To the Finish Line

Last summer, Max, Sarah, Lorne, and I visited the childhood homes of  both my dad and my mom.  A month ago, when Sarah was assigned to write a personal narrative about an important moment in her eleven-year life, she chose to capture her feelings about her grandfather by describing our visit to Ralph Avenue in Brooklyn. 

My family and I stepped off the subway in New York City to visit Papa’s past.  It was the first time any of us had seen where my grandfather grew up.

The first thing we noticed was how impoverished it was. I looked around at the barbed wire and the shabby stores.

When I heard the people across the street from us talking about how they were going to bail someone out of jail, I started thinking about where Papa lives now, in a fancy country club in Florida, with its pool in the backyard and the baby grand piano in the living room. I thought about how I was related to someone who must have worked so hard. Someone who didn’t just give up.

We walked past the grocery store and the laundromat, my mom snapping pictures all the way.

We were going to find where Papa had lived with his mother, Anna. His father died when he was very young. Anna was a Jewish immigrant from Poland. She left right before the Holocaust to come to America. Her only living relative to survive the Holocaust was her brother, Max. She met up with him when he came to America, but he died shortly afterward. Anna tried hard to make ends meet, but it was hard to get money. After a while, they went on welfare. Anna married two more times, but neither marriage lasted long. The first turned out to be a criminal and the second died about a week after their marriage.

After high school, Papa told Anna that he wasn’t going to college and instead he was going to work full time. That was the only slap across the face that he ever got from his mother.

“Education is the answer!” she yelled. It turns out that she was right.

Papa went to City College of New York and studied to be an accountant. After he got his degree, he decided that he would work all day and go to law school at night.

After he finished law school, he worked at a printing company.

After a while, he worked his way up to be president of the company, then owner, and he sold the company for a lot of money.

I was snapped back to the present when I heard my mom say, “Stand in front of the house so I can get a picture.” I looked up at the fading address on an apartment that appeared to have no one home. It was so marvelous to be standing in front of the apartment that my Grandpa used to live in.

I was suddenly overcome by a rush of emotions. I thought about how the people who live in this apartment now probably wouldn’t be as successful as Papa. I also thought about how my grandpa is a role model to show that you can get what you want if you really work at it.

The last thing that came into my mind as we walked back to the subway was how I want to be just like him when I grow up. I want to make him proud.

We’ve got it all figured out.  I’ll sport my green sweater dress with my black tights or maybe my grey tights with the little sparkles, the ones that I picked up at Target last month when I was in a little need-some-bling mood, and my high black boots, yes, definitely the high black boots with the zipper.   Maybe I should even wear a padded bra for the occasion.   Sexy woman.

Sarah is standing here in my bedroom, so happy to have her mom finally home, and she’s decided that I’ll also need my red sunglasses, the giant red sunglasses that I bought off the guy on the 7^th Avenue street corner this summer, the guy peddling sunglasses and scarves and some (maybe) stolen watches, the guy who called me Beautiful Angel.

Yeah, Sarah bounces around in my bedroom on this Monday night, imagining me in those sunglasses, announcing, Mom, we’ll also need to get your hair cut.  And I picture her hauling my dead ass over to Great Clips, flashing a three-dollars-off coupon that her dad has saved from the back of a Schnuck’s receipt.   I pray they don’t forget that special Fructis goop that flattens out my frizz.

We giggle.   Like crazy.

And maybe it’s insane to giggle about my own death with my children, to laugh with them about my ultimate demise.   Maybe those parenting books that stare at me, glued shut, from that spinning bookshelf in our living room, are sighing and frowning and judging, shrugging their shoulders with their I-tried-to-tell-her-so wisdom.  Maybe some giant lightning bolt will come strike me dead next year or next week or even tomorrow, and my children will be forever wounded by this March night when we all danced around picking out my coffin garb.

But I don’t think so.

Just two days ago, I received a “she didn’t make it” text from my friend who gives and gives and gives and who now has lost, first his dad and, on Saturday, his mom,  my friend who says “sure, no problem” when everyone else sees problems, from my friend who decided he would tell me first, who maybe expected I’d know what to do, what to say, about his 58-year-old mom, who, poof, is now gone.  I feel like sobbing.

But when Max asks me if I’d seen the body of my friend’s mom tonight and I say, yes, yes, I saw her, and in one of his holy-shit middle school moments, he asks if she was, jesus, was she naked, Mom, I push the tears away with giggles because how amazing that he’s made it nearly 13 years thinking that open caskets are like odd, free-of-charge peep shows?

I assure him that she was fully clothed.

And when Sarah asks if she’ll be the one who gets to adorn me in my green dress, my tights, my boots, I tell her, Sweetie, only if you really want to, but it would be okay if it were some strange old guy named Sal, you know, who, like, dresses dead bodies for a living.   What?  People do that?  Um, yeah, Honey.  But, Mom, isn’t it weird if a strange old guy sees your…yeah, yup, it sure is…

Naked corpses.  Strange men gaping at me in my birthday suit.   It all feels strangely hilarious.

