The last look came
and went
No long goodbyes
No tears or aching hearts
I travel on
Leaving behind things too quickly forgotten
Looking ahead to only a few
bright lights
Why aren't they as bright as they were
When I longed to touch them?
I look back
And watch shadowy hands wave
goodbye,
Then fade away forever.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The Appointment by Iris Rosewater
Amy was not running late to her appointment. She found herself, however, in an anxious flurry - fumbling with the hangers in her closet, looking wildly all over the apartment for her left boot, only to find it after ten minutes sitting innocently in the middle of the living room floor. She tried to look at her face without seeing herself as she applied make-up, drawing shakily around the rims of her honey-brown eyes with charcoal eyeliner, rubbing the mascara-smudge with a wet Q-tip. She met her reflection in the mirror and hesitated. A mixture of excitement and fear arranged her features unnaturally. She stopped and sat on the edge of the bath tub, forcing long, deep breaths through her short, shallow ones.
As she waited for Gabe at the doctor’s office, Amy distracted herself by looking around the waiting room. The walls were a soft orange sherbet color, with a floral wallpaper border. A table water fountain bubbled musically in the corner next to some oversized house plants with broad leaves that sprawled out and weaved between the legs of the seats beside them. The phone rang softly behind the secretary’s desk, and she answered each time using the same generic greeting, her voice rising and falling with the same melodic inflection. Otherwise, it was very quiet. Amy was glad to have made her appointment during a workday morning. The waiting room was sparsely filled. The patients sat with a comfortable number of empty chairs on either side, some thumbing through outdated Parents magazines or reading books they’d brought with them. Several women had large round bellies, all of whom seemed to smooth their hands over the protrusions absently. Amy looked away, as memories of her last visit to this office flooded into her mind.
When Amy found out she was pregnant, she was ecstatic. Gabe bought her pickles and chocolate to celebrate. They bought piles of books about pregnancy, marveling over the photos of zygotes and embryos, pouring over what to expect from week to week. They said goodnight to the baby when they went to sleep and Gabe kissed Amy’s belly good morning before he got up for work. They couldn’t wait to bring home a fuzzy black and white glimpse into her womb. When the day came for her very first ultrasound, they held hands as the technician dimmed the lights. She watched the monitor intently, searching with untrained eyes for a feature she could recognize… a hand, a curved spine, a silhouette… the flutter of a heart… but, it was over very quickly. She saw only for a few moments a small curled figure - still and white. The technician said something Amy didn’t hear and excused herself. And then the doctor returned alone. “It looks like this is a miscarriage. I’m so sorry.”
It rained that night, and Amy laid awake in her bed long after Gabe fell asleep. Her thoughts overtook any chance of rest. She wondered what she had done wrong… if maybe she shouldn’t have jogged in the mornings, or taken the cold medicine before she knew… as if it mattered now. Those questions quickly gave way to bigger ones and she stared at the shadow of her window on the wall, water splattering and smearing down the pane, evaluating her life. They were good people, weren’t they? She had felt so strongly that this was the right thing… maybe she had been wrong, and she was somehow unworthy of motherhood. Through the long night, sorrow gave way to anger and she felt cheated. Why would she be given a life only to have it snatched away? How stupid and silly of her to have believed this was real when it was only a cruel joke. She touched her belly, which entombed her deceased child and wept to the sound of the rain chiming against the dark glass.
It was seven harrowing days before the bleeding began, and it came so heavily and painfully that she felt faint. She realized distantly, crumpled and groaning in bed, that this must be what it feels like to give birth, and then almost laughed through the misery of it, because she also realized that she was.
For weeks, the public was a brutal place to be. Everywhere she went, she was surrounded by what was denied her. Pregnant women seemed to congregate at the grocery store, leaning back uncomfortably, looking flushed and exasperated in the summer heat. Babies chewed on their chubby little hands, babbling and cooing with gorgeous round eyes at their mothers, who seemed always to ignore them. The jealousy was consuming. In her mind, Amy judged them for taking what they had for granted. And what they had was everything… and what she had was nothing… until Christmas came.
On Christmas morning, Amy felt a bit “off” again. The celebratory brunch made her stomach churn just smelling it as she walked through her parent’s front door. Nibbling her toast (and breathing through her mouth discreetly) she ticked off the days since her last period. She was terrible about keeping track, but it had been irregular since that Summer, so she had stopped paying much attention. The numbers added up like a punch in the stomach and she politely excused herself from the table, grabbing her purse and keys on a hunt for an open drug store.
As Gabe arrived at the office and they kissed hello, their tension met and multiplied. They were much more guarded this time, unwilling to believe that it was real, afraid to dangle their hopes at the altitude from which they had previously fallen.
With sweaty hands clasped, they watched with unbridled emotion, the tiny black and white strobe of their baby’s heart.
As she waited for Gabe at the doctor’s office, Amy distracted herself by looking around the waiting room. The walls were a soft orange sherbet color, with a floral wallpaper border. A table water fountain bubbled musically in the corner next to some oversized house plants with broad leaves that sprawled out and weaved between the legs of the seats beside them. The phone rang softly behind the secretary’s desk, and she answered each time using the same generic greeting, her voice rising and falling with the same melodic inflection. Otherwise, it was very quiet. Amy was glad to have made her appointment during a workday morning. The waiting room was sparsely filled. The patients sat with a comfortable number of empty chairs on either side, some thumbing through outdated Parents magazines or reading books they’d brought with them. Several women had large round bellies, all of whom seemed to smooth their hands over the protrusions absently. Amy looked away, as memories of her last visit to this office flooded into her mind.
When Amy found out she was pregnant, she was ecstatic. Gabe bought her pickles and chocolate to celebrate. They bought piles of books about pregnancy, marveling over the photos of zygotes and embryos, pouring over what to expect from week to week. They said goodnight to the baby when they went to sleep and Gabe kissed Amy’s belly good morning before he got up for work. They couldn’t wait to bring home a fuzzy black and white glimpse into her womb. When the day came for her very first ultrasound, they held hands as the technician dimmed the lights. She watched the monitor intently, searching with untrained eyes for a feature she could recognize… a hand, a curved spine, a silhouette… the flutter of a heart… but, it was over very quickly. She saw only for a few moments a small curled figure - still and white. The technician said something Amy didn’t hear and excused herself. And then the doctor returned alone. “It looks like this is a miscarriage. I’m so sorry.”
It rained that night, and Amy laid awake in her bed long after Gabe fell asleep. Her thoughts overtook any chance of rest. She wondered what she had done wrong… if maybe she shouldn’t have jogged in the mornings, or taken the cold medicine before she knew… as if it mattered now. Those questions quickly gave way to bigger ones and she stared at the shadow of her window on the wall, water splattering and smearing down the pane, evaluating her life. They were good people, weren’t they? She had felt so strongly that this was the right thing… maybe she had been wrong, and she was somehow unworthy of motherhood. Through the long night, sorrow gave way to anger and she felt cheated. Why would she be given a life only to have it snatched away? How stupid and silly of her to have believed this was real when it was only a cruel joke. She touched her belly, which entombed her deceased child and wept to the sound of the rain chiming against the dark glass.
It was seven harrowing days before the bleeding began, and it came so heavily and painfully that she felt faint. She realized distantly, crumpled and groaning in bed, that this must be what it feels like to give birth, and then almost laughed through the misery of it, because she also realized that she was.
For weeks, the public was a brutal place to be. Everywhere she went, she was surrounded by what was denied her. Pregnant women seemed to congregate at the grocery store, leaning back uncomfortably, looking flushed and exasperated in the summer heat. Babies chewed on their chubby little hands, babbling and cooing with gorgeous round eyes at their mothers, who seemed always to ignore them. The jealousy was consuming. In her mind, Amy judged them for taking what they had for granted. And what they had was everything… and what she had was nothing… until Christmas came.
