Prologue to Gabe’s Journey

by Suzanne Jennings

 Mendocino Coast, California - May 2003

With my own hands I brought my boy, Gabe Jennings, into the world  - with a lot of mid-wife help from some really great friends.  I damn well better be able to handle telling his story since I don’t have a choice.  Through the years, it keeps roaring in my mind, my heart, my veins.  It keeps roaring.

Heat from the roaring woodstove stings my backside, but what’s really cooking is the torchbearer sitting across our hand-hewn, Salmon River black walnut table.  Although Gabe's eyes are closed in quiet meditation, the scars on his chin still scream of the bike accident in Oaxaca, Mexico.  He’s also just survived hepatitis, among other things, from this transcontinental journey to Brazil.  Even after everything he’s been through, there’s something curious radiating out from my son’s jaundiced face.

“He whose face gives no light will never become a star.” 

That was William Blake’s advice to travelers. 

I’m alive!  Gabe Jennings would have roared his response to Blake as he threw himself into the next leg of his journey.  It reminds me of the way he roared across the finish line winning the 1,500 meters at the U.S. Olympic Trials on July 16, 2000.   Have the race of your life or jump on a thirty-year-old bike - whatever’s handy - and ride for precious life.  I won’t even try to guess what’s going to happen next.  I bought my ticket over three decades ago when I married Gabe’s father, Jim Jennings, and ever since our boy was a precocious prep athlete, it’s been an even wilder raft of a ride.  Across the table the miler glows now - a cautionary yellow. On and off now for the past three years the torch he carried  seemed frozen in crazy limbo time.  This fact chills me, but the instant Gabe takes my hand I’m melted butter.  I splash like oil off a grilled salmon fillet onto the black walnut table.

We sit on the floor around the meal holding hands - Gabe, Jim, and I - Team Jennings.   Gabe’s younger sister, Trea, is a student living in Arcata engaged  to marry Ethan Robinson this July!  Although it’s nearing summer solstice we gaze out to a garden veiled in coastal fog. 

“I would like us all to say something.”  Gabe gives my hand a squeeze.   I, in turn, squeeze Jim’s hand, then we three giggle  like little kids.  “Mmm - ” Eyes closed again, Gabe takes a complete breath, “I am grateful for this delicious food, and for another kind of sustenance, that of working together toward a common goal.  And I hope to remain present – to be in the present.  I do not want to dwell on the future.”  The future, meaning the Athens Olympics, 2004.  One year away.  One year so close.

            “I second the motion,” Jim says reaching for the homegrown greens.

            My eyes meet Gabe’s and we smile.  “I feel grace.”.

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