She Knows

She knows her grip is too desperate, too needy, but she doesn’t loosen her hold on his hand.

They are going out to dinner, and he has reassured her she looks fine, twice at home, again in the car. His tone had been more exasperated than appreciative that last time, and she winces at the demands her insecurities place on him.

He always says she looks beautiful. He always holds her hand.

Even so, she can’t quite believe him when he says, “I love you.” It might have been true when his infatuation was new, before she’d worn him down, tugging at him like a dingy being tossed by the ocean. He is not the first person to serve as her anchor. Others have tried and failed. Surrendered to it. She knows that one day the moorings will snap and his safe harbor will vanish, too, as she is drawn back into the maelstrom. This is the only truth she knows.

There are reasons he’s still at her side. He’s an optimist, but in a relaxed sort of way that allows time to slip by without bothering him. Her children have his eyes and curiosity. His children have her hair and love of drawing. They are blended together in their small, socially awkward, imaginative, living creations.

On the other hand, he is impatient, frustrated when he is held back from something he wants to do. She holds him back a lot. Some days, he goes on without her rather than work to bring her along with him. One day he won’t come back. This is what she tells herself on the black days.

But today is one of her better days, so she tightens her fingers around his palm and marches into the restaurant. The whispers of thought that brush against her become less of an overwhelming chaotic storm, like the one she’d fought against outside. Walking down busy pavement through swarms of teenagers and judgmental suburban professionals is never pleasant. Restaurants, at least the more dignified ones, are easier. Diners tend to focus on their meals and companions. A thought or two might be sent her way when she walks behind the hostess, winding her way down the path between tables. She can handle that. It’s nice to have a reprieve from the opinions and disdain that pour from other people’s eyes.

Sometimes she forgets how to talk to him, but this is a good day. They talk about world events, friends, and nonsense that makes them both laugh around their forkfuls of pasta. Together they entertain their server with the sort of patter-talk that used to trip off the tongues of Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. The server loves them, their wit, the welcome into their little bubble of irreverent amusement. It’s one of those moments when she knows they’ve been labeled a “happy couple” in someone’s head forever. She wishes she could bottle that feeling and carry it with them back out into the world. She would open the bottle on the bad days, when she can’t breathe from the pain of her helplessness, when he can’t quite find the patience this time to react with understanding rather than irritation.

Her illness has become a third wheel in this relationship, and she doesn’t know how much more they can withstand. How much more she can fight it. How much longer he can stay. But he still calls her “beautiful”, so she clings to hope, and to him.

She thinks that her biggest burden is knowing she’s not quite sane. Her mental vision is forever impaired, tinted nonexistent shades, and she can’t see clearly. This illness has wrapped her in chains that lay so heavily on her, she cannot lift her body from the bed. But she can still see all her potential, all her wasted opportunities, and all the losses of friendships and dreams that have come and gone while she’s carried on surviving.

One day she may not win the battle. She knows that, too. It’s strange that it frightens her enough to make her feel safer, wearing her terror like armor around her heart to protect her from herself. Using fear to survive at the same time that it keeps her from living.

Most times when he attempts to drag her out of the dim room of her inner sanctum, she tries to let him. Some days she hates him for it. On the worst days, she hates herself too much to do more than keep breathing for him.

She has never been a crier, and when she breaks down, it scares him. He brings her ice cream. He tells her why she is worthy of love. He tells her he believes in her. He tells her he’s never going to leave. He tells her about all the wonderful things that are worth living for. He tells her he loves her.

She knows.

Depression lies. It’s not her fault. She’s not a failure. She’s not unloved. She’s not weak for not conquering this awful mountain of Can’t. She matters to people. She matters to him. Depression lies.

She knows.

She holds his hand.

White Privilege

So. White privilege. I read a really great blog post about this, and I wanted to add my own two cents to the mix.

I’m white. Like whiter than white. But my children are Hispanic. Specifically, Mexican and Nicaraguan and indigenous/Native American. This puts me in a weird situation as far as discussing civil rights and racism, the same sort of situation as white parents who adopt children of color (and of course other parents of biracial children).

I support Black Lives Matter and similar groups trying to protect marginalized people in the US. As a child of the early 70s, I remember when race riots were still a topic of national discourse. Things seemed to quiet down in the 80s and 90s. That’s not to say that racism went away. It just got ignored again.

But then, oh lordy, we got ourselves a black President. People lost their minds. Obviously he had to be from Kenya because (apparently) that's the only place black people come from.

In my naïveté and privilege, I had sort of thought that Obama’s election signaled that racism in the US was on the wane. Boy was I wrong. The ugliness that poured out astounded me, and my view of what Americans are changed dramatically.

It’s hard to push back against the seething mass of hatred, fear, and anger that was unleashed following the 2008 election. My voice is small, and the volume of negativity has continued to get louder and more vicious.

I talked to my children, tried to educate them, and I became more mindful of my own privilege and how I could use it to help stem the tide. I know I will never understand or experience what African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, and other marginalized groups have to deal with on a daily basis. The only way I could hope to relate is my struggles against the misogyny I’ve encountered in my life. But if I’m honest, which I should be, my socio-economic background has insulated me to a certain extent there, as well.

