It's been an eventful week. I mean, it's not every day that you lose your kid (thank God. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, read yesterday's story.) So in writing this week I overlooked a couple of funnies.
First: Out of the Mouth of Ains, Tooth Fairy Edition
The kid lost a tooth Wednesday evening. (Yep, shortly after she gave me a heart attack.) We were up at her school for a final open-house-type-thing when it happened and she finally twisted the sucker out, and her teacher and I rejoiced. For a week, it had been so loose as to just be hanging on by spit and whenever she would concentrate on something it would stick straight out of her mouth through her pursed lips. It was waaaay grosser than I can describe it, and it was making both her teacher and I a little queasy.
The going tooth fairy rate in our house is two bucks. Some kids in her class get fivers (their fairies must not be saving for future orthodontics the way ours is), but we feel that $2 per tooth with an added bonus of a Barbie move for that very first one she lost is a fair contractual agreement.
Ainsley may not agree with that.
When she pulled off her pillow Thursday morning and saw the pair of bills sitting there, she sighed.
"When is she ever going to leave me a twenty?"
Second: The Shirt I'll Never Wear Again
Hey, this one happened Wednesday, too. How did I get through that day? The 8pm bourbon helped.
Once Ainsley had been located, I had to pick her up at drama. Given the scare I'd had, I got there early; I just wanted to see her with my own eyes and make sure our little story had a happy ending.
If you don't have a kid in school and your last experience trying to get into a K-12 educational building was your last day of high school in the laid-back world of the early 90s, well, things have changed. The doors to everything but the front office stay locked during the school day and immediately after school, when the office if closed, you're out of luck unless someone knows you're coming and can let you in.
To pick Ainsley up early from drama, or to get into the building to get something Ainsley has forgotten, I have to stand by the front doors and wait for a teacher to pass into view and then pound on the door like a loonie to get her attention. I might have to wait 15 minutes for such an opportunity. And then I have to be escorted to wherever I'm going. It sounds nuts, but it really does make me feel safe that things are this way now, both at the high school I work and Ainsley's school.
Joining me outside waiting for an opportunity to get in was another drama parent. We were talking about the things parents who don't have anything in common besides their kids being in a school activity together would talk about, biding our time, when out of nowhere I got asked the absolute worst question in the world:
"So...when are you due?"
You guys know I'm not pregnant, right? See why it's the worst question in the world?
Weighing no more or no less than I have in about two years, and being what I thought was a healthy size, I was a little taken aback. And before I could even respond, just that quick, I started hating my body. Because if you're not pregnant, and someone asks when you're due, it's not really a compliment.
"Oh, I'm not due. I guess I'm just wearing a really unflattering shirt today."
And though I love the shirt I was wearing that day, it really was to blame. It's one of those big shirts. Not a puffy shirt from Seinfeld, but a pleated A-line shirt that in hindsight made it look like I had something to hide. It definitely could serve as a maternity shirt, though that day, it wasn't. I had been hoping that, with its nautical stripes and loose, jaunty fit, it was giving my look a "spring day on the yacht" vibe.
Instead, it was clearly giving off a "check out the fact that I don't have a waist" vibe.
Of course the parent who said that blushed, and stammered her way out of it, and for a little while I kinda felt bad for her. But then my evil side kicked in and I was glad she was embarrassed. Because unless a woman has a belly that is absolutely HUGE and you can see her belly button sticking through her shirt like a pop-up turkey timer and she's wearing a tee that says, "Baby On Board", I really think that's a question you just don't ask a stranger.
I can blame it on the shirt, but I have also taken it just personally enough to decide to up my workouts a little and try to lose a couple of pounds. Not in this area so much (motioning to my upper body) or in this area (motioning across my hips), but in this area right here (pointing to my apparently largish stomach).
Ah, nothing a little Tommy Boy reference won't fix.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Little Girl, Lost
It has happened. And it was just as terrifying as I imagined it to be.
Ainsley was missing for about 15 minutes yesterday. She didn't get off the bus here at my school in the afternoon. I knew of no reason why she would be staying late at her school. I am fairly sure that those 15 minutes of terror and panic will shave a year or two off of my natural life; seeing as how my heart dropped to somewhere in the vicinity of my lower colon, I don't see how I didn't suffer some kind of long-term health effect.
