On City Dads Again!

I forgot to post this here, though I did share it on social media. I wrote this for City Dads Group and it published earlier this year. This time it's about my complete and utter failure to raise my kids bilingually.

Please give it a look. Thanks.

Raising Children to be Bilingual in Baby (Sign) Steps on City Dads.

Standing with my Son's Weird Hair Choices

Poor Buddy has dealt with a lot of criticism of his fashion choices in his short life. Sometimes it's been because he's dressed appropriately for a dance class, but some dumb kids and an ignorant teacher don't think he should be taking dance. Sometimes it's been because he likes to try out non-traditional styles, like nail polish or wearing a skirt. One time it was because of me.

When Buddy was in pre-school he had long hair about half the time. Even when it wasn't "long" it was still often longer than other boys at his day care. When he was three and four years old he liked hair ties and barrettes. One of his favorite looks for a time was to do a top ponytail. He looked like a cross between a samurai and a 1980s valley girl. The first time he decided to wear this style to school I was torn between wanting to let him do it, and fearing for what the other kids would say to him. I thought about what to say as my wife drove me to my campus, before taking her and the kids to the base where she worked. As I was getting out of the car, I tried to prep him without telling him not to do it.

"Hey Bud, I think your hair looks great. But there's a chance some other kids won't get it, and they might say something mean. I just want you to be ready for that."

It was a total failure. I could see his face fall as I got out of the car. I knew I'd said the wrong thing. My wife called later to tell me that Buddy had taken the hair tie out as soon as they had started driving. He never wore a ponytail again. I had ruined it.

Luckily, I hadn't ruined him entirely. Over the rest of his pre-school years, he went through phases of wearing skirts off and on, wearing nail polish on all ten digits, and acquiring his own set of barrettes so that he could confidently say, "No. I am not wearing my sister's barrettes."

After entering kindergarten his clothing choices became more typical for a boy his age. He does sometimes lament that he can't wear skirts because he doesn't want to have to answer the questions. Since that day in the car, we have always let him do what he wants with his hair. There are times he has to remind me that he wants a haircut because I'm so comfortable with (possibly preferential to) his California boy surfer look when his hair gets long. This year he brought home a letter from school about possible lice exposure in the classroom. The letter suggested that parents check for lice daily for the next two weeks. Buddy wasn't having it. "Dad, can we just shave my head now so I don't have to do all that checking?"  Sure bud, whatever you want. A few days later I rocked a blonde mohawk in support of the Puerto Rican national baseball team's run to the World Baseball Classic championship game. Then I shaved my head to match Buddy. That was in March.

This week is the first week of summer vacation. The kids are home with me since we're all on academic schedules and we're still paying for our move. Camp Dad was the least expensive option and it gives me a chance to relive my SAHD days. We are all very excited. Yesterday I asked Buddy if he wanted a haircut. He asked for three stripes shaved on the top and sides. That was it. I did my best to not bat an eye, though I did pretend to not fully understand so that he'd explain it a few times and confirm that this is really what he wanted. I swallowed my instinctual "They're all going to laugh at you," and went ahead with it, doing my best to at least keep it even.

Later, we went to the playground and the results were predictable. It took about five minutes before a group of older kids (older enough that they should have known better) started in on him. He ran over to me in tears asking to leave. The adult who was in charge of these kids, who were part of some kind of camp at the attached community center, had them come over to apologize. That was good, but I could still hear other kids around a picnic table making comments to each other and looking over at us. I gave them my most stern, disappointed parent look and if you read about me being bullied at computer camp, you can guess that it had absolutely no effect.

As we walked off to a different park I probed Buddy about what he was thinking and feeling. We talked about why kids tease. We drew a comparison to his own behavior with his siblings, and how shutting people down just to feel powerful wasn't the way to live life. We talked about the difference between laughing with and laughing at and agreed that Lou's giggles when she saw him were the fun kind. I asked him if he wanted me to warn him when I thought he was going to make a decision that could result in him being teased. I told him the ponytail story and explained why I was hesitant to offer that kind of advice. He agreed that he didn't want me to offer that kind of warning.

I asked him what he wanted to do. To me the question was about what he wanted to do with his hair. Did he want to shave the rest and have it all evened out. He took the question in a direction I wasn't expecting.

"What do you want to do Buddy?"

"I want to be better about the teasing next time. I want to be able to just say that this is how I wanted it and then ignore them. I really just want to be me, and do the things I enjoy."

Yeah. That was a way better answer than if he'd answered the question I'd thought I'd asked. I was super proud of him in that moment. He has good teachers. He's finally at a school where he can come to that kind of insight. And I suppose we're not hurting as parents. I was inspired.

Later that night I decided that if he wanted to, we were going to back to that playground together and face those kids again. Together. I went into the bathroom and fired up the clippers.

I'm with you Buddy. Always.

Like Everyone

Buddy playing catch with a member of the opposing team after a match. Sometimes you feel like you're doing it right.

Sometimes I have those moments when I feel like a "good parent;" those moments when I feel like a modern day Ward Cleaver. Before my kids were born I had no idea what I would teach them in terms of being people in the world. I didn't have a "parenting philosophy." Sometimes people would actually ask me what my parenting approach was going to be. I think it's because of the popularity of self help books and parenting guides. I had no idea, and really I had no interest. My mom didn't have a parenting philosophy, she did fine. Now that I'm six years and three kids into this adventure I am finding that I do have certain points I try to emphasize with them.

As I've aged I have found that my disposition towards people has changed. I used to hate everyone unless they gave me a reason not to. Through my 20s and 30s I've done almost a complete 180. Now I generally like everyone unless they give me a reason not to. This became important as I navigated corporate and academic politics. It's been a key to whatever success I've had, but until yesterday I had never made it an explicit part of my parenting philosophy. Sure, I had told the kids to "be nice." Last week, when Lou started pre-k there was a girl who was having a very hard time separating from her parents.  I encouraged Lou to sit with this girl and to be extra friendly towards her for the day. My worry was that Lou and other kids would shun this girl because she was melting down in a way that was kind of off putting, especially for a room of four-year-old strangers who were already nervous and in a new place. I was hoping this girl would see that there's at least one friendly face, and that Lou would learn about "loving everyone."

I grew up in Berkeley, California. I am also a member of a church. In both places I have often heard that you should love everyone. I have always felt that this is a tall order. How can I love everyone? Some people are terrible. As I've gotten older I've come to understand this idea more for what it's supposed to mean in terms of finding a way to reserve judgment of people until you know more about them. It's supposed to get you to empathize with strangers as you would with the people you really do love based on knowing them. But it's a hard concept to impart to a child. Especially when my daughter is so friendly she'll happily wander off the porch and down the block with anyone who stops to say hi. It's hard to say "Love everyone, but don't trust people you don't know." Learning to love new people is often bound up in trusting them. Love feels like too tall an order.

