Ian Turned 30 This Week

On February 4, 1988, I experienced a miscarriage.  It was early but upsetting, and I thought, “Next year on this day, I’ll remember this with sadness.”  I did not.  I did not because the day before, February 3, 1989, I had given birth to a baby boy – beautiful, a month early, with light brown hair and blue eyes like my father, and Down syndrome.  I didn’t have the luxury to remember the grief of the year before because I had to deal with the grief I was experiencing then.

I wish I could remember what I knew about Down syndrome before my son’s birth but I do not.  It seems as if I have known Down syndrome intimately all of my life.  To be honest, I was happy to have my son, Ian, once I was allowed to hold him in my arms.  To me, he was a baby, plain and simple, and more importantly, he was my baby.  The happiness I felt when I held him did not, however, erase the grief of the loss of the child I had imagined throughout my pregnancy.  That child had died.

Every pregnant mother has dreams for her unborn child.  She may say that what she wants is only that the baby be born healthy, and of course that’s what I wanted as well.  I also told people I wanted him to have his father’s long eyelashes and my love of reading.  But there was more to it.  I wanted him to have a successful life, with possibilities and options and open doors, with love and partnership and family, with self-esteem and understanding and trust in himself and the world around him.  Of course he would be intelligent.  Of course he would be a man of integrity.  He would be well-read, athletic, witty, charming, and curious.

As I held Ian and looked into his slanted eyes, a startlingly sparkling blue, both features of Down syndrome, I thought about his future and mine.  My husband was in shock.  There was a line outside my hospital room, doctors and experts who came to tell us that Ian would be more prone to have leukemia than someone in the “normal” population, that Ian would likely get Alzheimer’s Disease by the time he was 50 years old, that Ian might never be able to say “I love you,” and that he might not read or write or sing or dance.   A parent of a child with Down syndrome came to tell us that it would be a hard life but one that was worth experiencing, that we would have more love in our lives than grief.

My sister came to be with me.  I called my parents, who lived in Florida, and my mother said she would research trains to come up – she was afraid to fly – and my father said no, they would be there tomorrow.  My mother argued for the train; my father insisted they would fly.  My sister took the phone and told my mother that if she wasn’t there tomorrow, she would be forfeiting the right to call herself my mother.  My parents were there the following day.

The day we came home from the hospital was the only time I’d ever seen my father cry.  He wanted to fix this for me.  He couldn’t fix this for me.

We met with a genetics counselor a few days after leaving the hospital.  When she assessed Ian, she was surprised that he was able to remove a blanket covering his face; a newborn with Down syndrome was not supposed to be able to do that.  My husband asked her about adoption – weren’t there long lists of people willing to adopt children with Down syndrome?  I was stunned by his question.  Never had he discussed that possibility with me, and I had never imagined not keeping my child.  Had Ian been born only a few years earlier, we would probably have been told to place him in a facility and forget we’d had him.  The geneticist told us to take him home and love him.

We did.  For the first year, he wasn’t a baby with Down syndrome but a baby.  Yes, there were therapists and early intervention and appointments with Down syndrome specialists, who were amazed by Ian’s early progress.  He held his head up earlier than he was supposed to.  He rolled over at 3 weeks.  He taught himself every milestone skill.  It wasn’t until walking age that the differences began to show.  It became clear that he lagged behind in certain areas.  But he also picked himself up in the middle of the room and flung himself at the sofa, running before he could slow down to a walk.  He knew his letters, numbers, colors, and shapes by the time he was three, and he was used as a poster child for United Way and as a see-what-we-can-do-for-your-child example at Mary Cariola Children’s Center.  He was remarkable.

As remarkable as he was – he is still remarkable – each delay reminded me that he was different.  That we were different, as a family.  That we would have difficulties forever, that there was no growing out of this.  That there was no way to fix this.

People around us didn’t know what to do or say when Ian was born.  Some said “I’m sorry.”  Some people stayed away.  Even at the hospital, voices were hushed.  The mother who came to visit us at the hospital was the only person to say “Congratulations.”  Cards came, presents too, but the expressions of joy were muted.  And some people disappeared completely.  I spent his toddlerhood concentrating on achieving milestone after milestone, experiencing grief and turning it off.

Then the next wave came.  When he was five years old, I noticed he liked to throw plastic bags into the wind and watch them fall.  Again and again and again.  He liked to put balls into large cardboard boxes and roll them around.  Again and again and again.  He developed an insistence on sameness:  his food had to be on the plate a certain way, he had to sit in the same place in the car, his schedule had to be unchanging.  I could see the autism before the autism specialist could.