An angel helped me get through it. One of our school secretaries holds on to Ains for me in her office for the five minutes between when Ains gets off the bus and when our final bell frees me. This same woman has the coolest head in a crisis I've ever seen; any time trouble goes down in our school, she's the voice of reason who knows who to call and where to go for help. So this saint of a woman told me to sit down and breathe while she called the bus garage, radioed the driver of Ainsley's bus, and tried again and again to reach Ainsley's school's front office. When no one picked up there, she called to the church next door and when the receptionist there wasn't willing to offer help, told her in her best "Don't you dare b.s. me" tone that she had a frantic mom on her hands who needed to know where her child was and the least the receptionist could do was walk over to the school and relay a message since no one was picking up in the office.
Turns out Ainsley's teacher knew where she was: she had drama practice for a play she's in. Didn't I get that schedule?
No. No, I did not.
By the time the secretary got an answer, a couple of teachers who had overheard what was going on were hanging close by in the office to keep me calm and I guess to be there for me if I got worse news. I am pretty reserved and cool, professionally; I don't like to get worked up or get too personal around my co-workers. But when I knew Ains had been found, and was safe and sound in a classroom, I took off my glasses, put my head in my hands, and bawled. I didn't care who saw me. I felt people collectively sigh around me, and some patted my back as they went on with their own dramas. Releasing pent-up adrenaline never felt so good.
It wasn't long, though, before relief turned to anger. How could Ainsley not get the schedule home to me? And how can an elementary school teacher trust that a six-year-old will get such an important paper home and not follow through with parents in the form of a signature sheet or email or SOMETHING?!
I found that I couldn't wait until practice was over to see her. I went up to her school and crept into drama practice. I happened to catch Ainsley going up the stairs to the bathroom.
There were a lot of things I thought I would say. Things like, "Why can't you be more responsible?" and "If you can't let me know what's going on better than this, then you just won't do drama anymore." But what came out instead was a classic mom-ism:
"Do you know that you almost gave me a heart attack?"
And as I looked into her little face, complete with an expression that read, "Duh, mom, I was here at school just like I'm supposed to be," I melted. I just wanted to hug her.
Because the reality is, a story that starts with a kid not getting off a school bus doesn't always have a happy ending.
Ainsley was missing for about 15 minutes yesterday. She didn't get off the bus here at my school in the afternoon. I knew of no reason why she would be staying late at her school. I am fairly sure that those 15 minutes of terror and panic will shave a year or two off of my natural life; seeing as how my heart dropped to somewhere in the vicinity of my lower colon, I don't see how I didn't suffer some kind of long-term health effect.
An angel helped me get through it. One of our school secretaries holds on to Ains for me in her office for the five minutes between when Ains gets off the bus and when our final bell frees me. This same woman has the coolest head in a crisis I've ever seen; any time trouble goes down in our school, she's the voice of reason who knows who to call and where to go for help. So this saint of a woman told me to sit down and breathe while she called the bus garage, radioed the driver of Ainsley's bus, and tried again and again to reach Ainsley's school's front office. When no one picked up there, she called to the church next door and when the receptionist there wasn't willing to offer help, told her in her best "Don't you dare b.s. me" tone that she had a frantic mom on her hands who needed to know where her child was and the least the receptionist could do was walk over to the school and relay a message since no one was picking up in the office.
Turns out Ainsley's teacher knew where she was: she had drama practice for a play she's in. Didn't I get that schedule?
No. No, I did not.
By the time the secretary got an answer, a couple of teachers who had overheard what was going on were hanging close by in the office to keep me calm and I guess to be there for me if I got worse news. I am pretty reserved and cool, professionally; I don't like to get worked up or get too personal around my co-workers. But when I knew Ains had been found, and was safe and sound in a classroom, I took off my glasses, put my head in my hands, and bawled. I didn't care who saw me. I felt people collectively sigh around me, and some patted my back as they went on with their own dramas. Releasing pent-up adrenaline never felt so good.
It wasn't long, though, before relief turned to anger. How could Ainsley not get the schedule home to me? And how can an elementary school teacher trust that a six-year-old will get such an important paper home and not follow through with parents in the form of a signature sheet or email or SOMETHING?!
I found that I couldn't wait until practice was over to see her. I went up to her school and crept into drama practice. I happened to catch Ainsley going up the stairs to the bathroom.
There were a lot of things I thought I would say. Things like, "Why can't you be more responsible?" and "If you can't let me know what's going on better than this, then you just won't do drama anymore." But what came out instead was a classic mom-ism:
"Do you know that you almost gave me a heart attack?"
And as I looked into her little face, complete with an expression that read, "Duh, mom, I was here at school just like I'm supposed to be," I melted. I just wanted to hug her.