See, the thing with white privilege is that you grow up without having to fear for your life any time you leave the house. It has never occurred to me during a traffic stop that the police officer might shoot me if I said anything wrong. I’ve never walked to the store with the knowledge that some random vigilante could find me threatening and blow me away. When I’ve had to knock on a stranger’s door, it has never been with the fear that I would be seen as a threat and killed before I had a chance to speak. I’ve never had to fight to assert my right to live unmolested and safe. I’ve never had to prove that I matter.

I never expected to have to warn my children about the prejudice and aggression they will encounter because of their skin or their surname.

When Donald Trump rode down that ridiculous elevator and stood in front of the cameras, he chose to accuse Mexicans of rape and murder and insisted he would rid the country of these evil-doers. I’ll ignore for the moment that the vast majority of Mexican immigrants are hard workers, dedicated to their families and communities, and living lives that would make the average suburban white person weep.

The thing that sickened me most about that speech was that it signaled that racism was socially acceptable. Since that day, I have heard and seen more racism, bigotry, and intolerance than I think I had in my entire life up till that point. Because now we have this open culture of hate, and to our shame, a great percentage of our citizenry has jumped up on that wagon.

My oldest son told me once that he “feels white.” What he meant is that he has been sheltered and essentially accepted into the predominantly white environment due to our family’s financial advantages. He’s never been treated like a “lazy Mexican.” Even so, I had to warn him that there are many people out there who will remind him he’s brown, and that he might even miss out on job opportunities just because of the name at the top of his résumé. He didn’t believe me before the Trump speech. Now that he’s seen the aftermath, he realizes that it’s only too true. I hate that he had to have that revelation.

My youngest son asked me if Trump would deport his father. He is genuinely scared of this. He is proud of his heritage and cannot understand why people would hate his grandparents, his father, and him because of it.

As a white woman in the suburbs, I don’t know if I’m really qualified to talk about racism, but I think I need to anyway. I think we all need to. Because if it’s socially acceptable to let hatred and bigotry have a voice, then it should also be okay to speak out against it. So even though I’m steeped in white privilege, I’m not going to stay silent. My children will not stay silent. And I hope that at the very least, I can leave behind a legacy of descendants who will be unafraid to speak the truth.

Time Machine

My mother fell today. She got hurt but not badly, and it got me thinking. She’s seventy-two now.

It wasn’t a doddering-old-lady accident. She just tripped. I do that all the time. We Lawrences are a graceful bunch. All the same, I couldn’t quite put it out of my head. This is where we are now. As an only child, I have always known that the day would come when the balance of our relationship would shift and I would become the caregiver. There is still a bit of a shock when you find that long-anticipated day has arrived. My mind went automatically to whether she needed a doctor, how to get the kids home from school, whether my father needed me to be there, and on and on. This is a woman who used to run a department of a major corporation with such laser focus that I swear she only came home to sleep. She got a PhD at fifty because she just wanted to. She learned Italian in her sixties. She knows exactly which lines were cut from that Shakespearean production and can recite them on demand.

My father, whose mind has always been brilliant and whose composure has always been coma-like, is seventy-six. He’s started to forget things. He’s started to make mistakes. It’s disorienting to see such a razor-sharp intellect lose the edge my mother and I always relied upon. It’s a bit sad it happened gradually enough for me to become accustomed to having to double-check with him. I couldn’t even tell you when “reminding Dad” became standard operating procedure. The change snuck up on me like a ninja. We’re talking about a man who wrote out the grocery list in order of where the items were located in the aisles. From memory. In pen.

It shouldn’t have surprised me. I’m forty-two. But frankly, it’s still way too early to start talking about my parents’ twilight years. People in my family tend to hang around quite awhile. It may be another twenty years before we’re really talking about “The End.” However, my parents are no longer comfortably nestled in that catchall period known as middle age. The scares will become more frequent, the list of doctors and specialists will become longer, and my separateness from them will shrink.

Shorty is turning eleven this week. Seven more years until society labels him a legal adult. My time as the parent of actual children is coming to an end, but I will continue to be a caretaker. If family patterns hold, I will only stop when my parents have gone, and it becomes my boys’ turn to worry about my aging body and how much longer they can cling to their independence before the separateness from me is no longer possible. I’d hoped that by having two children, neither would have to shoulder that alone. It may not work out that way, but at least I gave it a shot.

My teen is fast approaching his seventeenth birthday, and our recent conversations have revolved around driver’s ed, college searches, and potential careers. Never have the sands fallen so quickly through the hourglass. I’m nearly out of time, I think. Now I frantically bombard him with all the life lessons and tools I hadn’t gotten around to yet. I’m cramming for the exam, although he will be the one tested. I hope that if I forgot an assignment, he will call me and ask for my notes. I try to trust that he’s ready, and I remind myself to let him fail.

My husband and I have begun to realize we need things to talk about outside the kids and our careers. We need to remember how to hang out. How to just sit and shoot the shit for hours about all sorts of nonsense, like we used to back when we were young and had all the time in the world.

This is why people have mid-life crises, I think. I’ve always been aware that time was passing, but never before has such a sense of urgency been tied to it. The next steps along the path are all big ones, but none of them are mine. This gives me a sense of powerlessness that I am having trouble adjusting to, even though I know that control has always been an illusion. My life now has a different flavor, and my mind is reacting the same way the world did when New Coke was introduced in the 1980s, with a loud cry of “What the hell is this nonsense?”