*                        *                        *                        *

I want to shush death, to suffocate the bastard under thick afghans, to stuff him behind cinderblock walls.  I want to live in my little land where I’m never gonna get a damn headache and then hear some doctor sentence me to a few weeks left (brain cancer), the land where nobody would ever return from walking the dog and find me in an armchair, forever silenced (heart attack).

Five days have now passed since the funeral of my friend’s mom, since the night when my kids and I pieced together my final outfit.  And I sit here, tonight, thinking about this mother I didn’t know, this mother in her dress and her glasses, lying in that coffin, this mother who raised two girls, and a kind, gentle boy, a teacher, my friend.  And I wonder what she hoped for in her life, I wonder what beauty she held, I wonder if she hugged tightly.  Like her son does.

Yes, I sit here listening to the rain, wondering if she had that faith that the preacher at her funeral mentioned, that faith that makes some people so unafraid, even about dying.

And I think, maybe, in a few minutes, I’ll go find Sarah, go interrupt her marathon Harry Potter reading, go tickle her and tell her, “Hey, Sar-ee, I thought of something.  I think, you know, when that day comes, I wanna wear my Michigan baseball cap, or maybe you and Max can go buy me a wide-brimmed hat like the ones those fancy ladies wear to the horse races…”

And I hope that she’ll add some crazy details, some this-or-that about red lipstick or hoop earrings or that Gaultier perfume that I love to spray, and that, together, we’ll laugh a big laugh, giggling away the bitter fear.

Here is what didn’t happen at the bowling alley. I did not lunge a twelve-pound bowling ball at the forehead of the blonde woman wearing the short sleeve white polo shirt (really?)  (in this blustery weather?!).  I did not strut over to her in my best Debra-Solomon-Baker-New-York-style swagger and demonstrate the new kickboxing moves that I’d learned during that morning’s Body Combat workout on Youtube.

Let me back up to a Friday night in January, about a year ago.  I had planned this fiesta for my friend who now had 20 years of sobriety behind him, and so I’d bought some Ketel One vodka for the drinkers (with his blessing) and some hummus and crackers and his favorite Snyders fat pretzels.  I’d invited his AA sponsor and a few buddies from work.

And, best of all, I’d written this kick-ass tribute of 20 things that I wouldn’t want to change about him, a sweet blend of farce and sincerity.   My colleagues had dealt hand upon hand of Hearts at my dining room table, had told stories, had laughed about some painting of a busty woman that I had removed from the wall and stuffed in the basement.  My little house had exuded warmth and goodness that night.  And I had felt this pure, focused happiness.  Without measure.

Until around midnight.  My dear husband had walked into the house a few hours earlier with a rare scowl, but I had just dismissed it as a crippling day as a worker’s compensation attorney. I never expected (who does?) that, later, while he was washing and I was drying in the post-party cleanup, he’d reveal that his boss had canned him.

But, first, she had prayed on it.   Yes.  Of course she had.  Julie (whose name has not been changed to protect the innocent) had prayed on it and she had decided, with some help from Above, to announce to my dear husband that things just weren’t working out, that’s all, and that he needed to leave now, now, now, yes, today, yes, on that Friday afternoon in the middle of the goddamn recession that he was to come home to his wife and his daughter and his house payments and his son who had planned to go to this expensive sleepaway camp with his buddies, and suddenly they were a family of four (plus the dog) living on a teacher’s salary (thank goodness for the teacher’s salary).  Yes, she had prayed.  And some god had talked to her and told her that she couldn’t just wait and tell this guy that he could take a month or two and look for a new job while they rounded out their cases, or some other humane agreement like that.

Nope.  That’s not what that god of hers said.  He told her to order that forty-year-old guy to pack up his crap, to turn over his cell phone and his keys and his insurance, and to head home. Today.

So this all brings us back here, to this bowling alley, to last Saturday, to one year later, to Lorne pointing over at Ms. White Polo Shirt and whispering, “There she is.”   There.  She.  Is.

Yes, this all brings us back to what didn’t happen.

I wanted to toss her my first-ever left hook followed by a right jab to the jaw.  I wanted to furnish her with my personal favorite, the ol’ knee to the groin, a move that I had perfected (in my supremely active fantasy world).

I stared.  And despite Lorne’s admonition to quit staring, I stared more.  She and I locked eyes.

I had dreamed of this moment, a recurring dream.  I had even composed letters (unsent) and crafted conversations.

I wanted to spit words (or diet Coke) at her,  to belittle, to blame.  Right there, in that bowling alley, on that Saturday afternoon, I wanted to mock her version of god, of religion, of righteous behavior.  And I wanted to do it all loudly.

But I said nothing.

I raced to the door,  ran outside through the gusts, and jumped, alone, into the minivan.  Cranking up the heat, I sat there wondering, wondering about stories without action, about defining moments in bowling alleys, about the strangely unsettling power of silence.

When the phone rings at 6:30 on a Thursday morning in January, I expect the beauty of a snow day.  I expect a day where we lounge in our feety pajamas watching some movie on Netflix about a sports player who defeats odds, you know, like Rudy or Rocky or somebody, where we drink hot cocoa with mini marshmallows that melt too quickly, where we pull on our silly, too-tight snow pants and our pom-pom hats and our waterproof gloves and roll around making angels, where we romp with Hooch and throw snowballs at him and giggle when he gets snow on his snout.