Because the reality is, a story that starts with a kid not getting off a school bus doesn't always have a happy ending.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
The Lump On My Head
It hurts to comb my hair today.
It's neither traumatic nor a brain injury, but it pains me nevertheless. See, I was walking around in my kitchen with my head turned at an angle to the rest of my body because I was trying to see if the odd-colored spot on my kitchen tile floor was a trick of the light or some stubborn stain that wasn't wiping up. The problem with walking around one's kitchen with one's head turned at a funny angle is that one can't see where one is going, and if one isn't coordinated, which this one isn't, one is bound to run into something.
The something I ran into was the sharp corner where the kitchen wall ends and the hallway begins, and it just so happens I ran into it with the top-right side of my head.
Like Cousin Eddie, if I dent that part of my head, well, my hair just ain't gonna part right.
Even though I was only walking, I hit that edge blind with no hesitation or slowing down. It was a hard enough blow to make my teeth clack together and my jaw vibrate, and caused enough immediate pain that when Jason asked me, "Are you okay?" the only response I could throw out was a gruff, "No!" and a walk back to our bedroom to check that none of my teeth had cracked when my jaw smashed shut. Jason later checked me for blood and signs of trauma and I headed to the gym. No worries.
When Natasha Richardson took her fatal fall on the ski slope this winter, a lot of people were wondering how someone could have a grave head injury and not know it. I even read blogs where people were criticizing her decision to send the ambulance away. But I could remember when Ainsley had taken her tumble on the school playground last year and how, until the pediatrician at Children's Hospital ER pulled her hair back to expose a scrape and a bruise, we had no idea that her lethargy and vomiting were due to a concussion and not due to what we were afraid was an elbow fracture. The scariest part of a head injury is that even if you're not knocked out, even if you get up and shake it off, the damage could be done and you won't feel the most alarming of the symptoms until it's too late.
About a half hour after I hit my head, while I was in may car driving to the gym, I realized that I was getting a headache. The pain extended into my cheek and jaw which had gotten slammed shut after the blow. Did I stop what I was doing? Did I give a moment's thought to going back home where someone could at least watch me for signs of an injury? No. Why? Because I'm a mom and I have things I want and need to do and I know my own body well enough to know nothing seriously was wrong. And because it I didn't hit my head very hard.
Which is probably very close to what Natasha Richardson was thinking.
When I worked out and didn't die, I knew for sure I was okay. In the shower after, I realized it hurt to shampoo; that's when I felt the swollen, bumpy ridge that formed where head met sharp edge.
But as Ainsley's pediatrician told me once: a bump isn't so troubling. It's when you hit your head hard and there isn't a bump that you're in trouble.
Later when I tried to check our voice mail and got frustrated because the password I was punching in brought back an error message, and I realized it was because I was typing in the password for our old carrier which we haven't used in something like two years, I had another moment of doubt.
"Crap. Did I do something to my head? Was this momentary confusion just me being tired and scatter-brained, or do I have a little head thing going on? Oh, wait, Mike Rowe and fishermen." I got distracted by Deadliest Catch like a bird catching sight of a sparkly piece of tinfoil.
This morning with a sore head, and a burgeoning migraine no doubt triggered by the mildly hard knock, I'm only a little worse for wear. But next time (and I know myself well enough to know that there will be a next time) will I be more vigilant? Will I again tell myself that the bump on my head is nothing, since it was nothing this time? And will I be right?
Because it only takes the one time of being wrong.
It's neither traumatic nor a brain injury, but it pains me nevertheless. See, I was walking around in my kitchen with my head turned at an angle to the rest of my body because I was trying to see if the odd-colored spot on my kitchen tile floor was a trick of the light or some stubborn stain that wasn't wiping up. The problem with walking around one's kitchen with one's head turned at a funny angle is that one can't see where one is going, and if one isn't coordinated, which this one isn't, one is bound to run into something.
The something I ran into was the sharp corner where the kitchen wall ends and the hallway begins, and it just so happens I ran into it with the top-right side of my head.
Like Cousin Eddie, if I dent that part of my head, well, my hair just ain't gonna part right.
Even though I was only walking, I hit that edge blind with no hesitation or slowing down. It was a hard enough blow to make my teeth clack together and my jaw vibrate, and caused enough immediate pain that when Jason asked me, "Are you okay?" the only response I could throw out was a gruff, "No!" and a walk back to our bedroom to check that none of my teeth had cracked when my jaw smashed shut. Jason later checked me for blood and signs of trauma and I headed to the gym. No worries.
