Kite Flying

Children are like kites.  You spend years trying to get them off the ground. You run with them until you are both breathless. They crash … they hit the roof …
you patch, comfort and assure them that someday they will fly.

Finally, they are airborne. They need more string, and you keep letting it out. They tug, and with each twist of the twine, there is sadness that goes with joy.

The kite becomes more distant,
and you know it won’t be long
before that beautiful creature will snap
the lifeline that binds you together
and will soar as meant to soar
… free and alone.

Only then do you know that you have done your job.

~~ Author Unknown ~~

Tuesday morning, very (very) early, we sent our son and his wife flying off to Thailand for a long visit with my daughter in law’s family.  As we said our goodbyes, it struck me how familiar this process has become.

“I never would have imagined it,” I said to Jim as we drove away, the sun rising at our backs, “never would I have believed we’d have done this so much.”

Yes indeed, my son is quite a traveler.  He moved far away from home right out of high school, and never came back.  He’s traveled countless times between Florida and Michigan, also to California, Hawaii, Australia, and now to Thailand for the fifth (I think -see, I’m losing track) time.  His frequent flier miles far outweigh mine, and he’s just 28 years old.

So we’re quite familiar with saying goodbye at airport curbs. 

That doesn’t mean I’m completely comfortable with it.  After all, I wasn’t raised to be a traveler – far from it.  Many of the people in my family harbor a pathological fear of leaving home.  My grandmother, her sister, and my own mother, have some deeply laden fear that if they go away from home, something awful will happen.  Granted, the only one of my grandmother’s sisters to leave the family home did contract tuberculosis, which was ultimately responsible for her death, as well as the death of another sister and their father.  So perhaps there were grounds for their fears after all.  And as far as I was concerned – well, let’s just say the kite strings were always kept pretty tightly wound.

My friend Pat gave me a copy of the “Children Are Like Kites” poem, just before Brian went to Florida for college. 

“You need this now,” she told me.  “You need to know that as hard as this is, you’re doing your job.”

I really believe that’s true.  I believe the hardest thing about being a parent, is also the most important thing. Giving children freedom to “soar as they are meant to soar-free and alone.”  Certainly not abandoning them, just allowing the bond enough elasticity so they can stretch and reach the places they were meant to reach, but can quickly snap back if they need to. 

Really, all Brian’s traveling is about more than going places.  It’s about having the courage (his courage and my courage) to move out into the world, try new things, open yourself to new people and experiences.  Trusting yourself, having confidence in yourself.

Soaring.

Driving home from work today I passed a community college which, for some reason, is a favorite kite flying spot. There was a gorgeous rainbow colored kite plastered against the blue sky, it’s multi-colored tails flapping in the spring breeze.  They’re meant to fly, aren’t they?  For they’re certainly more beautiful aloft than bound to earth.

I enjoy watching my son soaring through life – it’s what he was meant to do.  It’s still hard saying goodbye at airports, unspooling that string a little more, but it’s worth it.

It’s all part of my job.

 

Communication Gap

One of my co-workers and her husband travel regularly from Detroit to Burlington, Vermont, which is about a 14 hour car trip, and I once asked her if they listened to music or books on tape while they traveled.

“Oh no,” she said brightly.  “We just talk.  We always have lots to say to one another.”

Lest you think this is a couple of starry eyed newlyweds, I must tell you that they will celebrate their 49th wedding anniversary this summer.

This conversation came to mind tonight while my husband and I were waiting for dinner,  sitting outdoors at the little cafe located a short bike ride away from our house.   I was gazing peacefully across the lake, watching the herons diving for their own evening meal.  And Jim was -well, totally immersed in communion with his telephone.

A couple of weeks ago, he got a new cell phone that allows him to connect to the Internet anywhere.  You can surf while standing in line at the grocery, while waiting for dinner in the restaurant, while riding in the car (suddenly, he’s all too happy for me to do the driving, so he can play with his telephone). 

