THEY
LEFT—AND WE CRIED
A year ago I never would have guessed
it would end this way—that two families, strangers to each other when the year
began, would shed tears as one family went back to Norway twelve months later.
Last night I hugged two little boys
over and over, trying not to notice their tears, fighting a lump in my throat
because I was uncertain when I would see them again. Cornelius and Constantin—only 11 and 5 when we
first met. Back then their names seemed too elaborate for their small bodies. Yet
today the names evoke images that have become a palpable ache, linked to all
the moments we spent together. Those elegant names: how quickly they seemed to
wrap around each boy until they fit exactly right, and how inevitably Rob and I
came to love the boys themselves. Though the two were unique, the older a
serious student, the younger an imp, they both had a sweetness that drew us in.
We first met the Norwegian Glittenbergs
a year ago, when they moved in across the street from my daughter Tracy and her
Paul. Our first glimpse of Constantine,
who’d just turned five, was like finding an adorable, pet child who spoke no
English. He was tow-headed and small, with a button nose and a child-actor’s assortment
of expressions: wonder, humor, dismay, delight, all enhanced by a missing front
tooth. When we spoke, all of us around Tracy’s
dinner table, Constantin leaned toward Cornelius, an elf with eyes on his
brother’s face as he awaited a translation. Had he been old enough for
kindergarten in Norway,
he might have known some of what we were saying.
On that first get-acquainted supper, Tracy brought in her
next-door neighbors, the Bowers, who also had four children. One of them, Elizabeth,
has a voice so lovely that a few years ago at age twelve she sang at Tracy’s daughter’s
wedding. Tracy
announced to the group, “I hear that the Glittenbergs also have a girl who
sings. Mathea-Mari, can you and Elizabeth go in the house together and find a
song you both know?”
For fifteen minutes, the two girls—one Hispanic
the other Norwegian--disappeared. When they came out, the two joined in a
harmonic version of a popular melody, which was so lovely it stunned the whole
group. Only later did we learn that
Mathea-Mari, now sixteen, is famous all over Europe as a solo performer . . . and
that her family picked a leased home in Tustin,
partly because it was close to an airport from which her father could take her
back to Europe for frequent, scheduled concerts.
“How lucky,” our family remarked later
that evening, “that we didn’t know about Mathea-Mari in advance, or we’d have all
been intimidated.”
The year became a miracle of increasing
closeness between the two families—which often included Rob and me. We saw less
of the two older girls--Olivia, a senior, and
Mathea-Mari, a junior, who were consumed with homework at Beckman high
school. But we spent hours with their younger brothers. Early in the year, Tracy taught the boys a
card game, ‘golf,’ in which the lucky card is a joker. One of the first things five-year-old
Constantin learned to say in English came with a cry of joy, “I got a joker,
Mama!”
Cornelius, a slender eleven, displayed
an awareness of everything around him. He wore glasses, and he was half an
actor, playing a quick succession of roles as he responded to every idea that
flew by. We always knew what Cornelius was thinking. He and I quickly became
buddies, exchanging hugs with each new encounter. One day Rob and I found him on a nearby road,
walking home from school. We stopped to give him a ride. When he jumped into
our car, he said, “Your car smells like my Grandma’s car.”
“Is that good?” Rob asked, and he said,
“yes.”
How often we arrived at Tracy’s to find little Constantin dashing into the house
and flying with a great leap into Tracy’s
chaise lounge . . . where he didn’t exactly sit, but splayed out into a disorganized
pattern of white, skinny arms and legs.
Frequently invited to dinner with Tracy and Paul,
Rob and I often found the party included two small boys as additional guests .
. . and an evening that ended with games
of golf. As I sat across from the two blond kids, I was mesmerized by a parade
of shifting facial expressions, as though our family had been touched by
budding movie stars, by two faces lit with a kaleidoscope of emotions, every
change of thought or mood expressed more vividly than with words.
Even Tracy’s small, black-and-white dog, Ollie,
became part of the entertainment. On days when she walked Ollie, Tracy fetched Constantin
to go along, the boy only slightly larger than the pet. Soon she and Constantin went on errands
together, and she even brought him and Ollie to the park, letting them
entertain each other as she played tennis. And he spent a day with her at
Videoresources . . . becoming an instant mascot for the company.
Charming kids don’t happen by
accident. We became warm friends with
their parents, J.P. and Katherine, both young, good-looking, and solid in their
own skins. Increasingly, the two
families spent more and more leisure time together—visiting California
sites, like beaches, an “escape” room, friends of Tracy’s, and even our son Chris’s ranch. And the family was with us on multiple
holidays—Easter, Mother’s Day, the Super bowl, Christmas.
Thanks to kindergarten and all those two-family
adventures, Constantin became steeped in English. By year’s end, now age six, he
knew everything we were saying--and he’d even learned to read in English. Sometimes when I arrived at Tracy’s, I heard a tiny voice calling from a
window across the street. Though I couldn’t see him, I knew it was Constantin, spinning
out a greeting.
Our last day with the Glittenberg’s was
both memorable and poignant. Around
noon, the two daughters borrowed my Prius to take their driver’s tests, hoping,
before they left, to earn California
driver’s licenses. To our delight, both succeeded. When I got my car back, they’d had it washed.
Dinner at Tracy’s that evening was bittersweet. The two boys couldn’t stop weeping . . . the
younger, still no bigger than a puppy, curled up in his father’s lap, the older
leaning against J.P.’s shoulder . . . a tableau momentarily interrupted by the
arrival of “Addie,” Constantin’s fellow
kindergartner. He’d mentioned her occasionally, and now her mother admitted, “One
day they went to the park. And they (she
spelled it out) K.I.S.S.E.D.” We all
burst out laughing.
Later, mother Katherine read from her
laptop, a long tribute to our family, and especially Tracy. And then came gifts from the Glittenbergs to
all of us, among them cookies from Hawaii.
Rob and I returned home, already feeling nostalgic and sad.
If only sadness hadn’t been part of the
departure . . . but it was. As Tracy
drove them to LAX, everyone in the car was singing except the two boys. “It was
so heartbreaking,” Tracy
said. “They couldn’t stop sobbing."
The consoling part is, we know we’ll
see the Glittenbergs again, either in California
or Norway.
Feelings as strong as we all felt for each other can’t be entirely eliminated,
either by time or space. For that we’re grateful.
