I haven't written about this at all, but since September I've been involved in a unique leadership class in my city, where I get together monthly with thirty-some other local leaders and we learn about the challenges and opportunities in our area from a systems perspective. Each month has a focus (city history, diversity and inclusion, education, health, etc.), and the goal is that by the end of the year, we'll come away with a network of smart, connected people and some good information about the needs of our city, and that we'll each be better equipped to figure out how and where we can make a difference in the future.
All of this to say, I found myself in the passenger seat of a cop car on Thursday night as part of a fascinating shadowing experience before our November class on public safety. I'm not going to try to summarize lessons learned, but I wanted to write down some moments and memories, and this is the best place I can think of to do that. I've changed or abbreviated names and any identifying details.
*****
I've arrived at the station at 6:15 p.m., donned a bullet-proof vest, met Officer W and the K-9 companion B, who barks his head off at me each time I enter and exit "his" squad car, and we're off to our first stop, a house on the west side where a search warrant has already been used to enter a home where someone was dealing drugs. Before we get there, a team has already been inside, served the search warrant, secured the house, arrested the dealer, found most of the drugs -- and, somehow in the chaos, shot and killed a dog that was living in the home.
W and I make small talk on the way there. He's married, a dad, been a cop for 14 years. Calm, good sense of humor, tells me I can literally ask him anything I want for the whole night, stay as long as I want up until his shift is over at 6:30 a.m., stay in the car or get out, whatever. He warns me not to try to touch dog B, who will quite literally try to bite my fingers off if I reach through the screen that divides us from him. I try to act unfazed by this.
Officer W has me wait on the sidewalk with the supervising officer while he takes B inside to sniff out any remaining contraband. I make small talk with him. How long has he been on the force? Twenty-nine years. Where are the people who were inside? In the back of that SUV, handcuffed. Who's that woman across the street, pacing back and forth? The owner of the home, who wasn't there when the search warrant was executed. She's not the dealer, but the people who were dealing were living in her house, and now she'll lose her home. She's section 8, he says, and she knew what was going on. What happened to the dog? He tried to attack the SWAT team. He says he loves dogs, has one at home. In his 29 years on the force, he's only shot a dog once. Hated to do it, but the dog was coming right for him; even the dog's owner agreed it had to be done.
Officer W comes back out, puts B back in the back of the car, says there was a lot of blood in there. Let's go.
*****
We're poking around the southeast side when the next call comes in. It's another drug bust, this one just a mile or two from my house. It's dark now, and Officer W uses his spotlight to find the address, but I see the house with its door off its hinges and all the lights on before I see the house number. We park, get B out and put his harness on, and Officer W tells me to wait on the porch while he searches a car, then heads inside.
The glass from the door frame shattered when the police took the doors off its hinges to enter and it's all over the front porch and the entry. It was a beautiful old door, very much like what's on the front of my 1930s bungalow at home. Inside I can see an older black woman with gray hair in her housedress, sitting on the couch, crying quietly. The house is modest but clean and well-decorated, with candles on the coffee table and houseplants, and it actually looks a lot like my grandparents' house except for the framed pictures of Martin Luther King, Jr. that decorate the living room walls.
One of the SWAT officers, a woman with a mask covering all of her face except her eyes, asks the woman kindly if she has any tissues around. The woman shakes her head no, so the officer returns with a roll of toilet paper, which she sets on the coffee table after offering it to the woman. The old woman continues to cry silently while six or seven officers root through her belongings. They open every drawer, take out each box, look inside the cupboards and under the couch cushions while the dog goes methodically from room to room. The cops chat with each other quietly, jovially while they search and the woman just keeps crying and I stand there feeling helpless (who will fix that door? Will they just leave the broken glass? How can this grandmother possibly be a drug dealer? Why did they break down the door?), feeling like something is vaguely, awfully wrong. I try to silently telepath genuine empathy to the woman as she cries, find myself praying one of the Anne Lamott prayers, Help, Help, until Officer W reappears. I never see the older black man, who's back in the kitchen, but as we drive away W tells me that an undercover officer bought crack from him just yesterday.