Is there a word that describes the willful destruction of an electronic object – cybercide?  Or a word for divorce caused by alienation of affection secondary to the Internet? 

I realized tonight what an inordinate amount of time my husband spends staring at a screen-televsion, computer, and now telephone.  Of course, I’m no slouch when it comes to cybersurfing.  Just last night, we were both standing at the kitchen counter, staring at our individual laptops, racing to see who could be first to find the site to download a song we’d heard earlier in the day.

But I find myself resenting his constant immersion in all things electric.  “I can see I need to start bringing a book everywhere we go,” I remarked this evening.

“Why’s that?” he asked, without even looking up.

“Since you’re so enthralled with that telephone, I need some way to pass the time,” I answered.

“Oh for pete’s sake,” he said, shoving the little stylus back into its slot.

But then we sat in silence until our burgers arrived.  

Sometimes I wonder if our reliance on electronic devices for entertainment and communication has gotten out of hand, if its hampered our ability to communicate with people in the real world and in real time.  When Jim and I drive to Florida, we stock up on audio books, and dowload movies onto our laptops.  Frankly, I can’t imagine what we’d talk about on a 14 hour car trip. 

Of course, it wasn’t always that way.  Before we were married, we talked on the phone for hours every night, even if we’d been together during the day.  And we wrote letters -ten pages or more! -everyday when we were in college and separated by the whopping distance of 32 miles.  In those days we were like my friend and her husband – there was always plenty to talk about. 

But it seems we’ve become more interested in virtual communication than in exerting the effort to communicate with each other.  So we fall prey to an increasing sense of isolation and disconnection with one another. 

 Perhaps every couple should take a long road trip now and then, with no electronic distractions allowed, and see how many things they can find to talk about. 

How about you?  Have electronics impacted communication in your relationships?

 

Dreaming the Night Away

Last night was a terrible, horrible, very bad night. 

Oh, don’t be frightened, I’m fine.  Nothing bad really happened.

It was all in my dreams.

Usually, I don’t dream.  Or at least, I don’t remember my dreams.  And last night, I was really looking forward to a good night’s sleep.  You see, I’m at my Florida house all alone –  no dogs hogging the bed, no chainsaw massacre snoring – just the king sized pillowtop mattress, the gently whirring ceiling fan, and me.

Alas, it was not to be.  I had nightmares of epic proportions, a continuing saga of a dream that kept waking me up with a start, and then, picking up where it left off when I managed to doze off again.  Somehow it involved me and two of my friends on a trip somewhere, and terrible things kept happening so we couldn’t get home.

The last scene involved a gunman holding a woman hostage – she was tall and blonde and dressed in a forest green business suit.  “Don’t hurt me, Paul,” she kept saying, as he pointed the gun directly at her head.  Meanwhile, my two friends had disappered and I was crouched in the hallway of some conference center, not ten feet away from where this drama was taking place. 

Despite her pleading and the police totally surrounding him, he fired the gun and she crumpled to the floor.  A policeman tackled him, but he turned and started firing the gun randomly in the air, until the policeman wrested him to his knees, taking the gun from his hand by grabbing it with his teeth!

Dear Lord.

So much for a restful night’s sleep.

Where in the heck do dreams like that come from?  Was it the late dinner at PF Chang’s where we stopped on the way home from the airport?  Was it the extra glass of wine I polished off before bed?  Was it talking with my son and daughter in law about their upcoming trip to Thailand?  Was it being all alone in this big house?

Some people believe our dreams have important messages for our future.  The high school kids I work with just presented the musical Fiddler on the Roof, and it contains a scene where Tevye uses a (fictional!) dream to convince his wife their eldest daughter is destined to marry the “poor tailor” instead of the butcher chosen by the matchmaker. 

