Giant Heroes

One of my favorite lines from the drive out to Colorado came from my 15 year old son, Isaac. In the past year, I swear he's grown a inch a month. He inherited the tall genes from my dad, who is 6'5" (and often wears cowboy boots, making him seem even taller).

Isaac walked into Papa's front door, as we stopped in MO for a visit, and as he turned the corner to the kitchen, I heard him mutter to himself, "Papa used to be a giant...and I just looked him in the eye..."

He knows he's grown taller in recent months, but the reality of standing next to Papa, and holding his own, made him realize just how much his body has changed.

Charged Discussions

I just got back from Best Buy.

No, I didn’t drive all the way over to the black hole called ‘the mall’ to see the new technology in televisions or research the surround sound system my son is begging for, I schlepped my way across the wide asphalt parking lot to buy (drum roll please…) a cell phone charger.

I’m a bit perturbed by this task because it seems to be stuck in a revolving spot on my to-do list.

Here are the facts - four months ago my family hit the jackpot, when our family plan came up for renewal in the exact 18 hour window of time that the Samsung Vibrant smart phone was being offered for ‘free’, with renewal. We jumped on the deal and, within the week, had five new smart phones in our possession.

We were all tickled to death, since we generally hang out in the phone quality category that hovers just above the burner phone. Need I remind you that with four kids, we use up all our extra lines and buy a plan on top of that? Smart phones just aren’t generally in the budget.

Of course we all fell in love with our new babies and have been happily texting each other like crazy. The point of this story is that with those five phones came five cell phone chargers. Handy little guys that charged in the wall socket, car, or USB port. For a short period of time we were all content and happy in our smart phone bubble.

Then things turned vicious. Someone misplaced their charger. Rumors swirled about who could be the guilty party. Surely someone stole it. There was no way it was merely forgotten, at school or on a weekend trip to Grandma’s house. Everyone became possessive with their remaining chargers. I had compassion and loaned mine out, but with warnings as dire as those I dish out for infractions like drinking and driving or bringing down a basket of dirty laundry on Sunday night.

The words ‘buy cell phone charger’ went on my list. And it never went away. Every time I bought another one, someone else’s would disappear.

I wondered if, somewhere in the attic or behind the sheetrock of our house, there were dozens of mismatched socks throwing parties with the handful of cell phone chargers that seemed to disappear with as much regularity. I decided to label one as my own. That way I could possibly track a thief, if our household indeed was harboring one.

With a big fat sharpie, I wrote “MOM”. When turned upside down, it read WOW, meaning “Wow….there’s actually a charger here for me to use!”

Then came our long drive out to Colorado. Hotels seem to be the worst place for cell phone chargers. I’d guess that all the discount replacement chargers on Amazon are really the stockpile collected by hotel room maids. Either that, or the outlets in hotel rooms suck it up as you’re sleeping, prompting you to walk out the door in the morning, in possession of one less charger.

Either way, we ended up in Colorado with, you guessed it, one less charger. So this mom got put on the plane back to New York without one. No way to charge my phone, no way to get the 179 fabulous trip pictures off of it.

So today I did my weekly trek to Best Buy. And I now own another charger. It already says WOW (I mean MOM) on the side. I’m the only one living in our house right now, as we wait for it to sell. I’m wondering if this will be the true test.

If I can go a full month using the same charger, every day, and still know where it is at the end of September, I might have to call it a miracle.

Upside Down Goodbyes

I apologize that this post is a bit out of order. It was written weeks ago and never posted.

This is the longest, most drawn out move we’ve ever made. The last time we moved, I didn’t know to appreciate the circumstances, when all six of us piled in the minivan and pulled out of our driveway in Utah, headed to our new life in New York. We crossed the street to say good bye to our best friends. Last hugs and promises to keep in touch, and then we were off.

We traveled across the country together, and spent three months in a Residence Inn together. Every day we had lots of time together, house hunting and generally exploring this Upstate area. That’s not how it worked out this time.

This time the house didn’t sell and it changed everything. We did everything we were supposed to do. We updated the bathrooms, painted every wall a fresh neutral color, and put half our stuff in storage so every room looked bigger. We looked carefully at comparables in our area and decided on a list price we felt good about.