*****
A CPS/DFS employee has requested back-up at an apartment complex; the employee is going to try to talk to "mom" about the violent incident between mom and dad earlier in the day that landed both of them -- and their four-year-old daughter -- in the hospital with injuries. We're waiting to meet her in the apartment parking lot and W is telling me there was a homicide here last year, that this is also the place where the woman stabbed her boyfriend to death a few months ago: "Did you hear about that on the news?" I shake my head no, say I don't really watch the news. I can see televisions flickering in each of the apartment windows, and I ask whether it's safe to assume that behind each of these doors is a weapon, and W says yes, probably. He says these are the calls that can take a turn, situations that start out calm but then you're talking about removing a child from the home, or maybe the dad is back in the apartment and still angry that the mom called the cops in the first place, and you never know how things are going to turn out. It's the first and only time I feel afraid that night.
The CPS employee arrives, and we knock on the door for the mom to let us in. She's expecting us, it seems, and I stand around the corner as W ascertains that it's just mom, four-year-old, and one other woman in the apartment. No dad. The CPS worker seems sufficiently comfortable with the situation that she says we can leave, but W says we'll wait outside in case she needs us. We stand outside in the dark and the cold, and he says it's too bad, the cycle of poverty that's happening in these places. He wonders if maybe Michigan should start making assistance contingent on recipients passing a clean drug test, like they do in Florida, and I say that the main problem with that is how many recipients are minor children. He concedes. I say, what do you think the chances of this four-year-old girl are? He says, sadly, slim to none.
*****
We're cruising Eastern and we see a lone woman turn on her heel and walk back toward the shadows as soon as she sees the car. W turns right, turns right again, and circles around to get another look. "We don't usually get much prostitution around here, but . . . " he trails off, and we see her again, standing on the sidewalk, and again she spins around and starts walking in the other direction as soon as she sees our car. W drives straight to her and parks, gets out of the car to start asking her questions.
I get out (B barks his head off at me, as usual, every time he re-remembers I'm in his car) and listen as W quizzes her politely: What's she doing out here? Where's she going? Does she have any ID on her? I feel sorry for the girl. She looks maybe 20, 22, and she says she's just trying to figure out which bus will get her home. She was visiting her family and she worked all day and she can't figure out if the number 4 has already come for the last time or not.
W asks for her name, which she gives, and then for her birthdate, which causes her to hesitate for just a few beats too long. He takes it down, along with her address and phone number, and we get back in the car so he can get on the radio to the dispatcher. "I know she's lying to me, I just don't know why," he says, as he has the dispatch run her information.
"Why would she lie to you about her name?" I ask, clueless law-abiding mom of two who's never so much as been pulled over for speeding. He says most likely there's a warrant for her arrest. A few minutes later, the dispatcher responds: There is a woman of that name living at that address, but the birthdate is off by two years and the last name spelling has two letters transposed. Aha, says W. I knew it. I'm still looking at her, standing bravely in the cold dark night, trying to get home from work while this officer questions her just for walking away. She wasn't doing anything illegal, I think. She's tired. She's afraid. She's just nervous. But then again, she did hesitate strangely before giving her birthdate.
Meanwhile, W asks the dispatch to find out who else lives at that address. "That's her," he says, and writes down another name, which, when he runs it, he finds has three warrants for arrest. My eyes get big. He gets back out of the car, tells her calmly he knows who she really is and she can save herself a charge if she tells him outright. She breaks down, admits her real name, and he cuffs her and neatly puts the contents of her purse on the hood of the car while he waits for another squad car to come take her to jail.
*****
No sooner has W put away his notepad than another call comes in, a request for B's tracking abilities on the west side, where five people stole a car, took it for a Dukes-of-Hazard joyride, crashed it after being pursued, and all made a run for it when the car came to a stop. "You have your seatbelt on?" W asks, and when I say yes he guns it down Burton, sirens on and lights flashing, and we start going so fast once we get on 131 that at one point I'm smiling in spite of myself. (It's fun.)
