Boys, Dogs and Chaos

Ice Dreams

My husband and I had a little disagreement the other night. It’s a disagreement that we’ve had many, many times over the course of our nineteen years together. “It’s boxing on ice,” he declared, referring to my beloved sport of hockey. “It’s kill the guy with the puck.”

“It is not boxing on ice,” I countered vehemently. “There’s finesse to it. It’s poetry in motion.”

“They count hits. What kind of sport is that?” he shot back. “Why are there even hits?”

“There are hits, because a clean hit gets the man off of the puck, allowing you to grab it and head back up ice. Clean hits are a part of the game – always have been, always will be,” I answered as calmly as I could manage.

My husband is a baseball and basketball guy. In fact, he coaches our kids in both. He loves everything about baseball and I still don’t know if he’s gotten over my convincing him to leave
his Red Sox and move to New York – to Yankees territory, no less – twelve years ago. I’ll be honest, unless my kids are playing, watching baseball is about as exciting to me as watching paint dry. The
World Series is an exception, but for the most part, I find baseball mind-numbingly dull.

Basketball is more exciting, of course, with the back and forth action, but it’s not the same as
hockey. With hockey, you get two for the price of one – they’re not just running, anyone can do that; they’re skating with a speed that often defies the laws of physics. If you’ve never skated in a fast moving hockey game or even taken a “hockey skating” class, both of which I’ve had the pleasure of doing, you don’t know how completely exhilarating, adrenaline producing and hard it is.

Skating was my sport from middle school on and I spent every possible minute at the ice rink. I was even a volunteer at the rink, which was also the New York Islanders’ practice facility, teaching very young children to skate. I might not have gotten paid in money, but the greatest payment was ice time on an empty rink. Sometimes the Islanders would be skating at the same time and they’d tease me for my Rangers jerseys and t-shirts. A few times they pretended to check me into the boards. I used to follow Billy Smith – their goalie at the time – around and taunt him. Now that I look back, I guess they could have been really offended and done some damage to me, but they laughed me off. I was seventy five pounds soaking wet, skating with the big boys. But, as much as I enjoyed that, I loved nothing more than taking to the ice when it was empty and just zipping around as fast as I could. I even took early morning hockey classes in college and relished lacing my skates up while my roommates were still slumbering.

I still have dreams that I’m stepping onto a clean sheet of ice and just taking off. I can feel that slight breeze on my face as my hair flies behind me. My thighs burn as I go faster and faster and then I abruptly spin and head in the other direction. Those dreams break my heart, because I haven’t skated in almost two decades. In my early twenties, my time on the ice started leaving me with excruciating pain in my feet and hands. I couldn’t even unlace my skates; my fingers just didn’t work. I was diagnosed with Raynaud’s Phenomenon, as well as small vessel disease in my feet – both circulatory diseases made worse by cold. Raynaud’s is not serious – really the best treatment is avoiding cold, especially sudden cold, such as entering a skating rink.

I really tried to keep skating, but eventually I couldn’t walk for hours after pulling off my skates,
thanks to the one two punch of both circulatory diseases, so I had to give it up. It was a cruel joke, because my apartment was on the same street as an ice rink (one of the things that sold me on it just months earlier) – and I could skate every night, only I couldn’t. My love of hockey never faltered, though. It was the one constant in my life. A few years earlier in college, I had been the only female referee for men’s intramural ice hockey. Some of the guys would try to pull me over the boards if they didn’t like a call, but I didn’t care. I loved pulling on the stripes, even if I did wear them over spandex skating pants. I loved being right in the middle of the action. My brother sent me his hockey helmet and pads because, as he pointed out, at five feet I was the exact height most intramural players carry their sticks.

Hockey made me feel free and powerful. I was never a fast runner, but in a pick-up game with a bunch of guys, I could skate circles around them and score. That was another bonus, being a
hockey nut meant that I was never uncomfortable in the company of guys in high school and college. In fact, I was often more comfortable in their presence, because I could talk hockey – something I
never tired of. One male friend in college declared that I was a “guy with boobs.” I took that as a huge compliment. It pretty much summed up my personality – I could scream, “Hit him!” as
loudly as anyone when we’d watch games at a bar. Something I still do, much to my kids’ amusement.

But, that conversation with my husband got me thinking – why do I love hockey so much and have loved it since I was old enough to cheer? At first glance, it’s a bunch of imposingly large men chasing around a little black disk, but it’s so much more. It takes concentration – even watching it takes concentration. Look away and you might miss something big. Nothing made me happier than when
we got a DVR and I could rewind games, so I could see a play that I missed or just relive a great goal over (and sometimes over) again.

Hockey takes strategy – sure, there are those “ugly” goals where everyone is just jamming their sticks around the crease, hoping something squirts loose so it can be banged home, but equally often, there are those gorgeous tic-tac-toe plays or slappers from the circle or a spin and a rocket from the high slot. The beauty of the sport captured my imagination even more as I entered my teenage years. I possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of the Rangers. At my brother’s wedding when I was fourteen years old, I was a sort of party trick. His friends rattled off jersey numbers and I
told them the players who wore them – “#2 – Tom Laidlaw; #3 – Barry Beck” and so on. No one could stump me.

In seventh grade I cut out newspaper pictures from all of the games and wrote articles to accompany them, keeping all of the pages in a neat blue binder with a Rangers sticker on the front. While other girls read Tiger Beat, I read The Hockey News. When I went to the mall, I would head first to the newsstand to see if there were any hockey magazines I could snap up, praying that my favorite player, Don Maloney, would be featured.

I thought I had died and gone to heaven when the Rangers were featured in a Sasson ad. That ad hung on my wall, along with a poster of Ron Duguay, his curls flying behind him, until I went to college. A button featuring Don Maloney was fastened to the cord of the air conditioner next to my bed, only because I couldn’t find a poster of him.

Don Maloney was my first crush. I figured a mere ten years between us meant nothing, even though I was only fourteen years old at the time. I got to meet him twice. The first time he handed me a puck over the glass at a Rangers’ practice at Rye Playland (I still have it) and the next time, he ran over my foot while I waited for his autograph. It’s not really as terrible as it sounds – his car kind of rolled over my foot. When someone alerted him and he apologized profusely, I simply said, “I
love you!” Poor guy must have thought I was nuts. I don’t think I even felt the pain until I got in the car – the sheer thrill of Don Maloney actually speaking to me was a powerful anesthetic.

I still tell my husband that he should be thankful that I loved Don Maloney so much as a teenager, because his look – one of a fairly constant 5 o’clock shadow – formed the basis of what attracted me as I got older. I’ve always had a weakness for a stubble covered jaw, much to the happiness of my husband who hates to shave. I think that the boyfriend before my husband, my college sweetheart, appreciated my love of scruff too – my favorite gift from him was an authentic Don Maloney #12 jersey with a fighting strap. It didn’t matter that Don Maloney had long since left the Rangers and was finishing up a tenure with arch rival Islanders. I loved that jersey and still have it.