When the phone rings at 6:30 on a school day, I don’t expect to hear the voice of my kids’ superintendent announcing that there has been a “broad threat” to the school district, that we shouldn’t worry because there will be extra police officers at school, that they are taking so-called “added measures” for security.  I don’t expect to have to go stand beside my twelve-year-old son’s bed, look at his sleepy body wrapped up in his Cardinals fleece blanket and explain to him that, yes, he will go to school this morning, that, yes, he will be safe.

I don’t expect to learn that some sick bastard has posted a photograph on Instagram of the Newtown murderer with some photos of my son’s peers and some passive threat, like, “You can’t stop me.”

Right.  They can’t stop him.  Nobody can.    He can go to his local Walmart right now and get himself a Sig Sauer M400, complete with prismatic scope, whatever the hell that is.   Or, he can buy himself  a tri-star-triraptor- 12GA-28 Semi-Automatic Shotgun.   Or a dozen other beauties.  There is no shortage of variety.

God bless America.

I think back to the afternoon of the Newtown shootings, and how I headed home and asked my boy if he wanted to talk about what had happened.

“No, Mom,” he said.  “I already know what happened.”

“Well, I know that you know, Buddy, but is there anything that you want to, you know, talk about?”

“Nah,” he replied.  “I figure that I’m safe because all of my classes are in the way back corner of the building.  Even Spanish class.”

Jesus.

I just squeeze his shoulder and pretend to agree.  Classic parenting, I suppose.   Maybe.

And then I think back to last Thursday and how my students imagined piling into the closet, the closet where I store the old blue and pink pillows I bought years ago for when we had silent reading time, yes, they imagined piling into the closet.  To hide.

And they imagined cramming into the cabinets, the cabinets where I store the collection of poetry books that I will pull out in April, the cabinets where 84 copies of To Kill a Mockingbird wait for next week’s unearthing.

“If there’s really an intruder, Ms. Baker, can we dump all the books out and climb inside those?”

Yes.  Those would be the perfect size for your thirteen-year-old frames, I think.  I try to bury my imagination, to suffocate it.

I remember how they had wanted me to lock the door, to yank down the blinds, to assure them that the glass would, somehow protect them, even though we all knew that was a damn lie.

There we were, in the middle of the first intruder drill since the Newtown shootings.  And they wanted me to tell them that if they were peeing or texting or doing whatever they do when they ask to use the bathroom, that they could run back to the classroom, that they could join us here, squashed in the corner of the classroom, even when the official directions say to stay in the bathroom, alone, to push all of your weight against the door.

They wanted to know why I’d been directed to slip a green card under the classroom door, into the hallway, a green, everyone-is-safe-in-here card, because, Ms. Baker wouldn’t he then know we’re in here?   What’s the point, Ms. Baker, of huddling in the corner, away from the windows and doors, what’s the point of staying quiet, if you’re just gonna announce with that green card that the lambs are in here, waiting for their slaughter?

I don’t know.  I don’t know.  I don’t know.

And I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that you must plan hiding spots in this warped game of Hide And Seek, that you must mentally measure cabinets and closets, that you must know that huddling in the corner won’t really bring safety.

Let’s hope that tomorrow, if the phone rings at 6:30 am, we can all spend our mornings lugging sleds up Art Hill for some good, old-fashioned childhood.

Yes, childhood.  Remember that?

 

I guess when you’ve just found out that you need heart surgery and you’ve already gone through three wrestling matches with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma over the past umpteen years, you do what you’ve always done to take back some control.   You pay your bills.  You listen to your music.  You make lists of questions to ask the doctors.   That’s what Dad was doing when I called him yesterday morning.

My father is a master list-maker, a crafter of itineraries, a planner extraordinaire, yup, a leave-nothing-to-chance kind of guy.

So, on this eve of Thanksgiving, with his upcoming heart surgery that will, we hope, fix a bum valve that’s causing 50 percent of his heart to slack off, rather than to work, I’ve decided to channel my inner Gene; I’ve decided that I’d better make a list.

*                                    *                                  *

I am thankful for a father who needs a ladder to reach the top shelves of his wall-to-wall library of books, a father who, when I was maybe seven or eight, pulled out a giant white board and drew the electoral college map on it, deciding it was time that his kin knew how the heck this election stuff worked, a father who invited each of the children to report on current events articles over dinner, a father who socked away plenty of cash to pay for his children’s education.

I am thankful for a father who escorts his grandchildren to Barnes & Noble and buys them each a book and a giant cookie, who signs them up for golf clinics and for tennis clinics and who has introduced them to the Saint Andrews Country Club buffet, to overflowing plates of desserts, to build-your-own sundaes with M&Ms.

I am thankful for a father who has guided me to the beauty of classical music, who, as a wedding present, handed us a subscription to the Saint Louis Symphony, a father who seemed to always be awake on the couch listening to Mozart, even at 2 am, when I would tiptoe down the steps, needing him to be right there.