“Tell me your dream, and I’ll tell you what it means,” Golde says to Tevye.  And he proceeds to recount a horrific tale that involves Golde’s grandmother and the butcher’s first wife, both of whom have been dead for years.  By the end of his story, Golde is convinced.  “It is a sign,” she says.  “So that’s how it was meant to be, and it couldn’t be any better.”

Of course Sigmund Freud made a scientific phenomenon of dream analysis.  In his book The Interpretation of Dreams, he contended that the foundation of all dreams was “wish fulfillment” and the instigation of a dream was always to be found in the events of the day proceeding it.

If that’s the case, then I think Sigmund and I need to have a talk.  Neither of these options is very appealing in light of last night’s dreams.

Last week, a blogging friend had some interesting things to say about the connection between depression and dreams.  Seems a book she read indicated that depressed folks dream more, and as a result, wake up feeling less rested, thus perpetuating this vicious circle of depression and bad feeling. The whole bad dream cycle begins as a result of “failing to have ones basic needs met,” thus inciting worry about these particular difficulties.  The authors of this particular tome (which she never identified, more’s the pity) refer to this as “misusing the imagination,” by allowing “emotionally arousing thoughts to go round and round in their heads.” 

And so night falls, and one’s mind must deal with all these bad thoughts and feelings that have been roiling around all day.  The mind converts them into dreams (and not necessarily good ones), but in doing so it prevents the body from falling into the deepest level of REM sleep needed to feel rested and refreshed the next day.

Remember those “basic needs,” the lack of which started this cycle to begin with?  Well, one of them is (of course!) plenty of restful sleep.  And so the cycle begins again, in all its viciousness.

If you visit here regularly, you’ll know I’ve had some worrying things to ponder lately.  Perhaps last night’s dream was the equivalent of “worry soup,” an amalgam of all my concerns and fears, all poured into the stockpot of my unconscious mind, and set to bubbling in my sleep.

Surprisingly enough after last night, I’ve felt rested today.  I spent the morning quietly, drinking coffee, sitting on the lanai doing some writing, taking a long bike ride before lunch.   Jim arrived this afternoon,so I’m no longer alone.  The four of us enjoyed a good dinner on the lanai and sat around talking in the cool evening air.

And now its late once again…the king sized pillowtop beckons. 

What dreams will come tonight?

I wonder.

How about you?  What are your dreams (or nightmares) telling you?

 

 

 

Renewal

This week has seemed rather long, and today seems like Thursday instead of Wednesday.  That’s probably because I worked in the office on Monday, which I rarely do.  But I’ve taken on some new reponsibilities in my office job, which means I may be working a bit more.  That’s okay though – I’ve rediscovered how much I like my office job this week.  True, there’s lots of paper shuffling going on, but in the past few months I’ve started developing some new procedures for doing things, started training a co-worker to help me out, and convinced my boss to let my department handle more of the documentation the nurses were once required to do (which will be quite a bit more cost efficient for the company, and makes the nurses happier too.)

So I’ve been bustling around there feeling quite proud of myself. It’s been good for me – takes my mind off some of the other problems I’ve been dealing with on the domestic front.  (And thank you all for your kind and supportive comments.  How lucky I am to have such a wise and wonderful network with which to share.)

Elaine, one of the nurses in my office, came in quite excited herself today.  A long term client of hers- a young man with brain injuries and physical impairments resulting from a car accident when he was 12 – has been working for a while in a rather dull sheltered workshop, a kind of place where special needs adults can perform manual labor and get paid a small amount of money.  She’s noticed that he’s been getting more and more depressed,  talking less and less, and using his wheelchair nearly all the time instead of trying to walk with a cane.

So she started looking around for other opportunities for him.  Knowing that he liked art, she tried to get him a volunteer position at the Detroit Art Institute, but nothing was availble.  However, staff members there suggested she try the Opera House. 

