Raising Cain

Girls are different. From boys. This is continually pointed out to me by my friends who are mothering daughters. This I already know. Awash as I am in this sea of testosterone that I live in, and drown in, the only female living with five men, believe me, I’ve noticed. I like boys. I birthed several of them, was raised in a houseful of males and have what my mother would certainly consider to be a shocking and unseemly number of sustained long term relationships with several men friends. Young and old, near and far, gay and straight, old lovers and the permanently platonic, relatives by blood or marriage; friends from work, or the theatre, or from childhood, armfuls of nephews and cousins. Boys are great fun. My husband just shakes his head, my mother just rolled her eyes and sighed, my single female friends want introductions to all the straight, eligible and unmarried ones though there are not too many of those. Men are deliciously uncomplicated once the prospect of coupling is taken out of the equation. They are not competitive, have no sub textual agendas, and are honest in the absolute. I’m a big fan of the species. But I have never before been privileged to see how they get made. I came into this family we created with all manner of knowledge about the workings of the dynamics between mothers and daughters. And having once almost been an actual girl, I knew something of how they functioned. And there were some general truths that I learned in developmental psychology texts. Girls as a rule are more precocious. They develop faster, potty train earlier, are easier to wean, are more verbal, more independent, and more emotionally savvy. I had a professor who once told me that if one first gave birth to a girl and then a boy, one would be certain that the second baby was not normal; so slow they would seem in comparison to their sister. I never got the opportunity to confirm this theory. Boys are all I’ve ever made and raised. All the above may well be true but there are other researchers who suggest that the way babies of one sex or another are socialized by their mothers exacerbates the traits they are hardwired for. Mothers for instance are found to encourage independence in girls while being solicitous of boy babies. I read something once about a study that observed mothers and babies working on a problem solving task. The mothers of girls encouraged them to keep trying hard. The mothers of boys were full of help and hints and in some cases actually finished the task for their sons. This may be the result of several forces at work: one being that perhaps the less precocious baby boys did seem to need more help. The other being that perhaps the dynamic between mothers and sons is that different. In my own experience I may be guilty of that. The over-mothering of boys. And as I write this I can almost hear the guffaws and snorts of my mommy-friends who know from experience that I am spectacularly understating my case here. I am a hands-on mama. I tend to micro-manage. I give directions in a series of distinct steps and then I repeat the directions for the sake of clarity. And then I do a follow-up to confirm that directions have been followed. I was a special education teacher for most of my adult life. I suppose some old habits die hard. I suppose also that raising a houseful of boys is not so much different from managing a classroom. And I suppose when things threaten to get chaotic I fall back on my training and enter teacher-mode. I know that my children are familiar with this posturing. I know because sometimes when I am irate and using my stern teacher-voice my children will sometimes raise their hands to speak. Then I have to remind them that this is not a classroom and that they merely need to say excuse me before making a point. But it is clear to me that I need to parent this way when they are young. Not only will they not do chores or reading or homework or practice music unless they are reminded, I have also discovered that if not specifically told to do so, three of the four will not take a shower or brush their teeth. Ever. I can’t remember a single time I ever had to be reminded about homework. And I always thought hygiene was something engaged in as a matter of course. For one’s own comfort only, even if not to avoid offending others. I recently discovered, upon cleaning the boys’ bathroom (referred to here in this house as The Swamp) that they were out of soap and shampoo and had been for days. Apparently all those days, showers had consisted of them standing under running water for a minute or two. Would I be a different mother if I were raising girls, I wonder. I would think that I would almost have to be. Boys begin by feeling extremely propiratorial about their mothers and are fiercely competitive with other sons (and with their fathers) for mother’s attention it seems. Freud’s Oedipus complex or some such force at work. Three of my four were determined to marry me when they were toddlers. It was extremely cute. Being told daily in a gushing lisp that you are beautiful is a wonderful ego boost. My sons still get into arguments about who gets to sit next to me at the dinner table or in movie theatres, although no one wants to marry me anymore. I have been replaced by Meagan Fox it seems. There is continual one-upmanship and lots of self-promotion still though (I cleaned up your car Mama, but Liam did nothing) and constant pointing out perceived acts of favoritism made all the more scathing when the perceived favorite, and this position changes daily, will stage-whisper, “that’s because she loves me most.” I once read a story about a mother of three adult sons who left a letter for each boy with her will, to be read after her death. In each letter she declared, “You were always my favorite. I always loved you best. Don’t tell your brothers.” So I know I am not alone in this. It is a myth I think, that girls are more emotional. They may be more emotionally sophisticated its true; and certainly more emotionally complex. I’ll certainly agree with that. Boys I think are more emotionally concrete and primal, but are emotional beings none the less. They frown and stamp when they are angry, belly laugh when happy, and wail and sob when they’re sad. Basic and straightforward. No sublimated grief, no tempered anger, no suppressed joy. No frustration turned inward. Some of them, I think, learn to do that later. How refreshing I think sometimes, to be a male child, and have it all be so simple. I wonder how old they will be when they stop crying when they are unhappy or grieved. That remains to be seen. Once early and middle childhood have been wrangled and survived, there is male adolescence to contend with. In my own experience, once that testosterone begins to flow in earnest, boys become protective of their mothers rather than merely territorial, and begin to have confrontations with their fathers. It seems almost evolutionary in its predictability. At least in my house. Sometimes I think that if we were a family of elk, the father of the family and the adolescent du jour would be locking antlers to assert dominance. If we were a pack of wolves they would be wrestling for the title of alpha. Of course, the father always wins. He is not bigger, probably not stronger, but has more weapons at his disposal. Like the ability to declare a moratorium on video games and spending money and a firm reminder of this will often send the baby wolf skulking to the back of the cave. I always look on at these muscle flexing confrontations with fascination. I have no brothers so I have never seen this phenomenon before up close. I am incredulous that the baby wolf will keep trying even though he must know that this is not a fight he can possibly win. Doesn’t he remember that mere weeks ago he earned three days in his room for insubordination? Doesn’t the child have ANY sense? But still, after enough time elapses, he’ll try again. It’s as predictable as the rising of the sun. And these I might add, are good children. Dutiful and loyal and have never given a moment of any real trouble. Yet when the testosterone surges, all bets are off it seems. I know nothing first hand about testosterone. Estrogen surges now, I know a thing or two about. I also was a good child. Dutiful and obedient. Loathe to anger my parents, especially my mother who was a force to be reckoned with when irate. So childhood and early adolescence in my house were marked by some relatively serene years. I did not have a traditional family when I was young and while I adored my grandfather and godfather both, I had no Electra complex – that is, no desire to marry either. I do recall though being somewhat possessive and territorial with the girlfriends of my godfather who remained single and dated. I was always warned sternly to “be nice” when a new girlfriend was introduced, but of course I never was – until, that is, the young lady and I reached an understanding. My hammock time with my godfather would be logged, whether she was spending the weekend or not, and tickle fests and talks about boats and dinosaurs were not to be butted in on. Once the understanding was reached that superbrat was there to stay, all went swimmingly. I discovered a little something about myself later though. I discovered that this seeming state of unruffled placidity existed because I had never truly been thwarted by my mother. Up to a point it seemed that everything I wanted, or desired to do, my parents were in agreement with. I sang and danced, took art lessons, and later had a group of cheerful friends, and a little later, when I was fifteen, a polite and reassuring boyfriend who always brought me home on time and made affable conversation with my parents, and who never gave them a reason to worry. And then I met Julian. And caution, veracity and duty got thrown to the wind. Along with my heart. In spite of all the reasons my mother gave for finding him unsuitable, the actual reason I believe was that Julian, at eighteen, looked, and behaved like a man. He was big and athletic and bearded and long past puberty. This was certainly no boy. He was, in my mother’s estimation, hell bent on leading me down the road to ruin; and my mother knew, as mothers always know, I was more than happy to follow him. Anywhere. And he had no interest in impressing my parents. His demeanor when in their presence was much as it always was. He had no special for-parents-only persona prepared. He had not needed one, as none of the girls he’d previously been involved with had been anyone’s cosseted little baby. In fact, when he learned of my mother’s disapproval, I think he tended to amp up his persona into something slightly outrageous. And so, my mother unwisely forbade me to see him. He could visit. But I was not allowed to leave the house with him. We could spend the evening under their watchful eye; which as you can imagine, made the road to ruin difficult to access. But my parents did not take into consideration this. I had read Romeo and Juliet. When I was nine. And had kept reading it until it made sense. I knew that lovers must sometimes risk all for the beloved. For me this was pure Capulet and Montague intrigue; and if intrigue was what was called for, I was delighted to oblige. True I had no complicit nurse, or misguided apothecary or, let’s face it, muddled and extremely irresponsible priest to help me. But I had Laura and Camille. The best and most conspiratorial friends one could ask for; who, while they were not always in agreement with my schemes, participated anyway because they loved me, or because they had read Romeo and Juliet too. Where the Julian infatuation would have died a natural death if it had not been thwarted, it continued for ages, probably because it was forbidden. I became a prodigious liar and weaver of scenarios. A brazen, bold-faced little unapologetic schemer. Exit Ophelia, stage left. Enter Jezebel. And once I’d had a taste for being defiant, it seemed, I developed a preference for it. Forever the obedient child I suddenly always bristled resentfully when told what to do. But only when the directions came from my mother. With my father, directions had the quality of gentle, benign suggestion and I was happy to comply, always. Not so with my mother; and my poor father was often reduced to the role of referee as I engaged in power struggles with her, which, like those with my wolf cubs and their father, were ultimately unwinnable. Yet, I’d keep trying – to assert my independence, to strive for autonomy, to really tick my mother off. After a summer spent on a solo trip to London and Paris when I was eighteen, where I behaved myself moderately well, I immediately announced to my mother on my return that I was a woman now, and insisted upon being treated as such. I laugh now to think of it. I was certainly no woman. But the confrontations continued until I became a woman for real and was willing to acknowledge that I did not know everything, that I in fact knew almost nothing, and finally acquired some humility and grace. And made peace with my mother. Take a final bow Jezebel. This seems to be the way of it – sometimes to greater or lesser extremes. It is the process of acquiring personhood. This questioning of everything. This bucking against the loving confines of parental love and protection. It is the process by which the adolescent tests his mettle, deconstructs, reassembles, and emerges, if all goes well, as a functional, fairly competent adult human. It was this way with me. It was thus with our first born. The message is, there is hope. Probably. It’s interesting though – living in this masculine microcosm, observing the making of men. Watching them grow strength by strength, along with their ever expanding shoulders and feet, into the men they will some day be. Asserting their independence, honing their personalities along with their skills, acting the roles of brother and son to which will some day be added those of husband and father. I watch with joy, and soft twinges of regret, as my babies begin to tower over me, express opinions about politics, or evolution, or the unfairness of our discipline in voices that are increasingly guttural and gravelly, grip my arm for emphasis with hands twice the size of my own. And I am hoping that I am giving my best to them, or that at least my best is good enough. And I am loving the ride; this raising of Cain.