This weekend we took a family trip to the beach. We parked at a park and ride where you could get a shuttle to the shore. There was a typically diverse crowd waiting for the shuttle, people of all races, ages, and sizes. While we were waiting Buddy asked each of us about one thing we needed, and one thing we wanted but didn't need. I assume they're teaching this in school, and I'm very happy about that. Then somehow it got changed to naming one thing we loved, and one thing we liked but didn't love. Buddy said he loved everyone in his family, and liked his friends but didn't love all of them. I said I loved my family and that I liked everyone at the shuttle stop.

Buddy was shocked. "Wait, dad, you like everyone at this shuttle stop? How can you do that?" And that's where I felt like I was having one of those important parenting moments, the ones where you hope you're saying something that's going to stick with them and help shape the core of their being. I explained that I like everyone until they give me a specific reason not to. I told him that unless someone does something that hurts me or others I just assume that I like that person. I imparted that if you go into every new interaction assuming that you like the person in front of you and they like you the world opens up to you. As I said it I prayed that the kids were really listening, the way they do when you slip up and yell at a bone headed customer service rep on the phone. They always remember that.

It works (liking people, not yelling a customer service reps). I'd seen it long before I experienced it. I never realized it until recently, but my dad was really good at treating everyone as if he already liked them. I remember being out with him as a kid and he would talk to people many parents would tell their kids to avoid. He never had any problems with it. If he needed a light, or directions, he'd just ask whoever was at hand, and we used to inhabit some pretty rough areas of SF and the Bronx.

I've also seen it in a friend who did more to meet my neighbors in one walk to the store than I had in two years. I had assumed that my neighbors wouldn't like me. I was the male figure in what looks like a white family in a gentrifying area. I worried that my neighbors saw us as the tip of a young hipster professional spear that was going to take over their town and push them out. So I kept to myself, and so did they. Then my friend came to visit. We went for a walk and he said hello to every person who was sitting out on their porch, and they said hello back in a way that was warm and welcoming. I realized that I'd been missing out. I saw that he assumed that he liked them, and that they liked him, and it was true. After that I followed his example and I got to know my neighbors better and it was great.

I don't know what happened with that little girl in Lou's classroom. I know that as of Thursday she was still melting down at drop off. I hope Lou has continued to be kind and welcoming towards this girl. I don't love everyone, and I don't expect my kids to either. (In fact, I sometimes wish they'd love people a little less. They are very quick to show physical affection towards new people.) I do try to go through my days liking everyone though. It's been a positive force in my life and it's one of the few things I'd put into the box labeled "parenting philosophy." I hope my kids can learn to approach everyone with the assumption that they already like each other, then I'll feel like a "good parent."

Having a Reader

 A cool thing happened over the weekend, my son learned to read. Not in a miracle phonics thing you buy off of late night TV way. He's been learning to read for years now. I'll admit, I was actually starting to get anxious about it. He's recently six-years-old and I remember that by six I was reading on my own, a lot. But until last week The Boy wasn't doing it.

It's not that he couldn't read. I was pretty sure that his not reading was due to his general abundance of caution. The kid doesn't like to do anything until he knows he can do it. He's not a huge risk taker. This is a kid who used to walk to the curb, sit down, swing his legs down and then stand up because he didn't trust himself to just step off the edge. So he kept asking that things be read to him, which is fine with books but can get tedious when walking down the street.

"Dad, what does that say?"

"Dad, what does that say?"

"Dad, what does that say?"

"Dad, what does that say?"

"Dad, what does that say?"

I DON'T KNOW!!!! No, not really. But buddy I believe that you can read it if you really want to. He's spent the last several months sounding things out as if they aren't meant to be words. He's been sounding like Dory speaking whale in Finding Nemo, "Puh Huh Own Buh uh uh Ka" No bud, it says "Phone Book."

I don't know what happened over the weekend. Maybe his curiosity finally overcame his fear of failure. The result is that he's reading. Ever since the weekend it's been,

"Hey dad, that says 'bike repair'."

"Hey dad, that says 'beer and wine'."

"Hey dad, who's Jim Beam?"

OK, I swear I'm making these examples up.

The point is that suddenly having a reader is awesome. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Now when I'm cooking dinner and he wants a story he can read one. All on his own. Even better, he can read one to his sister too. The other day in the car he read her Fox in Socks. That's some next level ish for a kid who just a few days before claimed he couldn't read the header on the Cheerios box. Now he's asking me what riboflavin is. (And of course I'm like, "Let's look it up!")

If you already have older kids maybe you know the joy of suddenly having a reader. If you have younger kids, I'm telling you there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Pretty soon your little ones will be able to involve themselves in the joys of textploration, which come to think of it probably comes with a whole other set of parenting pit falls.

But I'm not going to worry about that today. Today I'm stoked that my son just became a little more self sufficient. Me and my buddy Jim can figure out the rest as it happens.

Finding Cair Paravel

The absolute best part of being a stay at home dad is the ability to take spontaneous trips around town. Our area is thick with museums and historical sites. When we first started staying home last year we had a lot of breakfast conversations like this:

"Dad, what's a lynx?"

"It's a big cat, like a puma or something."

"Oh, what does it look like?"

"I don't know, let's go to the zoo and see if we can find one."

And off we'd head to the zoo, or the history museum, or wherever we thought we'd find the answer to that morning's question.

One of my favorite trips was our search for Cair Paravel. It started when I found this article about what are thought to be discarded masonry from an old renovation of the Capitol building. The pictures and article struck me as a chance to do something fun and to get some hands-on history.

I think I'm particularly enamored of this trip because I don't often make up elaborate ruses to entertain the kids. I generally think that there are plenty of amazing and wondrous things about the real world, so that we don't need to add much. Not that I'm a total stick in the mud. I love make believe, and fiction, and movies. I just don't think I need to blur the lines between what's real and what's fanciful as a parenting technique. That said, for some reason I really wanted to have a magical archaeological adventure this time. They were reading the Narnia books at bedtime and had recently read about the Pevensie kids returning to find a ruined Cair Paravel, so I went for it.

Another aspect of the stones is that most of the articles about them are circumspect about their exact location. Part of the fun of the stones is finding them. Also, as one jogger blogger noted, it's probably better to keep some mystery so the stones don't get overrun and ruined. (Though the idea of ruining ruins is interesting to contemplate).

So we set off. I told the kids we were going hiking and looking for the ruins of an ancient castle. Even with the information we had it was tough to find. We ended up doing quite a bit of wandering around, which added to the building excitement and mystery. We even went off the trails in an attempt to find a short cut to another trail head. Going off trail meant going down into a ravine, crossing a stream and then hiking back up the other side. It ended up being a much cooler approach than if we'd found it by taking the right trail.

The kids were mesmerized by the ruins and took to exploring them with the kind of abandon that can worry a cautious parent like me. In that regard it was a good exercise for me in terms of allowing them to climb and explore without hovering and calling out "be careful" every few seconds. That's probably a whole other post, but even though I was a daredevil as a kid and only suffered one major injury I see danger all around when my kids play.






We played the Narnia angle for a while, with my son as Peter and my daughter as both Lucy and Susan depending on how she felt at any given moment. I had to be Edmund, which was OK since I know how things turn out.