When Natasha Richardson took her fatal fall on the ski slope this winter, a lot of people were wondering how someone could have a grave head injury and not know it. I even read blogs where people were criticizing her decision to send the ambulance away. But I could remember when Ainsley had taken her tumble on the school playground last year and how, until the pediatrician at Children's Hospital ER pulled her hair back to expose a scrape and a bruise, we had no idea that her lethargy and vomiting were due to a concussion and not due to what we were afraid was an elbow fracture. The scariest part of a head injury is that even if you're not knocked out, even if you get up and shake it off, the damage could be done and you won't feel the most alarming of the symptoms until it's too late.
About a half hour after I hit my head, while I was in may car driving to the gym, I realized that I was getting a headache. The pain extended into my cheek and jaw which had gotten slammed shut after the blow. Did I stop what I was doing? Did I give a moment's thought to going back home where someone could at least watch me for signs of an injury? No. Why? Because I'm a mom and I have things I want and need to do and I know my own body well enough to know nothing seriously was wrong. And because it I didn't hit my head very hard.
Which is probably very close to what Natasha Richardson was thinking.
When I worked out and didn't die, I knew for sure I was okay. In the shower after, I realized it hurt to shampoo; that's when I felt the swollen, bumpy ridge that formed where head met sharp edge.
But as Ainsley's pediatrician told me once: a bump isn't so troubling. It's when you hit your head hard and there isn't a bump that you're in trouble.
Later when I tried to check our voice mail and got frustrated because the password I was punching in brought back an error message, and I realized it was because I was typing in the password for our old carrier which we haven't used in something like two years, I had another moment of doubt.
"Crap. Did I do something to my head? Was this momentary confusion just me being tired and scatter-brained, or do I have a little head thing going on? Oh, wait, Mike Rowe and fishermen." I got distracted by Deadliest Catch like a bird catching sight of a sparkly piece of tinfoil.
This morning with a sore head, and a burgeoning migraine no doubt triggered by the mildly hard knock, I'm only a little worse for wear. But next time (and I know myself well enough to know that there will be a next time) will I be more vigilant? Will I again tell myself that the bump on my head is nothing, since it was nothing this time? And will I be right?
Because it only takes the one time of being wrong.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Ode to a Pontiac
Now that the Pontiac brand is no more, does that mean that my 2006 Vibe is a collector's item? Or does it just mean that I drive an obsolete vehicle?
I am going to pretend it's the former even though I know it's the latter.
My family has a tradition on buying cars that aren't produced for very long. I could spin it to say that we're quirky, and adventurous, and nonconformist. But I think the truth is that we're not good car buyers.
Oh, I shouldn't say that. I like my Vibe and the only trouble it's given me is brake trouble and that's just because my local CarX doesn't like to do things right the first time. But perhaps the only reason my Vibe runs so well is that it's not really a Pontiac at all; it's really a Toyota Matrix with a sporty Pontiac grill.
Just like the 1990 Geo Prizm I bought from my dad and drove for 6 years that was really a Toyota.
"Ahh, the Chevrolet Corolla," a technician once said as I rolled my little red car into his shop for a repair.
Just like the Ford Fairmont he was so proud of buying in 1979, my dad had thought that Geo was the next big thing in cars. He totally believed in that short-lived collaboration between GM and their foreign "enemy." The cease-fire was short-lived, though, and once it became the Chevrolet Prizm, it was only a matter of time before that model would see its end. Probably for the best; as we discovered, the Japanese motor in our Geo Prizm mandated that the car would run long after its American body fell apart. And getting repair, or even getting a key made, was an exercise in patience; sometimes the part needed was a Chevy part, sometimes a Corolla part, sometimes something that didn't exist anymore. Driving a car that was half foreign, half-domestic, and not seen all that much by mechanics made for fun times.
So you would have thought I'd learned my lesson. But the lure of my dad's discount (which the family of GM retirees get even after the retiree has passed away) on a car that had a Toyota engine was hard to pass up when we found ourselves car shopping in 2006.
And I was happy. Until now, 3 years in, when I see that Pontiacs are to be a thing of the past.
Despite assurances that I shouldn't be, I'm worried about my warranty. I am worried about getting knowledgeable repair if and when something goes wrong. Jason and I keep cars for a long time; I was planning on keeping my Vibe until, like the Prizm, it literally falls apart at the seams.