So I have spent the last couple days ruminating on this.
Here’s what happened.
A peripheral member of my husband’s family shared some thoughts with me recently. She said approximately this:
I have to talk to you about your sons.
(Sharp intake of breath…mine)
I see how wrapped up you are in them and how wrapped up they are in you. It’s just not right. You need to let them go.
I pause ….
I say this: in your brief association with me, what could possibly have led you to this conclusion? I mean- we have met like, just three times by my reckoning. What do you think you know about me and my sons to be able to make such a statement?
Well, she says, I see it on you.
What do you see, I ask.
She says – well we have a saying.
And then she utters some unintelligible pig Latin.
I say: I have no idea what that means.
And then she translates for me using the crudest words possible.
What she says in effect is that my children are still awash in my birthing fluids.
Except that is not precisely what she says. I’ll leave that to your fertile imaginations.
I recoil .
I say…. what???
What????
Yes, she says. And goes on to explain further except that I don’t hear much of what she actually says from there onwards because of the blood pounding in my ears.
Before I go further here, I’ll tell you a sort of funny story. When the boys were young they would pile onto my bed to hear a story, or a song (usually I Could Be Happy WithYou, but sometimes Normandy from Once Upon a Mattress) or watch a movie, or to sometimes just be. Sometimes all at once, which could make for some tricky positioning once three became four.
As you may know, I am constructed like your regular ordinary human. Two arms, two legs, one torso. Timothy, in accordance with the laws of primogeniture always claimed one arm. The baby, by the laws of the lagniappe would lie with his head on my chest and nobody better even think about moving him- they would be better off unleashing the kraken. That left one other arm, for either one of the twins. (No they’re not really twins)
One day, the child left with neither arm nor chest sighed. And I said, as I would always say, you can lie on mummy’s tummy, which then, as now, was a fairly squishy and comfortable place.
That day, the child, I think it was Chrissy, said…ahh, my old home. To which the other middle child, probably Liam, said “old BLOODY home,” having recently been coached in the details of the birth process and all the gore involved therewith.
And so another term was added to the O’Sullivan lexicon along with “squeazle,” “glub,” and “codenap.” (I will explain those another time.)
And there after the last one on the bed would lament, “Old bloody home AGAIN?? I was old bloody home last time! It’s someone else’s turn for old bloody home!” Clearly old bloody home did not muster pride of place, though it would do in a pinch.
And so for the last few days as I have been choking on bile at the sheer presumption of this woman I have pondered old bloody home and the fluids it contained and their role and mine in the raising and nurturing of these boys.
Someone who means nothing to me, and who incidentally has never birthed or raised anything, pitched my world on its ear and caused me to have an existential moment.
She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know my story. A story that began on Maraval Road and the oilfields of Guyana, and 3 Elizabeth Street; an inauspicious beginning and an inconvenient birth into a marriage that decayed in its infancy. It is the story of the troops who mustered to save the day in the form of a doting grandfather and a gentle grandmother, handsome and generous uncles, a flamboyant aunt, a passionate mother and a her loving second husband who was my real father. And in corralling to save the day, they also saved the baby.
And so I parent my sons the only way I know how. With only everything. With only all of it. The only way I was raised to.
I am not a perfect mother. My sons would be the first to tell you how imperfect I am. It’s a mother-child unit that’s mostly held together with duct tape and spit. I’m making it up as I go along. It’s all ad-lib and improv. But here is my role- I am the launching pad, I am the safe space. I will pay your phone bill and order your groceries online to make sure you eat real food. I’ll make sure you have clean socks and if she breaks your heart, I’ll listen to you cry at two in the morning. And I’ll cry too. I’ll read your term paper on your plan for peace in the Middle East, and listen to you recite Shakespeare monologues over and over and over. I’ll be your strength until you no longer need me. And if the day never comes when you don’t need me, so be it.
That woman does not know what we’ve been through to get here. Along with the stories and songs and joys there have been massive disappointments and tragedies- just like in any life I suppose. But she doesn’t know. Because it is not her place to know. Just as it is not her place to judge me. Or my sons. Or our story. Not her place to offer unsolicited drunken counsel about something she knows nothing about.
But that peripheral was right I suppose. Being their mother is not all that I am, but it is the largest part of me.
I suppose that at my very essence, at my very core, I am old bloody home.
And so be it.
Mind your own path. I will be walking mine.

I would comment all the time when pregnant with Christian that he did not ever seem to sleep. Because he was not my first baby I started feeling movements early, as is typical. And it seemed that once I became aware of him, I was continually aware. What seemed at first to be a perceptual flutter became eventually what felt like internal tae kwon do. He just does not ever stop moving, I would tell my doctor. Until one day, he suddenly did. I rushed to the doctor- baby seemed ok she said. But my blood pressure was very high and that might have been stressing the baby. I was already thirty seven weeks. We’ll induce she said. How is tomorrow look for you?

Tomorrow looked…well, terrifying. I was attempting a natural birth after a c-section and was deathly afraid of all the pitocin stories that I had heard. As it worked out, after seventeen hours on the dreaded pitocin I had a c-sectionanyway.

Christian began screaming as soon as his head was delivered. Literally. Lying on the table I hear this ear piercing shriek, followed by this usual trembling newborn wail. Just like any other newborn wail, but three times as loud. Is he born, I asked Howie, surprised that it seemed to all be happening so quickly. Howie took a look on the other side of the drape. Uh, he replied, not quite. Only Christian’s head and shoulders were free of me and he was already screaming. He required no suctioning, no skin massage, certainly no slaps. My Trinidadian doctor exclaimed in Trini patois, “Oh, Gawd, dis chile have a BIG mout eh boy!”

Christian loves to hear that story and has heard it so many times that he prompts me on. And then the doctor said what? That I had a big “mout?” And he throws his head back and gives a loud belly laugh, which is the only way Christian ever laughs. Much like he does most everything else; with gusto and enthusiasm. He was born at two twenty two in the morning. A magic time I thought. The perfect hour for the entrance of son number two. Howie brought him over so I could see him. He was all nose and black hair with ruby red lips still opened in a squall. When he would pause to catch his breath and closed his mouth his lower lip trembled vigorously. Do you like him, his father asks. And you said….. prompts Christian.

And I said, I love him.

A couple hours later the three of us are alone in my hospital room. Howie has passed out in the chair and Christian and I are nursing. He nursed vigorously and it seemed, insatiably. Nurses kept coming and going, checking my blood pressure, my catheter, my blood gasses. And each time they would comment- that baby still awake? Eventually a nurse comes and takes him to the nursery so I can sleep. When we are discharged two days later things are much the same. Christian nurses for hours, then sleeps for forty five minutes and is up again, wailing, eager to nurse again. By the time he is twelve weeks old, Christian who was eight pounds, ten ounces at birth, tips the scales at twenty two pounds. I am exhausted and drained. I was up, almost all night, every night. I would watch reruns of Magnum P.I., on at one in the morning on the Superstation out of Atlanta, Georgia. I look at the series all the way through to the finale and sob when Magnum dies – because it was sad and I had not known previously that this was how the series ended, because I was beyond stressed and exhausted which makes every mishap take on titanic and tragic proportions. And perhaps because I was at a loss what to do at one in the morning from here on in.

We buy a swing, hoping that this will calm and sooth him and maybe buy me some nap time. But where the swing had lulled Timothy, the movements made Christian frantic. He liked sitting in his carrier but for only short periods and only if he could see me and only if I was moving around, doing interesting things. So I cooked dinner with him on the counter in his carrier and I would move around the kitchen with his big, round, dark eyes following me everywhere I went. That is my most vivid memory of Christian’s infancy. The huge dark eyes that missed nothing. I had noticed some soft neurological signs like a startle reflex that did not resolve with maturity the way it was supposed to, and an extreme aversion to loud noises- unless they were generated by himself. Then he could tolerate them for hours it seemed. I mentioned these to his doctor, who was not concerned. But I was unconvinced.

My theory is that because Christian seemed always to be awake, always being spoken to and sung to, always being ported about every where, his developmental mile stones speeded up.

He walked early. My baby book says ten months. It was not long after that when he began to run. Mostly away from me. Mostly into the arms of danger. He was reckless and impulsive. Christian had to be watched continually – turn your back and he’d dismantle the house. He could climb anything, slither anywhere, and break anything. Everything. Having been the mother of placid Timothy never prepared me for this wild child.

According to my baby book Christian began talking before he was one. And when I say talking, I mean speech. Not “mama”, “dada”. I have video of our first trip to the Smokey Mountains in North Carolina the spring Christian was thirteen months old. Christian in his car seat giving a running commentary of every thing he sees out his window. Mama what’s that? Mountains? You see the mountains Mama? I see the mountains.

Christian loved animals. Loved visiting the pet store to see the puppies. (I want one!! Get me one!!) And loved the zoo. Especially elephants. The huge bull elephant with enormous tusks stood in his paddock one day, looking at us, only the moat and a low hedge separating us. Christian was then not yet two as he stood gazing back at the enormous animal. He then raised an arm in the air, in greeting. The elephant raised his trunk in reply. How funny, I say. It looks like he is waving back at you. He IS waving back at me, says baby Christian. He does it again- raises his arm in the air and again the elephant follows suit. How strange. Do it again, I say. He complies. And again the huge beast raises his trunk in salute. Timothy, aged six and hating to be outdone pushes Christian away and says- Let me try. He does. Nothing. He tries again. Nothing. Christian raises his arm one more time, so does the elephant. I love him, he says. I want to pack him.

Pack him, I ask. Pack him how?

Pack him on his head silly, like this. And he demonstrates on Timothy.

Oh, I say. You want to PAT him.

Yes, says Christian with exasperation. I want to pack him because I love him.

I know the reasonable explanation for this is that the elephant was trained to follow a hand signal that looked like the gesture Christian was making. I prefer to think that the wise beast recognized a kindred spirit when he saw one.

The neurological soft signs continued to plague me. And my doctor continued to dismiss them. Christian was hypersensitive to all stimuli it seemed, not just sound. Strong smells, unusual textures, strange faces all caused panic. We could not go to the movies with him- there is no way he could tolerate surround sound and would cover his ears and shriek and shake and on his first birthday his cousins and brother “whisper-sang” Happy Birthday in barely audible tones so as not to make him cry. He was a very stereotypical eater- no textures that were slimy or grainy. Those would make him gag. His clothes needed to be unadorned cotton. No synthetic fibers, no appliqués of any kind. No tags. Every Halloween picture until he was six or so shows Christian shrieking as I insisted upon taking at least one picture in the costume that had cost me thirty dollars. He would choose them himself- but could not wear the synthetic fabric for more than a couple minutes. One summer when he was three or four I made homemade play dough out of salt and cornstarch and thought it would be fun to have a little sculpture lesson. Timothy made a dinosaur, baby Liam made something or other, and I remember Christian with tears running down his face because I was making him touch this disgusting stuff. He had rolled his into a cylinder. Look, I made a snake. Can I wash my hands now?

We could not go to restaurants – the waiter approaching the table would send him into a state of panic. Malls also caused the same concern. As I turned the stroller into a store he would shout – No! I want to go to THAT way. Indicating the door.