When we get to the scene, there's a purple car with a front so twisted and wrecked, all the doors wide open, police officers milling around waiting for B to come sniff out what he can.
"People really do that?" I ask, as W puts B's harness on, "People really run from the scene? I thought that was just in the movies," I say. "All the time," says W. In fact, it happens one more time that night.
*****
Amazingly, that is not all I witnessed over the course of one evening riding shotgun with Officer W. I'm leaving out the second "driver-made-a-run-for-it" abandoned car, two routine traffic stops (he lets both drivers go with warnings), and a multi-car stakeout to look for three attempted burglars (as far as I know, no luck finding them). Around 2 a.m. I tell W I've seen more than I ever imagined and I'm ready to head home to bed. He drives me back to my car, where I remove my bullet-proof vest, shake his hand, and thank him -- but not before we've talked candidly about the new police chief, what it's like to live with a K9 dog at home, the pros and cons of dashboard cameras and voice recorders, whether or not the average citizen should carry a gun or keep one in their home, where to get good coffee, and which of our kids are the biggest pains to wake up and get off to school in the morning.
I drive home marveling at the things happening behind the scenes in the mid-sized Midwestern town I call home on a regular Thursday night in October. I drive home with the strong sense that W is one of the good guys, but that even if most of them are one of the good guys, they're ultimately engaged in a nightly losing battle of Whack-a-Mole: seize the drugs from this house, sure, and then watch the same dealer pop up two blocks over a few months later; hope the CPS worker trying to resolve an abusive situation can protect a four-year-old girl, but know the accident of her birth makes a bright future pretty unlikely; maybe get lucky and track the drivers of that stolen purple car, but know someone else is going to steal another car tomorrow night. I don't know how they do it. I also don't know what it feels like to be the old woman crying on her couch as her home is searched so casually, or to be the 22-year-old woman arrested on a street corner for three outstanding warrants, or the four-year-old girl whose parents hurt her during their fight. And I definitely don't know what the long-term, sustainable, system-wide solutions are for any of these people or their problems. But I'm grateful for the glimpse into this world, and to Officer W for keeping me safe last Thursday night.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Friday, August 8, 2014
Read Elsewhere: Overwhelmed
From the book Blue Mind by Wallace J. Nichols:
Too many of us live overwhelmed -- suffocated by work, personal conflicts, the intrusion of technology and media. Trying to do everything, we end up stressed about almost anything. We check our voice mail at midnight, our e-mail at dawn, and spend the time in between bouncing from website to website, viral video to viral video. Perpetually exhausted, we make bad decisions at work, at home, on the playing field, and behind the wheel. We get flabby because we decide we don't have the time to take care of ourselves, a decision ratified by the fact that those "extra" hours are filled with e-mailing, doing reports, attending meetings, updating systems to stay current, repairing what's broken. We're constantly trying to quit one habit just to start another. We say the wrong things to people we love, and love the wrong things because expediency and proximity make it easier to embrace what's passing right in front of us. We make excuses about making excuses, but we still can't seem to stop the avalanche. All of this has a significant economic cost as "stress and its related comorbid diseases are responsible for a large proportion of disability worldwide."
Too many of us live overwhelmed -- suffocated by work, personal conflicts, the intrusion of technology and media. Trying to do everything, we end up stressed about almost anything. We check our voice mail at midnight, our e-mail at dawn, and spend the time in between bouncing from website to website, viral video to viral video. Perpetually exhausted, we make bad decisions at work, at home, on the playing field, and behind the wheel. We get flabby because we decide we don't have the time to take care of ourselves, a decision ratified by the fact that those "extra" hours are filled with e-mailing, doing reports, attending meetings, updating systems to stay current, repairing what's broken. We're constantly trying to quit one habit just to start another. We say the wrong things to people we love, and love the wrong things because expediency and proximity make it easier to embrace what's passing right in front of us. We make excuses about making excuses, but we still can't seem to stop the avalanche. All of this has a significant economic cost as "stress and its related comorbid diseases are responsible for a large proportion of disability worldwide."
