He's Going To Go Too

"Sometimes, when one person is missing,

the whole world seems depopulated." --Lamartine

Haven't seen this sleepy face in 5 days...but who's counting.

                                 When Patrick was born I was by myself at my six week check up with my ob/gyn. 

                                   I was feeling ridiculously fragile...already cracked and just waiting to spill out.

My baby had Down Syndrome.  He also had a heart defect that would require open heart surgery within weeks.
My world was rocked.

I kept having this direct conflict with the world around me.  I would look down at my new baby and see nothing but a new baby: delicious in his fresh-from-the-heavens newness; glorious with his tiny feet and smooth new hair and sleepy face.

But the world would keep pointing out his flaws:
Do you see his extra space between his big toe and the rest of his toes?
That's a marker for Down Syndrome.
Do you feel how "floppy" he is?
Another sure sign.

Of course, I could see none of these things.
I was a mother with a brand new baby...he looked perfect to me.
Yes, he did have a droopy eye lid...but that was as far as my nit picking could go.
And, like all new mothers, I loved every tiny morsel of him -- droopy eyelid and all.

So, there I am at my six week check up for myself and my doctor doesn't really know what to say.
It's an awkward space...me with my baby that doesn't make the mark and she with her obvious pity and bias against him.
She summons up some effort to speak and she tells me this:
"Well, you have two other children and you know the good thing about this is that this baby will never leave you and well, you know the other two will."

I'm horrified.
Me, the one who can chat with just about anybody.  The one who can make a quick reply to weirdos or bullies -- all I have is silence.

Actually, I had a screaming, yelling, out-of-control freak in my head
but cultural norms and expectations kept me quiet.
In my head my brain was coursing through options and setting aside disgust.
First there was the distaste of Patrick's reality -- shit, people really will expect him to do nothing but sit at home with me.
Second, came the outrage -- who the hell are you to limit my kid and expect that he will never leave??
Lastly, there was deep sadness -- maybe she knew the truth.
Maybe, with her doctor's education and her intensive training, maybe she knew something that I didn't.
Maybe she was right and having him by my side for the rest of my life was an unexpected blessing
and as good as it was going to get.
Her words weedled their way into my heart.
And, like a splinter, I could feel the calvary come out and begin to push it aside.

Hell no.

This kid was going to have his own life.
I was not going to define his future at a few weeks old.
He was going to get every chance the other two got and then we would figure it out.

*****

Flash forward fourteen years.
Patrick still has a droopy eyelid.
He has freckles and a very light dimple.
 He has a spirit that is simply radiant...and plenty of opinions.
He's an adventurous eater.
He loves Broadway musicals.
He has a wicked memory and often memorizes whole scenes or entire scripts quickly and easily.
He is funny and creative and gentle and interesting.
He is always ready to go.
He can't wait to get his driver's license.  He is itching for a paying job.
He is planning his life after high school and trust me, I'm not part of it...at.all.

That prediction oozing with subliminally low expectations was so far wrong that I secretly wish I could cross paths with that ob/gyn and have her glimpse my world.
But that's the problem with searing memories.
They only usually blaze bright for one person...the other person has long forgotten some side conversation that had no real meaning for them.

Five days ago, I dropped Patrick off at sleep away camp.  He's on his own for a week.
No communication.
No singing from his room any number of melodies from Annie, Wicked, Hairspray, Beauty and the Beast or Peter Pan.

It's quiet around here...real quiet.

I find myself missing his good morning, very sleepy visits.  I miss his voice.  His laugh.  His imaginative games that he plays with Caroline. I miss his teen angst and his daily texts of "I love you" that sprinkle my day ever since he got a cell phone for his birthday.

I miss his spirit and his light.
And, even though I have been hoping to stick it to that OB and prove to her that Patrick would have a life of his own...
the truth of his life, most definitely of his own making, is staring me in the face.

He's going to go too.

It might look different.  It might not be that far away.
But he is never going to feel happy sitting at home with me.
That much is clear.

