Jim the Mouth

This morning I attended the church I grew up in with my family. Lots of people have moved in and out over the years, so I didn't know most of the people there, but it was good to see a few old friends.

Pictured here is Jim (circa 1979), who was one of our youth leaders when I was a teenager. That's me behind him, trying to make the same face. (I did finally learn how.)

For a while, my brother worked at the same company with Jim, and they often drove in to the office together. Mom and Dad thought it would be nice to have Jim speak at Robbie's memorial service in April, and he graciously agreed.

You can tell by looking at him that he'll do a fabulous job, no?

Bound Together

My brother is free of the body that tortured him his whole life, especially in these last months.

But because we are inextricably linked forever, Robbie, you will never be free of the little sister who tortured you.

I will remember you every time I stuff every color of gumball in my mouth until I’m chewing a big old gray wad as loudly as I can. I will remember you every time I improvise and don’t sing a song the way it was meant to be sung as loudly as I can. I will remember you every time I win a game of Monopoly and flaunt it as loudly as I can.

Did you know that the first big word I learned was “provoke”? As in, “Margy, don’t provoke your brother!”

No, dear Robbie, you will never be free of me!

A Day with Charlie

The easiest way to get around Boston today was on the MBTA, so I got to buy a Charlie Ticket, which is named for Charlie in an old Kingston Trio song.

I only rode the Red Line. First from the parking garage at Alewife to Harvard Square to meet my sister Maryann, who teaches English as a second language at the New England School of English.

Then to the Charles/MGH stop to visit my brother. We got there just in time to see my aunt Sigrid, who drove up from Connecticut for a short visit with Robbie, before she turned around and headed back home again.

Little by little the family gathered in Robbie's room--Mom and Dad, both of my sisters, and me. I looked at my brother, talked to him and touched his cheek. He opened his eyes just a bit. I thought about how much he looks like our Grandpa Charlie, which surprised me.

One of his doctors, a nurse, and a social worker asked us to meet with them in a conference room. We talked for a long time. His situation is deteriorating rapidly.

Dinner with the family nearby the hospital to talk some more about hard stuff. When the rest of the family headed home, my sister Maryann and I took the Red Line to Park Street. We were planning to go to a reading--a plan we had made before the serious talk with the doctor. After we got there, we decided our brains were much to scattered to focus on anyone else's stories.

We left and found a local coffee shop, ordered some hot chocolate, and hung out on a big leather couch talking, trying to process everything. It's all so surreal. I vacillate between rational thought and deep emotions that catch me off guard.

More than anything I want my brother to have peace.

When the coffee shop closed, we hopped back on the Red Line at Downtown Crossing and took it back to Alewife.

And We're Not Even Irish!

Everything went according to plan today with lots of serendipity thrown in for good measure.

Despite the fact my alarm clock went off later than I expected, I got to the airport in plenty of time. No lurid stories to report about airport security. No problem finding a spot for my carry-on in the overhead bins on a very full plane.

I sat in between two interesting people on the plane. I diligently graded three student papers, then gave up and enjoyed great conversation all the way to Boston. The man on my left works for a food wholesaler and was on his way to the International Boston Seafood Show. The woman on my right was on her way to visit her grandmother. At one point during some turbulence, she grabbed my hand and begged, "I know you don't know me, but do you mind?" When the plane settled down she let go of my hand, and laughed as she said, "The ironic part about being afraid of flying is that I'm an aerospace engineer." Turns out we're booked on the same flight back to Salt Lake City on Sunday.

Even though we were late taking off, we landed a little early. Dad pulled up to the curb just as I got there, and we took the scenic route to the hospital, right through the heart of St. Patrick's Day celebrations around Faneuil Hall. We enjoyed our own little private parade when a troupe of bagpipers played as they crossed the street in front of our car.

We found a parking spot straightaway at the hospital and headed up to see my brother Robbie, who is still hanging in there. Mom showed up, then one of my sisters. My parents' bishop came and he and Dad gave Robbie a blessing. Jack called when he got home from school (his braces are now off!), and Roger called to make sure I got there safely.