He also developed explosive disorder and impulse control disorder.  He ran away.  He grew violent.  He ran across highways, climbed barbed wire fences, threw himself into Lake Ontario, jumped out of second story windows, and tried to exit cars as they drove down the highway.  Our family then included another son and a daughter, and their lives were tense and unhappy.  We could never go anywhere because Ian would run off.  They felt ignored because Ian’s needs claimed so much time and energy.  They felt resentment and anger.  My grief now included guilt because I couldn’t give my other children a normal life, if I even knew what that was. 

Eventually we placed him at a residential facility that had a school component, Pathfinder Village.  How ironic that we went in that direction twelve years after being told to take him home and love him.  Ian was there for nine years before graduating and moving to a residence near my home.  Three years later, his father and I divorced.

Ian is thirty years old now.  He still runs off when he can’t cope with his feelings, but he is well-read, athletic, witty, charming, and curious.  He knows how to use a computer and is a Facebook junkie.  He can’t carry a tune but he tries, and at Pathfinder he attended formal dances every year.  He’ll never drive.  He’ll never have children.  He may very well develop leukemia or Alzheimer’s, but he has his father’s long eyelashes and my love of reading.

He’s not the child I dreamed about and had to bury, but he’s still my baby and always will be.  Over the years I have sat with therapists and discussed Ian and my grief – it’s never quite gone, that sadness, that pain, but it rolls in and out like the tide.  I wonder whether I was responsible for his condition.  I question my fitness as a mother when I think I want him to die before me because I could handle his death better than he could handle losing me.  Once he ran away and I briefly wondered what life would be like if he wasn’t found.  Sometimes I see his abilities and imagine what he could have done without that extra chromosome.  I never imagined that mine would be among the increased rate of broken marriages that result from the addition of a child with special needs.

   Each counselor has been kind and caring.  Each has been solicitous.  But they didn’t know.  They couldn’t know.  I suppose only another parent of a child with Down syndrome who happened to become a grief counselor could ever know.  When you’re the mother of a baby or child with Down syndrome, the support surrounds you – early intervention begins at only weeks old, with mothers’ support groups in another room; there are family groups that provide Easter egg hunts and holiday parties.  It’s a lonely place, being the mother of a man with Down syndrome, especially without the support of parents, who have died, or a husband, who cannot handle fathering Ian the way I want him to.  Friends help, of course.  But they don’t know.  They can’t know.

And I suppose that’s okay.  The dreams I had for my unborn child had to be replaced with dreams for the child I held.  The expectations had to be delayed, often modified, sometimes dropped. I wouldn’t change who Ian is even if I could.  The grief I have experienced may never go away, but neither will my love for him.

This morning when I took him out for breakfast as I do every week, Ian said, “I love you.”

Serendipitous Eggs

I’m not much of an eggs person.  Sometimes eating them gives me a stomachache.  They can be kind of bland.  Sometimes I get to thinking of their biological potential and…well, better we leave that there.

I used to be an eggs person, however, and that was due to my father.  There was a period in my youth when, in an attempt to get me to stop nagging at him to spend more time with me, he took me with him on Saturdays into the city, to follow him to whatever jobs needed stopping into.  Some days we’d stop at DeWitt Clinton High School, where he was the assistant principal, and I’d sit across from his large wooden desk and watch him work in peeks while turning pages.  Always, always, I had my books with me.  A large canvas bag, laden with an assortment of books, because one never knew what one was going to want to read next, right?  Somehow, I thought I’d get through more than one of them but I rarely did.  Still, it was nice to have options.  Back to this office.  Sometimes he would make phone calls, sometimes do paperwork.  He gave me tours of the building, took me out back to the football field.  He told me about how one time he’d received a call from the third floor telling him there was someone with a gun up there, and how he’d heaved himself, gentle heft that he carried, out of his Administrator’s Chair and headed up the stairs – only to get to the second floor and stop midflight, realizing what he was doing, and then head back down to call the police.  But that was him – first instinct, step in.

Then he might take me to Columbia University’s Bakersfield Campus, where the athletes worked out.  He was the Head Coach for the Track and Field team.  When I was younger, he would take me up to the locker room and hide me in his tiny office, but as I aged, he made me stay downstairs.  In nice weather, I’d sit on the base of the stone lion out front of the field house.  In colder weather, I’d read on the long bench that housed the poles for the pole vault.  In the winter, we’d go to practice inside “the bubble,” a large dome covering a track and all the various pits, sand and sponge, and I’d watch the boys go through their practices, listening to the echoes of their voices as they grunted and called and whooped.  Sometimes these echoes lulled me to sleep in the high jump pit, where I’d nap until the high jumpers very kindly asked me to leave.  Some of the athletes flirted with young me.  I felt like a little sister to others.  But I blushed no matter who spoke to me, and they laughed and went further than I knew how to recognize.

