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Google "Antioch, California," the town in which Jaycee Dugard spent 18 years as Philip Garrido's captive, and you will see that there are roughly 100,000 people living there – none of whom noticed anything strange about Philip Garrido's backyard.
According to Antioch's website – which depicts a vista of rolling hills under shimmering sunlight, there are many town committees: economic development, capital improvements, environmental agencies overseeing conservation of water, pollution, programs for a "healthy home," "green living," and one for household "Haz Waste." There are planning, engineering and building divisions, a neighborhood watch, the presence of Megan's Law Web site so that sex offenders have to be registered, a tip line for unsolved crimes, and a crime prevention commission that holds 7 p.m. meetings on the third Monday of every month.
Maybe it's me, but I keep wondering why the neighbors, police department, planning and zoning board, and the department of health didn't find something the tiniest bit odd, let alone downright suspicious, given the living conditions at the Garrido house – the backyard covered with tarpaulins. Some of the kids called him "creepy Phil," but that was the extent of it.
Yes, Garrido is guilty of an unfathomable crime, but in what appears to be a nearly idyllic California town, who else is guilty – by omission?
I keep thinking about the 1964 murder of 28-year-old Kitty Genovese near her home in Queens, N.Y. The fatal attack lasted nearly a half hour: Neighbors heard her screams and cries for help, but no one called the police until it was too late. People said they thought her screams might be those from a "lovers quarrel" or a "drunken brawl." Well, since when do we assume that lovers quarrels and drunken brawls are also unworthy of intervention? Reports said that nearly a dozen people witnessed her attack either audibly or visually: Kitty died in the ambulance on her way to the hospital after someone finally called the police. And so the phrase "bystander effect" was coined – a phenomenon where the greater number of people present, witness to an incident or crime, the less likely people are to get involved. There is, as the definition says, a "diffusion of responsibility."
Is this what happened in the town of Antioch? People are now saying that when Jaycee and her "sisters" attended birthday parties for their children, they seemed like "sweet and happy girls." They mention now that their clothing was "different" from that of the typical teen – they were more "conservative." Of course, the latter is merely a superficial glance. The point is, people were not unaware of the existence of Jaycee and her "sisters" (who are, in fact, her daughters, Angel and Starlet, fathered by Garrido). No, they had never been to a doctor or dentist, and yes, they were home-schooled, but they were visible.
This visibility leads to my next question: Did people choose to look the other way? Did the local police department not do the math when it came to Garrido, a registered sex offender who did a stint at Leavenworth for rape and kidnapping? Garrido was not just your run-of-the-mill neighborhood pervert. Didn't anyone think that something or someone might be hiding or hidden under one of those tarps or in the shed that sat in the Garrido's littered backyard? What's the point of having a registered sex offender program in place (and Garrido re-registered annually on his birthday – he did not slip through the cracks) if the sex offender is just a name on a list?
So, what's the reason that no one saw a red flag and law enforcement didn't have enough probable cause for a detailed look/see under the guise of something as benign as sanitary conditions?
In the end, it took a mother's instinct – a mother who happens to be a police officer – to feel something beyond unsettling about Philip Garrido. Lisa Campbell, a police officer at the University of California (Berkeley) encountered Garrido with Angel and Starlet last Monday when he stopped in to propose a religious event called "God's Desire." Campbell, who felt the two girls were "robotic" and "smiled too much," instinctively called upon Ally Jacobs, another police officer, who ran a records check and discovered Garrido's criminal history. Garrido's parole officer was called, and the rest is history.
Of course, hindsight is always 20/20, and it's always simpler to be an armchair quarterback than the player on the field – but what if someone had just been courageous or curious enough to have a closer look at Garrido's property given his background and the apparent living conditions?
What if we are all brave enough to go with our guts and cultivate our instincts? The worst that can happen is that we might be wrong.
Who really knows exactly what happened in the Sanford marriage? Probably only that hapless fly on the wall. According to both Mark and Jenny Sanford, difficulties were brewing long before the governor's emotional and public meltdown.
Romantics might argue that he really did find his soulmate in Maria Belen Chapur and finally got to a breaking point where neither his marriage nor his political career mattered as much as the woman he truly loved. Publicists and campaign managers who were looking forward to his 2012 run for the presidential nomination might contend that putting romance aside instead of shooting himself in the political aspirations would have been wiser. Religious zealots might say he betrayed God and the Bible and succumbed to temptation. Constituents may feel he betrayed his country (well, certainly the state of South Carolina). Some women might say he's just a cad and how dare he do that to his wife and family. Some men might say that the governor had good reason. Some might say boys will be boys. For sure, many of us would agree that their four young sons are about to come from a broken home, and two people who thought they could make a dream come true woke up to a grim reality for whatever the reasons.