On Christmas morning, Amy felt a bit “off” again. The celebratory brunch made her stomach churn just smelling it as she walked through her parent’s front door. Nibbling her toast (and breathing through her mouth discreetly) she ticked off the days since her last period. She was terrible about keeping track, but it had been irregular since that Summer, so she had stopped paying much attention. The numbers added up like a punch in the stomach and she politely excused herself from the table, grabbing her purse and keys on a hunt for an open drug store.
As Gabe arrived at the office and they kissed hello, their tension met and multiplied. They were much more guarded this time, unwilling to believe that it was real, afraid to dangle their hopes at the altitude from which they had previously fallen.
With sweaty hands clasped, they watched with unbridled emotion, the tiny black and white strobe of their baby’s heart.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Better By Iris Rosewater
She is an angel
(my better self)
She watches from the outside
In the inside
Of my head
And shows me
How she would have done it
Better
The control she would have kept
Over her emotions
During that argument
The perspective she will keep
Through the trials
She observes my mothering
And chides with righteous patience
That a glass of juice
Spilled on the floor
Is really not so terrible a thing
To happen
She disregards the build-up
Of juice cups spilled
And diapers
And directions gone unheeded
She lets each go
And starts fresh at every fiasco
She forgives
Everyone but me.
I have yet to learn
What her role is
In my life
If she were meant
To plague me
Or lift me up
But she feels a heavy burden
Teetering at the top of
The load I carry
Maybe she is not
My best self
Maybe she is inhuman
And I do myself
A disservice
Comparing the two of us
As if I were really
Capable
Of meeting
that measure of goodness.
Or…
Perhaps she is my true self
Whispering reminders
Buried under the shrapnel of guilt
I choose to bear
Rather than rising to the glory
Of what I was made
To become.
(my better self)
She watches from the outside
In the inside
Of my head
And shows me
How she would have done it
Better
The control she would have kept
Over her emotions
During that argument
The perspective she will keep
Through the trials
She observes my mothering
And chides with righteous patience
That a glass of juice
Spilled on the floor
Is really not so terrible a thing
To happen
She disregards the build-up
Of juice cups spilled
And diapers
And directions gone unheeded
She lets each go
And starts fresh at every fiasco
She forgives
Everyone but me.
I have yet to learn
What her role is
In my life
If she were meant
To plague me
Or lift me up
But she feels a heavy burden
Teetering at the top of
The load I carry
Maybe she is not
My best self
Maybe she is inhuman
And I do myself
A disservice
Comparing the two of us
As if I were really
Capable
Of meeting
that measure of goodness.
Or…
Perhaps she is my true self
Whispering reminders
Buried under the shrapnel of guilt
I choose to bear
Rather than rising to the glory
Of what I was made
To become.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Beginning
On the first day of Lilly’s new life, she was driving. Her ’08 Subaru wove its way through the gorge, following the curvy highway that ran along the columbia river. The landscape started green, with lush forests rolling up beside her. Heavy grey clouds hung above blanketing the sky, mingling with the tree tops and obscuring any view of the sun. As she pressed east, the scenery made gradual changes. The trees thinned… bare rocks exposed themselves in the earth… and then the clouds lifted and lightened, having lost the strength to carry the darkness and the rain to the other side of the Cascade mountains. And the sun broke through.
Native Portlanders were appalled at Lilly’s choice of location. They called it barren. They said it was too hot. They couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to leave the beautiful backdrop of varying shades of green that covered every un-developed square inch of earth. Lilly, however, was not a native. She grew up in the desert, naming every cactus and taking pictures of the particularly breathtaking sunsets. She preferred her mountains jagged and bare against blue skies. She could not imagine anyone wanting to stay where the rain weeps nine months out of every year, hiding the sun with layer upon layer of indigo-gray clouds. By the time she decided to leave, her least favorite colors were grey and green. She only lived there in the first place because Mike had gotten a job there. And, now, it didn’t matter where Mike worked. If he were a color, it would be grey. She was done with him, too.
As she made her descent into the dry country, the view opened into a panorama. Just two hours ago she had been hemmed in, her vision barricaded by giants knit tightly together, stretching the mountainsides higher into the thick wet clouds. And now they released her into vastness… endless blue sky with miles and miles of warm brown. She recognized immediately that it was different from the desert she knew. Rather than tall mesquite and creosote bushes, it was covered with low sage brush, and not a single cactus gnarled its prickled hands against the backdrop. The sand was even strange, covered with thin, honey-colored grass. There were no craggy mountains - only rolling hills that seemed alive to her, the wind moving the grass like a high desert sea. Three-armed windmills dotted the hill tops, turning slowly. She glanced in the little child mirror attached to her rear view to point them out to Eden, but saw that she was already asleep, along with her little brother, Mason. Lilly turned down the Debussy she’d been listening to and listened to them breathe in their dreams, pulled into her own quiet reverie.
Mason’s face was pale and freckled with deep-set green eyes, like Lilly’s. Eden looked like Mike. So much that Lilly wondered at first if she had a single dominant gene to contribute to the pool. It felt strange to be able to love so dearly the feminine version of a face she despised. Of course, it hadn’t always been that way…
When Lilly met Mike, she was a photography major in college. They frequented the same poetry readings and bookstores. And, finally one day, he struck a conversation with her over the Cummings collection she flipped through as she sat on a winged chair by the coffee shop. She remembered thinking he bore a vague resemblance to e., glancing down at his picture on the back cover. She liked that. They were so similar, everyone said. They started to share the same mannerisms. They sincerely enjoyed each other’s company, whether they were lazing around reading, or walking to class together, or studying… their college life together had been fantastic. She tried to remind herself of that now. In the beginning, it was good. When Mike asked her to marry him, hiking together (though neither of them were outdoorsy) to the top of a mountain that overlooked their university town, she didn’t have to think about it. She had made that decision a thousand times, listening to his laugh… catching his glass-blue eyes staring at her while she wrote… brushing her cheek along the bristles of his beard… he had asked with each gesture, and each time her heart said yes. It wasn’t until after the fairy-tale wedding and graduation and the move to the Pacific North West that the souring began.
The first time Lilly became pregnant, they were thrilled. They decorated the nursery together, and Mike had filled the baby’s bookshelves months before she was born. Lilly fantasized about their family life with a baby, and Mike made promises to change his schedule so he could be home with them more. Mike was a committed man, which was usually a good thing. He excelled at everything he pursued. Entering the business world, people recognized that and moved aside for him to rise. The firm he worked for demanded long hours which he gave them willingly. Lilly, on the other hand, did not hand him over quite as easily. She rarely saw him. He promised it would only be for the first couple of years, until he could prove himself to the company, but the higher he ranked, the longer his hours stretched. He missed most of Eden’s infancy, coming home long after she had gone to bed and leaving for work before she rose for the day. At first, Lilly had longed for him to be with her… but, after a while, she dreaded his homecomings. She pretended the deepest sleep when he came into bed and reached for her. Some nights, held her anyway… and then he stopped trying… both relieving Lilly and breaking her heart at the same time. Their waking hours together were busy, filled with Eden’s diapers and demands. She was a beautiful little thing. Those blue eyes took Lilly’s breath away. Mike’s, too, on his days off. But, Eden didn’t know Mike very well and preferred her mother. Mike bought lavish gifts for both of them. He surprised her with a new car. They moved to a house so big he hired a few cleaning ladies to help her with the daunting amount of upkeep. With every gesture, the look on his face seemed to both beg for her approval and demand it.
