"I Just Need My Friends To Be Okay"

....was the simple, conflicted plea of my 17 year old daughter when I got home from my usual Tuesday night meeting this week. "Mom, I just need my friends to be okay." She was referring to the fact that not just one but two girls her age and her acquaintance had suffered major medical attention for alcohol poisoning over the weekend.
The next day, during my work and her school day, my phone started pinging with updates about one of these girls, now in a medically-induced coma, as a result of her party intake efforts. I work in an active classroom and typically keep my phone in my pocket so as to know if a critical call comes in, but texts like this waver on the threshold of garnering responsiveness. On the one hand, I know my daughter will call if she's in a very difficult moment, but on the other hand, the reach of a connection that the texts provide (I'm sure she was in her Senior Privilege block at the time) is like a rare olive branch of mother-daughter relations. I couldn't respond at the time. But I immediately started thinking about how it's the very same with young children, reaching for us whenever they need emotional backup.

Emotional backup for the young child often sounds something like this, "He won't let me," "She's not letting me," "I don't want her to."
And in my 4's class this year, it's particularly similar to how some of my students empathize so greatly with their peers' needs that they too just need their friends to be okay.

UPDATE: 

This draft, above, was originally started 4 years ago, 9/28/16. I am fairly sure there was a connection going on in my classroom, a young student who was transferring all his anxiety to the more outward display of what was happening with peers experiencing dramatic separation anxiety. How odd that I revisit this moment almost exactly 4 years later, 10/26/20 with no daily physical classrooms to hold us.

My youngest daughter is now 17. We are entering the 7th month of a global pandemic in which her school life is based out of her bedroom. My meetings are online, for which she closes the only separating door to dull the sounds of those, her bedroom door. The anxiety I feel when that door stays closed for hours is the kind of anxiety I felt when I didn't feel 100% freedom to answer my phone during my work days at school 4 years ago. There are very few texts between us, because we are mostly home together, although she has the respite of her dad's house to change her scenery. She has uttered these same title words to me recently, for entirely different reasons, along with more regular intonations of "My friends are not okay. Nobody is okay."

I hear that. I feel this way too, in increasing intervals. The swings between high levels of productivity and lows of listlessness are overwhelming. 
Many of us are existing in this state of not having access to so many things we want. I just need my friends to be okay, too. 

Ether in the End Times: Dating, Episode One

 

SCENE: Online dating message chat.
TIME: The not-so-late hour of 8 pm-ish.
CHARACTERS: Myself, and A person identified by what I presume to be initials

He: hey can we exchange #s?

Me: As in phone numbers? Maybe. 

He sends his phone number. 

Now at this point we had made about 6 short exchanges in one conversation. He had asked my name, which shouldn't have been a mystery since it was in my profile, so it's clue #1 that maybe he isn't paying attention or hasn't even read it. I myself had just learned this man's name after asking. So everything going through my head is not in his favor. But his profile is interesting enough, he's lived all over the world and his work appears to be passionate and interesting. He caught my attention. 

Me: I don't love talking on the phone to people I don't know....what were you hoping would happen with that? 
Keep in mind, I'm doing just fine on the keys of chat. Nothing is compelling me to increase this level of connection. And I suspect he does not realize how much information a phone number provides.
So I plug his ten digits into a google search, the simplest version of investigation I don't even know if I need. 

Meanwhile, he acknowledges he just thought it would be easier to chat on the phone.

Within about 1 minute I have located online what I believe to be his full name and his last two cities of residence. And I reveal that by verifying what I found. 

He: wow how did you dig that up?

Me: You gave me your phone number.....Now you might see why a woman may not want to disclose such information rapidly.

He: wow. no shit. that is the last time I give out my number. 
And - This has taken a very strange turn. Thank you for enlightening me on how easy it was to look me up.

