New World: One Week In

Ten days ago we made the decision to send all of our students home. For two weeks we had been thinking it might, at some point in the future, be necessary. For one week we had begun to believe it might be necessary sooner rather than later, maybe three weeks out. On the morning of the 12th, we thought we might need to close the school in a week. I had a special teachers’ meeting planned for that day, to get the team started on preparing for that more likely need. We went into the meeting at 10:30 am and came out at noon. In that ninety minute period of time, sports organizations had begun cancelling sporting events, including ski races, both nationally and internationally. In the time between noon and 2:30pm, we made the decision to begin vacating campus immediately. We met with the school, staff and then students, between 5 and 6pm. At 7pm I hit send on an email to our whole school community announcing our plans for a transition to remote learning that would begin the following week. 

Once the dominoes began to fall, they fell far more quickly than we’d imagined.

The same was true in public schools. On Friday the 13th, our governor held a press conference saying he would keep public schools open for the foreseeable future. On Saturday morning I spoke with Kim, teaching this year in a public elementary school. Her principal hadn’t yet talked about the possibility. None of her colleagues were planning. On Sunday evening, an automated message went out from the school districts around the state: all schools would be closed by Wednesday of that week. Quickly following was a message from our district: all local schools would be closed effective immediately—with no classes Monday or Tuesday, no last good bye, no chance to gather what was left behind in classroom cubbies. Quinn too was now out of school.

On Monday the 16th I had teachers come in for one last planning session. We spent three hours together in discussion about our plans for delivery of remote learning. They had questions about structure, and schedules, and how to keep students engaged, how to protect the integrity of assessments, how to keep track of those who might fall behind. We formalized our plan, helped each other learn new tools, had one last lunch together in person, and then all dispersed to start doing the work we would need to do to be ready for our students who would be nervously, curiously, waiting to see what was ahead.

In a meeting of the administrative team right after, five days of adrenaline began to wear off. Four of us sat spread out in a classroom; one of us called in from home. Social distancing had begun. I was suddenly exhausted. I couldn’t stop yawning. Our conversation was all business. Should we close the gym? Should we conduct admissions meetings online? Should we allow people to use their offices? Should we go ahead with planned capital improvements, even though we were watching the stock market fall apart, already, day after day? So much of the weight felt suddenly on my shoulders—if the only substantive contact our families have is through students’ teachers and their remote classes, and it is my job to manage that team…? 

In times of crisis, which I’ve experienced with some regularity in the past five years at school, I am quick to energize. I am outward looking. Who needs help? What messages need to be communicated, and to whom? Where can I create order that I can then offer to people, to calm their nerves? I smile often, I ask how people are, I try to offer a picture of confidence and composure, so others will feel those qualities in themselves. But, then, after doing that for a while, inevitably, I crash. 

“We’ve got this!” I told people, but for how long would we have it? Seventeen teachers were looking to me for guidance. One hundred and thirty-seven students, and twice as many parents. Like a heavy object awkwardly held, how long would I be able to maintain my grip? In that Monday afternoon meeting, I asked the question that I am still, a week later, asking: How long will we have to function in this way? It is a question without an answer.

One week in to a world shut down, friends are not allowed to gather and grandchildren can’t visit their grandparents. The grocery stores open early in the morning just for elderly customers, to protect them from exposure. And in those same grocery stores the shelves are empty of supplies and many foods. Most human interaction has already moved into the camera lenses of our phones and computers, and economies are crashing, retirement savings are disappearing, and exponentially more people are getting sick and dying each day. 

At the same time, winter is beginning to make its exit. The sun is warm on the skin. Birds have returned to the woods. The whole earth and the blue sky above beckons us to come out of hibernation, just as the headlines scream at us to go back in. Global pandemic: everyone, everywhere.

Here on our hill I take some comfort in being at home—a place I love and long for in the normal busy months of winter. Now here is where I’m supposed to be. Some mornings this week, Sam and I have paused to do yoga together, before our slow coffee. Quinn, bored by yoga, has been engrossed by some rediscovered Legos. I’ve been eating breakfast, and lunch—two meals I usually don’t slow down long enough to eat. We’ve started a new puzzle. We have stacks of new books. We have been taking walks, as a family, with the dog. 