They had agreed that one child was enough for the moment - and then, a few weeks after their anniversary, Lilly discovered the addition of one more. Mike was not so happy this time. His architecture firm had just taken on a major international client, and he was supposed to be out of the country for the entire month after the baby’s due date. She told him to go anyway… and, when Mason was born, she hardly noticed he was gone.
As passionately as Mike threw himself into his work, Lilly threw herself into Motherhood. She read stacks of books to them. She took them to the duck pond and the children’s museum and swimming lessons, snapping albums of pictures at every turn. She tried to be the other half that was absent ninety percent of the time. Every mother knows she will fall short no matter how hard she tries to replace the father of her children… but it doesn’t stop her from working desperately to fill in the gap.
The dissolution of their marriage came on just as naturally and gradually as the creation of it, like the decrescendo at the end of a composition. The intimacy that once bound them slackened and unwound day after day… until in one moment, with one look, they both knew it was over. Mike came into the bedroom around two in the morning and peeled back the down comforter. Thick, drizzly raindrops pattered on the roof above them. Lilly opened her eyes and looked into his. Dark circles hung beneath them and they were bloodshot. Lilly noticed for the first time that his hair was beginning to thin. They stared at each other for a long time, as if across a chasm that could not be bridged. They had both made their decisions.
It seemed rash for Lilly to move to “nothing” and she knew it. The truth was, she had only been to Richland once, to visit an dear friend she’d known since childhood. But, she loved it instantly. So, when she and Mike signed the papers, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to her to go there. She would leave the memories and disappointment on the other side of the Cascades and cultivate a new life under the blessed rays of the sun.
The children awakened in time to see the town as they drove to their new home. They pointed out horses and cows excitedly, and Lilly acted just as in awe as they were. The house she chose was an old red-brick bungalow on an acre lot ten minutes from town. The white paint on the shudders was chipped and faded. The flower garden was dying and choked with weeds. It needed work, obviously, but so did Lilly, so she figured they could do it together. While she created business cards for her photography business on her laptop, she mentally renovated the kitchen.
After the children chose their rooms and wore themselves out running around the yard, they ate a feast of delivery pizza and went to bed early, exhausted. Lilly sat on the back porch in her rocking chair and watched the sun for a while. In the southwestern desert she knew, the sun was heavy, falling in a stunning spectacle of blazing orange behind the mountains in the space of an hour. This new desert was not in any hurry to surrender her. She hung, gathering pink and gold on the horizon, saying goodbye to every curve of the land below, kissing it goodbye and promising to come back in the morning.
Native Portlanders were appalled at Lilly’s choice of location. They called it barren. They said it was too hot. They couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to leave the beautiful backdrop of varying shades of green that covered every un-developed square inch of earth. Lilly, however, was not a native. She grew up in the desert, naming every cactus and taking pictures of the particularly breathtaking sunsets. She preferred her mountains jagged and bare against blue skies. She could not imagine anyone wanting to stay where the rain weeps nine months out of every year, hiding the sun with layer upon layer of indigo-gray clouds. By the time she decided to leave, her least favorite colors were grey and green. She only lived there in the first place because Mike had gotten a job there. And, now, it didn’t matter where Mike worked. If he were a color, it would be grey. She was done with him, too.
As she made her descent into the dry country, the view opened into a panorama. Just two hours ago she had been hemmed in, her vision barricaded by giants knit tightly together, stretching the mountainsides higher into the thick wet clouds. And now they released her into vastness… endless blue sky with miles and miles of warm brown. She recognized immediately that it was different from the desert she knew. Rather than tall mesquite and creosote bushes, it was covered with low sage brush, and not a single cactus gnarled its prickled hands against the backdrop. The sand was even strange, covered with thin, honey-colored grass. There were no craggy mountains - only rolling hills that seemed alive to her, the wind moving the grass like a high desert sea. Three-armed windmills dotted the hill tops, turning slowly. She glanced in the little child mirror attached to her rear view to point them out to Eden, but saw that she was already asleep, along with her little brother, Mason. Lilly turned down the Debussy she’d been listening to and listened to them breathe in their dreams, pulled into her own quiet reverie.
Mason’s face was pale and freckled with deep-set green eyes, like Lilly’s. Eden looked like Mike. So much that Lilly wondered at first if she had a single dominant gene to contribute to the pool. It felt strange to be able to love so dearly the feminine version of a face she despised. Of course, it hadn’t always been that way…
When Lilly met Mike, she was a photography major in college. They frequented the same poetry readings and bookstores. And, finally one day, he struck a conversation with her over the Cummings collection she flipped through as she sat on a winged chair by the coffee shop. She remembered thinking he bore a vague resemblance to e., glancing down at his picture on the back cover. She liked that. They were so similar, everyone said. They started to share the same mannerisms. They sincerely enjoyed each other’s company, whether they were lazing around reading, or walking to class together, or studying… their college life together had been fantastic. She tried to remind herself of that now. In the beginning, it was good. When Mike asked her to marry him, hiking together (though neither of them were outdoorsy) to the top of a mountain that overlooked their university town, she didn’t have to think about it. She had made that decision a thousand times, listening to his laugh… catching his glass-blue eyes staring at her while she wrote… brushing her cheek along the bristles of his beard… he had asked with each gesture, and each time her heart said yes. It wasn’t until after the fairy-tale wedding and graduation and the move to the Pacific North West that the souring began.
The first time Lilly became pregnant, they were thrilled. They decorated the nursery together, and Mike had filled the baby’s bookshelves months before she was born. Lilly fantasized about their family life with a baby, and Mike made promises to change his schedule so he could be home with them more. Mike was a committed man, which was usually a good thing. He excelled at everything he pursued. Entering the business world, people recognized that and moved aside for him to rise. The firm he worked for demanded long hours which he gave them willingly. Lilly, on the other hand, did not hand him over quite as easily. She rarely saw him. He promised it would only be for the first couple of years, until he could prove himself to the company, but the higher he ranked, the longer his hours stretched. He missed most of Eden’s infancy, coming home long after she had gone to bed and leaving for work before she rose for the day. At first, Lilly had longed for him to be with her… but, after a while, she dreaded his homecomings. She pretended the deepest sleep when he came into bed and reached for her. Some nights, held her anyway… and then he stopped trying… both relieving Lilly and breaking her heart at the same time. Their waking hours together were busy, filled with Eden’s diapers and demands. She was a beautiful little thing. Those blue eyes took Lilly’s breath away. Mike’s, too, on his days off. But, Eden didn’t know Mike very well and preferred her mother. Mike bought lavish gifts for both of them. He surprised her with a new car. They moved to a house so big he hired a few cleaning ladies to help her with the daunting amount of upkeep. With every gesture, the look on his face seemed to both beg for her approval and demand it.
They had agreed that one child was enough for the moment - and then, a few weeks after their anniversary, Lilly discovered the addition of one more. Mike was not so happy this time. His architecture firm had just taken on a major international client, and he was supposed to be out of the country for the entire month after the baby’s due date. She told him to go anyway… and, when Mason was born, she hardly noticed he was gone.
As passionately as Mike threw himself into his work, Lilly threw herself into Motherhood. She read stacks of books to them. She took them to the duck pond and the children’s museum and swimming lessons, snapping albums of pictures at every turn. She tried to be the other half that was absent ninety percent of the time. Every mother knows she will fall short no matter how hard she tries to replace the father of her children… but it doesn’t stop her from working desperately to fill in the gap.
The dissolution of their marriage came on just as naturally and gradually as the creation of it, like the decrescendo at the end of a composition. The intimacy that once bound them slackened and unwound day after day… until in one moment, with one look, they both knew it was over. Mike came into the bedroom around two in the morning and peeled back the down comforter. Thick, drizzly raindrops pattered on the roof above them. Lilly opened her eyes and looked into his. Dark circles hung beneath them and they were bloodshot. Lilly noticed for the first time that his hair was beginning to thin. They stared at each other for a long time, as if across a chasm that could not be bridged. They had both made their decisions.