After some play time and a snack we talked about why the stones were really there, or at least what they really are. No one seems to know exactly why they're there. It was one of the best days we'd had during my SAHD time. It was a trip that included everything I'd wanted when I started staying home with them, make believe, exercise, and education all in one trip.


For me, that's where the magic is. 

Social Consciousness is a Moving Target

Like all parents there are some things we're doing right, and some thing we're still figuring out. Of course there's also the fact that kids will often just do whatever they want, and that's fine. We are trying to raise our kids to understand and appreciate choice and diversity. We want our daughters to know they can play with action figures and play sports if they want. We encourage our son to play dress-up and wear whatever colors he decides he likes. It's been going pretty well. Even though they are still drifting towards traditional "boy/girl" activities more often than not they do play a lot of games together. Sometimes there are funny reminders that they are still figuring out both themselves and the world around them.

There has been a lot of discussion in my corner of the internet about the lack of female action figures. It started with a father's quixotic search for a Gamora figure, and has moved along to a recent story of Marvel man-washing Black Widow out of a toy line based on her big cool scene in Age of Ultron. I fully support the idea that many boys would want a Black Widow figure. I am certain that many girls would want a Black Widow figure. My kids typically want their toys to be the same gender as themselves. The Boy does play with his Wonder Woman Lego figure, but he typically decides that his stuffed animals are boys, and insists that his version of El Toro Loco is driven by a man even though the driver was Becky McDonough when we went to the show.

So sure, that makes me a little sad, but he's being himself. All I can do is provide opportunities and messaging, I can't make those decisions for them. On the other hand there are places where we are definitely succeeding. (Though maybe success/failure isn't the right way to frame the previous discussion.) My kids think it is perfectly normal for two people of the same gender to get married.

Doing "girl things"

Where it gets interesting for me is when these two areas intersect. This morning as we were waiting for the bus the kids started playing house with some twigs. The Boy had the two larger twigs so he took the role of the parents. Lou had the smaller stick so she took the role of the child. The part that caught my attention is that The Boy's aversion to playing a female character led to him declaring that his sticks were "two men who got married." My internal reaction could be described as "YayD'oh" (TM pending).

As with many things about parenting I don't see this as problem that needs fixing. The kids are going to pretend what they will. I do think it's an interesting window into their development as socially conscious people. I look forward to tomorrow's chuckle worthy gem from my little developing minds.

The Unrequited Best Friend

Lou and her new BFF

Lou has had the same best friend for almost her entire life. She's been talking about this kid since the time she was able to talk and engage in cooperative play. She has gone as far as to declare that she will marry this other little girl, "if I can still find her when we're grown ups." The thing is, the few times I've seen them together at daycare this girl looks like she wants nothing to do with Lou. The people at daycare have told my wife that the two kids play together all the time. I wonder if what they're seeing is Lou following this girl around and assuming that's a friendship.

We've tried to nurture the relationship. We've left our contact information for the girl's parents, but they've never called. We met them once at pick up after Parent's Night Out and they kind of blew us off. Lou hasn't been to daycare in a few months now, and now that she's not full time she's not always in the same room as the other girl. Still, my wife and Lou made special trip down to the center just to drop off a birthday party invitation for her.

The invitation was somehow misplaced. We got an email from a parent saying that a kid we'd never heard of would be attending and thanking us for the invitation. This happened despite the invitation being addressed to Lou's best friend by name. T called the daycare to ask if they could leave a note for the best friend's parents explaining what happened and hoping the kid could come to the party. We never heard back. This was the only friend Lou had invited.

The day of the party, as the guests arrived and the kids played Lou wandered around the house looking bummed. She kept saying she was fine, but after some prodding she finally asked, "When will she get here?" I had to explain again that we hadn't heard back from the kid's parents and that we didn't know if she was coming. Lou eventually came around but the first hour and a half of the party was a dud for her. It sucked. But it was the next few days that have been heart breaking.

It seems like Lou may have finally given up on this kid, which is fine. But she's been replacing her in the role of "best friend" with an assortment of characters that makes me want to scoop her up and hold her and tell her she's too young to be turning into Miss Havisham.

Her first replacement was Lentil, the cleft lip dog who has been sending her gifts as part of being in Lentil's fan club. She started talking about Lentil just like she had been talking about this girl from daycare. So yeah, Lentil is on the list for next year's birthday party. In some ways this mirrors her obsession with her previous "best friend," in that there's some relationship established, but it's not a real friendship. At least she had actually interacted with the little girl, she's only ever gotten letters from Lentil.

Her second declaration is the one that really got me. We were eating dinner on the deck when she declared that carpenter bees were her best friend because they would never sting her. She has continued with the bees for the last week. She also likes them because there are a lot of them so they're always around.

Oh honey sweetie baby. Oh my darling Lou Bean. You will start pre-K next year and hopefully you will meet some actual friends. Until then I hope that space in your heart will be filled by someone or something other than some bees.

I'd never seen a bee tongue before

Yesterday we found a carpenter bee limping around the basement play room. Lou's first reaction was to run upstairs screaming and crying. "But honey," I said, "that's your best friend." She replied that her brother's exclamation upon finding the bee was what scared her. My normal inclination is to kill things that enter my home. But I just read a meme the day before about nursing tired bees back to health using sugar water. And bees are important so I took the bee outside and gave it a spoon of sugar water.

When I showed Lou she was thrilled to see her best friend eating. It was pretty cool. I'd never seen a bee's tongue before. Both kids got to have one of those cool at home educational experiences, and I got to be cool hero dad for ten minutes.

In the end the bee took some time to recoup, then it flew away. I learned later that it's probably rejoined its hive and that the lot of them are probably chewing through my floor joists. Now I'll have to Fredo the bees and hope my daughter can find a human friend, and that she never ever finds out what I've done.

These Kids Aren't the Kids I Expected

My mother's grandparents (top) and parents (bottom)

I had it all wrong. Well, I guess we had it all wrong, but that includes me.

When my wife and I got engaged we knew right away that we wanted to start having kids as soon as we were married. We spent our year-long engagement talking about our future family. Some of this discussion involved preparing T for being the white mother of tan babies. T is mostly of Irish descent, I am mixed with Puerto Rican (which is really a mix already), Japanese, and what my mother called "Euro Potpourri." We figured that the various darker sides my heritage would dominate our children's gene expression. We were wrong.

My father's parents

My son was born at 9 pounds and with blonde hair and blue eyes. All of a sudden I was the one who had to adjust to looking different than my son. I prepared my "I'm not the nanny" speech, with different versions of different lengths. It was an adjustment. It wasn't terrible, but it was an adjustment. My daughters have darker hair and look more Asian than my son, though the baby's eyes are still undeclared.

There have been a few mix ups over the years, though fewer than I expected. My wife tells me that other parents and people at day care have assumed that my kids have different fathers. There was the time at the ER when the doctor refused to start talking until he could determine why I was standing so close by. That was a weird one. He called out our name, T approached with Buddy in her arms, and I approached behind them with Lou in tow. The doctor kept looking away, then looking at me, then looking away again, but not saying anything. He finally made gesture to T that said, "what is going on? Who is that guy? Should I say something?" T told him who I was and you could see his shoulders relax and the red start to drain from his face.