He tells me routinely that he wants to live in Boston.
He wants to take his wife to Hawaii for their honeymoon.
He wants to teach young kids drama in school.

I don't hear the word "mom" in those plans really anywhere.

Like some preview to a major motion picture, I know what's coming.
Patrick will find his way and have a future of his own...very likely I won't be living with him.
It seems quite possible that I may be in another town.

He has dreams and hopes for a future just like anyone else --
and like any other parents,  John and I will work to support him in those efforts.

He has a life to live.
Like my other kids, I only have a finite amount of time with him in my daily life too.

There is joy and a thrilling sense of adventure in that picture of the future.
But, there's going to be a great big hole left gaping open too.

I'm going to worry about that later.

Right now, I'm going to check over the directions of where to pick him up in a couple of days.
I'm going to listen to stories on the way home and notice all the tiny ways he's gotten a bit bigger in this week away.

I'm going to cherish the view of his big smile and relish his huge hug.
I have about 36 hours to go -- I can't wait.

Look...a fragment of eternity

"I'm saying look, here they come, pay attention. 

Let your eyes transform what appears ordinary, 
commonplace, into what it is, 
a moment in time,

an observed fragment of eternity." 

-- Philip Levine

Caroline -- age 7

Sometimes you look at them and they take your breath away.

What is your normal, routine, just humming along gig becomes frozen in a moment 

and the beauty dazzles you.  

It is exquisite.

You feel suddenly breathless.

You squish it into that memory place hoping it will stick.

You pause enough to really feel and know this "fragment of eternity" and then 

in a whisper of time it has vanished.

There's no capturing it.

Just as quickly as it landed, like a butterfly miracle, the moment has moved on into the sea of next moments and new thoughts or needs or things that must be done.

Today I had one.

I looked up at her with her black spot of missing baby tooth, summer streaks of light in her hair, enveloped in the shade of crocodile green leaves pausing for that moment to give me the 

yes-I-can-climb-this face, and I snatched it right up.

Summer's ordinary blessing of time at a park.

Climbing, playing, exploring and investigating this amazing world.

Plucking trumpet flowers off of vines.

Swinging and sliding and jumping and reaching new places.

All in one moment, it crescendoes. 

I notice.

I wrap my heart around it.

Thank you is all that can come out of that moment.

Thank you for her and for parks and friends and good health and for the will and wonder to climb and thank you for letting me be here right now, in this place, to notice.

Thank you.

Blessings

"A blessing is a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal and strengthen."    -- John O'Donohue

Tonight we schlepped our way through 4th of July traffic and the 105 degree heat to a nun's house.

To be honest, I didn't really even know that nuns or sisters or women religious just live in regular old houses on regular old streets. Turns out they do.

 (I think I'd love to have a house full of sisters in my neighborhood...but that's for another day.)

We walked in late and sweaty and hassled.  We found a group of young women, including Mary Kate, getting ready to go on a trip.  We had parents and siblings there to support them.  Teachers and some women who had gone last year were there to share in this moment.  We had the wonderful teacher who founded the non-profit foundation that is the vehicle to our girls' journey to helping others and
we had Sister Maria.

She opened up her home.

She blessed our girls.

Well, actually, she provided the thoughts, prayers and beauty behind the ceremony that became The Blessing.  She gave the parents the privilege of actually blessing our daughters.

First she reminded us of our many blessings of living in a first world country.

70% of the world lives without electricity, running water, healthcare and most of the time not enough food to eat.
70% -- that alone is a stunning number.

Then she went through the difficulties parents in the third world face.  The lack of time to love and care for their children because parents are working so hard to meet the basic needs of survival.  The lack of opportunity...not to mention the shorter life span...
just by having the misfortune to live in their country instead of ours.

Yeah, made the 105 temp not seem like such a biggie...or the traffic...or the hassle of juggling jobs and kids to get to the place...

Then Sister Maria handed us a piece of paper with some prayers and some blessings.