Time is passing, and there are no guarantees. So I sit and wonder, in the midst of scheduling SAT prep classes and learning about end-of-life care options, what about me? Am I content to just bounce back and forth from daughter to mother to daughter to mother to (perhaps) grandmother? What about my writing? You can prepare for some eventualities. Get life insurance so your family can pay your final expenses. Get health insurance so the life insurance won’t be needed prematurely. Get auto and home insurance so your assets stay around as long as you do. But there isn’t an insurance company out there than can protect against untapped potential.

I’m weirdly comforted by that. It doesn’t give me the sense of anxiety that other things do. It’s nice to know that there are some things that will only exist if I create them. There’s a footprint only I can leave behind. This is an excellent reminder to me that the things I love best, beyond the family and friends I cherish, need me to give them life. My writing is mine, and it is me—independent of my health, my appearance, my social skills, my number of friends, even my self-esteem. It is mine in the purest sense possible.

Somewhere in between being a daughter and a mother, a wife and a friend, I am a writer. I will be a writer the next time my mother falls and the next time my father forgets. I will be a writer while my children take their first steps into their own slice of the world to learn who they will become. I will be a writer when my husband and I are left to our own devices, when we suddenly notice that we’re still seeing each other as twenty-three and so clueless, even though the world around us calls us “Ma’am” and “Sir” and our children have started worrying about our falls and forgetfulness. I am so, so fortunate to have this gift I can carry with me always, and now I am taking the time to remember that what I have to share with the world is just as important as my other roles.

November is National Novel Writing Month, and (shocking, I know) many of my friends are writers. I have heard nearly every one of them in the past ten days question their abilities. The words won’t come, the story is stupid, the characters are jerks, the world will laugh (or worse, ignore) their paltry offerings. Each of these friends has real talent. No one of them could write the story any other has written. Their uniqueness is remarkable. The qualities I see in each of them, the reasons I call these people friends, come across on the page. I know they can’t see it. I know they are frustrated, maybe a little scared, feeling foolish for even trying. But they are so, so brilliant. They have so much wonder and truth and heart that I want to scream at them, “Can’t you see how totally remarkable you are?” So this is me, yelling at each of you. Use your time. Create something new. No one else can tell your story.

Secret Handshake

It is the late 1970s. We have just moved to Cleveland, and my parents have started taking me to church every Sunday. In our new home, my father is suddenly no longer an atheist, and he follows my mother back to the religion of her childhood. I’ve been in the choir of the Methodist church, and I’m confused about why we can’t join that one instead. They are nice to me there. The rituals of this new church make no sense to me, and I observe the routine with a mixture of skepticism and bewilderment.

“What are they doing?” I’m whispering, because that’s what you do when you’re a child in a big room.

“They’re making the sign of the cross.”

“Little tiny ones?” I’m really confused now.

“Yes.”

They want me to be quiet. They want me to fit in and play along, but I don’t understand. “Why?”

A suppressed sigh. Everything is like that now. Muted, so the world won’t hear and judge. “So that God is in their thoughts, on their lips, and in their hearts.”

I want to ask what it means, but I don’t. We’re right under the priest’s nose, and I don’t want to upset him. He’s wearing a wide robe that shines with crimson and gold. I want to ask about that, too, but I don’t.

My mother has dressed me up, and the pleats of my skirt are gauzy and sharp. I gather them with my fingers, a slippery pink accordion. My mother puts a book under my nose, and the fabric falls away.

“Follow along.”

It’s a small book, white plastic and inexplicably puffy. Jesus is inside. He has children on his lap, and he’s laughing. Everyone looks relaxed and happy. I want to find the right words in the book. I want to understand what is going on up on the massive table. If I can find the words, God will put me on his lap, and we can laugh together.

I don’t find the words. I’ve kept quiet, because all of this is new. This city speaks differently. The children don’t want to play with me. My accent is weird, and they don’t like the things I imagine. “Idea” has no R at the end. I can’t have a frappe. I can’t ride the swan boats.

We played in Boston. Back in Boston, I was the Queen of All Seasons and the Captain of the Kissing Girl Team. Here, I am not. Not heard. Not seen.

It’s hard for me to understand why suddenly it is a sin to sleep in on a lazy Sunday morning. The priest tells me that I can go to hell if I don’t go to church on Sunday. No, the Sundays before don’t count. Starting now, though. My concepts of right and wrong are absolute at this age, and I can’t understand what has changed.

I’m going to be Catholic now. Hell is something I need to worry about now. I ask the priest why people believe, if they can avoid hell just by not knowing any better. He sighs.

When I’m sad, I tell my father I want to go home. All the way back, to before church, before Ohio, and even before Boston. My family is in Kansas. I want to go home. I want to understand the words and the gestures and the rules. Nothing here makes sense. I want to pet my grandfather’s dog, play with my cousins, and be far away from these mystifying people and their strange words and gestures that no one ever explains.

My father tells me that Kansas isn’t home. He tells me that if we went back, the place I want still wouldn’t be there. He tells me home doesn’t exist, so I need to be happy here.

I want to be where I belong, but I’m out of sync here. I don’t know what to say while the rosary beads slip through my fingers. I don’t understand what the other kids seem to. I stay silent.

When we all go to high school seven years later, one of the girls speaks to me. She hasn’t before, except to tease on the playground, but now she is new. I am familiar.

