.

Did I ever tell you about Ezra?

Ezra came late into Kendall’s classroom this year. And he came with a flourish. This kid was a player. A thirty-year-old smooth operator in the body of an adorable first grader. Ezra viewed the school as his very own singles bar. And he’d set his eye on one little girl in particular.

On back to school night, Matt had a conversation with Ezra’s mom. She told him that Ezra had come home after the first day in his new school and had told her that there were no ‘hot chicks’ in his class. He came home the next day, she said, and told her that he’d like to revise his previous assessment. He’d met Kendall.

Just a few days after settling into his new class, Ezra went to work. Both Kendall’s teacher and her aide wrote to me one day, busting at the seams to tell me the following.

The kids had been waiting on line together. Kendall was wearing a little polo shirt that day that had the number 2 emblazoned on it. Ezra had come over to her and worked to get her attention. Yes, it can take work to get her attention, but Ezra was apparently not one to shrink from a challenge. Once he had her attention, he delivered the cutest line I’d ever heard. “Hey, Kendall,” he said. “I know your shirt says #2, but I want you to know that I think you’re #1.”

This kid is gonna be trouble with a capital T.

The day that I volunteered in the classroom, he came over to my table and sat right down next to me. He wore a smirk that nearly killed me dead. This kid is six-and-a-half? Reeeeeally? He looked me right in the eye as he asked, “Excuse me, do you know Kendall?”

“Why yes I do,” I answered. “I’m her mom.”

“I thought so,” he said, still smirking. God, this kid’s good. “I knew one of you was her mom, but I wasn’t sure which one. Well, I’m Ezra.”

Of course you are, I thought. And you are absolutely adorable. I wanted to take him home with me.

Over the coming months, Ezra continued to look out for Kendall. And I started to wonder what her prom dress might look like.

This week, we got the news that Ezra moved to a new school. Kenz’s aide wrote to tell me that they had spent part of the day writing him notes to wish him luck and to tell him he would be missed. I wondered if Kendall was as heartbroken as I was.

At bedtime that night, I asked her if someone had left her class that day.

“Ezra did,” she said.

I asked where he went.

“He will go to a new school. He’s not in our class anymore.”

I asked if she’d written him a note.

“I did,” she said softly.

We laid quietly in the dark of her room. It was getting late and it was nearly time for me to go. I curled around her and listened to her soft, stimmy hum.

And then she added something. Something fairly miraculous. Something completely appropriate and directly related to the current conversation. A sentence – perfectly formed. It was even in the past tense. Its grammar and syntax were flawless. And it identified and related an emotion – something we see about as often as Hailey’s Comet.

“I was sad without Ezra.”

I held her closer and told her that I understood. And that I was so glad that she could tell me that. I told her that we would get hold of Ezra’s mom and exchange addresses so that they could write to each other.

As my friend Drama says, “our kids know their people.” Ezra was Kendall’s people. He was a good kid. He had something – something special. And he saw that same kind of something in Kendall. And obviously, she saw it in him.

I will always be grateful for the little guy. He proved it’s possible. Connection. Friendship. Sadness. It’s all possible. Even a prom dress.

Good luck in your new school, kiddo. You will be missed.

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“Hey, Darb. Want to see the Jesus doll? I’m so excited. It’s really coming together. I can’t wait to give it to Kenz.”

“Wow, Mama, that looks really good. Except I still don’t get why she picked those buttons for the face. I think they look weird.”

“I know baby, but remember what I told you.”

“It’s her doll and she should have it the way she wants it.”

“That’s right, sweetie. If you wanted a doll I’d make it exactly the way you wanted it too.”

“Hey, Mama?”

“Yes, baby.”

“You know what’s coming next, right?”

“Hmm?”

“She’s gonna want Mary Magdalene for her birthday.”

The girls’ school principal called the house the day after Thanksgiving. I wondered if she was making a Swine check – perhaps ensuring that we were properly quarantined and that no little piggies would be escaping into her school. But as it turned out, she wanted to share a story with us.

The week before Thanksgiving, there had been an all-school assembly. The stage had been set up with a microphone to address the students. Kendall and her aide had apparently gotten to the auditorium a few minutes early and little miss had found the microphone.

