Confidence Mama

It takes me by surprise when it happens,  I try to keep my breathing even and I can feel my face contort with the tears that won’t stay in.  They always come though, the tight chest and the twisted stomach, the tears that stream into the corners of my mouth.  Sometimes it’s memories of the shooting and it’s aftermath, other times it’s something about a child that connects with the motherhood instincts, sometimes it’s something that seems totally unrelated to anything I’ve been through but still sets me off.  This time it was a TV show.  A medical drama.

We have watched countless medical dramas over the years and there have been many that tug at the heart – as a parent, as a daughter and just as a human being.  But this one, it hit me in the face hard and fast.  And it still hurts.  The story was about a little boy who hurt his wrist in his baseball game and had to go to the ER, mom and little brother in tow.  They addressed his injury and spoke about his seizures all while little brother was coughing.  “He has a cold” the mom said, while stroking his curly black hair, “he just can’t shake it.”  We go on to find out that the little one is a bone marrow transplant survivor and his counts have come back with white blood count over 150,000 and low platelets.  His cancer is back.  All treatments are too painful and his cancer is too far along for any treatment to be effective.  Heartwrenching right?  This is not what got me, we’ve seen this story line one thousand times – on TV and in real life years ago when we knew countless kids in the oncology ward.

No, it was the big brother that broke me.  The doctors and nurses on the show gave the little one a police themed birthday party, sweet and poignent, it was probably a heartwarming scene to watch for most people.  But I could not tear my eyes away from the brother who followed slightly behind watching this event take place, almost an afterthought behind the crowd of people doing their very best to make his brother’s birthday special.  If anyone else saw him I would bet they assumed he was feeling  jealousy or envy that his brother was getting special treatment.  I would guess that most people would think he’s feeling left out and left behind – unseen.

But I know what he was feeling.  He was watching his sibling, knowing he could die, just wanting to help or fix it or make it all go away.  This kid was just an actor but he was me. He was thousands of other kids who have to sit on the sidelines and watch their sibling suffer and fight and be stuck with needles and scream in pain.  And it ripped my heart from inside me and held it in front of my face as I sobbed and shook and my husband held my hand and said we could just turn it off.

And then they added a scene where the little one, after his celebration, has a brain bleed and the mom and big brother are forced to say goodbye to him as he takes his last tiny breath.

I didn’t have to do that.  Thank God I never had to do that.  I watched from behind two sterilization partitions as my sister took long, slow, assisted breaths after her transplant. I ran my fingers down the side of her face, doing my best to avoid the deep purple bruises under her eyes.  But I never had to say goodbye.

Ugh, it was so long ago Katie, why the drama all these years later?

It never stopped.  My role never ended – I never had a curtain call and final bow on being the worried sibling.  It has been constant.  And I am so damn thankful to have this role because it means I am still a little sister…through the pneumonia and diabetes and tumors and recovery and pills and diagnoses and new pains, new pills, new questions, hard news, good news, new doctors, painful tingling – is it something with the nerves?  I don’t feel sorry for myself, for my worry, for my tears.  I just want to help her.

So, when something new happens, a fresh pain that we don’t recognize, we all come together and cross reference our memories of other pains and diagnoses that could help her figure out what is happening in her body now.  And I am never, in my opinion, good enough.  Or there enough, helpful or present or anything enough.

Because I can’t make any of it better.  I am that kid – still, at 37 years old – walking behinf the hospital birthday party, bewildered and unable to make anything better.

I did not have to hear that tiny, final breath.

But I am on the sidelines, forever.  Unable to make it – her – okay.

I can love her.  I can love her intensely and painfully and try to tell her how honored I am to get to talk through another weird symptom because I get to see her name pop up on my phone screen.

And I will always be on her sideline.

They looked so smug, all three of them.  I took a deep breath and paid attention to how long it took me to exhale, almost long enough for the red that was clouding my vision to dissipate.  I breathed in again, reminding myself where I was and what I was facing…but my chest refused to unwind.

They looked down on me, those girls.  But only because they were on a raised platform of the play structure at the park.  They couldn’t have been more than seven years old and yet I was seething.  I wanted to tell them – something – but there was nothing I could say.  Even though they were being rude to my little girl, I had to be the grown up.  Because I was the grown up.