Okay. So now my female brain is only thinking, darn, the tone is set, I don't even know this person and I'm already the person who seems to have more sense, more presence, maybe more sense of self-preservation and maybe I just headed off a waste of any more time. This is a fundamentally female brain experience (I think), that the bigger picture is everywhere, all the time. So I ask.

Me: What usually happens when you give out your number?

He: A lady calls or texts. One didn't, but I didn't take it personally. 

And then I take stock of how there's probably no point to any of this. I already know I can make a chat fun, fast and witty and enjoy that for what it is worth. But I'm not really likely to meet a stranger 7 months into a pandemic, a stranger who tells me he usually meets up with people masked, gets to-go coffees and goes on walks. I mean, that sounds sort of reasonable, but risky enough that I'd have to think I really like someone before I do that. 

What I didn't know at the time was that as my comedy was unfolding, my teen was in her room slogging through AP Biology and dissolving under the weight of life. Looming college deadlines, a mom she needs at 11 pm but rarely accepts when much more easily available (and awake) all day long on the weekends, a crap week behind her. 

So we snuggled up and slept together. I woke up this morning wondering why in the world this seems remotely important, to be dabbling at all through the ether of online dating. Because that is an excellent metaphor for what it is like - a pleasant-smelling volatility, used as an anesthetic for the pandemic process of fatigue and isolation.

Going with Grief

As we are each in our own personal circles of protection with our self-defined levels of risk, I sit down to write a unique newsletter piece veering far off the classroom spectrum. Our new classrooms are the original classrooms - the hearths of love and security and creating foundations. I process heavily in words, so I know whatever I write will be lengthy. We are in an era of constant adaptation flooded with offerings. I hope I will aptly acknowledge the remote togetherness of our experience as this month turns.

We are collectively participating in an interlude of unprecedented, unfamiliar griefs. I am sure we can all create lists of shared losses, peppered with unique and distinct personalities that make our individual circumstances uniquely wonderful and simultaneously woeful. I am equally sure many moments of delight and ease have erupted from this societal state of things.  And thank goodness for that! After all, many young children may largely be in their treasured fantasy experience of ongoing access to their parents, home and attention. How wonderful to make space for operating on their time, with greater permission to ourselves, to the best of our ability! 

So I will also dare to say that the most dire grief among us is that we have no collective end date, no aspirational idea broadcast to us to aid our ability to cope and reason with this landscape of physical distancing and isolation, of meeting the children’s needs alongside our own without a clear roadmap to guide us. We are coping with a new set of societal rules that we didn’t get to make together, and we are coping with not knowing when they will change again. This is unlike challenges we’ve known before.

I have two daughters. The oldest is a full time college student adjusting to an online schedule and also working full time - in the essential work force of grocery. Need I mention how unsettled I feel about that? My youngest is a high school junior. For the first 14 days of our isolation, I witnessed my teen daughter existing more happily than I’ve seen in a long time. She had a self-driven interest to complete her school work for the first week, and a sense of unbridled ease to direct her days on her own rhythm of sleep and wakefulness for the second. She was also largely unconcerned with me, while I myself acknowledged a massive ease on anxiety with this new reality that I knew where she was and what she was doing (more or less) at all times - it may feel remote now in the parenting of young children, but that’s one of those autonomy issues we eventually gain as parents. I was also anchored by the small but functional daily story times on Facebook, in an effort to maintain normalcy and familiarity with students.

And then everything changed. My daughter’s cycle of acceptance of our new normal, like mine, is functioning at a messy, unpredictable, personal pace. And I fear that we have been felled by the one thing that can best help us see the future beyond  - knowing when that future will be. It is not our first rodeo with intense isolation. Five years ago we spent the entirety of a hot summer indoors in a therapeutic program that limited her activity to door-to-door access to a day hospital program and home. It was every arc of difficult emotion you can imagine. But we latched on to a timeline of 8 weeks that made each of those days feel less impossible to make it through. As the 8-week mark loomed, we learned that the timeline was an arbitrary and minimum point of reevaluation to resume life as we knew it. It was devastating. It was disastrous. We almost fell apart as all our motivation was redefined for us. Five years later, here we are now - similarly limited, severely isolated, and flailing toward aspirations that aren’t yet identified. So we make peace with each day as it unfolds.
I think it may be the hardest thing in the world to be greeted by grief. It doesn’t expire, it doesn’t end and it takes its time becoming recognizable and companionable. And it is now more than ever a non-negotiable skill to find balance with that presence.