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Read Elsewhere: Anna Quindlen
From Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen:
"Sometimes I tell my children - well, actually, frequently I tell my children - that the single most important decision they will make is not where to live, or what to do for a living, it's who they will marry. Part of this is the grandchild factor; I want mine to have two great parents if at all possible. But part is because the span of their years will be so marked by the life they build, day by day, in tandem with another."
"Sometimes I tell my children - well, actually, frequently I tell my children - that the single most important decision they will make is not where to live, or what to do for a living, it's who they will marry. Part of this is the grandchild factor; I want mine to have two great parents if at all possible. But part is because the span of their years will be so marked by the life they build, day by day, in tandem with another."
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
On Not Eating Corned Beef and Cabbage
We've been quietly going to another church since January. People, I know, switch churches all the time for all kinds of reasons. But we'd been going to the same Catholic church since we moved here in late 2006: both girls in Sunday School, me volunteering, Jason cantoring, a fair amount of familiar faces. And Jason and I have been going to a Catholic church in one form or another since we were married, after a few months of struggling to figure out how, exactly, we were going to meld our different ideas about God and communion and worship into something that would work for our entire future family. He grew up Catholic, I didn't, and a bunch of factors (some more legitimate than others) swayed us to choose his tradition.
The new church isn't Catholic.
I love the new church so much I could almost cry just thinking about it.
*****
You know how some people make a very big deal out of eating corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day? Well, maybe you don't, but I do, because I live with one. Jason has little - if any - Irish blood in his background, but he loves to buy a giant corned beef sometime mid-March, get his hands on a can of cabbage or two, and boil up a big, stinky Irish dinner for the holiday, even if he's the only person in our family who will eat it. He genuinely loves the taste, and he's adopted the tradition as his own. There's something joyful and meaningful to him about celebrating the holiday that way. He likes to have a few guys over, carve the beef into slices for reubens, and watch March Madness basketball. He likes the way the meal reminds him that spring is just around the corner. He likes how it smells and how it tastes.
In other, more Irish parts of the country, I imagine there are whole Irish families who annually celebrate in much the same way. It's part of their culture, and their grandmother or dad has been cooking this meal on March 17 for as long as they can remember. There are probably people in those families who don't necessarily love the taste of the beef or the smell of the cabbage, but they look forward to the holiday because of the tradition it represents and because it's a tie to their heritage. They eat the dinner. And even if the specific food is not their favorite, they likely enjoy the familiar celebration.
*****
The Catholic Church had become like corned beef and cabbage to me. After over a decade of practicing the faith, it had never come to feel familiar. I had never been able to embrace the tradition it represents or connect with its culture. In addition, I had not been able to embrace it as an outsider, either; I don't genuinely like how it tastes and smells, it's not joyful or meaningful to me, and I wouldn't want to adopt it as my own.
Here's the thing: because I didn't genuinely enjoy it, and because I wasn't connecting with it out of familiar tradition, I had stopped eating it at all. I'd forgotten that there was a time in my life when I looked forward to going to church, when I genuinely enjoyed the traditions and connections, when I left church feeling like I'd been gathered around the table at my grandparents' house and was going back out to the world, fortified for the week and reminded of how loved I was. So I didn't want to go, ever, at all, period.
*****
I have plenty of friends and family who find joy and meaning in the Catholic church, either because they genuinely appreciate the doctrine and worship style or because it's been a big part of their cultural and familial tradition for years. It's their home, or it's their adopted home, and they find joy and meaning and delicious sustenance there, and I am so very happy for them about that. But as our girls grew older and as Jason and I thought more about the messages we want them to hear and see, the Catholic church wasn't working for us.
