Baseball hurts, part deux (World Series version)
When you come to a fork in the road, take it. — Yogi Berra
Dear Dad,
It’s fall now. Peak leaf season, beautiful by me and I’m sure by your old house, too.
Tonight is Game 1 of the World Series and – guess what? – The Mets are in it! I know you’d be glued to your TV rooting for them; they really have a fantastic team this year. I wish you were still here so we could talk about their chances (I think they’re good!). I miss hearing the excitement in your froggy voice when you discussed the things you enjoyed the most.
Some other developments since you left us: First off, because I know you’d ask this first, E is doing really well. She looks and feels fantastic and is growing like crazy now – more than three inches in the last six months. We had a little blip late spring, but in her last round of tests her inflammation number was way down – to normal levels! So that’s been a huge relief and she’s having a great school year so far. Seventh grade is for real, but she’s even taking all the additional homework in stride (most of the time).
B and I finally got married. I know in the beginning you didn’t know what to make of him. It’s funny that, though you were gifted in your work, you helped so many people navigate their inner worlds and overcome their struggles, I think you never quite understood shyness. Didn’t know what to make of it, thought it was more than what it was, had to be some sort of underlying thing. I guess everyone has blind spots. Anyway, I think B was growing on you the last few years, as he tried to open up more and you tried a little harder to get to know him. So I think you would have been happy and had a good time that day; at least, I hope so.
Mostly things are moving forward in a positive way and I’m hopeful about a lot of things. But as we round the corner to the anniversary of your passing, I still find myself not quite believing you’re gone. Sometimes you show up in my dreams, in such an everyday way that it takes me a moment to get back to reality, that there is no more every day with you in it. And despite the problems we had, and the gulf that remained between us (smaller than what it once was, but still there), that feeling –- the knowledge that you’ll never be here again –- it still hits me like the hardest sucker punch. I’m sure in time it won’t hurt so much, but I’m not sure when that time will be.
So yeah, Dad, I thought you’d want to know that tonight’s the World Series. Lets Go Mets! I wish you were here to see this. But I hope they win and I’m imagining you cackling and cheering them on. The old man who was once a boy from Richmond Hill who loved the Brooklyn Dodgers. Who waved to Jackie Robinson and he waved back.
Love you, K
Goodbye, Nadine
She was my “first born,” the first dog that was mine to raise. The timing was right–summer of 2001, we had just moved out of NYC the past February, to a small house with a nice yard in Rockland County. Getting her was an experiment–my then-husband was allergic, never had a dog but always longed for one. I looked up standard poodles because I always grew up with large dogs, and heard of their amiable dispositions. I wanted a girl dog because that was what I always had growing up at both houses: Greta, Rozzy, Brandy, and Corey. All girls. I hoped for a smaller dog because our house was tiny, and standards could grow to more than 80 pounds.
I researched and found her breeder, Jake–a Zen master in black standard poodles in Hyde Park. It seemed like fate; he had a new litter coming down from Canada in less than a month. A few were already claimed; but he thought there would be a “little girl” left for us.
I went ahead with the plan because Jake understood the allergy issue, and said he’d be willing to take her back if it didn’t work out. When I told my ex, he was nervous but excited.
She was the smallest of Jake’s bunch, but with a sweet, animated but not-too-feisty spirit. When we went up to meet her in late July, I brought a list of names with me. The first on the list was Nadine–a proper French girl name, I figured. She was a few feet away from us, curious. “Nadine,” I said. She came right to us. It was obvious she would be ours.
We went home that day hoping it would work out. And it did, better than we could have imagined.
Two years later, E came into the world. At first jealous, Nadine soon learned that having a sister was a great thing. She was protective and gentle, and proved to be an ideal dog around kids of all ages, even babies. They grew up together, Nadine was E’s big sister. When I made the decision to split with my ex, there was no question that Nadine would stay with us; we could not split up the girls.
She met B on our second date, and it was love at first sight. We joked it was the French thing (he’s 1/4 French Canadian), but seeing her take to him immediately was a sign for me. She was a people person type of dog, but there were some people she really didn’t like so much, and usually there was good reason. And the people she took to immediately, there was a good reason for that, too. I thought she was an excellent judge of character, overall.