It seemed rash for Lilly to move to “nothing” and she knew it. The truth was, she had only been to Richland once, to visit an dear friend she’d known since childhood. But, she loved it instantly. So, when she and Mike signed the papers, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to her to go there. She would leave the memories and disappointment on the other side of the Cascades and cultivate a new life under the blessed rays of the sun.
The children awakened in time to see the town as they drove to their new home. They pointed out horses and cows excitedly, and Lilly acted just as in awe as they were. The house she chose was an old red-brick bungalow on an acre lot ten minutes from town. The white paint on the shudders was chipped and faded. The flower garden was dying and choked with weeds. It needed work, obviously, but so did Lilly, so she figured they could do it together. While she created business cards for her photography business on her laptop, she mentally renovated the kitchen.
After the children chose their rooms and wore themselves out running around the yard, they ate a feast of delivery pizza and went to bed early, exhausted. Lilly sat on the back porch in her rocking chair and watched the sun for a while. In the southwestern desert she knew, the sun was heavy, falling in a stunning spectacle of blazing orange behind the mountains in the space of an hour. This new desert was not in any hurry to surrender her. She hung, gathering pink and gold on the horizon, saying goodbye to every curve of the land below, kissing it goodbye and promising to come back in the morning.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Time By Iris Rosewater
If I were at home, I would still be asleep right now, Lori thought to herself as she watched the dust motes dance in a beam of sunlight. The curtains were yellowing lace, probably hand-tatted decades ago. She lay in the creaky day bed, letting her eyes wander over the fake wood-paneled walls in the tiny “guest” bedroom. The room was a combination of ancient artifacts and someone’s attempt to redecorate in the late sixties. The green shag carpeting complemented her scratchy polyester bedspread perfectly, as if a swatch had been cut to be sure the swirling paisley would be an exact match. A black sewing machine sat on a drop leaf table in the far corner on top of a doily. The night stand was stained a dark brown and had a lovely skeleton-key hole in the rounded drawer. There were pictures in tarnished frames... black and white, mostly. Some of them smiled in formal poses, with striking and outdated hair styles. The men had pants that reached halfway up their torsos. Several women wore dresses with shiny belts at their waists and high heels. And in the really, truly antique photos, the faces did not smile. A baby sat, in a white gown and bonnet, blurred in his mother’s lap... her brunette hair piled neatly on her head, her dress buttoned all the way up to her chin. Relatives, most likely. Distant, deceased strangers, hauntingly familiar by genetic traits. On one woman she saw the distinctive “May” nose - thin and pointed. And the man on her left had the big forehead every female descendent unlucky enough to have inherited hides with bangs. Lori tried to imagine herself in a dress with long sleeves that puffed at the shoulders and covered every inch of skin possible, her own mousey brown hair fixed with dozens of pins in an intricate bun. Her parents’ muffled voices moved from the adjacent bedroom to the hallway and lingered in front of her closed door.
“...a garage sale would be so much work, Tom. I don’t know if I have it in me. Why don’t you just sell some of the decent stuff on ebay and donate the rest to Goodwill?” her mother sounded exhausted already and it couldn’t be much past seven.
“You think that would be less work? I don’t have time, Sharon. Let’s just have an estate sale for a day or two and it’ll be done with. We only have a week to wrap all of this up...”
Their words faded into rumbles as they walked to the kitchen. Certain now that there would be no more dozing, Lori got up and picked some clothes to wear from her suitcase in the closet. She took a weak shower in the mint-green bathtub (someone really liked green) and came out to join breakfast already in progress at the formica table in the kitchen. Great-Grandma looked to be in a good mood this morning, humming and smiling in her mumu (which looked to have been purchased at the same time as the bed spread). Debbie, her over-fed poodle, waddled along beside her.
“Lori, dear? Is that you?” she said, her voice shaking along with her head and her arms as she reached out for a hug. This was the reason for the good mood. She had forgotten again.
“Yes, Grandma, it’s me,” she smiled, embracing the old woman’s bony frame gently.
Lori’s parents shot each other a look. They were clearly having an unspoken conversation. Her father cocked his head to the side and raised his eyebrows,“Do we tell her again today, or leave it be? She’ll only forget again tomorrow.” Sharon rolled her eyes,
“She will want to know what we’re doing with her belongings, don’t you think? We’ll have to explain somehow.” Lori helped herself to some oatmeal on the stove, but skipped the prunes. Grandma pulled a jar of honey from the cupboard and offered her some, but Lori politely declined when she saw the amount of gnat carcasses entombed in the sweet goo. Apparently Sharon had noticed, too, because Lori watched her throw it away when Grandma’s back was turned.
Sitting at the table, Lori watched as her grandmother ate. Debbie sat at her feet, wiggling her puffy little tail. Even with her large glasses, rimmed with purple plastic and gold, strong enough to fry a colony of ants in the sun, Grandma Lorraine could hardly see. Tom had found a phone for her with unbelievably large buttons, but she still couldn’t use it. It was painful to witness her grandmother eat. Often, her violently shaking hands missed the food she was trying to skewer with a fork. And, when she finally speared or scooped a morsel, half the time it fell off on its turbulent journey to her wrinkled mouth. Lori winced every time she watched the poor woman, unseeing, close her lips around an empty utensil. It was heartbreaking. She felt some relief watching grandma eat her oatmeal, which stuck reliably to the spoon.
Great-grandma Lorraine had turned 93 that fall. Her face was so old that it was hard to imagine what she must have looked like as a young woman. It was now framed with white hair, cut short and round around her head in a tightly curled permanent. Her eyes were cloudy blue, usually kind, but lately filled with confusion and frustration. Some days, she looked far away, perhaps living a memory. Today they were clear and kind. Her nose had grown comically bulbous over her long life span, and above her shriveled lips grew wiry, white hairs. Her teeth were still her own. Yellow, but sturdy. All in all, she was a sturdy woman. She lived through influenza epidemic and the great depression, both world wars... she mothered two sons and lost one to polio. She outlived three husbands and both her children. She had lived independently until age 93... when her mind began to give out on her. Tom used to visit monthly, until the neighbors reported that she’d been behaving strangely, asking which way to the train station, answering the door naked... growing violently fretful as she wandered the trailer park in search of her “little boy”. Lori considered how sad it was, her body having held on and stayed true and capable - only to be forsaken by her mind.
After breakfast, Lori’s parents made phone calls before going out. Most likely, they would be picking up cardboard boxes to pack up the contents of the single-wide trailer. It seemed odd to her that, after living nearly a century, all of a person’s belongings could dwindle to some out-dated furniture and nick-knacks. Lori felt uncomfortable with the idea of pulling the rug out from under the old woman. Every day Grandma woke without the memory of Tom and Sharon’s purpose for visiting. For the first two days, they re-explained. Grandma would be moving to a “nice, cozy home” filled with other elderly people, where “everything would be taken care of for her,” and she “wouldn’t have to lift a finger.” Lori felt sick as she listened to the sugar-coated version of the facility they were taking her to. She’d seen it for herself. It was clean, but in a sterile, hospital-ish way. Decorated with generic motel paintings on the walls, which were all a drab faded peach color. The employees seemed nice enough. But nothing - no soothing color scheme, no amount of fake flowers in vases, no assortment of desserts in custard dishes - could take the feeling out of that place. Although she tried not to be rude and stare, Lori couldn’t help but look at all the people that lived there. They were like her great-grandma Lorraine when she had one of her episodes (which were becoming more and more frequent). Some of them looked confused, like they had forgotten what they’d meant to buy at a store, and they wandered slowly and aimlessly around the halls, puzzling to themselves. One woman sat on a rocking chair, holding a teddy bear and smiling like a child. An old man’s voice permeated his room’s closed door as he argued with the nurse that he had not just taken his pill five minutes ago, and demanded the nurse give it to him now. It was filled with people who had lost themselves, and that strange, other-worldly feeling invaded Lori’s soul and left her sad and disquieted.