These are pleasures a normal March would not allow. This is not a normal March. For those of us who are planners, “indefinitely” is a disorienting concept of time.

What's True Now?

That was the question the yoga teacher asked us as we lay with closed eyes on the mat this morning, preparing ourselves to begin class. “What’s true now?” she asked. 

Here’s the obvious place for me to begin:

“Do you believe Santa is real, Mom?” We were driving to the bakery to buy bread for dinner yesterday, and Nonna’s favorite tea bags for her, for Christmas. I could barely look in the rearview mirror, trying to avoid Quinn’s eyes which were fixed on me expectantly. “I think the spirit of Santa is very real,” I told her, but she’s no dummy. “That’s not what I asked you…”

After six good years, I’ve suspected that Santa was on his way out, but I thought we might get one more year out of him. In some ways it hasn’t been an easy year for Quinn. She’s been making pointed remarks lately about how she shouldn’t bother asking Santa for any presents because she is likely to be on his “naughty list.” It was a probing statement, I see now, but also a reflection of how she’s been feeling. 

Quinn’s fuse is pretty short. A criticism, a light-hearted joke she takes personally, a crowded room, a worry…any number of things can set her off. The first day back to ski club this year brought probably the worst meltdown we’ve seen to date. So many things, we thought, were working in our favor: good friendships formed last year, with kids who would still be in her group, the return of her beloved coach Sarah, and the addition of two new coaches she has known from our school her whole life. I had to work the night before, but I left clear instructions for Sam: pull out all the gear, try things on, lay out clothes for the morning, get her to bed early. We know the pitfalls by now and we were trying to avoid them. Still, Quinn is a worrier. She worried about whether the friends from last year would still be friends. Her tight fighting clothes made her self-conscious. No doubt she worried about whether she’d still remember how to ski, and be able to keep up. The closer we got to departure time, the more panicky she got. The more panicky she got, the longer it was taking to get out the door, which meant she’d be late, which is another thing that makes Quinn panic. She hates to be the last one to arrive, because then the room is already full, and the swirl of activity is in motion, and she is left frozen on the periphery, unable to enter.

The meltdowns have grown more angry, more violent, more personal. “I hate you,” is not uncommon. “You’re the worst mom/dad/parents ever” is also not uncommon. She screams, pounds the walls, stomps up stairs, slams doors. It is pure rage and I feel an electric panic of my own when I sense one of her fits coming on. Sam and I both do; we are developing PTSD.

The heartbreaking thing is that after it passes, Quinn is left feeling hopeless and ashamed. It takes work to rebuild, for all of us, and Quinn anxiously, sadly, works and works to do the rebuilding, for herself and for us. It makes her feel terrible, and naughty.

At nine Quinn is able to say things like: “I’m sorry I behaved that way toward you, Mom, you didn’t deserve it.” And, “Can you forgive me?” She has such grown up thoughts, such grown up courage to walk into a room, face her parents and say these things. I admire her so much and just wish she could find ways to feel more in control, more open, more okay. 

“I don’t believe in the ‘naughty’ or ‘nice’ lists,” I told her. “I don’t think you are naughty. I think you sometimes say or do things you wish you didn’t, but I don’t think that makes you naughty—it makes you human.” 

Sam managed to get Quinn out the door that morning for ski club; it was a fight all the way, but he did it. And when he got her to the club, our friends stepped in to help. Traudl stepped in and got Quinn in conversation. Sally told Sam she’d be fine and that he should leave. While this went on, I googled “why is my nine year old so full of rage” and “what does anxiety look like in a nine year old.” With that, I started skimming articles about the “fight or flight” response to anxiety. Quinn is no shrinking violet—never has been. If she is going down, she is going to tear the walls down around her as she goes. The more I read, the more I knew we needed help.

This past week Sam and I met with a counselor while Quinn was at school. She had a round bulldog named Maple, a comfortable and welcoming space, and a quick and sincere smile. She seemed to know Quinn within a few minutes of us explaining why we were there. “I’m guessing she’s really smart,” she said. I don’t see it as bragging to admit that she is—Quinn is undeniably smart. She reads constantly, listens keenly, has intuition about people, and their intentions and actions, that is well beyond what you’d expect of a nine year old. She can always put two and two together. She often reads my mind.