It was too hard to tell if Robbie could really understand us. He didn't open his eyes, but he did move his head. I hope he knows we were all there. I hope he knows.

When I got ready to settle in for the night, I realized I forgot to pack pajamas. Mom produced a nightgown for me. Of course it was fine. The luck of the Irish was with me today.

I hope it's with Robbie, too.

Order Amid Chaos

When I got home from Costco the other day, I realized that I couldn't fit everything I bought into the pantry (like, yes, an entire case of boxed macaroni and cheese).

Time to eliminate all excess packaging. Time to purge all expired food (um, chicken broth that expired in 2007? Ugh!). Time to impose some order on the rest.

This week has been full of uncertainty. Getting news about a cousin and his family in Tokyo after the earthquake--they are okay! Getting Jack's report card and meeting with his teachers--he gets all the concepts, but he, uh, needs to do more of the work to get credit for what he knows. And getting updates about my brother--still hospitalized and not recovering.

Yesterday, my parents and sisters had a conference with his doctors and some other hospital personnel about his condition, and the all-around report is that his situation is grim and could deteriorate rapidly.

Today, I booked a flight to Boston, finished reorganizing the shelves (look at all the extra space!), and took a load of cardboard packaging to the recycling dumpster at Jack's school.

Tomorrow, I fly.

I do not know what is in store for my brother or if I will get there in time to see him. I do not know how things will play out in Japan. I do not know if Jack will embrace the concept of turning in work to get the grades his mind is capable of.

But I do have an orderly pantry, an empty recycling bin, and a reservation for seat 13E.

Precocious

This afternoon I worked a shift at the elementary school book fair. When I got there I discovered that the librarian wanted one of us to pick something from the book fair inventory and read to the fifth graders coming in for their library time.

I raised my hand first. Lucky, lucky me!

I looked through my options and settled on a theme: precocious birds. Before I read the books, we talked about what the word precocious means. (I make a point of taking every opportunity to share a new vocabulary word. And precocious seemed to be a good word to share with a bunch of fifth graders.)

First I read Terrific by Jon Agee, which is about a grumpy man and a smart parrot with a broken wing stuck stranded on a desert isle. The parrot engineers their escape and the grumpy man gains a more optimistic outlook on life.

I followed that up with a story about the most awesomely precocious duck ever in Thump, Quack, Moo by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin. Farmer Brown works hard on a corn maze during the day, but Duck puts on his night-vision goggles and reworks it during the night. They (and we) finally see their masterpiece when they take a balloon up to see it from above.

Duck never fails to pull the fast one on Farmer Brown. He quacks me up every time.

First Annual

Enjoyed our first Pi Day celebration with friends and lots and lots of pie. Mmmm. I think I'll just slip into a coma now.

Plan(n)ing

Today I researched flight information for a trip to Boston next month. Jack and I will be flying back for a family wedding in Connecticut and some other important activities, like visiting my brother in the hospital. Sadly, Roger must stay behind to keep the home fires burning.

When I was a teenager, I didn't want to spend my money on clothes or makeup or music. I was a total travel geek and worked hard to save up for plane tickets.

Having an adventure to look forward to is the best!

The Duck Was My Favorite

Here's one of the reasons I like Facebook: Last night one of my Facebook friends (an old work acquaintance) posted about today's performances of Peter and the Wolf at symphony hall. I checked the Utah Symphony website and discovered he was the narrator! I immediately pitched the idea of attending to Roger and Jack, who couldn't resist my enthusiasm even if they wanted to, and booked three tickets for the 12:30 performance.

We thoroughly enjoyed the show, both the symphony and the ballet. We had second row seats way on one side, and because we were so close to the stage, which was just above eye level, some of our view was obscured by the scenery. We couldn't see the conductor, much of the orchestra, or the narrator, but it turned out that we had absolutely perfect seats for the arrival of the wolf!

The sassy duck, though, was my favorite. So sad she got eaten.