In the fall, we’d go to Columbia University home football games, and watch the mess of a marching band scramble into place.  I thought they were the only college band in existence to ever do this, but I was shaken of that naiveté later when I went to college myself.

And then there were cross country meets at Van Cortlandt Park, where my father let me hold his extra stop watch and he pretended I was doing something official for him.  And away meets at Princeton or Rutgers, taking the bus with excited boy athletes, eating with them in college cafeterias, riding back in a quieter, stinkier bus, the sun already down.  There was a Greek diner around the corner from Bakersfield, and sometimes we’d go there for lunch – my father with his cheeseburger, me with my BLT and fries, which he’d always steal.

Sometimes he’d have insurance calls to make – his third job – and somehow we’d always run into someone he knew on the street, and they’d talk and talk and talk.  I didn’t mind, though, because I was with him.  And then those trips ended, but the reason behind that is for another time because it wasn’t pretty and has no place here.

You’re wondering, where the hell are the eggs?  Here they are.  On the way into the city, barely on our way at all, we’d stop at the Nanuet Diner.  I’d have the same thing every morning:  two eggs over easy, hash browns, bacon, chocolate milk.  Sometimes I didn’t want the same thing, but he made such a big deal about my having the same thing every time – whenever he’d tell stories about these trips to friends, this was a point he’d never skip – that I hated to disappoint him.  He’d always steal a piece of bacon, a bite of home fries.

I hated that.  Had he asked, no problem.  But he never asked.  It was his joke.  So I let him do it, and I seethed – but how lucky was I to be doing this in the first place, how could I not let him?

When I grew past these trips, I grew away from eggs for breakfast, and it was decades before I started eating them again, usually in another form, until finally I gave in and tried it again – tea instead of chocolate milk – and have had it some times since.

Recently, I’ve been feeling the desire for scrambled eggs.  I know what you’re thinking – just make some.   But no, I have to admit, I cannot make the kind of eggs I want.  The best scrambled eggs in the known universe, hands down, belong to my former mother-in-law.  How I miss her.  The saddest part of letting my marriage go was losing her.  Not just her eggs, either, or her other incredible dishes – best cook in the world, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  Generous to a fault, kind, stubborn, loathe to accept help and quick to offer it.  I resented her for a time because she knew about my ex’s affair for several months and didn’t tell me, and she sided with him – of course, she did – when we parted, and she accepted his side of the story as the truth without asking for clarification.  She had been my mother for close to 30 years and it felt like an abandonment to have her just leave, though now I understand why she had to.

I could never figure out the secret behind her scrambled eggs.  I’d watch each time we went to her house for brunch.  It didn’t seem as if she did anything special, but there they were, the best eggs you could imagine.  I’d lean through the cut-out between the kitchen and the dining room and we’d talk and I’d spy.  On everything she did.  Everything.

As I said, recently I’ve wanted scrambled eggs.  I take my son Ian to breakfast every week at the same diner, where they know him and make a fuss over him and it warms me to see him so happy which is why we return week after week.  The food isn’t spectacular, but it’s decent enough.  And a few weeks ago, I asked for scrambled eggs, envisioning a pile of the puffy bits of cloud-warmth and love I’d had at my mother-in-law’s table.  I was so disheartened when instead was put before me what looked like an omelet without its heart, a flat and egg-colored.  Clearly, this was pre-mixed omelet egg – nothing wrong with that – poured onto the grill and left to cook until it was done.  No scramble involved.  I was so sad.

Which brings me to today.

I’ve been home recovering from surgery this past week, and while I have had the best of friends who have brought by food and love and have texted and emailed and Facebooked their love and support to me, today is quiet and I was feeling alone and achy and a little worried about going back to work tomorrow.  I haven’t been hungry but I knew I had to eat something in order to keep mending so I went down to the refrigerator to see what I had.  Well, I had plenty:  leftover Thanksgiving food from friends and my son David, takeout and homemade foods also brought over by friends, foods I’d gathered before the surgery.  Nothing looked remotely appealing.  I stood there – you know the stance, the one that says if you stand there long enough, something will appear that will solve all your problems and send your taste buds, and your mood, to nirvana.  Nothing appeared. 