I’m currently in the stage of adapting to our crisis conditions. The thrill of productivity that often surges through me hasn’t arrived for me yet, and I am okay with that. I know my brain needs time to process this gap between the familiar and the unfolding unfamiliar.  I’m also working at recreating my foundations. The most important thing is for everyone to feel loved, secure and accepted in their compounding and evolving truths.

Some 101 on Care

If I could go back in time, I would undo the 7 weeks we all toiled through life with my dad on a geriatric psych ward. But we didn't really have a choice, because we needed to place my dad in a living environment that could safely care for his evolving needs as dementia demanded it. So our path into  what is called 'placing' my dad ultimately came under duress, despite our very best intentions and efforts to stay ahead of this constraint.

It's a process and decision that sucks. When you can't care for people to the capacity that they need to be safe for all daily routine and function, there are options. That is the good news. The bad news is, it's probably impossible to find what you really want - which is a new home where the care, attention, time and love will match your own.

My dad willing left home for the hospital because he recognized his own frustration with his disease and wanted to "fix his brain." He didn't know that for more than 7 months we had been visiting alternative 'homes' for him, anticipating a future when we needed more support and believing we could make a good choice for him and that it would be best to help him transition to a new community while he could still integrate socially. We were on to something. And we learned a lot on the way. We mostly followed our noses on this journey, but there are some things that would have been helpful to reference in this process.

1) Know what is out there before you need it.
It's a vast sea of quality and choice out there. We visited large memory care facilities, small nursing homes and foster cares. We saw horrifying things. We met incredible caregivers, yet we also saw the industry tragedy that most senior care is grossly understaffed. Diversifying your understanding of the kinds of care will really put it all into perspective for you.

2) And on that note, know if you can feasibly adapt your home and life to let your loved one continue to live at home. This may or may not be possible, and it really deserves a wide lens of consideration if dementia is on the docket. Dementia's sidecar is sudden rapid decline - experiencing gradual changes over the course of a year is nothing when suddenly skills and behaviors are changing day to day or week to week. Caregivers and live-in caregivers for your home can be real options. If money is no expense and you can stand the idea of a stranger living with you, that could be fantastic. But other unpredictable factors are likely to be at play as well: in the case of my dad, he specifically indicated that male caregiving companions were critical to him. None of us could have predicted that at some point, he began to associate at least one of these male caregivers who would spend the day with him in his home as someone who must be having an affair with his wife. In his brain, that was what sense was telling him. He made it very clear when those people were no longer welcome in his home, and he flat out resisted allowing female caregivers to accompany his days. That was back when he was living at home. One of the hardest parts of the care process is constantly making decisions that may be outpaced by decline. Ordering equipment alone can take 1-2 months. That's an eon in dementia care.

3) Using an agency is a good starting point. However, agencies generally only show you places that have current openings, so you have to be insistent on your criteria if you are in the Step 1 phase.
Agencies get commission if a placement is made, which is obviously more likely with a more direct delivery of placement. The good thing about an agency is they are likely to have some familiarity with the places they take you (but not necessarily), and they most certainly take on the hassle of all the scheduling.

4) Know the jargon. As it turns out, Memory Care requires less staffing (in Oregon) than Assisted Living. It barely makes sense. Folks with memory disease generally need more support and daily interaction. Skilled Nursing is generally considered a short term care location, even if that is an asset you need to end of life. Foster care is state regulated home-like living. When I started reading up on licensure of foster care in Oregon, the value of this business swelled in my heart. Right off the bat, care ratios in adult foster care are strong. A maximum of 5 residents may live in a foster home, so even with just one caregiver on duty that doubles potential for care compared to the 1:10 ratio in nursing homes.