The counselor suggested we bring Quinn in, and she seemed confident that she could help Quinn develop strategies to use when her “worry brain” kicks in. She talked about other kids she's worked with, and shared some of the ideas she’d seen work. She talked about one girl who used a code word with her parents, to let them know when she was starting to feel panicky and needed their help. We left there feeling that it was worth a try and, if nothing else, that Quinn would enjoy meeting the round and hilarious bulldog named Maple.

That night Sam went out and Quinn and I went to school to help with a holiday celebration. She  brought a book to read while I helped with dishes. After dinner, there was an a cappella group singing in the student center. I gave Quinn the choice: go over and listen to the music, or go home and have a sleepover in my room and read books. She picked the music, so we ran over to catch up with the group. When we arrived, the room was full and Quinn started to pull back. I pointed to a corner where one of her favorite kids was sitting. I told her we could sit on the floor, out of everyone’s way. She pulled further and further back, until suddenly I turned to look at her and she was gone.

I found her hiding behind a door in an adjoining room. She faced the wall. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. She didn’t want to go in; she didn’t want to leave. I tried to keep calm, told her I was going to listen to the music for a while. I checked on her a few more times, but she never relented. Eventually, she asked if we could go home. In the car, I did my best not to dwell on it. “Is your seatbelt on?” I asked. “Are you warm enough?” As we got closer to home, eventually, Quinn offered this, “I’m sorry I was so rude to you, Mom, you didn’t deserve it.” She suggested I bring back her newly purchased ski gear. I told her she didn’t do anything that needed a punishment, but that I hoped she’d tell me what happened. “Sometimes when I walk into a room like that, I just feel so overwhelmed,” she told me. I asked her what she was worried about—what concern kept her from going in. “It’s not that I feel worried exactly, it’s just that it feels so close and I just feel like I need to get out.” At this point I had to stop driving. I turned in my seat as she was starting to cry. “Maybe I could come up with a code for you Mom, to let you know that I’m feeling that way…” 

She had more to say as we finished the drive up our hill. I was amazed, again, by her capacity—to know, to understand, to explain. Most adults I know would have a hard time being so articulate about their feelings, so soon after being in a tough spot. If only we can lengthen the fuse for her, slow the process down before it spins out of control, I think she’ll be okay. 

Kids like Quinn, the counselor told us, experience a pretty significant cognitive leap around this age. Talking with her makes this clear. In this same week, as we signed Christmas cards together after dinner one night, Quinn started telling us about her “life cycle” project at school, and about the pregnant dog that would be having puppies. I’ve been ready and waiting to have the “where the babies come from” conversation whenever necessary, but so far it hasn’t come up. I’ve had “babies come from a place near your leg,” all queued up and ready to go, thanks to my own mother’s artful dodge, but when Quinn explained that the pregnant dog’s litter of puppies would be “wriggling out of her vagina,” it was clear that I’d never get to use that incredible line. “How do you know about babies coming out of vaginas?” I asked her, as Sam bent closer to his cards. “I just know, Mom. And look at poor Dad,” she said, “He’s pretending he can’t hear us, and yet there he is, smiling sheepishly.” She laughed at her own funny observation and we had to too. Along with smart, Quinn is hilariously funny. The next day on the way to school the topic came up again. Still I was incredulous that she was ahead of me, and this time she was incredulous too. “I’m a girl, Mom; I have to know my own body! And besides, where else are they going to come from? They’re not going to come out of your mouth!”

With Quinn, sometimes it is hard to know what’s going to come out of her mouth. Like yesterday, with Santa. “I’m asking you if Santa is real,” she persisted. I found myself laughing nervously and also unable to breathe. “What’s the right answer here?” I asked her. “The truth,” she replied, without hesitation. 

When I found out that Santa wasn’t real, in the fourth grade, I was devastated—embarrassed that I was the only kid in my class who still believed, and sad at the loss of the excitement and joy. And yet, as I think back, I remember all of my annual pictures with Santa: every year I had a giant scab on my face…every year I got so worked up that I got cold sores all over my lips. “Which one of you does this come from?” the counselor asked us. Both of us share her genes.

I tried to size up how Quinn would react when I told her the truth about Santa, so I could at least have one or two seconds of lead time on what would come next. The kids at her school have been circulating the news: the parents are the ones who leave the presents, they wrap them in special paper and put them under the tree in the middle of the night. The parents eat the cookies and write the notes and sign them from Santa. “I don’t care if Santa is real or not real, Mom. Santa isn’t Christmas.” And so I told her, yes, we were the ones who left her presents.