She tried not to think about it as she followed her great grandmother out to sit on the old wicker chairs just outside the front door. The concrete patio was cracked, and tufts of grass poked up and waved in the breeze. The tiny yard was overgrown and covered with dandelions. Their yellow heads bent and bobbed carelessly, unaware that they were unwanted. Lori glanced toward the toolshed and could see that her father had the lawn on his to-do list. His own graying-yellow head ducked through the doorway. His tall shadow stretched over the concrete and the weeds... Grandmother squinted up at him through her thick lenses.
The television seemed to drone constantly at a deafening volume level. Lori imagined it was a good way to keep from feeling lonely, but it was awfully hard to tune out or get away from in the small space. When she saw that Grandma was asleep halfway through Days of Our Lives, with Debbie snuggled contentedly beside her, Lori turned it off and looked around for something to do. There was no computer. The books she had were mostly about cooking, or religious. Out of sheer boredom, she began poking in the closet her parents had begun sorting through. Lots of old clothes. How did all old people seem to smell the same? She wondered, marking the familiar musty odor as she stirred the fabric. A few items were truly vintage: a fancy dress that must have been from the thirties at least, a pair of cream-colored peek-toe high heels, several clutch purses. And then, deep in the closet, she found a filing box. Lorraine’s favorite color, green. It had a lock, but opened easily when she slid the latch. Inside was a veritable time capsule. A stack of photos. Lorraine as an infant, wearing a long white gown in her mother’s arms. Laughing in a woolen bathing suit and thick-rimmed sunglasses. A graduation photo shot with a soft lens that made the contours of her face fuzzy around the edges. The famous nose, elegant and distinctive, was there. Lori realized with a start how clearly this face resembled her own. The same doe eyes, high cheekbones, pointed chin. Intrigued, Lori looked on. Pictures of her first marriage, to Lori’s blood-related great-grandfather, Joe. And then, as their little family grew in number, baby pictures of their sons. Clearly, they were Lorraine’s pride and joy. Her smile looked exultant, holding her second born on her hip, and the hand of her oldest standing beside her. More pictures of the sons... and then the family with a noticeable absence. And obvious pain behind smiles. Lori noted the distinct change in her eyes. In two pictures, most likely taken only a year or two apart, Lorraine’s face had aged dramatically. The exuberance was lost somehow. Color photographs near the bottom of the box showed another wedding. And another, dated twenty years or so ago. Loving and losing cast a shadow over the youthful smile, made the dimples more shallow somehow, the eyes a bit deeper. Wordlessly, Lorraine’s story was played out through yellowing photographs, filled in with the scraps of history Lori could remember. The lady snoring gently in her mumu on the couch seemed a far cry from the woman she was looking at. All of a sudden, time seemed fickle and unfair. It gave at first... ripening childhood into youth and capability... tending and growing love after love like a tree bears fruit. And then, it harvested in a cruel way, plucking away loved ones. Wearing on and on, knitting wrinkles into skin, pulling out hair, bending joints and making bones brittle. Time seemed like the creditor every human comes into the world first anticipating, then ignoring, and finally begging after for more.
Lori took her favorite picture, the mirror-image Lorraine at eighteen years, and carried it reverently to her bedroom, tucking it securely into her journal. Then she went to the livingroom and sat next to her great-grandmother, still in dreams. She took her hand, with its papery, spotted skin and laced her fingers between the swollen knuckles, leaning her head gently on Lorraine’s frail shoulder. She closed her eyes, but did not sleep, and tried not to waken the old woman with her tears.
“...a garage sale would be so much work, Tom. I don’t know if I have it in me. Why don’t you just sell some of the decent stuff on ebay and donate the rest to Goodwill?” her mother sounded exhausted already and it couldn’t be much past seven.
“You think that would be less work? I don’t have time, Sharon. Let’s just have an estate sale for a day or two and it’ll be done with. We only have a week to wrap all of this up...”
Their words faded into rumbles as they walked to the kitchen. Certain now that there would be no more dozing, Lori got up and picked some clothes to wear from her suitcase in the closet. She took a weak shower in the mint-green bathtub (someone really liked green) and came out to join breakfast already in progress at the formica table in the kitchen. Great-Grandma looked to be in a good mood this morning, humming and smiling in her mumu (which looked to have been purchased at the same time as the bed spread). Debbie, her over-fed poodle, waddled along beside her.
“Lori, dear? Is that you?” she said, her voice shaking along with her head and her arms as she reached out for a hug. This was the reason for the good mood. She had forgotten again.
“Yes, Grandma, it’s me,” she smiled, embracing the old woman’s bony frame gently.
Lori’s parents shot each other a look. They were clearly having an unspoken conversation. Her father cocked his head to the side and raised his eyebrows,“Do we tell her again today, or leave it be? She’ll only forget again tomorrow.” Sharon rolled her eyes,
“She will want to know what we’re doing with her belongings, don’t you think? We’ll have to explain somehow.” Lori helped herself to some oatmeal on the stove, but skipped the prunes. Grandma pulled a jar of honey from the cupboard and offered her some, but Lori politely declined when she saw the amount of gnat carcasses entombed in the sweet goo. Apparently Sharon had noticed, too, because Lori watched her throw it away when Grandma’s back was turned.
Sitting at the table, Lori watched as her grandmother ate. Debbie sat at her feet, wiggling her puffy little tail. Even with her large glasses, rimmed with purple plastic and gold, strong enough to fry a colony of ants in the sun, Grandma Lorraine could hardly see. Tom had found a phone for her with unbelievably large buttons, but she still couldn’t use it. It was painful to witness her grandmother eat. Often, her violently shaking hands missed the food she was trying to skewer with a fork. And, when she finally speared or scooped a morsel, half the time it fell off on its turbulent journey to her wrinkled mouth. Lori winced every time she watched the poor woman, unseeing, close her lips around an empty utensil. It was heartbreaking. She felt some relief watching grandma eat her oatmeal, which stuck reliably to the spoon.
Great-grandma Lorraine had turned 93 that fall. Her face was so old that it was hard to imagine what she must have looked like as a young woman. It was now framed with white hair, cut short and round around her head in a tightly curled permanent. Her eyes were cloudy blue, usually kind, but lately filled with confusion and frustration. Some days, she looked far away, perhaps living a memory. Today they were clear and kind. Her nose had grown comically bulbous over her long life span, and above her shriveled lips grew wiry, white hairs. Her teeth were still her own. Yellow, but sturdy. All in all, she was a sturdy woman. She lived through influenza epidemic and the great depression, both world wars... she mothered two sons and lost one to polio. She outlived three husbands and both her children. She had lived independently until age 93... when her mind began to give out on her. Tom used to visit monthly, until the neighbors reported that she’d been behaving strangely, asking which way to the train station, answering the door naked... growing violently fretful as she wandered the trailer park in search of her “little boy”. Lori considered how sad it was, her body having held on and stayed true and capable - only to be forsaken by her mind.