5) Know that life in a facility revolves around meds. This is not in and of itself a bad thing, but with so much to do and so many people to care for, caregivers are not really set up for success with individual care support if it doesn't relate to meds. Nothing will appear more important than that delivery of medicine will transpire, which means that if meds and getting teeth brushed are both on a personal care plan, guess which one always happens and which one maybe never does.

6) Value the possibility of adult foster care. Visit lots of them. Go to the ones that seem far away and meet the people who are doing right by our loved ones, hopefully creating comfortable and kind new home lives. Outside of sheer luck, it's the only way you will get access to the network of people who know other people and will tell you where they would live for the level of care you describe to them. Foster care wasn't an initial option for us because they can't be locked around the clock and are not secure. Unfortunately for us, my dad exhibited exit-seeking behavior when we started looking, which eliminated the foster home option. Nine months into the systems and stressors of memory care, the explicitly low ratio of staff to residents and individualized are things that we dreamed of ensuring . It's also important to realize that foster homes are licensed for different levels of care, so it's possible to find your dream caregiver personalities but not have access to their homes. Foster care is a labor of love. People are often doing this around the clock. There will be fewer people to 'learn' your loved one.

It's not fun. Having confidence in the compassion and care you need for your loved one invigorates every ounce of the weight of this process. Nobody can do for your loved one what you can (and can't). Gratitude for the people who aim to in the systems that be.

My Pink-Cheek Power Hour

It's 83 degrees in the middle of September, and I got to spend a power hour in the garden in the middle of the afternoon. (This is very, very good, because I'm on what I call garden probation; my 100 square foot community garden plot is monitored for appearance standards and the insufferable presence of weeds in its pathways - both of which have been less than desirable on the past couple of garden monitor visits. If my plot isn't picture-perfect prepared for winter, it will be taken from me. Yep, probation.) That power hour in the autumn sun planting purple brussels sprouts (whose winter produce promises leaves of deep purple or sea green with violet red tips and veins) and pulling out kale trees gave me rather pink cheeks. When I caught my reflection in the mirror, all I could think about was how lucky I am to have the weekday privilege of an occasional hour in the garden.

I've tried really hard (embarrassingly hard, since I've mostly failed) to gain a 9-5 type job that would make this kind of power hour quite impossible. Let me confirm that I absolutely love my job, but since it lacks the financial growth opportunity I need for long-term stability and security, over the past year and half I've spent hours and hours applying for jobs, responding to interview assignments and going to interviews. And failing to get the jobs. It's quite humbling. I'm never before encountered such overarching failure. Most of my adult work life has been born of the good fortune of excellent timing or spunk of creativity and resourcefulness, or both. Now I get to do good work for families and their young children, not because I knew anything about it when I started but because I let myself learn from the work along the way. So in a way, that was made possible by failing here and there along the way. But never on the scale of outright inability to advance like my intentional job search has been.
Now, I might be kidding myself to think I could stand a work-life that required me to learn a system and a standard that I didn't get to help create. I need the pink-cheek element of accomplishment and action I get in my garden just as equally in my work. That rosy flush of work well done or gone all wrong is a workplace privilege I'm proud to say I have in spades.

In my garden I grow plants for food and medicine. I also fail there. I don't get every zucchini at the right size, snails get some strawberries, my blueberries have failed to thrive, I let the nasturtiums take over my beet bed this year. Without my garden and it's edible gifts I'd be sorely missing many of the most joyful interludes of my life, including harvests and fruitful labor. Without a flexible work afternoon I'd be missing some of the prime pink cheek hours I'm fortunate to have. On days like today, I feel good about letting go of what I don't have to let in the enrichment of what I do.