Another time my wife went to fill a prescription for my son and had the Asian American pharmacist tell her, "You know that's a Japanese name right?" "Yes," T answered, "he's named after his father who is Japanese." I have always wished she'd have added, "You know Annabelle is a European name?"

For the most part it's been easy, but there are still things that catch me off guard. For example, St. Patrick's Day was never a big deal at my house. Sure, there were many years when my mom would make corned beef and cabbage, but at some point we found out my grandfather was part Scottish and only drank like he was Irish. I wore green to school, but that was mostly to avoid being pinched.

It's different now. Thanks to my wife St. Patrick's Day is now kind of a thing for us. This includes making special Irish themed shirts for the kids. I am all for cultural pride, but I'll admit that sending Buddy to school in that shirt made me uneasy. He goes to a predominantly African American school, like I did for many years. Even though I don't identify as white I was considered white by my classmates and I quickly learned to not do anything that highlighted my whiteness. I joked to my brother that I had sent Buddy to school in a "white power" t-shirt, and I worried a little about what he'd face. Nothing happened, which is what I should have expected.

But it's kindergarten and kids are more oblivious to some of this stuff when they're young. What happens as he gets older and everyone becomes more jaded? White people celebrating their culture doesn't bother me. But when it's my own kids I start to have worries that I didn't expect to have. Having the worries makes me uneasy because I feel like I shouldn't worry. I have no idea what I really think about this yet.

Over the years I've tried to keep the kids aware of their Japanese and Puerto Rican heritage because that's what I know, and because it's the side that I think they can most easily lose. I feel that if they just pass for white they'll be treated as white and they'll lose touch with the other components of our cultures.

I've also noticed that I've held on to some anachronistic parenting approaches that don't apply to my kids the way they did to my brother and I. For example, my mom bought my brother a light brown skinned baby doll so that he could have a doll that looked like him. I was thrilled when my cousin gave my daughter a similar doll. I have also felt compelled to color my princesses brown when we color together. I want my kids to see these representations even though the kids are much lighter than my brother or I.

Diversity is good for any kid, I know that my motivations come from wanting to make sure they feel they are represented in their own play. I do this even though the things I'm exposing them to don't really look like them as much as they look like my brother or our cousins. So really it's that I want them to see me in their play. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I think it also goes back to me wanting to make sure they remember the parts of their heritage that I think they are most likely to lose if left to be what the world tells them.

The world is becoming friendlier to mixed people. I think there's less pressure to identify as one thing. And as much as I want them to identify like I identify, I know I need to embrace my kids' Irish side. (Even so, those shirts kind of freak me out.)

Reverse Paternity Leave

My work attire is usually more formal, but don't I look happy?

It's now been about 15 months since I switched things up and became a stay at home dad. When I started I had friends telling me that I'd be clawing at the door begging to go back to work within three months. For me it reminded me of the things I was told before leaving the Bay Area for LA back in college.

One of the main things I was told by friends who had stayed home is that it's impossible to get anything done when the kids are around. This confused me at first, I wasn't sure what things weren't going to get done. It turns out that they meant doing work from home. They're right about that, the thing I felt like I had going for me was that I wasn't going to try to do work at home. After all, I was a "stay at home dad", not a "working from home and hoping the kids don't bother me dad." For the most part that has held true. I have continued to teach night classes, which has meant doing some lesson planning and grading while at home, but if I were less lazy I could do that at night after the kids go to bed. If I decided to be a work at home parent I might be further along in my dissertation, but I decided to make the kids the priority when I'm home, and I regret nothing.

It's actually been harder this fall and spring now that the Boy is in school. I had more fun doing things with both kids, and they did a lot to occupy and entertain each other. It's been harder now that it' been just me and Lou. She relies on me more for companionship now, even though she has shown that she is much more independent than her brother when it comes to entertaining herself.

A couple months after I started staying home I brought the kids to the playground and overheard two young mothers talking about how they couldn't wait to go back to work. "Suckers" I thought to myself. Who would look forward to going back to bosses and customers (and their unreasonable expectations) and schedules and meetings, and an almost total lack of naps? Who would choose that over sleeping in and trips to the park and going to museums and going sledding on empty hills? Crazy talk if you ask me. I warned my wife that if we were able to work it out so that I could stay home she may never convince me to get a real job ever again.

Yes, I know, being at home is a "real job" etc. Except that to me it's not. It's work. It's not easy all the time. But it's not a "job" with all the external expectations and pressures that the word "job" connotes for me. My resolve to never have a job again has been strengthened by the arrival of our third child. Not just because I love her and want to spend all my time with her, but because of the cruel twist her birth has imposed upon me.

At around 20 weeks my wife floated the idea that I should work while she was on maternity leave. I was immediately shocked and offended. Mostly because I really really didn't want to. I'm sure the first thing I did was totally obviously roll my eyes and make a face. After that I think I said, "Sure. Yeah. I could do that."

Thus began my reverse paternity leave. (Paternity Work Detail?)

After a scant two weeks home with the baby I was out in the world, wearing a tie, interacting with adults. It was brutal. Honestly, much respect to you working parents, I don't know how you do it. Waking up in the morning wasn't so hard. I usually get up to get the Boy to school anyway, but now I'm expected to shower before 9:00am. I have other people telling when I can eat. I usually like to have breakfast at 10:00 and lunch at 12:30. That's not flying right now. I like to sleep when the baby sleeps, even when "the baby" is my three-year-old. That's not happening right now.

Part of it is that I'm doing this to myself. My wife said she thought I'd pick up 6-10 hours a week. I've been doing 6 hours a day, 3 to 4 days a week. The thing is, when I do something I like to do it all the way. So if I'm home I plan on being 100% home. If I'm working I want to be all in at work and give my employer as much bang for the buck as possible. I'm not really wired to do things by halves.

There have been positives to being back at work. The money is nice. I've enjoyed catching up with colleagues. I like seeing my former students. I've had chances to make new connections and line up new projects. I'll be teaching again in the fall, and I have done some freelance writing and editing and consulting over the last year, and hope to continue doing that, so it's been good getting my face and name out there to some new folks.

In some ways my reverse leave has been a nice break, even though it's a lot of work. But much like those young moms at the park, I can't wait to get back to my real job.

My Child is Special Needs, Until She's Not

I sometimes feel guilty when I say that my child has special needs because I know that it's a cheat. Sort of.

The thing is, I know her needs will end, where as for so many parents of special needs children it will never end.

Lou was born with a surprise complete bilateral cleft lip and palate. In hindsight it was actually perfectly clear on the sonogram, if you knew what to look for, which my wife and I did not. We would have expected our midwife to catch it, but since she later lost her license after several instances of gross malpractice it's no surprise now that she missed it also. But it was a surprise at the time. Sort of. (UPDATE: T tells me the radiology person should have seen it, not the midwife.)