Jenny seems to have said a lot of different things in the last month or so since all this has gone down. To her credit, she moved out of the governor's mansion – kids in tow. I applauded her for that: for me, I couldn't understand how Silda Spitzer and Diane McGreevy stood by their husbands in their roles as political wives: What message were they sending to our daughters, nevermind to all women who were deceived? Their husbands didn't betray the political wife/first lady of the state – they betrayed the women they married years before.
I applauded Jenny for the brave move to pack up the kids and move to their beach house on Sullivan's Island until the Vogue spread hit the stands: My visceral reaction was that she was putting herself and her kids back in the media spotlight just as the sad scenario was fading into the landscape. I questioned how she could say she wanted her family to heal, wanted to protect her children, and stated that her move wasn't an impetuous act, but rather one considered with a great deal of thought and care. Admirable with a touch of gravitas until her intimate revelations in Vogue: that the two never had a spark between them even in the beginning – "We were never madly in love, but compatible and good friends" – to me, that sounds like a bad recipe for a marriage. Jenny goes on to say that her husband's extramarital relationship with Maria was an addiction, an obsession, a mid-life crisis.
That's where I began to get more confused, and questioned her motives: If parenting is so important to her, why reveal details of their last 20 years let alone the last year?
Mark Sanford was no better. In his most public apology, also rife with way too much information, he apologized not only to his wife and children but to his staff, constituents and friends: As his wife, I would not have wanted to be lumped in with everyone else. As his wife, I would have preferred he said it was a private matter. To make matters worse for both his wife and sons, he made it quite clear that his relationship was far from a fling: He was in love with Maria. A love that started as a "deep, deep friendship" and became "much more than just sex." She was, in fact, hissoul mate.
For those "women scorned" who are not solicited by Vogue, what do we do to retrieve our self-esteem, and get over the humiliation of our husband's infidelity? Given her husband's (mind you, not the governor's, but her husband's) televised confession, my confusion began to lift. I'm thinking now that Jenny's Vogue spread was the equivalent of Carrie Underwood's hit line, "I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights:" Rage with dignity.
And waffling again, I think of Mark Sanford who, by his own admission, was a repeat offender when it came to marital fidelity. He said he'd "crossed the line" before – but this time it was different. Another hit song? "I fooled around and fell in love?" Does this make him human or a cad? Should he have held himself to higher standards since he was a governor and a presidential wannabe? Or should he and Jenny have dissolved their marriage years before regardless of political goals? Or, based upon Jenny's statement that their marriage was never one of passion, did they both sell their souls to the devil only to find the price was untenable both personally and politically?
Can we not have divorced governors, senators, and presidents? Does America really love redemption that much? Would America rather have a bad marriage in The White House than no marriage at all?
A psychiatrist once told me two things when it comes to marriage: No one ever completely heals from infidelity and each spouse has their own true version of the truth. As an outsider, the only component I question in the Sanford marriage (disclaimer: of which I really have no knowledge) is whether or not, in that passionless beginning as told according to Jenny Sanford, they both knew some place in their souls that they were doomed from the start. And, at the end of the day, does the American public really have to know what goes on in and out of a politician's bedroom and marriage? Isn't it bad enough for just the couple, the kids, and the extended family?
Between his confession and her Vogue glam piece, I'm wondering what purpose either public performance really serves either of them.
If only the dead could speak.
Instead, as in the case of Diane Schuler who killed eight people including herself on the Taconic Parkway last weekend, the living are speaking for her.
Clearly, they didn't know all of her.
They say what people frequently say when interviewed after a tragedy: "She was a lovely woman. A devoted wife and mother. A wonderful aunt."
Perhaps all those definitions of her are true. Perhaps it was what she harbored inside, what she didn't tell them, what she was afraid to confront in herself that ended in disaster. What perhaps she didn't even know about herself.
The one word that has been floating around as broadcast journalists interview her widower, her family, the family lawyer and the private investigator is "logic." It makes no sense, they all say. Her family disputes the blood alcohol and marijuana levels in her system. They contend she wasn't a drinker. They admit she smoked a little pot now and then. And still, they say it makes no sense.
