And so, when my daughter ceased her endless wailing; she became a delightful child. I learned for the first time, playfulness. I relished the sun, the flowers, we planted herbs, we loved, we sang. She was beautiful. She was beyond beautiful. I did not know that I was pregnant again for quite some time - but that belongs to Daughter #2's story and so I will leave some blanks. But daughter #2 did come - (I'll let you have a few lines to digest that).
About those diapers...I used cloth of course, and one day, I found myself, straddle the bathtub, surrounded it seemed, with two million dirty diapers. I did not like this, I did not like this AT ALL. I was wringing and flinging, letting every ounce of my dislike loose when suddenly, I had this thought. Well..maybe it wasn't me that had the thought - maybe it was Someone else. "These diapers must be cleaned, cleaned with your love, or your anger and distaste, you choose." Humility. Silence. Cleaning the diapers became an act of love. I might be exaggerating if I used the words always and forevermore...but...well, you know..generally speaking.
A few days after #2 was born, I had faced that moment that many women warn of...you know the one, the one that I cannot speak of delicately (my delicacy will fade in the following posts, just saying). The first ahem (I hesitate) BM after childbirth(if I say it really fast will you read it really fast, too?). I was sitting in the bathroom, #2 in arms, tears rolling down my cheeks. Naked Satori, fresh from her bath before the unexpected caught me, had seated herself on a little potty chair which some well-meaning soul had provided. And, wonder of wonders! Satori went potty. 10 months old. Yes, she did, she really did. And she never, ever, no not once, soiled or wet her diaper again. I must be (must have been) a very good mother don't you think? And, half as many diapers to wring - man, I must have been a really great mom.
Her life continued to be like this. She was amazing, precocious. Early in everything but speech. Of course there is more, some of it wound so tightly with #2's life that it cannot be unwound, but for now, I try to stick as closely as possible to our Tori's life.
She was a delightful, brilliant, child. A beautiful child who would not, no matter what I tried, gain weight. As beautiful as she was, my darling daughter looked like the poster child for some country of starving children. She nursed ferociously, she ate anything offered to her, but she did not gain weight. Even so, she was smart, she was diligent (yes, I meant that) and in her own way she was quiet. I do not mean that she was not noisy, we already know about the wailing, I mean that she simply and quietly did what she was going to do. No fanfare, no probing questions; she walked at 7 months, fed herself carefully and neatly quite early. For the most part, she was quite compliant and helpful, even from a young age.We moved several times, we experienced upheaval, we had impoverished, but beautiful holidays and gatherings, in the way the young people building a life tend to do. And my daughter grew.
I will skip some parts of the story now...these blanks will be filled in when I speak of my other daughters; and I may interrupt from time to time to tell some of my own story. But I am eager now to face what must be faced, and so we shall spin ourselves round and clink our heels together and greet 13 year old Tori.
She did well in school - at some point, later revealed, my children had begun attending "regular" school. Satori was ahead of her classmates, quite capable and well-liked. Some pretty horrible things happened during these middle school years - things which foreshadow what is to come, in her life, my life, and her sister's life (note again, I did not say, in her father's life). I will tell you one of those things - despite that it likely belongs more in #2's story. The photo above belongs in such a place, both of them - daughter #2 and Satori Marie, crossing 1st and 2nd, ages 16 - 18, in the Indianapolis 500 Day Marathon. Of course, those were days just shortly before it was all not okay. She was a runner, fastest girl in all of Putnam County she was (yes, we lived in Greencastle for a short while - that's for another time).
In Indianapolis we lived in what might be called - the ghetto - or at least at its edge. Immense wealth one block that way, and abject poverty one block the other way. I wanted my children to experience diversity you see; and I still believe in that idea. I know now that it takes perhaps a bit more preparation than I had believed. On the other hand, what I experienced, other families around me were experiencing - in both cardinal directions. It happened to all of us.
About those diapers...I used cloth of course, and one day, I found myself, straddle the bathtub, surrounded it seemed, with two million dirty diapers. I did not like this, I did not like this AT ALL. I was wringing and flinging, letting every ounce of my dislike loose when suddenly, I had this thought. Well..maybe it wasn't me that had the thought - maybe it was Someone else. "These diapers must be cleaned, cleaned with your love, or your anger and distaste, you choose." Humility. Silence. Cleaning the diapers became an act of love. I might be exaggerating if I used the words always and forevermore...but...well, you know..generally speaking.
A few days after #2 was born, I had faced that moment that many women warn of...you know the one, the one that I cannot speak of delicately (my delicacy will fade in the following posts, just saying). The first ahem (I hesitate) BM after childbirth(if I say it really fast will you read it really fast, too?). I was sitting in the bathroom, #2 in arms, tears rolling down my cheeks. Naked Satori, fresh from her bath before the unexpected caught me, had seated herself on a little potty chair which some well-meaning soul had provided. And, wonder of wonders! Satori went potty. 10 months old. Yes, she did, she really did. And she never, ever, no not once, soiled or wet her diaper again. I must be (must have been) a very good mother don't you think? And, half as many diapers to wring - man, I must have been a really great mom.
Her life continued to be like this. She was amazing, precocious. Early in everything but speech. Of course there is more, some of it wound so tightly with #2's life that it cannot be unwound, but for now, I try to stick as closely as possible to our Tori's life.
She was a delightful, brilliant, child. A beautiful child who would not, no matter what I tried, gain weight. As beautiful as she was, my darling daughter looked like the poster child for some country of starving children. She nursed ferociously, she ate anything offered to her, but she did not gain weight. Even so, she was smart, she was diligent (yes, I meant that) and in her own way she was quiet. I do not mean that she was not noisy, we already know about the wailing, I mean that she simply and quietly did what she was going to do. No fanfare, no probing questions; she walked at 7 months, fed herself carefully and neatly quite early. For the most part, she was quite compliant and helpful, even from a young age.We moved several times, we experienced upheaval, we had impoverished, but beautiful holidays and gatherings, in the way the young people building a life tend to do. And my daughter grew.
