Tag: family

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Summer Memories

296153_269495529727793_2072100_nWhen we were kids my sister and I would have all kinds of fun during our summers. First off, they started earlier than the public school kids because we went to a private school that was always done the first week of June instead of near its end. That sometimes made for issues when we would go to the Gallery downtown and the guards would want to kick us out for skipping school. It was hard to get across that it was cool, that we were legal so chill out.

Then there was the library. Our nearest public library was down on Baltimore Avenue, which was about 12 blocks away from our street, with the building itself directly across the avenue, so it was fun trying to get over there during heavy traffic. With our mom working every day, though, we had to make the trek on our own once we got old enough to do so. I remember the graffiti on the building more than anything else. It stood out like a beacon, and it wasn’t until much later that I realized it was planned and organized graffiti. Well, most of it anyway.

I recall trips to Dutch Wonderland when we would pile into the old Chevy Nova and rattle our way down the turnpike to a place that in retrospect wasn’t much larger than the block we lived on. But it was like magic, seeing Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, going on all those rides and getting to spend time with our dad. Those are the few memories we actually have with him before the divorce.

Then there were all the mishaps. I broke my wrist one year and my sister spent most of the time it was healing laughing at me. To top it off I got a blue cast that was incredibly difficult to sign with marker, so I didn’t even get to have it decorated like most others I saw. The time I busted my head falling down the stairs at Nana’s house ranks up there too, which also found my sister laughing at me. It seemed like that’s what she spent a lot of the summertime doing, but really it was only those two times, and the laughing was good-natured. At least I thought it was. Continue reading “Summer Memories”

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Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 3

tumblr_lbajisxTfT1qc4y1yo1_500_large…and we were still waiting.

My wife heard back from the doctor a week after the testing was done to see whether or not Alexa had Cystic Fibrosis, and the word back was that the test was inconclusive. They would have to do genetic testing to see whether or not she tested positive, and in the meantime we would have to keep waiting. Over a month later and we were still in that holding pattern, completing the treatments twice a day, and dealing with the weight of knowing we were one step closer to our child possibly having CF, something we were supposed to be “simply ruling out” with the initial test.

And during that time period we worried. What you need to know about my wife is that in our relationship she’s the worrier on the outside, and me, I’m the worrier on the inside. I might look like I’m doing just fine, but underneath the facade I’m freaking out. In fact, sometimes I just sit still and shake because I’m so worried. It happened when I was so worried that Madeline might have DS, but then when she tested positive for it it was okay. I was able to deal with it, and I figured that would be the same way with Alexa and the possibility of CF. The possibility worried me a lot more than the actual diagnosis, because if the diagnosis came back that she had it then I could make a plan, then I could deal with it.

But Heidi, she worries from the start, and it shows on her face and in her demeanor. Reading about all the issues that children with CF have, she had driven herself into the cycle of “what if.” And don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying her way of dealing with it is wrong. It’s just different how we approach things, but we eventually get to the same place. If that place is acceptance, then we work on it, and if it’s a sigh of relief then we sigh at the same time. We were both preparing ourselves for the possibilities during that month, just in our different ways. Continue reading “Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 3”

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Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 1

Look at those smiles.

I am constantly astounded by the resiliency of children, the way they can adjust to just about anything, no matter how odd it is or how much it differs from their previous pattern, even my children. Now, if you know my children at all you’ll realize that they are pretty rigid in the things they do and like. For example, my 5-year old, Madeline, likes to play CandyLand, followed by Chutes & Ladders, and it has to be in that order. She also likes to try and cheat at both, but we’re working on keeping her honest. My 7-year old, Alexa, refuses to eat homemade macaroni & cheese (unless bribed with the promise of some sort of desert at the end of the mac and cheese rainbow), but she absolutely adores boxed mac & cheese with the fake orange “cheese.”