Finally, this morning, one morning news host pointed out that "logic" may not be a contender here when it comes to explanation. Point in fact: this was neither a logical act nor a logical situation. Whether born out of alcohol or madness, it was patently irrational.
As a life coach, I am cautioned not to even dip a toe into the psychological realm. And I don't. Ethically and morally, I can't. The purpose of coaching is to take the client forward by helping them to establish self-awareness, thereby confronting the demons and gremlins that are holding them back, preventing them from living better and more satisfying lives. There are times, however, when my gut screams out – and I will say what my gut feels. Instinct, once you've developed a relationship with a client, is essential and powerful. The client tells me if my gut is incorrect. I must admit, so far my gut has served me and my clients well.
In the case of Diane Schuler, my gut is screaming that the woman was not a closeted drinker or alcoholic, but a woman who was grappling with severe depression – finally destroyed by undiagnosed, unnoticed, and well-hidden mental illness? Unfortunately, mental illness still carries a stigma.
The press often drives the story. In this case, they have pre-determined that we have another epidemic on our hands – that of the "Secret Mommy Drinker." The morning news program I was watching went so far as to have a Diane Schuler near look alike (in my estimation) on the air this morning, confessing her secret alcohol abuse: She would drink during the day, and come night fall when her husband got home, drink wine with him and he just thought it was her first drink of the day. Sure, there are closeted drinkers, pot smokers, cocaine users, pill poppers, and the maritally unfaithful out there. This isn't news. But why take a tragedy now and spin it into yet another "profile" that will give the media fodder for voyeuristic news until this story fades back into the landscape?
Andrea Yates, for example, was the loving Texas mother who drowned her five children in June 2001. She had a history of depression, was taking medication, and was in therapy. Her depression seemed to increase with the birth of each child and was profound after the fourth child's birth. She thought she was a "bad mother." No one around her – not her extended family, her husband, her doctor – recognized the depths of Andrea's depression and illness.
Is it possible that Diane Schuler was hiding her illness until she swigged enough alcohol from that open bottle found in her van that allowed her inhibitions to give way and end what was an extraordinary pain?
I have often contended that mothers can be an invisible lot. Biologically and socially we remain the ones on whom children – and husbands – depend. We have little room for error, and much of what we do goes unnoticed and taken for granted. As enlightened as we think we are as a society, we're not. Speak to any mother who holds down a job and she'll tell you that she's the one who typically shuttles the kids back and forth, makes the meals, does the laundry, does the grocery shopping, knows the kids' schedules, speaks to the teachers...the list goes on and on.
Anne Tyler describes this condition with perfection in Ladder of Years as Delia Grinstead vanishes one day as the family takes their annual beach vacation. Once Delia's husband and teen age children realize she's gone, they can barely give her vital statistics to the police – arguing over the color of her eyes, her height, her weight. Delia, unlike Andrea Yates and Diane Schuler, simply walked away from that which was overwhelming her.
Is it possible that Diane Schuler wasn't hiding a drinking problem, but hiding a problem that became so painful she ended it all, able to carry through her only way out of the pain by blinding herself with pot and alcohol? Everyone's question is "but why did she take the children with her?" Perhaps because the irrational doesn't account for logic. In the same way that Andrea Yates, a self-described "bad" mother could have simply left her children and walked away.
There is no reasonable answer for the irrational.
As a culture and society, we accept those with medical disorders that might result in "tunnel vision" – another buzz word used to describe Schuler's state as she drove the wrong way on the Taconic Parkway. Witnesses who called 911 reported she was honking her horn, tailgating and flashing her headlights – was that a cry for help or rage? What is the reason her family and our society eschews mental illness as an explanation? Diane Schuler's family is intent upon finding a medical reason for her actions: What if the reason is that mental illness is just as viable an explanation for behavior that unwittingly ends up in a disaster?
My gut tells me that Diane Schuler was overwhelmed, sickened and ultimately strangled by demons so powerful they swallowed her, leaving her in madness, perhaps even unaware that her children and three nieces were the unwitting victims of the demons as well.
I awakened Monday morning at 4:30 to the sound of running water. A peaceful sound if one is near a waterfall. Not so great when you're in a New York City apartment.
