I’ve been slowly reading through Henry’s journals and letters from his nine months away in treatment last year. I never opened them before he died because they were obviously private. After, I knew I wanted to read all of it, but I couldn’t work up the strength to do it. Finally, this week I took out the wrapped bundle of papers and messy notebooks and sketchpads from the bottom drawer of his dresser, and I took it with me on my trip to Utah to read while I was all alone in my hotel room. I knew I would cry, so I thought this would be a good time to dig into Henry’s writing.

And I did cry.

I cried because he was so funny and smart and such a good writer, and I cried to read his essay on how deeply wounded he was by his parents’ divorce. I cried when I read the letters his younger siblings sent him while he was in treatment, so hopeful and loving (and which he’d saved and carried around with him for the next seven months, and then brought home with him, carefully folded into his journal). And I cried when I saw the sketch he’d drawn of “my family,” which included an adorable rendering of his baby sister, C.

It was very hard to read all of it. His desire to get clean and stay clean and his deep fears that he wouldn’t be able to pull it off after returning home are a constant theme. His love for his family is writ large on every page; this was not a boy who had become estranged from or angry at his parents and siblings and extended family, even though he was struggling with something that very often alienates teenagers from the people who love them most. No, Henry’s struggle was never with us, really. It was completely internal for him. And reading of the pain that his addiction caused him just broke my heart. When you see an addict’s external behaviors, which seem so carelessly dangerous and thoughtless, it’s easy to believe that he or she doesn’t want to stop or isn’t bothered by what life has become. In Henry’s case, he was obviously tortured by it. This simply wasn’t the life he wanted and it wasn’t who he expected or wanted to be, but by age 17, when he wrote these journal entries, he had already begun to doubt that he was capable of beating back the drugs for good. He felt inadequate for the task.

I am going to share some bits and pieces of Henry’s journal on my blog, and the first thing I want to share is this gratitude list that he compiled while in the first three months of treatment at a wilderness-based prigram in North Carolina. Helping recovering addicts recognize what they have to be grateful for is something a lot of treatment programs emphasize, so Henry was asked by his therapist to make up a list.

The result, written pretty much exactly one year before he died is pure Henry:

Henry’s Gratitude List
Spring 2009 – Age 17


Family
Girls
Friends
Music
Laughter
Dreams
Art
Memories
Concerts
My Parents
My little brother
My sisters
My dog
Jerry Garcia
Birthdays
Oceans
Funk
Love
Rhthym
Guitars
Waterslides
Plastic
Aluminum
Titanium
Amoxicillin
Penicillin
Windows Operating System
Air Conditioning
Lars
Hovercrafts
Banjos
Caterpillars
Socks
Trampolines
Loin Cloths
Lacrosse
Monkeys
Sea Monkeys
Sea Horses

Henry and his little brother E

I’ve been revisiting some of the photos from Henry’s 5 week hospitalization.

This one was taken at UTMC about 10 days after he was admitted, after he was off all life support (he eventually was placed back on life support in the last week of his life) and out of the neck brace. The bruising on his face had healed and we believed we had gotten through the worst, and that he would be okay.

He looks so young in this picture. Because he was. He was just a boy.

Henry with his dad after he was moved to the neuro rehab center at St. Mary’s.

Henry with his beloved little sister and M, his stepmama, who did so much to care for him the entire time he was hospitalized. I can never thank her enough.

Henry with his little sister C and his cousin NC.

I had a somewhat oddball upbringing (huge understatement) – but in a good way. And in 1974, my mother and father (in their late 20s at the time), together with my mid-20s Uncle John and Aunt Lulu sold much of what each young family owned and loaded up their VW buses, left sunny SoCal, and headed off en masse for life unknown in the Pacific Northwest.

My parents had three children – my younger brother ( age 4 at the time), my sister ( age 6) and me (age 7). My Uncle John and Aunt Lulu were parents to my cousin James, then age 4. Uncle John and Auntie Lou went on to give birth to my youngest cousin, Thomas about 18 months later, while we were all living in Washington State.

The 2 or 3 years (Mama, can you clarify?) that we spent doing the 70s back-to-nature homesteading thang in the rainiest county in America, which also happened to be the #1 Sasquatch sighting county in the country, on the edge of the Quinault Indian Nation were so bizarro in so many ways that I honestly couldn’t make it up. Example: Kurt Cobain was in my 3rd grade class (yes, really). I spent all of third and fourth grades petrified that Bigfoot was going to come in my bedroom window in the dead of night and snatchy me or my little sister.

I remember that entire period of my life in sepia tones or black and white. Maybe there was color, but I honestly don’t recall any. The photos we have from that time in our lives seem to corroborate my belief that I spent more than two years of my childhood living in a world of gray scale and monochrome. It was a huge contrast from the technicolor early childhood I’d lived previously, in a cute beach town outside of L.A.