But I could see in the back of the refrigerator a container of leftover canned gelled cranberry sauce that had been there for more than a month.  Remembering – was it last year or the year before? – having food poisoned myself on the same thing when I’d eaten in late December or even January the cranberry sauce I’d created from scratch for Thanksgiving, I determined it had to go.  I reached in back, pulled the container forward, and brought with it three other containers which fell to the floor.  Of these, two were takeout containers – nothing lost there – and the other was a six-pack of eggs, three of them left after last week’s pie-baking.  Tentatively, I turned the box over and opened it.  Two of the eggs had small cracks in them, the other was untouched.  Lunch was decided.

I stood at the stove.  I threw in a little clarified butter – just a little, because I no longer have a gall bladder and don’t know how my body will react to such things yet – added the two eggs, and scrambled.  I thought about my mother-in-law.  I thought about my father, and our outings, and how everyone brings to the table the summary of their experiences.  I thought about how impossible it was that our country could have elected to the Presidency a man who could make fun of the disabled.  But mostly, I scrambled.

Were they good?  Yes, and they satisfied that need I’d been feeling.  Were they as good as my mother-in-law’s?  Not by a baker’s dozen.  But that’s okay, because I’ve had them.  I have the memory of them.  Maybe someday, fingers crossed, I’ll have them again.

I miss my father today.  I miss my mother today, and my sister, and my in-laws, and my family of children at all their ages.  I miss having someone here to make sure I’m taking care of myself, or who is taking care of me and making me feel safe.  And I feel cared for by my family of the heart, the friends who have stepped up to ask, to offer, to bring, to collect, to shelter.  And I’ve had my scrambled eggs.

Mister, Can We Have Our Ball Back?

This is a two-months late letter to the man from France who stole my daughter’s backpack in Barcelona.

Dear Sir:  In July, you began talking with two young American women taking their first trip around Europe.  They had been there only a couple of days.  Everything my daughter had was in her backpack:  clothes, medication, toiletries.  And you took it all. 

I don’t really care about the clothes, the medication, or the toiletries.  But also in that backpack was a notebook, a journal – a recording of my daughter’s last year and a half.  And I’d like that back.

I don’t intend to get you into trouble – though really, you should probably take some time to think about how important it is to you that you break the hearts of young travelers.  Fortunately, her friend wears her clothing size, and they shared – or she’d have been visiting Europe in her pajamas.  All I want is that journal.

You see, I know what it’s like to lose a diary.  Back in March 1988, in New York City, I had a diary stolen, and with it went two and half years of my life.  I was in New York City, visiting my sister and her newborn baby girl with my husband and a close friend.  My parents had come in from Florida and were staying with my sister and her husband, and I was eager to see them all.  As we parked the car, I went to grab my suitcase, but my husband and my friend both told me I was being silly, that no one would see the suitcase, no one would take the suitcase.  They even put a bag of something – peat?  gravel?  – on top of it, to hide it.  I let it go.  When we came down later, the window was broken, the suitcase was gone – and with it, a small stone cat given to me by my sister, that had traveled around the world with me, never a night without it – and my diary.  The next day, in the daylight, I circled the streets, hoping to find the contents of my suitcase dumped, but I never found it.  There was nothing in there of value – clothes were replaced – but not the cat, and certainly not the record of those two and a half years.  Those were some pretty important years. 

Gone was the story of my first anniversary Star Trek convention where I “met” George Takei.  Gone were the many trips to Cape Cod or New Hampshire.  Gone was the middle-of-the-night decision to drive to the shore to see Halley’s Comet.  Gone was my decision to change jobs.  Gone was the heartache of graduate school.  And gone was the week of my baby.

I found out I was pregnant on Tuesday, February 2, 1988.  It wasn’t planned, but I was happy.  I was happier than I thought I would be.  I got the call at work – the test is positive, come in tomorrow for a follow-up test, congratulations.  There was a bit about mycoplasma, I’d need medication to get rid of it or it would complicate the pregnancy, congratulations.  All I really heard was “positive.”  The next day I floated into my doctor’s office for another test, floated to work, grinned and giggled as I rearranged words on my computer screen, kept it close and mine.  I think my husband was happy; I know I was ecstatic. 

On February 4^th, there was a blizzard.  I drove the normally 40-minute commute in 90 minutes, but I didn’t mind because I played the Broadway cast recording to Les Miserables and sang along, my voice aimed at my passenger, and I arrived at my office just in time to pick up the phone.  It was my doctor.  The test read that my pregnancy was failing, hormones going down, could be any time.  In a sudden daze, I went into my supervisor’s office and left her a note:  Going home.  Having a miscarriage.  And I left.

It was another 90 minute drive home, but this time in silence.  This time I had to concentrate.  This time, there were cars off the road but I hardly noticed them.  This time, I drove alone.