Have I ever told you that my girl LOVES a microphone? Darby got one of those pink and purple numbers for her birthday a few years back. Heaven knows how many performances it’s heard. Darby may be the queen of Hannah Montana, but her little sister brings the house down with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

The principal said that as people made their way to the assembly, they were stopped in their tracks just outside the auditorium. ‘This little voice was just so incredibly clear,” she said. A buzz began to gather steam in the hallway.

“Is that Kendall Wilson?”

“Doesn’t that sound like little Kendall?”

“That’s got to be her.”

Inside, a little girl stood on the empty stage. She sang into the microphone, loud and clear. And if I know my kid, right on key.

The song was the one they’ve been learning in music class. Of course it was. What else could it possibly have been? It’s just too perfect.

This little light of mine.

I’m gonna let it shine.

Let it shine.

Let it shine.

Let it shine.

Shine on, my sweet girl. Shine on.

“Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’

Mature love says: ‘I need you because I love you’”

~ Erich Fromm

I hope you’ll indulge me. I’m sick after all. Oink. Honestly, this flu sucks. I feel absolutely awful and I know that I’ll likely get halfway through this post and need to go back to staring idly into space again. It’s pretty much what I’ve done since Tuesday. I have about as much energy as I had when I came down with Mono in high school.

But even if it takes me all day to get it out, there’s something I’ve got to say. And it can’t wait. And it doesn’t care if I’m sick or not. It doesn’t even have anything to do with my kids, so it hardly even belongs on a blog called Diary of a Mom. But this is the forum that I have and even though what I’m about to say is very personal, I feel like I owe it to someone to say it publicly. I should probably shout it from the rooftops. But pigs don’t climb, right? Fine, they probably don’t type either. Let’s not nitpick, ok?

Last night I had what I can only assume was an adverse reaction to the Vicodin that my doctor prescribed along with Tamiflu to fight the H1N1 virus. I’ve never done well with painkillers – they’ve always tended to make me dizzy and nauseous and generally more miserable than the pain they’re prescribed to manage – so I’ve almost always avoided them in the past. But I was a) too tired to really think it through and b) pretty desperate to ease both the epic headache and the persistent sharp shooting pains throughout my body. So I gulped it down.

I had fallen asleep around 10:30, spread across our bed. Ever since the first signs of this thing, Matt and I had agreed that he needed to sleep somewhere – anywhere else in an attempt to stay healthy. We needed at least one Wilson standing. I had set my alarm for midnight so that I could check on the girls and make sure that their fevers were in check.

When the alarm went off, I sat up in a daze and shuffled down the hall. I checked on Kendall, who was coughing but fever free. I pulled her comforter up and tucked her in. I headed into Darby’s room and felt her head. She was burning up. I confirmed what I already knew with the thermometer – 103.2. I loaded her back up with Motrin.

As I moved around her room, I realized that as the fog of sleep abated, it was leaving a different kind of fog in its place. Every time I leaned over Darby’s bed I had to stop and get my bearings. The floor was subtly shifting under my feet. The walls were rocking slowly like the slow roll of a boat. I was afraid I might vomit.

I got Darby settled and then walked slowly back to my room. I stopped to lean against the wall inside my doorway. I moved in slow motion into my bed. The world was moving. I tried to lay down quietly but the bed rocked over rolling waves. I turned on the TV but the light and the movement were dizzying and overwhelming. The noise was unbearable. I couldn’t get comfortable and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was really wrong. I didn’t know what to do. I waited for it to pass.

After an hour, I went back into Darby’s room to make sure that her fever was coming down with the Motrin. 100.1 and she was sleeping like an angel. This time leaning over her bed was nearly more than I could handle.

I went back to bed. Sleep just wouldn’t come. By three a.m. I was starting to feel panicked. My chest was tight, my breathing was labored and shallow and my stomach was in a knot. For someone who spends an awful lot of time focused on her daughter’s anxiety, I had no idea how to manage my own. I was scared.

I hesitated three times before finally texting Matt. I knew he was dead asleep.

Honey?

Can you come downstairs please?

Yes

I’m so sorry to ask, but

I heard the stairs creak and realized there was no point in trying to type.

The door opened and I began to cry. I was simply spent.

I felt ridiculous. And apologetic.

And incredibly, overwhelmingly relieved.