My uncle had been born with a cleft lip and palate, but only on one side. This was in the 1950s, in Pakistan, where my grandfather was working for some kind of NGO. The story that was passed down to me was that by the age of three my uncle was still just babbling. Doctors told my grandmother that because of the cleft my uncle was retarded (that's what they called in 1959) and would never learn to speak. It turns out he was just speaking a very obscure dialect of Urdu, which he learned from spending 10 hours a day with his nanny. While T was pregnant with Lou I used to joke that she was totally going to have a cleft. Then she did.

Lou was born at home (with a different midwife, not the one who lost her license) so we had no idea what to do with her. This was the midwife's 700th birth and it just so happens that the instance of clefting is about 1/700. She didn't know what to do either. Within two hours were at our pediatrician's office, and an hour after that we were the cleft clinic open house at our local hospital. We were lucky that Lou had been born on cleft clinic day. Right there we met the entire team that would be responsible for her care for the next 18 years. everyone who came in with her chart (case manager, surgeon, audiologist, speech pathologist, ENT, geneticist) did a double take when they read that T had delivered three hours prior and was sitting there asking questions about Lou's future. (T is a super hero). All the specialists kept using the phrase "severe facial deformity." That wasn't fun, especially since she was so cute. The worst part of the trip was learning that Lou would not be able to nurse. The best part was learning that early and being given the special feeders she'd need.

So we took her home and immediately nick named her "Zoidberg" because that is how we cope with stress.

People hear about her cleft and the first comment they usually offer, "Oh, well that's no big deal. They can fix that now." And they're right. Sort of.

The clefting is a relatively easy fix, especially the way they used to do it in the 1950s, all at once and right away. I assume they dealt with the further issues later, but I don't really know. No one in my family seems to remember. But right, she'll have totally normal function by the time she's 20. She'll always have a scar and she'll never have cupid's bow, and part of me will always wish she'd been a boy, because boys have an easier time looking a little rugged. Peyton Manning had a cleft, he's not considered ugly and I bet you didn't even notice. (You can hear it in his speech if you know what to look for).  But she'll be fine.

To get to that point though she will need three or four surgeries on top of the two she's already had. All told it's a lip closure, palate closure, nose job, jaw realignment, tooth insertion or removal (depending on what her teeth do), and a possible palate lengthening (to help produce speech). But after all that she'll be fine. If it seems like a lot (or even if it doesn't) it's a lot. Seeing a three month old baby come out of anesthesia with a huge scar on her face is not fun. Having to do it again seven months later isn't fun.

The surgeries made feeding complicated. Well, more complicated. That T was hell bent on only giving Lou breast milk for the first year was also complicated. That part of it meant T was pumping eleven times a day at first, for 40 minutes or more each time. She later reduced that to about eight times a day. Still, that meant that not only did we have to plan every outing anywhere at any time around T's ability to pump, it also meant that even when she was at home she wasn't available half the time. This second fact was especially hard on our two year old son. That much pumping was also draining for T, both physically and emotionally. She happily nursed our oldest for two years. Spending twelve months as a dairy cow was not as rewarding.

I know how this reads to people who have experience with special needs children, "Being inconvenient isn't the same as a really having special needs." You're right. But there's more. Lou qualifies for and requires special services. She's had free in home speech therapy through the county. She'll have IEP and qualify for early entry services in public pre-K. This means dealing with the admin side of having a special needs child. Lots of meetings, and follow up meetings. She faces scrutiny in public, from honest comments from other kids, to ignorant comments from adults, to teasing on the playground. Luckily all of these have been rare so far, but I worry about her going to school. Still, by the time she's 20 she'll be totally "normal."

That's why it feels like a cheat. That's why I feel guilty saying that my daughter has special needs. Because even though that's true right now, it's going to end, and the end is going to be fine. Meanwhile I know people who have kids that really have special needs. Kids who have had open heart surgeries within minutes of birth. Kids who eat through tubes. Kids who have cognitive or neurological issues that may not ever go away. Unlike some parents I won't have life long fears for her. Her situation isn't life threatening. With a series of painful and invasive medical interventions she'll grow out of it. So whenever I think about the things Lou needs that my other kids don't, whenever I schedule a determination meeting or register for support services I feel a little guilty. I feel like there should be another category for people like us, for people who have short term needs. I wish there were a category that didn't make me feel like I was disrespecting the struggles of other parents who don't have a light at the end of the tunnel.

Photo by Jessie Ambler Photography

Why I Went to Ferguson

It's now the end of March, 2015 and the DOJ has released their reports on the shooting of Michael Brown and their investigation of the Ferguson Police Department. The reports are mixed if you're a proponent of the "Black Lives Matter" movement. I'll admit, I haven't read the reports themselves, and I probably won't. I have read about them and the conclusions seem to be that while the department was rife with racism and rights violations, the shooting of Michael Brown was likely not the injustice we believed it was. Whether the DOJ report sways you or not is up to you. I personally believe in the DOJ investigation, in part because I supported the call for them to investigate and I feel like I have to stand by the result. That may seem weird given that I did not stand by the findings of the grand jury who examined the case. But I have more faith in a Federal investigation into this kind of crime. I also still believe that Darren Wilson is guilty of something, even if I don't know what that is, and I firmly believe that there could have been, and should have been options available to him in subduing a suspect under these circumstances. Though our understanding of the facts in the Brown case may have changed, that doesn't change the importance of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, which has become about more than just Michael Brown.

Even with that exhaustive introduction, I'm not actually here today to discuss the merits of the DOJ reports or the case itself. I know that while I have outrage and consternation, I don't have any insight into that aspect of the case. Instead I'd like to go back to August of 2014, when I went to Ferguson.

I'll be honest, even after the decision was made I didn't know why I was going.  Well, I knew why I was going. I was going because my wife had decided that the only thing she wanted for her birthday was for us to go to Ferguson, to march, as a family. In a way I understood. We had been sitting watching things unfold with a feeling of total helplessness. Posting on Facebook to an audience that was largely already on our side wasn't very satisfying. We wanted to help, but I didn't know what going to Ferguson would accomplish. There were already people there, what good, what difference, would the four of us make? But I am notoriously bad at giving gifts, so when my wife proposed this trip I agreed without hesitation. I wish I could say I made the decision for a more noble reason, but initially it was really just so I could give my wife something she really wanted for her birthday. So we decided to make the seventeen hour drive to Ferguson on a Friday night (so the kids could sleep the whole way and feel less of an impact) and come back Sunday night.

In the days leading up to the trip, and on the drive we talked about our goals for being there. My biggest fear was that we would end up as "Disaster Tourists." My wife's feeling was that she wanted to go for several reasons. She wanted to show that non-Black people care about these issues. She wanted to be a white face in the crowd in order to show that this is an American issue, not just an African American issue. She didn't mean that in the tone deaf manner of the misguided "All Lives Matter" people. She wanted to show that people of different races, and from different places, care about what's happening in a small suburb of St. Louis that most of us had never heard of before. She also wanted to show the kids that activism is important. We had been talking with them about Ferguson for a couple weeks at that point, and she wanted them to see that you can get involved in world events, rather than just sitting back and watching them unfold. I agreed with these reasons, but I was still uneasy.

