Family person

With my new job I work three twelve hours shifts each week. On a work day I find out at six thirty or seven in the morning which cases have been been assigned to me for that day. I open up our charting system and I read the notes about a patient, sometimes two patients, to find out the cause of events that have brought this person into our sphere of awareness. Reading the notes I enter a little bit into a different way of being--imagining this stranger's last day of life outside the hospital. Imagining the family or friends who are at the bedside or travelling from far away. Imagining what they already know or what they have yet to find out. Holding them in my heart for a moment. Then I get dressed, drink coffee and help get the kids ready if I have time. Head out into the world, onto the highway, into California or Nevada towns, into ICUs where I sit and wait to see if I will be talking to any family members that day.

My body and my mind and my heart feel different, depending on what I am doing. It is a bit like leaving one person-suit and stepping into another person-suit. I am comfortable and easy when I am in problem-solving mode. Not clinical but..fixed and firm and clear. It feels good to think critically and assess situations. To talk to people about making a good plan or about addressing a need or fixing a problem. This is not family resource coordinator mode.

If I am going to talk to a family I don't leave my body, I don't become someone else. I do. . .quiet myself down and step to the edges so I can make room for what is going on. To make space for the reality that death is in the room and that people are slowly or quickly emerging into a new skin, with new eyes, in the new world that no longer has their son or father or brother or wife walking around in it. When I worry about saying the wrong thing or finding a way in to ask these people I've just met to let me support them, I try to remind myself that none of this is about me. I am here because I have chosen to be, because I can be, and because people need other people to be there. It is hard. And scary. And so holy.

I can't stay in that mode indefinitely and I can't be in it if I am doing other things. Problem-solving or doing my expenses or filling out forms. It is hard to switch back and forth and I am new at this so I am learning how to be both. How to be all the things that I am and need to be, at different times. How to carry a family's story from afar but not drown in it.

Prayer helps.

There is so much pain in being a person. So much devastating, confusing, gut-clenching pain. I can't take it away and I try to remind myself not to try, even when it is so uncomfortable to be next to the hurt and suffering. We need people to be there though. To be next to us when we are hurting. To listen. To receive the gift that is the story of someone they have loved so fiercely as they try to figure out how to say good-bye.

On parenting and privilege

In Medford, Massachusetts last month I sat on the grass with three of my college roommates surrounded by our husbands and fathers and kids laughing and talking about marriage and parenthood and drinking and life. We were dying, making faces and cracking up about stupid shit and real shit. Feeling so good to be together. At one point my friend made an almost offhand comment about her teenage son and some random conversation or experience he had at the mostly-white private school he attended. Part of the story was her telling him Oh you can't do that or act like that or be that because you are a brown-skinned boy. It didn't stop the conversation for long. I don't remember many of the details but none of it involved guns or violence or acting out--it was something small and insignificant and everyday she was talking about, some regular kid behavior. The straight-forward, accepted, acknowledge reality for everyone in that circle but me was that at some point they would or had begun teaching their brown-skinned sons how to try to keep themselves safe in a world where they are never safe. Of note, not that it should matter, his brown-skinned older sister so far has a full ride to Bryn Mar but doesn't want to go because it's all women. His mother has a Masters in Education. His father works in local politics.

Yesterday after the murder of Alton Stirling in Baton Rouge one of my friends posted the story of the first time he experienced racism. This is what Antoine Kinch wrote:

Racism has a lasting effect. It's not easily solved, fixed or "gotten over". After the first time you experience something racist it breaks you down. I remember for me it was when I was about 11 years old. In Jericho, Long Island my friends and I were playing basketball at a park (J-3) and some white kids were yelling "Nigger, nigger, nigger" from their window.

We rang the doorbell. Told the lady that answered what happened and she started yelling at her kids and made them apologize to us. Maybe she even spanked them. We knew they learned the word from somewhere. But that night I came home and told my mom and I cried. Why did they treat us like that? We were just kids playing basketball in the park.

And here I am at 38 with a 16 year old of my own and I still remember the trauma that I felt that day. It stays with you and comes back like an open wound whenever you hear news like that of ‪#‎AltonSterling‬. To quote President Obama when speaking of ‪#‎TrayvonMartin‬: "It could have been me".

My friend Geri Charles wrote this:

Growing up in Somerville, MA getting spat on and called the N word on my way to and from school was a daily occurrence... Riding public transportation was the scariest of it all... My concern for today is not the N word but those who hold power in government, schools and in the judicial system that enacts polices to keep us locked up, uneducated, poor, and disenfranchised.