I still didn’t want to get him sick. I couldn’t curl into him or lay my head on his shoulder. It was selfish enough to drag him downstairs and expose him to the virus we’d been trying so hard to keep from him. I put my hand on his arm and held on to it for dear life. And then, for the first time in three hours, I put my head down on the pillow and took a deep breath. And then another. And I was OK. I was dizzy, I was nauseous, and I felt like ass, but I was OK. I might have been in the middle of the ocean, but I had my anchor. And finally, I was calm. For the first time all night, I was calm. Within half an hour, I fell asleep.

Sometime later, Darby came into our room.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“Of what, Honey?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Mama. I just feel scared.”

I held her tight and rubbed her back. She just needed to touch base. I knew exactly how she felt. I calmed her down and Matt brought her back to bed.

In her incredibly generous blog yesterday, Rooster’s mom described me as ‘owning my vulnerability.’ And no doubt I do. As a person. And as a mother. I have always allowed myself to feel everything. I don’t know any other way. But I am a different kind of wife. Or I was until last night.

I was a child of the seventies. I grew up in a time when Women’s Lib was still called Women’s Lib and when the ideas of Free To Be You And Me were far more novel than quaint. My parents pushed me to think big, bigger and bigger at every turn. Nothing would stop me from being my own person.

I was the first girl in my preschool to add her name to the Tonka Truck’s waiting list. I got one of my very own one Christmas. When I told my Dad I wanted to be a nurse, he asked me why not a doctor, then led me to believe that I could own a hospital.To help more people. And then a chain of hospitals. To help even more people.

At sixteen, I went off to a women’s college. And heaven help anyone who dared to call it a girl’s school in my sixteen year old presence. I bought a sticker that said, ‘A woman needs a man like a zebra needs a bicycle.’ I loved men. I loved lots of men. I just always made sure that I didn’t NEED them.

My parents divorced when I was a kid. I watched them both piece back together their own identities thereafter. It was hard. They’d built their lives around our family unit. In many ways – in some of the most important ways – they’d built their images of themselves around the picture of our family. I remember a family friend somewhat inappropriately saying to me at the time, “Well, hell, if your folks can’t keep it together, who ever could? You guys were the perfect family.” We weren’t of course, but those things stick when you’re eleven.

Matt’s parents are both divorced and remarried. And everyone is happy now, and with partners that seem to make a lot more sense in many ways than the originals. “It’s all for the best,” we say. And perhaps it is. I always thought that I had an advantage going into my marriage. A ‘Glamour Don’t’ if you will – a roadmap of land mines to avoid. But like everything else in life, it wasn’t that cut and dried. Because I couldn’t say, “We’re different.” I knew damned well that when our parents made the same vows that we did, they too had every intention of keeping them. So why should we be different? What do I tell Darby when she tells me that she’s afraid that Mommy and Daddy will get divorced because all of her grandparents have been divorced? Some more than once. How are we different?

Sure, in some ways we really are different. I tell her that we got married much later – had experienced much more than our parents before us – by the time we joined our lives. But I can’t say we are trying any harder. Or that we mean it any more than they had.

And I hadn’t ever realized that I had internalized each and every piece of that. And that somewhere along the line I had apparently decided that way down deep I would protect myself. As vulnerable as I’ve been to my children, as completely available as I am to them – I have never been the same way with Matt. He has deserved so much more than I have been able to give him. He has been an amazing husband. But one person doesn’t make a marriage. It just hasn’t been fair.

But something changed last night. I wanted to say so much in the dark, but as always, I kept it in. I let the tears roll into the pillow and I folded it all inward. Inside my head I screamed. I can’t keep living in my marriage assuming that someday it will end. Not because he and I will end but because marriages end. They just do. Right?

Last night, I finally called bullsh-t. My husband is too good for that. I am too good for that. Together, we are too good for that. And I am so sorry that it took me ten years to figure it out.

I.

Need.

Him.

And last night, after ten years of marriage, two incredible children and a roller coaster ride like none I ever could have imagined, I decided that was OK. Not just to want him. Not just to love him. But to NEED him.

And then I could breathe.

One day not long after Matt and I started dating, he looked at me and said, “One of these days, you’re going to get scared. You’ll want to run. Just promise me you’ll run toward me, OK?” Or maybe I said it to him. Memory melds our words together over time. Matt will correct me if I’m wrong. He always does. It drives me crazy. And I wouldn’t want it any other way. OK, actually, that I could do without, but I’m feeling really mushy. And I have the flu.