And perhaps I will. Perhaps I will be able to take the Vibe into a shop seven years from now and have the technician know exactly how to make it tick. But it already doesn't bode well; the last oil change I got, I heard the following exchange from the guy in the well below the car to the technicians checking the fluids:
"Wait, this is a Pontiac, you said? Then why does it have a Toyota engine? What kind of car is this?"
The kind of car the Cranky family loves to buy, that's what.
Let's talk cars: Have any of you ever driven a car that is no longer made? Are any of you sad to see Pontiac go?
I am going to pretend it's the former even though I know it's the latter.
My family has a tradition on buying cars that aren't produced for very long. I could spin it to say that we're quirky, and adventurous, and nonconformist. But I think the truth is that we're not good car buyers.
Oh, I shouldn't say that. I like my Vibe and the only trouble it's given me is brake trouble and that's just because my local CarX doesn't like to do things right the first time. But perhaps the only reason my Vibe runs so well is that it's not really a Pontiac at all; it's really a Toyota Matrix with a sporty Pontiac grill.
Just like the 1990 Geo Prizm I bought from my dad and drove for 6 years that was really a Toyota.
"Ahh, the Chevrolet Corolla," a technician once said as I rolled my little red car into his shop for a repair.
Just like the Ford Fairmont he was so proud of buying in 1979, my dad had thought that Geo was the next big thing in cars. He totally believed in that short-lived collaboration between GM and their foreign "enemy." The cease-fire was short-lived, though, and once it became the Chevrolet Prizm, it was only a matter of time before that model would see its end. Probably for the best; as we discovered, the Japanese motor in our Geo Prizm mandated that the car would run long after its American body fell apart. And getting repair, or even getting a key made, was an exercise in patience; sometimes the part needed was a Chevy part, sometimes a Corolla part, sometimes something that didn't exist anymore. Driving a car that was half foreign, half-domestic, and not seen all that much by mechanics made for fun times.
So you would have thought I'd learned my lesson. But the lure of my dad's discount (which the family of GM retirees get even after the retiree has passed away) on a car that had a Toyota engine was hard to pass up when we found ourselves car shopping in 2006.
And I was happy. Until now, 3 years in, when I see that Pontiacs are to be a thing of the past.
Despite assurances that I shouldn't be, I'm worried about my warranty. I am worried about getting knowledgeable repair if and when something goes wrong. Jason and I keep cars for a long time; I was planning on keeping my Vibe until, like the Prizm, it literally falls apart at the seams.
And perhaps I will. Perhaps I will be able to take the Vibe into a shop seven years from now and have the technician know exactly how to make it tick. But it already doesn't bode well; the last oil change I got, I heard the following exchange from the guy in the well below the car to the technicians checking the fluids:
"Wait, this is a Pontiac, you said? Then why does it have a Toyota engine? What kind of car is this?"
The kind of car the Cranky family loves to buy, that's what.
Let's talk cars: Have any of you ever driven a car that is no longer made? Are any of you sad to see Pontiac go?
Friday, April 24, 2009
To Live For
I feel most librarian-y when a book order comes in and I rip open the box, hurl the packing paper aside, and dig in to the titles like a kid with a Christmas present. Especially when there's one buzzy title that I am looking for so I can beat out my bookish library aides for the honor of getting first dibs.
I have read a lot in the last couple of months about a YA novel called If I Stay. Written by Gayle Forman, it's gotten the kind of pre-publication buzz in magazines' book sections I don't hear too often for a writer not already known to a base of readers. Heck, it's already been optioned for a movie to be directed by Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke. Before the book was even available for purchase! Color me interested.
No-brainer, then, that when I saw its sky-blue cover in a box this week I grabbed it. And in two sittings, devoured it. It's not perfect, and it's not going to be the next Harry Potter or Twilight or anything, but it's very moving and subtly poses the kind of deep questions only the best books for young minds do.
It's haunting me. As a book largely about death and a teenage girl's decision whether or not to fight to survive after a devastating car accident, it's making me think about my own mortality in a time in my life where I've been seeing death around every corner. With Jason's mom's situation seeming so grim last week, I'd already been thinking a lot about this question: at what point would I just stop fighting? How sick, how in pain would I have to be before I would ask my family to let me go? And then this book comes along, and BLAMMO! I am ready to plan my own funeral.
When Jason's mom went on the ventilator the very first time, we talked about end-of-life issues. Jokingly, I tell him that I am not afraid to die and feel ready to go because at least that way I could get caught up on my sleep. But then I seriously told both him and my mom my wishes and went so far as to print out a living will and fill it out. But then it sat on my desk, the only things keeping it from being recognized in the state of Kentucky being a blank space for my signature and the lack of a notary seal. What if my mind changes? What if "Let me go, don't let me suffer" becomes "By any means necessary"? Or what if I decide I want dramatic life-preserving measures, only to later find my mind trapped in an agonized body with no means of communicating to my family that I want to let go?