They are both also relatively stubborn when it comes to activities to do. Alexa likes to be in charge, but Madeline is not your classic follower. If there’s something she doesn’t want to do, she just won’t do it, even if they’re in the middle of it already. So, when Alexa came home from the hospital after her bronchoscopy in November, it was interesting to note how quickly both of them adjusted to the new way of life around here. I’ll explain…

  • Alexa had to have two “vest” administrations per day, one in the morning and one at night. The “vest” is an actual vest that inflates using two tubes attached to a powerful little machine that pushes air into the vest. It operates on escalating levels of what equates to vigorous shaking of her body in order to break up whatever mucous remained in her left lung.
  • Alexa also needed to have various inhalants as treatments, all of which were designed to open up her airways so that when the mucous was broken up by the vigorous shaking it would come out of the lung altogether and she would aspirate it. These treatments were also twice a day, and generally took place at the same time as the vest treatments.
  • During all of these treatments Alexa was far and away our focal point, which was a massive change from how things had been to that point. Because Madeline has Down syndrome it had become routine to focus on her health more so than the health of Alexa, and the issues that sent Alexa to the emergency room and then to surgery woke us up to that.

While Alexa was in the hospital, my wife Heidi stayed with her for the entire five tumultuous days, and I was back and forth from the hospital, to home, to work, and back to the hospital. It was ironically reminiscent of when Alexa was born. We weren’t sure of the time of her operation, or even what we were really dealing with for a while, and during the whole back and forth Madeline was with me, and then with her grandmother, and then back with me. Continue reading “Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 1”

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Playing Games

tn-airport_gate-550x450-rd10A young boy sits in a hard plastic seat, head bowed, intent on the pixellated action on the GameBoy in his lap. He sits next to a woman who is obviously not his mother, in her faux fur coat with tan lining and her mini-skirt that is not at all weather-appropriate. She fidgets in her seat like you would expect from someone the boy’s age, but she’s easily three times as old. Perhaps she’s his older sister, or maybe even an aunt, but she’s paying him virtually no mind with her headphones on that blare an Eminem song on a high enough volume to disturb other travelers in nearby seats. The boy doesn’t even hear the music, so intent is he upon proving his dominance over the game on his lap. He wears corduroy pants, awkwardly hemmed as if done in haste, and an old, ratty sweatshirt proclaiming him a Philadelphia Eagles fan.

They are sitting outside of Gate A in the Newark Airport, two people adrift in the sea of chaos that is New Year’s Day, with so many people heading back home after a vacation of sorts that has come to a swift conclusion. Most are hungover even in the early afternoon, waiting for flights with cups of coffee in hands that need warming up. An old newspaper with yesterday’s date sits on the chair next to the boy, but it might as well be his companion for all the attention he gives to it. If he cared to look, however, he would realize the front page of the paper is all about him, but he doesn’t look, and the woman’s eyes are closed so she misses the implication as well. She seems lost in meditation but she is in actuality thinking about all the money she could get if she plays her cards right. Opening her eyes, she glances at the game the boy is playing, then turns her attention to her watch that tells her they have half an hour until their plane will begin boarding.

Time has never been her friend even from the start when she was born three weeks after her due date. She was also the fourth child out of six so there was never any time for her needs, for her wants, or for her in any other way, shape, or form. But she hadn’t spent much time lamenting her fate, instead choosing to use her endless time in planning the great escape. The boy next to her was her youngest brother, the sixth of six, and she had saved up to get him the GameBoy he is playing. It had been worth every single penny because he hadn’t asked a thing about what they were doing or where they were going. In fact, he had spoken only a single word since he had started playing the first game, a word that she won’t repeat and that she didn’t even know he had in his vocabulary.

He is not as oblivious as she thinks, however. Continue reading “Playing Games”

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Labor Day Present

My mother’s mother was in labor on Labor Day, an ironic coincidence if I’ve ever seen one. I never met my mother’s mother, but I hear she was a fascinating woman. It’s rare, of course, that my mother’s birthday actually falls on a Labor Day, since it’s one of those shifting holidays, but it’s still … Continue reading Labor Day Present

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What I Saw: Interracial America and Fitting In

What do you see in this photo?

I walked down the sidewalk on my way to work yesterday and I found myself behind an interracial couple with their two children. The man was black, the woman white, and the kids a wonderful mix of the two. And they were happy. I could tell in the way they held each others’ hands and swung their arms back and forth, all four of them. They were also having a conversation, and I could feel the positive vibes radiating from them. It was a poignant moment.

Then I looked around and noticed a small group of other people heading to the same store, and they were also looking at the exact family that I was, but not in the same way. At first it was hard to ascertain the feeling behind the expressions on their faces, but then I recognized it as disgust. Continue reading “What I Saw: Interracial America and Fitting In”