To be honest, I don’t remember how I told my husband.  Did I call him from work?  Did I call him when I got home?  Did I wait for him to get home?  The only phone call I remember was to my mother, and I half wonder if it’s too painful to share with you, stranger from France, but I will.  I called my mother.  I cried, something I did rarely.  I told her what was happening.  The phone beeped – she was getting another call.  She put me on hold.  When she came back, she told me it was my sister calling her – could she call me back later?  I don’t remember what I said.

The storm continued to rage outside.  How the evening passed, I don’t know, but it was bedtime and I had to remove my contact lenses.  Only, one of them wouldn’t come out.  It was stuck on my eyeball.  My husband tried; I tried again and again.  I flushed my eye with water – cold water, warm water, cold water again.  Eventually, I had to call my doctor:  what do I do?

And then we were on the road, headed for the Massachusetts Eye Hospital.  In my hurry to leave, I forgot to bring a hat, scarf, or gloves.  The parking lot, covered with snow, was across the highway from the hospital, and we had to cross a pedestrian bridge.  I was cold.  I was sad.  I was in pain.  And then I realized, as I walked, that I wasn’t just in pain in my eye, but I was beginning to cramp.  I was losing the pregnancy.

Well, the emergency room doctor got the contact lens off my eye with a teeny tiny suction cup, which he presented to me and which I still have (and use – and God forbid I should ever lose it!).  My husband took me home.  It had been one of the worst days of my life.  I thought about how, forever, February 4^th would be the anniversary of something awful, something unforgettable – that the following year, I would grieve, and for every year after that, February 4^th, a black day for the rest of my life.

And a month later, all of this was stolen from me.  Of course, as you can see, it wasn’t really stolen from me, but for months I felt the loss of those words, written in my diary.  There I was, a short month later, gazing at my new niece, amazed at how her digestive system seemed to work, awed at how she had already changed my sister, sad and empty and alone in my grief.  I never told my family about the theft.  The following day, we went out to buy some clothes to last through the visit.  I bought a new diary and got back to my daily writing – only I never packed it to go away with me again.

I don’t believe my daughter has anything quite so dramatic in her journal, Frenchman, but her life is hers, and her words are hers, and I want her to have them back.  If you find yourself reading this, and you still have the journal, please return it.  No questions asked.  Carolyn Kintisch, Webster NY.

Oh, and you know what?  On February 4^th, 1989, I wasn’t thinking about my miscarriage.  I was holding a newborn, a little boy with Down syndrome born a day earlier, and that’s what mattered to me.  All the rest was just stuff.

My stuff.

Doing an Emotional Cleanse

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me if I was tired.  I laughed and asked her if sleepwalking was a symptom of being tired.  I wasn't tired at that moment, but it occurred to me that I seem to be tired so much of the time – just not physically tired.  My fatigue is more emotional than physical.  I've spent these few weeks pondering this state of mind, and realize that I am tired of

caring what others think of me.    I’m 53 years old, and it’s time to Be Carolyn, no matter the opinions of anyone else.  I've got this one life and I’m scared of getting to the end of it wondering who I am.  I want to pirouette in the halls of my school – and not just when I’m alone there – and I want to order what I want in a restaurant.  I want to wear clothes that don’t match but are comfortable.  I want to listen to my favorite music without apology. 

feeling negatively towards my body.  Once upon a time, I must have been happy with my then young, lithe, strong, working body, but I don’t remember it.  For as long as I can remember, I've felt too big, too tall, too fat, my hair too stringy or frizzy or straight or wavy or long or short.  I was told to lose weight from such an early age I don’t remember a time my weight wasn't a crushing concern.  But here I am, 53 (still), and I have a body that carries me through the day.  It shoveled my car out of the snow yesterday.  It carried and fed three children.  My heart keeps beating.  While I can feel it aging, I tend not to recognize any limits and when I ask my body a favor, it always says yes.

feeling shame about the general clutter in my house.  I don’t live in a pristine environment, but I don’t live in filth.  For reasons that go back to my childhood, I've been reluctant to rid myself of things – until recently, I’ve been comforted by the stuff that surrounds me, and threatened by those who would strip me of it.  Now I find myself feeling hemmed in by that same stuff that brought me comfort, and little by little, it’s been leaving my house.  Little by little, I've acquired me things – a coffee table, a cat tower, new silverware and dishes, a storm door – that appeal to my soul, and shed the things that have begun to weigh heavily upon me.  And I continue – junk to the garbage bin, books to friends and colleagues, unworn clothes off to Savers, gently used items to the school’s holiday store – carefully putting the past where it belongs.  In the meantime, my house is messy – I’m not a housewife, never claimed to be – but I’m tired of caring, of feeling guilty over what I've not done.  I live alone.  If people love me, my clutter won’t bother them.  I’m tired of feeling shame over a dish left in the sink, the laundry left for another day, a table piled with reading material, or cat toys scattered about.