When he was nervous or unsure he would run over to me and say – I want to take him; instead of the more traditional “up” meaning that he wanted to be held. This comes from his being a baby of such ample proportions who often opted to be carried instead of pushed. When the pain between my shoulders got bad enough I would thrust him at his father and say- Take him. When he’d had enough he’d return him and say- Take him back. One day near the holidays when Christian was about twenty months old, Howie’s uncle died. When we greeted his aunt after the funeral she asked about the children and begged us to get them before we met her at her home for lunch. So we did. When we drove up I could see Christian become visibly anxious at the sight of the many cars. After about three minutes in the house with the droves of people, Christian came over to me. I want to take him, he said with urgency. I want to go outside. Howie did the honors, standing outside with Christian until people began to leave in twos and threes. Okay, he said finally. Back inside.

Enough people had departed so as to make the crowd bearable. My friend the psychologist Shelley Slampionwas amazed. But he’s brilliant she gasped. He’s doing math. The awareness that people leaving made the whole less? You have to let me test him. Maybe, I said. We’ll see. I already know he’s bright. But what about those idiosyncrasies? She nodded and said, it’s something for sure. Those pediatricians are so frustrating. They need to listen to mothers. Mothers always know. But don’t worry. He has you and you have me and we’ll get through it.

Dr. Shelley thought that his early and recurrent ear infections pointed to something. It’s common as you know in children with ADD and some learning disabilities, she said. Makes me think that there is some congenital link between the two. We should write a paper she said. But I did not want to write a paper. I wanted to help my son.

Christian discovered people when he was about four. Meaning that he discovered they were interesting and for the most part non-threatening and instantly became extremely social and gregarious, and remains that way. He developed a wicked sense of humor. He is a brilliant mimic and has an enormous repertoire of accents. And now, as then, he is extremely entertaining at the dinner table. We are forever in stitches with Christian’s tales and antics. But at age five he could barely hold a pencil, hated to color, could not use a scissors or tie his shoes or do his buttons without help. Puzzles confounded him. I was terrified at the thought of school. Kindergarten was messy but manageable. He went to the school where I taught and his teacher was a friend. We spoke daily and we toddled through without too much trouble. First grade in Indiana was a whole different story. Almost immediately the teacher called me in for a conference. Christian can read, she says. He is polite and very well behaved. He enjoys his friends. But he cannot write. No more than a sentence. He occasionally misspells his own name, writes on the wrong side of the paper. He is disorganized. He loses things. He does not follow directions. He cannot sustain attention for more than a couple minutes.

It was the moment of truth.

Christian has Attention Deficit Disorder, I say. With mild hyperactivity. And possibly something more. He has soft neuro signs and some processing issues. He is dysgraphicwhich makes writing hard. But, I say, I won’t let you test him. He can read and is highly verbal- those are the best indicators of academic success. The other things can be worked on. And as to the attention issues, I’ll talk to the pediatrician and discuss medication if recommended.

Next to me, I can feel Howie stiffen. Medication is a sore subject. But I am a special education teacher and I have seen Ritalin and the like work their wonders for many, many children. I talk to my doctor. I confer again with the teacher. The teacher talks to the doctor and the situation is explained to Christian. His eyes well up. There is something…wrong with me?

No- I insist. It is a variation, a difference. Not a fault. The same thing that makes paying attention hard has made you able to think quickly on your feet, to solve problems quickly, to see the links between things that other people do not notice. And that same thing has given you your sense of humor, I’m sure of it. The rest of us just don’t think that fast.

On our next visit to the pediatrician, the visit where the prescription is written, Christian says he has a question. This medicine will help me pay attention, but will it change my personality? The doctor looks at me, stumped. Well he says, I don’t think so. We’ll have to pay close attention to that. The doctor says later that no seven year old has ever asked him that question before. Welcome to my world, I think to myself.

The medicine works for Christian. With it he is more focused but still needs to use his coping strategies. He sits in the front row and has learned that he is to keep his eyes on the teacher at all times. Once he looks away he is lost. He has learned to advocate for himself. He talks to his teachers without my intervention now. He explains his ADD and asks for what he needs. Sitting dead center of the first row is what works for him and he asks for that seat. He knows that he is an auditory learner. An exceptional auditory learner at that. He forgets almost nothing he hears. He is an avid reader and a gifted writer, once the spell check is on. He has a wide variety of interests and can talk about the Peloponnesian wars and Napoleon’s second campaign with eloquence and passion. He has no regard whatsoever for Republican politics. He must sometimes be cautioned for speaking disrespectfully about conservative pundits and has threatened on several occasions to do mischief to the building that houses Fox news. Next year he will be on the academic team. This year he is too busy preparing for the model U.N. His auditory memory allows his to recollect and replicate melodies he has heard only once. This makes him a talented, though thus far lazy and undedicated, student of the cello. Better than any of this, he is loyal and compassionate and affectionate.

Christian continues to need lots of management at home. I give the same direction several times sometimes before it is followed completely. His bathroom is forever a swamp. His room is not much better. He is very emotional and will cry when frustrated, even at age fourteen. Baths, showers and teeth brushing need daily reminders. Math remains a challenge mostly because there is nothing verbal about it. If it cannot be painted clearly in words, for Christian it holds no interest. It is almost as though it cannot possibly exist if one must use symbols instead of words to describe it. Thankfully though he has yet to ever fail anything, passes the yearly standardized tests and was on the honor roll last year. But it is hard work for him. And this is his first year of high school and I know that large challenges loom ahead. But with those challenges come gifts so unusual and profound that I am grateful. Would I have him any different? Truthfully I don’t know. The challenges sometimes seem so big for such a small boy. But he is a wondrous, unusual boy. And he has taught me that loving is sometimes not just because of, but in spite of. In what I suppose is his imperfection, with all his quirks and idiosyncrasies and foibles, he is a glorious being.

I am concerned about what the future will bring, certainly. I hope he will be safe. I pray that he’ll be happy.

And I want to take him. I want to pack him.

Because I love him.

I read a while ago in my new book “I Never Metaphor I Did Not Like” (that’s really the name of the book too) that the parents of a pod with a single pea are very likely to confuse it with the Hope Diamond. I found this both hilarious, and true. And hilarious mostly because I believe in its truth, generally speaking. I have several friends with a single child, either by intent or happenstance and their parenting experience differs from that of the mothers of multiples in several significant ways.

First of all there is inherent a sense of uniqueness of occasion. Things happen in the lives of babies and toddlers and older children that are universal to us as a species. In the case of only children these milestones are heralded as events of global significance and tend to be cause for phone calls and emails and general celebration. So too are the achievements and perceived achievement of budding athletic and scholastic careers. I am reminded of a funny film I once saw in which the parents of an adult only child were berated for celebrating mediocrity. The comment was, I believe, “I was not aware there was a ribbon for ninth place.” But on the wall of the house was a shadow box displaying memorabilia of a less than stellar childhood athletic career; indeed celebrating the ninth place ribbon in a position of honor. Hyperbole and exaggeration you say. Well, may be. But not by all that much.

Parents of only children are more likely to over react when things go amiss, are ready to call in all the reserves to remedy the situation and are likely to be devastated when there is no immediate fix available. When I was a special education teacher in Miami, part of my job was to sit on a multi-disciplinary team to review testing and psychologist’s recommendations for children who were experiencing learning difficulties. The parents of only children who needed to hear the news that their child was diagnosed with a learning disability were always predictably more undone. They would typically need an extra share of hand holding and soothing words after. They would also typically be able to easily weasel my home phone number out of me – presumably so we could keep in touch on a Saturday or Sunday; the only days of the week I did not see them – either because they wanted an impromptu ten minute conference every morning or dropped in at lunch. These mothers would call me at home, at night and on the weekend because little Carlitowas unhappy. Or confused. Or had forgotten his homework at school. Again. And could I tell him the spelling words over the phone? Or because they thought he did not deserve a B and wondered what he needed to do to get an A. (At this point I would be wickedly tempted to say, wash my car and mow my grass, but I would resist). And these would be the mothers who by year’s end would present me with some lovely gift and would make a short speech, voice blurred with tears, about John never having been able to read, and now John reads all the time, and they are so proud of him, and so grateful to me, that they’ll never forget me……and on and on and on. But lest you think I am some jaded, caustic creature let me add that while this soliloquy is stammered forth I have my arms around John’s mother and I am crying as much as she is.

I’m crying, because I have walked a mile in her designer pumps; as well as mile in those of John. We will assume that John though, wears Nikes.

For four years I was the mother of an only child. There is a significant lag between Timothy and the next in line. But more tellingly, I am an only child myself. I tell my children, who all harbor fantasies of singleton-hood, that sometimes it’s not all that wonderful, being the only one. Yes it is true that there are more resources and that everything you have is new, and special, and as expensive as your parents can afford. But after the birthday party when everyone has gone home it is incredibly difficult to play Twister by yourself. It can be an extremely lonely condition. Certainly friends come over, but then have to eventually go home. And this is about more than playmates. This is someone with which to have a shared communal experience. Great for the happy times, but ever so much more important for the tragic ones.

On the night my mother died, here in our home, almost a year ago now, the boys were awakened, given the news, and taken in to see her, to say goodbye. I remember that they were strong and prepared and focused, but of course there were tears. We shared some quiet time in their grandmother’s room – we said a rosary, the children took turns sitting with her, just as they had done all those last days. Then they said a quiet good bye. I could see Timothy and Liam being particularly vigilant with Christian and Ethan, the most emotional of the four. During our goodbye they would occasionally reach out to each other and hold a hand, ruffle a head. When it was all over for the night and everyone else had left, Howie and I went to find them. They were all in Liam’s room, all on his bed, with legs entwined, arms draped about shoulders; heads nestled in the lap of a big brother. And I thought, when I could manage to formulate a thought, that this is exactly it, this is why I am so glad are so many of you. Crushing grief is best not born by a single pair of shoulders. At the funeral my friend Mary remarked to me that that they never seemed to stop touching each other. Mired in my own grief, I had not noticed. I envision then my boys, standing there with arms linked, soldiering through. The power of four.