It seems my son was steaming his only suit and fell asleep before turning off the shower. The bathroom was flooded, a painting on the wall curled inside its frame, and the suit was rather damp to say the least. I mopped the floor, hung the suit in an air conditioned room, ignored the dime-sized dollops of water clinging to the ceiling like glass bubbles (sort of pretty actually- gave me decorating ideas) and the sighed at the sight of puckered caulking that was once invisible.
Too aggravated to fall back to sleep, I took my pillow and lay on the couch in my office. Watched the local news until the revolving weather and traffic reports got old, then read, and nodded off for about a moment around 5:30 until the churning of the garbage trucks began.
The sun came up, shimmering through the slats of the Venetian blinds, tentative at first and then blazing. I recalled when the sun came up on the eastern side of our old house, a yellow-orange ball peeking over the pines, and wondered if I appreciated that vista at the time. I must have, since I remembered.
Along with the sun came the city's awakening – the man dismantling his trailer-ed push cart that sells bagels, coffee, and pastries on the street corner, delivery trucks rumbling and coming to screeching stops, metal guards over shop windows rolling up with a clatter. Urban morning. To think, the birds used to awaken me in the suburbs…and I complained about them.
My friend Nancy visited on Monday. We met when my youngest and her oldest were in third grade, and became fast friends. When those third graders graduated high school, she moved briefly to New York City, then to a home upstate, then to Long Island, and finally to Dallas where a good job, better lifestyle, and good weather beckoned. We moved to New York City somewhere during her nomad days, and stayed put (although moved to three apartments in a four-year span). She and I could go toe-to-toe on who's used the most bubble wrap.
Once, our houses were a five-minute drive from one another. We saw each other nearly every day – sitting on my front porch in the warm weather and by the fireplace in my living room in the cold months. Divorced since her oldest was four, Nancy is an independent and forthright woman by both nature and circumstance. During the year that my husband and I were apart, I frequently cooked dinners for us (since I was the one who worked from home) and Nancy would come through the kitchen door and call out, "Honey, I'm home." Although happy for me when Mark and I reconciled, we did miss those dinners.
As friends, we probably know one another better than we know ourselves. On Sunday night, we had a reunion dinner with our kids, and Nancy's daughter (now a New Yorker) asked if I liked living in the city. Nancy answered for me just as my lips parted to speak.
"Stephanie doesn't know where she wants to live. One minute it's upstate, the next it's here, the next could be Dallas."
Her daughter asked if that was true.
I sighed.
"I suppose," I said.
Nancy has this wonderful ability to make me feel transparent…and cut through the muck.
Am I restless? I asked her later.
Part of her answer hit home: You're just always worrying about a trillion people and things.
For sure, that's true of late.
I spent years after my kids got their driver's licenses worrying that they got safely from Point A to Point B, waiting up at night, checking beds, making sure the last one home had locked the door. I've lightened up a lot – realizing for their sakes and my sanity, I couldn't maintain that intensity. And then, just as the third child was leaving for college, my mother had a stroke. That was five years ago, and although it didn't kill her, it took her life. Until that stroke, she always fretted too much about me: Where was I going? When would I be home? Why didn't I call?
What would have happened had she remained well when our home was empty of children nine months a year? I'll never know.
In the three months since she died, I have a delayed and unfamiliar sense of freedom now that my nest is truly empty. Would I prefer to have her here, asking where I am and where I'm going? Yes – but the mother who was well, vibrant, interested, concerned and even irritating. For both her sake and mine, I wouldn't want the unrecognizable mother who was suffering.
So maybe it's not so much that I don't know where I want to live as Nancy said that night, but rather that I need to re-learn how. It was that phone call back in April that changed me so profoundly when I was told that my mother died. In that synapse, I changed – realizing that whether or not I had answered that five-year umbilical cell phone, the result would have been the same and out of my control.
We've had a week of storms on the east coast lately – storms unlike any in recent years: hail, thunder, and lightning in Manhattan so severe it could be Kansas. I was out and about in a storm on Wednesday – just me and my Gustbuster Umbrella – feeling safe and peaceful despite nature's deluge. I suppose that's part of the "how."
Our youngest has found an apartment with two college friends. A true three-bedroom (a "find" in New York City), he is preparing to move out come mid-August. Yesterday, he was "stressed out" after spending yet another day searching for the perfect space – the "stressed out" part came after finding the apartment, and hoping they wouldn't lose it. I sprung into action – doing what I've always done best throughout the years: listening, and then making a pasta dish – comfort food, to soothe the soul and his churning stomach. Today, Ben and I met with the mother of one of the roommates, the roommate, and two real estate agents: signed papers and wrote checks.