But I’ve screwed up. I’ve turtled when I was hurting. I’ve run away when my wheels were spinning. I’m turning around. I’m lifting my head. It’s no way to be in a marriage. I have work to do.

I love you, Matt. And I need you. I always will.

I promise.

*

The influence of these seasons of sacred remembrances, high aspirations, and tender rejoicings would not only be salutary on the character of our own citizens, but the world would be made better . . . . If the germ of good feeling be ever so deeply buried under ‘the cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life,’ it may be brought out by sympathy and vivified by culture and effort.

~ Sarah Josepha Hale – a mother among mothers whose seventeen year campaign is credited with creating a nationally celebrated Thanksgiving.

*

The Thanksgiving post that’s been rattling around in my head will have to wait. The Wilson girls have come down with the Swine Flu. Matt’s hanging tough. He says it’s all that running. I say whatever it is, I’m grateful that someone in the house is healthy. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

We won’t be heading anywhere for the holiday. Instead, we’ll be hunkered down – quietly thankful – together.

Perhaps the best place to be after all.

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving.

If God hadn’t rested on Sunday, He would have had time to finish the world.

~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Good Lord, I needed Sunday.

I needed it to get done at least two thousand of the three thousand things on my list. I’m a working mom. Sundays are pretty much all I’ve got.

I needed it to take Darby out to the one store that I found that has the RIGHT Ernie doll in stock – the one that she HAS to get for Kendall for Christmas. I needed it to run to the craft store to get the flower for Jesus’ suspenders. I needed it to get some exercise – to sneak in a quick holy hell the scale said what?? run. I needed it to finish the invitations to the Building Assistants’ Appreciation Luncheon for Inclusive Schools Week. I needed it to head to Target to find favors to give to the aides at said luncheon. I needed it to visit a dear friend with whom I’ve had plans go awry for the past three Sundays running. I needed it to find a piece of the gift that I’m trying to put together for oh my God I’m seriously running out of time before Matt’s upcoming birthday. I needed it to find comfy pants that actually FIT the girls. I needed it to get all the way out to Home Goods in search of those perfect (and CHEAP!) sterling silver picture frames that show up as often as Hailey’s Comet why? because they’re perfect and cheap. I needed it to run over to the bakery that makes my aunt’s favorite chocolate dipped macaroons to see if it’s not too late pretty, pretty please to order them to bring to her house for Thanksgiving. I needed it to find a hair-dryer for the guest bathroom. I needed it to craft e-mails to the Inclusion Committee’s newly formed sub-committees. I needed it to FINALLY clean out my closet and actually find the chair under the clothing therein. I needed it to organize any one of the twelve piles on my night stand. I needed it to run to Staples for pencil top erasers for the girls. I needed it to find something even remotely close to the perfect Christmas gifts for the remaining fourteen teachers/ therapists/ aides and specialists on my list that work with my kids every day. December is going to evaporate before my eyes this year. I HAVE to do this now. There is NO time in December.

I needed Sunday.

But Sunday had very different plans for me than I had for it.

Little miss Kendall was under the weather. She was in great spirits, but she wasn’t herself. She’d been running a fever since the night before. The little girl who never, ever, EVER stops moving had quite suddenly turned into a lump on a log. In the middle of dinner, she asked me to cuddle with her ‘in the big chair’ in our den. I told her I’d be happy to join her there as soon as I was done with dinner. She asked again. And again. And again. And .. well, you’ve all seen this movie before. And then the child with her father’s furnace-like metabolism asked if she could ‘get warm.’

I knew something wasn’t right.

I abandoned dinner and went to sit with her in the big chair. She asked to ‘go into green world’ – short-hand for ‘hide under the green blanket together.’ We did. Typically, green world lasts about thirty-five seconds at a clip. She goes in long enough to say, “We’re in green world,” comes out, runs a circle clear around the room, nose dives back onto the chair and starts anew. On Saturday night, she stayed quietly curled under the blanket for so long that I continually held it up to make sure that she could breathe. Nearly half an hour went by with her curled contentedly under the blanket ‘to get warm.’ That’s not my kid.

I started a fire and curled back up with her in the chair. Darby came in when she finished her dinner and we all settled in to watch Alice in Wonderland on DVD. Kendall didn’t move from my lap. The child who never, ever stops moving was curled like a cat in the sun. She was going nowhere. Throughout an ENTIRE movie that wasn’t Godspell, she clung to me, emitting heat like a tiny little pot belly stove. We melded into one another and for the first time in YEARS, we BOTH fell asleep. And as we slept, someone somewhere took a big red pen to my to-do list for the next day.