“Aren’t you nervous?”

“No.”

“How do we figure out where to go?”

“Just follow everyone else. It’ll be fine.”

“How can you be so calm?” She’s demanding now, unsettled that the misfit is now stronger than her.

I shrug and move away. This is nothing. I can do this. It’s an even playing field because we’re all new. We’re beginning at the very start of the process rather than being thrown into the middle of the machinery like a wayward screwdriver. This time, we all have to learn these new rules.

How hard could it be? The skirts are polyester, and the pleats are sewn in like the Will of God. My imagination slips out in my words now and then, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not confused, so they like me here. I’m not the awkward girl who doesn’t understand.

I still want to go home.

College comes, and I go. It’s Pennsylvania this time, but by now, I am used to this. The school is a microcosm that I soon carve into, making my place. I have friends, and a boy who says he loves me even though my words aren’t what he wants to hear. I let my imagination out of its box a bit more, I experiment with words, and I say goodbye to the boy. Another boy loves me, and I let him.

I don’t want to go home.

I come back to Cleveland, bringing my boy with me. At first, there is the dream of the next adventure. We can go anywhere, be anything. I consider Alabama. England. Boston. Kansas. And then I look around at where I am.

I may not have understood the motions in church, the unwritten rules of Catholic school, or the ordered suburban lives of my peers back then. But now I find myself in Cleveland, and I understand. There is Playhouse Square, where I saw Yule Brenner and Beverly Sills. I learned to change the theater lights and lace up toe shoes at the Beck Center. The Cleveland Institute of Art showed me that hair is more than just one color, and Severance Hall showed me how music feels when it reverberates off your heart and into your bones. I’ve learned to sing, to paint, to dance, and to write here.

(The violin was a disaster, and I never learned to cook.)

A lot of the old places are gone, but the old places are being made new. The people here shine, and they open themselves to the idea of what a city, a neighborhood, or one old building could be. There is life here, and instead of a secret handshake, a hand is thrust out to pull you into the chaos and wonder of it all. You can be one hundred people here and live every life imaginable.

So this is home now. I came home, but I’m not in Kansas anymore.

Conversations in my Life

I recently came across a little log I was keeping of strange little exchanges I had (or overheard) throughout the course of my days. It's a couple years old, but some of them made me laugh, so I thought I'd share.

May 7, 2012

Shorty: "What does the S in 'socks' stand for?"
Me: *guzzles more coffee*

May 13, 2012

Teenager: "Mom, Shorty is messing with my room's protons."
Me: "Shorty, no messing with other people's protons without permission."

May 15, 2012

My mother: "You can't be a maverick when you're married with kids."
Me: "Watch me."

May 17, 2012

Board of Education employee (all excited): "Do you write children's books?"
Me (choking slightly): "Um... no."
Awkward pause.
Board of Education employee: "Oh."

May 27, 2012

92-year-old great aunt (and Joplin, MO, resident): "I haven't been going to church since it blew away."

Me:  "Way to get off on a technicality!"

May 29, 2012

92-year-old Great-Aunt: "I go to the beauty shop, and all the magazines have articles on how to lose weight. It makes me mad. Where are the articles on how to GAIN weight? I don't even have anything to sit on anymore!"
Me: ---

Mother's Cousin: "He got up from the dinner table to go to the bathroom, and he showed up a week later in Mexico."
Me: ---

Mother: "I miss Daddy. There's no one to say 'There's where the poop goes' when we drive past the water treatment plant."
Uncle: "I don't think Dad ever said 'poop'. He wasn't a 'poop' kind of guy."
Me: ---

Driving through area of Joplin destroyed one year ago by a tornado:
Mother: "If you think it looks bad now, you should have seen it a year ago!"
Me: *biting tongue*

June 10, 2012

Teen's friend: "I got $120 bucks for graduation!"
Teen: "So? I got a sonic screwdriver, a TARDIS USB hub, and a Minecraft t-shirt. That's WAY better."

June 14, 2012

Shorty: “Can I go to Grandma & Grandpa's?”
Me: “No, they're meeting with the President today.”
Shorty: “The President of what?”
Me: “The United States.”
Shorty: “Okay. How about tomorrow, then?”
Me: “You are a hard kid to impress, you know.”

July 2, 2012

Shorty: "What are dogs' armpits for?"
Me: ----

July 5, 2012

Me (to cat): "Aw, who's my precious girl?"
Hubs (raises hand): "ME!"
Me: ---

July 12, 2012

My Teenager: "The worst part about being in the Legions of the Undead is that you get killed quickly."
Me: "Okay, but did you do the laundry?"

July 14, 2012

Me: "I really don't want you playing violent games."
Shorty: "It's not violent. It's just guns."
(pause)
Me: "Wow. I really am a crap parent."

July 15, 2012

My Mother: "We have a present for you. Your father and I had a portrait done, and we got you a framed print."
Me: "Um... okay..."
My Mother: "It's too late to bring it over tonight, but we'll get it to you as soon as we can, okay?"
Me: "No rush, really."

July 18, 2012

Teenager: "Mom, your accent is slipping again."
Me: "Damn."
Teenager: "You have a real problem with that."
Me: "Oh, shut up."

July 30, 2012

Me: "Hey, I need you to watch Shorty tomorrow for a bit. I'm going with Aunt Sydney to get a tattoo."
Teenager, without even blinking: "Okay."