I am thankful for a father who is still astounded that I, his youngest daughter, have not yet been nominated as head of the U.S. Department of Education or been awarded a Pulitzer Prize, a father who believes either (or both) may still happen to me.  I am thankful for a father who keeps a file of all the pieces that I’ve ever written, who always reads my work and posts comments like, “the best”, who says he wishes that there were more like me in the world, for a father who reminds me, again and again, that I have talent.

I am thankful for a father who spends his retirement writing books about Christianity, about Judaism, about the Holocaust, about our family, volumes that we will cling to long after he is gone, for a father who teaches music to crowds of elder adults, crowds who applaud and cherish him, for a father who knows that I still expect to have movie dates, just me and him, even if they just happen twice a year, for a father who tagged the email detailing the upcoming surgery, “Ya Gotta Have Heart.”

I am thankful for a father who took me to Lincoln Center, to R-rated movies, to the Metropolitan Opera, to the Guggenheim, to Broadway, for knowing that, somehow, being the only kid in the crowd was okay, even great, and for never seeming upset or disappointed when I fell asleep midway through the expensive concerts.  “The music was so beautiful,” he would say, “Perfect for sleeping.”  I am thankful for a father who asks why, in the snapshots I send, I look even younger than my own children.

I am thankful for a father who flew with us to Israel and to Jamaica, to Saint Maarten and to England, who taught us the value of marriage and of sticking together, who taught me to drive and who laughed along with me when I refused to pass the “Slow Moving Vehicle” on the highway, for a father who showed us that with hard work and with focus a person can, in fact, fly from 1675 Lincoln Place in wrong-side-of-the-tracks-Brooklyn to life on a golf course in Boca Raton, for a father who would always remind us, “You’re a Solomon and that means something.”

I am thankful for a father who wrote long, handwritten letters on yellow legal pads to me while I was at Michigan or during my semester in Italy, and who was the proudest parent in the audience on the afternoon I graduated with a master’s degree from Harvard, for a father who encouraged me to head to the best, even though other schools were offering sweet financial deals.

I am thankful for a father who studied law on crowded subway trains, working during the day, attending law school at night, so that he could work his way to an easier place for himself and for his soon-to-be-born family, who, as an adult, took swim lessons and learned to play the piano, who, as a Holocaust scholar, never, ever, ever would let us forget the complexity and the horror.

I am thankful for a father who is unafraid to talk about death, who speaks lightheartedly about the mausoleum that he’s purchased for himself and Mom, who jokes about the pig’s valve that doctors may use to mend his heart (and how his Kosher-keeping mother would’ve felt about that one), for a father who thinks there should be a mandatory course where everyone sits around and talks about death and dying rather than ignoring the inevitable, for a father who shares his Patron coffee liqueur with me, along with the rest of the booze in his well-stocked cabinet.

*                                                *                                          *

There’s more to write, but the house is only quiet for so long around here, so before I decide to wait, to delay, to perfect, I will, instead, just be finished. Maybe I should have written all of this to him during his first bout with cancer.  Or during his second.  Or during his third.  But I never did.   I’m just thankful, tonight, that I’m not too late.

 

So, we’re standing in front of the pacing sun bear, in a now-that-they’re-ten-and-twelve-years-old rare trip to the Saint Louis Zoo, and it’s that time of year, so the pumpkins and the scarecrows and the witches have jazzed up the place for the upcoming toddler frightfest, Boo at the Zoo, an event that both Max Baker and Sarah Baker have just announced (poor, deprived souls) they never, ever got to attend.  They’re wrong.  I think.  And later, I will dig out some photographs, I hope.  As evidence.

Anyway, I turn from the sun bear because Max has declared, in his most serious tone, Hey Mom, I’ve gotta ask you something.

Here we go.  It’s gonna be about girls.  About sex.  About terrorism.  About his bar mitzvah.  About godknowswhat.

Do you think that, you know, since this will probably be my last year and all, that I can trick-or-treat, you know, without you?  Like, just with me and my friends? 

Trick-or-treat.  Without me?

I think:  Stupid tears, I feel you coming.  You’re right there.  Just hide the hell away.    Get back in there.  You will not cry, Debra.  No. No. Not in front of him, you won’t.  Heart, stop it.  Don’t break right here, in front of this sun bear, in front of your son who looks so tall, whose face is breaking out with pimples, who will soon kiss a girl.   Brain, don’t start counting the years until he’s away at college because the number is smaller than you want to think about right now, no, don’t do it.

Don’t think about that year he wore that Tigger costume, when he couldn’t even walk yet, and how you plopped him in the middle of the pumpkin patch and took three million pictures.  No, don’t think about the year you found that Tootsie Roll costume on E-bay and you were so proud because it was only ten bucks and all the other moms at the Spoede Elementary School parade, the moms who hadn’t sneaked off from work, panicked to arrive just in time, how they had all oohed-and-ahed because it was the cutest darn costume in the whole bunch.   And how he had waved to me from the crowd, and I had thought, that’s MY boy.  Yup, that cute one over there with those eyelashes and that scratchy voice….

Don’t think, Debra, about how much you loved the simplicity of standing on your neighborhood streets, year after year after year, while he and the other kids would bounce up to the houses with their Unicef boxes jingling and their huge pumpkin-shaped bags of candy and how you would remind them to say thank you, yes, don’t forget to say thank you, and how you were always freezing, shivering, even with your winter hat on and your gloves, and how even though you hated to be so damn cold, you never ever wanted those nights to end.