It was years ago, and those girls were being sassy, but Addie was four and just thrilled that big girls were paying attention to her.  She was too little to understand or even notice that I was agitated and protective.  She was just playing.  But now, oh my, now it’s different.  Now she has to navigate through a thick forest every single day and decipher which flowers are safe and which are poisonous. Every once in a while, she gets stung by a barbed thorn and my little girl curls up in my arms and cries.

What do I do?  What can I do?  I stroke her hair when she is aching and listen when she’s confused.  She is entering tween-dom at ten years old and telling me that she sometimes doesn’t like the way her hair falls or that one of her eyes is not level with the other and that she doesn’t think she has enough friends.  And I hear that voice in my head whispering  your legs are too muscular as I ask my daughter to be nicer to herself.  People get tired of you after awhile, you’re so different the voice hisses as I tell her that she has to actively practice self acceptance before it can become a habit.  I preach and teach and she smiles and says “thank you, Mommy, you’re the best” as she nuzzles into my neck and I try to silence my old insecurities.

It’s our nightly talk, how to manage friendships.  Because I remember the mean girls – and boys – from my own childhood and teenage years.  I remember the things they said, it’s their voices that slither through the tiny cracks in my solid adult confidence.  It still hurts, in it’s own way.  I want her to find the self acceptance that took me thirty years to embrace, but I want her to do it at ten and a half.  So we talk.  I advise.  Stay out of other people’s drama.  Don’t say anything about anyone that you wouldn’t say to their face, because it WILL come back to haunt you.  Don’t gossip, ever. Be thoughtful.  Be aware.  Be cautious.  Be kind, always kind.  Don’t get involved but stand up for others if the situation calls for it…but don’t put yourself in the middle of someone else’s issue.  You may not like the way she acts but it’s not your job to change her.  People who feel good about themselves and like who they are never try to bring other people down.  Let it roll off your back, it has nothing to do with you – you just happened to be the body in the way of her sadness and anger. Some people are just jerks.

Be a light, never a shadow.

I remember that day on the play structure at the park.  Her blonde curls were tied up in a frothy ponytail on top of her head.  Her cheeks were round and soft and pink from playing so hard.  And when those older girls made her the butt of a joke, she laughed with them, that tinkling bell laugh, because she was just a little girl having fun at the park.

I miss that.  Her innocence and blind, pure joy.

She still has some though – the joy.  She sees the good in people and doesn’t let their past actions define who they are.  She reaches out and invites them over to play.  She shows them kindness and they always, every single time, see her for who she is.  Kind and lovely and welcoming.  A friend.  And it is remarkable.

No matter what happens from this moment forward with the flowers and the thorns and the gossip and ever changing friendships, I know one thing for sure: my girl will never be a mean girl.  I will make sure of that.

It’s happened again.  And somehow the world keeps turning.  I can feel sideways glances looking for something in my face, in my eyes.  There is nothing there for them to see.

They can’t see it, that I am carefully placing steel plates around my heart.  They can’t see the bolts I am gingerly tightening so none of this can get through, they don’t understand how hard I’m working to pretend that nothing has happened.

I ignore headlines and turn my attention from any news updates.  Forty kids hiding in a closet. I don’t read names, I ignore details. The sounds, the terror.  I don’t want to see faces or know about families.  I don’t want to see the clips of students running with hands on their heads. Put your hands on your heads so they don’t shoot you! Now run!  I don’t want to debate, I don’t want to see the words ‘thoughts and prayers.’

Just…don’t.

If I loosen any of those bolts then I may think about what those parents are feeling.  This is the worst day of their lives.  My thoughts try to drag me down the path but I dig my heels in and think of something else.  They will never be the same.  Social media overflows with words.  So many words.  We should change this, if we did THIS is would definitely change.  Why does this keep happening? It’s this, they say.  Here’s why, they insist. They type furiously trying to be heard, trying to convince those who don’t want to change their minds.  Shoes in the middle of the hallway.  Bullet holes in the walls. Blood. They all want to change it, they all want this to end, but no, don’t suggest THAT, I will not do that.  They type and type and type.