The girls stood in a circle facing out toward their parents.
We faced them.

Seeing my daughter staring at me with an embarrassed smile and a "hurry up" vibe made me, like a small child, want to do the opposite.

I wanted to linger over her eyes and ears as I dipped my fingers in water and blessed her clarity of vision and her ability to hear the truth.

Using a cotton ball dipped in oil, I rubbed her forehead and palms, blessing her thoughts, asking her to be filled with wisdom, and then blessing the work of her hands...asking that they become healing and compassionate.

We took a tiny muffin cup of salt and rubbed her feet.  Reminding her that she is the salt of the earth.  Asking that she walk steadfastly, gently and with reverence upon the earth.  The blessing asked the girls to "never leave a footprint of worry" and to always walk humbly with God.

Finally, the girls were handed a candle of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  We lit their candles and watched the light fill up the room.  I noticed the glow on her face.
I took a deep breath.
The girls were reminded that they are the light of the world.  One does not light a lamp and then put it under a basket.  Rather it is placed on a stand, where it gives light to a house.
In this same way, the girls' light must shine.

Even though they were in a circle, we were each in our own little world...stopping and taking in the beauty of our daughters...

their bright eyes
their keen mind
their big heart
their bright light.

In a little over twenty-four hours we will be sending that big heart off.
Off to Belize.

While she is away, we will light her candle.
We will bless her from afar.
We will hold her close and hold our breaths as she journeys out into this amazing world.

She's been blessed.
We have too.

Sister Maria, for the record, you rock.

The Right Words

"Sometimes someone says something really small, and it just fits right into this empty place in your heart. 

-- From the TV show "My So-Called Life"

I was driving along...burdened by crossing schedules and conflicting places to be. 

Inside the car I had Mary Kate lamenting how she needed a lunch, her bike fixed, and her schedule for work changed.  

I could not meet her needs.

It wasn't going to happen...

that's always ugly.

She got upset.

I got upset.

I dropped her off at work under a dome of silence.

Mumblings of dissatisfaction uttered from her lips as she was leaving, hovered around my ears like a buzzing bee.

After she left, I sighed;

took a deep breath and started on the next leg of my journey.

I was driving.

The car was silent...blessedly silent.

And then, out of no where came the tiniest voice.

A voice that is usually booming with excitement and energy --

tiny and small but clear.

"I love you."

I let it hang there like a fragrance.

I let it shush away the buzzing bee of anxiety;

I let it woosh away the frustration;

I let it embrace me, comfort me and weedle its way straight into my heart.

Three little words of encouragement and acceptance --

  the desire to make it all better the only way he knew how.

Finally after more silence and a few more miles, I turned around and looked over my shoulder at him.

He was quiet and conflicted.

He smiled.

**Let me state right here and now, that no matter your perception of people with Down Syndrome, Patrick is not wandering around dropping love bombs and telling me how great I am all day long.  In fact, I'd say that his number of "I love you's" is in direct proportion to his teen-age, adolescent boy-ness. -- it hardly ever happens.**

I told him that I had heard his words but that I needed a minute to let them sink in.

I thanked him  -- eye to eye and heart to heart.

He smiled again, bigger this time...proud that his gamble had worked.

We had lunch.  

We moved through our day of conflicts and schedules.

We made it.

Those small words, uttered at just the right moment, were grace out loud.

Thank you Patrick...you always seem to get to the heart of the matter in the cleanest, clearest way.

Thanks for parting the clouds and beaming in your sunshine.

Thanks for making it better with your stout heart, ready love and tender words at the exact moment my heart needed them.

Time to pass them on.

I love you.

Any words turn out to be just what you needed to hear recently?

If so, pass them on.  Share.

We could all use some tenderness.

On Loan

"If I could sit across the porch from God, I'd thank Him for lending me you." -- Flavia

Six of my eight student teachers...ready to fly!

Yesterday was graduation day for the UC Davis School of Education.  76 or so students received their teaching credential from our university.  Eight of them were my students...another 11, I have the joy of getting to teach in a seminar about student teaching with my friend and partner-in-crime, Shelley.