Any guy that I have ever been with needed to understand that hockey – and my fierce love of it – is as much a part of me as the blood flowing through my veins. They also needed to understand that they better not talk to me when the Rangers are on, because I likely won’t hear a word they say and I may even turn the TV up to drown them out. On the plus side, I’m always up for watching Sports Center.

I’ve imparted a love of hockey to my boys and when they get mad at me, I pull out the trump card. How many of your friends’ moms know what the difference between boarding and charging is? How many of them know the motions for a cross check penalty and a hold penalty? How many of them know all of the words to the Canadian National Anthem and can recognize John Amirante’s voice after a two second snippet of the Star Spangled Banner on the radio? I’m pretty sure the answer is, "None."

I feel grateful that I have hockey to bond with my boys over. Unlike my husband, I don’t build rockets with them, coach them in baseball and basketball, collect baseball cards with them, ooh and ahh over baseball gloves and bats and basketballs with them. But, we have hockey and during the Rangers' exhilarating Stanley Cup playoff run, even my teenage son, D, has given me big hugs when our boys score. My older boys are usually a bit more into baseball and basketball, but not at this time of year and my youngest, A, is always into hockey – as a toddler, he pulled out his “Sean Avery dance” whenever the Rangers scored. My boys and I watch the games together. We scream, cheer, give high fives and hug each other. I only wish that I could share with them what my dad and I shared – at least a few games a season throughout my teens, always sitting in section 314. I cherish those memories even more now that my dad is gone.

So, why do I love hockey so passionately? Is it because my brother dressed me up in hockey pads and shot pucks at me when I was merely four years old? Is it because I loved skating so much? Or did I love skating because of hockey? Is it the finesse or the adrenalin? Honestly, it doesn’t matter why I love it, just that I do. Just like it doesn’t matter that my husband thinks hockey is boxing on ice. He’s entitled to his opinion, as long as he doesn’t talk to me during a game.

Crime and Punishment

Note before reading: This essay is a snapshot of my emotions during a very trying time and not an indictment of anyone involved. Things have improved in the short time since I wrote this. My son's teacher has a much better understanding of him and genuinely seems to be making an effort to help him succeed. In addition, he will now be receiving the services he needs in order to achieve the greatness that I know resides within him.

*******************

The punishment should fit the crime. One would think that a school, of all places would follow this edict and my son's school generally does, but not this past week. If you have read Twice Exceptional then you know that my son, X, has been battling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) for years. That blog post was written two years ago and while some things have gotten better, some have gotten far worse. His therapist warned us that entering middle school might cause a flare up of his symptoms. She couldn't have been more on target; he entered middle school and everything seemed to fall apart. He was even pulled out of the gifted program for doing poorly in his regular classes. This did nothing really, except make him feel hopeless.

A psychologist who tested him for a childhood OCD study at a major psychiatric hospital, told me that he shouldn’t be punished for his disability, because that is really what’s interfering with his ability to function in school. “He is gifted,” she reasoned, “And, he should be in a gifted program to challenge and engage him.” Regardless of this being true, I knew that I couldn’t protest his being pulled out of the program, because there is a district-wide policy that any child who receives a “C” in a class can’t remain in this program. But, there was something that I could protest, something that left me shaking and furious when I happened to stop in to the school office for another matter.

As I walked down the hall, I saw X coming out the main office, his lunch box in hand, a dejected look on his face. When I asked what was wrong, he told me that he had to eat his lunch while sitting in the main office, because a detention that he was to serve during recess actually included lunch, as well. The horrible crime that he was being punished for? He went to see his guidance counselor during class, because he was being bullied and felt distraught. He did not tell his teacher he was going, which is the crux of her complaint. Her first punishment was even harsher – she gave him a zero on the quiz he missed when he left. This brought his overall grade to an F, a grade that he had worked tirelessly to bring up. She decided that he should have known that they were having a quiz and should have told her that he was leaving, so therefore, he did not deserve a second chance – fail and that’s final.

She told me this in a note, a long derisive note. I wrote a note back, explaining that he was being bullied (two other students were calling him “stupid” and “ugly,” teasing him for a poor test grade and an eczema rash on his face) and at the moment he did not realize that he had a quiz, he simply wanted to feel safe. He did what grown-ups have always told him to do if he’s bullied; he went to a trusted adult and told her what was happening. He told his teacher first and she told him it would be taken care of, but he needed to feel safe at that moment and not wait until it was “taken care of.”

Because of his OCD and the distraction that it brews up in him, we requested that his teachers check his agenda and make sure that everything is in it and then sign the page. That spelling quiz was not in his agenda, so chances are that he didn’t even know he had a quiz even before the kids teased him, even before he walked out the classroom door and down the hall to his guidance counselor.

I mentioned all of this in my note and I requested that his teacher show him compassion, that she allow him to take the quiz. I requested that the punishment fit the crime. I did not receive a note back and I found that F for the class, thanks to the zero, on his "in-progress report" on the school website. The Friday before Winter break – a full four days after I wrote to her – I called the school and requested to speak with the principal. I was told that I needed to speak with the guidance counselor first. She called me back and informed me that she, the principal, the teacher and the school social worker decided that I was indeed right and that the punishment did not fit the crime. He would have a chance to take the test over again, but his teacher felt very strongly that he should suffer a consequence for what he did and that he would have to serve detention.

I was under the impression that the detention would be served during recess, because he already stays every ninth period for either band or extra help. This made sense to me and seemed a reasonable consequence for not telling his teacher he was leaving. All through the vacation, X
asked me if he would have to eat lunch during his detention, or if it would only be during recess. I assured him again and again that he could eat in the lunchroom and would only be punished
during recess. “Why wouldn’t they let you eat?” I asked him. “That’s not right – I’m sure it’s just during the fun part, recess.”

Which brings me back to finding him leaving the office, lunch box in hand, a look of despair on his face – he did in fact have to eat his lunch in the main office, like a pariah, like he was ostracized. I was livid. I knew he didn’t eat – OCD has affected his eating more than any other activity and it is hard enough for him to eat around friends in the lunch room. He has routines that he tries to hide, but when he can’t, he just throws his lunch away. I am sure his hunger is why he has an even harder time in his afternoon classes than his morning classes. I knew when I saw him, that there was no way that he would have eaten a bite with a roomful of adults around him, especially adults that he doesn’t know.

I went into the office and confronted the poor secretary, asking her, “Is this acceptable – to have a child eat lunch in the office, all by himself?” But, of course she knew nothing and sent me to speak to the school psychologist. The psychologist admitted that she was “surprised” when she saw X in the office, eating his lunch. She said that she felt bad for him, so she brought him some tests that he needed to complete. You see, X is in the middle of the evaluation process, which hopefully will secure him an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), which truly makes this whole debacle even more unfathomable. Why would a teacher punish a child, one who has a documented mental health disability, so harshly?