August 8, 2012

Me: "Okay, quiet please, because I'm working."
Shorty: "Okay."
(Pause)
Shorty: "Hey, Mom - guess who the king of the beavers is!"
Me: *sigh*

August 18, 2012

Shorty: "Mom, where's my Doctor Who backpack?"
Me: "I ordered it, but it's not here yet."
Shorty: "When's it gonna get here?"
Me: "In about a month."
Shorty: "?!?!? Whyyyyyyy? That's no fair!"
Me: " 'Gee, I sure am lucky my mom will get me cool stuff from halfway across the world. I'll have to wait patiently to show my gratitude.' You are really spoiled, you know that?"
Shorty: "But Moooooom..."
Me: "Oh, go blow something up and leave me alone. Brat."

Me (to Husband): "You're such a jerk."
Hubs: "Thanks. I practice in the mirror."
Me: --- (Can't speak because I'm laughing too hard.)

August 22, 2012

Shorty: "Look what I found in my pocket today! A missile!"
Me: .......

August 27, 2012

Shorty (to his father): "Dad, do me a solid."
Me: "BWHAHAHAHA!!!"

Hubs: "Hey, get Shorty some orange juice."
Me: "I gave him life - can't YOU give him orange juice?"

September 6, 2012

Shorty watching the last episode of Doctor Who 2005 season: "He just left Jack behind?"
Me: "Yes."
Shorty: "That was rude!"

Shorty: "Is the sun ever going to expand?"
Me: "Sure, eventually."
Shorty: "What day?"
Me: "How should I know? We'll be long gone, so it's not like it matters."
Shorty: "LONG GONE! YAY! WEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
Me: ----

September 8, 2012

Teenager: "But, Mom, I can't go to bed yet! Somewhere out there, someone is being wrong on the Internet!"
Me: "Fine. Two more hours."

September 25, 2012

                Me: “No one takes themselves as seriously as the young and the rich.”

Disgustingly Sentimental Christmas Blog

It is perhaps both typical and telling that my Christmas blog post begins with a recent conversation I had with a psychologist. After all, the holidays are all about families, and if ever a family existed to stun therapists the world over, it’s mine. 

This particular doctor asked me to describe a typical Christmas celebration in my family.

"Typical? Um..."

Now, I actually do feel some pity for the mental health care professionals who deal with me and mine, so I didn’t laugh in his face. Bless the man, I’m sure he was envisioning a large, rowdy get-together with shared jokes and stories and children’s laughter amid bows and ribbons and eggnog. I can’t honestly say I’ve ever actually encountered eggnog in the flesh. It’s always seemed like an exotic myth, like flying reindeer or benevolent carolers who weren’t paid to be there.

Nowadays, Christmas in my home consists of loosely organized wrapping paper carnage first thing in the morning, followed by the requisite pilgrimage to my parents’ house for dinner. There, we eat on fancy plates we’ll have to hand wash, and there will be at least one or two properly strange contributions to the menu. One year when I was very pregnant, it was fresh mint in the green beans, which my sensitive nose did not appreciate. There is no children’s table, so we all participate in one central conversation, which sounds really lively and convivial until you remember who is sitting at the table.

The older generation governs the ebb and flow of conversation. In my case, these wise forebears are my father, mother, aunt, and uncle. For the uninitiated, that’s a Doctor of Inorganic Chemistry and former Director of Technology of a major international corporation; a Doctor of English Literature and former Executive Director for yet another international corporation; the former head of Literature for the area’s most important library and current darling of theater luminaries, who are forever begging her for research and copies of long-forgotten musical scores; and a history scholar who also is something of an expert in oriental rugs and organic fruit for reasons that escape me. Two Republicans and two Democrats. Two Episcopalians and two Roman Catholics.

To say that the dinner conversation is a tad academic would be putting it mildly. 

The evening ends with a frankly bloodthirsty game of Monopoly between my mother and aunt. The rest of us have learned not to interfere. The noncombatants swill glasses of port, nibble ginger cookies, and stare at the fire until a decent interval has passed and we can disperse.

However, this is my father’s side of the family. When I was a child, we spent Christmases with my mother’s family.

"Sing it, Perry!"

Christmas in Kansas was possibly my favorite childhood memory. Granny would make chocolate and peanut butter fudge, my grandfather would smoke his pipe and growl at everyone, my mother would dither, and my father would immerse himself in a crossword puzzle. My cousins and I would dress the Pomeranian in felt dolls’ clothes, hammer at the organ until our elders yelled, and laugh late into the night when my mother’s eyes would bulge with rage and we’d finally settle down. We sometimes wandered down to what was rather optimistically called the park, but was really a stone arch that gave way to a muddy clearing with a couple of large, cement pipes half-embedded in the grass. 

The shed at the back of the house was perfect for exploring, and I remember laughing over my mother’s impossibly pointed shoes from the 1950s and my grandfather’s naughty magazines. 

Do they still make Shrinky Dinks? Those things were pure genius. This was also the era of Star Wars. What 1970s childhood could be complete without a Princess Leia doll with real hair? Of course those gigantic buns didn’t last long, but she was still one of my favorite toys. I had an Uhura doll, too. I know you’re jealous.