And yesterday, I missed deadlines (one of which is for this blog).
Ben went to Grand Central after the signing and hopped a train to Westchester to visit his girlfriend, a weekend bag packed. I walked to the subway, and waited 25 minutes for the local, sweltering in the humidity that is drenching the city today.
I questioned why I was not suffering the empty nest syndrome as others do as I rode the subway home. I also questioned why I was unable to read as I typically do on the train. And then when I walked in the door to this apartment, it felt strangely empty even though no one but Walter (our cockapoo) would typically be home on a Friday afternoon.
Stop, I thought, as I wondered what it will be like when I don't hear the strains of Ben's guitar in the evening. What will it be like to not check his bedroom at 4 a.m. to make sure he's home, place the damp bath mat over the tub to dry, run the wash cloth over the sink where shaving cream and whiskers sit in pools of water. I mean, really how can I possibly think I'll miss all that? Dammit, I thought, a part of me will,
Today, as Ben and I sat in the real estate office, I noticed that he has truly become a man. This one who has the burden of being the youngest child and the second son. Right, someone always has a beef about birth order: the oldest claiming that I was "inexperienced" when I had him – that he was a test case or something…the middle one saying that because she's female, I was over-protective, the youngest, well, the youngest just not wanting to be the baby. "I can do it my own self," Ben said from the moment he could speak.
My sentiment over this event is surprising. It's quite true what is said about something feeling like "yesterday" and feeling distant all at once. Ben was born on a Thursday night, the 12th of March just before midnight by emergency C-section. I'd fallen when I was seven months pregnant (while carrying a laundry basket down a recently shampooed carpeted staircase), and although I felt him turn, the doctor said I was merely neurotic. Once in labor, the sonogram proved me right (and the doctor wrong), and I grabbed the collar of his blue scrub and insisted he "take" the baby before the day became Friday the 13th. Six days later, on his brother's fourth birthday, Ben and I came home – with a fire truck and a train-shaped ice cream cake for David, and a stuffed animal for his two-and-a-half-year-old sister Ellie. Home movies show the three of them – Ben nestled in his pram, and the other two in lavender blanket sleepers, sitting in booster seats at the kitchen table looking shell-shocked.
"Just four years ago today, I had my first little boy, " I am saying to David who is looking from me to the candles on the train cake, his eyes like saucers. He wasn't buying the poignancy of the moment. And Ellie, hair tousled and eyes circled from six sleepless days without Mommy is blinking and uncharacteristically silent.
I had songs for each of them. For David – the child who didn't sleep through the night until he was 13, it was Mr. Sandman. Ellie's song came later when she left for college and I drove the suburban road from our house down to the harbor, missing her and playing Judy Collin's Home Before Dark (no one knew that until now), and for Ben it was Skinnamarink (the song that calmed him when he was an infant).
"Skinnamarink him, Mommy," Ellie would say if Ben began to whimper.
The strange thing is that Home Before Dark ( "I won't be long…don't worry about me…I'll be all right and you'll be fine without me…") now resonates in terms of all of them – these three adults whom I love so ferociously. Unlike a lot of my friends and women my age, I neither long for grandchildren nor do I lament that my children are no longer babies. I have no laminated plaque for years of service or a gold watch for a job well done. I can't take credit for what the three have become…good people with keen minds, love in their hearts, and deep souls. I'm the first to figure I must have screwed up when things aren't going right for one of them. They're so close together in age that sometimes I look back and shake my head incredulously: I was really just flying by the seat of my pants, as they say, running on instinct, and sometimes on empty and trying not to let on as those three grew up.
While Ben is away this weekend, I am going to go through his clothes. I need and want to fold each shirt that we've carted around since middle school, put away the ones I know he'll want to keep as mementos, take in the scent of him that's gone from baby powder to menthol. When Ellie comes to visit, the apartment smells like lemons. Whenever David comes in the door, I notice he still walks in the same determined way he did as a little boy.
I just put Ben's college graduation photo into a silver frame and made a special shelf for all my graduates. I showed David the other day when he came by to borrow the car.
"Right, he and Ellie get 8 by 10's and I get a 5 by 7," he said.
I began to protest.
"I'm just kidding," he said.
I don't believe he was…but it warms my heart that despite the fact they're all living on their own, some things never change.