feeling anger.  What is, is.  Here I am in the now, and no amount of anger is going to change how I got here.  So my neglectful parents are forgiven – I choose to remember the ways they loved me rather than the ways they pushed me away.  They did the best they could with what they had, as I do for my children.  My ex-husband too – I don’t like how he forced an end to our marriage, but he is the man I chose way back when to be the father of my children.  I choose now to find his redeeming qualities, not the ones that hurt me.  God, who gave me a lifelong sentence, but who also gave me the chance to experience the keen sweetness of an “I love my mommy.”  I struggle to release the anger I feel toward the man who made a unilateral decision that broke my son, then washed his hands of him, but someday I’ll come to it.  I’m still working on Reagan.

putting off until tomorrow.  I’ll be happy when I lose weight, and I’ll lose weight when the warm weather comes.  I’ll write when I have the time and I’ll have time when I rearrange my life.  I’ll crochet/embroider/other craft when I have room in the house and I’ll have room in the house after I’ve cleared it out.  I’ll save money when my children are independent, and I’ll travel when I’ve saved money.  No one is guaranteed the time or warm weather to come, and I’m not immortal.  If not now, when can I do these things?  The end of my life may come in 30 years, or in 1 day.  It’s my one life, and I’ve got to live it now.  But I also realize the folly of too many intentions.  I can easily overwhelm myself with lists, plans, and schedules.  My way of handling anxiety is to cover it over with surface management, so I’m making no schedules for now, no commitments to feel guilty about later.  All I need do for now is tweak my attitude.

the resentment that comes from judging others.  I try, I really do.  When that driver cuts me off, I tell myself there might be a good reason he (or she) is driving like a maniac – a wife in labor, a crisis at home, a child in danger.  That pushy person might not have seen me in the crowd.  The store clerk didn’t know I was here first.  Some are hard to explain away:  the man at Starbucks who leaves his garbage behind for someone else to clean up.  The people at Black Friday sales who trample others in their rush to get cheap(er) electronics.  How does one explain greed?  Selfishness?  The attitude that rules and etiquette are for other people?  Well, I can’t.  I cannot explain away the rudeness, the small hearts, the evil of others.  But I don’t have to carry the weight of judging them either.  I can allow the sadness that comes with seeing injustice, but the resentment is poisonous.  I know this will be an ongoing battle for me.  Is it human nature to feel “it’s not fair,” whether for ourselves or on behalf of others?  For now, all I can do is work at it – and perhaps throw out the trash left behind at Starbucks so no one else has to do it, bless that man’s soul.

Well, I feel better already.  No promises or commitments, just the recognition that I've lived long enough with these burdens to know when it’s time to relieve myself of them.  Like the items I’m sloughing off my physical world, these weights need to be shed from my emotional one.  Maybe then I can feel I’m no longer sleepwalking through my life, but waking up.

Some Gleeful Thinking in the Middle of the Night

I couldn’t sleep last night so I watched the most recent episode of Glee, “Jagged Little Tapestry,” in which the glee clubbers were tasked with mashing up songs from Alanis Morissette’s album “Jagged Little Pill” with songs from Carole King’s album “Tapestry.”  I don’t usually write about television shows – heck, lately, I’ve not been writing about much at all – but I have been growing increasingly disenchanted with Glee over the years and having no one with whom I can discuss my feelings, I suppose it’s time to put cursor to paper.

I think the best season of the show has to have been its second, the year that the Warblers were introduced.  That was a great a capella group, and I enjoyed every cut to Dalton Academy and the introduction of Darren Criss as a positive gay role model.  Initially conceived as an older, wiser, gay young man, Blaine Anderson was also presented as multi-talented, smart, an altogether together person.  Unfortunately, the show ultimately made him younger than Kurt (Chris Colfer), his romantic interest, probably so that he could stay longer in the show, talented as he was, but his use in the show declined once he transferred to McKinley and no longer appeared with the Warblers regularly.  His most interesting moments, indeed, came when he had the chance to sing with them again – for reasons that were highly improbable, but of course, much of the show is improbable.  And Blaine became less himself than he’d been:  he cheated on Kurt, he pined after Sam (Chord Overstreet), his tone became whinier, and he no longer played the older, wiser role.  Something valuable was lost.