In place of running and running and running was a whole lot of not moving at all. We didn’t get out of our PJs til noon. We curled under the covers in my room and counted planets with the Little Einsteins. We acted out Elmo’s World with her stuffed animals. We made costumes out of no more than paper, markers, tape and imagination. We pretended to be the Wonder Pets, saving poor Linny from the top of the school house in the rain. We brought Ming Ming to the doctor when she bumped her heel saving Linny. We made peanut butter sandwiches and ate them in costume while singing “This is Serious.” We colored. We made Play-Doh stars. We colored some more. We watched Godspell again and tried to sing along to ‘It’s all for the best.” We sat by the fire and spelled out words from a bag of stuffed letters. We cuddled and stared into space. Kendall dressed up in her favorite princess dress, accessorized with a sparkly hat and shoes. She wore them nearly all day.

And then we went on the day’s only mission.

“Mama, where is the Kiki book?”

Oy. No idea.

We looked and we looked and we looked. Her bedroom, the playroom, the bathroom, the den. We came up dry.

We looked some more. Darby’s room, my room, the office. We came up empty handed again. If that damned book was in that house, it didn’t want to be found.

I asked if she’d like to go out to the bookstore or the library and see if we might be able to find another one. She was going nowhere.

She asked if we could find Kiki on TV. We went online to see what we could find. My child is nothing if not consistent – it turns out that Kiki is such a minor character in Dragon Tales that she’s not even mentioned on the PBS website. However, according to a page I found in a Sesame Workshop Press Kit (yes, really – if you’ve ever been around a perseverative child, the preceding part of this sentence will not shock you)  she is apparently one of Cassie the Dragon’s seventy-two brothers and sisters. I’d write fiction, but I couldn’t possibly make this stuff up. Anyway, our search for Kiki led us to find one nine minute clip on Youtube from one of the rare episodes in which she was actually featured. Kendall quickly lost interest in the show.

I made one last ditch effort to find the book and failed miserably. But this time I had an idea. I grabbed a pencil with a big eraser and headed  back to the computer. I went back to the Press Kit to find a picture of Kiki. With Kendall on my lap, I began to slowly copy the image on the screen onto a piece of paper. The child who never, ever, EVER stops moving sat on my lap for nearly an hour as I painstakingly tried to draw both Kiki and, by request her brother Finn. I am not an artist. Typically, I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler. Darby thinks it’s funny when I try to draw an animal – any animal. She says they all look the same. But I was determined. My kid wanted Kiki.

I erased as much as I drew, trying desperately to follow the image on the screen. I wasn’t trying to draw the pictures – just the lines within the pictures. One line at a time. Kendall directed me. “She needs a face now. She only has one foot; that’s silly.” Once I finally had them both drawn, she handed me colored pencils one by one and told me where to use each color. Once they were colored to her satisfaction, I put the finished drawings between two sheets of contact laminating paper and then cut them down to size. I decided that they were probably the best work I’ve done – on anything – in  months.

I handed them to Kendall and she downright beamed at them. “I have Kiki,” she said. And with that she headed off to the den with a happy stimmy squeal. She laid them out on the floor in front of the fire, huddled under her blanket and stared at them. She didn’t let go of ‘her guys’ the entire rest of the day. I had to convince her to leave them on her night table at bedtime.

I was over the moon.

Sunday wasn’t at all what I thought it would be. The to-do list I’d started the day with remains undone. But a different to-do list was seen to completion. One that was much more pressing than any single item on its predecessor. And one that was far more productive than the Sunday I thought I needed.

As it turned out, I had exactly the Sunday that I needed after all.

The greatest revolution in our generation is that of human beings, who by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.

~ William James

The background story …

Part One

Part Two

The following morning, I began to strategize in earnest. This wasn’t a conversation that I was going to try to wing. No, I needed a plan. I called Kendall’s inclusion specialist and asked for her help. She promised to send some books home in Kenz’s backpack. They would all be aimed at elementary schoolers, which wouldn’t be appropriate for neighborhoodgirl’s middle and high school siblings, but we agreed that they’d help us brainstorm. I thanked her profusely, hung up the phone and wondered where to go next. I sat for a minute feeling pretty lost. And then I did what I often do when I don’t know where else to go. I went inward.