Then we sat. Week after week, we’ve been sitting. An occasional ‘looker’ here and there, but no offers. As time went on and we became more anxious to move along, we started dropping the price.

We now sit at over thirty thousand below our recent appraisal price and still no hopes of a bite. All this sitting has made this move a whole different experience.

As soon as I finish writing this article, I will jump in the minivan with just my three boys and we’ll drive out to Colorado. I’ll drop them off to stay with their dad. They will start school out there, living in a hotel. I will fly back to New York and wait for the right family to come along and fall in love with our great house.

In the three days that I’m out west, we will drive over the mountain and drop my oldest son off for his freshman year of college in Utah. Add that to the fact our daughter is staying back in New York to begin her independent life, and it makes for a very quiet house once we settle in Colorado. It feels very fragmented, upside down and backward, to be moving in shifts. My husband moved out there on July 5th. The boys will be there August 19. Who knows when I’ll get to join them.

I remember reading a short story in a church bulletin when I was a teenager. It was about a family who had five kids and one went away to college. When the mom would complain about missing him, people would always say to her, “You have four other kids. There are plenty of kids to keep you busy!” Her response - “Five minus one does not equal plenty. I miss that one.”

This story made an impression on me because my oldest sister had just left for college and, although I had three other siblings left at home, I missed the essence of her.

And now I get that story from a mom’s perspective. But my math is more drastic. Four minus two equals a practically empty house. No one will sit in the third row of seats in the van anymore. We won’t have to look for booths at restaurants. It might actually be affordable to take the kids out to the movies on a Friday night. But I will never stop feeling like two of us are ‘missing’.

I’m starting to feel like my neighbor. She’s five weeks away from having her baby.

I’m two weeks away from having mine leave the nest.

Her life will drastically change once that baby arrives. Her relationship with her husband and her young daughter will change. There are no guarantees that they will all be good changes.

I know our family dynamic is also changing. Two brothers who used to be under the authority of an older brother will have to find a new way of relating to each other. They might like the new changes, or it might be a bumpy road.

Just like my neighbor will walk into a hospital in a few weeks and walk out a few days later to begin her new life, in two weeks I’ll be moving boxes of my son’s dearest possessions into a dorm room then driving away without him. My new life, as the full time mom to only two boys will officially begin. My older sister warned me that she cried when she went through this last year. Not just cried. She sobbed. “As hard as I did when mom died…” were her exact words. I don’t look forward to that.

But it’s a necessary step in life. I’m thrilled that my son has found a school he is excited about and a degree path he can’t wait to jump into. I’m proud of him for not being a bit scared about moving into a dorm full of strangers, in a new state, and making new friends. All the moves, and being ‘the new kid’ have taught him that there are always friends waiting to meet you, if you just show up. And in two weeks he plans to show up.

His mama will be fine. I’ll have the distraction of getting the house sold and the household belongings moved across the country. By the time we settle in a new house in Colorado it will practically be Thanksgiving, and I’ll get to see him again.

We’ll be settled and established in a new place, a place where he has no memories and no bedroom. But I’ll do my best to still make it feel like home.

Because no matter where he roams, he knows there will always a place at home for him.

Why We Visit Memorials

Jeff and the boys, looking over the field in PA, six months after the plane crashed on 9/11. The angels in front of them represent the passengers on the plane.

The day my mom died I cried the deepest tears of my life. I was young, she was young, it was all very sudden. None of it made sense to me. While my patient husband cared for our two toddlers, I waded through the months that followed, and finally found a bit of sunshine the next spring.

Then I woke up to see footage on my television, of a bombing in Oklahoma City. Hundreds of people were killed and injured. Pictures of lost little children, dressed in Easter outfits from the week before, flashed across the screen. New grief was stirred up inside of me.

Again, it was all very sudden. Hard to process. Hard to put in perspective.

A handful of years later I watched another horror play out on my television, this one broadcast live. With a toddler in my lap, I struggled to handle my own emotions while trying to explain to my five, eight and nine year old exactly what had just happened to those two tall buildings, while trying not to alarm them. Familiar grief, shock and tears welled up in my soul.

Two months later, as we drove through New England to visit Grammy for Christmas, we detoured down through New York City. I was amazed to see the streets just a block away from Ground Zero looking very…normal. No signs of the grey dust that covered everything, in every picture we saw on the news. Coffee shops were open. People scurried to and fro, on their way to work and school, back to regular life.