This past week, without a state occasion or major event, was the first time in as long as I can remember that my three children were at the same table at once.
Stepping back, it's an interesting study. Have the dynamics changed among the three? In some ways, yes. The two men have become the best of friends in a way that is intrinsically male: This was something I never thought would happen, although there were glimmers of it when the younger was a senior in high school. Then, however, the older one postured himself more as protector. Now, they take care of one another.
In terms of their sister, I used to call her "the rose between the thorns" – in many ways she still is: her status as a middle child and only female is inescapable. The difference is that now there is tolerance, humor, acceptance and understanding – but the teasing remains. She will possibly never escape that. I remember not caring when I was pregnant with the third child (having already had a boy and a girl) as to the child's gender – although secretly, I hoped for a boy, giving my daughter an "only" definition that might override the "middle" definition. She is, I'm afraid, both: only female as well as in the middle.
What can I say? I always wanted three – my circle that I could draw beginning from the top, curving to the left, stopping at the bottom and bringing it round again to the top. That was the picture in my head.
On Wednesday, before my daughter went back home to Massachusetts (how strange that is to say and embrace – she came home here for a few days, went back home there), we stopped to see her older brother's apartment. She hadn't been there since his wonderful live-in girlfriend decorated. My daughter brought wine and a bouquet of flowers, and there I sat in the living room while my son showed her around…as she admired the touches that were clearly Kristin's, the sports souvenirs that once were in David's room in our old Victorian house. Ellie laughed as she loved how Kristin managed to blend David's plastic encased autographed baseballs next to her hand-blown vases, her artfully framed photographs and tapestries hanging with his Phish poster in the living room.
I was sitting on the sofa as David and Ellie chatted, not quite knowing what to do with myself, not wanting to join in their conversation, wanting them, really, to have time alone, busying myself by erasing old messages on my cell phone.
"We just had lunch with Papa," Ellie said, telling David about our lunch with my father.
"When was the last time you saw him?" David asked his sister.
"At the funeral," she said, matter-of-factly.
"Ri-ight," he said.
I'm not certain if a look came over my face at that exchange, if my breath caught just a touch. The Funeral. Of course, it was my mother's funeral – the last time my three were together for an "event."
It has always been my feeling that funerals serve three purposes: to celebrate the life of the person who has died, to comfort the living who mourn, and to give everyone a dose of reality that the person is truly dead. It is the following word I despise because I don't believe in it – some form of "closure." The problem with closure (for me) is that regardless of what we absorb, forgive, forget, or accept, memory steps in: With memory, there is the comfort of a spiritual eternity under certain circumstances like the death of my mother…and then that haunting feeling because the memories are there, but the person is gone. Is there really, therefore, closure?
I hate the euphemisms: She passed, she left, she's gone, she's in a better place. My mother would have hated them, too. She would have been the first one to say "I'm dead."
Back to "The Funeral" – it was so odd to hear it in quite that way. Truly, it took me aback. As though Ellie might have said, "at the gallery opening" or some other place that was defined as some, well, event.
I was 24 when my mother's mother died. The same age that my daughter is now. I was extremely close to my grandmother – far closer than my mother and daughter were to each other. My grandmother became ill shortly after I moved back north from Florida and left my first marriage. I recall telling her that I wasn't coming back as I took the plane to New York. I went to her apartment and confided that in her.
She didn't try to talk me out of it. She took my face in her hands and said she would miss me, but that we would still see each other although not every Sunday as we did when I lived there. She gave me her blessing, if you will, atheist though she was. I've often wondered if I'd stayed, would I have seen the signs of her illness? Caught it early enough to buy her more time? At her funeral, I don't remember crying. I remember not wanting to deal with her death, not wanting to deal with my mother's grief, wanting to have my life, my youth, the good times that might lie ahead although I was getting divorced while my friends were planning weddings.
It is three months tomorrow that my mother died…and on a Friday just like tomorrow.
Just the other day, I was walking with my husband, crossing one of the narrow one-way streets downtown here where the bicyclists delivering food at break-neck speed always travel against the traffic. An old woman was crossing with a walker, looking for the cars when I took her arm and stopped her as the bicyclist flew by.
She looked at me through glasses with lenses so thick her eyes looked three times their size.
"Thank you, sweetheart," she said.
And in that moment I thought of my mother and my grandmother, and to tell you the truth, I look for old women on the street these days – ones whom I might save, or perhaps savor, just for a moment.