The burden on only children can be immense. It is a difficult row to hoe, being the receptacle of all someone else’s hopes and dreams. They are held, typically, to a higher standard. Which certainly can be a good thing sometimes. But when presented with a somewhat obsessive parent, such as…well, I don’t know, let’s just say ME, the results can be precarious. I have said often that the best gift I ever gave Timothy was a sibling. For four years he was my hobby. He had to have everything and it all had to be perfect. Even though we were poor, and this is not an exaggeration, when I first started teaching when Tim was one, he had a nanny, not day care. His toy box was filled with every new fandangle educational toy I could get my hands on. His closet was filled with beautiful and highly coordinated outfits, some of which he would outgrow before the tags were taken off. He had lavish birthday parties for which I once paid almost a hundred dollars for the cake- because it had to be an exactly rendered copy of his party invitation featuring not just Pooh and Piglet, but all the denizens of The Hundred Acre Wood. And God help the bakery if they got it wrong. We went shopping for books at Borders every two weeks, after his Saturday music class and after I got paid. I taught him to read when he was three- something that I would never do to another child. I taught Christian at four, because I suspected he might have trouble learning from anyone else unfamiliar with an attention span of nanoseconds. The summer Liam turned five I gave him a crash course in Hooked on Phonics which he completed mostly alone, with the tape. When it was Ethan-Jonah’s turn to start school I figured I’d let the highly qualified and well paid teachers of Hamilton Southeastern Schools earn their keep and teach him themselves. No more free rides from the O’Sullivan household, because Mama, quite frankly, is really tired. Ethan did not go to pre-school because he did not like it and I did not make him. He preferred to stay with Grandma and I am so happy now, that I let him. The summer before he started kindergarten I made sure he could unzip and re-zip his pants without help. And that was it. I read to him of course, all the time. And if he wanted to know a word, I’d tell him but there was no instruction whatsoever. I have to say that Ethan’s toddler years were some of the happiest of my parenting career. And I have to say the I see no noticeable difference between Ethan’s reading level at age eight as compared to that of his brothers at the same age. He seems to have triumphed over the neglect of his early education. My job, as I see it now, was to play with Ethan, raise him, and keep him out of the arms of misadventure. And love him. And that’s it. I am a teacher, but not his.

All my standards I am happy to say have generally eroded. Everyone has a room, which I have decorated to the best of my ability and my resources. Those rooms are not mine however, and as long as no public health regulations are broken I can live without everything looking like it did in the magazine that inspired me. My children are required to look very nice for mass, for the theatre, for outings, and family occasions. For school they need to look clean, and reasonably coordinated. The rest of the time, especially in the summer, they tend to look like characters from a Dickensian novel, or the cast of Oliver. Clad in a mismatched set of worn out hand-me-downs they play outside, roam the woods, haunt the zoo, and go swimming. Every now and then I intervene and snatch away a pair of jeans that is more hole than leg, throw away a t-shirt that all four children have worn and is shamefully threadbare. But that’s about it. Lord knows what the neighbors think.

I let the baby have sugar. I let him taste candy. I allowed him, at a party, to drink red Kool-Aid (RED Kool-Aid….the one with the scary dye). Christian and Liam cheerfully ate cookies and things with (eek) preservatives and MSG. Timothy had started school before he ever tasted candy. One year I stuffed his Easter basket with apples and pears. He’d never had red dye, or MSG, or a Cheeto. And was a problem eater for most of his early childhood, probably as a result. The younger three, exposed to their fair share of junk, eat all manner of fish and seafood, love artichokes and asparagus, falafel and hummus, and anchovies and kalamata olives, radicchio and sushi – they dip bread in olive oil- and they can tell when it’s not extra virgin.

Birthday parties are still a huge deal – but now it’s about the fun not the glitz. Nobody cares where the cake came from or if anything’s a perfect match. It took a few years but it finally occurred to me that these parties were not for me. Occupational hazard of being an only child. That slightly altered world view. I have to continually remind myself that to most of the planet, I am supporting cast, not the headliner. Although if you have ever heard my mother talk about me, you would understand my confusion. After she’d gotten done I’m certain that you would have trouble recognizing the brilliant, lovely, talented, and let’s face it, very paragon of virtue she described, as just plain old me. So my standards have fallen- I have learned to make do and really just let a lot of things go. But in my heart, if I could, I’d opt for longer days, more energy and double resources so I could only-child parent each of my four. What an absolute luxury to be able to savor moments, do one thing at a time, give your full attention to a single child without other competing voices, without another pair of sticky little hands trying to pull you in the opposite direction. The point is I suppose that there are so many ways to do anything – get to Rome, skin a cat (ick), raise a child. This has all been very much trial and error. And it took me four c-sections to come to these realizations, so listen raptly. This is the view from here, and these are the things I’ve learned. Mostly by accident.

It is the nature of everything to devolve into imperfection so trying to keep things perfect is not just exhausting, it’s also futile.

Children are meant to be loved and appreciated, not idealized. Very lofty expectations can burden a child, make him anxious and spoil all the fun.

All Hope Diamonds need a support network of cousins and aunts and friends in order to survive their parents. The parents of the pod’s single pea need at least one true and trusted and brutally honest friend to readily supply reality checks.

I heard this once and liked it and remind my children continually – that they are more fortunate than many, but better than no one.

Sometimes scrambled eggs are perfectly acceptable for dinner.

Children do not need everything they want. And nor should they have it all.

Sometimes, on a Friday night or when it’s very cold, or you are very tired, its ok if they skip a bath and just go to bed.

Take pictures of everything.

Do not feel guilty for needing time away from them. Your sanity needs to be preserved.

Happiness rates higher than accomplishments. Provide opportunities, but don’t push.

Polite, well-behaved and gloriously average, beat obnoxious and brilliant, any day.

Most importantly- relax and enjoy the ride. It will be over all too quickly.

I have always had dogs, at least one, my entire childhood and young adult life. A series of purebreds and pot hounds that I lovingly tended and cossetted and spoiled. In order of appearance: Jinx, Tommy, Gasparee, Rusty, Zulu, Skippy, Benji, Nikki, Lady, Jolie, Kyrie, Toddy, and lastly, weighing in at a hundred and twenty pounds, my beloved Marley. I say “my” Marley, but he belongs in fact to my sons. In theory.

Christian has wanted a dog since he was old enough to say so, well before he was two. I want one, he’d beg. I need one. Please Mama.

Well Mama was more than willing, but Daddy, not having been raised with pets, was resistant. I’d beg on their behalf. I’d plead. I’d offer bribes. But nothing ever worked. Until the Daddy of the family had a serious illness, almost lost his life, and came back home to his children to find that for that time of convalescence he could deny them nothing. This period of vulnerability happened to coincide with the whelping of my friend Taryn’s  golden retriever Colby.  Colby and her mate Jack, (both named after cheese)  were barely a year old when they conceived their first unplanned litter. I suppose they were the canine equivalents of teen-aged parents, wild and hormonal and for one fleeting moment, inadequately supervised. Colby produced a fine bundle of red and blonde retrievers. More than a dozen in all. Being no more than a puppy herself this horde of demanding younglings so terrified her that she would run and hide when she saw them coming. As a result the babies were hand reared by Taryn and her sister Taunya – grueling and exhausting work. But joyful too I imagine.

When they were weaned, Taryn offered us a pup, for almost nothing. The possibility of a new puppy was discussed at length with the children. What their responsibilities would be. What I would help with and what I wouldn’t. My friend Christine, a lover of the breed, brought over her beautiful golden rescue, Shadow, for the boys to test drive. Shadow was huge and rambunctious. The boys fell in love immediately.

The following weekend we went to Taryn’s house to choose a puppy. Most of them were already spoken for with the exception of one male and a single female. I told Taryn that we’d have the boy as my children had a strong preference. We’d call him Marley as an homage to Bob.

 I remember sitting on the steps of the deck at my friend’s house as she released the puppies from where they were penned. The horde rushed over and pounced on me in an onslaught of huge paws, big heads, pink tongues and sweet puppy breath. The boys were delighted.  Which one was theirs, they wanted to know.

Well, said Taryn, none of these.

She pointed to the side of the deck where the hose was kept and the ground was damp and slushy. There, in a mud puddle lay a goodly sized pup, sleeping, with his black nose squished deep in the sludge.

There he is, she said. There’s Marley.

She called to the pup. He made no response. Then she scooped him up and brought him over. He looked up at us with enormous brown eyes and seemed unmoved. He did not smile. But Christian did. He opened his arms to receive the puppy and bent his lips to the silky, muddy head.

Hello Marley, he whispered.

He was beautiful.

They each took turns holding him and kissing him. I noticed that when the children spoke to him or attempted to bring their faces level with his, Marley would turn his head away. When Marley was returned to the ground, he turned and walked away, and resettled himself in his mud puddle.

I don’t know, I told Taryn. I find him standoffish.  Was she sure that there were no other males available.

No, she said. All the others were spoken for.

I encouraged the boys to play with Marley, to see if he’d warm up to them any. And he did, marginally. So I agreed, with trepidations. He just did not fit my mental image of puppy. Too solitary. Too independent. I so wanted this to be the experience that they’d dreamed about. But the boys were adamant. They did not care if he was not friendly, they said. They wanted that puppy. So we left to prepare for Marley’s homecoming. Purchased a bed, and a crate, bowls, toys, a blanket and food and returned to collect Marley the following weekend.

Marley trembled in my lap on the ride home. When we got to the house he took a cursory look around and went to sleep, looking overwhelmed. That night he cried and sobbed and grieved and yelped in his crate in Liam’s room. I took him out and lay him in my lap and he continued to cry. I wrapped him in the scarf that Taryn had sent us home with, bathed in the scent of his mother and littermates. He cried louder.  Not knowing what else to do, I put him on my shoulder and walked him, singing the songs that had soothed my baby humans. Eventually he slept. But the next night, again, the crying and grieving continued.

The boys were still finishing the school year but I was at home. I began toilet training and leash learning. Had him practice walking up and down the stairs.Took him with me when I gardened. Discovered that he loved the hose. Was dismayed that he enjoyed digging so much. I took him to the woods and the field and let him off the leash to explore. His baby legs were not very fast which made him easy to catch, unlike now. And all through it I talked to him. And eventually he began to follow me although he’d never come when called unless I had food.

Eventually he became a handful. Willful and stubborn and extremely destructive.   And huge. He seemed bigger by the day. The vet suggested teething gel to easy the chewing and gnawing but it did not help. Marley also ripped open pillows and disemboweled stuffed toys, chewed shoes and shredded paper. He had to be watched all the time and wore a leash, even when in the house.  As he grew he would have to be handled carefully outside the house as he seemed continually hell bent upon escape, as though he was a wild thing yearning  for freedom. He has run at least a dozen times and it takes forever to catch him again. The bigger he got, the stronger and faster he became.  And the faster he got the more secure he was in his knowledge that he could not be caught until he was ready to stop running.  Thankfully he always stops running. Eventually. But he is microchipped just in case. It’s all an elaborate game. He breaks free and runs away at a speed. He looks back to see who is following, and then runs some more. He darts around us in circles, smiling broadly and panting, until eventually he sits and allows himself to be leashed. This process tends to happen faster if someone has a Dorito handy. One day the wind blew the back door open. I was roused from what I was doing by a long plaintive wail. I looked for Marley all over the house thinking he’d gotten stuck somewhere or shut in a room. Eventually I realize the sound is coming from outside. I go out and find Marley sitting by the swing set, looking at the open door, crying and trembling. He was confused. This was not how the game was meant to be played. He’s supposed to run and Mama is supposed to give a loud frantic chase. Does Mama maybe not care if he runs away? He follows me closely the rest of the morning. I reassure him continually that he is my boy, and I promise to chase him the next time he runs. But I am assured now that he’ll never really run away.