After breakfast, Lori’s parents made phone calls before going out. Most likely, they would be picking up cardboard boxes to pack up the contents of the single-wide trailer. It seemed odd to her that, after living nearly a century, all of a person’s belongings could dwindle to some out-dated furniture and nick-knacks. Lori felt uncomfortable with the idea of pulling the rug out from under the old woman. Every day Grandma woke without the memory of Tom and Sharon’s purpose for visiting. For the first two days, they re-explained. Grandma would be moving to a “nice, cozy home” filled with other elderly people, where “everything would be taken care of for her,” and she “wouldn’t have to lift a finger.” Lori felt sick as she listened to the sugar-coated version of the facility they were taking her to. She’d seen it for herself. It was clean, but in a sterile, hospital-ish way. Decorated with generic motel paintings on the walls, which were all a drab faded peach color. The employees seemed nice enough. But nothing - no soothing color scheme, no amount of fake flowers in vases, no assortment of desserts in custard dishes - could take the feeling out of that place. Although she tried not to be rude and stare, Lori couldn’t help but look at all the people that lived there. They were like her great-grandma Lorraine when she had one of her episodes (which were becoming more and more frequent). Some of them looked confused, like they had forgotten what they’d meant to buy at a store, and they wandered slowly and aimlessly around the halls, puzzling to themselves. One woman sat on a rocking chair, holding a teddy bear and smiling like a child. An old man’s voice permeated his room’s closed door as he argued with the nurse that he had not just taken his pill five minutes ago, and demanded the nurse give it to him now. It was filled with people who had lost themselves, and that strange, other-worldly feeling invaded Lori’s soul and left her sad and disquieted.
She tried not to think about it as she followed her great grandmother out to sit on the old wicker chairs just outside the front door. The concrete patio was cracked, and tufts of grass poked up and waved in the breeze. The tiny yard was overgrown and covered with dandelions. Their yellow heads bent and bobbed carelessly, unaware that they were unwanted. Lori glanced toward the toolshed and could see that her father had the lawn on his to-do list. His own graying-yellow head ducked through the doorway. His tall shadow stretched over the concrete and the weeds... Grandmother squinted up at him through her thick lenses.
The television seemed to drone constantly at a deafening volume level. Lori imagined it was a good way to keep from feeling lonely, but it was awfully hard to tune out or get away from in the small space. When she saw that Grandma was asleep halfway through Days of Our Lives, with Debbie snuggled contentedly beside her, Lori turned it off and looked around for something to do. There was no computer. The books she had were mostly about cooking, or religious. Out of sheer boredom, she began poking in the closet her parents had begun sorting through. Lots of old clothes. How did all old people seem to smell the same? She wondered, marking the familiar musty odor as she stirred the fabric. A few items were truly vintage: a fancy dress that must have been from the thirties at least, a pair of cream-colored peek-toe high heels, several clutch purses. And then, deep in the closet, she found a filing box. Lorraine’s favorite color, green. It had a lock, but opened easily when she slid the latch. Inside was a veritable time capsule. A stack of photos. Lorraine as an infant, wearing a long white gown in her mother’s arms. Laughing in a woolen bathing suit and thick-rimmed sunglasses. A graduation photo shot with a soft lens that made the contours of her face fuzzy around the edges. The famous nose, elegant and distinctive, was there. Lori realized with a start how clearly this face resembled her own. The same doe eyes, high cheekbones, pointed chin. Intrigued, Lori looked on. Pictures of her first marriage, to Lori’s blood-related great-grandfather, Joe. And then, as their little family grew in number, baby pictures of their sons. Clearly, they were Lorraine’s pride and joy. Her smile looked exultant, holding her second born on her hip, and the hand of her oldest standing beside her. More pictures of the sons... and then the family with a noticeable absence. And obvious pain behind smiles. Lori noted the distinct change in her eyes. In two pictures, most likely taken only a year or two apart, Lorraine’s face had aged dramatically. The exuberance was lost somehow. Color photographs near the bottom of the box showed another wedding. And another, dated twenty years or so ago. Loving and losing cast a shadow over the youthful smile, made the dimples more shallow somehow, the eyes a bit deeper. Wordlessly, Lorraine’s story was played out through yellowing photographs, filled in with the scraps of history Lori could remember. The lady snoring gently in her mumu on the couch seemed a far cry from the woman she was looking at. All of a sudden, time seemed fickle and unfair. It gave at first... ripening childhood into youth and capability... tending and growing love after love like a tree bears fruit. And then, it harvested in a cruel way, plucking away loved ones. Wearing on and on, knitting wrinkles into skin, pulling out hair, bending joints and making bones brittle. Time seemed like the creditor every human comes into the world first anticipating, then ignoring, and finally begging after for more.
Lori took her favorite picture, the mirror-image Lorraine at eighteen years, and carried it reverently to her bedroom, tucking it securely into her journal. Then she went to the livingroom and sat next to her great-grandmother, still in dreams. She took her hand, with its papery, spotted skin and laced her fingers between the swollen knuckles, leaning her head gently on Lorraine’s frail shoulder. She closed her eyes, but did not sleep, and tried not to waken the old woman with her tears.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
April By Rebecca Kahlsdorf
It is autism awareness month. I love/hate April for that reason. Two years ago, I was still struggling with the thought that my two year old son might have autism. I didn’t want to believe it, but the strong possibility glared me in the face. Since my mother brought it up months before, I had swung back and forth. When I had him tested through the early childhood intervention program, I asked the evaluator if she thought he might be autistic. She said she wasn’t an expert, but he didn’t seem like he was to her. I latched on to that for a while, and I was truly angry at my mother for scaring me like that (regardless of the fact that he did qualify for therapy owing to his significant speech and fine motor delays). The night my mom suggested the idea, my daughter was only 3 months old. Chadd had been at a seminar in Las Vegas and would be flying home that night, so she had come over to stay with the kids while I picked him up. I had just finished nursing Audrey to sleep and stood at the bottom of the stairs, holding her in my arms, when my mother started in carefully, clearly uncomfortable and concerned. “Does Charlie answer when you call him from across a room?” “Does he play with toy cars by pretend driving them across the floor, or does he flip them over and spin their wheels?” “Does he make very much eye contact?” “What?” I remember asking, “Do you think he’s autistic or something?” To which she replied, “You said it. Not me.” And then came the hollowing out. I was holding my little girl in my arms, just five minutes ago thinking I had a normal life with a normal family and a pleasantly normal future... and then my heart froze and I could barely feel my extremities. Probably because I knew somewhere that it was real. I held it together, but just barely, when I collected Chadd from the airport. I waited until we were laying in bed together and it was dark to say anything. Chadd held me. If it were true, he said, then Charlie would just be the best autistic boy in the world.
The support for the autism theory did not last. Chadd really didn’t want to believe it. So, he kept pointing out ways that Charlie was doing “normal” kid things. But, as time wore on and we waited on that accursed list for an official diagnosis, I began to slowly accept the doom of autism as something happening to us. So, it became a contentious point between us - at least inside me, anyway. I remember a fight we finally had about it. “Be careful what labels you put on him - they will follow him for the rest of his life!... You just want there to be something wrong with him!” he said as the argument heated. “Are you serious?” (I am a terrible fighter, I don’t think offensively on my feet, but this one meant something to me, so I kept duking it out) “Of COURSE I don’t want there to be something wrong with our son!” I said - having following him up the stairs and into the shower as he tried to evade me with the last word, “All I’m trying to say is that if there IS something wrong with him, I want him to have HELP!” That was the climate in which we entered our first Autism Awareness April.
Autism Speaks had a commercial on that year with a little boy throwing a football with his dad in the back yard. Printed over the sweet footage were lines that went something like this: “Chances of your child being a player on a professional football team: 1 in x-million. The chances of your child having autism: 1 in 150.” Chadd played football in college. All my hairs stood up... and I tried, without looking right at him, to see his reaction. It was unreadable.