I was crying by then, out of admiration for her intelligence and her composure and her perspective. She is the oldest nine year old I’ve ever met. Meanwhile, she was smiling at me, probably feeling sorry for me and my sentimental nature, as she offered me a Kleenex. Quinn seemed happy to have possession of the truth and curious to hear my explanation for it all. I told her about the article I read when she was nearing Santa age, about the importance of having experiences as a child in which your brain learns to believe in magic—that wiring that will someday be important as you find yourself having to take a leap of faith, maybe stepping into a crowded room, or showing up for the first day of something new, or bringing a baby into the world. Without Santa, the capacity for what is possible might be lost. 

I told her that when she was young, I had worried about lying to her about Santa, and I asked if she was mad that I did. She seemed to think it was funny that the whole topic was so loaded for me, and I asked that she remember this moment, in the car, next to the bakery, when she asked me for the truth and I gave it to her. And I told her that I always would, and I will.

“Did you at least enjoy Santa while he lasted?” I asked. “I love Santa,” she assured me, “but Santa isn’t Christmas, Mom,” she told me again. I asked her then, “Well, what is Christmas?”

“Christmas is family,” she told me. And that, right now, is both magical and true.

Category Is: Everything!

Late October rain, heavy in its coldness, plunks on the metal roof. The trees are mostly bare, save for the stubborn papery leaves of beech saplings, dim orange lights in these woods. It is Sunday morning, after a long stretch of school days, and the introvert in me feels relieved for this solitude, this grey dark day with not much that has to be done, except this work of resetting. And yet, like the dog in his bed, circling and circling, where do I land?

Always I am looking for my next story to write. Occasionally I see one, and I try to inventory the thoughts, the details, the sequence, in hopes I can store it for the time I will settle here to write. But the stories don’t usually keep well. On days when a story comes, and I can set it down right then, the story is preserved. Not so when I try to go back, to that good whole idea I envisioned a week or a month ago.

Sitting here now I see glimpses. From back in August when my dad was here with Louise for a five day visit that was only two…arriving late and leaving early, so eager to be with Quinn, and yet so unable to be away from home. From September when Sam was in Switzerland, missing Quinn’s 9th birthday (which was out of his control), and the early weeks of third grade. The rages she had and, in so doing, triggered in me. The lucky break when I thought to tell my dad and Louise, on the phone, that Quinn was having trouble at school with a girl…I listened, from the hallway, to the details she had refused to share with me—that she was being pushed around. The partnership that developed in the days following. I believe you, I tried to show her. I trust you, she showed me. 

In contrast to that girl at school who, thankfully, has moved away, I see glimpses of her with her new and important friend. A new neighbor and friend by choice, not one formed by circumstance. A friend with whom she is wholly herself, and her best self. Their shared love of baking, and soccer. The hours they will spend drawing, side by side, or having “cozy fort fun time,” building and building their world around them. Their plans, and compromises, their laughter. Their shared delight in each other. 

I see the soft contours of the night, while Sam was away, when they had their first sleepover in the cabin. I brought them home from soccer practice together. We ate pizza and played cards at the table and, afterward, we ventured down the hill by lantern light. I see Quinn’s joy in showing her friend our sacred space here in the woods. 

The girls slept in the loft; Mosey and I slept on the floor underneath. They played cards for a while. They decorated their halves of the bed with owl pillows and stuffed animals. They read for a while. And then, when I said they should get some sleep, to rest up for their game the next morning, they turned out their lights, triggering some uncontrollable giddiness. They rolled wildly back and forth in their sleeping bags, giggling hysterically for five minutes, before falling still, and sweetly asleep.

Cedar moves away soon too, though not too far away. Her parents’ sabbatical will pull them away from our hill and back to the other side of the state. Quinn knows it is coming. We all know it will be hard. Sam and I try to encourage her to say yes to the play dates she’s invited to with other friends, to the Halloween party, and the birthday party, to the pre-season workouts with the ski club. She says no, again and again. We are trying to keep her connected to other options, to the friends we hope will fill the void, but her focus is on spending every minute she can, while she can. I understand this. In my bones, I know—pulling away early from what you will lose will do nothing to dull the ache when it inevitably comes. And of course, if you do it that way, you will look back, inevitably, and regret not having savored every possible minute. The world reminds us of this, again and again.