Marley learned commands easily enough. He could sit on command and lie down when told to. He learned early that offering his paw would more often than not result in a treat being offered in response. But he was still difficult to manage outside the house and would try to pull away when he was walked.  He would also not waste any opportunities presented to bully the baby. Ethan was five and tiny when we brought Marley home. By the time Marley was six months old he outweighed and outsized our youngest child and he knew it. As soon as he found himself alone with Ethan he would often knock him down, grab his toys, take whatever Ethan was eating. Shockingly, he learned to take Ethan’s long curls in his mouth, and pull, making the baby cry.  Marley clearly saw himself as ranking higher on the totem pole than a mere kindergartener. This behavior earned the puppy a trip to the vet’s for neutering , and obedience classes on his first birthday. Both fell short of the expected result.

After the neutering he continued to threaten male dogs and to attempt to woo females. I am certain that whatever science may say, Marley makes testosterone in some other organ. His spleen perhaps.  In the obedience classes he was introduced to the correction collar and learned to heel, to stay, to come but once again, only if treats were offered. You have to have a firm hand with him, the trainer said. He’s bright and has got you all figured out. In this respect he is much like the children of the house.

I see his trainer, Bruce, from time to time as he lives near here. How’s that monster he always asks. Monstrous, I always reply.

My mother, as I have mentioned elsewhere, lived with us for many years and was with us when she suffered her final illness. In those dark days my Marley was a great comfort to us all, especially to my sons. My mother spoiled him, as she did all the children. There’s my golden boy, she’d say. There’s Marley. One day towards the end of her illness I was at home with her, I had just settled her in bed and left the room as she slept. I was downstairs in Christian’s room on the computer when Marley comes in, stands in the doorway and stares at me long and hard.

No, I say. I’m busy. Go lie down.

I am thinking that he must want a walk but he has already been taken out.

Marley walks over to me, stares again, turns and walks to the door and looks over his shoulder. He barks.

Nope, I say. Not getting any more to eat either.

Marley growls.

And don’t you dare be rude, I say, still typing.

Marley barks.

Shut up, I say, you’ll wake Grandma.

Marley comes over to me again and, curiously, sneezes. Then sneezes again.

He then takes my arm in his teeth and pulls, hard.

I stop writing, puzzled. He starts barking oddly. More of a howl than a bark. I stand up and he sneezes again, and runs to the door and looks back.

It is a definite “Lassie moment.”

I leave the room and go upstairs and go into my mother’s bedroom where I find her crumpled on the floor. She had tried to leave her bed unaided and had fallen. And Marley heard, knew something was wrong and that my attention was required. I thought only dogs in movies did such things.

Through this difficult time I remember lying on Liam’s bed with the children- arms and legs entwined, drawing strength from each other. I remember Marley’s comforting presence. His head on my leg. Warm breath on my skin.  Liquid brown eyes gazing up.

But we took a while to get here. This love came slowly. Which is to say, Marley’s love came slowly. Ours was immediate. His was tentative. But once our bond was sealed, it was sealed forever.  I know in my heart that this dog who is afraid of thunder and is unsure in the dark would fight a mountain lion for me, would protect his boys with his life. I hope we never have to test that.

Across the street from our house there is a rental property- people come and go. This day I am sitting where I am now at my computer, pretending to write. Marley is looking out the low windows and is growling fiercely, baring his teeth, hackles raised, fierce as a dire wolf. There are new tenants moving in across the way. He looks and me and barks. Then faces the street again and continues his menacing growl, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Well, I think, they do look a mite dubious.

I try to calm Marley but he won’t be distracted. He goes to the front door and lays his body across the threshold. There is a window light to one side of the door where he can keep an eye on the suspected ax murderers across the street and every time his glances back at them he emits a dangerous sounding guttural hiss. He lies there, hyperalert, keeping vigil, until I hear the mail truck and, eager for a distraction from the chapter I am barely writing. I rise to go out to fetch the mail. If I am lucky there will be some new catalogs I can waste more time investigating.

But Marley won’t move.

Move, I say.

Come on Marley. Up, up!

He stares at me, immobile.

I reach for the doorknob and he growls again, this time at me.

Do not be ridiculous. You can’t guard me.  Move! And I open the door and attempt to slide him out of the way. Eventually he permits me by, and I take him with me to the mailbox, on the leash. I wave at the new neighbors and one of the miscreants dares to wave back and bid me good morning. This is way too much for Marley. He lunges forward like an attack dog and it takes all my strength and dexterity to maneuver him back into the house.

He is thinking – you don’t get Mama buddy. Not on my watch.

Thinking, you may ask. Yes, thinking.

Marley thinks. I know he does. I have seen him do it.

He is, as I mentioned, perpetually on a leash. When he walks through the house the end of the leash may occasionally snag on the leg of a piece of furniture. Marley will turn, see where the leash has snagged, and pull it free with his mouth. If I need him to stay in one spot while I do something elsewhere I have learned that just looping the leash handle over a doorknob will not work. He will simply use his teeth and work the loop over the knob. So I started tying a knot but have also learned not to leave him too long. One day I tied him to the pantry door and went upstairs. Some minutes later Marley comes to find me. When I look at the knob later I can see smears of blood. He had worked the knot loose with his mouth, injuring his gum as he did so. I have seen him once when very young, spread his blanket over the cold floor of his crate, the blanket having become bunched up at one end on a particularly cold winter morning.  Marley clearly, can problem solve.

He has a vocabulary, mostly to do with food.  If you want to see a very, very happy dog, mention that pizza is coming. He also knows “cheese” and “cookie” and the very popular “peanut butter.” He also understands the word “eat”. Ask him if he’d like to and he will pick up his metal food bowl and bang it on the tile floor; something he does every night if dinner is not forthcoming with speed. There are times when he’s pacing and agitated and the boys will be at a loss as to what he needs. I’ll look at him. He’ll look at me. And I’ll say – he wants to go outside.

I’ll get a sneeze in response. That’s a “yes”. Then a single bark. That’s a vehement  “yes”.

How do you know they ask? I’m his mother, I answer.

Marley loves his boys. With Timothy, the oldest, he is obedient and respectful as this is for sure the alpha of the pack. With Liam, he is affectionate but sometimes intolerant. When Marley is tired of Liam’s games he will freeze him with a withering stare, turn his back and saunter rudely away. With Ethan-Jonah, he has declared a truce, especially since the baby has done some growing of his own and cannot be knocked over as easily. But if it came to a hand to paw battle for a sandwich, Marley knows who’d win. For this reason Ethan is cautioned to eat only at the table or be prepared to give up the peanut butter. With Christian, that child with an affinity for all animals, there is a symbiosis. Christian talks conversationally to Marley even more than I do. This dog would follow that boy into a maelstrom without a backward glance. I am sure of it.

Sadly Marley has never developed a relationship with the father of the family. Daddy still does not like dogs and the dog knows this and they generally ignore each other with the exception of the day Daddy came home unexpectedly from a trip wearing a bomber jacket, gloves and an unfamiliar hat. That was not a good night.

With me Marley is extremely affectionate and protective as though he knows I generally stumble through my days and may need extra watching. He knows the last bite of my steak and the crust of my pizza will always be his. When I return from errands it is the cause for celebration.  When I come home from a long trip he is beside himself with joy. I know that a dog is not supposed to be aware of the passage of time, but he is. With apologies to Kyrie and Jolie and Toddy and the rest of the pack that I loved so well, I have to say that I have never known such a dog as this.

When he is playing with the boys I need only sit and say – come to Mama Marley- and he rushes over, the game forgotten. He sits before me and clasps my arm with both paws, holding tight.

Why? Why does he love you so much, the children always ask.

And I always reply – I’m his mother.

My friend Coco languished in a maternity ward in London last week. Thanks to the U.K.’s system of socialized medicine, wonderful in many ways, challenging in others, she moaned to me that she had seen twelve obstetricians to date and had been cheated of developing a relationship with the doctor who would deliver her child.

Cheated indeed. My mother, ever the romantic, told me more than once that a woman never forgets her first love, or the man (and in those days it almost always was) who delivered her child. Coco’s plight has put me in mind of the men who delivered my children …… and it’s true I find. I can visualize my first love with crystal clarity and so too the men who delivered me.

I met Juan when I was three months along with Timothy. He is handsome and solid, the way big, handsome Hispanic men get in middle age when they no longer play baseball or soccer but continue to consume the arroz con pollo like they are still athletes. We had a long interview first, fully dressed, in his paneled, leather bound office where he asked me all manner of questions; personal questions. Probing questions – which I answered honestly for the most part – and as for the rest of it, that could in no way be anyone’s business but mine. I was slightly prudish in my twenties. And I felt somehow that these were questions specially reserved for pregnant college students. I suspected that these preguntas were not hurled at the well-heeled matrons from Pinecrest that made up part of his lucrative practice. I made sure that he understood that I was a married lady, in spite of my freckles and the last smatterings of acne, and not some ingénue in a desperate situation.
Done with the inquisition, we adjourned to the examining room with the nurse and undressed. Just me, not them; although I think it would be a good idea if everyone in the room had to shed their dignity along with the patient. I had been in stirrups only once before, when on a pony, and as I flinched at his hands he asked me to please relax. I don’t really like this, I say nervously. He laughs and says, do you think I like it?
Well I think you could not possibly HATE it, or you’d be a dermatologist.
This was an entirely cerebral comment you understand. I was young and my mouth was still governed by propriety.
Juan proceeds with his examination and he suddenly pauses in his ministrations and says, Hmmmmmm. Now, this is not a sound you want to hear a doctor make, especially when you can not see what he is looking at. What, I ask, alarmed. Oh, he says, nothing. And then makes a pronouncement that floors me. It’s the smallest WHAT you have ever seen, I ask. Ever? Seriously? Is that…OK?
He chuckles (chuckles!) and says, yes of course its fine. It’s normal for you.
Well, that’s wonderful. …….I’m malformed. What a grand beginning.

Juan took good, matter-of-fact, and thorough, care of me. And I trusted him. I ate all the things he told me to eat – this many eggs and servings of animal protein. This many citrus fruit, spinach for folic acid, carrots for vitamin A to nourish baby’s beautiful eyes. Liver was forced down once a week because Juan ordered it. I swam laps in the pool daily until contractions grounded me. When three weeks passed and I gained only a single pound, he admonished me to feed the baby better and I happily complied and gained another forty nine, effortlessly and cheerfully. When I went almost eleven days beyond my due date and ran into complications during labor, he swiftly delivered me and presented us with a nine pound, twelve once baby. In his final words to me before leaving the hospital he announced that I had bled all over his shoes…..