What have Matt and I learned over the years about empathy? (Set a spell – this could take a while!)

Where does compassion come from?

Can it be taught?

How?

What have we done to to instill in our children an appreciation for the vast spectrum of human differences?

What conversations do we wish were taking place in every house on our block?

When I got home that night, I read through the books that the inclusion specialist had sent home. Darby sat down with me and peeked over my shoulder. “Ooh, I LOVE this book,” she exclaimed as she grabbed It’s O.K. to be Different, by Todd Parr. She’s always been a fan of his books, ever since she first brought home The Family Book back in kindergarden. It’s fabulous, but it wasn’t going to offer a lot of guidance for how to talk to the older kids.

I delved into the next book, then set it aside fairly quickly – sharply reminded that I have apparently developed a strong aversion to the word disability. That’s a post unto itself, but I decided that the books weren’t going to be of much help in crafting the conversation.

I searched back for the ‘book’ of sorts that I’d put together with Kendall’s former teacher when Kendall had just started kindergarden. A dear friend had approached me back then asking for help. His two sons are classmates of both of my girls and he wanted to figure out how best to talk to them about differences. I looked in vain back then for something age appropriate but came up dry and frustrated.

Deciding that I had to create something, I went to the fabulous teacher from Kendall’s integrated preschool and begged for her help. Together, we came up with this. And while it’s obviously written for the six and under set, I thought the general idea was pretty well transferable. And so I had the beginnings of a loosely formulated plan of action – a rough framework of the syllabus for Teaching Empathy 101.

We scheduled the meeting with neighborhoodgirl’sparents for the following Saturday evening, just before a school fundraising event. It was wedged-in by design. I needed an end time. I needed to know that if we were going down in flames, we’d have an out. And so, we had merely forty-five minutes to actually sit down together.

As we got dressed for the evening, Matt and I chatted. It was the first time all week that we’d actually been able to talk about any of it. “Ok, Hon,” I began, “do you have a plan?”

He gave me the patented husband-as-golden-retriever look. And just for good measure, he added,”Huh?”

I’d admit that the question had an element of sport in it. I’d tell you that I knew damned well that he didn’t have a plan but that I asked the question anyway just to make it clear that I’d been working on this all week and that at least one of us had done the homework. But that wouldn’t have been nice. It would have been downright childish. And I certainly would never, um, ever do something like that to my dear husband. So, nothing to see here. Moving on …

“All right, Babe. So here’s what I’m thinking,” I said. I ran through my plan and asked if he was comfortable with it. He was. I asked if he felt there was anything that needed to be added. He didn’t. I told him I’d be happy to lead off. He said, “Huh?” We decided I’d lead off.

We were a few minutes late. Try as I might these days, I seem to be incapable of making it out of the house on time. Late is my new early. As we walked to the door I suddenly wondered if we should have brought something. A bottle of wine? Flowers? I wondered if Emily Post has anything on the topic. When headed to a neighbor’s home with the weight of the world on one’s shoulders, it’s always best to bring …. guest soap? We rang the door empty handed.

They came to the door together and invited us in. We shared some pleasantries – we complimented their beautiful home and talked a bit about how funny it is that we live so close and neither of us had ever been inside the other’s home. But time was short, so we quickly got down to business.

“So,” I ventured, “Neighborhoodgirl’smom, you had mentioned on the phone that you’d like us to talk about some suggestions for talking to your kids. We thought maybe we could share some of the ideas that we’ve found most helpful over the years.” I was nervous about sounding lecture-y. I thought sharing sounded a lot better then telling.

Both she and her husband nodded eagerly. Before that evening I’d never shared more than a wave with the husband, but I decided within a minute and a half that I liked him. He had an easy, open smile and an endearing habit of nodding as I spoke.

I talked a little bit about the book that Jen and I had created. Its objective, I explained, was to build empathy. To begin the process of getting our kids to think about difference in the context of their own lives, I’d found that the best method is to start with THEMSELVES and then work their way out.

We talked about the fact that every one of us has unique strengths and challenges. That each of us has traits that make us similar to one crowd while standing out in another. I suggested starting the conversation by asking their children to sit down and make a list of the things they felt that they were particularly good at and then to follow up with areas of challenge. Then I suggested doing the same with traits that made them the same as their friends and traits that made them different. Make a list. Write it down. Engage them in the process.

