Giving Thanks for Tait

There are many in Pagosa Country who are unaware that my wife, Jayebird, and I had a son named Tait – a Norse name meaning cheerful. He was born October 21, 1973 in Dallas; and died in Los Lunas, New Mexico on November 28, 1996 – Thanksgiving.

Tait was 23 years old.

Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of November each year, so it falls on November 28 roughly every 5 to 6 years. The next time this will occur is in 2030, but then won’t occur until 2041… when I’m 90! (Hopefully I’ll make it to 2030.)

Today, November 28, we will give thanks for our precious son.

As a baby, Tait developed slowly. His pediatrician told us not to worry, but we did. In 1975 Tait was admitted into Parkland Hospital in Dallas with an extremely high temperature. The diagnosis was congenital renal problems (enlarged ureters that needed to be narrowed). Tait had an emergency operation that saved his life, but he had lost three-quarters of his kidney function.

While recovering in the hospital, Tait had his second birthday – but it was not happy. The surgeon suspected that our son would not live past the age of 12. Besides the kidney problem, specialists informed us that Tait probably was suffering from autism, a word we were not familiar with… yet.

So began our challenging journey with Tait, until that fateful Thanksgiving day in 1996.

We enlisted Tait into a brand new Dallas School District program called Project Kids. It turned out to be a godsend. Tait’s personal therapist was a young black woman named Pearlie Mae. Tait loved Pearlie and so did we. Besides all the kindness and attention, she actually taught him to walk!

In 1983, we moved to Santa Fe where Tait was enrolled in special ed. His beloved teacher, Stella, was very patient indeed. The one thing that Jaye and I are thankful for is the tremendous amount of love and professional care afforded to our dear son, both in Texas and in New Mexico.

Besides the many traits of autism, he was hyperactive – a real handful 24/7! As a teen, his emotions became more and more erratic, and quite often he threw temper tantrums, basically becoming too unruly to handle at home. We had no other choice than to place him at the State Hospital & Training School in Los Lunas, New Mexico. He was fourteen at that time.

We would visit Tait frequently. When we drove up to his cottage, he’d be peering out his window without being told we were coming! We’d have quality time with Tait and usually spend the night at our usual motel. But leaving him was heartbreaking. Without emotion, once again he’d stand at his window, watching us slowly drive away. Many times we made the trip back to Santa Fe in tears.

In 1990, after years of caring for an autistic child, we sold our home and moved to Honolulu to pursue my music career. As luck would have it I had a bad accident at a dangerous place called Toilet Bowl. I experienced a concussion and two broken eardrums in an underwater cave… and nearly drowned. My music was on hold so we moved to upcountry Maui. There we found great solace, and I finally got into a band that was to tour the Pacific Rim.

But later, all that went up in smoke when Tait became ill.

After much painful consternation we moved back to Santa Fe where I got back into the music scene. But mentally, I was in bad shape. Jaye needed to get me out of the Ancient City and insisted that we move to a one-red-light-town called Pagosa Springs in beautiful Colorado.

For the next four years we visited Tait regularly. By now, he was on several medications and his kidneys and other organs were failing. At Christmastime, my parents would meet us in Los Lunas for happy celebrations with our Tait. Later on, when Tait was in his twenties, we arranged to have him move up to Farmington to live in a supervised home with two other ‘special needs’ young men. That never happened. Tait left this world on November 28, 1996. He was cremated.

The following is a story I wrote about an incident that happened ten years after Tait’s passing.

The strange noise was still reverberating in my head. It had abruptly awakened me from a deep, dreamless sleep. My wife was still sleeping, but our Golden Retriever Sadie was sitting up at attention, quietly growling at something across the moonlit bedroom.

I followed her stern gaze over to the walk-in closet on the opposite wall. The door was ajar and a weird, soft violet light illuminated from within. This was my wife’s closet, and the first thing to come to mind was the Oriental porcelain vase on the top shelf. The vase contains the ashes of our late son Tait.

I had barely registered this thought when suddenly I heard music playing in the front room. The realization of what was transpiring at that moment came over me like a heavy shroud. I knew that music. It was a sound that harkened back to happier days when our beloved son was just a toddler; when life seemed so simple and hopeful, and Prince Tait was the center of our universe and the sole object of our affection. Tait’s old broken music box, displayed on the bookshelf, was inexplicably playing after many years of silent repose.

The melancholy strains seemed to emanate from another realm: a place where weary spirits reside in the light at the end of the tunnel. Tears streamed down my face. In a moment I recalled the tune: “Send In The Clowns.”

Was Tait trying to communicate with his father? Was the little imp teasing me from the beyond? I was more amazed than afraid. and choked back tears, but my heart hung on every note that chimed out in the darkness.

Tait had been born autistic with kidney damage. He had always needed a great deal of care, but what he had needed the most was love, and a great deal of patience. Like most autistic children, Tait had a very angelic face and strange ways. He had sometimes spoken a language not of this earth, and often said things out of the blue that mystified us. He seemed to have psychic powers and could predict who would be calling on the phone or knocking at the door.

He had been a magical little creature who taught us much more than we had taught him, and perhaps now he was again teaching me something — but what?

Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground
You in mid-air
Where are the clowns?

Isn’t it bliss?
Don’t you approve?
One who keeps tearing around
One who can’t move
Where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns…

Sure of my lines
No one is there…

The music began to retard, and the dark spaces between each note widened until the final sad tone faded into deathly silence.

I broke down and sobbed. I missed my little boy desperately and realized — all these years after his death — I hadn’t gotten over it. I had only gotten used to it.