I went to Juan again when expecting Christian. He confirmed my pregnancy, announced that he no longer accepted my insurance, wished me luck and sent me on my way. That’s how I came to meet Antonio. He was the doctor of my closest friend and had recently delivered her little girl. He was good she said, but, she warned, a little colorful. He was Trinidadian for a start, and had a very direct way of speaking. And he certainly was, both colorful and good; and certainly did, say whatever crossed his mind without censure. He was brash and loud and quite enthusiastic about things in general. During my visits we would often talk about Miami carnival, whether or not he was going to play mas’ next year, when last we both went home and the best place to find roti and doubles in Miami. He spoke to me in a language I understood, without translation or preamble.
-Make sure and feed my baby, he warned. Salad is a side dish, not a meal for a pregnant woman. You hear me?
Yes, Antonio.
-Eat! But try not to gain fifty pounds this time.
So I ate- fruit for breakfast, salad for lunch, and what Antonio considered real food only for dinner. And I studiously lied to him the entire time. I still gained thirty five effortless pounds.
When my blood pressure went up he warned – no more salt prunes and mango chow Hamel-Smith and tell your mumma-in-law to use less salt in the curry and stew.
I wanted to try to have a natural birth after my horrendous C-Section. Antonio rolled his eyes. I say we should just cut, but ok, we’ll induce.
So we induced, and after seventeen hours on pitocin, we made no progress. The nurses called Antonio and some time later he blew into my hospital room like a whirligig, wearing jeans and a leather vest and smelling of cologne.
– Hamel-Smith, Jesus Christ, yuh doh listen! You know where I was? At a carnival fete. But don’t worry. Ah not drunk.
Well that’s really reassuring. A doctor who needs to assure you he’s not drunk!
Antonio proceeds to do an internal examination; while wearing his enormous class ring under his glove. It hurts like the devil and I tell him so.
-You wore your RING, I accuse!
I am shocked and outraged. He assures me that I did not feel his ring.
– Oh REALLY, I say. Maybe I should wear it and give YOU an internal and you can let me know if YOU feel it.
This delivered through clenched teeth. I have turned thirty and have lost some restraint.
Antonio looks at Howard with open sympathy and they both sigh.
-OK. I’ll take it off, just in case I have to reach in there again.
When we go into the operating theatre the birth is fast. Christian, indignant at being dislodged from warm, liquid comfort protests at the top of his lungs and Antonio remarks – oooooh gooooode, dis chile have a big mouteh!
And later, when the whole baby is delivered, he announces – a boy. A boy wit a BIG mout.
A boy with big everything. Almost nine pounds and three weeks early.



A year and a month later and I am sitting I Antonio’s examining room.
He sees me and erupts in laughter.
-Geeze woman! Again?
Yes Antonio. Again.
We proceed effortlessly through the pregnancy. Truly by now I’m an old hand. The only obstacle is the fact that Antonio is now in law school and my appointments and even Liam’s birth, must be arranged around Antonio’s schedule. Because Tim was born on Halloween and Chris on St. Patrick’s Day I wanted to continue the trend and have Liam on May fifth, Cinco de Mayo.
-No good Hamel-Smith. I have a big test that day. We’ll do it on the sixth.
So on the sixth, and after gaining almost sixty pounds, we produce, rather more quietly, a ten pound boy.

-So, yuh done, Antonio asked me before the birth.
Knowing that he meant my reproductive status, I said, yes.
-So we doing a tubal ligation then? Kind of dangerous to do a fourth C-section. I’ll do just one more if you really want, but not a fifth. You need to think about when to do a tubal.
No tubal, I replied.
So, as probably could easily be predicted by anyone other than me, I find myself pregnant again three years later.

My problem now is that Antonio is no longer practicing medicine. He is now a malpractice lawyer. I make an appointment with a high risk specialist knowing my birth might be a little tricky. I refuse an amnio, in spite of being over thirty five. I am Catholic I explain. Whatever the baby is, she’s mine. I put a hand protectively on my already large belly. The baby already has a name. This is Isabella, I tell the doctor, named for my friend LiliIsabelle. The high risk specialist accepts no insurance and takes cash only. We are poor, and so leave with a list of six doctors that he recommends.

I spend the next several days working my way through the list and during telephone consultations I am refused by the first four doctors. A fourth C-Section and a mother who has refused amnio is not a popular package. They are anxious not to have to use the services now offered by Antonio.

I decide that the next doctor will have to refuse me to my face and so I make an appointment and show up early. I notice the hardwood floors, the oriental carpets, the piped music and chandeliers. The nurse asks do I want some herbal tea? Some water? I whisper that I’d love a diet Coke and she conspiratorially whispers back that she’ll see what she can do. I am ushered into a lovely consulting room to wait and the doctor walks in and sits across from me. He is young, with large brown eyes with long lashes. He lays his hands on the desk in front of him and splays the fingers. They are thin, tapered fingers on smooth pale hands. There is a wedding band on his left hand but his right is unadorned. No class ring. He looks at me and smiles. He has dimples and I am in patient-love.
– So, Mrs. Hamel-Smith……..
– Simone, I correct him.
– Simone, he says. And you must call me…. Raphael.
Raphael. An angel’s name…………..
– Simone, first of all, relax. Breathe. Now tell me, what can I do for you?
And so I explain, sometimes through impending tears. This is my fourth baby and fourth C-Section. I don’t want an amnio and I have been refused by four other doctors.
He smiles and says, I won’t refuse you.
If this were a movie, the orchestration would swell and crescendo just about now.

From the first examination all the way through to the last I found that I had never in my life been touched so gently or respectfully as Raphael touched me. Upon every meeting he kissed both my cheeks charmingly, and continentally.
-You are blooming my dear, he would say. You are an absolute picture.
When arriving for my checkups I am seated on a couch with extra cushions and an ottoman for my feet. If Marta is there she brings first water and then with a wink, a diet Coke. If there is a delay the receptionist hastens over and says, Raphael called and he is delayed at the hospital and apologizes. He wants me to make sure you are comfortable.
I am amazed. No one in my life is this solicitous of me.

On the day that I am to give birth my doctor comes to the room where I am waiting. How are you my dear, he asks. Well, I say, I am a little nervous. He laughs, a little shakily and replies – I am a little nervous too.
-What? Raphael, you really shouldn’t say that to me!
He is immediately chastened and apologizes. One of the residents here at the hospital will be present with us in the delivery room he tells me. Just in case he needs…assistance. Not that he’s expecting to he adds.
My terror level approaches red, but all goes well, if slowly. There is lots of scar tissue he says. The resident looks on dispassionately at Raphael’s efforts while I try to have a normal sounding conversation with the ten year old boy standing at my head. It is take-your-child-to-work day in Dade County and this is Christian, the nephew of the head nurse. No one has asked my permission but terror has silenced me. The poor child looks a little overawed especially when his auntie asks if he would like to see the uterus, the baby, the cord, the placenta.
No, says Christian. No, thank you.
-I have a son named Christian, I whisper. He’s five.
– Are you in pain, poor Christian asks.
– No. I reply. They gave me medicine. What grade are you in?
He says he’s in fifth. I say, I teach fifth graders. I ask if he likes to read and he tells me about the book he’s reading and so we continue, in this surreal manner, until Raphael announces, with relief evident in his voice, that it’s a beautiful boy.
More confident now he says to the nurse, hold off on the silver nitrate, this boy wants to see his mother. Give him to her. And so for the first time ever, for me, the baby is put into my arms, not the nurse’s. And we look at each other with no silver nitrate in the way. He’s so tiny, I say. Is he alright?
Simone, he says, he’s seven and a half pounds. I know that’s not what you’re used to, but this is normal.

And, strangely enough, it felt perfect, all surreal elements aside.

I first came upon this idea of eating to remember while reading a cookbook. And yes I do read cookbooks. My mother, no fan of the culinary arts, would marvel that I would do this. I read recipes for things that I have never made, and likely never will make. While in the kitchen waiting for something entirely different to finish in the oven, I will read a recipe for something exotic or bizarre or mundane. Part of it is something like anthropological curiosity . Like everywhere else in the New World, I come from a country made up almost entirely of people who arrived on my island as a result of one diaspora or another. It’s fascinating to me to find what looks like the mother origins of a Trinidadian dish in some cookbook. But I’m digressing again.

The recipe I had been reading was a Biafran groundnut stew with chicken. An old family recipe made by a Biafran student in America to pay homage to the family he lost in the Biafra famine of the 1970’s. Biafra- a country that no longer exists. So the idea of eating to remember was born in me. There are times when I get this pang- a yearning for people and places dear to me, or far away, or which no longer exist. I remember the food that goes with that memory and I have been known to drive long distances, sometimes in snow , to find the ingredients to ease my ache.

Here is my comfort food number one: cheese paste – originally made into sandwiches but now enjoyed on crackers, or crudités if I am in the phase of considering white flour to be my nemesis, which it is:

Grandma’s Cheese Paste

A goodly handful of cheddar, grated. Trinidad cheddar preferred, if available,

but it’s usually not.

A squirt of cheap yellow mustard. No substitutes. Certainly no Grey Poupon.

A knob of soft butter.

A grating of onion.

A dash of pepper sauce.

A spoonful of mayo.

And that’s it. Immediately I am transported to the Elizabeth Street house and it is Sunday night. Granny is in the kitchen with Edna or Pearl and she is making a cauldron of hot cocoa on the stove. The house is noisy but winding down. We have likely been to Gasparee and I am sunburned and tired and I am lying on my tummy in the drawing room near Grandpa’s chair, watching television and awaiting my mug of cocoa and a cheese paste sandwich. Everyone else is eating at the table, similar fare, but different sandwich, because we ate our big meal at lunch in those days – not just on Sunday, but every day. But Grandpa and I, as per our custom, are served in our TV watching spots, usually by Grandma, gently and with a smile and maybe a kiss; but sometimes by Edna, gruffly, no smile. When I was done, I am shamed to say, I would leave my plate and mug exactly where they lay, and if grandpa’s tray had already been collected, I would climb into his lap and fall asleep there, to be carried upstairs later by one of my burly uncles to be deposited in my bed. The memories of that big old house, filled with my entire family – my grandparents, uncles, my aunt and my mother, sometimes my cousins, conjures for me what it means to feel safe. And cherished.

Likewise the following- green fig souse.

Souse is an old English preparation of pickling meat and Trinidad souse usually contains meat, usually pig trotters and jowls. Sometimes the feet of chickens. But this dish has no meat and the “figs” mentioned are unripe bananas, inexplicably called figs in Trinidad.

Green Fig Souse

One large hand of green banana.

One hot pepper.

Two cucumbers

One onion

Two limes

Salt

A large bunch or watercress

Culantro or chadon beni (cilantro will do in a pinch)

Boil the bananas until cooked but still firm. Peel and slice along with the cucumber, onion, pepper and herbs. Add lime juice, salt and a little water. And I have read a recipe that says “refrigerate for 3 to 5 hours” but seriously – who can wait that long for anything? Certainly not me.

And again- the Elizabeth Street house, or the dining room at Boca View. If it’s Boca View then I am in a swim suit, wrapped in a towel, the very last person to get out of the sea and resentfully trudge upstairs to the house for lunch. I despised being called to lunch because it would mean my mermaid day was as good as done. After lunch the grownups annoyingly would all take a nap, and being too little to go down to the jetty alone I would have to amuse myself in the house for hours until the lazy adults roused themselves and I would wait impatiently for grandpa to get ready for his afternoon swim . But lunch was always a huge affair, and was gotten through quite happily by me after I was done sulking. Unless it was Lent and I was made to eat disgusting carrite or cavali, or the marginally less repulsive shark or grouper; depending on what the uncles had caught that morning.