Into the Weeds

I've decided that I'm going to write up examples for the series of research papers I require my students to write. At first, I was going to do something straightforward. Or perhaps something random to show how nearly any topic can be pursued within academic parameters.

But I ended up choosing something truly complex--a topic we often discuss at a theoretical level with seemingly clear moral principles guiding us, but then our thinking starts to fall apart when we apply it to real life situations. And now I'm publicly committed to my topic because I've presented the first exploratory essay I wrote to my classes this week. I've got to see it through!

Generally, I'm writing about how we balance our societal value of the sanctity of life with our values of individual responsibility and the freedom to make choices about our own lives and families. Specifically, I'm writing about what can/should guide our decisions about health care on behalf of family members who can't speak for themselves and who are facing serious quality of life issues. And even more specifically, what role should the law play?

Today, independently of the research I'm doing for class, I came across this video of a couple telling their painful story to a reporter from the Des Moines Register. They faced a crisis in the wife's pregnancy after 20 weeks, the point at which abortion is no longer legal in Nebraska under any circumstances. As I watched the video, I realized that their story illustrates many of the issues I am exploring in my research.

So now I may draw on debates about abortion when the life of an unborn child is in jeopardy as well as debates about end-of-life care and the right to die.

What am I thinking?! I hope I can actually model a way to untangle the threads and frame the issues effectively in a relatively short paper. Here's to giving it the old college try!

Basebawl

Jack's eyeball met a baseball tonight. His first black eye is coming on. This has been a tough week for the Jackmeister.

My Bad

I'd like to think that I rarely make big parenting mistakes. Jack may hold a grudge about this one for a while.

A week or so ago, Jack said that one of the brackets for his braces was loose. He said it more than once. I pretty much blew it off thinking that his next appointment was so soon.

Plus he'd be getting his braces off anyway.

Well, today was the day he was supposed to get his braces off, and the orthodontist said he needed another week. Apparently the loose bracket actually slipped down on his tooth and put enough pressure on it to mess him up.

One day, maybe, Jack will look back on this and laugh. Really a week is just a week. But today it feels like a massively unfair setback. And the blame rests squarely on me.

My bad, Jack. I'm sorry.

Please Don't Let It Kill Us

Jack was in charge of planning and cooking a dinner for his scout troop to pass off a requirement. Roger and I were invited. While we sat by a campfire in his scout leader's backyard, Jack cooked up some hot dogs on the grill.

He decided to say the blessing on the food himself. "Thank you for the food. Please don't let it kill us."

Our hearts are all still beating. Good job, Jack!

No Good Deed

Today no good deed went un . . . rewarded! This afternoon, I helped a neighbor get to an appointment with her ophthalmologist. We took her car because our Jeep is tough to get in and out of. And she's got herself a spanking new Cadillac. So we breathed in that new car smell and enjoyed that smooth, smooth ride all the way to Provo and back.

I am a driver at heart. Yes, I am.

Five Things I Learned From Student Papers

I never know what I'm going to learn reading student papers. Here are a few tidbits from today's batch:

• In Hawaii, people do not have to pay property tax on their cars. (Glad they get a break on something. I hear it's very expensive to live there.)
• It is smart to wait an hour after exercising to eat. (Flips the old wives' tale on its head. I need to check into that one further. Could be onto something.)
• Getting a college degree used to guarantee that you'd get a good job. (Really?)
• Only 5.7% of nurses are men. (Source not cited, and not clear whether stat refers to nursing in the United States or elsewhere as well. Sounds about right for our neck of the woods, though.)
• The president of Uzbekistan has a thing for erecting golden statues of himself. (I googled him and discovered that is among the least of his problems.)

Wrangling

Jack finds treasures everywhere, and he almost never wants to let go of anything. It can be overwhelming for a purger and wannabe minimalist like me.

On my way to Salt Lake City yesterday, I stopped at Ikea and bought inexpensive boxes to help Jack wrangle at least some of his treasures by getting the shelves over his bed more organized.

Today I got the boxes assembled, cleared off the shelves (including much dust despite the cat constantly roaming around on them and knocking things off), and neatly arranged it all. Little by little I will help Jack figure out what he'd like to keep in the boxes and label them accordingly.