My friend Kevin Small wrote this:

 I just turned 14 and was 3 weeks into my stay at my new, boarding high school. Several new friends all black and latino from NYC, and I were ballin' at the gym. Some white students joined us. My friends and I started doing tricks, making goofy passes and, y'know, just having some fun. One of the white kids, grabbed the ball and growled, "we're not playing that nigger sh*t here!" I was stunned. I heard the word nigger all the time on the block or just around, but not like that. It felt like someone tossed a bucket of hot coals in my face. We stopped playing and left. It is said that there are no rites of passage for Americans, however, there are several for black Americans: Being called a nigger, getting harassed by a cop, making it to the age of 25... Black people are at a boiling point.

These are educated, strong, beautiful, connected, athletic, wise, intelligent people in their 30's. None of those details should matter but I know they do to many people. And these are stories about WORDS. Not physical threats. Not actual murder. Just stories about the hurtful, ugly, detestable things that children said to them when they were children. Just. I sat in Peets in tears, sick to my stomach, confused and raw to find myself out in public where life was going on as usual as I read about these stories forever burned into people's life story maps. If if feels that way to read it, two or three decades later, what does it feel like to live that? And that's just the first time. And these people are all alive to talk about it. Imaging any child being scared and stunned and thrown out of one world, the one we all like to think we lived in as innocent children and the world we all like to think and hope our own children live in for as long as possible, where you can live and play and learn into the real world where you are not just told but shown that it is not ok to be you. Not safe. Not just not safe but actively, violently, murderously dangerous. 

I am afraid to go protest in the streets when that happens because I am a mother of four small children and I don't want anything to happen to me. I can't even fathom taking them into that environment, putting them at risk. But maybe that's the realest, truest thing I or many of us can do right now--step into that fear, that risk of being hurt or killed by either the police who end up quieting the protest or by the angry, afraid, sick-to-death people who right now have nothing to do but stand there alone in their very real fear wondering what in the hell there is left to do to get something to happen to make something be different. To help them be safe. To help them feel like the rest of us, the ones who don't have to worry about any of it, give a shit about the fact that if you are brown or black skinned in this country you don't get to stay home and stay out of danger. Can I lend my privilege? My safety? Can I share it? Is it time to find a way to give it away? Would I if I could? Would any of us?

There are conversations that need to be had.

Books that need to be read.

Pages and people that need to be added to your Facebook feed.

Actions that need to be taken.

Creativity and bravery and conviction that needs to be found and used and shared.

One conversation: Ask your HR department what services and support they are offering to people of color who are suffering real PTSD as they try to show up to work in the wake of two black men being murdered by police within a 24 hour period? http://fortune.com/2016/07/07/police-shootings-black-employers/

Some books:

Justice in America: the separate realities of blacks and whites (Mark Peffley)

The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander)

Some Facebook pages:

Showing Up for Racial Justice

Southern Poverty Law Center

Some places to give money:

Scholarship fund for Alton Stirling's five children http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/issa-rae-alton-sterling-scholarship_us_577d5dd5e4b0344d514da6e6
Link to scholarship fund

NAACP http://www.naacp.org/

This post is rough and far from perfect. It never will be perfect and it could always be better. Please have this conversation with me, especially my friends and family who feel mad or threatened or disbelieving at anything that I have put down here. We can do better and we need to do better. If it were me on either of those videos being shot and killed by police, would you react differently? If so, why? Let's start there.

I wrote this because I know there are people I love, good-hearted, educated people, who do not see these stories on their news feeds. People who don't know what to do. People who do not believe that this is a real problem. Good people who know me and love me and try hard to make a difference in the world. We are the ones who need to work to change this.

Morning coffee

In the night when I wake up to go pee, which never used to happen, I still carefully navigate the floor to make sure I don't step on a dog who isn't there anymore. It's been a week and two days.

This morning as I heated up a cup of coffee in the microwave, careful to grab it and open the door before the beep sounded because I hope to get a few minutes of solitude before the kids wake up, I noticed the eagerness in my body. The anticipation. Coffee. Mmmmm. I love it.

"You know this is an addiction right?" my friend Brian, the barista, asked me one morning. Not because he was trying to be a dick but because that's who he was. Serving up truth to the masses who waited for him to pour them drinks and top them with latte art. He's the one who taught me the term "latte art".

Six years ago..probably closer to seven, I moved into a loft apartment on Third and Mariposa. The building is still on the corner, though it used to be across from a broken down building and now it's across from the new hospital. When my roommate and I got the keys that first day we found the place, a friend from growing up told me to meet her down the street on 22nd at a restaurant called Piccino. It sat on a corner too and there we ate oysters and drank rose and generally toasted the feeling of being young, thirty-two, and free. It was a time filled with hope because it I was making decisions based on what I really wanted to do, not based on what I thought the good or nice or appropriate thing to do was. I lost a friend in the process, which I wish hadn't happened, but the rest of life felt good. Actually, I was just starting a job that it turned out I hated, but the rest of life felt good. Well, ok, it felt a lot like life with some good days and some lonely, sad days. But I do know that the time I lived there was a time of feeling free and extremely myself. Brian and Piccino were a big part of that.