You’d hardly know that just a block away there was a great pit, filled with dust, debris, and remnants of lives lost.

Then less than a year after the 9/11 attacks we moved our young family to Washington D.C. On our drive across the country we stopped by that field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania and stood by the temporary monument that had been erected, a simple chain link fence. The children brought tiny flags and small stuffed animals to leave on the fence, a marker that they had come and paid their respects.

It’s a tradition we’d started when they were hardly old enough to understand stories of loss and terrorism. In the years after the Oklahoma City bombing, as the Oklahoma version of Ground Zero went from a pile of burnt rubble, to an empty lot, to an amazing monument, we stopped many times to see the site. We lived in Missouri and often traveled to Dallas to see family. It only seemed right to stop off and check up on the progress being made there.

And it only seemed right to continue reminding our children that what they were seeing was hallowed ground.

For many years I’m sure they didn’t really understand why we went. To them it was a chance to get out of the car and stretch their tired legs. But they heard the stories, over and over, and they saw that it made mommy sad to tell the stories. They got the part that mattered. The part about how there are bad guys in the world. Scary things happen. But in the end, human spirit wins out.

We remember the people who were just doing their jobs, on a normal day of the week, and never knew they wouldn’t be home for dinner.

Our children have seen all three crash sites from 9/11 and have clear memories of seeing the bombing site in Oklahoma City. It’s not that we have a morbid fascination with tragedy. We take our children to these sites so they can feel history. I spent my childhood reading history in books and never really connecting it to the outside world. My husband and I wanted our children to hear about something that happened in our country and say, “I know about that. I saw that monument. I stood by that fountain. I rubbed a name off that long black wall. I gazed over that field with my family. I know about that.”

And every time we go stand by the site that I’ve stopped calling Ground Zero and started calling The Freedom Tower, I tell them the story of that day once again. They fill in the parts they remember, and together we talk about it as a family. They are reminded that terrible, awful, senseless things happen. But life goes on.

More than I ever understood, as we drove away from the cemetery after burying my mother, my children are starting to understand the reality of life.

They see the pattern. Things happen that are sometimes hard to comprehend. They aren’t fair. They will never make sense. But for the survivors, life has to go on. It’s good to build a tactile reminder - a new building, a monument, even a park bench - to help us never forget. But the lesson will always be that life does move on. People rally together, comfort each other.

And then, as hard as it seems, we all move on.

This week we’ll remember the events around September 11, 2001. If you get a chance, stop by the site in lower Manhattan. Stop and gaze at that amazing new building that sparkles in the sun.

But I also encourage you to visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial, if you’re ever in the Midwest. I challenge you not to cry as you walk through the rows of empty chairs, each representing an empty chair at some family’s table.

And I challenge you to not weep when you walk by the 19 tiny chairs, neatly inscribed with the names of the 19 children who never got to grow up.

It’s important that we remember. Not to dredge up the horrible acts that caused our grief. But to never forget the people whose lives were cut short, and the families whose dinner tables will never again be complete.

Don’t forget to tell your children the stories, this week, and for years to come.

It’s their history too.

Take them to the walls. Walk them through the gardens. Let them touch the cold steel monuments. They need to understand how important it is, how incredibly important it is, that we never forget.

And that through all tragedy, life goes on.

Tough Stuff

I had a friend once tell me that she didn’t read my columns because they were ‘too happy’.

She said it made her feel bad that I never seemed to have problems and her life was full of them. I was able to let her comments roll off my back because I know the truth. We have our fair share of problems. Trust me. How could a family with three teens and one tween not have some frost heaves in the road? I just don’t like to dwell on them. I’d rather focus on the good stuff that comes along the path.

But sometimes life just pushes and pushes and pushes until you want to scream, “Enough already!” I had that feeling recently, as one thing after the other seemed to fall apart in front of my eyes. So this column is dedicated to my friend who thinks I live a charmed life.

Oh, where shall we begin?