What is the answer?  Take away the guns?  Mental health support?  Turn them in, report them, hate them, help them, where were the parents? Daddy, they were dead Daddy! Why didn’t anyone do anything? Why was he there? why? Why? WHY?

I watch my son, his blonde hair catching the sunlight as he leaps over a crack in the sidewalk.  His cheeks are pink from the chill in the air, and he laughs – a beautiful, heartbreaking laugh that shows his front tooth that is gray from when he fell on the driveway two summers ago.  And my heart swells with fear as my eyes fill with tears and I call him over and wrap him in my arms because I can.  He is here and he is safe in my arms.

I walked into my daughter’s school when I got the news, I tried to stay away because I knew it wasn’t rational.  But I had to see her, I had to get my hands on her and know that she was okay.  In the school.  In school where she should be so safe.  In the school where I send her every day but can never say goodbye without looking in her eyes to tell her how much I love her and how she is my everything – I never let her walk out that door without wrapping my arms around her.  Just in case.

Some days I cry as the car pulls away, as my husband takes my beautiful girl to school.  I sit on the bench in the mud room and wrap my arms around my chest, trying to keep my heart and my fear from bursting out and my tears fall from my cheeks to my knees and I try to stay quiet so my little boy can’t hear.

And nothing changes.

Nothing has changed.

What will change?

She looks down at him as she floats in the air, his eyes bright and that goofy smile on his face as he makes flying noises.  He bends his arms and she starts to fall, her stomach flips from the motion but before she knows it, she is tucked in his arms, warm and safe.  He sits on the couch and kisses her forehead, smelling her head as he always does, then picks up the TV remote.

What he doesn’t know is that the little girl in the crook of his elbow will grow up with him as her baseline for what a man should be.  He doesn’t know that how he treats her will help her determine how she will allow other people to treat her.

He doesn’t know his power.

The little girl grows up, little by little every day and she listens.  She listens when he gets home from work and leans down to kiss her on top of her head and tells her that he missed her while he was away.  She listens when he tells her mom that he loves her and that he loves the way she looks when she wipes her make up off at the end of the day.  When she puts her puzzle together, she listens when he tells her how impressive it was to watch her figure it out all on her own.  When he tucks her in at night, she listens as he tells her stories of what she can be when she grows up.  She pictures herself as an astronaut, or the president, or an inventor.  She believes him when he says she can be anything because she is creative and smart and goes after what she wants.

She’s taller than she used to be.  Sometimes she does things that her dad isn’t proud of, but when it happens she’s not afraid of him.  She doesn’t fear what he’ll do when he finds out – she just doesn’t want to disappoint him.  When her mom tells her dad what she did (because she kept finding ways around it) he looks at her for a long time.  She can tell that he is not proud of her in that moment, but when he speaks it is calm.  He asks her why she did it.  He wants to know what she was thinking about when she made the decision to do what she did.  He wants to understand her.  After she explains herself, he tells her what is expected of her, and that he knows how smart she is and that he hopes that the next time she will make better choices.

She is playing in the yard and hears her dad making noise.  She rides her bike to the edge of the garage and he sees her as he clamps a piece of wood onto his work table. He smiles and beckons her over so she can see what he’s doing.  So he can share it with her.  She learns how to use tools and that she has a knack for woodworking.  He takes her with him when he needs to buy a grill.  She cuddles in next to him on the couch and eats popcorn out of his bowl as he answers her constant questions about the game he’s watching on TV.  He explains it to her and she loves it, they start watching together every weekend.

She waves goodbye from her date’s car, her mom and dad silhouetted in the open front door.  She has had a crush on him for a long time and gazes at him across the table as he talks about his last game and how he scored the winning run.  She smiled at him when he talked about building a shed in the backyard with his uncle.  She tells him how he built a deck with her dad.  He looks at her, surprised.  After the date, he pulls into her driveway and she says thank you, her hand on the door handle.  He reaches over and puts his hand behind her head, pulling her in for a kiss she’s not ready for.  She frowns, put her hand between her face and his and says, “thank you for the date.  I’ll see you at school.” Then she gets out of the car and walks inside her house.

Her dad closes the curtain he was spying through as he watches his baby girl stand up for herself and walk proudly into their home.  He gets tears in his eyes remembering what her head smelled like when she was tucked into his elbow and how she would giggle when he held her high in the air, her little body barely bigger than his hands.