After the separation happens, I hope Quinn will be able to look at the experience objectively and take stock of what this friendship has shown her. I hope it has shown her what is possible. That compromise is possible, and that taking turns making decisions is possible. That taking a chance with your heart sometimes pays off. That true friends allow us to be and say anything, without worry or fear. I hope she will see that when she finds the right person, she can trust that person, with her thoughts and her feelings. And I hope she will see that friendships like this one, one that feels a lot like love, can endure.

One night this fall when I was tucking Quinn into bed, she burst into tears. “Are you mad at me, Mom?” It was out of no where. “Why would I be?” I asked, surprised. “Because I’m spending so much time with Cedar.” She hugged me sort of desperately until I managed to reassure her and say something to make her laugh. And as I backed down her loft ladder, trying to keep my voice upbeat, I was struck by the fact that she picked up on something I hadn’t been willing to give words to myself. I wasn’t angry, of course; it’s not that at all. And fortunately, Quinn’s joy is something I experience as my own, and it is enough to keep any pangs of jealousy at bay. And yet…The separation is coming for us too. Not a complete separation, I trust, and nothing we can’t endure, but still, I know her growing up, and out, is a loss I won’t really prepare for. 

The rain still falls. Two hours have passed. What is she doing, I wonder, as I hit save and prepare to walk back up the hill. 

26 / 73

A few summers ago we were visiting my dad and Louise. Quinn and I were in the basement with my dad, in a room that serves as his workshop and their storage space. It is orderly; they’ve worked hard for years to cull the extras from their separate and now joined lives.  As he always does, when he and I are down there together, my dad started to scan the room, looking for things he could hand off to me—things he’s saved for one reason or another. He opened a metal wardrobe that’s been around for a long time. I was doing something else and didn’t pay much attention, until he turned around and held out a green leather bag. “Do you want your mother’s pocketbook?” he asked. 

I was quick to say no, which I do out of habit, but also because I don’t carry a purse, much less a pocketbook. As he was handing it to me, I suggested he offer it to my sister—someone who does carry a purse. I felt no attachment to it—there are other things that were once my mother’s that show up now and then and I tend not to be too sentimental about them. But once her purse was in my hands, I felt its weight. I assumed he had stored other things inside it, so I unzipped it to pull out whatever other items were there. But what I saw inside was the actual contents of her purse—exactly as she had left them well over twenty years ago.

“You never emptied it!” I blurted out, part surprise and part accusation. Suddenly the experience changed. Instead of an easy refusal of stuff I didn’t want, I found myself protecting something that felt sacred—the artifacts of my mother’s daily life, from the last days she was alive. Each item I pulled out overwhelmed me more than the last. Quinn was curious and trying desperately to get her hands on things, but these were not things I wanted her handling. I felt like I was managing an archaeological dig—all the bones very fragile, waiting to be reassembled into the story they would tell.

My dad was surprised too, I think; if not by the unfinished business of her purse, then by the wave of emotion I was experiencing. He lured Quinn away and left me alone with it. In some ways I felt guilty for looking in—my mother was very protective of her pocketbook. We didn’t go into it without her permission, and usually that permission wasn’t given. She’d gladly retrieve a pen or a Kleenex for us, but we didn’t go in on our own. “Hand me my pocketbook,” I can hear her saying, but never an invitation to help ourselves. I felt nervous about what I would find, and worried that she wouldn’t want me to be looking.

At first I pulled things out kind of quickly, but as I started to see what was in there, I realized it was full of stories I wanted to someday tell, and I wanted them to begin as she had left them. I was relieved there were no dirty Kleenexes, and impressed by the orderly nature of it all. This was a pocketbook I could respect. I put things back, carefully, just as I’d found them, zipped it up and carried it upstairs. And then I carried it home to Vermont, and I put it in a trunk, and I started making plans, in earnest, to build my writing cabin.

It is a few years later now and I’m sitting here in my cabin on a cool wet morning in late July. It is the day after what would have been my mother’s seventy-third birthday, and two days after the twenty-sixth anniversary of her death. 