Let’s start with the house. We bought the house I’m sitting in because it had great square footage, great potential for improvement, and (some day) great resale value. It came with five acres of gorgeous woods, bordered by a stream. It’s kind of rare to find that in East Greenbush, especially when the house is in the middle of a quiet, lovely neighborhood near all major shopping. We spent all our life savings on supplies and then spent five years throwing our sweat equity into fixing it up. We added antique windows into interior walls, found and refinished original wood floors, and updated all the utilities. We painted every wall, added new trim, and replaced almost every floor in the house, not to mention gutted and built back a brand new kitchen.

So when moving time came, we thought we’d be set. We put our house on the market with confidence. And then we sat. And sat. And I’m still sitting. We dropped the price through June and July and are now almost back to the price we paid for it. And still, no takers.

That’s depressing enough, losing almost every penny of equity we’d put into this place, if it weren’t for the fact my whole family just moved out to Colorado without me. I’m stuck here until this fabulous house (that no one seems to want) sells.

Okay, just for fun, lets stir in another major life stressor. Two weeks before we were to drive across the country so I could drop the boys off in Colorado, my little guy took a big fall on his skateboard. Not only did he end up with a broken wrist, but despite a good helmet, he suffered a concussion that put him in the hospital for three days.

It’s a very scary thing to see your child not know who he is, or where he is. It was torture for his daddy to be way off in Colorado, as his little guy struggled to heal. For days he couldn’t seem to stay awake and we didn’t know when we’d ever get out of that hospital room. Well trained teens saved the day and we all got through it together.

So then it was time to take our big drive. The one where I dropped my oldest son off at college in Utah, then sent my two younger boys off to their first days of school in Colorado, before I flew away from them, back to the empty house in New York. Lots of emotions in every part of that plan. You’d think that would be enough, right?

Guess again.

On our last day in Utah, right before I said goodbye to my first college bound child, we stopped by to see our very best friends in the state. They had lived across the street from us when we lived there and quickly became some of our favorite people in the world.

I had heard that my friend was sick, but I had no idea she’d spent the past six days in ICU and was hooked up to respirators, fighting for her life. Seeing her in that hospital room, surrounded by machines, dredged up all the memories I had of losing my mom, seventeen years ago this week. I just wasn’t emotionally prepared to see someone else I loved in that situation.

It nearly knocked me flat.

Somehow we pulled ourselves away from that hospital room, after giving hugs to her husband and offering helpless encouragement. Twenty minutes later I pulled it together and hugged my son on the steps of his college dorm, trying my best to hold back the floodgates of tears and emotion.

And then, on the long drive back to Colorado, where in 48 hours I would be saying goodbye to my husband and my other two boys, I cried.

All the way through Wyoming I let the quiet tears fall. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t have access to a soundproof closet, because I’m not sure how out of control I might have become. So instead I just let the tears do the cleansing.

There is not room in this space to describe the other nightmare that played out in the past two weeks, when my main back account number was stolen and used to buy electronics in Texas. Freezing of major accounts two days before a cross country trip equals trials and tribulations you just don’t want to hear about.

So yeah, really crappy stuff does happen to us. And sometimes it seems overwhelming.

But if I’ve learned anything in my 43 years on the planet, it’s this.

Take stock of the good stuff. My husband has a great job that he loves. My children are all well (and healing well). There is hope for a great life in Colorado, once we all get there.

So for now I’ll just keep jumping over the bumps in the road that lead us to that destination. And keep remembering that there’s always someone else out there who has it worse off than I do.

Local Support

Back in May I had my last official day at work. I never dreamed, when we moved to New York five years ago, that I’d ever work at a library. And I never expected to love it so much. But that’s how life goes. The story of your existence moves forward and chapters are added that have twists and turns you could never have imagined.

But on this particular Thursday, I was very aware that my routine was about to change. I stopped off at Stewarts on my way in, like I had so many mornings before. I swung into the parking spot that is so familiar. I’ve parked there hundreds of times in the past five years. When I came around the corner, the front door was held open for me by a friendly construction worker, as it often is when I’m stopping by for our almost daily gallon of milk.

I looked around this place that has become so much a part of my everyday life. My neighbor works behind the counter and never fails to ask me how Sam is doing. The other clerks are just as friendly. They always seem to have smiles to spare and I’ve seen them more than once go out of their way to help a an elderly customer. On chaotic free ice cream days, when they have a pretty valid excuse to be crabby, they always seem to be as excited as the kids who are asking for cones.