She sneaks up behind him and wraps her arms around her dad’s belly and gives him a tight hug.  “Thanks Dad.”  He hugs her back and asks, “for what?”

“For teaching me how to fly.”

Her blonde hair swings behind her as she lifts herself into the car, a smile on her face as she sings, “Bye Mommy! Have a great day!” And then I say a silent prayer.

I’m not sure if she knows what I’m thinking when I have a hard time letting her out the door in the morning.  It’s not every day, there are days that I can stick to the usual ritual and feel fine.  I admit, I’ll run from the other end of the house as she leaves for school to catch her and hug her, making sure she knows how much I love her…but that’s normal. That’s just being a mom.  The days that I hug her tighter than usual – multiple times – and call her back in from the car to hug her again before her dad drives her to school, those are the days I wonder if she thinks I’m losing it.

Those are the days that I hold back the tears as “have a great day” comes out of my mouth.  Those are the days I can’t shake the reality that something could happen to my babies when they are away from me.  It is not just mental; I feel faint – slightly dizzy, my stomach churns from unease, my limbs feel heavy and many days I have to sit down once the door closes after we’ve said good bye.  Most days I manage to wipe the tears from my eyes before William runs to me wanting “huggies and cuddles.”

It’s not rational.  Even people who think they understand say, “That’s not weird, that’s parenthood.  We all worry about our children when they are away from us.”  But this doesn’t feel normal.  This is full body fear that some horrible person full of hate will enter one of their schools.  This is the realization that bad things don’t just happen to people on the news and nothing like that could happen where I live.  Because it did happen.  I’ve lived it. Then, to make things even more terrifying, some nutjob made elementary school shootings a reality.  Nothing is off limits.  This is not irrational and it is not paranoia – it is real.  And I have to kiss my beautiful daughter and son every morning and trust that the school will protect them.  But how could anyone protect them from that reality?

This isn’t constant.  There are numerous days that I can let them be away from me, so they can grow and learn and become the kind of people I want to put out into the world.  I can go about my day, creating artwork and writing books and doing my best to make a positive impact on the world.  There are days that I believe in the power of kindness to change the world for the better.

But when a siren screams by, I’m pulled behind it on a rope, wind whipping my face as it drives directly into the past and parks in front of a school on lockdown.  I have a mental debate, trying to figure out if they’ll think I’m nuts if I call Addie’s school again making sure that everything is okay.  And most of the time I don’t call, because my rational mind knows nothing happened.

So I will wait.  I will sit in this Starbucks and not cry in public.  I will keep an eye on the door and watch every person who enters.  Just like I do everywhere I go.  I will notice where the exits are and I will keep my phone where I can see it, just in case something happens and my kids need me.  I will keep living because there is no other choice, life does not stop because I am afraid.

I just hope that someday, the reasons I am afraid become improbable.  I pray that one of these days my fear can live in my memories and not in realistic possibility every day.

Here’s hopin’.

She has a brain tumor.  My sister is having brain surgery right now.

Those are words I don’t want to say.  Once those words pass through your lips, you can’t take them back.  They are in the world. They are true.

But she is back there, behind those doors that keep sliding open for other people.  And I watch them, knowing that my big sister is on an operating table and they are pulling a tumor from her incredible, feisty, intelligent, perfect brain.

If I don’t picture it, I can pretend it’s not happening.  Because when I think about what she looks like right now on that table, helpless, that’s when the tears threaten to spill down my cheeks.  So I sit here with my parents and talk.  We talk about things that don’t matter because if we make it real, I’m afraid we will crumble.  Our little sister can’t be here, as much as she yearns to be right here in this waiting room.  If she were it would be the four of us again, waiting  for news.  Just like it used to be.  Before husbands and kids and adult life. When it was the oncology ward and the transplant ward and the endless waiting rooms and the scent of the hospital soap that never, ever leaves your memory.