In the top of the bag is a lavender eyeglasses case, with her wire framed reading glasses. They are the same prescription as the ones on my face. Under the glasses there are other things neatly arranged. There is a blue leather wallet with her driver’s license; height 5’3”, the same as me. There are a number of credit cards and barely any cash (one dollar and some change), just like my wallet. There is an inside zipper pouch holding two disintegrating breath mints, a couple of tabs of Tylenol cold medicine, two tabs of Benadryl, an eyebrow pencil, a panty liner, and three lipsticks: Soft Pink Satin, Rose Mauve, and Kiss of Pink. Their powdery smell brings her into the room, along with the memory of my senior prom—my mom following me around the backyard, waving a lipstick at me, begging me to please put some on. In this way, we were not alike. The fact that she carried not one, but three lipsticks in her purse confounds me. 

There are three pens, a pencil, and a half-empty sleeve of Hall’s cough drops, an envelope with medical and insurance papers, and a 1993 monthly calendar book. These last items lead this story in the direction of her cancer, and into the work I can now see that she was doing, in those last months, to keep living, even while she must have known that she would not. And that is a story for another day. 

For her birthday, I’ll tell a different story—the one I can assemble from the last item in her green leather Land’s End pocketbook: it’s a taupe colored faux-leather bi-fold. It opens to two plastic sleeves of wallet-sized photo holders. The sleeve on the right holds her nonessential i.d. and membership cards—the essential ones are housed in her wallet. That she has so many of these cards is a wonder to me. There is a Staples card, the business card of her insurance agent, one from Friedlander’s Jewelry, and Sears, Sunoco, and Shell. There are three video rental cards, from Video Paradise, Video Club, and Lancaster Video, and two Mailboxes Etc Frequent Shippers punchcards. And then, a generic i.d. card, in case it all got lost. 

Generally, when I think of my mother, I think of her as my mother. But looking into her purse I imagine her as a mother, and as a wife, and as the person running a household. Looking at these cards, I try to imagine the conversations we would have now—as two women with shared responsibilities in our lives. So much has changed in twenty-six years, so much of how the work is done. Sears, where she bought everything from sheets, to school clothes, to family portraits, is a relic now; what would she think of Amazon? I imagine she would love the ease of it, though I know she is someone who charmed and enjoyed connecting with actual people, in actual stores. And all those trips to the video rental shops, renting and returning VHS tapes—how she would love Netflix! 

The “frequent shipper” punchcards seem random at first, until I remember that in 1993 I was in my fourth year of college, and my mom sent me the most amazing care packages. The one I remember best was for my twenty-first birthday: it was decorated with pictures of champagne and party hats and balloons cut out of magazines and taped onto the box. Inside there were two plastic champagne flutes and either a couple of single-serve bottles or a half-bottle of champagne—I can’t remember which. I love her subtle message of moderation. I love that she trusted I would have someone to toast with. I love that even though I was turning twenty-one, she still decorated the package for me. She made every occasion a celebration. Stuffed into one of the side pockets of this bifold there were two other mailing addresses, for the two college-aged kids of one of her best friends—clearly she sent them packages too.

On the left side of the bi-fold are the photos, my sister Amy’s senior high school picture is on the top. And behind that photo, in the same pocket, are five of Amy’s previous school pictures, a portrait of the two of us when Amy was a baby, and a photo of my mom and dad. The picture of my parents is the only one in which my mom shows up. It looks like it was taken in the basement, each of my parents with an arm around the other, they are young, and healthy, and smiling, and in love. I wonder if Amy took the picture of them?

In the next pocket up, my senior portrait from college faces out and, behind that, two school pictures from high school and, again, a photo of Amy and me—this one from 1979. Next is my cousin Jeff and an amazing black and white picture of my mother’s parents. 

Then there is a picture of my mother’s god-daughter Karen in a tutu and tiara, Karen’s brother Brian, and more pictures of Amy and me. Always they seem to come back to Amy and me. I never doubted my mother’s powerful, wild love for us; there is, and always has been, evidence of it everywhere.