My official job title is Supervisor/Lecturer...really it should be "guide for one of the craziest years of your life".  Like regular classroom teachers, I don't control who will be my student teachers.  It's a big pot and eight are scooped up onto my plate.  

I meet them in August, a few days before school starts.  We sit in a small circle and tell a bit of our story --  where are we from, where they went for undergrad, what they are most interested in educationally, why they want to be a teacher.  Most importantly, they give me their cell phone number -- my link for the late night questions, early morning mishaps and questions they can't ask out loud.  

For the next 10 months, I will be observing them and offering them suggestions for how to get better.  I will see them at their most vulnerable professionally...literally, floundering before my very eyes.  I will have to watch them get through a difficult lesson and help them pick up the pieces afterward.  Many times I will get to see a miracle moment: a student who has been misbehaving will become engaged and excited about what he's learning; the entire class will be in a state of flow -- learning from each other and working together like never before.  Those are the nuggets that shine and hold us captive.  Once you have one of those moments as a teacher, you work hard to recreate it.

In our conversations I watch the beginning teachers struggle with the clash of their dream and the reality.  Most of them have been exceptionally high performing students and it is a shock for them to see how students struggle and the many obstacles so many children face each day just getting to school.   The students who are difficult make their mark on my teachers' hearts.  The eager, excited, funny students do too.  Sometimes my teachers feel defeated and discouraged.  Other days they are on fire and can't stop smiling.

I know they are on loan to me.

I know it is a brief window where I get to have the joy of seeing them each week and I have the front row seat into their lives.  I can't help but think of their parents or families that have lifted them up and allowed them the opportunity of a higher education.  I can't help but admire their perseverance and determination.  This year two of my students were from families that were refugees from Vietnam.  They were from the same big town in California but didn't know each other. I had a student teacher who left college early to help her mother as she was dying of cancer.  I had two from rural California and another from Virginia -- quite a ways from home -- out for a personal adventure to California.  I had one who was an immigrant from Jordan.  Wearing the traditional hijab of her Muslim faith, she entered her elementary school a bit nervous for how the students and teachers might react.  Kids had questions -- like they always do.  But once those were answered and especially once they got to know each other, the walls melted away.  She was their teacher -- the receiver of early morning hugs and pictures of admiration.  It was beautiful to see.

So yesterday was the culmination of a school year like no other -- a metamorphosis for these students teachers into legit teachers. It was a chance to pause and acknowledge how hard they had worked, all that they had accomplished and the amazing profession they have chosen.  They will work from now on to hone their craft and develop their skills.  They will never forget their students from this year -- the messy moments and the fragile ones, the tear-stained cheeks,  and the high fives.  They will always hold close this beginning teacher that they were and they will remember that very first classroom, 

a laboratory of learning.

I had the joy of meeting their families yesterday.  I had the thrill of being in on the celebration -- hugging grandmas and aunties and boyfriends and parents and letting them know what a gift it has been to have this front row seat -- if only for a minute.  

And like dandelion fluff, a deep breath, and in one moment those seeds are scattered.

Those amazing people are on their way -- out into our schools -- working for educational equity, advocating for all students, figuring out why Joey continues to struggle and how to engage Suzy.  They will be giving opportunities and second chances.  They will wonder how to keep going and have moments of deep self doubt.  But they will also watch miraculous changes and witness personal growth and academic gains in their students.  

They have picked no ordinary job.  They have chosen to put themselves out there.  Day after day, they will work tirelessly for students and then have to let them go.  Like parenting, you never really know if you're doing it right.  You hope.  You send up silent prayers.  You let them go.

You savor the loan.  

Today I am grateful for the eight who crossed my path for these past ten months.

I wish them all the best as they begin the hard work and know the joy of teaching.

