were leave me alone!

i spend my days with high school kids. squirrels, yes, but older squirrels. fourteen, fifteen. even a nineteen year old or two. i do not come across so many twelve year old boys in my day. i don't know what to do for such strange creatures, so i go to the source. i call the nephew. and if you know him, you already know what the conversations are like. if you don't, you probably ought to be sure you're sitting down before you read on. the original supernatural nephew is exactly that. he is not in any way regular. and that is what makes him worth knowing.

he listens to what i have to say, to my worries. he takes the call seriously. he is, after all, the only expert on twelve year old boys i know. he makes suggestions, rolls them over out loud, searching for the best ones. this is a good one. this one might be too babyish. this one will work with any twelve year old boy who feels angry or frustrated. it turns out he and the boy at my school share a love of sharks and vampires and he has plenty of suggestions about how to help the kid understand we have the same goals using what he loves as an ice breaker. and this is what i expect. i have known him for twelve years, after all. he is a smart kid to begin with and i know his capacity for kindness is endless. this is no surprise.

but the next time we talk, he asks about the boy. it turns out things have improved and i say so. but the nephew is smart enough to know the struggles of a twelve year old boy are endless and there will be good times and then more bad times and that when you are twelve, it takes work for the good times to win out. he offers more suggestions, asks about decisions adults have made on the child's behalf. he knows the world is larger than just his own choices.

on his birthday i call the nephew to wish him well and to tell him his gift, difficult to wrangle, will arrive a few days later. he listens patiently, then asks about the boy. and they are alike here, too. they are both acutely aware of the suffering of others and both want very much to fix any little bit of that they can. they are dogged in their pursuit of making things right and fair. the nephew knows what he has. not just the good parents and safe home and the piles of books and abundance of toys. he knows that he has an impressive mind and a committed heart and he knows those things together require a different sort of responsibility. he knows some people will not know to work as hard as he will to make the world better and this may sometimes frustrate him but it will not change his course because he is always looking around him and he is always thinking about what is out there.

so today when he calls to tell me he got his present we chat about it a little and he asks about the boy. i don't see the boy very often but i know things are less awful for him and i know things are still changing so that is what i say. the nephew offers things. his own things. actual objects that are his that he thinks might be of comfort to this child he does not know at all. because he knows enough about how this boy feels to want the child to have things that helped when he felt the way twelve year old boys sometimes do.

and i am so glad i called to ask his advice. not just because it has been helpful. not just because it shows me that he is thoughtful and self-aware, qualities rare among twelve year old boys. i am glad because it is a wonderful gift to hear his mind work on a problem, weigh options, offer suggestions. it is a gift to hear him think.