In the topmost pocket of the lefthand sleeve, is a blue perforated “Patient Medical Record Card” from Morton Hospital in Taunton, MA. The patient’s name is Amy Litchfield. There is a patient number and her date of birth, but nothing more than that. At the bottom of the card is a line that reads: “Please keep this card with you at all times.” I have no recollection of why my sister went to the hospital, but I imagine that whatever the reason, it had a strong impact on my mother because she didn’t dare throw away that card. Who knows how long she carried it with her. If it were me, taking Quinn to the hospital, I imagine I would have purged such a card from my own wallet quickly—destroying the evidence, denying the threat. In my mother’s choice, I see my sister, clear as day: vigilant, serious, and determined to do her job as mother well. She was our lion, and she roars through each of us still, but most clearly through my sister.

Finally there is the pocket that holds my dad. It is the only pocket with the seam split open. I imagine it is because she’s pulled them out so many times, or because there are so many in there: five pictures of my dad, all young—at least one from high school, one clearly from the Navy, one from their wedding, and a formal portrait on the top, facing out. He has signed that one, as he signed all of his cards to her for all of the years they were together: All My Love, Dana. I know this about her cards because I read them, always.

Tucked just behind the signed photo of my dad there are two small slips of folded paper. One must be from a high school newspaper; it seems to be from some sort of gossip column: “What’s the story Claire Sylvester and Dana Litchfield? How did you both manage to be out sick with German Measles at the same time last week? We’ll be watching you two!!” The other is on yellow paper, with the heading South Weymouth News: “The bells are ringing!! Not only the Back to School Bells - but - Wedding Bells too!!” It announces one local wedding and then, “Last but not least for our ‘Social Section’ the latest sparkle at South Weymouth is on the third finger left hand of Claire Sylvester. Claire has decided she is not going to be an Old Maid School Marm and accepted (finally) Dana Litchfield’s proposal. Congratulations to a wonderful couple.” 

By the time it was 1993, her engagement to my dad was old news, and still she carried the announcement with her in her purse. My parents were married on July 11, 1970, just before they each turned twenty-four years old. They had been sweethearts since the eleventh grade. My mother was hardly an “old school marm”—and yet reading that announcement illuminates her, and them, for me. I can imagine her excitement, her sense of possibility, her happily ever after. My parents’ marriage always seemed like a fairytale to me—they were always young, they were always in love. I caught them slow dancing in the garage once when I went to take out the trash. I caught them kissing many times. My mother blushed when my dad flirted with her. My father beamed with pride when he spoke of her. Many times, as I’ve struggled through my own relationships in life, I’ve thought back to the romantic ideal that they provided and told myself it couldn’t have been real—only something I imagined—but the contents of my mother’s pocketbook suggest otherwise. 

Her pocketbook is orderly. There are no empty wrappers, no crumpled bits of anything. No extra keys or random refuse. Only things she needed. Only the important things. 

Too Heavy

Two and a half months before her ninth birthday, Quinn is four feet and two inches tall. She weighs sixty-six pounds. Her eyesight is excellent, her hearing is clear. She has no known allergies or illnesses. She eats vegetables, drinks milk, consumes enough protein, and always wears a helmet. She still rides in her booster seat. She gets enough sleep. Her heart beats, her legs are strong, her balance is good. At the end of her yearly check-up the other day, Quinn’s doctor asked her, and me, if we had any questions. Other than expressing concern that she was losing her freckles (including the tiny pink star she was born with on the bridge of her nose), Quinn asked no questions and there were none from me. “Well,” Dr. Parker said, “you are a healthy girl!” Good job, she seemed to say. She smiled and told us she’d see us in a year.

Once we were in the car headed home, I caught Quinn in the rearview mirror. I congratulated her on the good report from the doctor. “Way to go, Buddy,” I said. I thought too of her final report card which we'd also just received: her teacher reported that Quinn met all the benchmarks, in every subject and category, and she “exceeded” them in reading and math. 

“How do you feel about it all? You’ve had a great year!” Instead of the beaming pride I imagined she would feel, Quinn’s eyes filled up. “Am I too heavy?” she asked, as she looked away, embarrassed, and started to cry.

And so, here we are. The end of second grade. My daughter is eight years old. She is healthy, and smart, and funny, and kind, and powerful, and beautiful. And yet.

