Surely our family is no different from other ones, in that the parents often find themselves marveling at how different each of their children can be.
I just want to put down some words today about Maxime, and how he really is. Later, when I put down thoughts about Gabriel, the difference will become apparent enough....
There is an inner calmness to Maxime which is beautiful to see, to watch. He is not easily fazed, and he bears difficult moments with equanimity.
This quality in him was apparent to us early on.
Once, when he was about seven, I went to Paris with him for the day. We visited a museum, and then went for lunch at an outdoor cafe. The restaurant was full, and the tables close to one another, as they tend to be. Now next to us was a large table. The boisterous sort. At one point during the lunch, the man next to Maxime made an animated gesture to his friends, and knocked his wine glass right onto Maxime's lap. Maxime was quite soaked.
When it happened the man froze, and I froze, too, and the table next door fell instantly silent. Maxime did nothing at all. He did not jump either. With as much concern as if a crumb had hit the tablecloth, he calmly took his napkin, which was now as wet as his shirt and trousers, and started to apply it to his shirt-front. The mortified man backed his chair up, and in supplicating fashion, bent over Maxime — as if bending over without any application of hands or arms makes it appear that one is really doing something. But the poor man was in real earnest, declaring:
"Je suis vraiment desolé!". "I am so very sorry!"
Maxime calmly looked to him and said:
"C'est pas grave." "It's not serious."
And very soon Maxime and I went on with what we were talking about beforehand.
No, he is not an angel. Well, not quite.
But he has a distinct softness, a caring quality about him. He can be silly like other boys, what Natalya coined the "Lapin Cretin" mode (a French cartoon about a crazy rabbit). And he likes to make machinery and airship noises a lot. Who doesn't?
At the core, though, he is really, really sweet, and this is who he really is.
"I love you Papa." "I love you Mama." He says this a few times a day, no kidding. I don't think there are many twelve year olds who do that.
He likes to be read the Bible, although it is still a children's Bible. Actually, the one I had when I was little.
When I read it to him, with the two of us lying in his bed, he often puts his hand on my arm, and just leaves it there for the duration of the story or parable. When I'm done, he always has a question or two. About an English word, or about the meaning of an element in the story. Or sometimes even about the point of the entire story. And that is fine, because some of them are hard to explain, even to ourselves. But he always asks these things with a quiet, gentle voice, with his hand still resting on my arm.
More and more he looks after Gabriel, a transition so complete as to astonish. It is as if his sweetness finally met its last barrier, and broke through it.
They are more and more inseparable, and they sleep in Maxime's room, one in each of the double beds, almost every night now.
Only if Maxime is really exhausted from swimming practice does he not get upset if it is even suggested that Gabriel "has to sleep in his own room tonight".