The tree was plastic and glorious, the long drape of tinsel falling from star to floor, providing tantalizing peeks at the gaudy World War II era ornaments beneath. Perry Como would be crooning Christmas carols over the eight-track player, and I would scamper out in my prim Muppet Show nightgown with the frill at the ankle and bask in the excitement and anticipation. We children were always well-rested on Christmas morning, thanks to the administration of Granny’s famous hot toddies the night before. In later years, Granny got lazy and would just hand out shots of vodka. All I know is that we never stayed up late on Christmas Eve. 

Ho-ho-hangover

It’s amazing how many of your childhood experiences can’t be repeated with your own children just because it would land you in jail.

"Keep 'em coming, Granny!"

Anyway, the thing my children have missed out on (other than being knocked out with high-proof liquor) is the large, chaotic family get-together. I suppose I could get melancholy about it, but I think they’re happy with the less social, more sedate celebrations they’ve grown up with. As the only children in the house, and the only grandchildren, they are doted upon and spoiled rotten. I even occasionally catch them paying attention to the debates over the influence of 13^th Century monasticism on the development of modern-day politics. They know they are loved and surrounded by the familiar and comforting, and I suppose that is all a child really needs to capture that holiday magic.

The fire starts to die, and the conversation tapers off. The boys watch their great-aunt tuck their dozing mother under a blanket, and they are amused that here, their mother is still a child. Their grandfather magically produces the batteries that weren’t included, while their father mutters over microscopic screws as he assembles the most interesting toy (now that the gouges from the hard plastic packaging have stopped bleeding). Grandmother cackles, malicious glee marking the acquisition of Park Place. Her victim groans, and her rueful laughter becomes part of the tapestry of my children’s memories.

My mother's kingdom.

What we pass on to our children and grandchildren isn’t the tradition. Presents at night or morning, holiday supper or breakfast or tea, midnight mass or sunrise service. None of that matters much. I know that lots of people don’t get those holiday warm fuzzy feelings, and this will sound like sentimental rubbish to them. That’s okay.

I totally respect your opinion.

My point is that, regardless of whether you celebrate Saturnalia, Hanukkah, Christmas, or nothing at all, the rituals that bind a family exist to comfort and reassure.  We are reminded of our connectedness, even as the world changes around us. 

When a new family starts out, new traditions grow out of the disparate backgrounds of both parents. Children grow up and make their own families, with new traditions of their own. What matters most is that we retain that connectedness and honor what has gone before, without allowing it to hold us captive to the past. We let our memories warm and reassure us, taking a deep breath of that fortifying air, and then return to the world for another year.

I don’t know what answer that psychologist was looking for from me. The Christmas of my childhood is long gone, as is that of my husband. I’ve taken the elements from my memories that were the most magical and preserved them for my own children, but by and large, we celebrate in our own way. While I may occasionally feel a sentimental twinge for the way things used to be, I know that we need to embrace the changes in our families to move forward. We can rejoice in some changes, while others break our hearts. At the end of the day, the holidays are for sharing love, memories, solace, and gratitude with each other. That’s the part we need to preserve most of all.

And Perry Como. Gotta preserve the Perry.

Life on the Spectrum's Edge

This is long, serious, and personal. It has nothing to do with writing or books and everything to do with real life. I’ll understand if you choose not to read it, but I hope you will.

There are a lot of people out there who don’t understand the autism spectrum. That’s okay. There are a lot of us living with it who have a dodgy grasp on it, as well. That’s part of the problem – it’s such a wiggly, amorphous concept that trying to fully understand it is a lot like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.

"Have fun with that."

Still, we need to talk about it, because 1 in 88 children today are diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, so not having some awareness of what “autism” means is a lot like not being aware that some people are born with red hair.

"It's so... not brown!!!"

So first, what’s with the spectrum? How come autism gets a spectrum? Shouldn’t a person either be autistic or not autistic? How can people who manage to function in society, hold down jobs, and have families claim to be autistic? How can those people possibly be facing the same challenge as Grandma Ruthie’s hairdresser’s son, who hasn’t spoken a word in twenty years? Does the spectrum just exist to give lazy people an excuse for blowing off important things? Or is it just doctors’ way of making autism fancier than other disorders?

"Care for some champagne with your diagnosis, sir?"

When you meet a severely autistic person, there is no question that their disorder is real. Human beings are quite capable in believing in a condition when there are physical manifestations that prove its validity. However, what many people do not understand is that autism is not a physical issue. Autism sits in the brain. It lives in the mind.

Now, I am in no way qualified to talk about severe autism and what that experience is like for the parents of severely autistic children. What I know, without question, is that it has to be an intensely difficult, exhausting, often discouraging, but sometimes miraculous experience. Non-verbal autistic people are blowing away audiences with their unexpected vocal talents, and through the tireless intervention of families, teachers, doctors, and friends, these people who could so easily be discounted and marginalized are having a profound impact on the people around them. Each of them can touch a person’s heart, even if they cannot tolerate being physically touched themselves. Each one of them can contribute to the world in their own unique way, whether on a large scale or small. They are not defective. They are not less. In so many ways, they are beyond the normal, and the world seen through their eyes is an awe-inspiring place. This is why it is so important for us to continue to build bridges of communication. We do not need to bring these people into our world – we need them to bring us into theirs.

I want to tell you about my son. I will call him Steve, since that would make him laugh. In order to talk about him, though, I first need to tell you a bit about me.