Hours pass.  Hours.  She’s been in there for so long that every minute that goes by without alarming news feels like a victory.  Because the one who used to read to me out of books held upside down because we were both too young to read, she has to get through this.  She is the strongest person I know and she has to be okay.  It’s too much, what she has had to endure in her life.  It isn’t fair that she can’t ever feel what it’s like to just be healthy.  I want to take it away from her, any thing, everything that she still has to battle.  I wish I could take it and just let her feel the freedom of health.  No matter how far I reach or how badly I want it, I can’t take any of it from her.  She just has to endure.  And somehow she does.

She doesn’t remember a lot of what happened throughout the years that she battled and beat cancer.  That remarkable brain that they are working on right now blocked many of those fear and pain filled memories from surfacing.  But I remember.  I can still picture her first hospital room and the tears in her eyes every time she lost her hair.  I remember the sound of her screaming when they told her she had relapsed.  I can still feel how soft the skin of her scalp was and how she loved to have her head scratched when she could finally take her wig off for the day.  I know exactly what her hands feel like inside mine, I’ve held them countless times.

I love her.  She is a part of me that I need desperately to feel complete.  There are three sisters and she is the cornerstone, the oldest, the one that has always watched us like a big sister hawk.  Oh my, I love her.  So I refuse to think about what is happening in there, behind those doors.  I just have to focus on what will be when this is all done.  When her glorious brain is safely covered and no one is messing around where they shouldn’t be.  When she is safe.

Safe.

I have to leave, to return to my husband and kids.  It feel ridiculous to have been here in the hospital for so long and not be here when those doors slide open and they finally tell us that she is out of surgery.  But I have a life outside these waiting room walls and I have to get back to it.  So I kiss my parents and keep my phone in my hands, waiting for the next update.

Eight hours have passed since they started the surgery, now they are done.  She is okay.  She is okay.  She will cuddle her son and kiss her husband again.  She will be an aunt and a daughter and a wife and a mommy and a sister and she will be okay.  I will hold her hand again.  I will make jokes and she will laugh her wonderful cihpmunk laugh and I will never forget to tell her how much I love her.  How desperately I need her.  And she will tell me that she loves me more.

My sister had brain surgery.  She is the most resilent person I have ever known.  She will recover from this surgery and she will continue on, because that’s what she does.  She keeps living this life that astounds me.  And as she sleeps in ICU with her head wrapped in bandages and her husband by her side, I lift my eyes to the sky and I thank God for her.  I lift my heart in thanks that I am still the middle child, that my big sister is going to be okay.  There are three of us.  Big, middle and little.  If there aren’t three, the world would tilt.  My world would never be the same.

But here we are.  Three girls, two parents, three husbands and five kids.  We are one.

Thayer Bear, I love you more.  Thank you for being so strong.

Something just happened.  Addie and William were playing happily in the backyard, we had the sliding door open so we could jump to attention in case one of them needed us.  After a little while I could hear the little girl next door, same age as Addie, join the kids.  Everything was fine.  Everyone was happy.

But then I heard Addie call from downstairs, “Mom!  William threw a rock at Lily and hurt her!” I ran downstairs, picked William up and headed toward the fence, where the kids always play.  Lily wasn’t anywhere to be found and Addie told me that she had gone inside, crying.  I held William as Addie cleared the pile of rocks from in front of the fence so I could take him to their door and have him apologize.

And there he was, Lily’s dad, storming down the path, obviously angry.

“I was just heading to your door so William could apologize to Lily, is she okay?” I asked.

He was visibly shaking, the kind of angry that takes you by surprise when you see it.  The kind of angry that raises your shackles when you know it’s directed at your kids.  “She’s hurt.  This isn’t the first time this has happened.”  He was flushed.

“What? What do you mean?” Complete confusion.

“Addie has thrown things at her twice before.  This just keeps happening.” As though my kids are the neighborhood bullies.

“Addie has?” I looked back at her, totally lost about what was happening. “Addie has thrown things at Lily?” I opened the fence and accidentally knocked over Addie’s bucket of dirt, she burst into tears and ran inside.

At this point I was trying to figure out what possibly could have been happening in the backyard with these two kids that I know are sweet and loving and know very well not to hurt other people.  As I walked across their front yard, water seeping through my socks, I just wanted to make sense of what had happened.  Their front door was open and I saw the dad walk through their family room and gingerly pick Lily up from the couch, her forehead covered with a towel wrapped ice pack.  He set her down in front of me at the front door and I knelt down with William, and asked him if he had anything to say to Lily.  “Sow-wy” he mumbled as he buried his face in my hair.