So a few months ago we went to not-a-Catholic church again for the first time in ages. We've been going pretty regularly. And we never leave without a deep sense of gratitude that we spent an hour there. I remember the first time we were there for communion and the minister gave a little spiel that went something like, We don't presume you to be Christian in a certain way; it is simply our hope to be Christian to you. And that means that absolutely everyone is welcome here, and that anyone with any shred of belief is welcome to join us around this table, and I could have wept on the spot with relief. The rules and dogma and doctrinal scoldings at our old church left me feeling resentful, beaten down, and defeated. The Catholic church, when asked, "What are you sure of?" replies: "Everything. Fall in line." But here - here! right in our city - was a church that, when asked the same question, replies: Barely anything. But come figure it out with us.
Don't get me wrong; I like rules: speed limits, bedtimes, ask-to-be-excused-before-you-leave-the-table, pay your taxes, wait in line, be a good neighbor. But when it comes to God, I've long gone on record as being a little suspicious of anyone who seems to be too sure about anything. It is a MYSTERY. Who among us can really know much for sure beyond the Greatest Commandment (Love God) and the second, "like unto it," (Love one another)? Why raise our girls in a church where they, no matter how holy or wise or effective a leader, can't lead because of their gender? Why endure doctrinal scoldings during sermons about things that we never agreed with in the first place? Why remain a part of a church that wants to silence dissension, keep people away from the table, and offer communion based on a set of narrow parameters?
From now on, we'll be over here, eating at a table that nourishes us, celebrating the hol(y)days in a way that makes better sense to us, creating our own little family traditions.
The new church isn't Catholic.
I love the new church so much I could almost cry just thinking about it.
*****
You know how some people make a very big deal out of eating corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day? Well, maybe you don't, but I do, because I live with one. Jason has little - if any - Irish blood in his background, but he loves to buy a giant corned beef sometime mid-March, get his hands on a can of cabbage or two, and boil up a big, stinky Irish dinner for the holiday, even if he's the only person in our family who will eat it. He genuinely loves the taste, and he's adopted the tradition as his own. There's something joyful and meaningful to him about celebrating the holiday that way. He likes to have a few guys over, carve the beef into slices for reubens, and watch March Madness basketball. He likes the way the meal reminds him that spring is just around the corner. He likes how it smells and how it tastes.
In other, more Irish parts of the country, I imagine there are whole Irish families who annually celebrate in much the same way. It's part of their culture, and their grandmother or dad has been cooking this meal on March 17 for as long as they can remember. There are probably people in those families who don't necessarily love the taste of the beef or the smell of the cabbage, but they look forward to the holiday because of the tradition it represents and because it's a tie to their heritage. They eat the dinner. And even if the specific food is not their favorite, they likely enjoy the familiar celebration.
*****
The Catholic Church had become like corned beef and cabbage to me. After over a decade of practicing the faith, it had never come to feel familiar. I had never been able to embrace the tradition it represents or connect with its culture. In addition, I had not been able to embrace it as an outsider, either; I don't genuinely like how it tastes and smells, it's not joyful or meaningful to me, and I wouldn't want to adopt it as my own.
Here's the thing: because I didn't genuinely enjoy it, and because I wasn't connecting with it out of familiar tradition, I had stopped eating it at all. I'd forgotten that there was a time in my life when I looked forward to going to church, when I genuinely enjoyed the traditions and connections, when I left church feeling like I'd been gathered around the table at my grandparents' house and was going back out to the world, fortified for the week and reminded of how loved I was. So I didn't want to go, ever, at all, period.
*****
I have plenty of friends and family who find joy and meaning in the Catholic church, either because they genuinely appreciate the doctrine and worship style or because it's been a big part of their cultural and familial tradition for years. It's their home, or it's their adopted home, and they find joy and meaning and delicious sustenance there, and I am so very happy for them about that. But as our girls grew older and as Jason and I thought more about the messages we want them to hear and see, the Catholic church wasn't working for us.