I was fuming at this point, so I told the psychologist that I wanted my child switched into a different class; that he’s a square peg who doesn’t fit into the teacher’s view of an ideal student and he’ll never get a fair shake. She told me she couldn’t help me, and that I should speak to the vice principal. Off I went to the vice principal’s office.

Halfway through explaining the situation to the vice principal (who was very sympathetic), X’s guidance counselor walked in and asked to join us. She explained that it was she who decided that X should serve his detention during the entire lunch period, rather than just recess, not his teacher. She explained that it is common practice when a child receives a lunch detention that it is for the duration of the lunch period and that they need to eat wherever they are serving their punishment. She apologized profusely that I didn’t realize that his punishment would encompass lunch. She said, "No one can understand how difficult it is for you on a daily basis." She said that she felt terrible that I was so upset.

I appreciated her apology and her sympathy, I really did, but had I realized that his detention encompassed lunch, I would never in a million years have agreed to it as a punishment. When I initially spoke with his guidance counselor about X’s punishment, I was at Target and perhaps it was hard to hear or perhaps it was just unfathomable to me that a child with such severe anxiety surrounding food – an anxiety that the school has been made well aware of – would be made to eat his lunch in an unfamiliar setting amidst a room full of adults. I am a people pleaser by nature. I don’t like confrontation. If I had known the guidance counselor, a very nice woman who does seem to care about X, had determined the punishment, I may not have been as vocal about my displeasure, especially since we were face to face.

I’m glad I didn’t know, because having already said something, there was really no point in hiding my dismay. “I think there should have been more sensitivity shown in doling out his punishment,” I maintained. “I think you all should have taken into account his anxiety surrounding food and whether it is common practice or not to make a child eat his lunch in the main office, you should have adapted the punishment to fit not just the crime, but the child, as well.”

To be honest, X’s teacher seems like a lovely woman as well, just completely clueless about OCD – she told us when we met her that she has OCD, because she likes everything in her classroom in order, a sure sign of a lack of understanding of the true disease. She also told me at conference that she feels X is lazy and she "doesn’t really see any evidence of OCD interfering with his academics" – that’s because he expends a tremendous amount of mental energy hiding his “routines” and
presenting a façade of normalcy. But, even with all of this, had she been in the room, I probably would have softened my reaction, because as I said I don’t harbor ill will against her as a person,
just her methods. Instead of demanding that X be switched out of her class, I may have simply stated that I wish she had shown him more compassion.

In fact, when the vice principal suggested that I sit down with X’s teacher to talk to her about how I feel X is being treated, I bristled. I really don’t want to make her feel bad, even if my son feels bad.
I realized as I was sitting with them in that office that this really isn’t about blame, about who did what to whom – it’s about guaranteeing that my son gets a fair shake and that stereotypes (kids with OCD are simply neat freak germophobes who need everything a certain way and are always washing their hands) are blasted away, because even if it’s not malicious, which I’m sure it’s not, misconceptions about OCD hurt my son and to use an even broader stroke, all children with mental illness.

I agreed to have the school social worker speak to X’s teacher and try to educate her, rather than speak to her myself. This absolves me of the need to be confrontational and at the same time removes any subjectivity from the equation – this is not a mother speaking about her child, it is a professional speaking to another professional about the best way to handle a classroom situation, a
situation which I hope and pray will never again result with my son in so much pain. I hope that armed with newfound knowledge, X’s teacher will see my son for who he is (a gifted child,
eager to do well, but imprisoned by mental illness) and not for what he does. When asked by the school psychologist during the IEP evaluation process what he will never do, my son answered, "Realize my dreams." I am hoping that X's teacher will step up and show him that nothing could be farther from the truth.

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Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem #1

Her pale blue eyes cloud over

As she speaks of him

The other one she could have loved

A wrinkle forms between light eyebrows

As she thinks of him

It could have been

She says

Out of sync

He was in a war

She got divorced

He got married

If I had just gone to see him

She says

I love my husband,

But I loved him too

It could have been

I think hard on this

He is dark

With eyes made of light

We are out of sync

He says

We can’t be

Not now

Timing off

We can make the timing

I say

Because in twenty years

I don’t want pale eyes that cloud over

And a wrinkle on my brow

Carpe Diem #2

I used to sit underneath the big oak tree

In my backyard

Drinking sticky, sweet lemonade

Reading romance novels

I believed the heroes and heroines lived up there

Ensconced in that cool green world

I knew at fifteen

That if I just stared long enough

At that lush canopy of thick green leaves

I would find all the answers

I would just know

Now, as I sit on my deck years later

The leaves seem achingly green,

But the sky is growing darker

And the clouds hang low

The heat stirs up in a breeze

That brushes my skin

Someone once told me

He always feels closer to God

During a storm

I sit back

Close my eyes

And wait for it to rain

 

I went into my 4^th grade son’s classroom to talk about my “writing life” a few months ago and the kids all asked me if I write poetry. They had just finished their poetry unit and would be holding a poet’s celebration the following week. I told them, “No.” I said that poetry made me a bit nervous and that I wasn’t very good at it. I truly didn’t remember ever writing poetry. And then, last night as I was moving pages and pages of writing from a cardboard box in the basement to a plastic bin, in anticipation of Hurricane Irene, I found the two poems above. I wrote both of them for a college creative writing class. Titled Carpe Diem #1 and Carpe Diem #2, I’m guessing that the assignment was to write two poems with the theme of carpe diem – seize the day.

I don’t think I wrote much poetry after that – I focused on fiction and journalism, so finding these two poems was something of a gift. I don’t know if they are even any good, but for some reason they speak to me. And even though I had forgotten writing them, as soon as I read them I remembered the emotion and experiences. I remember the woman with the star crossed love – I believe I interviewed her for a magazine I wrote for the summer before my senior year. I do remember that she seemed quite old, yet I wrote that I didn’t want to be like her in just twenty years. Twenty two years have passed. I don’t feel old though, I feel in some ways as if I could still “seize the day.” But, in some ways – it seems as if centuries have passed, as if I will never have another carpe diem moment again.

I have been thinking about the concept of carpe diem often lately, even before finding the poems. I went to a funeral for someone way too young to die and every single person in that overflowing chapel knew that this woman lived the motto of carpe diem from the moment of her terminal illness diagnosis until her last breath. She likely lived that way before (I unfortunately did not know her as well as I would have liked to – so I can’t say for sure), but she caught the attention of everyone who crossed her path with the joyful spirit with which she embraced the days she had left. Although we had gone to high school together and lived in the same town as adults, it was really on facebook that our friendship resided. But, based on our facebook interactions alone, I felt we were friends. We exchanged messages and she left insightful and amusing comments on my posts. She always had a kind word to say and a mega-watt smile in every picture. I could tell from those pictures that she lived more authentically than most people in her short life.