So that's the power. Pink cheeks. I'm not failing myself in these moments, I'm living the dream with my pink-cheek power, every garden hour.

Hug a Caregiver Today

I have hope that when disease, age or very bad luck comes for me my daughters will have the flexibility, patience and strength of memories to reroute for me. And I must hope that they have until well after my 60th birthday to grow these virtues.

Over the past few weeks, my dad hasn't been able to fasten his own seat belt getting into my car even once. Today he managed to unfasten it three times as the vehicle was in motion, in an attempt to get out of the car in his frustration and anger.
I'm thankful my car has auto lock and I could control that as my heart fell to my stomach and I steered us out of traffic each time. There's nothing easy about an angry incoherent man throwing a punch at the windshield when you're in the driver's seat. It's downright alarming.

My 65 year old dad and I have spent long days together this summer, coming and going from my childhood home in a routine of coffee, walks, art class, gadding about town and driving. Until today, driving has been a soothing, reorganizing activity. He has been a happy passenger, even when we're hitting that awful afternoon traffic slowdown on the Burnside Bridge. I know my dad doesn't always know who I am on these days, but that's okay with me. Until today I haven't triggered an upset in his world the size of a mountain and speed of a hailstorm, which is to say it hit large and hard and changed the landscape we've been able to tender.

I'm lucky. I choose this weather with my dad. When I think about all the people without daughters or loved ones to stand by these times, I think about the people who show up for this work. They give long hours to unpredictable, sometimes volatile people, and usually with poor pay. They have few clues or any shared history from the lives of their dementia patients, which is often something that makes it work for me. Yes, I'm lucky. I can lean in to the legacy of our lives for compassion, patience and care.

7 Ways I Might Have Known I Was Dating a Predator

Sitting in my vehicle just before 8 a.m. the other day, I saw a man walk across the street to his car with his shoes in hand. Cool shoes, hipster half-boots, and wearing an oxford shirt mostly buttoned but not all. He was young, tousled and handsome and walking barefoot to his Lexus wagon with the look of exiting a place not his own. It reminded me immediately of a man I dated for a brief two months a few years ago who once watched me sit to put on the heels I had been wearing the night before and say he always thought it was sexy when women left with their shoes in their hands. He was very sexy to me, I craved him and his attention, but contrary moments like that should have been my clues to his arrogance. In our parting conversation he disdainfully told me the unwanted handmade birthday gift in his hand was the most thoughtful gift anyone had ever given him. A compliment of dichotomy.

I've recently had a traumatic dating experience with miscalculated intentions; predictably it has impacted the way I will and want to meet men. I haven't expected to write about it without confronting my own contributions to what was ultimately a trauma for me. Several weeks removed, I can more clearly see how I might have known I was dating someone that now strikes me as a sexual predator. Much like the fellow I knew above, he was someone who had my attention by virtue of his smarts, sass and straight up sex appeal.

He got my attention, and then he let me make all the moves.
By virtue of busy schedules and brief as well as impromptu connections, I unwittingly initiated all the thrills of getting together. He simply kept saying yes.

Emotional intelligence is his curb appeal modus operandi.
He has it. However, he avoided being sexually explicit in his probing honesty and admissions. Saying "I'm a lot" proved to be highly insufficient introduction to his sexual proclivities. But a potential romantic partner being vocal, communicative and inquisitive about shared interests is an easy invitation to be smitten in the wilds of online dating.

In broad daylight "Why am I not fucking you right now?"sounded good.
Too good. I liked it. Rarely if ever since I was 17 has a man I've simply kissed turned on my body at the mere thought of him. When you crave someone that much, anything sounds like a compliment in his company.

He invited me to a sex club for a date and seemed to relish my subsequent curiosity when I said I had questions instead of saying no or yes.
Personally, I know I'm more likely to enjoy that kind of destination when I've already breached intimate boundaries. But I've met a lot of people out there in the land of online dating as well as acquainted with or been hounded by plenty more, and nothing surprises me about the stunted ideas of seeking connections. I had good questions. He confirmed all my suspicions. Timing never landed us at the sex club. But I know he frequents all three in town; I can usually admire a man who is willing to share his lifestyle interests with me.