Every morning I would walk Sadie down the loud, metal stairs from our top-floor loft down to the street. My bedroom wasn't on the very top floor but it was still a couple flights of stairs up and down, with no elevator, which was fine for Sadie at the time and fine for me too except if I was trying to move furniture or carry groceries. It was a cool, funky building that felt like a 2009 version of what San Francisco Melrose Place might have looked like except we weren't friends with any of the neighbors and the guy immediately below us hated us for being loud. The time we flooded my bathroom and it leaked into their apartment probably didn't help either. It was very cool though. Cool-looking and in a cool part of town that I knew nothing about, except for vague memories of coming nearby to go to the Espirit outlet as a child with my mom and then once driving down a dirt road, with orange cones in a spread, into a deserted, blank neighborhood where I tried to find the nightclub SnoDrift when I was in my early 20's. It was a new land for me, Dog Patch adjacent, and I was surprised to find that it really suited me. It wasn't traditionally beautiful--very industrial without much greenery. But the weather was warm, it was easy to get to Oakland where I worked, and I could walk get to SoMa or the ballpark. There was a good sushi restaurant on the corner called Moshi Moshi, which is still there. There was fancy restaurant a few blocks down called Serpentine, which is still there. There was a locals bar down on 22nd called. . .something to do with a dog I think, which is still there and which turned out to be owned by the father of one of the hottest guys at my high school. . .swoon, I digress. It was a cool place to live and it was on the cusp, or in the middle, of getting more developed. By the time we were moving out, only a year and a half later, the broke-down structure across the street was getting torn down to make way for the multi-billion dollar new children's hospital.

So every morning Sadie and I would walk down the stairs and head up Mariposa or down 3rd, on our way to the little park hidden a few blocks away. She and I had our friends there. Depending on how much time we had we'd either hang there for a while or keep walking down two more blocks to 22nd, to Piccino. I told you about the restaurant on the corner with the oysters. I haven't told you about the coffee. . . shop? Wrong word. Pocket. The coffee pocket. A town hall of sorts.

It was a door in the middle of the block that opened into a room about the size of public restroom with three stalls. It bore no resemblance to a restroom. It was bright and sweet and pretty, simply so. There were two stools near the one window that opened out to the street. Once I started going every day I would try to snag one of those so I could see Sadie outside, laying on the sidewalk by the window. She bit more than a few people there. . .well, maybe not actually bit but reacted to, acted like she was going to bite. Brian scolded me for that after several months.

There were the two window stools and beyond that a small bench against one of the walls. That was it for seating. The rest of the small space was a rectangle of floor facing the barista's space which was just  big enough to work through the hour-long list of drinks. Hour-long because there were so many people and it was slow-drip, single-cup coffee. No frozen, whipped, flavored anything. Drip coffee. Espresso. Cappuccino. Latte. Americano. Gibraltar. Iced coffee brewed overnight to be super-strong, made with a little sweetened milk.

I'm outgoing and shy, depending on the place and the circumstances. I was usually in and out, ordering my drink, waiting and quiet. I do not know what drew Brian to draw me in. I can't imagine I made small talk because in the small space, with him performing a coffee symphony, talking to the others in or right outside the door, it would have felt like talking on stage. However it happened, he and I became friends and he introduced me to some of his other regulars, his friends, in a way that went something like "Christine, this is Megan. Megan, this is Christine. You are both awesome." A benediction.

Brian is tall and lanky, with brown eyes and brown hair. He sometimes wore funky, 70's eyeglasses that I don't think helped him to see. He played great music anytime he was there. He ran that place and he was spectacular. He was smooth, talked to people in a way that made us feel good, made great coffee. I mean, great.

He taught me about anxiety, for which I will always be grateful. That sounds like a funny thing to say. Somehow in one of our morning chats, that happened in between drinks in the moments before he got another rush and I had to leave, he talked to me about his social anxiety that he often suffered from though almost never when he was behind the counter. He told me I was anxious and it was this moment of Ohhhhhhh. He was right, I was. I just didn't know to call it that. I thought anxious was people feeling nervous in a crowd, nervous meeting new people. I didn't know that my constant experience of having my mind constantly running, like an engine, like a propeller, like a voice-over from a film I would have liked to watch, a stream of questions of why am I like this, what is that person thinking, how would it be different if I said this and he said that. . .that was anxiety. In some ways he gave me to myself. I was able to switch a bit from "how can I stop thinking so much?" to "My mind is racing, I must be anxious about something, let me sit with that and be in it to see what happens."