So many of us just go through our days on autopilot – I know I do. Feed and clothe children; break up fights; run errands; wash and fold laundry; pick up toys; walk dogs and the list goes on. How many times do you stop and appreciate all that you have? How many times do you say, “Yes” to something that matters and “No” to everything else? I know for myself, the answer is rarely. There are nights that I lie in my bed and think, “What did I do today?” There are days that 10:00 pm rolls around and I couldn’t tell you one thing that I accomplished that actually meant something more than getting the laundry off the couch or keeping my kids from killing each other. I have been working on a novel for so long and I finally had an opportunity to get it into the right hands – an amazing agent, but the days spin away from me and I still have not finished it. I feel as if that opportunity has just slipped right through my fingers – I did not seize the day. At least not yet.

There are so many lessons to be learned when someone lives his or her life so fully and authentically, no matter how short. This woman made more memories for her children than most parents do in a lifetime that is not cut tragically short. The rabbi at her funeral service talked about her bucket list. She tackled that bucket list and then some. She was an inspiration to everyone around her and a lesson in how to carpe diem.

Our younger selves didn’t need a bucket list or a diagnosis or the death of a friend to know that coasting through our days is no way to live life. But, with children, work, laundry and countless obligations that’s far too often what happens. Finding these poems when the notion of seizing the day is so fresh in my mind seems to me a sign. A sign that perhaps I should remember what that energy felt like, what that sense of possibility felt like. And that it’s wise for all of us to seize the day while we can.

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Things Left Unsaid

“There are always things left unfinished,” the rabbi said as he turned from my father’s body. We had been sitting in the hospital for hours and none of us could bear to leave, even though there was nothing left to do, nothing left to say. My father had been sent home the day before with, while not a clean bill of health, certainly an optimistic outlook that the episodes of chest discomfort, dizziness and fainting were behind him and a healthier tomorrow beckoned. The last thing that he had said to me when I left his house the night before was, “I feel good! I guess the stent fixed everything.” Did he know that was the last time we would speak? I certainly didn’t, so I merely answered, “Great! I’ll see you tomorrow,” and with a wave up the stairs to the room he was sitting in, I left.

I told the rabbi that I was devastated that I didn’t say, “I love you,” that I didn’t climb the five stairs to lean over his chair and give him a hug. I just gave a short wave and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Because, I did believe that we had tomorrow. I believed that there was plenty of time for hugs and plenty of time for "I love you." In the hospital during the previous week, I blew kisses (I had a sore throat and didn’t want to bestow my germs) and said, “I love you,” before leaving, because I didn’t know what would happen. But, that night my kids were waiting, I was tired and really I thought everything would be fine. Everything was fixed. I wasn’t thinking that the next time I told my father I loved him his forehead would be ice cold when I kissed it; his face graying; his hands waxy and yellow. But really, unless someone has died from a long drawn out illness, who ever thinks it will be the last time? Who ever says everything they need to say?

I sometimes think it’s easier for the living to have a loved one die after a long illness, because you have said all you need to say, you have prepared yourself and you know that person is finally at peace. Although, I would imagine the anticipation and knowledge that you are going to lose a loved one is equally painful, not to mention the pain of watching that person suffer. Quite frankly, it all sucks – whether you’ve said I love you at every opportunity and anticipate a quiet slipping away or you’ve treated the moments before death as any other moment crowded into a lifetime of days. It sucks for the living. It sucks for the dying – but, I am glad that it was over quickly for my dad. I'm glad he didn't suffer and I’m glad he didn’t know. Or did he?

Just before he passed away, he told my mother, “I love you. You know I love you.” And he asked for a kiss. So, did he know? Was he sick of the hospitals and just didn’t want to fight any more? That is my son’s theory and increasingly mine, as well. Not that he wanted to die, but that he didn’t want to live his life in and out of hospitals. He wanted to live vibrantly and fully, the way he did before a stroke robbed him of his short term memory eight months earlier. Before the stroke he went to the gym every day and walked miles. He looked much younger than his years and acted that way too, even after the stroke. But, in the two months prior to his death, he was in three different hospital four times. Who knows if he just decided, I’m not going back to the hospital and that’s it? He said what he wanted to and I think he passed away knowing he was deeply loved.

Now, it’s up to us, the living, to make peace with his passing, as well. It’s not easy. And it’s especially difficult during the season of rebirth. The flowers bloom. The sun shines. And still we grieve. It seems like it should be gray and rainy to match our moods, but even when that weather arrives, it doesn’t do anything, except make us more depressed. My kids tell me that they can’t stop thinking about their grandfather. They worry that no one will ever make them chocolate chip pancakes like he did. You know what? They are probably right. There are a lot of things that will never be the same. It is the new normal, something I said often after his stroke. It’s a new normal that will take months, even years to get used to. Someone told me recently that even decades after his father passed away, he still dreams about him. He still sees him and hears his voice. I still dream about my childhood pet that has been gone for almost twenty years, why should my father be any different? And, that’s good. I want him to show up in my dreams and I want my kids to keep thinking about him, to keep hearing his voice and seeing his face as they did in the days following his death. We all did and he was telling each of us that it would be ok. My ten year old heard him say, “I love you” not once, but three times.

If my father were alive, he would tell me to stop worrying about the things I didn’t say and just be glad about the things I did. A few days after he died, I confided in my husband that I just couldn’t get over the fact that I didn’t say, “I love you” the last time my father and I spoke. He answered, “I’ll let you talk like that for a couple of more days and then I’m going to tell you to stop, because there’s no point in beating yourself up over it.” I knew he was right, but I bristled. “There are only two words you need to say,” I informed him. “And one thing you need to do.”

He was quiet for a moment and then offered, “I’m sorry?” “That’s one,” I answered. “And hug you?” he asked, hooking me close to him. “That’s the other,” I said quietly. I wasn’t ready to forgive myself then, but I know I have to eventually. Beating one’s self up is not the way to honor the dead. It was sudden. We didn’t expect to have to say goodbye. There were things left unsaid. That’s life. And death. But, perhaps the best way to move forward is to simply say, “I love you” often to those who remain, so the pain of things left unsaid at least has a purpose – to teach us to embrace the moments we have and to tell those around us how much they mean to us while we can.

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Teaching Tolerance

Cleaning up the kitchen the other night, I found a purple post it note stuck to the floor.  I picked it up and squinted at the scrawled writing.  “Who is…” I paused and looked closer at the paper, “Gerald McGaybutt?” Hysterical laughter from my two older boys ensued.  They thought it was great that I walked into their trap. I, however, wanted to cry.  I have tried so hard to increase their compassion and open-mindedness.  My kids would never, ever utter a racist comment, but it seems like prejudice against gays is the last frontier.  It infuriates me when I hear them toss out, “That’s so gay.” 

I drill into them that all people are equal and who a person loves is simply who a person loves – no more, no less.  Who are we to judge?  The most important thing is being capable of love, not who the object of desire is – man or woman.  I tell them that I couldn’t care less if they grow up to be gay – I just want them to be happy.  I remind them about the kids they know with two moms.  I tell them I have gay friends.  I tell them that they have gay friends; they just don’t realize it yet.  I promise them that by the time they are in high school at least one or more of their friends will be gay – it’s a statistical probability.  I tell them that gay teens who are bullied may even kill themselves.  I am turning myself inside out, trying to teach them tolerance.