I didn't actually do any marching in Ferguson. I dropped off my wife and daughter at the march and went off to secure our motel and get some sleep, as I'd done the bulk of the over night driving. Later on I drove to pick them up at the same McDonald's where police had harassed journalists in the early days of the protests. Driving down W. Florissant Ave. past the burned out gas station and the boarded up BBQ place that had a Clerks-like "We're open" spray painted on the outside was surreal. The thing I noticed though, was that at that time Ferguson had the most polite drivers and pedestrians I'd ever seen. Whatever was happening in that community had either created, or maintained, incredible civility towards each other. The McDonald's parking lot was packed, but no one was frustrated. People waved other drivers ahead, merged efficiently, and allowed pedestrians to pass. The pedestrians checked and made eye contact and acknowledged the drivers. It was astounding. The sense of community was palpable.

I started to figure out why I was there as I started to interact with people. The 900 mile trip meant we needed an oil change while we were there. While sitting in the car at the Valvoline on W. Florissant the attendant asked us why we in town. She was clearly surprised by the answer that we were there to protest. "Why?" she asked. At that moment, in that conversation, it was clear that we were there to do more than just show up and observe and be seen. We were there to meet people and talk to them, and to show that the media attention had an actionable result. The woman at the Valvoline and many others we met seemed both surprised and appreciative of the idea that the protesters could inspire a family to not only agree with their message, but to come down to hear it first hand. We were there to represent people from other parts of the country. We were there to show the community that they were not alone, that their message was being heard.

We went to church at St. Stephen's the next morning. The priest, as we expected, discussed the on-going situation in his sermon. The parish welcomed us and wanted to hear our story. They asked if anyone was celebrating a birthday, and I outed my wife who was given a cross on string as a gift. We saw what the church had been doing in the weeks since the Michael Brown shooting. They had an overwhelming pantry of donated food and clothing. The parishioners told us they had been serving many hundreds more people since the protests began than they did during calmer times. They were also re-donating food to larger shelters and congregations. People had come to them saying that there were older people in the Canfield area who were in need of food and toiletries but couldn't go out for them because they were either afraid, or because the stores were closed. The church was trying to find out how to identify these people and get them supplies, while also being unobtrusive.



Talking to parishioners helped to understand another reason for me to have made the trip. I was there so that people could tell me their views, and I could bring them back to my community. The view of the people I talked with was that they were with the protesters, and against the rioters who they saw as being an outside element. They wanted people to know that their community was generally peaceful, but that they were all fatigued by the kind of injustice later revealed in the DOJ report. They wanted people to know that they were a normal community going through a tough time, and pulling together, and supporting each other.

That's what I witnessed. That's what I brought back with me. That's what I told people in conversations about Ferguson. The people of Ferguson are ordinary people, just like people in any other city in America. All they want is to be able to get up and go to work and live their lives without being harassed, or beaten, or shot. They are people who decided they'd had enough and rose up and said so.

Regardless of how their community is portrayed, or reported on, they just want the message to come through that they're us. So that's why I was there, to internalize the experience, and the message. To try, in a small way to remind the rest of us that the people of Ferguson are just that, people. Regular people, who were put into an unusual circumstance, who helped shift the national focus and the national conversation, but who want us to know that they're really just us.

Dad

Tonight I did something I haven't done in several years, several more years than the four represented on the death certificate, I sat down and had a beer with my dad.  The last time I remember doing this, just the two of us, has to be around 1998.  He was managing a movie theater in San Mateo, California (or somewhere equally foreign to  Berkeley boy with no car) and he insisted that we walk around to the other side of the mall and have a couple tall boys in the parking lot.

The next time I remember seeing him we didn't drink, which was a bit of a surprise.  Dad always drank.  But this next time I saw him he was in his apartment and a problem with his foot wouldn't allow him to get around like he used to.  This time it was 2003 and I was there to extend an olive branch and invite him to my wedding.  He showed me around the apartment building, the pool, his car, the cute neighbor.  That was one of the few times we talked about our past.  About him disappearing for long stretches of my childhood.  It was one of the few time I got a glimpse of his shame though he never said "I'm sorry."  Through that shame shone the same man I'd come to know over the years.  The one who didn't understand that a kid doesn't need a hero or a grand gesture, all he needs is a dad.  All he needs is the dad he remembers best.  Not the one with presents or an old Cadillac, but the one who can throw a football in the park or who has just enough money for a malt in the bleachers.  He wanted me to forgive him then, as he had when he'd first gotten back in touch again, after vanishing for a period of years.  Again. What I had to offer him was a wedding invitation.  He accepted though he didn't actually come.  By the time the wedding came he couldn't drive.  His foot condition had gotten worse.  His helper was supposed to bring him but something came up. 

The next time I remember seeing my dad, or even talking to him was a few years later.  I was bringing my new fiancee, or maybe she was still "just" a girlfriend at the time, to meet him.  We went out for Mexican food.  I took a short video of them dancing in the restaurant.  I think it was the last time I saw him.  He didn't make it to that wedding either.  Diabetes had taken his sight and his mobility.  He'd already survived throat cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, at least one pneumonia induced coma, alcoholism, heroin addiction, and the Bronx.  He was in no shape to travel.  I couldn't commit myself to keeping in touch.  After all, this was the man who'd abandoned me so many times and who kind of shrugged off my attempts to hash this out.  I knew he was sorry, I knew he was as damaged by it as I was but I just didn't care.  I wanted my pound of flesh.

My wife got pregnant at just about the very first possible chance after we were married.  My mom had been dead for a year already at that point and my contact with that side of the family was dissolving.  I kept meaning to call my dad and tell him but something, friends, work, resentment, always came up.  Besides, we were waiting three months before telling people because we knew the statistics.  About a week before we were ready to tell the world that there would indeed be another generation of the Santiago line I came home to find a business card stuck in the screen of my front door.  It was from farther away than I'd have expected and my first thought was that my grandmother had been compelled to drive farther than she should have.  When I called the number and got the news I couldn't believe it, mostly because I'd expected to hear it twenty years earlier.  Then ten years earlier, then five.  "We regret to inform you that your father is dead.  He was found by a friend.  Here are some numbers where you can reach people who knew him."

While my dad's death was a shock it wasn't really a surprise.  The amazing thing is that he'd lived this long.  My senior year of college I'd spent three weekends driving from Los Angeles to the Bay Area to be by his side because the doctors swore "He's going to go this weekend."  This was his pneumonia (and vodka and pills) induced coma.  After three weeks he still wasn't dead.  I stopped going.  Two weeks later they found him wandering around the ICU.  He'd woken up suddenly, pulled all the tubes out and was trying to go home.  He'd been on a respirator.  He had a tube running down his nose to his stomach to feed him.  None of that seemed to matter to him, he just pulled it all out which means he was either on a ton of pain meds or just a complete bad ass.  Whenever we'd discuss any of his seemingly life threatening ailments later he'd always come back to one explanation, which he'd draw out in his raspy, one-lunged-life-time-smoker rattle, "Nothing can kill me, I'm from the Bronx."