That neighborhood, the walks Sadie and I took to and fro our place and Piccino, the morning greetings between me and the handful of people we always saw, the chats with Brian and later with Noah and with Christine and with the sexy heart surgeon and with some of the others I saw a lot, it was the place and the time that I started to claim who I am and who I want to be. I was being myself and people were looking right at me and opening the doors of themselves to let me in further. It felt so good.

More than a decade ago I started an essay about coffee and the different rituals around it, just in my own life. Of how different two different Mr Coffees can be and how I need to learn how to make coffee every time the apparatus changes. Of the different people I've made coffee for in the mornings, the powdered Nespresso and sweet milk I drank in the mornings in Madrid, of the way I feel sitting alone with a hot cup of coffee with a touch of milk. The happiness it gives me. The peace and solitude.

We are layers upon layers of our different stories, our different morning windows or tables or street corners. The stairs walking out of the metro station into the light that start out new and become commonplace. The shadows of many hats previously worn sit on my head, in my heart, and sometimes burst forth in fits of longing, of mourning for times done forever, of the realization that I won't go back there again. Some of this comes right to the surface when a fifteen-year-old dog dies, because our time together, the streets we walked together, stretch back to when I was twenty-five and through all the things that have begun and ended since then.

Sadie

My lovely, crazy, loyal, loving dog died today. We had her put to sleep. She was around fourteen years old. I got her in 2003 off Craigslist from someone who rescued her from the high-kill Pinole shelter so I never knew much about her. They said she was around two when I got her which would have made her fifteen this year, but she gained so much weight in the first few months I had her that my vet at the time thought she was probably closer to a year old when I got her.

I grew up with dogs though my mom really did most of the work. I wanted a dog for years as a young adult and spent hours at my less-than-fulfilling desk jobs look on Petfinder.org and Craigslist. When I found Sadie I was living on Steiner Street in a huge Victorian with four roommates. I didn't ask any of them if I could get a dog. I thought I was just fostering her, that's what I told them too. But the first time I took her to an adoption event as her foster mom, tying a bandana around her neck like they tole me, like the other animals up for grabs, I knew I would be keeping her. My roommates were not thrilled. More like pissed. The first night she was home, after getting spayed, I went out with some friends and a roommate ending up taking care of her. I often did not deserve her.

She was completely nuts for a long time. She was afraid of furniture. Wood or linoleum floors. A couple times I had to pick her up and carry her out of a house after she'd crossed the slippery floor and then refused to cross it again. Afraid to get in the car, afraid to come inside the house. She barked at every black man she saw which was incredibly awkward for me. I kept wanting to shout "I didn't train her to be racist, I swear!"

She was house-broken and trained as far as knowing how to sit. She pulled like crazy on the leash. I had no idea how hard it would be to have a dog. How hard it would hit me right in the place where I have some of my biggest struggles--dedication to doing the same thing over and over, showing up and taking care of someone even when I didn't feel like it. Giving a whining being love and affection when the whining made me crazy. I yelled at her more often than I would like to admit. I was impatient. I was not as good at being a dog mama as I thought I would be.

The first time I took her to the beach she was, and still is, the closest thing to joy in living form I've ever seen. She embodied pure, deep, true joy. She ran and ran and ran, blood pumping, legs stretching, tail flying. She looked like she felt free and fully alive for the first time. I will never forget that.

I took her to Alamo Square park every day, twice a day. Those were her dog park years. We made dog park friends and it was a good routine for both of us. She would steal these soft little squeaky balls from other dogs and run huge circles around the park forever until I despaired of every catching her and getting the ball back. She drove me crazy. She tore up every toy she ever had except for these soft, rubber squeaky balls with the little faces on them when I finally got her some of her own.

She slept in my bed, all seventy pounds of her, and I always had sand and black dog hair in my sheets which was disgusting. I eventually kicked her out of my bed and she was pissed and hurt for months. My hairdresser Rosette scolded me for kicking her out and told me I should let her back in but I didn't

She drank tons of sea water at the beach as though she was dying of thirst and could not tell that it was salty and not thirst-quenching. And then she would puke all over the place. She rolled in any dead thing she could find--dead seals were the worst. She rolled in shit many times and I would have to wash it off her, cursing her all the way.