It wasn't groceries in his paper shopping bag when I suggested we go on a picnic, and we met at my house.
It wasn't the original plan to meet at my house, but it did happen. I'm going to chalk that up to an incident of timing and strong appetite for living on the edge. My rule about not inviting men to my home if I haven't been to theirs is pretty solid, well-founded and smart. Yet it also falters with the spirit of impulsiveness, the safety of daylight and the intrigue of a fantastic connection. But letting someone into your home is a (deserved) signal of trust and consent by my estimation of dating middle aged men. In my experience, men like sex when they can get it. They don't always recognize that women like sex when they want it. His bag was equipped with sex toys and mezcal. He came with an agenda under cover of accepting a picnic invitation. Was I surprised? No. Was I game? Yes, though......

He equated being in my home as a measure of my permission and safety. 
"This is your home. You're safe here." If that's not the most revealing predatory statement for a guest in your home to make to you when you're struggling to balance discomfort with pleasure and surprise in their company, what is?

He had a safe word.........that he didn't reveal until I needed it.
He had a safe word! That I didn't know. Whereas he had the concept in place, there was absolutely no conversation or agreement to enter an intimacy that would warrant a safe word. Cerebrally, I was caught in the conundrum and momentum of dichotomous confusion and pleasure when I needed such a word - and I had to beg for it.
Ironically, I had spent the better part of the prior 8 months deflecting the advances of another man who desired an intimate relationship with me based on his rules and kink. He was annoyingly persistent about trying to convince me it would be worth my time and stubbornly disinterested in accepting my deflection, but in comparison he was marvelously and respectfully communicative about the breadth of his desires without actually advancing them upon me on the rare occasions he might have.

On the one hand, I went with my eyes open into the embrace of a predatory man whose success in his profession as a fighter is training to get what he wants. It was part of the intrigue, until he opened season on my 'training' without me knowing the regimen and rules. On the other hand, he mistook my curiosity and miscalculated my interest as an invitation to skip the niceties. Resultingly, my intrigue and curiosity dissipated instantly. Then came the interval of three days when I struggled to focus on the tasks before me. I lacked appetite, lost all interest in connecting with him, barely noticed he wasn't making any effort to communicate with me. The mystique, excitement and respect evaporated in his presence and then morphed into post traumatic stress. It took me three days to recognize the symptoms, six days to forgive myself my smitten weakness, more than six weeks to find an angle of communication about it. He gave me a lot to think about. I have no doubt he's unaware of the weight of his actions and ways. I believe I'm one in a succession of many others. He will go on in his search for someone who fulfills his greatest need - to know that women like him - and to use it as a cue for secret scripted intimacies.

And I have to believe, only a predator exploits people that way.

Diagnosis

I started dating with intention about a year ago because of a spectacular one night stand.
Actually, I thought I started dating with intention because of a spectacular one night stand, along with the encouragement of a couple particular friends. One of them was a woman who was enjoying it herself, the other a man who, more than anything, really likes to nudge people toward possibilities, which I appreciate. As for the one night stand, that was a surprise on all counts. Wherever he may be now, we were both in the right place at the right time last January. His vitality and ambition and attitude were a contagious marvel to my maternal single-hood. I credit him for reminding me it was time to renew my appetite for those cravings of youth.

As the year progressed and I met an assortment of men with varying talents, urgencies, quirks, idiosyncracies, agendas and experiences, I quickly found I wasn't in it to uncover the men reinventing themselves, the men high on themselves, or the men with ambition that fueled confidence but relaxed into arrogance. But that's who found me, on repeat. One notable guy had a particularly difficult time responding to No. In fact, he's a guy whose essay could be titled The Man I'm Not Dating Just Broke Up With Me.....Again for all the consternated emails he sent, except that I'm not sure I can fault him his delusions based on the simple handicap of not wanting to believe I didn't want to date him. I'm also not sure I'm not at fault for responding to the guy when he texted erratically over the course of several months, because hey, it's nice to know someone likes you, even when he's a little (or a lot) crazy and overuses emojis.