It’s been a miracle.  Not only have the staff at the Detroit Opera House been accepting and welcoming, they have gone out of there way to provide this young man with the best possible experiences he can have.  He’s going downtown now at least three times a week, ushering for special programs, working in the office, and having the opportunity to see all sorts of great musical productions.

He saw his first full length opera last weekend, and his mother said he was in tears at the end, completely overwhelmed by music and pagentry.  As a result, he’s decided to take an adult piano class at the community college.  And Elaine reports that he’s speaking more, smiling and laughing a lot, and using his cane to walk with.  At his neurology appointment today, his physician said he “looked better than he’d ever seen him.”

Amazing, isn’t it?  How finding something you feel passionate about, activities that are fulfilling and satisfying, is the best medicine for one’s physical and mental health?  It’s given him confidence, stimulated his mind and body, and enriched life on so many levels.  If it can make such a dramatic difference in the life of a young man with a brain and spinal cord injury, imagine what it can do for ordinary, healthy folks?

Sort of like me this week, working away at my new job responsibilities, writing memos and re-organizing files, creating policies and explaining procedures. 

It’s given me a new little lease on life.

So here’s to finding something you can get excited about – a new hobby, planting spring flowers, a committment to help others, whatever it is that sparks a sense of enthusiasm about life in general. 

How about you?  What gives you that sense of renewal, that extra spark of energy and confidence that can make you say “yes” to life?

 

 

 

The New Territory of Old Age

Until I was 12 years old, I was lucky enough to have my great grandmother living right across the street.  My Gramma always seemed very old in my estimation, although in actuality she was only in her mid 70’s when she moved in with my aunt and uncle, and 85 when she died.   But we spent lots of time together, watching her favorite stories on TV (General Hospital and Lawerence Welk), drinking Cokes and eating Fritos, and piecing quilt squares together.  In addition to having this wise and wonderful old lady across the way, my maternal grandparents lived with us.  So, I grew up with the elderly and I became quite familiar with the aging process.

I only recall my Gramma becoming weaker and less energetic that last year of her life.  She was often in bed when I’d dash over after school, and sometimes I would just sit in the chair beside her bed and read quietly while she slept.  One day I came home to the news that she had fallen and broken a hip.  Surgery was performed, but within a couple of days she developed pneumonia and died in her sleep.

“She was ready to go,” I remember my mom saying through her tears.  “Bless her heart, she was just all tired out from living.”

Today, people who are “all tired out from living” have spawned their own cottage industry.  Assisted living, memory loss neighborhoods, respite care, nursing homes – all euphemisms for warehousing the aged.  My mother in law “lives” in such a place, and I place quotation marks around the word “lives” because I’m not sure that what she does qualifies as living, at least not the way I define it.  She doesn’t remember that she was married, that she raised a child, that she worked in a productive, responsible job.  She recalls her mother- whose photograph she will bring to her lips and kiss – but she doesn’t recall her own name, or her only son’s, or her husband’s, or mine.  She’s been “banned” from participating in the one activity she might enjoy (playing Bingo) because she becomes “adversarial” if she doesn’t win.

Sigh.

I’ve just been conversing with my mother in law’s physician (a young woman who sounds as if she’s about 15 years old) and she tells me that recent test results indicate her creatinine levels are “alarmingly high,” and her potassium levels are also “quite high.”

“Normally a physician would be very concerned about this because it signals kidney failure,” Dr. C. says.  “I’m only telling you because I need to know how you’d like to proceed.  With creatinine levels this high, we might start talking about dialysis.  But considering her age and mental status, I’m not sure this is the direction you’d want to take.  And the elevated potassium, if left unchecked, could lead to atrial fibrillation and heart failure.”

(At this point, I press my finger to the ear opposite my cell phone because there’s a cacophony of background noise on her end.  Did I hear someone say “do you want fries with that?”)

“Well,” I say, taking a deep breath and looking over at my husband who is sitting at our dining room table on a business conference call of his own, “at this point we really aren’t pursuing any course that will prolong her life.  We basically just want to keep her as comfortable and pain free as possible.”