On that Thursday in May it occurred to me that I’m not only leaving behind friends and family, when we move to Colorado next month. I’m also leaving behind my neighborhood, the things that bring me a quality of life I’ve come to appreciate. As a person who’s moved many times in the past decade, I know firsthand how precious these basics in life are. It takes a while to build up a pattern and rhythm, when you move to a new place.

I left that Stewarts, the one I consider my own personal convenience store, and headed off to work that day. And as I went to open the front doors of the library I saw a familiar face. The same construction worker who’d held the door for me was now taking a minute to drop off his overdue book. This time I held the door for him.

I will never take for granted the web of comfort we’ve woven here in New York. It takes some time to find a good doctor and dentist, but it also takes time to find a good hair dresser and a good mechanic. I don’t think we’ll ever find a doctor we love as much as Dr. Karen (and her nurses) and Dr. Dong has done a great job of keeping my family’s teeth cavity free, in her efficient, friendly way.

I will miss my hairdresser, Lisa, who is one of the few people I’ve ever known who actually cut my hair the way I wanted, not the way she thought it should be. She is a great conversationalist and an even better hair dresser. I will be searching high and low in Colorado, to find someone who can match her standard.

And as I tell my daughter, the most valuable man you can marry is an electrician, a plumber or a mechanic. I lucked into finding my ‘car guy’, Norm. I always knew he’d never charge me for work that didn’t need to be done, and I’ve been suspicious that he’s undercharged me for work that was valid. I’m leaving him in charge of watching over my daughter’s car, as she stays behind to live here in New York. I always tell her, “If Norm says something’s wrong with it, something’s wrong with it!” It gives me peace of mind to know Norm will be looking out for her.

I discovered the magic of a transfer station in our years in New York. The guys who work there are my first go to guys when I need advice about who to call for products and services. They know who does the best work in every category imaginable and their friendly banter made going to drop off trash one of the fun things on my to do list.

I’ll also forever be grateful for George, my trusty oil guy. This state was my first experience with home heating oil and George not only answered all my questions with patience, I always knew he’d give me the best price he could on the oil he delivered.

As much as I think I’m unique and different, I have to admit the old saying is true - we are all just creatures of habit. We tend to shop at the same stores every week, and buy our gas at the same pumps when the gauge says empty. I’ve filled up more milk club cards than you’d ever believe and racked up gas points for being a ‘chopper shopper’. I will not miss the never ending commercials for Huck Finns Warehouse or the round man in the untucked shirts yelling “HUUGE!” through my television. But it’s all become a part of my life.

My daily routine will be different in Colorado. Just by the nature of living in a mountain town, the everyday habits I create will be unique to that climate. We’ll explore different areas on the weekends, but I’ll also have to get used to which gas stations have the best prices on gas and milk.

I’ve come to love the routine I’ve found in New York. It’s consistency gave me comfort. But it’s time to make a new routine and carve out a new life. Eventually I’ll find another ‘Lisa’ and another ‘Norm’. But I’ll never forget the ones I left behind.

I’ll always appreciate the cast of characters that made my five years in New York unique and special, just in the routine ways they did their jobs so well.

Protection

I knew Sunday would be a crazy day, but I had naively assumed the craziness would be related to the fact we had a house showing at 11 in the morning, and the only people home (to clean up the house) were me and my youngest son, Sam. We got up early, then scurried around picking up trash and dishes, wiping down counters, putting away laundry. We’re living pretty streamlined these days. Half of our stuff is in storage. But the daily living stuff can really add up.

Especially when your only helper is a ten year old boy.

We flew out the door just as the potential buyers were pulling into the driveway. During our wait, we drove over to pick up his teenage brother, who had been camping with a friend. We waited patiently for the hour to be up, then drove back home and stepped back into life. I pushed the two of them out the door, saying, “Go play outside. You need the fresh air!”

Ten minutes later they were back. I heard Sam sniffling as he came in the back door and one look at him revealed why. He was covered in road rash from a skateboarding crash. But even more concerning was the red smear on his forehead that seemed to be swelling by the second.

As I put a cold cloth on it to clean it off, the words that freeze a mama’s heart came out of his mouth. “What happened? Where am I? How did I get here?”