In the end he was right.  It wasn't the various cancers that got him.  It wasn't the diabetes or the vodka.  In the end the only thing that could kill my dad was himself.  One day he called his case worker, told him what he was going to do, took a shit load of who knows what, laid down in his La-Z-Boy and went to sleep.  I got the card from the coroner's office a few days later. A few days before I was really going to call and tell him he was going to be a grandfather.  A few days before I might have given him something to live for.

I've carried that guilt with me the last four years as I've watched my son grow up without half his heritage.  I don't know if my dad would have been any better a grandfather than he was a father, but I wish we'd had the chance to find out.  Now, instead of answers or apologies, I have a five by seven by three inch box.  It's strange to think that all that we are can be distilled to 105 cubic inches.  I always felt like I was going through the motions when I tried to openly converse with the dead.  There's something about talking to a headstone or a photo that always seemed like I was just acting out a trope from a thousand staged dramas.  But recently it's felt real.  So tonight I sat down to have a beer with my dad.  To forgive him. To thank him for the good things I remember. For the lessons he provided, if not by instruction, then by example.

I love you dad.  I miss you.  I wish you could have met Feechy Jr.  Thank you for giving me baseball.  Thank you for buying me that yellow Pittsburgh Pirates pill box cap even though we were at a Giants game.  For letting me love Willie Stargell.  For letting me see those old rainbow Astros unis in person.  For letting me steer the van as a kid.  For teaching me about the Three Stooges, Little Rascals, and Honeymooners.  For taking me to one of the last lunch counters.  For giving me some moxie.  For that little taste of the South Bronx.  For my name, for my looks, thank you.

I love you dad.  I forgive you.  Happy Father's Day.

The Puppy Phase

Ruff!

I can’t believe I haven’t read about this somewhere else.  I mean really, with all the parenting stuff out in the world I can’t believe no one has mentioned the “Puppy Phase.”  Perhaps I am the first to have the perfect storm of Chihuahuas and child under one roof but it’s so clear to me I can’t believe it’s not already a thing.

Sorry, what the hell am I talking about?  I’m talking about the never ending need to dissect every phase of a baby’s development and give it a cute name.  I seem to remember that when my brother was a baby he was a “baby,” then a “toddler, “ then a “kid.”  The third phase lasted until he was a “teenager.”  Nice, simple, four steps to adulthood.  Not anymore.  It seems my son has been a “newborn”, an “infant”, a “pre-crawler”, a “crawler”, and a “cruiser.”  Soon he will be a "waddler," then a "toddler.”  I’m sure I’m missing some intermediate labels from that list.  Still, there’s seven stages before he can eat with utensils.  It’s madness.  And, as one who sees madness and endeavors to heighten it to a truly absurd levels I am now identifying, codifying, and proposing a new developmental stage, the “Puppy Phase,” which slots between “crawler” and “cruiser.”

As you may be able to guess the Puppy Phase is based on a child’s similarity, at this phase, to a dog.  During the puppy phase the child exhibits many dog-like qualities.  For example, many babies this age do not have the lip dexterity to smooch the way most humans are used to.  Instead they show affection with a type of open mouthed slobbering, much like being licked by a small St. Bernard.  This, along with babies tendency to chew everything they see, is probably the least noticeable aspect of the puppy phase, which is largely centered around mobility.

When my son learned to crawl it was a joyous occasion for all of us.  For him he was now relieved of the frustration he had found when he learned to throw his toys weeks earlier than he was able to retrieve them.  For me it meant we could now play fetch, which was way more fun than playing sit still.  Usually fetch involved my son or I throwing a ball or other toy and my son crawling off to fetch it and then either throw it again himself or bring it back to me; in his mouth.  The puppy phase started to show when he decided he wanted go visit his mother in the dining room, clamped a small novelty Frisbee between his teeth and headed off. 

Children this age also display other mobility related puppy behaviors.  For example a pre-lingual child in the puppy phase will careen off towards the door emitting shrieks whenever he hears the mail slot open or the lock turn.  The child will sit dutifully at the feet of anyone who seems to be eating.  If they are not fed (or if they just want attention) they will then raise up on their hind legs (like a little Rory Calhoun) and emote until they are fed, pet, or cuddled.

Other behaviors associated with the puppy phase include following you around the house, the afore mentioned desire to chew everything, and the need to curb occasional biting.  The puppy phase generally lasts a few weeks, can overlap with the “cruising” phase, and ends when the child starts standing or walking.

GRRRRRRRR!!!!

Excerpt 1983

“I hate you! I hate you!” I screamed at him small and red faced, smudged and salt streaked with tears. “You stupid little bastard. Sometimes I wish I could just give you away.” He wailed and crumbled in the back seat in the car and my anger, fed by pleasure blazed in viciousness.

The perfect excuse for anger, for letting loose of control.

My feelings have been so bad lately, so frustrated, lashing out. Crippled by depression – the job, feeling hurt, hopeless, confused, who, what, why. Feeling hateful, it’s draining. Pencils in my back. I can’t concentrate on work and I make lists that irritate me. I don’t want to exercise. Ugly times and fights at work. Don’t want to be there.

I fly off the handle when I find my son has lost his second set of $55 dental equipment. “I want to die!” he cries. Superstitious thoughts spring into my mind. What if, because I’m cruel, it happened?

Where’s Martin when I need him? The bell rings and rings, he’s not home. Is he alright? (How will I be punished? My worst most frightening fantasies coming true?)

My child is not happy either. He imitates me in temperament and action. “I can’t do anything. I’m useless.” he sobs. I’m mad at myself because I’m so absent minded.

But in some way maybe this is a growing point for us. Tito is less of a child because he is starting to split from me. I have to treat him like a big boy, to share my feelings. Maybe it’s wrong to tell your children your problems but I can’t handle them alone.

Maybe I’m poisoning him. I’m showing him an immature way to react to problems. I was treated that way, it’s what I know and I pass this horror to my son.

I love him, I just don’t know how to.

Cheated

Recently, during the end of a family evening, I felt the loss of my mother more acutely than I have in a while. It was during a conversation about my in laws. My wife and I have been on the outs with them for about six months and when we were discussing it this time she hit on an important issue. One of the big issues is that they don’t seem to put any value or priority in getting to know their grandson. And the thing is that whatever they’re mad at us about has become so important to them that they’d rather avoid us than see him. All this continues despite my wife’s attempts to put aside her own discomfort with them to get the family together. While discussing this I felt void left by my mother’s death as if it had just happened. Our lives would be so different if she were still here.