Do you realize what I just said?  I’m standing in my kitchen on a sunny spring morning, coffee cup in hand.  My dogs are sniffing around the back yard.   And I’ve virtually just pronounced a death sentence on my mother in law.

“I understand that,” Dr. C. tells me.  “I can document that you want me to check her potassium levels in three to six months and then go from there.  If I check the potassium and it’s dangerously elevated, we can do something as simple as providing medication to counteract it.  Or you can decide to let nature takes it course.  It’s completely up to you.”

Oh god.  I speak enough “doctor” to know that she’s asking me whether we should check her potassium levels at all or let her die a (semi) natural death.

At this point, I’m longing for the ease of a broken hip and pneumonia.  How easy that would be.

Of course, it isn’t really my decision to make.  This is my husband’s mother, every difficult, stubborn, pessimistic bone of her 90 pound body.   She doesn’t really belong to me – she never has.  The two of us have absolutely nothing in common save our relationship with this man sitting at my dining room table talking to a fellow engineer about heat calculations.

“I need to talk to my husband about this,” I tell the good doctor. 

“Of course,” she says again.  “Just let me know how you’d like to proceed.”

So here I am, plopped squarely in this brave new world of old age.  It isn’t anything like the old age of generations gone by, where the elderly tended to be cared for by one family member or another until they died.  Oh no, it’s much more complicated than that.  Now we have “living wills” and “do not resuscitate orders” and hospice.  We have to make “decisions about how we want to proceed.”

My oh my, how life (and death) have changed in the last 40 years.

Of course, I’m not the only one in this predicament.  It would take all my fingers and toes to count the number of people within my circle of acquaintance’s who are currently dealing with similar problems. 

Sometimes,  I  imagine myself in this situation at some point in the (hopefully) very distant future, when my son and daughter in law might have to make these same decisions.  My worst fear is the loss of my mind, my ability to read, write, think, know what is going on in the world around me.   Would I want to continue living in some institutional type environment, sucking up time and money to prolong my existence?  Or would I advise them to “let me go” as peacefully and painlessly as possible? 

And does one person really have the right to decide for another just when life is no longer worth living?  But what do you do, how do you “proceed” when the person in question cannot decide for themselves?

When I talk to my husband about this, his reaction is basically what I’ve come to expect in regard to dealing with his mother.  “I really can’t handle this right now,” he says, staring at me glassy eyed, the look that means “don’t push me too far or I’ll break.”

Sigh. (again)

I’m traveling through uncharted territory here, folks. 

Wish me luck.

  

 

Friday Night Meme Time

Just stumbled across this meme at Tea Reads, and i’ve never seen it before.  Try it – it’s kind of fun (smiles)

You’re feeling: content
To your left: stove and refrigerator
On your mind: paying bills
Last meal included: pasta
You sometimes find it hard to: stop worrying
The weather: SPRING!
Something you have a collection of: notebooks
A smell that cheers you up: fresh coffee first thing in the morning
A smell that can ruin your mood: skunk

How long since you last shaved: two days
The current state of your hair: freshly cut
The largest item on your desk/workspace (not computer): telephone
Your skill with chopsticks: clumsy
Which section you head for first in a bookstore: new fiction
Something you’re craving: chocolate mint chip ice cream (about to go out for some, actually)
Your general thoughts on the presidential race: god help us

How many times have you been hospitalized this year: once, if you count two hours in the ER

Favorite place to go for a quiet moment: my back porch
You’ve always secretly thought you’d be a good: novelist

Something that freaks you out a little: the price of gasoline
Something you’ve eaten too much of lately: sandwiches, my fallback meal
You have never: smoked cigarettes
You never want to: live without dogs

Looking Up

Whether it’s because of the sun, the mellow breeze, being able to write this while sitting on my back porch, or just normal fluctuation of my roller coaster hormones, I’m feeling much more Matisse today (and again I refer you to this post for an explanation).