She loved being active, and in her first 10 years, was a great personal trainer to me. We would enjoy jogging together on the rail trail near our old house and she joined B and me on many hikes before stamina became an issue for her. I loved seeing her run around our yard, frisbee in tow. Her favorite game was keep-away.
A wonderful, fun, funny dog, like many poodles, her personality seemed so human. Now in our blended family, she became a glue to help us come together. One thing we all had in common: We all loved Nadine. It was impossible not to. Sport for us would be doing our “Nadine impression,” trying to articulate all of the wacky things she was thinking. At first, it was French-accented, but then it morphed into more of Dr. Doofenshmirtz-sounding voice. She was ever-present and an integral part of our lives.
Last night I had a dream. It was just the two of us, and we were running. She was looking up at me, tail wagging, like it used to.
She was with us for thirteen and a half years, longer than I thought we would have her. But it still feels too short. I will always be thankful for my first born, the beautiful, funny, wonderful Nadine.
RIP, Nadine the Wonder Poodle. Sweet dog, we will love you always. Xo
Confessions of a Latter-Day Christmas Celebrator
In case you missed this plot point, it’s the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas, that most revered of holidays, is upon us. It’s time for eggnog (yuck) and Yuletide (what’s that?) and lights (multicolored? or white?) and decorations (illuminated fawn, no blow-up Santa), trees (wow, that’s big) and exuberant children. And presents. Lots and lots of presents.
I’ve had Christmas envy my whole life. Growing up, I wanted to be Catholic: There was the beautiful stained glass, there was good music—in Latin!—and there was CCD, that mysterious after-school activity that took out many of my friends every Wednesday. My mom barred me from midnight mass until my senior year of high school, for fear I would convert.
Alas, no such transformation would occur, and many years later, I remain the lame Jew I always was. But through marriage, almost-divorce and now in my new life with child, almost-husband and almost-stepchild, Christmas is alive and well, and living in my house.
To be fair, we celebrate Hanukkah, too. But it’s not the same thing. Growing up, Hanukkah was a holiday to light candles, say a quick Hebrew prayer (poorly), get a nice gift the first night, skip a few nights because you forgot, and get some socks the rest of the nights. It was fun; it was festive. But it was not Christmas. We’ve kicked it up a notch now, and the kids love lighting the menorah. But it’s still not all that big a holiday, and I’m told it never was intended to be.
So now I get to join in all the fun of the big one. And mostly, I dig it. But sometimes I do feel guilty, like an Xmas impostor (see, right there: B, the almost-husband, informed me a few Xmases ago that you really don’t use ‘Xmas’ in cards. And you DEFINITELY don’t say ‘Xmas’. That’s only for labeling boxes. OK.)
When we do our annual pilgrimage to the farm for the Christmas tree, each year I try for the little one in the corner, as if a smaller tree would make it OK, would keep my beloved, deceased Grandpa Ilo from hitting me with a disgusted “Aaaaaach!” from on high. It never works. Real Christmas celebrators always, always want a big, healthy-looking tree on which to hang the tinsel and lights and myriad, often breakable decorations. So every year I am outvoted.
Then there’s Santa. No one told me the rules about Santa, so I kind of winged it. Now I have a personal relationship with the big guy—when E has had issues or questions, I can summon him at will, and I get answers no one else can hear, even this time of year, when he’s super busy. You wouldn’t think an impostor like me would have this kind of access, but maybe that’s just another Christmas miracle.
So tonight we will make cookies and leave them out with a glass of warm milk (I tried to point out to E that the milk won’t stay warm by the time S gets here. She looked at me dumbfounded, like I had five heads. See, I really don’t know what I’m doing here.)
And tomorrow morning, the kids will wake up way too early, see the presents Santa brought, and wake us up, excited beyond measure. And for what will take one-quarter of the time the wrapping did, they will open their presents with unbridled joy.
Tomorrow morning, they won’t be two kids grappling with chronic disease (E) or being on the autism spectrum (K). They’ll just be two happy, happy kids. And tomorrow morning, we’ll be the parents of two happy, alive children, though our minds will undoubtedly slip to those whose Christmases will be altogether different. And we will know how lucky we are.
Merry Christmas to all.
“What, me worry?”