Last week, I had a brainstorm. I took a bottle of wine and two glasses to the rooftop terrace of our apartment building, and texted my husband as he walked home from the subway: "Meet me on the roof."
Rather than come straight home, it might be that proverbial breath of fresh air...a segue, if you will, between the workday and that second shift of bills and letters. I even had dinner "ready"– except for the steaks which I'd throw on at the last minute. And, to make things even better, I took a book with me and read while I waited for Mark – even thought of writing a blog called "Up On The Roof."
Watching Mark climb the stairs to the terrace, toss his briefcase on an empty chair, loosen his tie, and witness the tension melt from his face as he sat across the table from me with his wine said my plan was working. This was what we needed: time to re-connect, peace and quiet. Not to mention that although it's hardly Montana, there is some semblance of open space if you're above or level with the skyscrapers in Manhattan.
Reluctantly, we went back to our apartment. Well, I was reluctant. I wanted to wait until the stars came out – although we don't see stars too often in New York City. It was well past dusk, nearly 8:30. Time for dinner and reality.
Once home, Mark uncharacteristically set the table as I popped the steaks into the stove. And then, just as he was about to set down the plates, he called my name. I turned to him with a smile.
"There's something I need to tell you," he said solemnly.
My mind raced: Oh, God, was this really the time for some sort of confession? Another woman? Was our lovely sojourn on the roof about to be ruined? All these thoughts in my brain in a synapse.
"What?" I asked, heart pounding, mind racing, bracing myself.
"We have a mouse," he said.
Then, I did what any red-blooded woman would do: I screamed, hopped on a chair, and asked Mark to get me my Frye boots.
Please, PETA people – don't write to me.
It was a toss-up as to whether I would have preferred to hear we had a mouse or he had another woman. My friends have since told me that I'm better off with the mouse. I'm not convinced.
"It's just a little field mouse," Mark said. "He ran along the floor board and into the utility closet."
"There are no fields here," I said. "That's not working for me."
"It's just a baby mouse," Mark said.
"Then there are siblings, and parents," I said, shaking my head. "Nice try. Still not working."
And there went the evening. We didn't finish dinner until 11 – after Mark went out and bought humane traps that allow the mouse to be captured and released in some place other than our apartment. I slept in my Frye boots and a baseball cap. I know: Irrational.
Yesterday, the handyman came and pulled out the stove, dishwasher, and every a/c unit and plugged up every hole with steel wool and a sticky foam substance that dries quickly. He assured me that the mouse had probably left the building (or at least our apartment). He also assured me that although the building doesn't have mice as a rule, every so often a little one gets in through a crack in search of water. I took off the boots, and put on my flip-flops: Courage. The little mouse is more afraid of me than I am of him (or her).
I was getting past this. I even developed a sympathy for the mouse, wished him well, hoped he'd move on.
But last night, Elvis (I named the mouse after someone known to have left the building) reappeared. We had all too significant face time. I was pouring coffee grounds into the filter when he popped up on the kitchen counter. I screamed. He leapt from counter to floor and scurried under the stove. I grabbed a mop – don't ask me why. And then I picked up the humane trap, placed an appetizing piece of Parmesan cheese in its center, and the trap closed on my fingers (gently, I might add, so for all those out there who think this is not a humane trap, believe me, it is. It forms a safe enclosure – that's all).
I slept fitfully last night.
This morning I went to make toast, taking the bread from the basket that sits on the counter, and there it was: the package eaten through, mouse droppings in the basket. I screamed again. I threw away the bread, the basket, and just about every dry good in the house since every bag of rice was slightly nibbled through. I cleaned more droppings, vacuumed, mopped, and "eeked."
I went to the hardware store and bought three sonic pest repellents and a flashlight. Flashlights always make me feel safer.
I am less afraid of Elvis since I've named him. I am trying to picture him in a sequined top and tight black pants. It's not so much Elvis, it's that Elvis arrives with no warning. He pops out, dines on food not offered (I never even liked it when neighbors just "dropped in" when we lived in the suburbs). And, I will never eat anything with caraway seeds again since...well, you know...
But a couple of good things have come because of Elvis: My youngest son Ben actually asked me if I was OK. My daughter, Ellie, who has her own home and lives in the "country" has gotten over her own fear of mice. And my father laughed for the first time since my mother died. He laughed in almost the way she would have laughed if she'd been the one who happened to call in the midst of my mouse madness.
"Why are you laughing?" I asked my father.