No, Debra, don’t think right now about how all of the kids would gather in your kitchen for the annual post-Halloween bartering session.  They would sprawl on your dirty linoleum floor, the floor that you swore you’d replace right when you moved into that house, but they never cared that the floor was ugly and they never heard how it screamed to you a reminder of all that was broken or neglected, no, they would just sort and trade and count, and sort and trade and count, until everyone would emerge with their ideal hodgepodge of candy, which for Max needed to include at least 12 Three Musketeers bars, some Skittles, and a couple of packages of Starburst.

No, don’t think about how he would always ask first, was it okay if he could have maybe three pieces of candy right then, and how you would say sure, and how you’d think, you know what, Buddy, I would’ve said yes to eight tonight.  But, no, he never asked for much.

So, yes, you stand there beside the sun bear, beside your son, and you try to pretend that everything is not about to change, that your world is still sturdy even though you won’t be shivering on those sidewalks, hoping he gets a million pieces of his favorite everything.

I say:  Of course you can go trick-or-treating with your friends.  Umm, I think that’s a great idea.  We’ll just, you know, do something different this year.  It’ll be amazing.  And, you know I trust you.  I know that you’ll be careful and all that.

I squeeze his right shoulder. And then I turn away from my twelve-year-old son because the tears are pushing, pushing, pushing, desperate to be part of the conversation, and I have to remind them that they’re not invited.

No, not now.

I smile at Max as together, on this fall afternoon, we head toward the tigers, toward his favorite animal.  Still.

So, here we are, 843 miles from home, on a beach in Jekyll Island, Georgia, at the end of a three-day expedition to learn about coastal ecology.

Yes, I teach on some slab of Fantasy Island called Clayton, Missouri, where field tripping to the three-mile-away art museum or to the bird house at the zoo, is not quite extravagant enough.  We trek with kids, every spring, for 18 hours, across the country on a Cavallo bus to learn about maritime forests, about sand, about ornithology, about sea turtles.

So, anyway, the trip is nearly over, a few wee hours left, and we have this master plan to drop students off at Point A and have them stroll along the beach to Point B, two miles away.  At Point B, they will frolic just like kids used to frolic before there was Halo and World of Warcraft, Wii bowling and little Mario.  They will swim, they will reach sheer exhaustion, then they will march onto a bus for the slog back to The Lou, to Saint Louis, to their landlocked habitat.

It is a brilliant plan for this Wednesday afternoon in May.

Until something dreadful happens at Point A.

Brian has to go to the bathroom.

That kid has cantankerous bowels.  When that kid announces, in the middle of your kick-ass lesson on subordinating conjunctions, “Umm, Ms. Baker, can I go to the bathroom,” you know he’s not heading in there to text his girlfriend, to pop the juicy zit on his forehead, to do whatever it is eighth graders do in the bathroom when they’re really only in that hole to escape from adjectives, from ancient Greece, from the quadratic formula.

98.2 percent of the time that others land in the bathroom, they don’t even have to go.   I know.  I’ve collected mounds of data.  For an action research project.  On peeing.

Anyway, Brian’s situation is desperate.   Poor Brian.  This kid’s Terror level switches to Orange when he’s not in close proximity to a john.   Sirens blast.

So, Brian tells me that he’s gotta go, and I don’t want a darn nuclear explosion, right there on the beach, because he’s a nice kid and all, with decent manners, so I say, okay.  And then, Bob jumps in, Bob whose name is Xuechun, but who now lives in the Land of the Free, so is Bob.  And Bob says he’s gotta go too, and Bob never asks to go anywhere, he just sits and is Mr. Perfect Asian Student, so I say, okay.  Then two girls start yapping at me about needing to change tampons, which is really too much information for them to be exchanging, right here, right now, on this beach, with their teacher, but what am I going to say, Bleed Girls, Bleed On?  So, I just gesture for them to follow the boys.

Up the stairs.

Meet me here.  Down here, I say.  Here.

The 200 other eighth graders, those who can hold it, those who don’t have sudden urgent sanitary needs, and the eight other teachers, trek to Point B.

I stay behind to wait for the bathroomers.

Just me.

And Bobby.

Bobby is the darkest black kid one can imagine, and lucky Bobby is chillin’ with Ms. B today because Bobby decided to smack someone in the forehead in the back of the bus.   Lyndsey had stolen Bobby’s seat.  Or so the story goes.

Anyway, in these here parts, smacking another kid on the head?  That’s still a no-no.  And Bobby knows it.  He’s not exactly the world’s finest rule abider.

We don’t hit, Bobby.

“Well, my Daddy tells me that if someone’s messin’ with me, I can smack him.”

I try to counter with my best Suburban White Woman advice.   Next time, you should take a deep breath, Bobby.  Just walk away.

Genius.   I am certain that my sound, inspirational counsel has altered his existence.

Anyway.

So, instead of sportin’ his Speedo trunks and hittin’ on the girls in their flimsy bikini tops, Bobby’s stuck with his English teacher.  Which sucks.  Truly.