When You Want To Squeeze Tighter, Push Harder, Force the Way: Yield

"Abundance is the process of letting go; that which is empty can receive." 
-- Bryant McGill

A week ago, my bag got lost after my airplane flight. It never circled around.  The baggage claim was empty and lonely...my bag missing.

At first, it was no big deal.

Bags get lost.  They show up.  That's how it works.  The ladies who worked baggage claim looked weary:
so many missing bags + so many complaining people = dreadful job.

I really wasn't too worried.  I'd made it home and the odds were good that my bag would meander there too.

But the next day, there was nothing.  They hadn't located it and they went through their ready-made speech: 97% of our bags are located within five days.

The seed of doubt was planted...could my bag be in the 3%?

I asked the question out loud.

The lady on the other end of the phone was straight talking and real. Yes, some bags are never found.  If that happens, you'll get a travel voucher.

That wasn't comforting.at.all.

That was when I started counting.  I mentally picked through my bag: all of my toiletries, my new glasses, my super comfy fleece lined hoodie, my favorite jammies, Caroline's teddy bear...and my grateful journal.  Suddenly, without meaning to, I couldn't let go of these items.  I needed them, desperately, right this minute.  Like hitting refresh on the computer, over and over in my mind I kept remembering things that were in my lost bag.  Things I needed.  Things that I very likely might not ever see again.

There were tears of loss, sad to say.  There was an exasperated husband who tried to get it.  And there was me counting my missing items, obsessing, perseverating, needlessly agonizing.

What's the point?  It's just stuff.
I know this but I couldn't let it go.
 All I could see were the missing items.

Years ago I had just landed in Hawaii with our family.  The sky was stunning.  The airport so tropical it could be partially outside.  Literally, a rainbow greeted us.  Yet, there was a guy yelling and raging over his lost luggage.  I remember hearing the man who was the unlucky recipient of this guy's misplaced anger: "Have you turned around?  Look outside.  You're in Hawaii.  You only need a pair of shorts."

I remember scoffing in my mind at the weary, angry traveller.
"Yeah, guy, get over it. You're in Hawaii."
How irony loves to play with us.

Flash to my Sunday.  I wasted the morning, precious hours never to be seen again, focusing on that crap in my suitcase.  It was my daughter's 18th birthday.  I wanted to wallow, I really did...but I knew I wasn't getting today back and it was a pretty special day.  Remembering Mary Kate's birth, the joy of the pink blanket and her 2 1/2 year old brother marveling at her beauty and her amazing name (in his mind), Mary Cake, could only make me smile. I pictured her in tap shoes, in a soccer uniform scoring that thrilling first goal, holding the lacrosse stick, in her goggles covering up her baby blues for a science experiment and suddenly I could let that suitcase go.

It no longer mattered.

As soon as I stopped counting what was missing, I could see what wasn't.

I could see my sweet daughter, my day off to celebrate, my family, my health, my opportunity for a great day...and as soon as that happened...
poof!
I got a phone call.  They had found my bag.  It was on its way home.
Of course it was.

A long, long time ago I took a yoga class and the teacher taught me something very counter-intuitive and life changing.  I was trying to work my way into a position and the teacher advised, "When your instinct is to push harder, to force the way, don't.  Instead, yield."
Yielding has been the wise choice on so many occasions -- once I helped a guy trying to fix something in my garage with that advice. He was trying and trying to force something.  I told him about the yoga yield...it worked like magic and he looked at me like I had just punked him.

It took me awhile to get to the yoga yield on this one but there it was.

Stop counting what's missing.
Stop looking for what isn't there.
Stop noticing the way it isn't working.
When you spend that time on all of the things that should be but aren't, you miss out on all of things that are,
magically, perfectly, are.
All of the abundant blessings that are always there but are just never noticed.

This type of thinking has a name: it's called the deficit model.
It happens in education all the time.
We list all of the crap in the suitcase that's missing.
Your kid can only read at x level, his comprehension is at y level, this is blank % below grade level.
We perseverate on it.
We endlessly agonize.
We set a goal to move that number by 15% and call it a day.