Mental illness seems to run in my family. Nothing exotic that involves drinking Kool-Aid or eating one's neighbors or anything, but it’s there. Along with a HUGE boatload of denial. When I was in high school, I told my parents that something was very wrong with me. They insisted that I was just “being dramatic” as teen-aged girls are wont to be. They were wrong.

I wound up struggling on my own with near-crippling clinical depression through the rest of high school, the entirety of college, and into my adulthood. The longer I went without the proper professional help, the worse my symptoms became. In my final year of school, my boyfriend was tying my shoes for me and delivering chapters of my thesis to my advisor on my behalf. I couldn’t have done it if you’d put a gun to my head – not even tying my own shoes. That was the year I finally got the help I so desperately needed, but anti-depressant drugs are tricky things, and again my boyfriend was there, peeling me off the ceiling when the doctors guessed wrong and reassuring me when I thought I would lose this battle for sanity.

I married him two months shy of my twenty-fourth birthday. My new husband had graduated college a whopping five days earlier. It was the late 1990s, and as many of our generation were discovering, the plentiful jobs we’d been promised were simply not there. I was working as a temp, though I was in a long-term assignment that soon afterward became a full time position. Neither of us knew what we wanted to be when we grew up, so when I discovered I was pregnant a year later, we found ourselves scrambling to define who we were as productive members of society. A mere twenty months after our wedding, Steve was born.

We were both thrilled and terrified. My husband had buried his own father just the day before the birth, and the entire family was emotionally wasted. I was shocked when it came time to leave the hospital, and the nurses just handed me this tiny, fragile human being and let us drive off with him. It was tempting to demand that they wait until a responsible adult showed up. Twenty-five hadn’t felt unbearably young until that moment.

As new parents do, we adjusted, learned, and second-guessed ourselves silly, and the years began to pass. Steve was in a nice daycare, my husband and I both had stable jobs, and my depression had receded to a whisper that was easy to ignore. And then the letter came.

It was from the director of Steve’s daycare. She advised us that Steve was no longer welcome to attend because his behavior made him “a danger to himself and others.” He was three years old.

Steve had had a meltdown, they told us. The children had been fighting over a popular toy, so the staff had removed it to a high shelf to resolve the matter. This had upset Steve more than anyone would have predicted, and he had lashed out, throwing his shoes and flailing around so much that he had knocked over a wooden bookcase. It had almost fallen on a child napping nearby.

We didn’t understand. Steve was sweet, kind, generous, articulate, and perceptive. The child they described was a monster. Our child – my baby – was a monster to them.

"Who, me?"

We found another daycare center. This one had more highly trained staff, and we kept them apprised while we began talking to child psychologists to try to understand Steve’s behavior. We thought it was our fault as parents, and that if a professional could just tell us how to fix it, Steve would be fine. But he wasn’t fine. He loved that daycare, but they weren’t equipped to handle him. One day, I was called to pick him up, and the director lowered the boom. Another rejection, except this time he was aware of it, and it hurt.

When I arrived at the center, I found him in the director’s office. He was in hysterics, crying over and over, “Help me, help me, Mommy. I can’t stop. I can’t stop.” My heart broke. It has been twelve years since that day, and I still cry when I think about it. My little boy was suffering, and I was failing him. I didn’t know what to do.

Neither did the specialists we consulted. We talked to everyone. We took him to the Cleveland Clinic for a battery of tests, including allergies, vision, hearing, and anything else they could think of. I paid his now full-time babysitter to drive with us to the All Kinds of Minds (now, Success in Mind) center in North Carolina to have him assessed by their team of specialists. We filled out more forms than I could have imagined, until my entire world was reduced to “strongly agree” and “somewhat disagree.” This went on for YEARS. It was not until he was in 3rd grade that he was diagnosed by a neurologist with ADHD, and the medications began.

The medicine helped, but not enough. Every year, the neurologist increased the dosage, looking to mask the symptoms and assuring me that I was being paranoid when I wondered if there wasn’t some other issue contributing to Steve’s abnormal behavior. When he was in 6th grade, the neurologist increased the dose again, and when I saw the pill, I wasn’t sure Steve was physically capable of swallowing something that size. I followed my instincts and didn't administer it.

We fired the neurologist. Steve’s new psychiatrist finally – after EIGHT YEARS of consultations and treatments – diagnosed him with high-functioning autism, which at the time was labeled Asperger’s. By continually increasing the dosage of his medication, the neurologist had actually put Steve at risk for heart disease. The psychiatrist also confirmed the ADHD diagnosis, and she added one more to the mix. Steve showed undeniable signs of anxiety disorder, and it was quite clear where that had come from.

6th grade was a nightmare. The public middle school assured us that they were equipped to work with Steve, but it soon became clear that this was a lie. His teachers continued to insist that he be responsible for tasks that he was not able to manage on his own. Rather than accommodating him or helping him, they began emailing me at work on an almost daily basis. They wouldn’t even speak to him directly to correct the behavior, instead choosing to report the infraction in real time to me at work. I just kept getting emails and phone calls and being summoned for meetings, in which they made it clear that these problems were a result of my failings as a parent. I should be making sure he did these things. Not them. Obviously, they could not be held accountable in the face of my flagrant inability to parent my child.

"You suck."