So, we’re standin’ there and we’re standin’ there and we’re standin’ there,  and then it’s 20 minutes and 25 minutes and 40 minutes, and I’m thinking, okay, well, sometimes Brian takes awhile to do his business, so they must all be waiting for him.

I race up the stairs.  There’s nothing.  Nobody.  Nada.

So, I panic.  It’s 800 degrees Fahrenheit in that sand and I don’t have a water bottle and my mind veers right to child snatching.  Some redneck with a bandana around his head coaxed my babies into his truck, and now they are locked up in a basement, gagged.  This is rural Georgia, after all.  There is simply no other logical explanation.

And then I have that crazy holyshit moment, the one where I realize that the moron (me) can’t remember which girls she sent to the bathroom.  Jesus, I don’t even know who the hell’s missing.  It was two of those ponytailed ones that I teach every day, which rules out, like, nobody.

My brain zooms to the local precinct.

Yes, Officer.  We’ve got two girls missing.  Names?  I dunno.  Yes, yes, I’m their teacher.  Yes, I gave them permission to head to the bathroom.  No, I said I can’t remember who they are, okay?  Okay?  Yes, Officer, I understand it’s odd, but have you ever been a 40-something-year-old woman in charge of 200 hormonal teenagers on some beach in Georgia?  No?  Exactly my point.

My brain zooms right on over to the principal’s office.   Then to the school board meeting.    Then to the headlines.  Fifteen-Year Clayton Teacher Loses Children in Georgia.  Dismissed.

I have finally been outed.  As irresponsible.  As stupid.   As a loser.   For years, I have awaited this trainwreck, certain of its imminence.

That anxiety that mounts, night after night, in my damn wherethehellamI, lost-again nightmares,  suddenly announces, I’m Ba-ack, Ready to Haunt you in the Daytime, Girlfriend.  And the sun is roasting me, and I just know I’m gonna pass out, boom, onto the sand, right there next to my fourteen-year-old prisoner, Bobby.

But, instead, I let loose.

I start cussing like a damn woman with missing teeth.

This is bullshit, Bobby.   Where the hell are they?  I told’em to come down those stairs and to meet me here, didn’t I tell them to come down those stairs, these’re kids who listen, these aren’t kids like, like, like like ( like you, the word almost slips out), these are perfect students, or at least the boys are, I don’t know who the hell the girls are, what kind of teacher doesn’t remember who she sent to the bathroom?  I’m done, Bobby.  This is it.  Kaput.  Over.  Through.   Be nice to the young’un who enters Room 309 on Monday, lesson plan in hand.

Bobby smiles, a small smile.  He loves this.  It’s perfect.

“Ms. Baker, you’re hysterical,” he says.

Hysterical?

“It’s just like how my mom gets.  You’ve gotta calm down.  I’m sure they just walked over to where everyone else is, but they walked up there, rather than coming down the stairs.

No way, Bobby. They’ve probably already got that crazy Stockholm syndrome, are, right now, gleefully pulling weeds for Mr. Redneck.

“Ms. Baker, I’m sure they’re playing in the waves, swimming.  They’re teenagers, Ms. Baker.  They just didn’t listen.”

Swimming?

*                                                *                                                *                                    *

 

Yup.  Bobby was right.

They were teenagers being, yes, teenagers.

We found them out there, four hundred hours later, bouncing through the waves, giggling, carefree.

Well, except for Xuechun, aka Bob, who had blood streaming down his face from some killer nosebleed.  Thus, he alone was spared the fury of his English teacher.

 

*                                                *                                                *                                    *

 

“Ms. Baker, you went a little crazy back there, by those stairs, waiting for those kids,” Bobby says, when we finally collapse on the sand.

Yes.  Crazy.

“You dropped the F-bomb like, at least twice.  And the B-S word and the sh-word, and… I think you said’em all, Ms. Baker.”

I know he is right again.  And I know, too, that I want to hug him like a son.

“You know, Bobby, maybe it’s unfair that those four kids are out there swimming, free, no punishment at all, when you’re stuck here with me.”

Nah, Ms. Baker, he smiles.  That back there?  That was a misunderstanding.  What I did, hitting Lyndsey, I did that on purpose.  There’s a big difference.

Let’em keep swimming, he says.

I listen to him.

And as we sit there together, on that sand, I want to tell him how unfair it is that he, at age fourteen, still struggles to read, and that his father is one giant no-show in life.

I want to tell him to keep his stupid fists down, that people who keep their stupid fists down land in college, not in some jail cell somewhere.  I want to tell him to ditch the bravado, the nonsense, to study harder, to focus.

I want to tell him about my dad and about his childhood with nothing, how he would scream that there were cockroaches roaming in his Chinese food and then refuse to pay,  when really he had no money in his wallet anyway, and how now, he lives in a schmanzy home in a place called Boca Raton, Florida, how he worked and worked and worked, and got there, got out.

And I want to tell him that I, too, understand about coveting what other people have, about craving fancy cruises to Alaska, or stuffed savings accounts, or finished basements with flat screen TVs, or even, yes, a stupid seat that someone stole from you in the back of a bus, a seat that, damnit, was yours.