We never see what is in front of our eyes.
We don't list the artistic talent, the creative writing abundance, the natural empathy, the ability to make friends, the skill that connects the dots across different parts of the curriculum.
We focus on the can'ts.

We miss the rainbows.

Last Sunday I relearned something I've known for a long time.
If I keep counting what's missing, I'll never see what isn't.
Happy Rebirthday to me.
Happy 18th to my favorite cake of all,
Mary Cake.

There's a Difference Between Tolerance and Acceptance

"Tolerance is another word for indifference." 

--W. Somerset Maugham

Sometimes a mother's heart gets rubbed raw.

Sometimes she witnesses some sort of interaction with her child, like a bird observing her nest from a distant tree branch, and an ache begins.

Patrick lives in a world of acceptance.

He's been fully included in his school since kindergarten and now he's in 7th grade.  The kids know him there.  They encourage him.  They support him.  He has quite a solid group of kids that he can say are friendly to him every single day and he has a couple good friends.  

For ANY 7th grader, that's darn well wonderful, let alone someone with a disability.

But in other parts of his life he has to get out there and mingle with other kids who don't know him as well.  He loves to sing and act and participate in plays or musicals. Those he performs in after school with a wide cross section of kids.  He's gearing up for a big performance and had his dress rehearsal tonight.

I brought him his dinner thinking he might need a little fuel to carry him through the long practice.  I brought along some ice cream sandwiches for the rest of the kids.

I found him sitting a distance off by himself while the rest of the cast was gearing up to take a cast picture.  

Sometimes you're just a 7th grader with angst.

Sometimes you're a kid that is easy to overlook.

Sometimes you're tired and hungry and just plum out of the oomph it takes to be you today.

In this moment, I'm sure it was a lovely combination of all three.

But it was hard to see...

and probably even harder to live.

Patrick perked up when I got there...and right there is the grace in this story.

[Can I say for the record that I LOVE this about him...he doesn't hold back when it comes to the people he loves. 

He greeted me with gusto.  I always feel a certain 

Ro-Sham-Bo competition when this happens -- like I have to shazam-out my rock to his paper -- and I always, always lose.  

The guy has greetings down to an art.]

Instantly, he joined the cast picture.  

He thanked me for my sandwich dinner and was thrilled to pass out ice cream sandwiches.

The kids were very polite.  Every single one of them said thank you.  

They were genuine in their appreciation.

And that's when it hit me.

It's not enough to just tolerate someone's presence.

There is an entirely different vibe to acceptance and you must feel cocooned in a comfy fleece blanket on a windy winter night when you are appreciated.

Being accepted is something every human craves desperately.

Watching junior high kids with their hair styles, clothing options, and music selections you get a bit of insight into how bad they want to feel part of "it".

It's a bit heartbreaking.

Watching Patrick go through it, there's a layer of sadness in addition to the angst.

It's not enough to just be tolerated, especially now.

Right now, acceptance is what he needs.

But not just him.

Patrick is my mirror to the rest of the world.

He's my headlights in the darkness.

With him along for the ride, I notice more.

I am acutely aware of when I am merely tolerating people and when I hand them the key to my city and smile or laugh with acceptance.

I can't help it.

With my new eyes, I notice the old lady alone in the waiting room and pause to make eye contact with her, forgoing my personal luxurious magazine moment for a chance to dole it out.

I can feel the sting of being left out for people who can't speak our language fluently.

I cringe when I see anyone on the sidelines of life merely being tolerated...the gay, the homeless, the sick, the obese, you name it...we have a lot of people on the sidelines.

It's good to have a seat at the table...but you need a fork, a serving of food and someone next to you making conversation to be a part of the party. 

That's our next step...serving the people at the party and making real conversation.

Let's move toward acceptance.

Let's watch ourselves and notice how often we send out the message of real appreciation, 

not just tolerance.

Tolerance is overrated.

We all need to be valued and cherished.

Accepted and Appreciated.

I'm going for the two A's...how about you?