The human spirit is amazing, isn’t it?  It rejuvenates itself daily, healing over hurt places, pulling itself up by the bootstraps and moving forward with determination.  Much like a fractured bone, it can mend, generating strength and density from somewhere deep within. 

And speaking of fractured bones, I’ve just returned from the orthopedic surgeon who tells me that mine is progressing very nicely, and I can begin to “wean off the boot.”

Yes.

While waiting for the doctor, I read a magazine interview with Helen Hunt, one of my favorite actresses.  She was recalling some of the more difficult times in her life – a divorce, problems becoming pregnant, the failure of a tv show.  “Something positive has come from every tough situation in my life,” she said.  “It’s just hell getting to the positive part.”

True, that.

I tried to walk my dogs today – couldn’t stand it another minute – and even though we had to turn around at the church instead of going to the park (about which Magic was none too pleased ), it reassured me to set out on that familiar path, see the signs of spring appearing in my neighbor’s flower beds and forsythia bushes.  Renewal is possible, even after the most bitter of winters. 

We will get to the positive part.

So storms will be weathered, houses will be paid for (or not), it will all work itself out.

Things are looking up.

 

Another Day

Life’s been weird lately, as you might have guessed from my last post, which was decidedly more Picasso than usual (to understand what I mean, you’ll have to go read this post at Red Umbrella).  But some interesting discussion was generated in the comments section, the upshot of which I totally agree. 

Life in general can get messed up but we have to deal with it, hope for the best, and enjoy whatever small pleasures are available.

Most of my angst over the weekend stems from a conversation with the company who holds the mortgage on our two homes in Florida.   Like many other people, we got caught smack dab in the middle of the housing market meltdown, and our rental property is now worth less than we owe on the mortgage.

Nasty business, that.  I won’t go into any of the gory details, but we’re faced with some rather tough choices in the coming months. 

So I spent the weekend being mad at the world in general and myself in particular for thinking I could make a killing in the real estate market.  There really are no free rides, and I know that.  Just a lifetime of honest, hard work, which is something with which I’m quite familiar (and by the looks of things will continue being familiar with until I’m at least 80!)

Speaking of work, there’s some weirdness going on at my company these days.  We’ve had a rash of new hires who last about three weeks and then bail.  My boss, who has been working yeoman’s duty picking up all the slack from these slackers, is about to throw in the towel.  The latest defection occurred today – a young woman who hired started on the job three weeks ago, left a message this morning stating the job “just wasn’t for her,” and she wouldn’t be returning. 

In retrospect, I should have suspected something yesterday when I noticed she had taken the 8×10 glossy photo of her family home with her.

I’m wondering-in a state where unemployment is higher than just about anywhere and the cost of living is pretty steep too, how can people be so cavalier about jobs?  And where is the sense of responsibility?  Our company is very small, and the presence (or absence) of one person makes a huge difference in terms of profitability. 

To top it off, it’s a super nice place to work.  It’s a very professional environment, all women, great teamwork atmosphere, flexible schedule with the ability to work at home, decent pay, 401K program – I just don’t get it. 

What do women want, anyway?

So, if you know of a good, level headed nurse out there who’d relish the opportunity to work in case management with a group of intelligent women, send her my way would you?

Along with someone who’d like to buy some swampland in Florida (smiles).

 

Sunday Scribblings-Fearless

Fear. Less.

Disconnecting the word is the only way I can make sense of this week’s prompt.  Because I must admit to you that I’m consumed with fear these days.  And writing/reading all the platitudes about conquering your fears and taking risks and diving in with both feet will fall on deaf ears here at the Byline.

Rough words from me, I know.  Writing is usually the way I work myself out of fears, my method of rising above the things that frighten me.  But I’ve sunken into a fear-full pit lately, and not even words (my weapon of choice for all life’s dilemmas) can offer me the leg up I need to pull out.