Johanna and Ashley, Charlie’s early intervention therapists, were wonderful. They came over once a week and played with him and showed me how to talk to him, how to give an effective time out, what toys to buy, how to engage him... In short, how to give him what he needed. I will always be grateful to them for their gentle guidance. I remember asking Johanna if she thought he had it, and she answered kindly that autism was a medical diagnosis only a doctor could give... But, that she would not rule it out as a possibility. In retrospect, I asked some really tough questions for a person in her capacity to navigate successfully. She did it beautifully - with support and hopefulness - not hope that he was “normal,” but hope that everything would be all right. I needed that hope more than anything.
Sitting on that waiting list was torture for me. I remember feeling the same when my father died, only it dragged on and on. I lived with that gutted feeling. It was the last thing on my mind as I fell asleep every night. I woke at least once to nurse Audrey, and I thought about it half-asleep. And then in the morning, even before I opened my eyes, it was there waiting for me. When my father died, it was the end of someone I loved. For me, I felt I was facing the end of the life I had expected, the end of the son I thought I knew - as the one I had felt taken from me and replaced by a stranger. Possibly. The desperate and silly teensy bit of hope still remained, although I tried to smother it. And I was alone, mostly. Chadd still hadn’t come around.
A month or two before Charlie’s diagnostic clinic, Chadd went to his sister’s wedding in California. His nephew, who is only days younger than Charlie, was there. I think that was a turning point for him. He suddenly had a comparison, and a stark one at that. One Sunday, we were driving to church and Chadd said he wanted Charlie to have a Priesthood blessing. He would ask our home teacher, Brother Gillins, to help him after church. He believed now that something was amiss. Charlie sat in my lap and wriggled under their anointing hands. Chadd asked brother Gillins to offer the blessing. I remember blessings of health... but, I don’t remember much of what he said. Afterwards, brother Gillins shared with us that he didn’t have the impression that Charlie needed healing... that the feeling he received was that Charlie wasn’t “sick”. I understood what he meant, and I know Chadd did too. Yes, he was not typical. But, Charlie was not broken - he was as God intended him to be. After our home teacher left, Chadd and I sat and had the most emotional conversation of our marriage. I reminded him of a talk we had long ago, while we were still dating. I had forgotten it completely, until my mom reminded me. I told her about it, because I thought it was interesting. We had been driving somewhere together and I said, “Sometimes, I get the feeling that I’ll have a child with special needs.” He looked over at me quizzically. “That’s funny... I’ve had that feeling, too.” Sitting on the couch that Sunday, I asked if he remembered that conversation. Through weeping I had not seen before or since, he replied that he did. I comforted him with whatever strength I had left in my soul. We cried together for our broken hopes and our fresh fears. And, from that moment on, I was no longer alone.
The clinic was not fun. I had talked to the social worker on the phone about how positive I was trying to be - how I just wanted to know so we could give him all the intervention he needed, armed with a medical diagnosis. I wanted our life to officially start, whatever the outcome of the evaluation. So, she looked like she expected me to be unsurprised with their answer to our life-changing question. I stared back blankly and felt any preparation I thought I had mustered over the last seven months disintegrate as terror flooded through me like a tidal wave.
I delved into research, but it only depressed me. Autism is such a spectrum and so individual, the possible affectations are many, and they are heartbreaking to learn as possibilities for your child. He may never speak. He may be eight before he’s out of diapers. He may be aggressive. He may inflict pain to himself. He may never live independently. He may never have meaningful relationships outside of the family. And on and on. I had my first migraine headache the first week after his diagnosis. I had reached a level of anxiety I had never experienced before. One look at Charlie, and I stopped breathing. I had to say out loud over and over, “He’s the same little boy he was before. You’ve been doing this all along. He’s the same little boy as always. This doesn’t change anything.” (Phrases blessed Johanna had comforted me with). I was surprised that I felt angry about it, too. I didn’t want my life. I wanted the one I had planned for myself. But, it isn’t my plan that’s important... and I understand that now.
Therapies were aplenty and sometimes conflicted each other. The cost of private therapy began at around $100 per hour. Insurance labels autism as a “learning disability,” which makes no sense, seeing as it can only be diagnosed by a panel of medical professionals. But, it’s a coverage cop-out. ABA methodology suggest 20-40 hours of therapy per week. Our insurance offered 90% coverage up to $2000 for any therapy per YEAR (after the $500 deductible). You do the math and figure out how quickly that runs out. I made lots of phone calls, and I kept a special notebook for everything I researched.
I figured out how to stretch our therapy money, and when to plan it. He received private speech therapy as well as occupational therapy for several months. I started taking him to horse riding therapy, although gross motor skills are actually one of his strengths. I stumbled upon autism assistance dogs and felt excited at the prospect, and then deflated when I learned the average cost was around $12,000. (Later, we were blessed to find the Joys of Living Assistance Dogs, and to have had the amazing experience of a community rallying to fund raise on Charlie’s behalf. Bonnie the wonder dog joined our family earlier this year.) Charlie started at the Early Childhood Center in an autism-specific classroom just after he turned three. I started attending a pro-active autism support group. I was a woman on a mission. And I crashed. I continue to cycle through manic super-charged-therapy-mom, crash - overwhelmed and depressed, and then go through a denial phase when I pretend we are a normal family. The grieving took a long time. The trouble with grieving is that you can’t do it all at once and have it over with. It creeps up on you when you aren’t expecting it, and reminds you of something else you’ve lost... some new element to mourn that you hadn’t thought of before. And guilt ensues, sweeping away any productive energy. My cycles are getting further from the bottom now. They are working their way up. I hope someday to master the balance that is essential in my situation. I’m working on it.
I like the fact the Autism Awareness month is in April. It is the month we celebrate the resurrection of the Savior. It is the season through which life begins to come out of the sad remains of winter’s depression, and the sun comes out again. There are new Autism Speaks commercials on the television. I wonder how many families there are who are watching, oblivious that their gorgeous little baby is fated to be different from his peers... a puzzle attached to a trillion of his parents’ heartstrings. Charlie is the source of my most intense joy and pain. I want for him what I want for Audrey: happiness, fulfillment, and the realization of his potential. If I didn’t believe in a life beyond this one, I don’t think I would have made it through that first year. Thankfully, I believe deeply in a perfect Creator who makes no mistakes. So, here we are. It is April again, and here we are... for many more April’s to come, carrying with them uncharted territory. Unknown, atypical, uncharted... but, full of hope.
The support for the autism theory did not last. Chadd really didn’t want to believe it. So, he kept pointing out ways that Charlie was doing “normal” kid things. But, as time wore on and we waited on that accursed list for an official diagnosis, I began to slowly accept the doom of autism as something happening to us. So, it became a contentious point between us - at least inside me, anyway. I remember a fight we finally had about it. “Be careful what labels you put on him - they will follow him for the rest of his life!... You just want there to be something wrong with him!” he said as the argument heated. “Are you serious?” (I am a terrible fighter, I don’t think offensively on my feet, but this one meant something to me, so I kept duking it out) “Of COURSE I don’t want there to be something wrong with our son!” I said - having following him up the stairs and into the shower as he tried to evade me with the last word, “All I’m trying to say is that if there IS something wrong with him, I want him to have HELP!” That was the climate in which we entered our first Autism Awareness April.
Autism Speaks had a commercial on that year with a little boy throwing a football with his dad in the back yard. Printed over the sweet footage were lines that went something like this: “Chances of your child being a player on a professional football team: 1 in x-million. The chances of your child having autism: 1 in 150.” Chadd played football in college. All my hairs stood up... and I tried, without looking right at him, to see his reaction. It was unreadable.