She and I moved at least ten times together. The big Victorian with the roommates first. A studio apartment with just the two of us. Into my dad's house with my ex-boyfriend and me. Into the new apartment that boyfriend and I shared. That's where she first started biting people--mostly nipping ankles but sometimes breaking skin and making me question whether I needed to put her down then. Into a friend's house for a few months where I left her in the beautiful, fenced, grassy yard during the day and she apparently barked all day driving the neighbors crazy but I didn't hear about that until after the fact. Into a big loft apartment in the Dog Patch that we shared with another friend and eventually a new kitten who peed on my bed every day and on the clothes in my closet the other days mostly because he was scared of Sadie who chased him constantly. Into a one-bedroom on Beaver Street where it was just the two of us again. That's where she jumped out of a window for the first time--a high-up window onto the street below where she sat waiting on the corner for me to come home. Out of San Francisco and into the 'burbs where she jumped out of every window in the house at least once and squeeze through a hole in the wall left by the broken air-conditioner. She disappeared that time and I thought I'd lost her for good. A guy down the hill found her running across a busy street and enticed her into his yard where he fed her hot dogs and wanted to keep her. After a couple days he called the animal shelter who called me to let me know a dog matching my description was down the street. She ran away another time, I can't remember how, and some little girls found her up the street. I went to get her from the shelter that time.

She was my animal familiar and a lot of times I didn't really like her. I did not fall immediately in love. I often took out the anger I couldn't or wouldn't direct where it truly belonged on her. She reflected so many of my moods. My anxiety. She started having anxiety attacks a few years ago and we tried Prozac, the thunder shirt. They got less frequent when I started staying home with the kids all day.

This last house was her final house. A huge rambling yard which would be many dogs' version of heaven. She was never one to hang out and explore outside on her own though--she wanted to be where I was. She got depressed and withdrawn when I left her to go on a trip, often not eating until I came back. She got upset when suitcases were packed. I was her person and she loved me in a way no one ever has and I don't think I deserved it. Other people in our lives throughout the years were much sweeter to her than I was. My mom. Terry. Grey. She was a great dog.

I knew it would be time soon. I knew she would tell me. She was in pain and old and mostly blind and pretty deaf. Other people maybe thought it was time before now. But I knew she still wanted to be around, even if it was hard. When I took her in to the vent a couple weeks ago they admired her greatly, saying what a beautiful dog she was, how good she looked considering how old she was. We agreed that we would try to feed her lots of treats and love her while we could. As we were getting ready to go to Vermont for a week as a family Stephanie asked me what my wishes were if it looked like Sadie needed to die while we were going. I was taken aback and appreciative that she had asked because I truly hadn't thought about that. I knew Sadie would want me to be there with her and I just figured she would wait for me. That kinda sums up our relationship. I knew she would do what she needed to to do what I needed.

When I got home from work last night at almost 1 am I knew she would die today. She was done. I laid on the floor with her, stroking her and loving her. I brought her water bowl right up to her face so she could drink. Then I went to bed in my older kids' room because I missed bedtime and everyone was asleep and I knew one of them would wake up soon looking for me. And I wanted to be near them.

I woke up this morning and went to check on my dog and she was laying on our bedroom floor, in much the same spot. She was working harder to breathe. I brought her water again and she drank and laid back down. The house woke up like it always does, with a vengeance. The reality of regular life, little kids needing me, needing stuff, the reality of trying to make a plan so that I could take her to be euthanized filled me with irritation. I wanted everyone to go away, to leave me alone, to take care of everything without my needing to ask.

My dad came. My husband called his parents who are in town and asked them to cover over. I sat on the floor with Sadie and wondered what to do about the kids. What to tell them. How to tell them so it wasn't too scary. They get shots and they go to sleep...how do I explain that my dog, now their dog, is going to die? My husband and I talked about it a bit and he offered to tell them. I wasn't sure yet. And then they all wandered in and it took care of itself like so many things do. I was crying and they could see that. I explained that Sadie was old and tired and sick and that we had to say good-bye to her today. My son cried out, quickly, and then was done. They patted her. In the words of the great Anne Lamott they sat shiva for this dog, in a toddler way, which looked like Cleo bringing in three kernels of dog food and holding them up to Sadie's nose and then handing them to me when Sadie didn't eat them. It looked like Daphne going out to grab fistfuls of dog food and bringing them in to dump into the water bowl, like they have done countless times, only this time I didn't tell them to stop. Lily was feisty and lashed out at her siblings and I asked her to come sit with me a couple times. And then I left them to my dad to watch so I could lay next to my dog, because no matter who else has been in the picture she has always been my dog, and I started saying good-bye.

My teacher. My friend. My companion. My protector. My irritant. My shadow. My responsibility.

My dog died today. She looked into my eyes the whole time, shining with love, knowing she was safe, knowing it was time. She drove me crazy, I wish I could have been better for her, I know I saved her life, and I will miss her so much.