And I want to tell him that there’s something magical about a kid who can talk a crazy-crazy woman down from a cliff’s edge, to remind her to be still, to even make her laugh.

So I do.

I tell him all of this, as we sit, together, staring at the horizon, this boy and his teacher, 843 miles away from home.

Next week, my student, Ally, will be delivering this beautiful speech that she wrote for the eighth grade promotion ceremony.  She is thirteen years old, and, proudly, I share with you her wisdom:

Two months, two weeks, and six days ago, my mother was diagnosed with grade four brain cancer.  And every day since March 2nd, 2012, the Wydown community has proven to me that out of every thunderstorm, a rainbow will inevitably arise if you pursue it.

Throughout our 8th grade year in Literacy, we have sought to answer one essential question.  What does it mean to be a responsible member of the community?  In Of Mice and Men, this question brings to mind the responsibility that George felt to take care of Lennie and protect him as if they were brothers.  In To Kill A Mockingbird, this question reminds me of Atticus’s advice to Scout to never judge a man until you have walked around in his shoes.  But although it is the expectation for this class to brainstorm and attempt an answer to this question, I know that our 8th grade literacy teachers hope for us to walk out of their classrooms at the end of the day questioning our own values rather than those of the author of a book.  These works of literature that we have read and analyzed in literacy have guided me in finding an answer to this broad question, but ultimately the actions of the Wydown community presented me with my answer.

In the dictionary, the word responsible is defined as “having a capacity for moral decisions and therefore accountable; capable of rational thought or action.”  While this is a dictionary definition, a person’s own interpretation of responsibility and how they should be responsible varies.  I have learned that at Wydown, a person’s definition of being a responsible member of a community is above and beyond anything I have ever come across in my lifetime.  The amazing people I have been privileged to get to know have astonished me with their incredible kindness and thoughtfulness.  When my emotional health was rapidly deteriorating because my mother was in the intensive care unit on life support, my best friend managed to make me cry from laughter when she showed up at the hospital and fell off the railing in the elevator.  When I broke down at the thought of my mother shaving her head just to speed up the process of her hair loss, my 7th grade literacy teacher reminded me that my mom would be just as amazing with her hair that she was without it.  After my family received the second letter from our insurance company denying to cover my mother’s treatment, my friend brought a smile to my face by telling me that the insurance company could eat it.  And while tears descend down my cheeks because recovering these memories is so difficult, by some miracle called friendship, a smile somehow finds its way onto my lips when I gaze at the intricate hat that was knitted by my friend for my mother at my request.

The day before my mom’s brain tumor resection, I came across an interesting quote that I thought applied to my mom.  I know now that it does, but it also holds a strong connection to my life.  “When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.”-Barbara Bloom. The beauty that I have gained from this damage is wisdom.  I have learned that the power of a community can overcome the sorrow that any tragedy can cause you. I also feel that the people who reached out to me have not realized that what they thought was a small act of kindness has provided me with a sense of hope that people will be here to support me through this hard time.

My goal in writing this speech is to show the Wydown community the impact that a small act of kindness can have.  Simply writing a poem for somebody or bringing dinner over to their house can give them a sense of hope when they feel they have nothing else to hope for.

So, I would like to thank the Wydown community for reaching out to me when I needed them most.  You have helped me pick up the shattered pieces of my life, and while the cracks will remain forever, the glue that holds me together will stay strong.

This week, I enrolled in a Humor Writing course.  My first assignment was to take the least funny moment from my day and try to write about it in a humorous way.   Here goes….

I couldn’t find my stick this morning.  Darn you, Hooch, I thought, accusing my bassett-hound-lab mutt of stealing my goods (again).    Where’s my black t-shirt, Hooch?  My left Keen?  Huh?  Don’t you know not everything in this house/ yard belongs to you?   Some sticks are mine.  Mine.  Mine.  Mine.

Okay, just this one stick, but it’s a perfect one, complete with a little curved handle. Hands (paws) (mouth) off, Buddy.

So, instead of the usual keys hunt or wallet hunt, or wherethehellismycellphone hunt, this morning’s fun was this Great American Stick Search, which, I finally found (poor Hooch, falsely accused again) inside the mini-van.  I had tossed it from the front seat (where it sat hidden from Hooch’s view) into the trunk while doing a frantic cleanup-before-the-carwash sweep of the car clutter last night.  It was a cleanup reminiscent of the pre-cleaningladyiscoming cleanups from days of yore.  “Straighten your room,” Mom would holler.  “Clean up before the cleaning lady gets here.”  Ummm, yeah.  Okay, Mom.  That’s crazy talk.

Anyway, newly-rediscovered stick in left hand, running shoes laced, glass of water guzzled, I was ready.

I live in a land of gang-crazed chaos, of graffitied lampposts, of 3 am gunshots, of hangouts outside the liquor store, brown bags in hand.

It’s like the setting of Boyz n the Hood around here.

Well, not exactly.

I live on a street named after a yellow flowering bush.  Sounds terrifying, I know.

My youngest neighbor is maybe 78.   The ‘hood comes alive on the weekend, with everyone out pruning bushes, planting gladiolas, barbecuing their bratwurst.  The only time sirens blare around here is when one of the alta-kockers has some chest pains.

