“If I can delay that [pain] for a moment and bring a little joy. . . and help them to see things a little differently, then I’ll be successful.”

– Bobby McFerrin


Today is the 60th birthday of Bobby McFerrin, the musician who had us all (admit it!) whistling our way through 1988 and telling each other, “Don’t Worry…Be Happy!”  His words, above, define his goal; and they are appropriate today as I take some time to remember another birthday.

Today would mark the 37th birthday of my son, Brett.  You met him in February  when I spoke of his sudden departure.

(http://www.pamelasteadjones.com/2010/02/09/141/)

Today I would like to take a few minutes to remember the time when he was with us and the gift that lingers in his absence.

The fuzziness of this picture of a squeaky-clean, nine-month-old Brett is an indication of how much time has passed.  I see in it so much joy and so much innocence — not only in my child, but in his mother as well.  It is fitting that Brett would share a birthday with someone whose goal is to bring a little joy and help people see things a little differently.  He certainly did that for us!

Brett didn’t just wait for life to happen.  He squared off with life, staring it in the eye and barreling ahead into each new day.  He was all accelerator and no brakes; yet as he rolled along at breakneck speed, he never failed to notice the people he met along the way.  And he loved them all.

I’d like to think that he loved me best; but the truth is that Brett’s number one best friend and big brother, Max, held that spot.  It was in trying to keep up with Max that Brett earned the many bumps and scrapes that sent him to the ER for stitches.  The rest of us were special, but you just never saw anything like the adoration that little boy had for his brother.

As Brett’s world grew and as he met more people, his love only grew in proportion.  He loved the kids he played with.  He loved the kids who were left out by the group.  He even loved the bullies; and sometimes at the dinner table he would volunteer to say a prayer, and we would all wait while he spoke about Dean, “who is mean because nobody taught him how to be nice,” and he would conclude that we should be nice to him.

I’m laughing as I realize that I probably like these pictures of Brett where he’s fresh from the tub because it was such a challenge to keep him mud-free!  This one of three-year-old Brett modeling his Grandma’s robe is one of my favorites.

I’d like to share with you now another side of my little boy, and tell you about a gift he gave to his Mom that has gone on giving for the 30 years since I received it.

When he wasn’t stirring up mud and wrestling with his brother, Brett had a tender side that caused him to wake us at 6AM with a plea for us to play for him so he could sing before he left for school.  I would sit at the piano, and brother Max would pull out his recorder, and we would indulge Brett’s need to let his joy overflow.  Those are some of my favorite memories, and when I think of them now, I realize how amazing it was that a nine-year-old boy would indulge his little brother this way.  Sweet.

Click here to hear his favorite song

I want to share just two more pictures with you, and then I will tell you about the gift.

When Brett died, we received a planter with five or six different plants in it.  One of them was a single cutting from a jade tree, and it was the only one that survived my grief and thrived in spite of the attention and watering it did not receive.  Today, many cuttings later, what turned out to be a Weeping Jade now occupies a 14-inch pot.  It has reminded me for thirty years that life does, indeed, go on.

This morning, as I have each year on March 11, I took a cutting from the jade and moved it to a small pot.

When I look at this tiny plant, all alone in its new home, I remember the little cutting that came through my door thirty years ago.  I think of all that it has taught me as it has grown into a mature plant, mirroring the life I’ve lived and loved since a time when it felt as though life had ended.  My task now will be to find this little jade a new home where it will live and grow and thrive.  It is my birthday present to Brett — to affirm that his small life has had a lasting impact on everyone who knew and loved him.

And now the gift.  Two weeks before he died, Brett came to me with a drawing he had made.  He had taken a sheet of white paper and diligently added a stripe of each color in his Crayola box so that half the page was striped diagonally from corner to corner with a 64-banded rainbow.  It was a work of passion for a little boy to stick with all sixty-four colors and complete his work of art.  In the middle of the top band of the rainbow, there were some small black specks.  ”What are these?” I asked.  ”Tents,” Brett answered.  When I looked puzzled, he told me this:

“This is the rainbow where the brave knights go to camp.  They’re sad when they go there, because they know they will be gone for a very long time.  But once they get there, it’s so beautiful that they never want to come back.”

What a gift.  Every time I see a rainbow, I think, ‘Oh…there you are!’  And I picture him at the campfire with so many others I have loved.  And I smile.  So, “Don’t Worry…Be Happy.”

Happy Birthday, Brett!  This one is for you!