It occurred to me this week that the real reason I started dating could be summed up as diagnosis. More specifically, that recurring alone-ness that presents itself in force when things like diagnosis come along. The two years prior had carried diagnoses in my immediate family ranging through dementia, anorexia, depression and tumor growth. Most of those things came with accessories of anger, grief, confusion and hardship. They all suck. They all require maintenance and attention and priority at inconvenient times. Friends are good, but friends have their own families and accessories and schedules that always upstage an ongoing emotional drain and drama. The ultimately relentless daily alone-ness was taxing. I was certainly seeking a companionship that could withstand me and conjoin the factor of increasing matriarchy with his own whip-smart, fun, equally human coexistence. Funny thing is, a lot of people that are or seem to be good company aren't on dating sites. They are the musicians taking a set break, bagging my groceries, the servers at the restaurants where dates take you, the bus driver serenading its riders. It's funny how dating re-frames everyone into a context of potential date (and when those good-company folks are on dating sites, they are so often already in professedly wonderful open relationships looking to expand their hearts, which doesn't happen to fit my interests). So I've curtailed all momentum on dating. I opened my profile this month to find I am now liked by 900 people....the majority of whom I will never know what they think they like about me.

Any idea what the apropos diagnosis is for that?

Last Night at the Hospital

Tonight on the cancer ward, two little girls reminded me of the power of truth in the process of grief for young children.
As I sat coloring with the 5 1/2 year old daughter of my cousin, her 3 year old sister suddenly looked up to us and stated "My Papa is going to die soon." It blossomed right into her big sister explaining that's why she was at the hospital, and the problem the size of a cupcake in her grandpa's brain, and how he would feel better when he dies, and it's okay because they will always love him in their hearts. She told me it makes her sad, but it makes her mom very sad and cry all the time. I told her it makes me sad and I cry too. I told her it makes me sad that my dad's brain is sick too, and when she asked if it would make him die, I said yes.
And then, that big sister asked me what would happen when her mom and dad die. I told her people would take care of her with the love from her mom and dad in their hearts. But she meant what would happen if they died and nobody else was there. In that moment, what I thought to say was that would be an emergency and she could call 911 for any emergency. "Oh yeah, she said.....can I also call you?"
I said "Sure. I can tell you my phone number. Would you like to call me right now? "
She 'called' me right up and said, "I just wanted to let you know we are in the hospital because my Papa isn't doing so well and he's going to die soon."
And it went from there. She alternated between a toy phone and a pretend phone all the while she colored and carried on a conversation blending the facts and some fiction ("we're just about to park now, we'll see you soon") and even asking if there was anything she could do for me.
Perhaps 15 minutes later, in the waiting room outside her poppa's door, a woman sitting with her husband in a hospital gown, overheard this big sister ask me how cancer gets in your brain. She proceeded to say hello and tell her she loved someone who was going to die very soon too. It was one of those times you have to trust that a complete stranger is going to say the right thing, a helpful thing, an explanation of something that even doctors can't always explain, because every moment makes an impression of truth. I am not certain, but I have a guess, that hearing she is not alone in this place of losing a love she has always known, was a gift for both the giver and the receiver.
If you've ever doubted the power of truth in the process of grief for kids, I wish you could have been there with me tonight.

Thanks to their mama (my cousin) for her permission to share this story gift. I just wish I could have recorded the twenty minutes of precious, tender, honest love of it all for her.