PW, part 2 unedited again

If you had told me that one day Phyllis, or PW as some of us called her, would be folding piles of my kids' laundry on my dining room table, I would not have believed you. Not because I wouldn't expect her to do something kind and helpful like that but because. . .I mean. It's like the coolest girl in school offering to come over and fold your laundry. Wait, no. Not the coolest girl in school. The coolest, young teacher at school who you love talking to and learning from and want some day to be like and can maybe some days imagine being friends with because you have a connection and if she weren't a grown up and you weren't a kid and. . . .yeah, it just never would have crossed my mind. I can tell you that I'm not the only one who feels this way because when I mention to some colleagues, the ones who have worked there for a long time and who worked with and for Phyllis, that she is home watching my kids they look at me as though I just said "Oh yeah, Sting came over to babysit today."

Not exaggerating.

There are so many things to say. I already described what it was like to have her as a boss. It would be another essay entirely to describe what it was like, organizationally and professionally and personally for many people, when she retired so I won't do that here. I can say that we have been friends for years--sharing books (well, mostly she brings me books) and going to Giants games (she took me to Giants games) and talking about love and friendship and travel and work. About motherhood and how much I wanted to be a mother.

We had one another's phone numbers after she left and we stayed in touch, going out to dinner (she took me to dinner). Sometimes we talked about work and I always wanted to know her opinion about things, especially when I was a manager and struggled with so many different aspects of the role. She always kept her commentary about work brief. I could tell she missed it. I could tell she had opinions she wasn't sharing. We never got deep into the dissection of challenges or practice changes or people. She was a mentor and a dear friend. She came to our wedding. She bought us china.

Somehow she started coming to my house once a week after the big twins were born. Was it once a week back then? I can barely remember anything but if not once a week, close to it. She is a loving grandmother to two girls who are growing up and she was happy to spend time with some little babies. She was already coming when I got pregnant with the little girls and noticed how wan and exhausted I was, before I knew the reason why. She just kept coming, holding babies, helping, taking care of us.

The littles are almost two and she has rarely missed a week. Every Tuesday she drives across the Bay, bringing me coffee, lunch for the whole family, snacks and treats for the kids. She was always a great dresser at work and she somehow manages to have the same style now but in clothes that can be muddied and streaked with paint and snot and everything else that propagates our house and covers those eight little hands. She changes diaper and diaper. She climbs into the back of the minivan to load kids in and out of those hard-to-reach car seats. She reads and plays and takes kids to the playground, puts them down for naps, talks to them. They call her Aunt P, or Auntie P, and they not only love her they expect her and ask for her and position themselves temporally in the week based on when she is coming. My husband and I absolutely do not know what we would have done or would do without her.

When I started working at the donor network again she not only wanted to keep coming on Tuesdays but she offered to go solo--to watch all four kids alone, all day. Let that sink in. There is nothing I have ever done in my life that is more exhausting than taking care of my four kids. At the end of the day I flop onto the couch and do not want to get up, not even for food or water. I am done. The only other people who take care of them alone are Stephanie, our babysitter, and Haku, our other babysitter. I was worried about Phyllis when she said she would do this and gave her as many windows as I could to change her mind or back out. She hasn't yet. And though I worried, I knew absolutely that she could do it. She's PW. She can do anything I think.

All of this is to say how much we love her and appreciate her. But I haven't said yet how hard it has been for me to, slow by slow, relax into the reality of having this person whom I admire so hugely come into the most exposed version of myself. The true truth. The mess, the food stains and poop and crazy hair and no bra and dirty clothes and crazed eyes. The rawness of how hard this life is with all these kids. It took many many months, more than a year, for me to stop feeling like I needed to entertain her and talk to her and treat her like a guest. That was hard hard hard for me to do. We keep peeling back layers, talking about death and the hard parts of marriage and health issues. We have been friends for years but this is something different. Family is a good word for it but it's something different than that too. I'm not sure I have the word for it yet, just the feeling.

But Tuesday, when I was practically overcome with rage at the shit on the floor, at the overall powerlessness of my role as a mother, I had moments of wishing her away. Not wanting her, or anyone, to see how ugly I could get. How miserable. How mad. I stalked around, I hid. I was tempted to release her, to release myself, by suggesting that she leave. At one point, even after I was mostly calmed down, I came back out to the living room where she was folding laundry and huffed "Well motherhood doesn't live up to the dreams I had about it!"

She didn't say much but and she didn't get scared away. We didn't have a big talk about it and we mostly moved in symphony for the next little while until she left. But the next day she sent me this text:

"Keep thinking how hard you are working at being a good mom. You don't give yourself enough credit for handling an overwhelming responsibility. I just wish you had more time to spend with them one on one. Lily is never going to let anyone take advantage of her; Cyrus will be the love of life for so many people; Cleo will be that great observer and then will throw herself into things full force; Daphne will always have that cute smile on her face and will get away with a lot because of it. They are amazing kids and you are responsible for that."