I looked at Lily, put my hand on her arm and assured her that it was not okay in our house to throw things, and certainly not okay to hurt people.  She nodded and listened nicely.  I let her know that William is still learning about throwing and certain things about how to behave, but that I knew that he would never try to hurt anyone, but that I was very sorry that she had been hurt, whether it was on purpose or not.  I told Lily, and her parents, that I had no idea that anything had happened with Addie, that I couldn’t believe that she ever would have tried to hurt anyone, especially her friend, and that I would talk to her about it.  They all listened, hovering around the front door.  There were mumbles that whatever had happened with Addie had been an accident.  Things had calmed down at this point, they were no longer pacing or looking at me like I was raising homicidal maniacs.

I asked Lily if she was okay, she said yes.  I told her parents that if they needed anything to please let me know and that I would handle things on our side of the fence.

William and I walked back to our backyard, he listened the whole way about not throwing things, about what happens when rocks hit people.  I was feeling pretty fired up as we entered Addie’s room.  Chris was already in there talking things out with Addie, she was red faced and crying on her bed.  “We need to have a family talk.” I announced as I walked in the room, setting William down and crossing my arms over my chest.  “They said you have thrown things at Lily and hit her twice.” I said, looking at my little girl, tears still on her cheeks.

“Addie told me that she has never hit Lily with anything.  She’s telling the truth.” Chris’ voice, his confidence in our daughter’s word, snapped me back to where I needed to be.  I looked at her again.  My girl.  The one who would never hurt someone on purpose.  “Is there anything that has happened that Lily has gotten hit with something, even accidentally?” She looked me in the eye as I asked her the question.

“We’ve played catch before Mommy, with that little pink bubble thing.  But it never hit her.” The pink bubble thing is about the size of my pinkie.  “I’ve never seen anything hit her, Mom.  I promise.”  She was absolutely telling the truth.

Chris and I told her that we believed her, that we trust her, and that she can always come to us no matter what.  As we were about to head upstairs, she stopped us.

“William was just throwing the rock over the fence, he wasn’t trying to hit Lily.”  We told her that we figured that was what happened, and thanked her for telling us.  “He said he threw it, but I don’t think he understands.”  Our girl, looking out for her little brother.

Upstairs, it hit me, the defensiveness.  The need to protect my babies and let those people know that what they had said about my kids was not true.  I wanted to go over there and stop them from thinking that my kids are troublemakers, or that their daughter isn’t safe playing with them.  I wanted to tell them that they were wrong.  That Lily hadn’t told the truth, that Addie had never thrown things at her and that William was just throwing the rock over the fence.  I wanted them to look me in the eye and understand, my kids, my kids are not to be spoken about like this.

Chris talked me down, of course, that’s what he does.  He promised me that if he ever sees the dad outside he would work it into the conversation.  He would say something.  It would have to be enough, my going over there was not going to solve anything.  I had said my piece, I had apologized and said it would be taken care of.  And it was.  I spoke to my kids, I believed what they said, it was done.

But even now, I can’t quiet the mama bear growling inside me.  When Addie said she wanted me to go over there and tell them that she hadn’t hit Lily, I told her I couldn’t do that, but that she could.  I told her that if she saw them outside she could politely, calmly, assure them that playing catch with Lily was the only thing that had ever happened and she had never seen her get hit, anywhere, at all.  That she wouldn’t throw something at anyone.

I told Addie that just as she should stand up for herself with other kids, she can stand up for herself with adults as well.

And I know that the truth lies somewhere in the middle, on the fence between their house and ours.  I know that Lily didn’t lie, but neither did Addie.  When I step back and put myself in their shoes, with the information they had,  I can understand why they reacted the way they did.  We all want to protect our kids.  But this changes things, for me.  I will do what I can to protect them, to guide them, to teach them that sometimes they will need to stand up for themselves and know that they can tell their truth.  They can protect their integrity.

And I will try to keep mama bear inside, no matter how loud she growls.  Because there will be times that I won’t be right there, and my kids will need to know what to do.  They will need to know that their voice matters.  And my kids’ voices will be heard.