The third year introduced a recurring character, Sebastian Smythe (Grant Gustin), a sarcastic, selfishly cruel Warbler who was interested in Blaine – and with whom Criss shared an incredible spark.  Some in Glee’s audience called for Blaine to ditch Kurt and create a new couple:  Sebastlaine?  The show even gave Sebastian a conscience, and he eventually redeemed himself, so much so that our last sight of him was when he helped Blaine to propose to Kurt.

Now Kurt and Blaine are once again apart, and the show has paired Blaine with Dave Karofsky (Max Adler), the boy who tormented Kurt through so much of the first and second season (because Dave was gay himself and couldn’t deal with it, which is a plotline I didn’t like and won’t discuss now).  Dave and Blaine have as little chemistry together as Kurt and Blaine had, and I find myself wishing they had brought Sebastian back (and I think the writers wanted that too, or else why would Kurt have silently wished for Blaine not to say Sebastian’s name when he was revealing his new boyfriend?)  Too bad Grant Gustin is off on another network, superheroing as the Flash.  Oh, if only…

Meanwhile, the improbable continues to weave itself through these three episodes of the show’s last season.  Suddenly, Lima is rife with McKinley alumni, and several of them are now in educator positions in their schools.  Blaine, having flunked out of NYADA, is the Warblers’ new coach (which at least enables him to don the jacket from time to time and join in, which can only be good); Rachel (Lea Michelle) and Kurt are working as coaches for McKinley’s New Directions (“Look at us!  We’re teachers!” Kurt exclaimed in the most recent episode); and with Coach Beiste’s (Dot Jones) upcoming gender reassignment surgery (wouldn’t you think she would need to provide more than “next week” as notice for being absent?), Sam is, despite having only modeling on his resume, the new football coach.

Then there are the other alumni, many of whom one would think should be at college, or in the military, but can easily arrange to “stay another week” beyond homecoming weekend.  It’s nice to have these oldtimers back to perform, but really? 

What am I thinking, though?  This is a show that regularly suspends the expected.  In this episode, Rachel declared her students ready to start down the road to sectionals:  did she happen to notice that she has only 4 students in her glee club?  I do believe they need 12 – she’d better get back to recruiting.  And perhaps decide what the set list will be before leaving for the competition.

I will admit that Chris Colfer and Darren Criss have voices that blend well, as they demonstrated in the opening number, "It's Too Late," but Colfer, despite his many talents, annoys the hell out of me.  Please, powers that Glee, do what you can to send Blaine off into the wild blue yonder with Sebastian.  It's the only thing that makes sense in this world you have created.  Then, maybe, I can get some sleep.

Rose

It's 6 am, and the third time I've awakened since the sun began to peek through the morning.  This time, I choose not to fight it, and I roll over.  There, next to me, deep in her own sleep, is Rose.

Today, we take Rose to college.  Today, she completes the journey she began when I gave her to our lives -- now I give her to her own, a new journey that only she can take.

That night she was born, I stared at her for hours.  In the middle of the night, she was brought to me, hungry and mewling, but she fell right back to sleep in my arms.  I propped her on my knees and watched her.  I couldn't take my eyes off her.  It was hours later when I realized I would serve her best by getting some sleep, and I reluctantly called the nurse to take her.  She was just so beautiful, my little girl.  She was healthy -- condition one of my bargain with God; she had her father's long eyelashes -- condition two; and later I would learn that He'd allowed her condition three as well -- she loved to read.  I was blessed.

So much has changed since that night.  Her father and I have parted; her brother's autism revealed itself; family members have been lost to death or to life-changing conditions.  But one thing hasn't changed.  I still watch her as she sleeps.

How many times have I gone into her bedroom to watch her -- hundreds?  thousands?  As I write this, she has been alive for 6,658 days.  How many nights have I quietly gone into her room, to check her breathing, to watch her dream?  I can't begin to count.  I watch her now, certainly not the last time I will do so, but the last time I will watch my little girl -- when I see her next, she will be a different person, a young woman with independence in her stride, with self-awareness in her eyes.

Her heart-shaped face.  Her long eyelashes.  The shy half-smile of sleep.  How did I get so lucky?  How did my genes and her father's combine to create this lovely, intelligent, kind, funny, daring young woman?  It's a marvel of nature, a wonder of God.  I am so proud of who she has become, of her deft wit, her urge toward generosity, the way she folds people into her protection.  

And I will miss her.  I will miss the sound of her voice, calling me from somewhere in the house, making me come to her instead of the other way around, some selfish quirk of teenagerhood that annoyed the hell out of me.  When did that start -- when she was still in diapers?  The call in the middle of the night:  "Apple juice, please!"  