The incomparable words of Alfred E. Neuman are quoted fast and furiously over our long blended-family weekends. His Pokemon phase gloriously fading, K, my soon-to-be stepson, now can’t get enough of MAD TV. And while I much prefer this obsession to the last one—have you ever tried to watch a Pokemon episode? There’s 24 minutes you’ll never get back—these days his looped repeats of “What, me worry?” seem to mock me at every turn.
In February my daughter, E, reached a milestone: Four weeks off her weekly shot, N Plate, her platelet count stayed within normal range. At the hospital visit with her doctor, to whom I give all the credit for her progress, I asked him how important this number was. “It’s huge,” he said.
Huge is a huge word to a mother’s ears, and not one Dr. B had used before. E’s case, while not the toughest he has faced, has been no walk in Prospect Park, either. When we came to Dr. B, the final stop for many of the toughest ITP cases, we were at our wits’ end, child puffy and steroid-riddled, mom depressed and holding onto the last thread of hope that this doctor would have the answers. After logging in two months of overnights at Westchester Medical Center, the specialists who were treating her there threw up their hands; they were out of tricks. Their next move would have been splenectomy. So in April 2009, five months after her diagnosis, off we went to our second-opinion doctor, one of the world’s leading blood disorder specialists. He was our last hope.
The promise of N Plate, the drug she was just weaned off of, took nearly four months to be realized. And we had to add a pill to supplement it, which I initially resisted. But in late July 2010, it happened: Her numbers shot up, well within normal range, instead of taking their usual roller coaster dive. From that point on, she said goodbye to steroids and IVIG treatments. The new course was working. The following March, we started slowly reducing her N Plate dosage–her numbers were comfortably in the normal range now, and had been for months. By last fall, she was only receiving a tiny dosage and still maintaining healthy platelet counts.
So in January, it was time to see what her body would do without the medication that had stabilized her. A month later, we were hopeful that she would hold her own, but as with any chronic autoimmune issue, even the best specialist can’t fully predict the outcome. Every patient is different; there is no one path to recovery.
Yes, February15th was a “huge” day, the day we started to believe that E may, in fact, be in (dare I say) remission. What a huge relief. And four weeks later, just this past Monday, her platelets were at a very healthy 280 (that’s short for 280,000. A normal platelet count falls between 150,000 and 400,000). I should have been ecstatic. And part of me was.
But the other part was crippled by a new fear: another health issue E was grappling with, this one of a gastrointestinal nature. Could it be Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)–a la Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis? Celiac’s? Or possibly just a passing gastrointestinal virus? (I am doubtful of this, as are both her pediatrician and Dr. B., but E’s dad—always eager to find the easy answer—is convinced that’s all it is.) All will be revealed–next week.
The three rounds of tests now in the lab, this is the “waiting week.” And despite hitting the mat every morning, there’s no amount of Zen that can make this less worrisome. E is feeling it, too. When I implored her to “try not to worry” a few days ago on our ride home from school, she quipped back, “Too late.” Yes, we’re all worried, and not ready for another health battle on the heels of the first one. Whatever it is, though, we’re getting prepared to fight if we need to.
More than a less-favorable diagnosis, dealing with more doctors, experts, symptoms, treatments, and uncertainty, my biggest worry is what another chronic condition would do to E’s childhood. She’s a good kid. She’s suffered enough. So, I’m putting this out there to the universe: Isn’t it time to let her be a normal kid again? That’s my wish. And then maybe I’ll be able to agree with Alfred, that it’s really just madness to worry at all.
The Santa Chronicles
The aspirational “Most Wonderful Time of the Year” is upon us and I, lame Jew of little knowledge, once again find myself in regular talks with The Big Guy in the Red Suit, aka Santa.
It’s a curious situation, one I fell into on happenstance with little preparation or knowledge. Growing up with my mom and brother, ours was a Hanukkah-only home, where we lit candles when my mom remembered (typically five or six of the nights). The gift-giving went like this: The first night you received a nice present, the next night you got a book or album, the rest of the nights you got . . . socks. Needless to say, I always had Christmas envy, and not-so-secretly longed to be Catholic, because then I could go to CCD with my friends on Wednesdays, and I loved singing in Latin and always found the stained glass/candle combination to be pretty in a mysterious kind of way.