This is my love letter to her, to PW, Auntie P, to Phyllis. To my friend, my mentor, my boss. The gifts you give and have given will stay with me, have lifted me, continue to save me and humble me.

Thank you forever.

PW, unedited

Speaking of tantrums I nearly threw one myself on Tuesday. Nearly? Maybe it was fully thrown--what constitutes a tantrum in an adult? As previously mentioned, I am not much of a yeller or a express-your-anger-in-a-healthy-external-way-er. I get pissed and I go quiet. That's what happened on Tuesday when I was home all day with the kids.

I won't go into all the reasons as they're myriad and nothing special. Typical toddler stuff driving me nuts. It was when nap time was a bust and no one but one was sleeping and I ended up having to clean up shit from the floor for the hundredth time. Hundredth is an exaggeration. Fifteenth? Let me just say that cleaning human feces that has been deposited all throughout a room with deliberation and artistic concentration takes it's toll and adds up exponentially so that each time feels like ten times. I was pissed.

I've gotten pissed about it before and I've yelled. I've held the small child by the shoulders and looked said child in the face, sternly and grimly, telling my beloved young person that pooping on the floor is not.ok.

Ok, the child says.

And then it happens again. Not always but often enough. It happened on Tuesday and it was the last straw. I gave up on the naps and stomped my way back to my bedroom where I furiously folded clothes and cleaned up my perpetually-messy space, taking deep breaths and blowing them out. Stomping around. Trying not to think that I'm the cause of all the wild behavior and tantrums--that it's not because I went back to work that they're acting this way. Even though I think that's part of it.

A child came back. Not the pooper. Attempted to engage me. And I responded "I need you to leave me alone please. I am mad and I need some quiet time."

This was respected.

The pooper eventually came back and I said something similar. That child left as well.

It took me thirty minutes of angry clean-up before I felt decent enough to go back out. I felt shy and very exposed to have gotten so mad with Phyllis here. Phyllis being here was the only reason I could escape to my room to cool off, for which I was grateful, but which also made me feel so embarrassed. I try to hide the less than perfect parts of me. Of course no one who knows me thinks I'm perfect. . .but that doesn't stop me from trying. What is starting to stop me from trying is the slow, drip drip of acknowledgement that I am hurting myself with this behavior. With this fear of making mistakes, of getting mad, of not having it all together. I especially don't like to show this stuff to someone I admire so much. To Phyllis.

Who is Phyllis? I've thought about writing about her so many times, though never in the same essay as one that starts with poop on the floor. Ack. The incongruity of those two things is a good place to start in explaining this woman who means so much to me. To my family.

Phyllis was my boss. Not just my boss, my big boss. The biggest. The CEO of the company I recently started working for again. Not just the CEO but the one who started the organization and ran it for twenty years or so. Not just the one who started the organization but the one who made it into the leader in the industry for years and years. A legend. I do not say that lightly.

In the days when I was hired she did the second interview for anyone being considered for hire. Alone. I don't remember being scared, though I'd never had an interview with a CEO before. I was nervous because I had bombed my first interview and because I was sick as a dog, carrying a pint of orange juice with me into her office. Within minutes I was at ease, talking to a woman who was clearly smart as hell and who also clearly got me. She saw me, she knew I was someone to hire and so she hired me.

I was introduced to organ donation by an organization that she created in her own image. There was a deep respect for donors and donor families, a deep respect for how hard the work was and how much the people doing it matter. A love of learning and trying to be better. A commitment to community and team, to talking about all aspects of our process and working together. She bought people gifts for their anniversaries with the company. She threw a going-away party for a colleague going off to Irag. And a coming-back party many months later when he returned. She started each day walking through the office, saying good morning to everyone. It felt really good to work there.

As I took on roles requiring more skill and more responsibility, I saw behind the curtain bit by bit. Saw some of the difficult decisions being made and the challenges being dealt with. I traveled to national meetings and learned that we were among the best in the country at what we did. People wanted to be like us and that had a lot to do with Phyllis. There was instant respect, instant cred, that came with the name of our organization, that followed her throughout the room. I felt proud.

The main thing, the most precious thing, that she gave me in those years was a confidence in myself, in my ability to assess a situation and make a decision, in my ability to take a risk. There were fewer rules back then. From the beginning, I knew I could walk to her office and say to her "Here's the situation. This is what I think we should do and this is why." She didn't always say yes but she usually did. She had my back, had all of our backs, and that inspired me and most others to ask why not, to push beyond perceived boundaries, to do what we could imagine was possible. I will never stop being grateful to her for that because that is in me, deep in my heart and my bones, and it makes me the thinker and problem-solver I am today.