To wit:

Our farm

My parents (that’s Hank standing at the head of the table), and my Uncle John and Aunt Lulu, plus Uncle Roger and Aunt Delphia. Thanksgiving 1975 maybe?

James (front and center, a rockstar even then) with Betsy and me striking a pose on either side of him.

We were poor, very poor. My father had left his quite promising job as an up and coming young news reporter with KFWB in Los Angeles to do full time freelance writing from our ramshackle farmhouse in the wilds of Gray’s Harbor, Washington.. Some of his more memorable article sales during that period were a story titled “Mastering the Lowly Hoe” for Organic Gardening, and “Perry Como Tells You How to Relax” for the National Enquirer. My mother – also a writer – kicked in as much freelance work as she could during that period, including a fantastic interview with Ken Kesey.

My Uncle John also did some freelancing while we lived in Washington State, including penning what I am told is still the lowest selling Rolling Stone cover story of all time. The topic: Pat Boone (a close friend of my grandmother’s)

Uncle John’s Rolling Stone cover piece on Pat Boone

Another way that Uncle John brought in some cash was by playing guitar and singing live in the bars of Montesano, Olympia and Chehalis. His stage name was “Stark Naked,” because he hoped that this eye-catching name would lead the depressed, alcoholic loggers who were the main clientele for these venues to at least pop their heads in and have a beer or two.

I’ll have to ask him if it worked.

Here he is, my Uncle John, around age 25, standing in front of one of the spots where he played. It looks to me like his show “poster” was made out of a brown paper grocery bag.

STARK NAKED FOREVER!

Addendum from my mother regarding the bar in front of which Uncle John is standing in this picture: “Your daddy and I toyed with the idea of buying the bar. Louise was pushing us to do it because she wanted to wear fishnet stockings and work in it. There was a lovely apartment upstairs. Lovely.”

J’s surprise 15th birthday party was a huge success. Great fun.

She REALLY wanted a BlackBerry for her birthday but we all totally had her convinced that she definitely wouldn’t be getting such an extravagant gift. But then we got her one. And she was SHOCKED – and really, really excited, as you can see

Opening presents with a little (unhelpful) help from C and NC

Birthday cake (Cousin NC blew out most of the candles before J had a chance. Classic NC)

J and E’s stepmama, M with Baby G.

E and his same-age cousin El (she is 9 months younger, and he was actually in the room when she was born) are referred to as “The El Twins” in our family. Here they are rockin’ out on the kazoo.

El will start school next week at the same school that E has attended for the past 6 years. I told him yesterday that when she gets there, it’s his responsibility to look out for her, and he replied, “Let me put it this way; if anyone messes with my cousin, expect a suspension for me.”

(And when you see the video, you will note that 9 months younger El is at least 7 inches taller than E. She is the tallest 11 year old I’ve ever met. She is up to 5’7″ or so now, and still shooting up like a beanpole.)

Someone very kind sent me this lovely gift in recent weeks, but no card or note was included and somehow, the return address on the package got tossed before I could figure out who it was from.

So I’m trying to figure out who sent it so that I can thank him or her properly. I just love it.

I can’t tell you how much I treasure every single one of the wonderful gifts and keepsakes and books and cards and baby things that friends and blogreaders have sent our family since Henry died. I am still trying to get personal thank yous out to everyone, and I am failing miserably. My very polite, very southern grandmother and mother would be horrified if they knew how far behind I am on thank you notes (my mother required us to finish our thank you notes before we went to bed on Christmas Day). But I will eventually get them all out and in the meantime, please know that I smile…or cry…every time I see Baby G wrapped in or wearing something someone sent her or when I look at one of the keepsakes or books someone sent to help us deal with the loss of sweet Henry. If I have learned one thing through this unimaginably painful journey, it’s that people are good. Once I get my sea legs back, I will have a huge amount of karmic paying forward to do to honor everyone who has cooked us a meal, sent a knitted baby hat for G, gifted E or J with a special something, planted flowers in our yard or just held me while I cried.

Thank you, everyone, from the bottom of my heart.

(And if you are the person who sent the plate with the kids’ names on it, let me know who you are!)

Three year old C has four siblings – H, J, E and now, Baby G.

H, J and E all have the last name “Granju.” This is also my last name, which I kept after my divorce from H, J and E’s father.

However, C’s father, my husband Jon has the last name “Hickman,” as do C and now, G. But C is insistent that G’s last name MUST be “Granju.” I couldn’t figure out why she was so adamant about this until I realized that to her, ALL siblings have the name “Granju.” That’s just how it is to her – if you are her sister or brother, your last name must be Granju. So she is baffled by the fact that her new baby sister has a different last name than her other siblings. She just seems to find this very, very wrong.

She’ll get it figured out eventually, I guess

My Uncle John arrives at RAGBRAI — the very first person to arrive.

Henry with his siblings and Allison & Tant cousins together at Edisto – June 2008. He’s holding C

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.