My mother worried about my impending conversion so much that I was forbidden to attend Midnight Mass until my senior year of high school. I’m not sure why she thought the Catholic Church would be interested in adding me to their roster, but when I was 17 she relented, my era of impressionability seemingly expired. She no longer was concerned that I would succumb to the pressure of Father Rob at St. John’s, the church down the block where many of my friends attended, in whose rectory I smoked my first cigarette at age 12.
Fast forward to 2003. Now 33, I became mom to a child who would celebrate Christmas and yes, believe in Santa Claus. My relationship with Santa–though relatively short-lived–is an intense one. You see, I have been bestowed with the mystical powers of a telepathic connection to SC, even in December, his busiest month. I know not to overuse this power, as he has a lot of lists to read right now, and is overseeing multiple elf-filled production lines to check them all off. Santa’s got a hard deadline, I’m well aware. So I keep it brief, these conversations.
It does come in handy, being able to talk directly to The Man and hearing his quick responses, always of the reassuring kind. You see, my Santa is a New Testament kind of guy. He forgives most kids their trespasses, as long as they’re good most of the time and they try really hard to be kind to others, even their almost-step-brothers, and don’t leave all of their doo-dads all over the house. The threat of coal-filled stockings is not one my Santa uses often. That’s saved only for truly evil children, and I know none of those. Truth be told, my Santa is a softy, a wise friend, a green lighter of wishes large and small. He offers constructive criticism but his overarching theme is being pleased with the progress. He’s an affable, big-picture guy.
While Santa came to me through marriage, after we split up, I was left in the dubious position of winging it with the Santa rules. Kind of like when you get a surprise essay test and try to psychobabble your way through it, not realizing that the more you write, the larger the hole you dig for yourself. This is all fine and good until your child reaches a certain age where they start to compare notes. Or when you end up in a blended family where your partner has more definitive rules (and scoffs at your made-up ones). Then you find out other protocols, such as:
- The aforementioned almost-stepbrother who, once a year, receives a phone call from Santa. This led to a heated discussion on cell phone reception in the North Pole. [I suggested that Santa came down to the U.S. for that call, which he does occasionally for test runs and to map out his route. This explanation was met with befuddlement (the boy) and affirmation (the girl).]
- The letter from Santa, all in cursive, that E’s friend received (who complained it was too long. Obviously not my child.)
- In my ex’s family, under “From” on the adhesive tags, it would read, “Santa, Mom and Dad.” Except for the big presents–those would just be from “Mom and Dad.” They didn’t want the Big Guy to get sole credit for any of it.
- In my fiance’s family, however, most of the gifts are from Santa alone; only one or two of the big ones are from us, with no Santa involvement whatsoever. We continue to negotiate our way around this sticking point.
- In fact, I’ve only uncovered one “universal” rule in all of this Santa-lore: Always leave the cookies out for him–and make sure he takes at least one bite, because there’s no better proof that The Big Guy was there.
Now that my daughter is almost nine, though, she may be onto some of my tricks. When she noticed some Amazon packages delivered to our door, she was quick to accept my lame explanation that some things are just too heavy for SC’s sleigh, what with all of the other presents and Donner having back issues lately. So he has them delivered. She also suggested we get wrapping paper, under the guise that since the elves are working 24/7 now, sometimes he asks me to finish the job. Seems my early fear–that she would one day be traumatized and angered by all of this mythology and deception–is being proven unwarranted. If she knows, she’s not letting on, because the payoff of believing–or seeming to believe–is just too good.
This would all be OK except for one complication: K, her 10-year-old almost-stepbrother who lives with us half the week, is a true believer. So Santa–with all of our conflicting protocols–remains a key part of Christmas. At least for now.
Before all that, though, comes Hanukkah. Today I will resurrect the menorah from the basement and vow to light the candles at least 60 percent of the nights, as I was taught long ago. E likes Hanukkah, and she likes socks, too. On some level, she knows she has it good, especially this time of year. Her only complaint came last week, upon exiting the school bus: “Mommy,” she implored, in that tone of half-annoyance that eight-year-old girls seem to master, “Why don’t we celebrate Kwanzaa?”
Happy Hanukkah. Merry Christmas. Happy Kwanzaa. And a Happy and Healthy 2012.
Running in Crocs 