With that list in hand, talk to them about how those differences and challenges make them feel. If your child says they are great at math but they read at a much slower pace than many of their friends, ask them how they would like their friends to react. Would they want their friends to tease them? Call them a slow poke? Point and laugh? How would those reactions make them feel?

Would they like their friends to quietly ask if they’d like help? Or would they prefer that their friends simply go about their own work and leave them to theirs, not calling attention to something that might make them uncomfortable?

Every child will have a different answer, of course. My friend’s son had focused on his food allergies. He couldn’t eat what his friends were eating and nearly always had his own food with him. My friend asked his son how that made him feel – being different from his friends. Did he like it when they asked about his food? Did he prefer to fly under the radar unnoticed? Was it hard to feel different from his friends? How did it make him feel?

And what about their friends’ differences? When they notice that a friend has challenges, how might they respond to them? How might their reactions make their friends feel?

Over the years, I have discovered that I learn best from the inside out. That while we may need to seek information from the outside, humanity is to be found on the inside. Without truly internalizing this stuff, it floats somewhere just outside of our grasp – rote rather than real. Compassion might have to be felt not taught, but we can teach our children where to find it within themselves.

Neighborhoodgirl’sparents were incredibly receptive. They asked wonderful questions and expanded on our ideas. They promised to talk to their children. They said that they’d like to have BOTH of our girls over – soon. They let us know that they’d like us to feel comfortable addressing their daughter directly should we choose to in the future. They told us that we had their full permission to talk to her should anything similar ever happen again.

We had to run to make it to the fundraiser. I’d thought I’d be relieved to have to leave, but I was actually somewhat disappointed that a great conversation was ending. I felt like we’d made new friends.

As we walked to the car, I looked at Matt and remembered his words. “Well then that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

I guess we did.

Being a mom – particularly this kind of mom – has pushed me far past my comfort zone. It’s taken me to some beautiful places and to some pretty ugly places. It’s escorted me to the darkest anger and the purest love. It’s forced me to confront not just the rest of the world’s prejudices and insecurities, but my own. It’s shown me what really matters and what really, really doesn’t. And it’s reminded me how similar we all really are.

We all want our children to be safe and healthy and happy. And if we work together – if we lead our children by example and show them what it means to not just tolerate but to celebrate one another – warts and all - I’m convinced we can help with the happy.

So maybe we didn’t bring guest soaps, but you know – I’m pretty sure that we didn’t show up empty handed.

Candle from Getty Images

*

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I’m at Hopeful Parents today. Please come on over.

See you there!

***

When the dog bites, when the bee stings,

when I’m feeling sad,

I simply remember my favorite things,

and then I don’t feel so bad.

~ My favorite things

*

Darby walked in and sheepishly handed me a piece of paper. “I wrote a couple of lists,” she said. “I thought you’d like to see them. It was just some stuff I really had to say.”

I took the sheet from her and began to read.

I love math!

I love science!

I love art!

I love my family!

I love pink!

I love me!

I love cursive!

“Aw, that’s great Darb,” I said, pulling her into a hug. “And we love you too!”

“There’s some more on the other side,” she said, looking down at her feet. “Some stuff I don’t like at all.”

I turned it over and started reading.

I don’t like Dora.

I don’t like fevers.

I don’t like bullys.

I don’t like enemys.

I don’t like too much homework.

I don’t like too much rain.

I don’t lke autism.

I don’t like oily popcorn.

Aw, hell, baby. Mama’s right there with ya. All the way down to the oily popcorn.

***

Ed note .. Ok, so not to name names, but I know that there are a few restless natives out there who are eagerly awaiting the resolution to Thursday’s post. I promise it’s coming, April. (Oops, did that slip out?) There just weren’t enough hours in a day this weekend (are there ever?) to write a blessed thing, so I hope you’ll remain patient with me as I hobble it together.

~ The Management

*

I was waiting for Matt to get home with the girls from dance class. One day a week I get home before they do. It’s an odd feeling – being alone in my own house. For fifteen minutes every seven days I’m not completely certain what to do in the quiet.

As I often do, I wandered into the office and sat down at the desk. I logged onto the computer - ever my trusty anchor. The ringing phone startled me as it broke through the silence.