We now had a younger son – let’s call him Fred – who had started kindergarten that year. Because the Universe has a weird sense of humor, little Fred had also been kicked out of his daycare at age three and was diagnosed with ADHD. He would get over-stimulated and lash out, in one instance forcing the teachers to evacuate the classroom and restrain him to prevent any injuries to himself or his classmates. So I was now receiving emails and phone calls nearly every day from TWO schools. To say I was overwhelmed and desperate doesn’t even begin to cover it.

I worked in a law firm as a paralegal, and there was no way for me to continue working and parenting my boys. The longer I attempted to find a balance, the worse both areas of my life became. One day, I had a moment of real clarity, and I quit. I have been home for almost four years now. We eat a lot of ramen noodles.

One of the things we have always been aware of is Steve’s staggering intellect. This kid is flat-out brilliant. Any adult who sits down and speaks with him is completely blown away. There was no way I was going to let him fall through the cracks and waste all that beautiful potential and unique genius. I’ve kept talking to specialists, talking to him, and just being present. We found him a wonderful private school that boasted a one-of-a-kind integrated autism program, and he blossomed. After two years there, he was accepted to one of the most challenging private high schools in the area.

Today, Steve is a sophomore at that school. He is both thriving and struggling. We are beyond fortunate that this school understands that high-functioning autism isn’t just an excuse. The teachers and staff recognize the potential in him, and they bend and adjust to allow him to achieve. He is happy there.

However.

Steve began having crippling anxiety attacks that made doing his homework impossible, and occasionally interfered with his performance in the classroom. At first, we attempted to help him with a mild anti-anxiety medication, but when he began to exhibit signs of clinical depression, I was on the phone looking for a therapist without hesitation. I knew what this meant. I knew the cliff’s edge he was peering over, and I would not let him fall.

We have learned a lot from his therapy sessions. In order to make it a safe place for him to speak freely, I am not in the session with him, and his therapist does not share anything Steve tells him without Steve’s permission. One revelation was that Steve’s mind works entirely by association. This explains his flair for maths and languages. It was the source of his academic strength.

It was also his weakness. Steve’s memory associated homework with the trauma he experienced during that nightmare 6th grade year, and the only way to correct that would be to slowly replace the association with more positive memories. We’re still working on that. 

I am attempting to ignore the boiling rage at what that school did to my son. They took a child who already faced too many obstacles, and they broke him. Yep. Pure rage.

The psychologist spoke in awed terms about Steve’s intelligence and inventiveness. I suppose to the parent of a neuro-typical child it would be a source of pride. The level of brilliance the psychologist described to me would grind every PTA parent’s honor student bumper sticker to dust. And of course I am proud of everything that Steve has accomplished and the man he is becoming, but one fact remains. He is still dangerously depressed.

So this is my life. I work from home as an editor and author, and I advocate for my children. Fred needs speech therapy and is refusing to complete assigned class work. I’m emailing teachers and consulting with intervention specialists and trying to get him an orthodontist. Steve has to take anti-anxiety medication to even face making a list of his nightly homework, and I help keep the tasks small and manageable by parceling it out to him in tiny pieces, concealing the overwhelming whole. He was sent home yesterday at first period because his teacher saw he was too depressed to face the day. Other parents get calls from the school nurse. I get calls from the school counselor. I take a deep breath and call the psychologist and ask for an extra session. I call the psychiatrist to discuss adjusting his medication. I email the school to let them know how Steve’s treatment is changing and what new techniques we are trying.

This is the reality of autism. My son is on the high-functioning end of the spectrum. Unless you’re looking for it, it’s hard to notice the signs in his appearance or behavior. Like the depression that I know will never completely leave me, my child has an invisible burden, but he carries it with assurance and patience. He knows I understand, and he knows I’ve got his back. He also knows that not everyone will believe that his autism is real. He knows that some people will tell him to “just cheer up” and “stop freaking out.”

All I can do is keep the lines of communication open. I listen, support, and encourage. I am honest with him. Watching me accept and take pride in the weird, quirky person I am has taught him to do the same. He told me one day that he felt sorry for normal people who didn’t have a cool family like ours. I told him to be patient with them, because they didn’t see all the amazing things we could, and that made it hard for them to understand our world. I taught him that no one is better than anyone else, and that we’re all on a journey to find the best in ourselves. And then he told me the most terrifying thing of all:

The day I quit my job to stay home and help him and his brother was the day he stopped contemplating suicide as a solution to his problems, because now Mom was on his side.

I never knew, and that makes my heart go cold. My number one fear – the thing that can tear me apart with just a thought – is losing my children. To lose him to other people’s ignorance, vanity, and misplaced sense of discipline would kill the person I am and shatter the person I strive to be.

So that’s why I am writing all of this out and posting it for the world to see (or at least the ten people who read my blog). This is why autism awareness is critical. No one is asking you to understand it. No one is asking you to understand diabetes, depression, bipolar disorder, or any other of the scores of invisible hurdles that so many children and adults must overcome.

Just be aware that the reality of living with these challenges is more than you can imagine. Be aware that telling a parent who has struggled for years to keep their child whole that they’re doing it wrong is an insult and cruel. Be aware that, even though you can’t see physical symptoms, the pain is still very real, and the risk of fatality is realer still.

That’s all you need to do. If you can’t understand, at least be aware.

Thank you for reading.