My Neurodivergent Ninja

My kid likes ice hockey and that’s how Freddy Mercury ended up in a box by our front door. 

One day last summer I realized that the simplest way to explain my Ninjas brain function to other parents, is to tell them that it’s kind of like Common Core. It’s difficult to understand and takes you on the most roundabout journey to get to an explanation for something that could realistically be done in roughly 2 steps. And it’s absolutely nothing like everything else that you think you know about basic math.

The child loves ice hockey just as much for the theatrical experience of the blaring horns, flashing lights, raucous celebrations, and upbeat music, as he does for the game itself. In his mind, the song most defining this fine sport is We Will Rock You by Queen. In fact, he’s so enamored with and focused on the full experience, that he could not fathom why his only overnight hockey tournament this last winter did not include player introductions, sirens, music, and special-effects fog. Unsatisfied with the explanation that the host venue lacked such technology, he sought out the man carrying around the microphone, and plead his case. The result was that a single team that entire weekend skated out to music when they entered the rink, his team (specifically to We Will Rock You). It was honestly an impressive lobbying effort, no doubt his first of many in life.

The thing about fixations in this life are that they are HYPER fixations with a capital H. The song We Will Rock You is requested each time we get in the car, is played ad nauseum via YouTube videos at our house, and is often sung A Cappello before he stars in most of his single player sports matches in out in the yard. The fixation naturally evolved to curiosity about the songs source, so I explained that the original song was recorded by a band named Queen, lead by a man named Freddy Mercury. This brief explanation led to the assumption that Freddy Mercury is the greatest rock star to ever live, one that all future rock stars would naturally  aspire to emulate. At a subsequent trip to the barber he confidently stated that he would like the man to make him look like Freddy Mercury, an unusual request for a 7 year old (or anyone, probably?) that received a raised eyebrow and confused expression in response. So I asked for a small fauxhawk, something that could be passed off as a general Rock Star look, knowing that my attempt to explain to the child that the lack of connection people would make between any haircut he had and the singer himself would fall on deaf ears.

Cut to a few days later, Ninja was asking his grandmother about Freddy Mercury. I had dropped the bomb to him on haircut day that his rock hero was deceased, after he started to talk about meeting him. He requested more information from his Nonna, and inevitably her Google search lead to the nugget of information that he had been cremated after death. In a fun unforeseen plot twist, cremation is a subject that had already been recently broached in our house after he found the box that held the remains of his fathers old dog.

All of this brought us to that day last summer, when my husband gifted him a cigar box to keep trinkets and treasures in, oblivious to the mental gymnastics that had been taking place in our young ones head. Shortly thereafter that box contained ashes from our fire place, and the boy ran up to me with the box held high, triumphantly informing me that he was in possession of Freddy Mercury.  I’ve never been adept at mathematics, but as far as I can deduce, his neurodivergent Common Core formula getting us to this point is as follows:

Ice Hockey + We Will Rock You = required pairing; divide required pairing by a Rock Band minus one member, carry the one but add death and cremation, and the sum will equal Freddy Mercury in a cigar box by the front door.