What kills me even more is the possibility that others will think they learned their attitudes from me and my husband, Jeff.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  I worked in magazines and was an arts reporter, if I didn’t feel comfortable with those different from me, I’d be in trouble. One of the reasons I fell for Jeff, was because he had zero homophobia.  He had a gay friend who had a crush on him.  This friend would sing little songs about how he wished Jeff were gay.  Jeff didn’t run away screaming.  He laughed and was flattered.  When we got engaged, this friend came over to me and said, “You won, bitch.”  I have to say, I was really flattered then.  Jeff didn’t care that the gay men I worked with asked me if he was available.  He took it as a compliment.  I have been hit on by lesbians and I saw it as the highest praise.  At a show Jeff’s band played at the Hard Rock Café not long after I had given birth to my first child, a woman asked me to dance and told me I was beautiful.  You know what, I was so appreciative – I thanked her (and yes, I danced with her, after telling her that my husband was on the drums, only so I didn’t lead her on).  I wasn’t feeling very beautiful with the lack of sleep and she changed that.  I feel like my kids should have inherited the compassion and openness gene.

 There are glimmers of hope. They love watching Nate Berkus, the openly gay talk show host. (I love him too.)  They watch HGTV and love Color Splash with David Bromstad, another openly gay host.  My son will be on the art track next year and in high school, allowing him to build a portfolio and work toward a career in art even before college.  He wants to go into sneaker design.  Surely he will have gay friends.  But, here’s the thing – I don’t think that my boys are homophobic.  I don’t think that they are hateful in their comments.  I think if they found out that one of their good friends was gay, they would be just fine with it, supportive.  I think that in middle school especially, “That’s so gay” and other slurs are part of the vernacular.  It’s part of the way that kids speak and that needs to change.  There needs to be some sort of tolerance program in school, specifically dealing with accepting others’ sexual orientation.  Because no matter how many It Gets Better videos a teen watches, no matter how many grown ups tell him/her to be comfortable in who he/she is (and you would hope grown ups will be the ones to tell a gay teen this), no matter how wonderful role models like Chris Colfer and Darren Criss in Glee are, if peers aren’t accepting, it’s a rocky road.  And that is a damn shame.

Valentine's Day

I used to hate Valentine’s Day. If there was a “bah humbug” term for February 14th, I would have uttered it all through my early to mid twenties. In my early twenties, I was simply disappointed – either I wasn’t dating anyone or my boyfriend just didn’t measure up. But, there were some lean years when Valentine’s Day wasn’t just disappointing – it was the darkest day of the year. Even when I started dating my future husband, I just felt it was a lot of pressure to be perfect, when life is often anything but.

The Valentine’s Day I remember most clearly from the days I was dating my husband, Jeff, was a disaster. It was a snowy weeknight and by the time we both got home from work and he fought the traffic from his apartment just south of Boston to my apartment just west of Boston, every romantic restaurant was jam packed with couples more organized than we were. Why hadn’t we thought to make a reservation? Why didn’t I just meet him in Boston, so we could get an earlier start? Who knows what we were thinking. We drove around the snowy streets looking for someplace, any place, with a romantic vibe. Finally, we settled for our usual – a neighborhood pub with a mostly young, single crowd – and ate our chicken sandwiches while trying to hear each other over the din of come-ons and desperation.

That night simply didn’t live up to expectations, though I’m sure I was fairly happy just being with Jeff. A year earlier my Valentine’s Day was something out of a clichéd single girl sitcom. My roommate and I decided to treat ourselves to dinner, since neither of us had a valentine. I planned on ordering salmon, mashed potatoes and a decadent dessert. I was going to enjoy the meal and the conversation. That is, until I walked into the lobby of the restaurant and saw my ex-boyfriend on a Valentine’s Day date. Not only was it awkward for me, he was clearly flustered, since he introduced my roommate, whom he had known for years by the wrong name. It was so bad, it was funny – well, maybe not right away. Let’s just say I imbibed a good deal of white wine with dinner that night.

The year before was almost as bad – it was the beginning of the end for me and that ex. Sitting across from each other at our romantic dinner, I gazed at him as he pulled out a small black velvet box. I sucked in my breath – I had been waiting for this moment for months. We talked about getting married all the time and I couldn’t believe he was finally asking me. My heart raced, tears sprang to my eyes. He opened his mouth to speak as I rolled the “yes” around my tongue, practicing in my head how I would respond – loudly, so the whole restaurant cheered or a whisper, so the moment stayed between us. He placed the box in my hands, as I listened for the words I had been waiting to hear, the “yes” ready to burst forth… Only, I never heard them. Instead of saying, “Yes,” I found myself asking, “What??”

The ex repeated himself, “It’s not an engagement ring.” I downed my vodka and cranberry and motioned to the waitress for another. Then I slowly opened the box. That lovely black velvet box, that “just the right size” box contained a pair of earrings. Beautiful earrings to be sure – amethysts surrounded by gold swirls dusted with diamonds – but still, just earrings. I couldn’t hide my disappointment. I was dumbfounded. We had talked about getting married for over a year and when I saw that box, well I just jumped to the nearest logical conclusion.

Of course now that I am a grown up, I realize that it would have been a huge mistake. I was a month shy of 24 years old. My boyfriend was just a couple of weeks shy of 23 years old. We were kids. His reason for not giving me a ring was perfectly valid – he wanted me to gain weight and he dangled that ring in front of me like a carrot. (As a parent who has dangled plenty of fancy carrots in front of a child who just won’t eat, I see the irony and I could spend an entire blog post exploring my past and how my son’s refusal to eat feels like the worst possible karma, but that is for another time.) Simply put – if we even stayed together long enough to get married, we surely would have been divorced by now. So, of course it was for the best, but when we broke up two days later, it felt like my world came crashing down. After that year and the restaurant debacle of the next, I was ready to swear off of Valentine’s Day. I wanted to wear all black and a frown as my only accessory on February 14^th.

But, a funny thing happens when you hate a holiday for no good reason at all – it’s hard to stay hating it. Life changes and suddenly you may find yourself not only over your hatred of Valentine’s Day, but actually looking forward to it. That turning point for me was my first Valentine’s Day as an expectant mom. I was almost three months pregnant and blissfully soaking in every joyous moment of first time pregnancy. I loved everything about it. But, I was not happy that Jeff was working Valentine’s Day night as a DJ. I really didn’t want to be alone – every moment being pregnant was special and that night should have been special too. When he told me he would be working, it just confirmed my belief that Valentine’s Day was simply a big disappointment – too much pressure and it’s never perfect.