I don't think I am ruining If I Stay for anyone if I say that Mia's (the main character's) choice comes down to measuring what and who she has to live for against what kind of life her broken body can give her. In the novel, she can watch everything that is happening to her because she has become disassociated from her body; she can walk around her hospital room, wander to the waiting room, and hear every word the doctors, nurses, and her friends and family say. She also experiences flashbacks where she lsees her childhood acted out before her eyes. Just when it looks like she has made a choice, she experiences a memory that makes her waffle, or sees how someone she loves is reacting to her almost lifeless body, or hears a doctor's prognosis, and she questions whether or not she should stay. Yes, it's just as heartwrenching as it sounds.
So it may seem a grim and morbid blog question to post on a gorgeous spring day, but maybe it will cause us all to have one of those Oprah life-giving moments. Here it is: if you found yourself in Mia's situation or one like it, where would your flashes take you? What are some of the things that would make you stay?
I'll get us started down this dark path. Because this week, that's how I roll.
There are my friends and family, of course. That goes without saying, doesn't it? But like Emily in Our Town, it's really the little things. "Clocks ticking...And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths...and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you!" (Sob.) Here's my list of things to live for, the list of scenes I see when I think about the joys of my life:
1. Getting emotional while reading fine moments in literature, like Emily's monologue at the end of Our Town.
2. Tucking Ainsley in at night after she's asleep and kissing her on the dewy, lavender-lotion-scented dip at the nape of her neck.
3. Trying to unravel the mysteries of Lost (I swear, I will be so mad if I go before I get to see that last episode. Heaven better have HDTV.)
4. Unibroue.
5. Turning my face up to the warmth of the summer sun.
6. Bright, breezy spring afternoons spent with the windows open and James Taylor playing while I cook.
7. Running.
8. Slow dancing with the guy I love.
9. Watching sunrises. And sunsets. Whether from a mountain or a beach or my own backyard.
10. Listening to music. All kinds--from my little girl singing a hymn, to Susan Boyle singing "I Dreamed a Dream", to a symphony orchestra, to a loud rock band.
Feel morbid enough to chime in today? What would keep you in the fight?
I have read a lot in the last couple of months about a YA novel called If I Stay. Written by Gayle Forman, it's gotten the kind of pre-publication buzz in magazines' book sections I don't hear too often for a writer not already known to a base of readers. Heck, it's already been optioned for a movie to be directed by Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke. Before the book was even available for purchase! Color me interested.
No-brainer, then, that when I saw its sky-blue cover in a box this week I grabbed it. And in two sittings, devoured it. It's not perfect, and it's not going to be the next Harry Potter or Twilight or anything, but it's very moving and subtly poses the kind of deep questions only the best books for young minds do.
It's haunting me. As a book largely about death and a teenage girl's decision whether or not to fight to survive after a devastating car accident, it's making me think about my own mortality in a time in my life where I've been seeing death around every corner. With Jason's mom's situation seeming so grim last week, I'd already been thinking a lot about this question: at what point would I just stop fighting? How sick, how in pain would I have to be before I would ask my family to let me go? And then this book comes along, and BLAMMO! I am ready to plan my own funeral.
When Jason's mom went on the ventilator the very first time, we talked about end-of-life issues. Jokingly, I tell him that I am not afraid to die and feel ready to go because at least that way I could get caught up on my sleep. But then I seriously told both him and my mom my wishes and went so far as to print out a living will and fill it out. But then it sat on my desk, the only things keeping it from being recognized in the state of Kentucky being a blank space for my signature and the lack of a notary seal. What if my mind changes? What if "Let me go, don't let me suffer" becomes "By any means necessary"? Or what if I decide I want dramatic life-preserving measures, only to later find my mind trapped in an agonized body with no means of communicating to my family that I want to let go?
I don't think I am ruining If I Stay for anyone if I say that Mia's (the main character's) choice comes down to measuring what and who she has to live for against what kind of life her broken body can give her. In the novel, she can watch everything that is happening to her because she has become disassociated from her body; she can walk around her hospital room, wander to the waiting room, and hear every word the doctors, nurses, and her friends and family say. She also experiences flashbacks where she lsees her childhood acted out before her eyes. Just when it looks like she has made a choice, she experiences a memory that makes her waffle, or sees how someone she loves is reacting to her almost lifeless body, or hears a doctor's prognosis, and she questions whether or not she should stay. Yes, it's just as heartwrenching as it sounds.