Now we’ve gone through a lot of medical stuff with our kids. Mainly the boys, but even their big sister broke her arm sledding in Utah, bad enough that she had surgery and 8 weeks of casts. We’ve had many broken bones, dozens of stitches, plenty of blood. We’re no strangers to boo boos. But this was my first real head injury.

And it took all the courage I had not to fall apart right next to my boy.

I have a good friend who survived a traumatic brain injury. They’re not something to take lightly. Suddenly the red angry scrapes all over his body, and the very sore arm that may or may not be broken, didn’t seem to matter. I needed to get my son to medical treatment as soon as possible.

With a few deep breaths I went into action. I called the local urgent care center, just down the street, to find out if they were open on Sundays. I set up my teenager by the phone, in case his dad called from Colorado and wanted an update. I gathered up my boy and we headed for the car.

On the drive over to the clinic he kept asking me the same three questions over and over. It reminded me of the Alzheimer’s patients I used to work with. I would answer the question and ten seconds later he’d ask it again, not remembering my previous answer. It’s very unsettling to have your usually bright, happy go lucky boy be so confused.

Several times he’d ask me if he’d just woken up. He had no memory of going out to skateboard with his brother. He had no memory of the accident. He didn’t even remember getting into the car. I tried to force myself not to burst into tears right along with him.

A kind nurse ushered us into the exam room and a doctor quickly followed. He did a variety of tests to check Sam’s mental capacity. I explained the confusion I’d been witnessing. There was no question, as the doctor put it, that my boy had ‘gotten his bell rung pretty hard’. With a diagnosis of concussion, we were sent to the ER for a CAT scan.

Again, on the drive over, the questions started. “How did I get here?” “Did I just wake up?” “What happened?” Deep breaths. Deep breaths and patient answers.
Once we did our obligatory time in the waiting room, where Sam continued to whisper questions to me, and occasionally sob out of pure weariness and frustration, we were sent back to an exam room.

Another doctor did the tests, physical and mental. We walked down a short hallway to the CAT scan, and then an X-ray on a suspiciously sore elbow. More waiting. Then another X-ray on his wrist, that had suddenly stopped working too. After four hours we were finally headed home.

Home.

Just the fact we were headed home gave me great joy. My boy was going to be okay. A specialist will set his broken wrist this week and I will do my best to keep him ‘calm and quiet’, as the doctors ordered, so his brain can heal from the concussion. We escaped the big stuff. This time.

Laying in bed with him last night, after we’d finally uncovered all his oozing road rash wounds and put antibiotic cream on them, and set his temporarily casted arm up on a pillow, I finally breathed my sigh of relief. He was joking with his siblings. He had his sense of humor back. He was even working on his accident story, feeling like ‘a skateboard accident’ didn’t sound nearly as fun as ‘a bar fight’.

And I was reminded again about the importance of helmets. Sam is never allowed to do any sport without his helmet. Skateboarding, biking, skiing…no sports without head protection. In this case, it might have saved his life. I will go out to buy him a new helmet this week. His old one is pretty chipped up. But I don’t mind. It’s a pretty small price to pay for my boy’s future mental health.

As the seasons change, and skateboarding boys begin to mountain bike on Colorado trails, then ski on Colorado slopes, I will continue to insist my boys put on their head hear. It’s a non negotiable in this house.

As it should be in every household.

Trust me, your child’s brain is worth it.

Follow up: Two hours after I wrote this column, I was once again back in the ER with my boy. After having a very 'normal' morning, he suddenly started shivering, got very lethargic, and couldn't seem to stay awake. We spent the next three days in the hospital, trying to figure out why his temperature kept spiking, and he couldn't manage to eat anything. They were suspicious that he had internal injuries that we just couldn't find.

It was decided that he had picked up a virus from somewhere, and it hit just 24 hours after his wreck. So the symptoms from both were mixing together, causing a mystery that included many CT scans, ultrasounds and blood tests to figure out.
The doctors were pleased as he began to show signs of recovery, and even more pleased that he had been wearing his helmet. Once he's up to it, we're headed to the store to purchase a new one.

In the meantime, he has a new, bright green cast, and will get it changed in ten days, the day before we drive off to Colorado. Then I have to dig up an orthopedic guy out there to continue his healing process.