He said it was the way I told the story...that I reminded him of my mother, and that he was sorry the little mouse was "irritating me so."
"Well, if you laugh, then it can't be so serious," I said.
"How nice of you to say," he said.
Wait a minute: What have they done with my father?
And then my mind hearkened back to good times in childhood when my doctor/father reassured me when I was sick...allayed my fears.
So, maybe the Universe really does work in strange ways. Perhaps Elvis served a purpose here. But now, I'd like to thank him for coming. And bid him a fond farewell after work well done.
Coach Stephanie is here to answer your questions that might be causing stress or concern in your life. Here are a couple of questions she received along with her answers. Look for a link at the bottom of this posting if you have a question for her too!
Hi Stephanie, I just watched you on CBS talking about communicating. I liked your idea of not using "Why" when asking a question. It made a lot of sense. Did you learn this as part of your life coaching classes? How many credits does it take for certification as I may wish to do this at some point in my life? I think I'm reaching the word limit here so I'll send new emails of my other thoughts.
Thanks, Robin, Baldwin, NY
Yes, the notion of NOT using "why" was something taught in the coaching curriculum, and I really embraced that one. As for coaching, it's not a question of credits since one doesn't get a degree, but completes a course of study for certification. There are schools in the New York area, as well as online schools. if you need further information, please contact me through my coaching site (www.sgscoaching.com).
Thanks for writing (and watching)!
Dear Coach Stephanie:
I seem to have a problem with relationships. My co-workers love me at work, but that is as far as it goes. I have always been one to try to get my co-workers together socially because I think it makes work much more enjoyable. I'm a volunteer firefighter and ever since I slowed down because of responsibilities, I have kids now, it seems like all my friends have forgotten me. I was in a serious car accident two weeks ago and I only got a phone call from a friend who I've know since kindergarten. My family is a soap opera. Both my brother married bipolar wives and no longer are allowed to associate with my family. They are very jealous of everything we do. I work hard and try to do things to improve my house and property without spending a fortune. I built my kids swing set. I remodeled my bathroom myself. I painted my house. Worked my tail off to get my lawn looking good. We all live on the same block. It is a nightmare. The property has been in the family forever. Independence Day, everyone was invited to my younger brother's house except for us, of course. They had fireworks and my nieces and nephews let my kids hear about it for days. I help out at church by being a Sunday school teacher. I feel like I am putting myself out there but it seems like nobody wants to associate with us. What should I be doing differently?
-Dave, Islandia, NY
Hi Dave,
Families can be tough.
Let me ask you the following questions:
1. As a volunteer firefighter, you have witnessed trauma. Now, a victim yourself of a serious car accident, what changes do you see in yourself since the accident? I'm hearing some sadness here, and would invite you to consult a therapist on this one issue. A car accident can be a life-changing event.
2. What do you know about people who have to deal with someone who has just had a crisis or trauma? In my experience, people do one of two things: they reach out or stay away -- the latter because they really don't know what to do for someone and often have difficulty striking a balance between intrusion and helpfulness. What do you think might happen if you called your friends instead of waiting for them to call you?
3. What would you like to do and/or say to the people in your life who have not included you? What prevents you from saying something to them? Asking them what the reasons are for your perceived exclusion?
4. Often we have needs that go unexpressed -- and people don't always recognize that despite all we do, we expect something in return. You sounds like someone who gives a great deal. How can you let it be known that you have expectations from others as well, and would also like to take with gratitude?
5. Are you as willing to receive as you are to give?
I wish you all the best and a good recovery.
Click here to send Coach Stephanie your questions!
Stephanie Gertler completed the certification program in personal life coaching at New York University more than a few years after she received her first NYU degree, a B.A. in Journalism and a minor in English Literature. After graduation, Stephanie left her hometown of New York City to be part of the then newly-formed Miami bureau of Newsweek Magazine.
Stephanie became the Lifestyles Editor at Greenwich News and The Greenwich Post, a Contributing Editor to Greenwich Magazine, and the award-winning syndicated columnist of "These Days." Additionally, she is a successful novelist and has appeared on Oprah, Inside Edition, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper 360, and more. Her books are published in the U.S.A. and 21 foreign countries.
Is there something on your mind that's causing you stress in your life? Stephanie is here to answer your questions on WCBSTV.com! Remember, your question may be featured in this blog, we will NOT however post your full name or e-mail address.
CLICK HERE to send her an e-mail!
