‘The Boy with the Cape’

Peter wore capes.

All kinds of capes. Everyday.

King capes, warrior capes, vampire capes, grim reaper capes, wizard capes.

His Nana made them on her sewing machine.

Peters favourite cape was his Dark Lord cape.

Peter felt powerful wearing his capes.

He could fight ferocious beasts,

battle his arch enemy,

smite scary giants,

hide from the All-Seeing Eye.

One day Peter felt worried.

He needed to whisper his worry in Mammy’s ear.

He was starting school in a few weeks and capes were not allowed.

Mammy hugged Peter in her arms and told him “a problem shared is a problem halved”

She said she had a plan.

Later that day Peter, Mammy and Séimí, Peter’s older brother went to their favourite beach. They collected shells and watched the sunset just as Peter’s granddad and great granddad did before him. Mammy told them stories from the mouth as the autumn harvest moon rose over the horizon. She said that they were there to gather moonbeams and secrets from their ancestors.

Peter wondered did his granddads stand in the exact spot he was standing in.

They had buckets and Mammy showed them how to carefully collect the moonbeams from the silver-tipped waves gently lapping on the shore.

Mammy said moonbeams were very powerful and protective, they worked with all the mammies everywhere, they moved the oceans, they wrapped themselves around the earth with their silvery light, shimmering love and memory, they helped babies come into the world and they helped old souls leave.

Peter gathered lots of moonbeams in his bucket, but when he wanted to show them to Mammy they were gone. She said, not to worry, that they were still there but became invisible when taken from the sea.

Three weeks passed and it was time for Peter’s first day at school. Mammy, Daddy and Séimí were all there too waiting in line for the teachers. Peter felt nervous and wanted to cry. Then it was time to go inside to his new classroom. Mammy bent down and held his shoulders gently, she looked him in the eyes “Don’t forget your new cape sweetheart”.

Peter’s heart jumped and skipped a beat, he had forgotten!

Quickly he opened his schoolbag and Mammy helped him put on his most magnificent cape, his Invisible Moonbeam Cape.

EPILOGUE

My son, Peter’s passion for capes started when he was just one and a half years old, and it has stayed with him ever since. The original Dracula cape he wore then, had to be stealthily removed during his infant slumbers to be washed on rare occasions, such was his commitment to that mass-produced Tesco special.

What started out as cute sometimes became a hindrance especially as his collection grew and he needed the exact right cape depending on the occasion. I could also see how Peter used the capes as a device to create a distance between him and the “real world”, intuitively this never bothered or worried me as long as he was comfortable. I could see how behind his shy exterior, his capes made him feel more confident in social situations. I spent many hours watching him in his caped persona, immersing himself fully in whatever battle or adventure was going on in his imagination.

When it came to starting school I really worried about how he would react to life in a strange situation without his capes. Months in advance I started to plant the seed of the invisible cape and its powers. I also talked about how mammies are magically attached to their children by invisible umbilical cords no matter where they are. This might sound a little creepy and Freudian to some but for a little fella with no problem declaring his love for his Mammy, morning, noon and night I thought it was a helpful psychological device to deal with the separation of school.

Never one to go with the flow, I’ve always found it difficult how we nonchalantly accept separation from our little ones for such long periods of the day. We’ve a pathological obsession in first-world societies with separating babies and children from their mothers and it begins at birth, with every possible interference in this most sacred of relationships. We are terrified of our children not being independent, perhaps subconsciously we project from an early age what is required to live in this treadmill society we’ve created. The now overused English quote “Keep calm and carry on” comes to mind.

Peter is now eight and the capes are less and less of a feature in his life, a natural transition from being a little boy to a big one I guess. For a while they came with us in his pocket “just in case” as he would say. I noticed how the once powerful device had become unsafe in certain social settings, he was growing up and becoming more self-conscious. I found this profoundly moving and life-affirming and I shed more than a tear.

Peter is still a shy boy and he has developed a rich inner life as a result, he can play happily for hours by himself, and is in no hurry to have a best friend.

As a chronic extrovert and “over-sharer” I’m learning a lot from my Boy with the Cape. Our personas and masks come in all shapes and sizes.

Dee Mulrooney