Was she perfect? Of course not but I don't know much about the parts of her that weren't. I'd sit in meetings with her and hold myself up against her, seeing her sitting sphinx-like in a room full of surgeons, keeping her emotions to herself. I want to be like that, I thought. I wore my reactions all over my face, in my voice. I felt too emotional, too reactive.  How did she do that? I still wonder

She retired several years ago and it was a blow.

To be continued....

On tantrums--unedited

My son woke me up this morning, asking if he could come sleep with me in our bed. I said yes, although his twin sister was asleep on the other side of me and there wasn't much room. He climbed in, rustled around as is his habit, and kept talking in a loud voice to me. After a couple minutes I sat up, gathering my wits about me.

Let's get out of here so we don't wake Lily up, I said.

He started yelling and I got immediately pissed. I scooped him up and stalked out of the room, putting him down in the kitchen where he continued to scream. Not proud to admit that I held my hand over his mouth, trying to staunch the sound. He yelled louder and louder and all I wanted to do was yell back STOP YELLING. You do not get to wake your sister up just because you're having a fit for no reason! I wanted to smash him.

I put myself outside, like a dog misbehaving. I closed the door on the screaming and stood in the cool morning air, braless in flannel pajama pants, closing my eyes and taking deep yogic breaths as I tried not to listen to the yelling muffled by the wood and glass. It's disorienting and scary to go from asleep to in a rage in less that five minutes.

When I was six my mom took me to a psychiatrist to help me stop having tantrums. I remember nothing of the experience except that I got to pick a candy bar afterwards and I picked Mr. Goodbar and hated it. Getting candy was a very rare occurrence so to think and choose so carefully and have it not be good was devastating enough to still live inside me as a visceral experience, three decades later.

A month ago a friend asked me to write about how we deal with tantrums. I wrote a quick response on Facebook but that wasn't enough. This is one area of parenting that I wonder about with some regularity.

One common piece of advice is to ignore them. I am almost certain that this is what I did during the many years I took care of other peoples' kids as a baby-sitter. I can't tell you for sure since that is pre-child raising and we all know my memory is completely shot. Unless it's candy as a six year old and then that shit is iron-tight. The reason I'm pretty sure is that it feels like what I would have done, feels like what I believe(d) was the right way to respond. Not to pay attention, let the tantrum burn itself out. Or maybe, now that I'm really thinking about it, I distracted. That seems more right, and more in line with the "Hey, I'm only here right now so I'll do what works" philosophy of a teenage sitter.

Here's the thing. I have been stomping down my own emotions, especially the bad ones, for years. Decades. A lifetime. I can't remember not doing it, though I wasn't always as aware that I was doing it. The bad ones--rage, fear, resentment, jealousy. The ones I don't like feeling, feel ashamed of feeling, feel exposed and wrong for feeling. So I shut them off, turn Ice Queen, and go on my way. Feeling like you want to smash your kid because he won't stop screaming would fall into the category of reactions I am not proud of. Even the thoughts that run through my head during it arne illustrative:

You are screaming for no reason.
You don't have the right

I want my kids to know it's ok to feel mad. So mad that you want to kick and scream and throw yourself on the floor because it's just so not ok what is happening. Even if what is happening is not getting to eat a cookie for breakfast. I mean, I'm not saying I want to listen to it. And I don't want to sit there narrating it to them either. If I could choose exactly what I want it would be to create the space for them to let it all out. And after a few minutes for them to go somewhere else to yell and scream in their own room. Because I am not a bottomless vessel for patience. Far, far from it. And though I want them to know it's ok to feel their feelings. . . the truth is I don't feel that comfortable in the face of anger and sadness. I'm getting better. I hope. And I think I'm better with sadness than with anger.

The truth is. . .I don't know anything about tantrums. Not enough to write in such a way that will be meaningful for everyone. I will say what I think and wonder about. What I hope for. What I worry about.

Last week a mom friend from the NICU wrote our group an email entitled OMG, the gist of which was Good grief I can't take the constant tantrums. I read it and thought, yeah we deal with more tantrums than we used to but it's not so bad. . .

And then every day since then it has been a constant barrage of fits being thrown. Over the slightest things. It's hard not to immediately think there's something deeper going on, like the fact that I went back to work and they're missing me and having a hard time adjusting. That's one of the many reasons I appreciate my tribe of parents, chiming in "Me too" about much of this--not just the tantrums being thrown by the short people but the tantrums we throw ourselves, out loud or by freezing them out or in an ongoing inner narrative. Have we learned to handle them better?