I will skip some parts of the story now...these blanks will be filled in when I speak of my other daughters; and I may interrupt from time to time to tell some of my own story. But I am eager now to face what must be faced, and so we shall spin ourselves round and clink our heels together and greet 13 year old Tori.
She did well in school - at some point, later revealed, my children had begun attending "regular" school. Satori was ahead of her classmates, quite capable and well-liked. Some pretty horrible things happened during these middle school years - things which foreshadow what is to come, in her life, my life, and her sister's life (note again, I did not say, in her father's life). I will tell you one of those things - despite that it likely belongs more in #2's story. The photo above belongs in such a place, both of them - daughter #2 and Satori Marie, crossing 1st and 2nd, ages 16 - 18, in the Indianapolis 500 Day Marathon. Of course, those were days just shortly before it was all not okay. She was a runner, fastest girl in all of Putnam County she was (yes, we lived in Greencastle for a short while - that's for another time).
In Indianapolis we lived in what might be called - the ghetto - or at least at its edge. Immense wealth one block that way, and abject poverty one block the other way. I wanted my children to experience diversity you see; and I still believe in that idea. I know now that it takes perhaps a bit more preparation than I had believed. On the other hand, what I experienced, other families around me were experiencing - in both cardinal directions. It happened to all of us.
Sometime about midnight I began to feel uneasy. I'm not sure what it was but something urged me on and I went to fetch them. There, I found, I'm sure, a million children, boys and girls alike. I had understood that this was a girl's sleepover...not the first boy/girl party. Ahhh if only it had been that simple. I could not find the mother. I drug my daughters, two of them, home. No idea that something was amiss, I stopped at an all-night drug store for cough syrup. My sweet daughters did not want to come in. Hmmmmmmm...
I fetched the medicine and drove home, parked the car and started up the steps when I realized that #2 was leaning heavily on Satori. "She's just tired, Mom." Okay, except she can't walk. OH MY GOD. MY DAUGHTER IS DRUNK!!! Such a thought had never occurred to me. I was so innocent, (read, STUPID). We never "didn't drink." We had beer on occasion, a little wine, but we were not "drinkers." My husband (oh suddenly he is present) is an adult child, so we were cautious; not crazy cautious, just well, we just didn't (often). We'd never spoken really to our children about drinking - so naive, so ARROGANT, we assumed that such things would never touch them. But...MY DAUGHTER IS DRUNK. She vomited, I cleaned it up - I wasn't sure whether to let loose my rage, or be loving...which? and how shall I express either? Satori was not, as far as I could ascertain, drunk herself; I smelled nothing on her breath. She seemed fine but that she had lied for her sister. The first such instance to my awareness of what was to become a pattern; each sister shielding the other from trouble. They had misunderstood my admonitions to protect and care for one another; suddenly, in many ways, I was the outsider and their relationship together, in all its youthful lack of wisdom, was far stronger (I thought!) than their relationship with me. Another of those things which is neither good, nor bad; just is - until we name it.
#2 is cleaned up and abed quickly something still nagged at me and I'm not sure what possessed me to do it, but I drove back to that party. What kind of mother leaves her daughter home alone when she knows that other girls are coming to sleepover? It never entered my mind that she did not know. (She did not) Most of the children ran when I pulled up......but I found one dear girlfriend in bed, asleep? Was she asleep? I intended to phone her parents but needed her number, I could not wake her. She was breathing but would not wake and I phoned 911. I do not recall the numbers, but I recall that the numbers were beyond infinite. The blood alcohol content numbers - numbers that I would hear more than I ever expected to hear them in my life. Blood/alcohol content numbers are something you hear on the television, not numbers that are spoken in your presence. Had I not phoned, she would have been dead. Dead. Dead. The children thought she was asleep; they thought that they were doing her a kindness to tuck her into bed and let her wake in the morning. She would not have woken. Thankfully, she did not die. I thought the lesson would be learned, but she did not die. Which would you have chosen? The girl's life? Or the lesson learned?
I must sound evil, wondering whether or not I had wished the girl had died. Of course I do not - of course not...she was a lovely girl. But that group of children escaped their lesson that night, and most of them, including my own girls will continue to dance with danger - and some of them (whose stories are not mine to tell) did not escape. Those are stories that do not end well..and some of them have ended while this one has not. And, I think about that often.
Because she did not die, thank god, the lesson was not learned. In fact, another lesson was learned, consequences are rare, we are invincable...usually, all is well.
And for awhile, they were.
Tori excelled in her academic work. She did really well in the most difficult things - physics, chemistry, biology; but could barely write a readable English paragraph...genes of her father I suppose. I was proud. She played soccer...she PLAYED soccer - there were rumors that scouts were watching. She was incredible. The talk of the town as they say. She pitched softball, she was well-liked. If it were not for those missing blanks, you would expect to hear that all was well and we were happy. But this part, this part was good.
We had an okay life, (despite those things which are going on in the blank spaces). We still did chores, we still ate (fewer and fewer bean sprouts but still lots of tofu and by now there is a television and lots of new "friends".) Yes, this part was, if not good, okay.
And then, it wasn't. It wasn't at all.
And sadly, my few precious readers who have stuck with me thus far, I leave you for another little while. Unlike you, I know what is coming; and I must shore myself up. I will finish up a Dollie, sit at my altar, drink some tea and perhaps tonight, more likely tomorrow, I will write again. But I needed to remember these times; I needed to remember that nothing is ever all good, or all bad, nothing
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