This is not exactly the land of the warlords.

And yet, here I am.  Me and my stick, my guardian, my weapon.

My anti-Maddie armor.

Three weeks ago, Maddie, who then was just That Damn Mutt to me, darted out of her yard, joined me in the street where I was enjoying my little Earth Day jog, and then mistook my left leg for a juicy chicken bone.

Three weeks ago, I landed in the police station, trying to determine whether That Damn Mutt had had its rabies shots, to determine whether That Damn Mutt had a history of arrests, to determine who owned the little bugger.

We returned to the scene of the crime, bandaged Me along with Mr. Officer who had the biggest biceps ever in the history of the muscle.  And there she was, panting, smiling over her little triumph.  The stupid mongrel hadn’t even moved.

Run, Little Girl, run for your freedom, part of me wanted to shout, the part of me that loves furry friends.  But, enemies are enemies.

“Is that the perpetrator”?  Bicep Guy asked.

“Yup.”

And then he pointed to the ferocious little bitch.  All six pounds of her.

Tan.  Scruffy.  She was Benji’s evil twin.

I wanted to defend myself, my pride.  I wanted to assure him that this was no petty little crime, that, “…she may be small, but those teeth…” but I stayed silent.

He exited the police car, armed with pepper spray (which he used) and a taser (which he almost used, but didn’t).  He was no joke.

With his tough guy swagger and his colossal arms, Officer was ready to apprehend the criminal.

Little Maddie spent the next ten days in quarantine.  Little Maddie, it turned out, had a prior criminal record.  Two years ago, she had bitten some ten-year-old kid who was waiting for the school bus.

Go figure.

Maybe the repeat offender incurred the death penalty this time.   Maybe she just served her time, returning, without remorse, to her life of transgression.   I don’t know her fate.

But, regardless, I am now ready.

One tetanus shot, 20 antibiotic horse pills, and 40 stitches later (okay, zero stitches, but still…), I now cruise the neighborhood with my special brown stick-friend, the one recovered from the minivan trunk, the one that’s part of my self-prescribed, post-dogbite-stress recovery plan.

So, when, during my run, I spotted another archenemy this morning, this one a ten-pound, black-and-white furball just standing there, barking like a weirdo mid-street, no collar, no leash, no owner, I shouted, “Good boy, good boy.  Go home” in my best saccharine voice.  But what I really meant was, “If you step one foot closer to me, you are going to have your brains bashed in.  Do you understand me?  DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

I probably wouldn’t strike you as a bludgeon-a-dog-over-the-head-with-a-stick kind of person.

I never even allowed toy guns or swords in our home.

But, let me tell you.

I am not as wimpy as I seem.

If I had time on this Mother’s Day evening, I might write about how we stumbled onto some darkness last night, when we thought we were just going to watch the sunset over Creve Coeur Lake, we saw these bags, these little white lunch bags, decorated with markers, made by mothers who had lost their children to the world of depression and drugs and alcohol, and suicide.  There was an event, part celebration with music and those inflatable bouncy things and carnival games, and part, or most, a recollection of tragedy upon tragedy, all organized by CHAD, Communities Healing Adolescent Depression, all less than real, this combination of revelry and these I-miss-you bags.

And if I had time on this Mother’s Day evening, I might write about how Sarah rollerbladed along, with her pink knee pads and wrist pads and elbow pads, and her big red helmet, and how she stopped to examine those white bags, and how I wanted to shout, No Sarah, don’t look, don’t know, don’t see.   Keep skating.  Keep dancing.  Live, live, live.  And how Max misunderstood, how the little plastic bags of dirt inside the bags, meant only to battle the wind around the lake, to keep the bags in a line, he thought they were ashes, and how he fired a stream of questions about sadness, about depression, about suicide.  And how when I told my friend, Ann, that these were knottier to answer and made me tremble more than any of their kid-wonderings about penises, about vaginas, about sex, she replied, “You know, Deb, we learn so much about ourselves from our children.”

Yes.  We do.

But I don’t have time because Sarah is right here in her purple satin pajamas and she just handed me a bookmark she made with a secret code that I need to pretend to decipher, even though I know it says, “I love mom” and she is waiting for me to sing to her and to wish her sweet dreams.

I don’t have time because I just finished plucking 12 ticks from their little bodies, and I need to check their bumps and stow away the tweezers and the alcohol wipes, empty their laundry hampers, pack sandwiches in their lunch boxes, something vegetarian for her, roast beef for him.

And I don’t have time because Max is running around the house frantically collecting 10 items for his Spanish project that is due on Tuesday, and he needs to find black sunglasses and to know how to translate the word “los guantes.”

We all know, a mother’s work?  It’s never finished.

They need me.

And me?  I need time to think about how I spent this weekend watching Max and Sarah help kids with disabilities run the bases, how I spent this weekend making chocolate chip pancakes for them, romping around the dog park, sharing some Indian food,  constructing a pennant-shaped Cardinals jigsaw puzzle, spotting elk on a hike through the forest, listening to bagpipes, watching the sunset.  Yes, with white bags rustling in the breeze, we watched the sunset.   And we were together.   And it was beautiful.