The doctor had just said she was healthy, I reminded her. Her body is doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing, I tried to assure her, but still her worry mounted. I asked her why she would think that she was too heavy, wanting to hear her thoughts, even though I dreaded hearing them. She told me she is heavier than all of her friends. She knew their weights and knew her own. I was stunned by this, and asked why she knew. “Well, one day at recess,” she explained, “we were on the teeter-totter…” 

I imagined the scene: little girls all gathered around, sizing each other up, each taking her turn to step up and be measured against the others, the combinations changing again and again as they narrowed in on who weighted the bar most often. “How much do you weigh?” one of them asked Quinn in exaggerated surprise that day, “you’re so heavy!” 

In her telling of this story, Quinn names each of her “friends.” There is one, of course, leading this activity. At the time she was asked this question, how much do you weigh, a question that she didn't feel she could question, Quinn recalls vividly that she weighed fifty-nine pounds. In retelling it, to me, her worry turns to panic. “What am I going to tell people now when they ask me how much I weigh? Now I weigh sixty-six pounds!”

I pulled off the road so I could turn and look at her directly—my amazing daughter, still small enough to ride in a booster seat, in tears over her weight. It is so much sooner than I thought we would have this talk, and though I’ve imagined it since she was a toddler, smiling at herself in the mirror, I haven’t practiced, so I just told her anything I could think of to bolster her—that each person’s weight is made up of all the things that make a body: strong muscles and bones and healthy organs, a big brain…that her body is growing and doing all the things it is supposed to do, and because her body is so strong, she is able to do all the things she loves to do—ski and swim and bike, climb “the climbing tree,” and run the Mad Dash… What I didn’t tell her is that I live in fear of her not loving herself because I’ve watched girls starve themselves for this, and in one case, nearly to death.

Instead I told her that every body is different, and I remind her that since she was young enough to speak, we’ve told her that we don’t comment on how people look, unless we’re telling them they look beautiful. I remind her of this in a probably not-so-subtle attempt to draw her attention to the fact that her “friend” who embarrassed her, and made her doubt herself, wasn’t being very nice. And the closest I get to saying what I really want to say—which is something along the lines of “Why don’t you tell So-and-so to shut the fuck up, mind her own business, and stop building herself up by putting everyone else down”—is this: I can’t tell you who to be friends with, but I hope you’ll choose people who make you feel good about yourself, because friends should lift you up. 

This year I’ve been working to scale back on making suggestions when Quinn has come home upset about a situation with a friend. I’ve started, instead, to just remind her I believe in her, in hopes she’ll believe in herself. “You have all the tools,” I will say, and I mean it. Fortunately some of the tools she has are friends with whom she can be entirely herself, entirely at ease in her own skin, because she is loved, as is, for being exactly who she is.

At the beginning of the school year, Quinn and her classmates painted self portraits, and they did so again at the end of the year. In her first, she sees herself as I saw her then too—serious as she began the new year, waiting to see how it would all unfold. 

And at the end, I see her as she sees herself again: more relaxed, allowing herself a smile.  

On the last day of second grade, Quinn and her classmates moved around their classroom writing notes to each other on their self-portraits—keepsakes of their time together the past two years with Mrs Burns. Next year, they disperse to other classrooms and new classmates. Each of the notes written on Quinn’s card is sweet: you are kind, you are smart, you are helpful, you are caring.  

But one of them stands out: “Your smile makes me happy.” I wish I could surround her with friends like that—people who see her and feel happiness when she is happy. That’s what real friends do.

This year we had a speaker come to our school to talk to the students about self-image, self-esteem, social media, sex. She met with kids and then met with our staff separately, and one of the things she said that has stuck with me is this: “When you have something to say that they need to hear, just keep talking…even if it seems like they aren’t listening, just keep talking because they cannot un-hear what you have said.” Quinn didn’t say much while I talked on the side of the road in our idling car after her doctor’s appointment, but she seemed to be listening. I don’t know if she could sense how urgent it all seemed to me, and I don’t even know if that would’ve been good or bad, but second grade feels too early for this conversation, it feels too heavy. And yet maybe early is key. Maybe we are doing the site work right now, and maybe from here we’ll build the foundation. Maybe if we keep leveling and checking for square, taking our time, working with care and confidence, then eventually we can raise her up—tall, proud, strong. 

I imagine the scene: two girls step up to the teeter-totter. Each takes her seat and grabs the handle. One bends her knees, uses her strength, lifts the other up. There is a pause and then she pushes off, sending herself high. Up and down, constant motion, both are smiling.