So it may seem a grim and morbid blog question to post on a gorgeous spring day, but maybe it will cause us all to have one of those Oprah life-giving moments. Here it is: if you found yourself in Mia's situation or one like it, where would your flashes take you? What are some of the things that would make you stay?
I'll get us started down this dark path. Because this week, that's how I roll.
There are my friends and family, of course. That goes without saying, doesn't it? But like Emily in Our Town, it's really the little things. "Clocks ticking...And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths...and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you!" (Sob.) Here's my list of things to live for, the list of scenes I see when I think about the joys of my life:
1. Getting emotional while reading fine moments in literature, like Emily's monologue at the end of Our Town.
2. Tucking Ainsley in at night after she's asleep and kissing her on the dewy, lavender-lotion-scented dip at the nape of her neck.
3. Trying to unravel the mysteries of Lost (I swear, I will be so mad if I go before I get to see that last episode. Heaven better have HDTV.)
4. Unibroue.
5. Turning my face up to the warmth of the summer sun.
6. Bright, breezy spring afternoons spent with the windows open and James Taylor playing while I cook.
7. Running.
8. Slow dancing with the guy I love.
9. Watching sunrises. And sunsets. Whether from a mountain or a beach or my own backyard.
10. Listening to music. All kinds--from my little girl singing a hymn, to Susan Boyle singing "I Dreamed a Dream", to a symphony orchestra, to a loud rock band.
Feel morbid enough to chime in today? What would keep you in the fight?
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Happy Happy Birthday, Baby
Today Jason joins me in being 35. Finally we're both in that 35--44 demographic, and it's not just me living in middle-age land.
The poor guy has been having a rough couple of weeks. His mom has been hospitalized since March and there have been times when it's looked like she wasn't going to pull off one of her patented miracle recoveries (though I am happy to report that she is finally beginning to turn around) and he's had some tough decisions to make at his job. As always, he has handled it with grace. I would have cracked under the pressure; Jason just battles on. He's calm. He's smooth. He doesn't show stress very often. He's like a guy in an anti-perspirant commercial.
He deserves a good day today. All too often, I use these blog pages to pick on him a little. But today I am going to list all the things that make Jason still the one (cue that Shania Twain song!) Happy birthday, Jason.
1. I find him very handsome and believe he gets more so as he gets older. He looks like the misbegotten love child of Jim Carrey and Cary Elwes, and I mean this in the best possible way.
2. He's funny. Really, really funny. And more importantly, he has passed his sense of humor along to our kid, who without those genes and that example, would just be dark and humorless like her mom.
3. He knows what books I want to read before I know I want to read them. I have blogged about this before because it amazes me. For my birthday and Christmas and our anniversary he almost always gets me a book, and somehow he gets it right every time. He knows if one of my favorite authors has a new book out before I even know, and he knows my tastes well enough to surprise me. Some girls like getting jewels or flowers; I live for the books and have a husband that gets this.
4. He makes just sitting around watching TV fun. He gets excited about the same shows I get excited about (Lost, 30 Rock) and makes watching each one after the kid's in bed kinda like a date.
5. He's my spider killer. This is a talent not to be underestimated.
6. He understands that some Sundays I just need a nap and takes Ainsley out so that I can curl up with a blanket.
7. He is very, very good at his job. He is absolutely the go-to guy at work which can completely suck but which he really complains about less than I would in that same situation.
8. Even though he's a registered Republican, he puts up with my liberal soapboxing and has even allowed himself to be turned a little bit to the dark side (he balks at the idea of registering as a Dem, but he now identifies as an Independent, so my work here is done.)
8. In short, he is awesome.
For those of you that know him, give him some birthday love in the comments.
The poor guy has been having a rough couple of weeks. His mom has been hospitalized since March and there have been times when it's looked like she wasn't going to pull off one of her patented miracle recoveries (though I am happy to report that she is finally beginning to turn around) and he's had some tough decisions to make at his job. As always, he has handled it with grace. I would have cracked under the pressure; Jason just battles on. He's calm. He's smooth. He doesn't show stress very often. He's like a guy in an anti-perspirant commercial.
He deserves a good day today. All too often, I use these blog pages to pick on him a little. But today I am going to list all the things that make Jason still the one (cue that Shania Twain song!) Happy birthday, Jason.