It was awkward.  Maybe.  It could have just happened so fast that neither of us had a chance to react, which is most likely.  That’s what it was for me.  But that split second when our eyes met and I know she saw me, if she had reacted like she was happy to see me I would have said hi and smiled and told her how nice it was to see her.  But I faltered because in that split second, I was a stranger.

It is really okay, we don’t have to do all that anymore, we were roommates a lifetime ago and have become adults without being in one another’s lives.  But I would be lying if I said the past didn’t rush back just by glancing at her for that second as she passed, laughing and happy with her group of friends.

It’s possible that she went inside and didn’t say a word, just went about her girls’ night and seeing me didn’t phase her.  But I wondered if she went inside and declared that she just saw her old roommate, what a hassle it was living with me.  I wondered if she looks back on our time together and remembers that we were best friends, or that I didn’t scrub the kitchen floor like she did.

I have a belief that adults should not expect certain things from kids.  I often tell people who are seeking help with their children that kids are not hardwired knowing how to behave or react.  They will react by instinct until we take the time to teach them what we want them to know.  I value communication and calm rationality when I have interactions with other people, so I take the time to teach my kids the tools they need to communicate clearly.  I help them learn how to breathe and think so they can stay calm rather than react emotionally and act out.  They are calm and peaceful because Chris and I have made it a priority to teach the kids what we think is the most effective way to react.

William is three years old.  Sometimes he gets frustrated when things don’t go the way he expects.  He starts crying, sometimes yelling and every once in a while flails his little body in anger.  From the outside he may look like a naughty kid throwing a fit.  I can imagine people walking by slowly, eyeing us as I try to hug him and calm him down.  She can’t control him, they might think.  He must have behavioral problems, they might say to their companions.  But he is a smart, sweet three year old who has a slew of emotions that he hasn’t learned how to master yet.  If I were to TELL him to stop throwing a fit, how would he know what to do?  If I stood above him and directed him to calm down and stop crying, it would just exascerbate the situation because not only would he be upset, but he would feel frustrated and sad because he was disappointing me.

But when I kneel on his level and explain to him that I know he is upset and I am going to help him calm down, he knows I am there to help.  I talk him through exactly what he needs to do to calm his little body down so he can hear me.  Then we can talk about what is happening.  Yelling at him would only scare him.  Ignoring him would make him feel helpless and unimportant.  Reacting calmly and diffusing the situation with words not only teaches him the tools to use next time he is upset, but it shows him that this is how I react TO him, that I am not only asking him to do it, but I do it too.

If I put a canvas in front of you and told you to paint this, could you do it?  You have paintbrushes, a surface to paint on and all the colors you could need.  Do it. Now.

Would you feel frustrated?  Maybe feel the tears gathering behind your eyes?  Would you worry that I think you are stupid? I am standing there. looking at you, expecting you to paint these trees.  I can do it, WHY CAN’T YOU?

It wouldn’t be fair to expect you to be able to paint this just because I can.  You would need training and time to learn the proper techniques.  Why would you ever expect your child to do it with something as complicated as emotions?

What does this have to do with running into my roommate?  Well, I was not easy to live with.  I never did anything to intentionally harm anyone, I always thought of other people’s feelings.  I put my clothes away and liked our apartment to be picked up and tidy.  But I did not clean well, I did not buy laundry detergent.  I never got on my hands and knees and scrub the kitchen floor.  I wasn’t a jerk, I wasn’t thoughtless, I just wasn’t hardwired to do those things.  I had never done them before.  I was a kid that went from living at home where I didn’t take care of those things to living in a dorm where I didn’t have to do them.  So it drove her crazy that I didn’t know how to do, or when to do the things she had already been taught.  Rather than talk to me and teach me what she needed from me, frustrations mounted and our friendship unraveled with painful rumors being spread and feelings being hurt.  I was unaware.  I was naive.

Looking back as an adult and parent, I can give my teenage self the grace of understanding.  I can extend that same grace to her, knowing that the things she did were born of youth and immaturity as well.  We were not hardwired, we learned through one another how not to do things.  I wonder if she walked into that restaurant catching a glimpse of an adult woman that she used to know as a young girl.  I wonder if she is able to look back as a mother and see two kids who were playing at being capable of living on their own.

