A rhapsody of brotherly love that defies age

JOSEPH N. BELL

I have a new friend. He is 3 feet high and 3 years old, has

California blond hair and mischievous and calculating eyes. He is

also my brother-in-law.

The 80-year gap in our ages requires some explanation that has to

do with the confusing, sometimes chaotic and strongly bonded family

into which I married some 20 years ago. In keeping with this history,

Sherry’s father -- who was old enough to know better -- and his

second wife, Joanne, made the decision five years ago to adopt a

child when one was not forthcoming by other means. I learned by

watching their efforts that adoption is a long, expensive and

difficult process.

After a two-year search, they found a very young mother who was

carrying a child she was willing to give up for adoption. She was

determined to get an education for herself and pursue goals that

would have had to be abandoned -- or, at best, long postponed -- in

caring for a small child. She was just as determined to find a

special home for her child before giving him up.

And so a deal was struck. The new parents were present when the

baby was born in Tucson, Ariz., and the birth mother was present

until her son was driven off to his new home in Orange County, where

he was introduced to his extended family. As soon as he is ready,

Bobby will be told about his birth mother, who has the privilege of

visitation once a year. My wife has written a lovely book, complete

with pictures, telling this story, which Bobby will one day read.

And that’s how this kid was introduced into my life.

From the beginning of the adoption process, I related only -- and

selfishly, of course -- to the incipient father. Although he is 10

years younger than me, the prospect of him at his stage in life

diapering a baby by day and putting in sleepless nights while the kid

was acquiring some semblance of a biological clock was appalling to

me. So was pulling Bobby off the furniture and out of the fireplace

once he had legs, and trying to feed him that dreadful stuff that

comes in glass jars and ends up everywhere except the kid’s stomach.

I voiced such concerns, which were none of my business and were

brushed aside with remarkable forbearance by the new mother and

ignored as counter-productive by the new father, especially after he

was deeply involved with surprising good cheer in all of these

activities.

My wife, who gravitates mindlessly to new babies wherever she

finds them, bonded instantly and totally to Bobby, who now calls her

“sister Sherry.” Although I was exposed to Bobby frequently, I kept

him early on at arm’s length with dubious guy talk like calling him

Charley. It is some measure of how much more mature he is than me

that he has accepted this name, now embraces it and regards it as

something special -- even if a little odd -- between us.

But that took awhile. I’ve always been a great believer in the

W.C. Fields approach to small children. Treat them as adults from the

beginning, and don’t let them run this scam of being allowed to

subvert adult lives just because they are kids and can get away with

it. Fields developed this ethos when he had to protect his movie

career from being upstaged by Baby Leroy, and it served him well

while also serving as a role model for people like me.

I don’t relate very well to kids until I can communicate with

them, and I don’t work at understanding their language until they

adopt mine. Bobby got there remarkably quickly but never made a

project of me, even though I was underfoot a lot.

While I circled him carefully and not a little suspiciously, he

simply accepted me as matter-of-factly as my peculiar name for him.

He frequently invited me to play with him and shrugged it off if I

didn’t.

That freed up my thought processes enough to move more and more

into his world -- and to discover how much could be learned there.

Bobby is perpetually drunk on the new and wondrous environment

evolving around him. His eyes tell me that constantly and eloquently.

As I watch him suddenly diverted and engaged by objects and phenomena

familiar to me, I find myself looking at them with new eyes myself.

The virtue of curiosity and its corollary, the inquisitive mind,

is nowhere better demonstrated than in the eyes of a child. And it is

nowhere needed so badly as in countering the cynicism or mental

torpor of the aging. With Bobby, curiosity is a constant. And it

becomes downright exciting when it is combined with a kind of

diabolical glint that says beware what I might do with this new

knowledge.

All of these matters came strongly to mind when Sherry and I

joined Bobby and his parents for Thanksgiving dinner at an upscale

hotel with a buffet that seemed endless. Bobby set the tone early

when we were all served champagne and he was given a wine glass full

of bubbling apple juice. He joined us in raising our glasses in a

holiday toast, then took a tentative sip of the bubbly, put his glass

down and said -- honestly, I heard it -- “This is the life.” He was

convivial throughout the long meal, treating his apple juice like a

fine wine, watching people at other tables, and drifting, his eyes

far off somewhere. Only at the very end of a long afternoon did he

require the bathroom, where he discovered the paper-towel dispenser,

then returned twice to work this wondrous machine.

In view of his steady progress, I’ve decided to become Bobby’s

friend. Among other things, I will teach him to destroy his Dodger

cap and wear only his Angel cap. To read only books he can hold in

his hands. To ask questions. To listen. And never to pre-judge or

draw to an inside straight. And he will teach me that the world we

share is fresh every day and must be looked at with fresh eyes. And

that young folks and old folks have much in common that needs to be

shared.

He has now taken to saying over his shoulder as he goes out a

door, “C’mon, Joe.” Most of the time, I do.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.