“At the risk of sounding like an old fogey,” my mother (who just turned 81 but prides herself on “thinking young”) said the other day as we were driving to the market, “I do believe the world has gotten itself into the worst mess I’ve ever seen.”

Well, I do believe she’s right.  Countless businesses closing every day, homes and companies being lost to foreclosure right and left, while prices for necessary consumer goods continue to rise exponentially.  Health care costs soaring, making even basic medical treatment unaffordable.  People living longer and longer, but with deteriorating quality of life, spending their life savings to be warehoused in institutions.  And war, dragging on forever, costing young men and women their lives, and costing this country trillions of dollars.

It’s a mess.

And it makes me fear full.

So, on this second Sunday in April when winter seems to have returned once again, snow flurries falling from leaden grey skies, I would dearly love to fear less.  I want to stop being afraid about the falling equity in my home(s), the rising prices at the gas pump, grocery, and drug store.  I want to stop being afraid about growing older, about dementia and cancer and bone disease.  I want to stop being afraid this war will not only continue, but will escalate into additional conflict.

I want find a way to fear less. 

How about you?

 

for Sunday Scribblings

 

 

 

It’s Only Me

Growing up an only child in a very Catholic, post WWII neighborhood, I was quite the anomaly.  Viewed with a mixture of awe (by my peers) and pity (by their parents), I rather enjoyed my somewhat exalted status.  In fact, I enjoyed being an only child so much that I married one, and then became the mother of one. 

Which is probably why many young women of my acquaintance consider me an expert on the subject.  These days, it’s quite popular to have just one child-over the past 20 years, the percentage of families who choose to have only one child has doubled.  Yet, these women occasionally harbor lingering doubts about their decision, and seek out my opinion. 

“Tell me what it was like being an only child,” they’ll plead.  “Was it really okay?  After all, you and Jim and Brian all turned out fine, didn’t you?”

Next time I get this question, I’m going to offer them a copy of Only Child, a selection of essays edited by Deborah Siegel and Daphne Uviller.  These two women, both only children themselves, solicited writers to “reflect on transformative episodes that defined them as only children.”  These twenty essays explore not just childhood experiences growing up as an “only,” but also the way this has shaped the writers relationship with friends, their own parenting experience, and finally, coming to grips with their parents aging and death. 

So we have Peter Terzian, writing about himself as a 10 year old who developed an almost personal relationship with his postcard collection; Sarah Towers, who at age eight was so desperate for a sibling she was “ready to  settle for a chimp”; Betty Rollins who, until she was 15, didn’t realize her “birthday wasn’t a national holiday.”   

And there’s John Hodgman, who decided to have two children of his own, since, “like a farmer who needs two children to till the soil and cannot risk having but one, so I need more than one child to lower my risk of absolute awful heartache.”  And Penn Jillette, a professional magician who learns to practice a different sleight of hand in caring for his aging parents.  “If you’re an only child, and you love your parents, and your parents need you, well, what do you do?  You help them while pretending not to help.  You lie.  And you think you fool them.”

By turns poignant and humorous, the collection provides valuable insight into the psyches of only children. Nearly every essay contained a nugget of truth so close to my own experience that I found myself nodding in affirmation, or shaking my head in wonderment.  Yes, exactly! I might think, comforted to know there were others who had felt the same way.  Those hot button issues that only children face in spades – creating boundaries between themselves and their parents, learning to express anger, conquering loneliness – are tackled in this group of essays.

Whether you are an only child, the parent of one, the spouse or offspring of one  (or, in my case, all of the above!)  these essays will touch your heart, make you smile, and offer valuable insights into navigating the waters of this life experience. 

 

Only Child, Writers on the Singular Joys and Sorrows of Growing Up Solo

edited by  Deborah Siegel and Daphne Uviller

published in 2006, Three Rivers Press

256 pages

this review brought to you by  Mother Talk