My mother would have wanted to see Ryu as much as possible. In my day dreams, where my mother is alive and well and living just a mile and a half away, we see her three or four times a week. We’re there for dinner because we were passing by and we stopped in and then we all got hungry. She’s over at our place reading to him while sitting on a big pillow on the living room floor. She’d convince us to let her come over to baby sit on Wednesdays so we could get out for a couple hours. In all the dreams of him growing up she’s there rooting him on, smiling that satisfied smile knowing that she’ll do even better with him than she did with us because she won’t have to worry as much. She would have brought all the joy and passion to being a grandmother that she brought to her work and her friendships. She’d be perfect.

Of course this is all fantasy. No one’s perfect. Beyond that if my mother had never gotten sick there’s a good chance we wouldn’t be back in California. If she hadn’t died we may not have felt the same urgency to come back here. We might still be in DC wondering what we were going to do about childcare and desperate to meet other parents. We certainly wouldn’t be in our current home since my mother’s life insurance became the down payment. Instead we’d likely be upside down on some condo in Silver Spring. Still, I think we would have come back by now. I can’t see anything in the last few years that would have convinced me to raise my kids in DC. If there was a positive in my mother’s passing it was that it got us back to our community. Back to our friends who are already experienced parents. Back to the people who can give us advice, and support, and hand me downs. Her passing brought us home.

The next day I heard this story on This American Life. It’s about a woman who’s mother had cancer and knew she was going to die. So the mother wrote a series of letters for her daughter to open each year on the daughter’s birthday beginning at age 18. In the end the daughter and her father come to see the letters as a kind of curse. For them the problem is that while they continued to grow and change the voice of the letters did not. They felt stuck trying to adhere to the wishes of someone, long since gone, who every year would try to exert some influence on their lives. Again I felt my mother’s absence like a swirling vortex in my soul.

My mother and I got to say goodbye, but that was all we got. I know I might sound selfish because many people don’t even get that but I still feel cheated. We could have had so much more except no one would acknowledge that my mother was dying. When she was diagnosed she already had stage four renal cell carcinoma; a kind of cancer that doesn’t respond to traditional cancer therapies like chemo. After the first few months I knew she was going to die. But because she couldn’t admit it, or she was trying to be brave for my brother, or she really thought she’d pull through we never talked about the possibility.

Because no one would talk about mom dying we never got to have the conversations I longed for. I wanted to get closure on all the things that had haunted us for so long. I wanted to tell her that she had been a good mother and that I forgave her for all the negative things that had passed between us. I wanted to get her advice on marriage and child rearing. Mostly I just wanted us to be able to spend her last months really loving each other without reservation. Instead I felt pressured to keep up with the manic positivism of the rest of my family. After all “everything” was “going to be OK.” We’d have plenty of time to hash out the past.

Surprisingly, when my mother died it was sudden and unexpected. She had gone in for some tests and was supposed to go home but she ended up staying. She never did go home. I had spoken to her on Thursday afternoon. This was a day after she was supposed to have gone home. “They’re just going to keep me over one more night for observation. I’ll call you tomorrow. I love you.” Those were the last words my mother ever spoke to me. Not bad as last words go. The next time I saw her she had a tube down her throat and couldn’t talk. That was Friday night. I was living in Washington DC and I’d had kind of a bad feeling all morning when I got a call at my office. The doctor on the phone said that if I was going to see my mother again it had better be today. Two hours later I was on a plane to California.

When I got to the hospital and spoke to the doctors it was clear that my mother wasn’t going to recover. Her organs, at least the ones that filter toxins weren’t working at all and her blood wasn’t clotting. They had kept her alive by inducing a coma and pumping a constant stream of blood in and out of her body. The thing that happens with this is that over time the brain is slowly starved of oxygen. They could have kept her like that for a while, but she’d be a vegetable. The most humane option was to turn everything off and let her go. The one solace was that they offered to wake her up and let her say goodbye.

As the oldest and only adult child the decision making role had fallen to me. When my mom came to and started to reconnect with the world around us she recognized me and took my hand. “Hi mom.” was all I could muster. I think she could see it in my eyes. She knew why I had come. With the breathing tube adhered to her face she mouthed as best she could, “It’s OK. It’s OK. I’m ready.” I explained to her what was going on. She nodded in comprehension and agreement. In her eyes I could see she was trying to comfort me. We were able to call a small group of her close friends in to say goodbye. Mom had faded a little bit by then having turned up her pain meds with the little button next to her bed. I introduced them as one at a time they each got a few minutes to say goodbye. I knew my mom was lucid when I mispronounced someone’s name and she shook her head vigorously. “Mom, Judy’s here. Would you like to talk to Judy?” This was followed by a very strong “negative” “I’m Julie honey.” “Sorry. Mom Julie’s here.” Affirmative. She knew what was happening.

After friends and family had had their opportunity for closure I was able to have one last moment. Around her tube she mouthed, “It’s OK. You can let me go. I’m ready.”

And that was it.

And it should be enough, but it’s not.

I feel cheated.

Not just because my mother died. Not just because my son will never know this wonderful woman. Not just because she missed out on a really fun joyful part of her life that she had been looking forward to for years. I feel cheated because of this bullshit sense that we all have be endlessly optimistic. I feel cheated because I didn’t get to have those final conversations with her that I needed. Maybe it sounds selfish. Maybe it is selfish. After all dying is a very personal process. But goddamnit she’s dead and I’m still here. I’m the one who has to keep living with this pit in my heart every day. I’m the one who has to look at my son and know that there are no answers to my questions.

Which brings me back to the This American Life story. I would give almost anything to have one last token of my mother’s love. One last message, something I could hold on to, something tangible that shows she was thinking about how I could cope with the future without her. I wish she had written something to Ryu, to me, to the family, something that we could go back to and say, “See, this is what grandma thought. This is what she had to say before she left.” The problem for the people in the story isn’t that they were growing and changing it’s that they felt the need to argue with ghost instead of just appreciating that in her final days that mother wanted to remain as a presence for her family. They couldn’t find a way to laugh off or otherwise set aside the parts of the mother’s message that no longer fit their worldview.

I wish my mother still had some presence, any kind of presence, in my life. I don’t really feel one. I don’t’ feel like she’s watching me from heaven. I don’t’ feel like her spirit lives on in the artifacts of hers that I have around my home. I just feel like she’s gone. She’s gone and I’ll always have this hollow spot in my heart. That’s why my in-law’s behavior is so infuriating. They seem like they take it all for granted. They do this despite the fact that my father-in-law may be dying of cancer himself. They have a chance to know Ryu that my mother never had and they don’t care. They’re willing to sacrifice that relationship with him because of some perceived problem with us. I really hope they change their minds before it’s too late. He’s at an age now where he can start to remember people. If you don’t know what you have until it’s gone what happens when you’re the one that’s leaving? What will you leave behind? What will you say before you go? I wish I could have one more message.

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Update: In the years since this was written my wife's parents have been much more present in our lives. I don't remember how it happened, but somehow we were all able to set aside our disagreements and hurt feelings and move on. They have been wonderful supporters of us and our now three children for several years now. My father-in-law is in remission and is now able to travel and visit us. It's wonderful what you can accomplish when you have time on your side.