Before my family owned Boca View, summers and Easter vacations were spent at Bombshell Bay, a sort of resort made up of a sea of bungalows scattered over the low hills of Gasparee Island. This place has significance to my family story: it is where my parents met. My mother was on the little beach, worshiping the sun, watching me paddle in the shallows, when a tall handsome man asked her if she’d like a drink from the bar.

This was the rum punch that changed our lives.

I was five and unruly. She was twenty nine and beautiful. It was a long courtship and three years later, after he married us in a civil ceremony , we spent a honeymoon weekend at Bombshell Bay.

Yes. I said “us.”

I said “we.”

The food in the Bombshell dining room was problematic for me. The entrees were heavy on the fish. And if I managed to survive the main course there was still dessert left to navigate. I would say an actual prayer for cake. But that was rare. It would more likely be red jello and canned fruit cocktail . Lord help us. Or on a particularly unhappy day, stewed prunes sitting in a bath of evaporated milk, which I suppose was standing in for heavy cream. Cruel and unusual punishment . I would try to wriggle away at this point and ask permission to go to the back wall to watch the cacabarry fish lurking in the shallow waters of the back bay, waiting for kitchen scraps . I would have fed them my prunes if I could. I miss those days, but not enough to ever eat jello on purpose. And certainly not enough to do anything whatsoever with a prune.

There are elusive things that I think I shall never taste again though. One of them is a dish of scalloped potatoes that grandma made, or maybe the cook made. If we were a fancier bunch it may have been called pommes de terre à la dauphinoise. But we weren’t fancy. I have tried to make this over and over to no avail. It always misses the mark. Delicious, certainly. What’s not to like about cream and cheese and eggs? But it never tastes like what my soul is hungry for. Another is chocolate cake – most certainly not made by granny. We were not a family of bakers. My father, as I have chronicled elsewhere, had a rabid sweet tooth, and particularly loved chocolate. When my parents moved in to their first home together, there lived a few doors down, an English doctor and his wife. He was a sexually transmitted disease specialist- this was said in whispers, as though the very treatment of the thing were somehow shameful. When we moved in they arrived with a welcome gift of a beautiful chocolate cake. Now this made me very happy- because as a child I was not allowed dessert because my mother held out hope that if thusly deprived I would grow up tall and thin. And maybe blonde. And this made my father exceptionally happy because although already tall and fairly thin, he was similarly deprived. So that night there was glorious dessert after dinner. And as we tucked in to a sizable slice of this gorgeous cake that Mrs Bennett had brought us, we discovered in sorrow that it was not good. It was truly awful. Fairly inedible. But when Mrs Bennet popped over the next day to ask if we had enjoyed the cake, we brazenly lied and proclaimed it fabulous. Mrs Bennett, bless her heart, then continued making us beautiful but ghastly chocolate gateaux with a dreaded regularity, until we moved to Cascade. That’s not the chocolate cake I want to remember. But I am still desperately seeking a cake, probably a fictitious one, that I link to my childhood.

When I became a mother, I could wait to feed my children. I had these Earth Mother fantasies of nursing well into the toddler years and freezing batches of puréed baby food along with bags of breast milk.

When Timothy was born I bought a cookbook called “Feed Me, I’m Yours.” I read it cover to cover, several times. Lots of creative healthy recipes. Lots of tips on nutrition and introducing textures and flavors. I tackled the recipes with enthusiasm but Timothy would have none of it, preferring to nourish his baby self entire with applesauce and Cheerios and not too much else. I discovered motherhood to be exhausting and decided after a bit that organic, homemade baby food was not going to be one of my non-negotiables. What I really wanted was for them to be courageous and unfastidious eaters, while honoring strong personal preferences. Having shed long sad childhood tears over being made to eat a plate of fried liver or a bowl of reheated oatmeal, I refused to ever force the boys to eat something just because I made it. And to a great extent it’s been fairly successful. They can eat anywhere and at anyone’s table, and they don’t pick the capers out of the paella.

Sometimes I wonder what my children will remember of me in the kitchen. We have our own culinary traditions I suppose. I like cooking for holidays. Christian likes beef Wellington and leg of lamb. Everyone likes low country sea food boil that my friend Chris taught me to make when I moved to Indiana. While working in inner city Miami my co-worker Earlene taught me to make collard greens the way her mother taught her. Laura’s mother taught me to make lasagne one Barbados summer when I was seventeen . And my student teacher taught me her mother’s recipe for Cuban flan. But generally I am a hit and miss cook. My Thai peanut noodle salad was an epic fail, and the children still refer to it as the “peanut butter pasta.” And when the boys were little

I made a blueberry pie for what was then our Father’s Day tradition of a hike and a picnic. The main ingredient of the pie, along with blueberries, was yogurt, which I thought was odd but decided to give it a whirl. It looked pretty strange, and was in fact quite disgusting as we discovered at the picnic. I mean Mrs-Bennett-chocolate-cake-level disgusting ; and the children have not ever forgotten it. But because I am a Trinidadian far away from home I also make stew chicken, curry channa and dal and pelau, because sometimes I need to eat what I remember. It is one of the ways that I show them who I am. That I grew up eating Indian food at the family table. That on Saturdays we ate a dish that is a direct translation of the jollof rice brought by the survivors of the triangular trade. That forbears from Madeira, and Venezuela and Syria gave us the delicacies calvinadage, kibbe, ponche de crema and pastels. That in Trinidad everything is cooked with a ridiculous amount of pepper and seasoned with obnoxiously pungent herbs.

And the boys eat it all too, but sometimes with long suffering sighs, some eye rolling, and much less enthusiasm. But it’s important to me that they know this about me. It’s part of who I am, and by extension who they are.

Some day if they are being particularly ungrateful, and if I’m feeling particularly vengeful, I may introduce them to a stewed prune swimming in evaporated milk to see if that can improve morale.

Blue Footprints in Snow

Marley was going. To preserve his dignity, and to bring an end to his pain, we chose when, and where.

It would be on Saturday, and it would be here, in our home. Marley’s home where he learned to fetch and sit and shake paws. Where he stole whole slabs of butter from kitchen counters, where he gnawed furniture legs with baby teeth, sharp as needles. Where on a Friday night he would lie in a tangle of blankets and boy-legs as Lord of The Rings played interminably on the television. The scene of many romps and fights and hurt feelings. Here where the boys lost their grandmother, and later heard the news of their grandfather’s passing, and where Marley tried to love our hurt away. At the foot of this couch, where teenage romances were played out and teenage hearts were broken . Here were acceptance letters and scholarship letters were opened . Where exams were studied for and tears of exhaustion soaked pillows. Where two violins, a viola and a cello once played. Where lines were learned and Shakespeare was rehearsed. Here where mama sometimes raged and rampaged about the never ending mess when odd socks and water bottles were hauled out from under furniture. Here, four pairs of arms holding him, loving him, Marley said goodbye .

I am not any stranger to loss and grief , nor are my boys. I have grieved and buried beloved grandparents, adored parents, and a cherished uncle. I have lost friends. And I mean no disrespect to any of them and it in no way diminishes my love for them when I say I have never felt grief quite like this.

I have always loved dogs and have had many across my childhood , and of course lost them all, one by one, as is the way of things. And I shed tears and grieved , and eventually moved forward- looking towards the joy of the next new puppy.

So what’s different with Marley?

I have given this a lot of thought.

I knew it was going to be different.

I knew roughly the life expectancy of golden retrievers and counted the years as each birthday passed. But I dismissed the dread, not being able to fathom, especially after almost twelve years, what our lives would be like without him.

He came to us during a dark time – My children’s father had just survived a catastrophic medical event that left him debilitated, and for a while , unable to walk. In the throes of this dark and confusing time entered this precious pink-tongued moppet with a very defined personality. Marley spent the first several weeks mourning his littler mates and although he was lavished with attention, he remained a little aloof and unimpressed. It took him a long time to trust us, and a little longer to love us, but when he did his love was huge and indelible; and fierce.

That his love had to be earned made it all the more precious to us I think.

Marley could be playful and rambunctious. He loved long walks, and running though fields when he was young and fast and lean. And he was very affectionate.

But Marley had rules.

He did not like anyone’s face brought to his. He would avert his gaze and turn his head away if you got too close. But he had a way too, at a modest distance, of holding your gaze for long moments, staring deep into your eyes. Usually an attempt to communicate something meaningful I think.

I saw him do this when Timothy and Cristiana visited at Christmas with their young and energetic dog Layla who stole Marley’s toys and ate his food and drank out of his water bowl. Marley never once growled at her nor was he aggressive in any way- but he did quite a few times walk over to me and hold me in a deep and prolonged gaze after glancing around to where Layla was once again crossing his boundaries. I saw him do this several times in the days before he went – mostly to my youngest child. He knew, I think, that something was not quite right.

So the answer to that question as to why I loved him the way I did, and why his loss is so devastating – Well I think it’s a couple things. I had been a mother for fifteen years when we welcomed Marley to our family, and I am very mammalian. I think I scooped him into my litter and he became my fifth child . Not that we humanized him. We never dressed him up and he didn’t ride in car seats though he did get presents at Christmas and birthdays. And we certainly imbued him with infant qualities. He was Baby Marley, or simply the Puppy- for his entire life. Christian always called him “little boy” or “doux doux “ – a Trini term of endearment reserved for children and lovers. And too there was something about his blind, unfaltering, unconditional love for me that did me in. In a world that sometimes seemed chaotic and uncertain, with family issues, unresolved grief, the trials of raising boys into men combined with work in mental health made his unfaltering devotion to me excruciatingly precious. In a life that afforded me a hundred opportunities per day to slip up, at the end of that day there was always Marley with deeply piled fur where I could slide my toes as he lay at my feet or at the foot of my bed. He climbed that enormous bed, one last time just before he went , and we slept in a heap under blankets that bitterly cold night. When it became obvious that he was not well I tried everything at our disposal to save him- tests and scans and specialists. I threw money at the crisis that I didn’t really have. I was desperate. Frantic.

In my head I know absolutely that he was a dog.

But my heart didn’t know. It still doesn’t know.

The day before we said goodbye was difficult although not as hard as the one to follow. We were wrenched.

And wretched.

A friend had suggested that we make paw prints so I sent Ethan, who was thankful for an errand , out into the blistering cold to buy paint and heavy paper.

He returned with blue tempura and I made Marley’s paw prints on heavy while card stock. They didn’t look like much – his feet were so thickly furred. I wiped the blue paint off with a linen napkin but couldn’t get all the paint off and his tentative attempts at walking left blue marks all over the floor.

The next day, before the vet came, Liam took Marley outside where he lay in the snow for a long time. Looking out later, when he was gone, I showed Ethan blue footprints in the snow. The enormous poignancy of the metaphor struck a chord deep within me.

Blue Footprints.

Walking away.

Marley came to us when we were a family with four boys.

He left behind four men.

And that right there was the illustration for me – one, but only one, reason why he was so precious. Marley is the totem of their childhood . And he left us before the last of them could leave childhood behind, going away to school and stepping into life, away from us, away from him. So Marley left because his work here was complete.