It doesn’t really matter either way.  Because the years have passed (and passed) and those girls who lived in that apartment don’t exist anymore.  But this girl knows that no one will do what you expect of them unless you make your needs very, very clear.  I have, and will continue to teach my children that unless you use your voice, no one will know what you want.  If someone wrongs you, speak up.  If someone overlooks you, make yourself heard.  Never expect someone to give you what you need unless you tell them exactly how you want that need fulfilled.

If we ever pass each other again, I will make sure to raise my hand in greeting and take a moment to say hello.  Because no matter what happened in the past, I know who I am now, I am confident and kind.

When a child is asked what they want to be when they grow up, they tend to answer with something fantastical: an astronaut, a professional baseball player, a mermaid.  But me?  When I was asked in the first grade what I wanted to be, I looked up through my wild, blonde curls and said, “Author and illustrator.”

The problem being a six year old with a reasonable, achievable goal in life means that if you fail and do not become that thing it is because you were not good enough.  It means that you didn’t try hard enough or didn’t have what it takes to fulfill your six year old self’s ambitions.  If I never became a published author it was because I didn’t push myself, not because I had legs where my mermaid tail should be, or because I couldn’t jump high enough to get to the moon.

So I wrote.  I fell in love with words and how they sound, the way they can read like a song when the right words are put together just the right way.  I took history assignments and made them poetic,  english classes became my haven to craft the perfect sentence and make it sing.

I did other things, followed other interests, but I always came back to writing.  Creative writing journals, poetry contests and short story competitions peppered my youth.  When a boy broke my heart, I wrote. When my sister had cancer, I wrote.  When the shooting turned me inside out, I wrote.  I didn’t keep a diary about myself, I translated what was happening into fictional short stories where I discovered how to solve my problems through my own characters. I worked through my harrowing teenage emotions by writing poetry.  I comforted myself by finding the most beautiful words I knew to describe the ugliest situations.

The other things – the alternate dreams – never had the passion behind them to make them real.  When I left for college I thought I was going to become a teacher.  Then maybe a pastry chef.  Possibly culinary school was in the cards.  But writing was the siren that kept calling me to the depths, it was the school of creative writing where I earned my degree.

It is so clear now, as I chronicle how words have been my imaginary friends over all these years, holding my hand and keeping me company even when no one else could see them.  And the dream of becoming a published author and illustator has been looming, just below the surface, reminding me of my potential, of the goal I set in Mrs. Kompinski’s first grade classroom.

Thirty four year old Katie hid from the accusing glare of her six year old self.  What are you waiting for?  What is taking so long?  It was just never right.  Why would people read a book that I write?  It will take too long.  I’m scared.  I don’t want to hear if people don’t like it.  Getting something published is HARD.

I had a thousand reasons not to write a book.

But then it was my turn to be mystery reader in my daughter’s classroom.  I had to choose a book. What would Addie want me to read?  What would make her proud?  Maybe I should write one to read to them.  A lightbulb. Maybe I’ll illustate it too. Bright light. I’ll make it a surprise for her.

Three days later I had written and illustrated my first book.

The kids loved the story so much they all wanted a copy.  Now I had to figure out how to publish the book.

I cleaned up the story and streamlined the words, then re-wrote them, then went over them again.  I meticulously drew a little girl that looks like my little girl, I added fairies and cotton candy clouds and all the things in my little girl’s dreams.

And then I went over the words again and again until I had them memorized and perfect. The illustrations were done, carefully shaded, clipped and inserted into the manuscript.

I wrote a book.

A book.  Something that people can hold and share with friends and put on their bookshelves.  Something that my parents can say, “My daughter wrote a book and it’s on Amazon” and they can beam with pride and whip out their smartphones and prove it.

There is so much satisfaction…and pride… that I have finally done it.  It is not complete, now I need to write more, as if I could ever stop writing.

But the best part?  Even better than seeing my name on a cover of a book? There is an entire classroom full of second graders who have started writing their own books.  An entire classroom of Addie’s classmates who may have had their lifelong goals and dreams sparked by this thing that I did.

I am an author and illustrator.  My dream has come true.