Perhaps knowing how much it meant to me (and having to balance that with the need to bring in some extra cash as our family grew), Jeff proposed a solution. We would celebrate Valentine’s morning, instead of Valentine’s night. Since I was exhausted by 7:00 pm after a day of creating life, I jumped at the chance to celebrate when I was actually alert and upright. We went to our favorite breakfast haunt – a charming little restaurant that served the best banana walnut pancakes. Much better than a fancy dinner, those banana walnut pancakes satisfied my cravings like nothing else. After breakfast we wandered into the gift boutique next door. While I sniffed candles and inspected picture frames, Jeff’s surreptitiously bought me my Valentine’s Day gift – “The Pregnancy Journal” (Chronicle Books). It was so special – exactly what I wanted, with a place to record all of my thoughts, dreams and pregnancy minutia. We didn’t have the night, but the morning was great and thirteen years later, I still remember every moment like it was yesterday.

The following year cemented Valentine’s Day as one of my favorite holidays – back in my good graces again. (Before I hated V-Day, I loved it – when I was a little girl, my father always brought me gifts. Some years it was fancy chocolates, some years stuffed animals – one year I even remember getting pearl earrings. In high school I had a sweet boyfriend who made Valentine’s Day special and even sent me candy hearts all through college.) The year I was 30 though, I had the perfect Valentine – one with whom I could cuddle, one who loved me unconditionally and always made me smile – my baby. D was 5 ½ months on Valentine’s Day and I made sure he had a special present – his first drum. It had miniature plastic drumsticks attached, so he could bang on it and when he pressed a large button, it played an electronic drum track worthy of an 80’s pop song. Last year I was going through baby toys to give away and D grabbed that drum. He brought it up to his room and kept it. He’s an amazingly talented percussionist now, playing in both the school band and on occasion the symphonic orchestra. Yes, his dad is an amazing drummer too, but who knows – maybe that first drum set him on a musical path.

I know it set me on a path – to relishing Valentine’s Day. I have three boys now and every year I buy each of them a small, but special present, candy and a card. Even more importantly, my two younger boys still make me cards. And I know that even though that little baby who reminded me how wonderful Valentine’s Day is now a big boy in 7^th grade, he still appreciates my Valentine’s Day gifts. When he saw that his brothers got die cast cars for Valentine’s Day this year, along with candy, while he had only candy, he was disappointed. That is until I told him to look in his card, where he found a pile of scratch tickets. A grin spread across his face – he wasn’t too old to get a Valentine’s Day present from his mom. I know I need to enjoy celebrating Valentine’s Day with my kids now. In a few years, D. will be in his mid teens and probably have his own Valentine. But for now, Valentine’s Day is really more about the kids.

Of course, celebrating with one’s children leaves less time for celebrating with one’s spouse. This year Jeff and I ate lunch at Cosi surrounded by moms with preschoolers and business people on lunch break. Then, we did a grocery run at Trader Joe’s next door. Not exactly the height of romance, but at least we were together and really, is Valentine’s Day about the roses, candy and jewelry or is it about showing love in little ways? A fancy dinner at a stuffy restaurant or holding hands and locking eyes over pizza and a salad – even if it’s at a restaurant where you order at the counter? I vote for the pizza and salad. And, I vote for looking for true love – the true Valentine’s Day spirit – in places where you least expect it.

My favorite Valentine’s Day moment this year? Watching my six year old, A, read a Valentine’s Day card to our dogs. He spotted the card when we were Valentine shopping and insisted I buy it. (Yes, they make Valentine’s Day cards for dogs.) I explained to him that we didn’t need to buy it, because the dogs can’t read.

“But, we can just read it to them,” he reasoned. I couldn’t argue with his logic, so I bought the card and he carefully wrote it out. I'm glad I did. Watching him read the card to my dogs one at a time was by far the sweetest, purest, most full of love Valentine’s Day moment I’ve ever witnessed. And that is the perfect reason to cherish Valentine’s Day – now and for years to come.

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Resolution

Every year on New Year’s Eve, I sit down with a pretty piece of paper and a smooth flowing pen and record my resolutions for the year.  Then, I promptly break them.  I may just be setting myself up for failure, though.  I think that the time to reflect upon resolutions should not be when the champagne bubbles (or in my case, sparkling cider) are still tickling your lips, but in the dreary days that follow.  In the dark hollows of late January and February, it is so easy to lose the optimism and energy that spawn those declarations of bettering oneself.  Do you really feel like hauling your tired ass to the gym, when it involves bundling up and slogging through the snow and slush?  Curling up in front of a fire place (or even a space heater) sounds oh so much more inviting.

 

When it’s bitterly cold, my butt wants to stay put, preferably with a bowl of something hot and a trashy magazine (mac and cheese and Us is a good combo – though one I hardly ever get to indulge in).  Now that we are in the dead of winter, I wonder how many resolutions have already been broken.  Even Target seems to have given up its aggressively optimistic flyers – last week’s balance balls, free weights and sports bras have given way to chips, cookies and soda in this week’s flyer.  Yes, as we head toward the biggest couch potato event of the year – the Super Bowl – even mega chains realize they shouldn’t bother pushing workout gear, since even the “desperate to keep that resolution” crowd has probably given up by this point of the deep freeze.

 

I’m not talking about those who already own equipment that they use everyday or those who actually make use of their gym membership, hardening their muscles and whittling their waists on a regular basis (I count some of you as my friends, but I don’t hold it against you).  I’m talking about those of us who swore that this year would be different and are already back to using the recumbent bike in our bedroom as an extra dresser (guilty!).  My resolution was to ride that bike more, ok – can’t really say more if I never rode it before.  My resolution was to start riding it. The bike is in my bedroom, with a place to rest a book, so I can read and exercise at the same time.  I don’t even have to step foot in the bitter wind.  I can read a book while I exercise, for god sakes.  Why can’t I keep that ridiculously easy resolution?  Well, life gets in the way.  Laundry, cleaning, packing lunches and making dinner (even if it’s in the microwave) just take up so much damn real estate in my life.  Add in running errands, breaking up fights and of course facebook and, well, there’s just no time for taking care of myself.  And yes, facebook is in there too – if I completely cut out facebook, I could certainly ride the bike for 15 minutes here and there. 

 

Does it make it any better that I use facebook for good, to help save homeless dogs and cats?  Maybe, but I’d be lying if I said that I never clicked on pictures or commented on a status here or there.  But, the biggest chunk of my time is spent posting dogs and cats to my rescue page and commenting on death row dogs’ pictures.  So, maybe I should just change my resolution to, “Save more animals this year.”  Perhaps that would be the best way to guarantee that one keeps resolutions – observe what you are doing, what’s important to you and make that your resolution – to simply keep doing it.  Is it reading to your child every night, or at least most nights?  Done!  Is it donating to charities?  Done again.  Or maybe cooking more often (ok, can’t claim that I do that, but I’m sure a lot of you out there do it already).  Another easy resolution.

 

One of my favorite tricks to make myself feel productive is to put tasks I’ve already accomplished on my to do list.  I know it’s cheating, but if I wrote a to do list the night before, making beds and throwing in a load of laundry would be on it - so why not put it on, so I can have the gratification of checking it off?  At least I know that at the end of the day, I won’t be looking at a list of everything I haven’t accomplished.  Silly, I know.  But, it’s the same thing with making a resolution to just do more of the good stuff you are doing – you’re practically guaranteed to succeed.