So a few months ago we went to not-a-Catholic church again for the first time in ages. We've been going pretty regularly. And we never leave without a deep sense of gratitude that we spent an hour there. I remember the first time we were there for communion and the minister gave a little spiel that went something like, We don't presume you to be Christian in a certain way; it is simply our hope to be Christian to you. And that means that absolutely everyone is welcome here, and that anyone with any shred of belief is welcome to join us around this table, and I could have wept on the spot with relief. The rules and dogma and doctrinal scoldings at our old church left me feeling resentful, beaten down, and defeated. The Catholic church, when asked, "What are you sure of?" replies: "Everything. Fall in line." But here - here! right in our city - was a church that, when asked the same question, replies: Barely anything. But come figure it out with us.
Don't get me wrong; I like rules: speed limits, bedtimes, ask-to-be-excused-before-you-leave-the-table, pay your taxes, wait in line, be a good neighbor. But when it comes to God, I've long gone on record as being a little suspicious of anyone who seems to be too sure about anything. It is a MYSTERY. Who among us can really know much for sure beyond the Greatest Commandment (Love God) and the second, "like unto it," (Love one another)? Why raise our girls in a church where they, no matter how holy or wise or effective a leader, can't lead because of their gender? Why endure doctrinal scoldings during sermons about things that we never agreed with in the first place? Why remain a part of a church that wants to silence dissension, keep people away from the table, and offer communion based on a set of narrow parameters?
From now on, we'll be over here, eating at a table that nourishes us, celebrating the hol(y)days in a way that makes better sense to us, creating our own little family traditions.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Notes From Camp
She finished 4th grade, finished another soccer season, performed in the end-of-the-year piano recital. She's nine going on ten going on seventeen and we're technically required to call her a fifth-grader now. She has braces. She was awarded the "Fantastic Friend" award by her teacher at school, and "Best Technical Skills" award by her soccer coach, whatever that means. She's had an iPod touch for a year or so, for music and a camera and silly games, and she lobbied us for months to enable the texting feature, which we finally did this week on a trial basis with much trepidation and after multiple conversations about Responsibility and Trust and The Internet is Forever, so now she and her friend can use all the emoji while they text about which headband they'll wear the following day.
Also, she's at camp.
Camp, as in sleepaway, as in we dropped her off on Sunday and haven't spoken a word to her since. I didn't think this would be a big deal for me, since I've definitely been away from her for much longer periods of time (I pick her up tomorrow), and I know she's with three of her bestest friends, and I loved camp myself at exactly her age. But the complete lack of communication has thrown me -- can't I get a 60-second phone call: "Everything good? You're having fun? I love you!" -- and the house is so very quiet without her in it.
Not that the absence is all bad. Because in spite of the fact that she can still pass time by coloring, possibly still believes in fairies and Santa, and spent a big chunk of her first day of summer vacation playing an invented game with Jemma involving scooters, maple seeds, a sidewalk-chalk-drawn map on the driveway, and bad guys, she's moving into the teen-ish years more quickly than I can believe. The last week of school, she had an honest-to-goodness fit about her hair, which looked exactly the same as it has looked every other day of the last year, and declared it "square" and ripped her headband out and threw it on the ground. For the first time this school year, she actually got a little worked up about tests ("Quiz me on the state capitals one last time, Mom!") and she started faux-complaining about a boy or two in her class. I brought her to one of Ben's lacrosse games and after the game was over the two of them had a few moments of painful awkwardness, complete with strange voices and total lack of eye contact, before they remembered that they're friends who have known one another since they were born and went on talking and laughing as usual. She's moody and talks back and stomps off and is 100 percent a tween.
Before she left on Sunday, Jason and I tucked a few notes into the clothes she had packed in her duffel bag for her to find later. It was Father's Day, and as I was hiding a little blue note among her t-shirts, I was remembering the way my dad used to do the same thing for me each year. I don't remember what a single one of his notes said -- I wish I had one still now -- but I can easily envision his spidery, all-caps handwriting and the little smiley face he always drew.