I will miss her singing -- everywhere, singing.  She has been singing since before she could say full sentences.  Remember the ABC's at the grocery store?  Yes, I do.  And the words she put to that same tune, decrying her brother's actions:  "Ian took my toys away, Ian took my books away, Ian took my dolls away, Ian took my toys away."  And the time she climbed up onto the television, and to the same tune:  "I am stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck, I am stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck." 

I will miss her puns.  I will miss her awful jokes, and her splendid ones.  I will miss the way she comforted me in my darkest times, and allowed me to do the same for her.

Of course, there are things I won't miss.  We all have our foibles, and Rose is no exception.  But along the way, we have all learned from those foibles, and she has become a better woman for them.  So have I.

A woman.  How did that happen?  One moment she was refusing to get into the stroller, and the next she was refusing to tell me who was at the movies with her.  How did we go from my knowing every little thing about her life to this woman with secrets, this woman with connections and stories and history that I will never know?

Today, I take my little girl to college.  She will oversee the moving of her life into a dorm room.  She will meet people who will form the basis of her new life.  And she will banish us without so much as a second glance.

But that's later today.  For now, I watch her sleep.  This is my time with my little girl.

Up the Hill, with Profound Determination

This is Reunion Weekend at my alma mater, Colgate University, and last night to celebrate its 70 years, the Colgate 13, Colgate’s male a cappella group, held a concert featuring Colgate 13 members from as far back as the class of ’44.

The class of ’44.  My father was of that age.  My father would have been 89 this year had he lived.  There on stage, streamed live (and available recorded at http://www.livestream.com/colgateuniversity/video?clipId=pla_7e403c48-f53d-4292-9cba-44db326b0ecb&utm_source=lslibrary&utm_medium=ui-thumb ) stood a 90-year-old man.  He needed help climbing the stairs, he could no longer carry a tune with strength, but he proudly stood there as if it was 70 years ago.

As I watched this concert, I remembered the feeling of sitting in the Colgate Chapel – countless times.  I rehearsed there as part of the Colgate University Chorus under Marietta Chang.  I took organ lessons there from Vivian Slater.  I attended orchestra concerts, listened to speakers, attended meetings, shared in services.  I used to pack up my homework – reading, writing, whatever – and sit in the balcony while the orchestra practiced.  The acoustics were incredible, and the music hung in the air, surrounding me and pulling me in and making me feel sacred.

Wasn’t that just a moment ago?  How did so much time pass so quickly?  I imagine those men, the Colgate 13 members of the 1940s and 50s, wondered the same thing.  So much life they had seen in such a fleeting moment.  It brought me to tears.  I couldn’t help asking myself:  how did I get so old?

I never thought I’d be where I am now.  As I sat in the chapel 30(+) years ago, did I think about where I would be now?  How could I have known all that would happen:  that I would marry two years out of college and watch that marriage fall to shreds 27 years later; that I would give birth to a son with a profound disability and spend the rest of my life in despair and frustration; that I would see two other children off to college and envision lives of plenty for them; that I would return to school to achieve a second career as a teacher – and who ever would have thought I’d end up as a special education teacher after all I had experienced personally?

I have to be fair; I can’t leave what I just wrote un-amended.  My marriage fell apart, but there were plenty of happy times.  My son has also brought me great joy and pride.  I don’t regret what I have now; I wouldn’t want to relive those years and make different decisions that would result in the non-existence of my three children.  But I would have done some things differently.

1.  I would have finished my thesis.  That still haunts me.  Which leads to…

2.  I would not have stopped writing.  It was the most intense and self-satisfying part of my life at one time.  I had dreams.  I had talent; other people saw it.  So why did I lose faith in that talent, and in myself, and why did I let it slip through my fingers?

3.  I would have spent money differently.  So much wasted.

4.  I would have become a teacher sooner.

5.  I would have admitted defeat and divorced my husband long before now, painful though it would have been.  But before then, I would have tried to play with him more.

6.  I would have gotten a firmer hand on my health issues at an earlier age.  What I have learned about myself in the past 10 years would have changed my life for the better had I discovered certain things while in my 20s.
7.  I would have figured how who I was before I let myself be who other people wanted, and needed, me to be.  And once I'd figured that out, I would have fought to preserve that person.

No, I won’t continue.  That is sufficient to say:  I could have done this life better.  And looking at those men standing on that stage, I remember that I still have a chunk of time to make it better.  I can’t undo what I’ve done; I can’t remake my life’s history.  But I can steer it the way I want to go now. I won’t declare myself a lost cause – that would be silly.  There’s still time for me to achieve what I think I imagined for myself as I sat in the chapel balcony.  And maybe I’ll just finish that thesis.