 

There are only three times that I recall actually keeping a resolution.  Those three resolutions were the same: “get pregnant.”  It was incredibly optimistic or perhaps incredibly misguided for me to think that just by writing, “get pregnant” on my resolution list, I would.  So many things could have upended my plan – infertility, health issues, economic issues – there are a myriad of reasons people can’t have the family they want, when they want it.  But, I was extraordinarily lucky and get pregnant each of those years I did.  And you know what, looking back at the end of the year, even though I had broken every other resolution to work out more, I felt like I had accomplished something great. 

 

So, make some February resolutions, instead of New Year’s resolutions.  Think about all of the good stuff you do now – even if it doesn’t include working out and eating more fruits and vegetables – and put that on a list with the promise to simply keep doing whatever it may be.  My list includes, “Reading to my son each night.  Telling my kids I love them every day, even if it seems like I'm constantly yelling at them.  Helping save homeless animals.  Contributing to charity.  Doing community service work.”  You get the idea.  What it doesn’t include, is riding that damn bike.  (Though, I do plan on starting to do it anyway, so hopefully it will make it onto next year’s February resolutions, because it will be part of my routine by then.  Hey, a girl can hope…)

 

 

Time Machine

I stumbled into a time machine recently – no, it wasn’t a magical hot tub, nor was it something out of HG Wells.  It wasn’t even a fourth dimension wormhole.  My time machine was a red folder, the color softened with age, the edges frayed.  It was stuffed with pages and pages of my past – short stories, novel excerpts, personal essays and tiny scraps of paper, scribbled notes from which I hoped fully formed work would spring.  The folder had been sitting in a tote bag in the cubby of my desk, ignored since my mother had handed it to me a few months earlier when cleaning out her basement.  I knew that once I started looking through it, I would be tempted to linger for hours, probing for treasure, so I set it aside and quite frankly forgot about it.

 

When I found it again, I decided to just take a quick glance – but, it sucked me in.  Page after page illustrated that I was (as my friend, Scott, put it after I sent him an excerpt of the novel I was writing in college) “a funny chick.”  In my last blog post, I wrote that I was lost in my twenties, but most of these pages (written between the ages of 21 years and 25 years) proved that I was anything but.  Finding them seemed like a gift – a chance to travel back in time and relive the passion, the dreams, the innocence and even the self knowledge that it would all end soon enough, that I was on the cusp of adulthood and I better enjoy my free youth while I could. 

 

This is an excerpt of that novel (sorry – can’t post the funny one, this is a family friendly blog!) – this scene takes place on the last night before graduation:

 “…As I float off, I let my mind wander through the last four years, a journey seen through the haze of impending sleep, but with the startling clarity of thoughts poised on the brink of a new beginning.

What have I learned?  What do I leave this whole experience with?  With Jake breathing softly next to me and the perfume of a May night swirling through the room, filling my sleepy senses, I realize that we make our own lighthouses, those small moments when you can see the whole world around you and you realize right then that you are exactly where you want to be.”

 

Yes, melodramatic – I was 22 years old, after all.  But although it was fiction, my protagonist, Sam, felt what I felt.  Lighthouses were a big theme – here’s another excerpt, same theme:

“As I sit here by myself, listening to the rain beat down on the roof, I realize that I’ve taken that leap across the shimmering water to the lighthouse in my mind.  I’ve reached it and I’ll reach it again.  As long as there are crisp cellophane wrapped roses to open and breath in, with sweet cards attached, as long as there are babies to hold, smelling of Desitin and baby lotion, as long as Jake loves me, whether from far away or close by, as long as I do what I want and love with my heart and soul, as long as I let the everyday occurrences warm me and the special moments surprise and enchant me, I’ll keep reaching that place.  Because we make our own lighthouses, those small moments when you can see the whole world around you and you realize right then, you are exactly where you want to be.” 

 

That boasts perhaps the longest run on sentence around, but you get the point.  I think this was an alternate ending – one I wrote a year or two after the first.  It surprised me, because I didn’t remember being that hopeful.  I remembered feeling adrift, missing my boyfriend and feeling caught between youth and adulthood, trying to decide if I should move out of my parents house or not.  It was so very odd revisiting this moment – yes, it’s fiction, but it was inspired by a moment in my life when I was 23 years old. 

 

Traveling back to the eighties, even if just in my mind, seemed particularly ironic (and bittersweet) just a few days later, when my father suffered a stroke and lost a chunk of his memory.  His brain spun back and planted him firmly in his life twenty five years earlier.  At one point, he got out of bed in the hospital, tubes and all, because he had to “get to work at the factory.”  That factory, of which he was the manager, closed in the 1980s.  But, that’s where he landed – and I started to think, if I had to relive any moment in my life, which would it be?  Yes, the stroke was horrible and scary and you never, ever want it to happen, but he didn’t seem unhappy at first, just confused, even though the rest of us were torn apart and devastated.  Thankfully, though his short term memory is still iffy, he is back in 2010 with us and will hopefully continue to improve.  But, I can’t help but wonder what sparked landing there?  Was that a happy time and in order to cope with the trauma, his brain let him relive it? 

 

Sometimes, I wish I could hop in a time machine and travel back to when my kids were babies – I know in my previous essay, I mentioned how completely crazy and stressed I was as a new mom, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there were moments of great joy, as well.  Moments of pure bliss.  My boys didn’t talk back to me.  They loved me now matter what – I couldn’t screw up.  Now, “I hate you,” is a really close second to “I love you.”  I know it’s just part of growing up – asserting independence – and more often than not I get a heartfelt apology.   But, it still stings. 

 

Other times I think that if I could relive anything, it would be college – a moment in time when anything was possible and the future stretched out in front of me.  A time when my personality was untouched by work stress, then parenting, then just the daily grind of keeping a household up and running – I was a combination of badass and sweet (a description that I found in a creased and faded letter).  I don’t know if it’s possible to be that combination on the other side of forty, or even thirty, or if I’d even want to be.  It’s one thing to be a badass when you have no one relying on you, except perhaps a boyfriend, quite another when you have three children, two dogs and a husband.  If I ever do find a way to fit into a wormhole or if I stumble upon a magical hot tub, it’s very likely that I’d decide to just stay put.  As tempting as it is to imagine flying free, I think I’d be content with just visiting my past lives on the papers stuffed in that faded red folder.

Love Story

I haven't been blogging for the past few weeks, because I have been working on an essay for a contest sponsored by Redbook magazine and A Cup of Comfort books entitled, "Your Love Story."  I used to devour Redbook every month when I was in my twenties, sometimes reading the whole issue in one sitting.  Once I had kids, I let my subscription slide in favor of Baby Talk, American Baby, Parents, Parenting, Family Fun... You name it, if there was a mag on raising children, it arrived at my doorstep each month. 