1. I find him very handsome and believe he gets more so as he gets older. He looks like the misbegotten love child of Jim Carrey and Cary Elwes, and I mean this in the best possible way.
2. He's funny. Really, really funny. And more importantly, he has passed his sense of humor along to our kid, who without those genes and that example, would just be dark and humorless like her mom.
3. He knows what books I want to read before I know I want to read them. I have blogged about this before because it amazes me. For my birthday and Christmas and our anniversary he almost always gets me a book, and somehow he gets it right every time. He knows if one of my favorite authors has a new book out before I even know, and he knows my tastes well enough to surprise me. Some girls like getting jewels or flowers; I live for the books and have a husband that gets this.
4. He makes just sitting around watching TV fun. He gets excited about the same shows I get excited about (Lost, 30 Rock) and makes watching each one after the kid's in bed kinda like a date.
5. He's my spider killer. This is a talent not to be underestimated.
6. He understands that some Sundays I just need a nap and takes Ainsley out so that I can curl up with a blanket.
7. He is very, very good at his job. He is absolutely the go-to guy at work which can completely suck but which he really complains about less than I would in that same situation.
8. Even though he's a registered Republican, he puts up with my liberal soapboxing and has even allowed himself to be turned a little bit to the dark side (he balks at the idea of registering as a Dem, but he now identifies as an Independent, so my work here is done.)
8. In short, he is awesome.
For those of you that know him, give him some birthday love in the comments.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Out of the Mouth of Ains: Similes
The kid had a really bad bike wreck Friday. The kind that makes a parent stop what she's doing and run to the scene rather than waiting for the kid to shake it off. She came down the hill of our street full-tilt-boogie, not even applying the brake or trying to turn until she was in driveway at the end of the circle, heading for a collision with a garage door. By then it was too late, and her cheap little Strawberry Shortcake bike tipped and off she went in a roll that pitted skin against concrete. And that's a battle skin is going to lose every time.
I was surprisingly calm. When I saw her hit so hard that she rolled from front to back and back to front again, instead of thinking, ohmygodohmygodohmygod, I just thought, Well, I guess we're spending the rest of the afternoon in the emergency room getting something x-rayed. I've come a long way, baby.
Besides losing most of the skin on her bottom left leg and right elbow, and having a deep purple bruise on the top of her thigh from where she rolled over the handlebars, she's fine. She swore she was never riding her bike again, and then was out an hour later. That first night in the bathtub, she threw a fit as the concrete burns hit the water. You probably remember what that was like; after my last bad bike wreck at age 15, I decided that submerging a large, deep scrape into tap water would be a pretty effective way of torturing information out of someone.
Needless to say, the shower has been her cleansing method of choice these last few days.
Monday night she sucked in her breath when the water first hit her still-not-completely-scabbed leg.
"Owwie, owwie, owwie!" she said. "This booboo hurts like hell!"
Bear in mind that this fall "hell" was one of her spelling words at her Catholic school. I knew this was coming.
"Ainsley, don't say that. Remember when we talked about that word and I told you it was only okay to use it when you're talking about the place, like in religion class?"
"But I am talking about the place," she said, annoyed with my ignorance. "What do you want me to say instead? That it hurts like fire?"
Yes, dear, that's much more poetic.
I was surprisingly calm. When I saw her hit so hard that she rolled from front to back and back to front again, instead of thinking, ohmygodohmygodohmygod, I just thought, Well, I guess we're spending the rest of the afternoon in the emergency room getting something x-rayed. I've come a long way, baby.
Besides losing most of the skin on her bottom left leg and right elbow, and having a deep purple bruise on the top of her thigh from where she rolled over the handlebars, she's fine. She swore she was never riding her bike again, and then was out an hour later. That first night in the bathtub, she threw a fit as the concrete burns hit the water. You probably remember what that was like; after my last bad bike wreck at age 15, I decided that submerging a large, deep scrape into tap water would be a pretty effective way of torturing information out of someone.
Needless to say, the shower has been her cleansing method of choice these last few days.
Monday night she sucked in her breath when the water first hit her still-not-completely-scabbed leg.
"Owwie, owwie, owwie!" she said. "This booboo hurts like hell!"
Bear in mind that this fall "hell" was one of her spelling words at her Catholic school. I knew this was coming.
"Ainsley, don't say that. Remember when we talked about that word and I told you it was only okay to use it when you're talking about the place, like in religion class?"
"But I am talking about the place," she said, annoyed with my ignorance. "What do you want me to say instead? That it hurts like fire?"
Yes, dear, that's much more poetic.
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