On Sunday, I had talked to him on the phone earlier that day, and he told Annie to have a great time at camp, and I wish I had remembered to talk about the notes with him when I wished him happy Father's Day. I always loved finding them, always felt loved and treasured when I thought about my dad remembering to tuck them in. As Annie grows up and away from us (grades and boys and camp and texts), more and more I think our role is to step back and watch her learn (and try, and fail, and try again) while we coach and encourage from the sidelines. I kind of can't believe I'm the person tucking the notes into the camp duffel, but I'm hoping she remembers it on a day next week or next year when she "hates" us, and maybe again in 20 or 30 years, when she's doing it for her kids.
And I can't wait to go get her tomorrow.
Also, she's at camp.
Camp, as in sleepaway, as in we dropped her off on Sunday and haven't spoken a word to her since. I didn't think this would be a big deal for me, since I've definitely been away from her for much longer periods of time (I pick her up tomorrow), and I know she's with three of her bestest friends, and I loved camp myself at exactly her age. But the complete lack of communication has thrown me -- can't I get a 60-second phone call: "Everything good? You're having fun? I love you!" -- and the house is so very quiet without her in it.
Not that the absence is all bad. Because in spite of the fact that she can still pass time by coloring, possibly still believes in fairies and Santa, and spent a big chunk of her first day of summer vacation playing an invented game with Jemma involving scooters, maple seeds, a sidewalk-chalk-drawn map on the driveway, and bad guys, she's moving into the teen-ish years more quickly than I can believe. The last week of school, she had an honest-to-goodness fit about her hair, which looked exactly the same as it has looked every other day of the last year, and declared it "square" and ripped her headband out and threw it on the ground. For the first time this school year, she actually got a little worked up about tests ("Quiz me on the state capitals one last time, Mom!") and she started faux-complaining about a boy or two in her class. I brought her to one of Ben's lacrosse games and after the game was over the two of them had a few moments of painful awkwardness, complete with strange voices and total lack of eye contact, before they remembered that they're friends who have known one another since they were born and went on talking and laughing as usual. She's moody and talks back and stomps off and is 100 percent a tween.
Before she left on Sunday, Jason and I tucked a few notes into the clothes she had packed in her duffel bag for her to find later. It was Father's Day, and as I was hiding a little blue note among her t-shirts, I was remembering the way my dad used to do the same thing for me each year. I don't remember what a single one of his notes said -- I wish I had one still now -- but I can easily envision his spidery, all-caps handwriting and the little smiley face he always drew.
On Sunday, I had talked to him on the phone earlier that day, and he told Annie to have a great time at camp, and I wish I had remembered to talk about the notes with him when I wished him happy Father's Day. I always loved finding them, always felt loved and treasured when I thought about my dad remembering to tuck them in. As Annie grows up and away from us (grades and boys and camp and texts), more and more I think our role is to step back and watch her learn (and try, and fail, and try again) while we coach and encourage from the sidelines. I kind of can't believe I'm the person tucking the notes into the camp duffel, but I'm hoping she remembers it on a day next week or next year when she "hates" us, and maybe again in 20 or 30 years, when she's doing it for her kids.
And I can't wait to go get her tomorrow.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Beatrice
My grandma passed away yesterday. She was my mom's mom, the grandma I was closest to growing up. The one who had us over for sleepovers and let us shoot BB guns off the back porch at leftover utility line flags. The one with a huge backyard with a clothesline and a basement with spare bedrooms where my brother and I slept. The one who loved crossword puzzles and spoke German and Dutch and wrote me long letters from Florida in the winter, with spidery handwriting and drawings of the layout of their condo and maybe five or ten dollars inside. The one who was always doing dishes or wiping the counter. The one who served Ritz crackers and Schuler's bar cheese on Sundays when we went for coffee after church, who poured me iced tea out of a brown Tupperware pitcher. The one who came to all my birthday parties, hosted our Christmas Eve gatherings, went on our annual summer camping trip, cooked me the best fried potatoes ever with the container of bacon grease she kept under the sink. The one who came to the hospital to hold baby Annie on her first day of life. The one who canned peaches and pears and made strawberry jam and drove a school bus for disabled kids.