And although I'm a purger and a wannabe minimalist, I'm also a big fan of color and fun design. So while I was at Ikea, I also picked up a little something for me.

Traversing: A Triptych

Part One

All day and into this night my thoughts are with my brother Robbie, who is being flown by air ambulance from Nairobi to Cairo to Prague to Reykjavik to Newfoundland to Montreal to Boston. By the time I wake up tomorrow, he should be settled in at Mass. General.

I worry that he has not been able to breath on his own for nearly four months and that he cannot move his body. Robbie is someone who has demanded control over his circumstances and the people around him for as long as I can remember.

I wonder what he must think and feel now that he is at the mercy of others.

Part Two

A couple of stories made the rounds today. Opposite ends of human nature.

The first was this ugly, ugly video of people, including at least three elected officials, protesting Muslims at a fundraiser held by the Islamic Circle of North America for a women's shelter. I wonder if the protesters know that Allah is Arabic for God, and that Arabic Christians worship Allah. If God exists, it stands to reason that we are all children of the same God regardless of our faith or understanding.

The second story was a hopeful one about an LDS congregation in Missouri that shares its church each Friday with a group of Muslims who are in need of a place to worship while they work on building a mosque.

More of the latter, please.

Part Three

High on the side of a mountain with a stunning view of the lights of Salt Lake City, my nephew's wife, Cambria, was showered with gifts this evening in anticipation of the birth of their first child, who will change their lives forever. When he is a few months old, his parents will take him to California or Ohio or Wisconsin or New Hampshire so his dad can attend medical school.

My niece Megan, Cambria's sister-in-law, gave the mom to be this most awesome gift.

Driving back on I-15 after the party and lost in thought, I missed my exit. But I made it home.

Handwritten

On the way in from the school bus, Jack grabbed the mail for me. As he walked up the front steps, I saw him holding an envelope of Valpak coupons and a giant flier from Brent Brown Chevrolet.

"Ugh. So boring!" I whined.

Jack plopped the mail down on the coffee table. And then I saw the corner of a white envelope peeking out from the middle of the stack.

A real letter! So rare! (Thanks, Carolyn!)

The immediacy of the internet is fabulous, but I truly love getting real letters, especially when they're handwritten. My far-flung friends and I used to correspond like mad well into adulthood. Great, great memories.

And way, way better than stacks of coupons for oil changes, carpet cleaning and dental services.

A Cow in Kenya

Well over a year ago, my niece Lauren sent a message out to the extended family asking us if we'd like to join a family team at Kiva, an online microfinancing organization. I quickly said "Yes!" because it was something I'd already been thinking about doing.

Fast forward (as only a serious procrastinator like me can do) to the present day and the fact that as of this morning when I woke up, I still hadn't followed Lauren's lead.

Shortly after waking, I read this article. Mohammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist and pioneer of microfinancing, has run into trouble. From what I can gather, he's being called on some possible technicalities, not on anything nefarious.

I have followed Mr. Yunus' work for a long time, and I decided that today was the day to honor his work and get down to business with Kiva.

I recruited Jack to help me find an entrepreneur to make a loan to. We decided to find someone in Kenya, thinking that might send some positive energy in the direction of my brother, who is still in a Nairobi hospital and unable to breath on his own.

We have officially thrown in with Mr. Mwangi to help him buy a dairy cow!

Update: The day after I posted this I learned two things. (1) Mr. Mwangi's loan was fully funded, and (2) After months of waiting for my brother's condition to stabilize and for everything to fall into place, arrangements were finally made to fly him by air ambulance from Nairobi to a hospital in Boston.

Just Say Nein

As Jack transitions into his teen years (oh my!), we want to be sure he's armed with information that will help him make good choices. Tonight we went over the drawbacks of using illicit substances.

We found this to be a helpful, if unconventional, visual aid:

Maybe this isn't the the most auspicious way to put it, but my hope is that a little humor helps the medicine go down and stay down (unlike the alcohol in the video).