"Hello, Jessica," said neighborhoodgirl’smom. It struck me that she sounded very formal. Whenever anyone calls me by my full name I think I must be in trouble. "Matt left me a message saying that he’d like to come over and talk to me, but he didn’t say what it was about."

I tried to stall. The conversation that we had envisioned was in person, face to face. It was decidedly not supposed to happen on the phone.

"Oh, yes," I began, trying to sound casual and failing miserably. "We were hoping perhaps we could come over and have a chat. I … um … well … yes … so … I was wondering when you might be available."

God, I was flailing. Why was I so nervous? I was sure my voice was shaking.

"Well, sure," she said, "But I’d like to ask what it’s about."

She was completely friendly, but of course she wanted to know what it was about. I mean, hell – it’s not like we call them regularly. I’d never even been inside their home, nor had I ever invited them into mine. Their daughter may be an infrequent play mate, but that doesn’t exactly make us close. For all she knew I was going to try to sell her a line of skin care products. I suddenly realized I didn’t know her husband’s name. I was beginning to panic.

The silence was getting increasingly uncomfortable, and no doubt for her part, making less and less sense. I decided I had no choice but to explain the reason for the call.

"Well," I began. "We hoped to talk to you about something that happened when yourdaughter was over here not long ago."

More silence as I gathered my thoughts. Where to go next?

"I’m not sure that we’ve ever really had a conversation about Kendall, but I was hoping that we could sit down together for a few minutes to talk. I don’t mean to sound evasive, but I guess I really hoped we could chat in person."

I danced around for a bit longer until she finally asked the one question that I couldn’t dodge. "What exactly happened that prompted this?"

I gave in and relayed what Darby had told me – that while at our house for a play date her daughter had said, "You know how Kendall’s so dumb?" I started spitting out the rehearsed lines that lingered in my head -

"I know she would never mean to be hurtful, but I’m sure you can imagine how difficult that was for Darby to hear and how hard it would have been for all of us had Kendall heard it."

"As we both know, kids will say things in the heat of the moment that certainly aren’t reflective of who they are."

"She’s a great kid and I don’t doubt that she meant no harm, but we thought this would be a good opportunity to open up the conversation a bit and hopefully help build a greater understanding."

I kept at it for a while, afraid to stop talking. Afraid to face her reaction. Afraid of the very real possibility that I’d be staring down a defensive Mama Bear who felt like she was under attack. I was waiting for the inevitable ‘My kid would never say that’. 

It didn’t come.

She was warm and open and sincerely apologetic. "I’d like to talk to her and find out what she possibly could have meant to say," she said. "She’s a good girl and I know she could never have said it maliciously."

I agreed just a little too heartily.

"But I apologize profusely on her behalf," she went on. "I can only imagine how hard this must have been. Please know how sorry I am for the pain this has caused your family."

I nearly dissolved into a puddle. "Oh, Neighborhoodgirl’smom," I said. "I certainly accept and truly appreciate your apology. I can’t tell you how much. But I hope you know that wasn’t why I was calling. I don’t want to be getting yourdaughter into trouble. I’m just hoping this can create an opportunity for all of us to come together and better understand one another."

She couldn’t have been more receptive. She couldn’t have been more open and generous and eager to understand. She asked about Kendall’s diagnosis and we talked a bit about what it meant.

"I’d still like to have you or you and Matt come over," she said. "I’d really like to hear your ideas on how we can talk to all three of our children about this."

I, um, hmm. Me? Matt? What the heck do we know? For heaven’s sake it took us  three e-mails, two phone messages, two outside consultations, and five actual conversations just to figure out how to make THIS phone call!

"Of course," I said, forcibly silencing the doubt squad in my head. "We’d be delighted."

We hung up the phone with a promise to solidify plans for the following week. I was shaking. Matt rang just moments later and thought the house was on fire when he heard my voice. "Hon, you OK?" he asked.

"Oh my God, I just had THE CONVERSATION with neighborhoodgirl’smom!"

"Oh no," he said, obviously on edge. "Did it not go well?"

I narrowly avoided tears as I squeaked out, "No, it was wonderful. And she asked us to come over and talk to them. She wants us to tell her how to talk to ALL OF THEIR KIDS. So now we have to figure out how the hell to do THAT."

"Well then," said my dear, indefatigable husband, "that’s exactly what we’ll do."

To be continued …