She was smart, stubborn, fastidious, faithful, and serious, though I remember her laughing a lot too. She drank coffee from morning to night. She smelled like lipstick and lotion. She had Alzheimer's, like her own mother did, and she hasn't been the same grandma to me for at least five years now. I brought her flowers and ate cake with her on her birthday in October. I saw her last weekend and I was stunned. She was less like my grandmother and more like a baby bird, lying in bed, unable to talk, unable to eat, opening her eyes off and on when we spoke to her or held her hand. For the last week, the image has been with me as I go about all the things I go about. As I was falling asleep, I was thinking My grandma is dying. As I stretched my hamstrings in downward dog, I was thinking My grandma is dying. As I hugged and kissed the girls when they got home from school, I was thinking My grandma is dying. As I took a bite of food, laughed with a friend, wrote an article, drove my car, shoveled snow, talked to my mom on the phone, read to my daughter before bed: My grandma is dying.
And now she's gone. She leaves behind my grandpa, her husband of 64 years, a number that is incomprehensible to me, and her four children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren. I am at once guiltily relieved that she is no longer suffering in that bed and incredibly sad that she is no longer in the world with me. I'll never hold her hand again. I'll never smell her smell. Two months ago, I still had both my grandmas; now I have neither.
I have friends who have lost parents, siblings, unborn children. This -- me losing my grandparents in their 80s and 90s -- is not particularly tragic, I know. It's simply sad. So for today, I'm trying to get down the good memories as best I can before they fade. I'm trying to find the threads of these two beautiful, smart, funny, strong, stubborn women in myself and in my girls. I'm trying to remember that, in the word of a favorite, Ray Bradbury, "no person ever died that had a family."
"Important thing is not the me that's lying here, but the me that's sitting on the edge of the bed looking back at me, and the me that's downstairs cooking supper, or out in the garage under the car, or in the library reading. All the new parts, they count. I'm not really dying today. No person ever died that had a family. I'll be around a long time. A thousand years from now a whole township of my offspring will be biting sour apples in the gumwood shade." - Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
She was smart, stubborn, fastidious, faithful, and serious, though I remember her laughing a lot too. She drank coffee from morning to night. She smelled like lipstick and lotion. She had Alzheimer's, like her own mother did, and she hasn't been the same grandma to me for at least five years now. I brought her flowers and ate cake with her on her birthday in October. I saw her last weekend and I was stunned. She was less like my grandmother and more like a baby bird, lying in bed, unable to talk, unable to eat, opening her eyes off and on when we spoke to her or held her hand. For the last week, the image has been with me as I go about all the things I go about. As I was falling asleep, I was thinking My grandma is dying. As I stretched my hamstrings in downward dog, I was thinking My grandma is dying. As I hugged and kissed the girls when they got home from school, I was thinking My grandma is dying. As I took a bite of food, laughed with a friend, wrote an article, drove my car, shoveled snow, talked to my mom on the phone, read to my daughter before bed: My grandma is dying.
And now she's gone. She leaves behind my grandpa, her husband of 64 years, a number that is incomprehensible to me, and her four children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren. I am at once guiltily relieved that she is no longer suffering in that bed and incredibly sad that she is no longer in the world with me. I'll never hold her hand again. I'll never smell her smell. Two months ago, I still had both my grandmas; now I have neither.
I have friends who have lost parents, siblings, unborn children. This -- me losing my grandparents in their 80s and 90s -- is not particularly tragic, I know. It's simply sad. So for today, I'm trying to get down the good memories as best I can before they fade. I'm trying to find the threads of these two beautiful, smart, funny, strong, stubborn women in myself and in my girls. I'm trying to remember that, in the word of a favorite, Ray Bradbury, "no person ever died that had a family."
"Important thing is not the me that's lying here, but the me that's sitting on the edge of the bed looking back at me, and the me that's downstairs cooking supper, or out in the garage under the car, or in the library reading. All the new parts, they count. I'm not really dying today. No person ever died that had a family. I'll be around a long time. A thousand years from now a whole township of my offspring will be biting sour apples in the gumwood shade." - Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
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