Where and When Giving Works

Living on a close budget is a reality for most people I know, no matter the size of their income.
For most of my adult life my version of living on a close budget doesn't allocate any money to savings, no allowance for vacations, and almost always puts my daughters' expenses ahead of my own. Over the years I have occasionally squirreled some tax returns into savings that always ended up spent on medical costs - except for that one year I took the whole broken family to Disneyland for $1000, and I thought I'd have to be the one who could bust the cycle with a rejuvenating "play together, stay together" effort - and my weird car karma has also afforded some unexpected gains. (This is where a footnote would come in a research paper, because I've owned seven cars in the past thirteen years and all but one met their demise by no fault of my own). But ultimately, I just get by.
For the past year my budget has been exceptionally strained, and in the past several months the demands on it particularly weighty. My medical expenses pooled, my health insurance premium rose, my car needed to be replaced. For me those were pretty basic needs I needed to address with a longer term outlook. I had a whole summer of sticking very close to home with a disabled vehicle and a limited income during which I put a lot of time and energy in to job searches, applications and interviews believing I had no real option other than to refocus my professional energy in a direction that could be more securely financially compensated. I had to pull out of funding extra-curricular activities for my kids. It was soul-crushing and liberating at the same time. For several months I believed I was on the cusp of Huge Change and dreaded the fine details of how I was going to communicate that to my families and young students. But I also got a scope on the massive amount of transferable skill I had amassed on the job in 18 years with a public entity and 10 in a small non-profit, and that was heartening. None of it produced that new, more financially comfortable job and I ultimately decided to re-energize being myself. But that needed a new focal point too. I needed to find a way to give more of what I had to give, and hope that could launch me beyond surviving. I really needed new glasses, new contacts and to get out from under the stress of a broken car - which became no car - and that I could only afford to buy one that would keep me in the cycle of having to replace again in a year or two. (Yes, I thought about being car-free, but even in Portland I just couldn't see my car-free future).

Volunteering one's time with two jobs and two kids and one relatively meager income isn't that easy. I found that as I approached my 40's I needed a lot more rejuvenation time for myself. All the bustle and hustle to survive was more taxing, and adding a regular volunteer commitment to my schedule for my own pure joy just didn't happen. That grief became a stressor for me over the years too. My volunteering time is pretty limited to what I have to do, which is more like bartering. I get a substantial financial aid package for my daughter's high school tuition and in return contribute a substantial amount of time to the school. I really enjoy it, actually. The barter system works well for me. It's profit only goes so far, though, as it keeps you surviving and not always thriving.
Last fall I decided I just need to say yes more often, find more ways to give in manageable ways that I could risk to afford and enjoy. I started pulling books off my shelf for people, blending teas for specific needs, used my GAP rewards to buy clothes for kids in a refugee family, spent another $100 on the refugee family instead of ordering contacts, gave away my homemade garden preserves and herbal remedies, made herbal remedies for Standing Rock out of the donated dollars of customers, said yes to a cat bed my daughter wanted for our cats (it helped that it was half-price with an extra discount), said yes to the big tree my girls chose for the holiday and encouraged a community-giving project in my workplace, gave my experience to people who benefited from it in their new jobs.

You know what happened next? The more I exercised the habit of giving - even small - the more giving seemed to come around to me, and often when I really needed it. When I risked revealing a quiet skill I have to make and sell medicinal remedies and plant medicine to folks that I know, it ended up financing the purchase of new glasses and contacts and giving me the reassurance that I will find a way to afford my higher health care premiums. When my car finally died, people loaned me their vehicles. When my car search was stretching into compromise and stagnation, a great investment came to me. This weekend I started driving a car I risked financing on my tight budget, and for the first time since last June I can plan to drive out of town, when I need or want to. It's a liberation I have needed for many months.
In a way, I got a lot of the things I needed from the elusive job search, without suffering some of the consequence. A lot of the need got strongly salved. A lot of the need produced patience and consideration and human relationship. A lot of the support came from my work family past and present, people whose children I spent and spend time with. That's where giving works - where the heart is.