Praying Like Drew

Ezekiel saw the wheel/way up in the middle of the air. That's a line from a song about Ezekiel's vision of a wheel--you can look it up if you want to. I thought about Ezekiel's experience recently when 22-month-old Drew saw the wheel pictured behind Paul. This wheel is a signature image for Apple Farm Inn where we’ve stayed the last four yours during our visits to San Louis Obispo. Our California family—Tim and Deb and boys and Kara—joined us this year for our San Louis excursion. As soon as we arrived to the inn, Kara took Drew to see the wheel, and since then "wee-oh" has been Drew’s obsession. We took him multiple times to see it and each time he stared with wide eyes and raised his arms, a action interpreted by his father to mean, "I like this and all, but it’s big and I’m little and I want you to pick me up now." Awe-filled as he seemed to be before the wheel, he’d be asking to see it as soon as we walked away.

Drew’s vocabulary is definitely growing; he knows the names of his body parts and the names of his family members; he calls Paul “Dadoo” (“Dudah” (long u-sound), Paul’s self-ascribed title for his grandchildren) and me what sounds like “Wackie”—his attempt at “Grammie.” He’s quite taken with 6-week-old Ben and calls him “Baby.” As all toddlers and first children must, he’s working out his relationship with his new brother, at times extremely gentle with the baby, at other times tossing things at him. I admire Tim and Deb as they affirm the gentle, wide-mouth kisses he plants on Ben’s face and as they very creatively help Drew turn less than gentle gestures into teaching opportunities. Like all good parents, Tim and Deb want their little boys to love one another. Paul and I know they’ll be working on this for a long time.

Paul and I stayed an extra day in San Louis; when we returned to Pasadena the next evening, Tim, Deb greeted us on their small patio. Drew, we learned, was in his bed crying, calling for “Wackie.” So I went in to see him. He was standing in his crib, blanket and soft-stuffed dog on the floor where he evidently throws them every night. “Lay down, Drew,” I said. To my surprise, he did so immediately. I lay Drew’s blue dog next to him and covered them both with his blanket. “Wee-oh,” said Drew in his small, high-pitched voice. “Yes, Sweetheart, Wheel,” I replied, smiling in the darkness as I reached down to rub his back. "Wee-oh stuck." he said.

At times when we had visited the wheel at the inn, water poured from a spout above, filling the buckets and causing the wheel to turn round and round. But the day Drew and his family left the inn, the wheel was motionless, the water above splashing over the entire structure. As Drew stared, we explained that it was stuck. It was in motion by the time Paul and I left.

“The wheel was stuck, Drew,” I said, “But now the wheel is turning again.”

“Wee-oh,” he said.

“Yes, wheel,” I replied.

He was quiet. After a few moments he spoke again. “Pool,” he said quietly.

The wheel and mill-turned-gift-shop to which the wheel is attached is located close to the inn’s pool. Kara, apparent tour guide for Drew, also took him to see the pool. She told us that, after staring at it for a time, he identified it as water. Kara took the opportunity to advance Drew’s vocabulary. “It’s a pool, Drew,” she said.

So now in his darkened room, under his blanket with his small arm encircling his little blue dog, Drew remembered his new word.

“Yes, Drew. Pool,” I repeated.

A few more quiet moments passed as I rubbed his back, then he said, “Water,”

I have to admit that I wondered where this narrative was going and how long I was supposed to stay bent over Drew’s crib. "Water, Drew?" I asked.

“Baby,” he answered.

“Baby,” I repeated.

Drew repeated each of those words: Wee-oh. Daddy. Baby. Pool. Between each word was a quiet, reverent pause. After repeating them a few more times, he was quiet once more.

I sang to him in that quiet-- Jesus Loves Me, Jesus Loves the Little Children, and, no doubt inspired by “wee-oh,” The Wheels on the Bus, the most annoying of all children’s songs in the history of the world but the only song I could think of that had to do with wheels. Drew stayed quiet as I sang, so after finishing the 14^th verse of “The Wheels on the Bus,” I left the room.

Later that night as I lay waiting for my own sleep, I reflected on my word-by-word conversation with Drew and wondered if maybe he had been making a bedtime prayer—if perhaps "wee-oh" and the other words he repeated represent what anyone does when praying. Maybe his memory of standing before the wheel in San Louis Obispo was an experience of awe and “water” and “pool” expressed his reach for new understandings. Maybe “Baby” and “Daddy” signified Drew’s request for help to work through the new challenges a baby brother brings to all relationships. Most moving to me as I reflected was Drew’s peace when I left; that he had remained still beneath his blanket the entire time.

As I lay under my own blanket, I retooled my bedtime prayer. I may have a wider and more varied vocabulary than my grandson, but I don’t think I have much more understanding than he does in the puzzles, challenges and worries that orbit my brain. No doubt my prayers are often more wordy than necessary: too often I give more attention to the way I say them than to the essence of what my words convey. As present as I could be in the wee hours of the morning, imagining that the Presence to whom I spoke was bent over me and listening, I offered my bedtime prayer:

God.

Family.

Future.

God.

Friend.

Struggle.

God.

Hope.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Amen.

And, covered as much by love and peace as I was by blanket, I slept.