Johanna and Ashley, Charlie’s early intervention therapists, were wonderful. They came over once a week and played with him and showed me how to talk to him, how to give an effective time out, what toys to buy, how to engage him... In short, how to give him what he needed. I will always be grateful to them for their gentle guidance. I remember asking Johanna if she thought he had it, and she answered kindly that autism was a medical diagnosis only a doctor could give... But, that she would not rule it out as a possibility. In retrospect, I asked some really tough questions for a person in her capacity to navigate successfully. She did it beautifully - with support and hopefulness - not hope that he was “normal,” but hope that everything would be all right. I needed that hope more than anything.
Sitting on that waiting list was torture for me. I remember feeling the same when my father died, only it dragged on and on. I lived with that gutted feeling. It was the last thing on my mind as I fell asleep every night. I woke at least once to nurse Audrey, and I thought about it half-asleep. And then in the morning, even before I opened my eyes, it was there waiting for me. When my father died, it was the end of someone I loved. For me, I felt I was facing the end of the life I had expected, the end of the son I thought I knew - as the one I had felt taken from me and replaced by a stranger. Possibly. The desperate and silly teensy bit of hope still remained, although I tried to smother it. And I was alone, mostly. Chadd still hadn’t come around.
A month or two before Charlie’s diagnostic clinic, Chadd went to his sister’s wedding in California. His nephew, who is only days younger than Charlie, was there. I think that was a turning point for him. He suddenly had a comparison, and a stark one at that. One Sunday, we were driving to church and Chadd said he wanted Charlie to have a Priesthood blessing. He would ask our home teacher, Brother Gillins, to help him after church. He believed now that something was amiss. Charlie sat in my lap and wriggled under their anointing hands. Chadd asked brother Gillins to offer the blessing. I remember blessings of health... but, I don’t remember much of what he said. Afterwards, brother Gillins shared with us that he didn’t have the impression that Charlie needed healing... that the feeling he received was that Charlie wasn’t “sick”. I understood what he meant, and I know Chadd did too. Yes, he was not typical. But, Charlie was not broken - he was as God intended him to be. After our home teacher left, Chadd and I sat and had the most emotional conversation of our marriage. I reminded him of a talk we had long ago, while we were still dating. I had forgotten it completely, until my mom reminded me. I told her about it, because I thought it was interesting. We had been driving somewhere together and I said, “Sometimes, I get the feeling that I’ll have a child with special needs.” He looked over at me quizzically. “That’s funny... I’ve had that feeling, too.” Sitting on the couch that Sunday, I asked if he remembered that conversation. Through weeping I had not seen before or since, he replied that he did. I comforted him with whatever strength I had left in my soul. We cried together for our broken hopes and our fresh fears. And, from that moment on, I was no longer alone.
The clinic was not fun. I had talked to the social worker on the phone about how positive I was trying to be - how I just wanted to know so we could give him all the intervention he needed, armed with a medical diagnosis. I wanted our life to officially start, whatever the outcome of the evaluation. So, she looked like she expected me to be unsurprised with their answer to our life-changing question. I stared back blankly and felt any preparation I thought I had mustered over the last seven months disintegrate as terror flooded through me like a tidal wave.
I delved into research, but it only depressed me. Autism is such a spectrum and so individual, the possible affectations are many, and they are heartbreaking to learn as possibilities for your child. He may never speak. He may be eight before he’s out of diapers. He may be aggressive. He may inflict pain to himself. He may never live independently. He may never have meaningful relationships outside of the family. And on and on. I had my first migraine headache the first week after his diagnosis. I had reached a level of anxiety I had never experienced before. One look at Charlie, and I stopped breathing. I had to say out loud over and over, “He’s the same little boy he was before. You’ve been doing this all along. He’s the same little boy as always. This doesn’t change anything.” (Phrases blessed Johanna had comforted me with). I was surprised that I felt angry about it, too. I didn’t want my life. I wanted the one I had planned for myself. But, it isn’t my plan that’s important... and I understand that now.
Therapies were aplenty and sometimes conflicted each other. The cost of private therapy began at around $100 per hour. Insurance labels autism as a “learning disability,” which makes no sense, seeing as it can only be diagnosed by a panel of medical professionals. But, it’s a coverage cop-out. ABA methodology suggest 20-40 hours of therapy per week. Our insurance offered 90% coverage up to $2000 for any therapy per YEAR (after the $500 deductible). You do the math and figure out how quickly that runs out. I made lots of phone calls, and I kept a special notebook for everything I researched.
I figured out how to stretch our therapy money, and when to plan it. He received private speech therapy as well as occupational therapy for several months. I started taking him to horse riding therapy, although gross motor skills are actually one of his strengths. I stumbled upon autism assistance dogs and felt excited at the prospect, and then deflated when I learned the average cost was around $12,000. (Later, we were blessed to find the Joys of Living Assistance Dogs, and to have had the amazing experience of a community rallying to fund raise on Charlie’s behalf. Bonnie the wonder dog joined our family earlier this year.) Charlie started at the Early Childhood Center in an autism-specific classroom just after he turned three. I started attending a pro-active autism support group. I was a woman on a mission. And I crashed. I continue to cycle through manic super-charged-therapy-mom, crash - overwhelmed and depressed, and then go through a denial phase when I pretend we are a normal family. The grieving took a long time. The trouble with grieving is that you can’t do it all at once and have it over with. It creeps up on you when you aren’t expecting it, and reminds you of something else you’ve lost... some new element to mourn that you hadn’t thought of before. And guilt ensues, sweeping away any productive energy. My cycles are getting further from the bottom now. They are working their way up. I hope someday to master the balance that is essential in my situation. I’m working on it.
I like the fact the Autism Awareness month is in April. It is the month we celebrate the resurrection of the Savior. It is the season through which life begins to come out of the sad remains of winter’s depression, and the sun comes out again. There are new Autism Speaks commercials on the television. I wonder how many families there are who are watching, oblivious that their gorgeous little baby is fated to be different from his peers... a puzzle attached to a trillion of his parents’ heartstrings. Charlie is the source of my most intense joy and pain. I want for him what I want for Audrey: happiness, fulfillment, and the realization of his potential. If I didn’t believe in a life beyond this one, I don’t think I would have made it through that first year. Thankfully, I believe deeply in a perfect Creator who makes no mistakes. So, here we are. It is April again, and here we are... for many more April’s to come, carrying with them uncharted territory. Unknown, atypical, uncharted... but, full of hope.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
First Writing Assignment
Candle’s Futile FightThe creamy white wax of the candle sits in a hard glob inside its translucent glass hurricane. The glass which is half empty of the wax widens in the center and rises up into a narrow opening. The hole is an elegant and undersized ring encircled with a shinny ribbon imprinted with the candle company’s name and the bouquet which has been selected to encompass the wax. On top of the wax, a smaller shimmery liquid puddle, about the size of a quarter begins to form in the center of the hard wax as the tiny pointy flame burns motionless on it’s short dark black wick. I imagine how that glossy wax puddle will grow larger and larger, in perfectly uniform and completely subtle rings until the entire top layer of the candle is fluid. It is as the wax becomes runny that the scent of the candle becomes evident. As I sit and the pool of liquid swells, the aroma of lime and coconut resonates out into the room. As I sit, the flame seems to gain confidence inside its small glass enclosure and it stretches taller as if trying to reach outside the rim of the glass. As the fire matures, it becomes frenzied, flickering and swaying against the invisible breeze that taunts it. The flame seems to be working harder now, trying to stretch, and expand into something significant and long lasting. It fights against the elements inside its glass house knowing that it takes but one of my breaths to douse it. It struggles between its two personalities, one of creating a welcoming atmosphere of vision and scent and it’s other of providing its dangerous heat, which it knows is truly its only defense against my effortless extinguishment of its dance inside the glass.
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