Eventually, I let all but my Parents subscription expire - my kids were getting bigger and I didn't need the handholding of those glossy, comforting pages.  With only one magazine coming in (which was near its end, as well), I treated myself to a Redbook subscription.  It was only $5 for a whole year and I couldn't resist the bargain and the chance to get reaquainted with an old friend.  When my first issue arrived, I couldn't believe it - right there below the editor's letter was the call for essays.  It was kismet - for years I read the magazine only once or twice a year as a treat and the first issue of my subscription arrived with this opportunity staring me in the face.  That was in late January and it provided a bit of optimism during the dark days of winter.  The deadline was April 20th and of course, I worked on it until April 20th.  It just didn't seem done, though - something rang false and again a stroke of kismet - the deadline was extended five days. 

I am a text book procrastinator - I really can't get going on a project, until a deadline is looming, when my adrenaline is flowing and my fingers fly over the keyboard.  So, it was really no surprise that I kept revising until the eleventh hour.  But, it did surprise me how much I enjoyed the process - ok, maybe not at the very end when I was nibbling on my nails and rubbing my eyes and swearing that if I had to read that stupid essay one more time, I was going to pull my hair out.  But, I did enjoy the process of writing my love story, our love story.  I remembered the night I ran into my husband, Jeff, on the street.  I could see what he was wearing, could remember the flip of my stomach when I turned around and saw him.  I remembered what it felt like when he stood behind me as we ordered a late night pizza - the charge between us.  I reminisced about what he was like as a bad boy rocker, before the responsible disaster recovery specialist took over.  The day he proposed was like yesterday in my mind - a fallen log at Walden Pond, a song written just for me, beginning with, "You're the sugar in my sweet tooth. You're the keeper of my private truth," and ending with, "Stephanie, will you marry me."  The moment we returned to Walden Pond two years later and decided that we were ready to start a family came flowing back, as well.

Writing the essay also forced me to revisit tough times - breaking up with Jeff every three months for a year, because he was incapable of committing, our difficult first year of marriage, when my sister was battling cancer and I felt constantly ill from surivivor's guilt, not to mention an ongoing inner ear infection, a gas leak in our apartment and bottoming out hypoglycemia.  I chose not to mention the gas leak - I just didn't have enough space.  I also left out the fact that on the first night we ran into each other, in a fit of vanity I took off my glasses and placed them in my jacket pocket.  They promptly fell out and I spent a good chunk of the night on my hands and knees on the sticky floor peering under tables, hoping to spot them.  I never did find them and, ironically, they were a replacement for the same exact pair I had lost while on a date seven months before.  Those fell out of my pocket into the ocean and floated away as my date and I stood on the beach and watched helplessly.  Remembering that nugget of information reminded me of how vain I was in my twenties - never letting a guy I was interested in see me wearing my glasses.  That was the unexpected benefit of telling this story - remembering who I was before I had children (good or bad), before wife and mother came first in my description of myself.  It was also interesting to find what I left out and what made it in - 2,000 words really isn't a whole heck of a lot of space in which to tell a story spanning seventeen years.

Of course, the essay had to spin into the present day, into where our love story took us, not just where it started.  One of the themes of the contest was how something that could have torn you apart, has made you stronger.  I had to admit that Jeff and I have been on the brink of disaster many times parenting a child for whom just getting throught the day is sometimes a seemingly insurmountable task (see my previous blog - Twice Exceptional).  But, in writing about it, I was able to appreciate the fact that after many battles and rounds of blame, we are finally working together as a team in trying to help our child. 

I know that the chances of my essay winning are pretty slim - I'm sure there are thousands of entries in which couples have emerged from the darkness of more earth shattering road blocks - but, win or lose, I've gained something precious.  How often does one really take the time to reflect upon the origin of one's union?  To really get down the narrative of one's own love story?  Not too often, I would imagine, in our running around lives.  So, here's my proposal to you - the reader: take a moment or two to reflect upon your own love story, your own narrative.  If you'd like to share a snapshot of your story (500 words max, if possible), great - post it in comments right here on my blog, in facebook comments or message me.  Now that I think about it, don't limit yourself to romantic love - is the light of your life a furry friend rescued from the town animal shelter?  Are you a single mom whose child fills your life with joy?  Do you have work or a charity project that you love? Straight, gay, attached, unnattached - if you have someone or something that rocks your world, I'd love to hear from you.  I'll share your stories in a special blog post (with first names only).  With all the sadness in our world, sometimes reading about other people's happiness and how they have overcome adversity is the best tonic of all.

I'll start it off with an excerpt from my essay, the first four paragraphs, edited a bit for space, along with two pictures from then and now...

We met on a night when spring turned into the anticipation of summer and even though a chill hung in the air, I knew warmth was just a breath away. I was 25 years old and treading the murky waters between adolescence and true adulthood.  Yes, I was living on my own – doing laundry, paying bills – but, I had only myself and my own little world to worry about.  No children, no significant other.  I had sworn off men sixth months earlier.  A year of therapy had helped me get over a devastating (at the time) breakup.  I was working out regularly and felt stronger than ever – happy on my own.

 

Walking down Boylston Street in Boston, I heard my name drift out from the doorway of one of the trendy, packed bars.  Turning, I saw a guy that I had a crush on years earlier in college.  I was a senior in high school visiting the University of Massachusetts the first time I laid eyes on my future husband, Jeff.  He was a freshman at UMass working in the school store.  My friend grabbed my arm and whispered, “I have such a crush on that guy.”  I glanced over and there he was – leaning into the beverage case, unloading bottles.  His muscular arms extended into the refrigerator case, sinewy and framed by a soft blue sweatshirt, the sleeves cut off to expose perfect biceps.  Faded Levi’s hugged his undeniably cute butt.  Even his glossy, chestnut mullet, fringing over the collar of his sweatshirt was sexy (this was 1986, after all). I sucked in my breath.  “Do they all look like that here?” I asked.

 

I attended the University of Massachusetts the following September and although I did see Jeff around – I was in the audience many times as he pounded the drums for one of the hottest bands on campus – we never dated (though, we did meet once through friends).  I was dating my high school sweetheart my whole freshman year and Jeff left school at the at the end of my sophomore year to live in Boston with his band.  I fell into another serious relationship that continued beyond college – that breakup I mentioned.  By the time I was 25, I hadn’t thought about Jeff in ages.

 

But, on that night – that spring night, whispering with possibilities – all the giddiness of a schoolgirl crush rushed back.  Jeff wasn’t the one who called my name – that was our mutual friend - but, he was the one I saw first and my heart somersaulted into my throat.  The pushed up sleeves of his cream shirt set off his still sinewy arms.  His long chestnut hair still fringed over his collar and, face to face for the first time, I noticed his striking eyes – amber, circled by green.    We talked the whole night – he even admitted that he had asked our mutual friend about me two years earlier, but was told that I had a boyfriend.  I felt the charge between us and wished that I hadn’t wasted all those years with my ex... 

 

Jeff as a rocker in the early '90s...

 

and as a goofy dad now....