A quarter of century with Shmoo

This year it’s been twenty-five years.

A quarter of a century of Shmoo.

As we all know, Luca is not a typical 25-year-old: he never smoked weed, never had a sip of wine, or coffee. He never made love with a person, only himself, he doesn’t have a driver’s license, and he never graduated from middle school or college. He has no ambitions, he never broke up with anyone, he never ordered a pizza to go. He was never sent to the principal’s office, never went to Greece on vacation, never travelled around Europe by train. He never wrote a love letter and he doesn’t have a resumé. He never cooked, never asked for expensive sneakers, he never went for a walk by himself. He made his own bed a few times, at gunpoint; the same with laundry, emptying the dishwasher or putting away groceries.

Luce doesn’t care about any of that. It’s one of the many reasons I consider him to be the most amazing person in the world. Because he doesn’t miss anything. Whatever he doesn’t have, he has never wanted, whatever it is that he can’t do by himself doesn’t keep him up at night. He doesn’t envy whatever other 25-year-old have or want.

He has exactly what he needs: his iPad, his favorite music, his mom, his dad, Sofia and Emma. He has his car rides, when he blasts Stevie Wonder, he has milk, french fries and a nice warm shower every morning. He has a group of people around him who adore him like the girls in the sixties adored the Beatles.

This is very poetic and all, but it makes it extremely challenging to think of a present for him, both for his birthday and for Christmas. The only present he really appreciates is to be left alone, with no presents to unwrap, without any cakes or candles, and, God forbid, without that stupid song everybody loudly sings in different keys. He wants to be left alone, possibly without underwear, lying down on his bed with seven pounds of French fries by his side. That’s what he would really like.

Yet our world, the one he doesn’t understand, dictates a sort of celebration, and birthday wishes, hugs, kisses, candles and presents. Including phone calls from Italy from Western Massachusetts, from Cambridge neighbors, friends, godmothers, and godfathers.

In these twenty five years I have not yet been able to ignore Luca’s birthday. It feels like I would be neglecting him, it feels bad. So, there I am, insisting on celebrating the way I want to. There I go again, treating him like anybody else, forgetting that he has no interest in being anything like us. I celebrate him to please us, knowing perfectly well that it drives him crazy.

This time I decided to get him some tee shirts, pants, and a pair of shoes because he needs them, but I didn’t invite anybody home for dinner. Maybe I should have put the candles on a nice Margherita pizza. It was just the five of us, having dinner at our little Becket house. As always, he stayed at the table for about one and a half minute before bringing his plate in his room and asking us to plug in his iPad with the cord behind his bed. As always, he forgot to shut his door, and, as always, the dogs followed along in hopes of sharing his dinner with him. And we didn’t complain at all! We pretended nothing happened. We finished our dinner, and caught up with our lives.

Anyway, besides Luca I really care about celebrating us, our family. Despite our somewhat heavy loads of antidepressants, despite the patient therapists who listen to our sad stories and hand us Kleenexes while pretending to feel sad for us, despite it all, we made it. We celebrate ourselves because, even if it took a quarter of a century, we did it: we became as weird as Luca, different from other families, happy to have what we have without wishing we had more. So, even if Luca went to his room, we raised a glass of wine and, as always, a warm tear came down my cheek.

These have been the most difficult, indescribable, amazing, gratifying, horrifying, delirious and magical twenty-five years of my life. So, happy birthday Luca (sorry, but I had to say it!), and congratulations to Dan, Sofia, Emma and to my ever present tears.