He had seen his boys grow to men.

We would never be ready, but he was ready.

Blue footprints in snow.

Blue footprints across my heart.

Thank you, sweet baby. I’ll love you forever.

Cross. My. Heart.

Yes I know. I was not blessed with any girls. I have four sons – but hoped each time for a tiny baby daughter, and at the start of each pregnancy I called my belly and the little bean it held: Mary-Meghan, Kaitlyn Elizabeth, Emily Rose, and Isabella Jayne. All the way up to the ultrasound appointment that proved these ultra feminine names inappropriate when each successive little bean turned out to be very clearly a little boy. It’s not that I preferred girls to boys – I just started out yearning for what I knew. I was close to my own mother and anticipated enjoying my own daughter in the ways my mother had enjoyed me. With perhaps some improvements.

Not offered as a criticism of my own mother because she was a product of her era, as I am a product of mine, but I thought that perhaps I’d spend less time concerned with what my daughter looked like and would instead focus on the contents of her head, and her heart. I would , I thought, encourage my daughter to be brave, and to be less concerned about what other people thought of her . I would teach her to be more assertive and less polite. I would teach her to identify and express all of her emotions especially the difficult ones, so she would spend less time engaged in lonely weeping, trying to drown unpleasant feelings in chocolate ice cream. Because I know from intimate experience that managing emotions this way is a dangerous and slippery slope . I would , I thought, open the dialogue about relationships and sex and intimacy as early as was developmentally appropriate, which in my opinion is just after birth. So there would be no attendant shame, and so when she was old enough to have real complications and issues I would be her go-to person, in lieu of her seeking advice from an equally naive and clueless friend. But of course I’d get to do all the girl things – the hair and makeup and fashion advice. The planning of 16th birthday parties , and baby showers. The wedding dress shopping . All the frilly and flouncy girly stuff. All the stuff that frankly made me recoil as a girl. Because I understood from my own mother-daughter experience, my girl would likely be very different from me in some very elemental ways.

My mother was beautiful. She was born beautiful and became even more so as she blossomed . She was graceful and effortlessly elegant . I conversely was not so gracefully put together . And I am still working on the elegant. I was cute rather than beautiful and sort of solidly assembled; and nothing has really changed there. I liked dogs and mango trees , fishing for parrot fish off the jetty, diving for shells . I loved boats and planes- a legacy of being raised in a houseful of pilots and mariners . I had a little boat with yellow oars called “Dinghy Daisy” that I spent hours and hours in, pretending to be a pirate, or Jacques Cousteau. But I think, no I am entirely certain , that although who I turned out to be was not what my mother would have chosen as her feminine ideal of “daughter,” she loved me absolutely and regardless. And we got better at being us as we got older . She stopped trying to force the square peg that I was into the round hole of her expectations (well- very rarely) and I stopped trying to continually underscore what I perceived as my differentness and ceased lambasting her with my contempt for her traditional values (again, almost never.)

But it was not to be- or so I thought, as I birthed boy after boy after boy after boy, that I would ever raise a girl.

And my how I surrendered myself to being the mother of boys. It was a rough and tumble life but not quite as rough and tumble as one might imagine. All of the boys played at least one sport and I loved being a soccer mom and team parent, though I was a less than stellar football mother, being unable to follow the game. They were more musical, artsy, creative, history/science/sci-fi nerd kinds of boys. And we lived and are living a sort of a dinosaur museums-auditions-performances-broken G-string-Luke I am your Father-can’t find my dance shoes-Winter is Coming-Siege of Leningrad-One Ring to Lead Them All- kind of life. And this continues to suit me extremely well. I know the difference between a sauropod and a theropod, an X wing and a tie fighter, cried on the beaches of Normandy last summer, and while watching the Red Wedding. Thanks to my screen writer to be child I no longer find director Wes Anderson to be off kilter and strange . So it was, and is, good. I am fulfilled and continually entertained and harbored no yearnings for mothering girls, and in fact I daily convinced myself that save my godchild Felicia, I had no particular affinity for adolescent females. That was- until.

Until I started working as the high school English teacher at a psychiatric hospital. I was originally hired as the elementary teacher but my boss urged me to try secondary English with the understanding that if I hated it some other posting would be found. So I began that first year with trepidations. My upper high school class was comprised of almost all girls- ages fifteen to seventeen, and they were not predisposed to like me, or to be impressed with me in any way. Some of them had been students of the teacher I replaced – an excellent teacher by all reports, who was tough yet maternal and sported a heavy Brooklyn accent. I was definitely nothing like her, and the girls were resentful and sometimes openly hostile. They questioned my accent, my ethnic origins, my immigration status, and my fitness to teach English. And I questioned my fitness too. I has received my stamp as “highly qualified “ in English and Language Arts by a hodgepodge amalgam of A level literature credits, some college classes in poetry and creative composition, and a portfolio of my own writing – and the accreditation secretary granted highly qualified status stamp of approval with a verbalization akin to “ok- I guess.”

So with my dubious qualifications I started with what I knew and prepared to force feed the children a diet of the classics I knew and loved- Dickens, Austen, Bronte, and Shakespeare. But I had underestimated these young people – there was no force feeding required. I looked on in amazement as they connected to the texts much the way I had myself when their age. And this led to discussions and analysis and forays into writing and it was amazing and inspiring; the changes that I saw wrought in them as they embarked on a journey of self discovery through literature- some pieces hundreds of years old- as we pondered universal questions and universal truths. And somewhere in there we also covered how to handle split ends, the vagaries of fashion, coming out, covering our mouths when we yawn, relationships, intimacy, and the paradox that is the human male. I did not need to teach them assertiveness. Instead I tried to teach a little temperance. And that they needn’t be perfect to be perfectly lovable, and that they were deserving of much more respect and tolerance that they had been given thus far in their short lives. And I didn’t need to lecture them on being brave. Through what they shared with me personally and through what I read in their case histories, I discovered that these little ladies had already been called upon to show more courage than I’d ever had to. So there were lessons learned all round and some of those were for me.

It was an amazing year, followed by six more good years, but I never again had a collection of students as talented or sensitive or insightful. I fell in love with my job that year and felt blessed to teach the books I love in the language I love to these girls, whom I absolutely loved, and who made me so proud. They made me wistful, these daughters of my heart, with longing again, for just one little girl.

choo•koo•loonks (n) i. A Trinidadian term of endearment, used especially when addressing a child.

ii. A person of rounded form and ample proportion.

My mother has always said that I was nine pounds when I was born. My baby book says 8lbs.10oz. so I won’t make her a liar for 6 mere ounces.

Literally six of one, and a half dozen of the other.

Any way you care to slice it, that’s a pretty big girl.

A pretty, big, girl.

A pretty big-girl.

And that encapsulates pretty much how I always felt. And you will pardon the vanity of the adjective “pretty.”

Before I go on I want to make two things clear. The first is that I entirely loved, and still love, my mother. And I was her only child so she adored me. Spoiled me, cosseted me, protected me. Friends would be, in equal measures, both charmed and repelled. And I experienced a dichotomy as well- at once glowing from being so absolutely loved, while, at the same time, drowning, from being so, absolutely, loved.

So that’s the second thing I need to make clear: it can be a daunting responsibility to be someone’s everything when that someone is a) beautiful b) of exacting standards c) had the not unreasonable expectation that her only daughter would be similarly constructed.

Let me give you a short backstory.

My mother belonged to a family peopled with athletes and tall, lean humans. With the exception of my lovely mother who was short, but lean. My grandfather had been a body builder and a Greco Roman wrestler. My uncles were basketball players and cyclists. My aunt was athletic and tall. All the women were deep chested with narrow hips and lean legs. With thigh gaps. And into this house, 3 Elizabeth Street, with its chiseled and beautiful denizens entered from stage left, the progeny of my mother’s failed first marriage , Chookoolonks: curly haired, short and round. Then, as now, missing a thigh gap.

I think my mother was well pleased with me. But when the baby fat proceeded to not melt, nor did I manage to sprout up tall and lean hipped from the chunky toddler that I was, them my mother’s Pygmalion instincts were piqued.

My mother was permanently on a diet as she struggled with those five pounds that were her nemesis . She was 132 and insisted on hovering somewhere around 127. She wore an English size 10. Equivalent to an American size 8. Which in those days would probably have been a size 6, for as we know, dress sizes have expanded. I on the other hand was probably an English size 10 when I was actually 10. Years old .

So as my mother dieted, so did I. But very unwillingly. I probably went on my first diet at about the same time I grew to fit into that English 10. But even before that formal diet there was a list of no-nos. No juice. No soda. No candy. Our house had no cookies or chips or junk food of any kind. I was allowed fruit and raw almonds if I HAD to eat between meals. I had skim milk with my breakfast egg and on occasion I was allowed a single squirt of chocolate syrup, which resulted in something the exact color, and possible flavor, of Port-of-Spain gutter water after a rainy season deluge. Lunch was a thermos of skim milk, murky and tinged with blue, I always thought. And a tuna sandwich on whole wheat. And if you should think for even a second that this does not sound too bad, expunge from your imagination the vision of creamy tuna with mayonnaise. This was a can of water packed tuna , drained and decanted on to a slice of bread sans condiments, and covered with another equally unadorned slice. It tasted like sadness , and was inevitably thrown away. Dinner was almost always fish or chicken – free of salt because my father’s blood pressure was high. And two or three vegetables- unsalted, un-buttered, and steamed. Most nights I would look across the table at my father, and he would meet my gaze and almost imperceptibly shake his head. But he had it good. After his breakfast of fruit and coffee, he would go to his office where a hefty lunch of creole food would be delivered. And in the afternoon pastries would arrive for the tea hour. Lucky, lucky man. No pastries ever darkened our door at home.

So diets – and exercise classes. Dance class. A personal trainer. Weight Watchers. Diet shakes. Atkins. And a crazy crash diet when I lived on black coffee and paper thin slices of cheese with weekly weigh ins with my doctor where he would give me a vitamin shot- so I didn’t die of rickets or something. All before I was 18. I would lose weight and gain in back as I yo-yo dieted and generally felt depressed and deprived . I emerged from each round of diet- well, round. Built like a Serbian peasant , with a low center of gravity, suited for heavy farm labor, and unlikely to perish during a famine. In some corners of this planet I would have truly been a prize .

If you imagine that the above is the recipe for an eating disorder waiting to happen, you’d be correct . Except that it didn’t wait to happen. Chookoolonks developed bulimia at age 17.

I had developed a very unhealthy relationship with food and possessed a metabolism that was irreparably screwed up. And this led me to some very dark places and some very risky behaviors. I don’t resent my mother, and no I’m not sublimating . I am a mother too now. And I know she was doing what she thought best. In her world, to be a woman necessitated being pretty. And being pretty meant being thin. Her intentions were never to hurt me. And I get that. But I was hurt. Not just by her but by the things other people would feel empowered to say to me. You have such a pretty face, I would be told, if only you would lose some weight. As if a face such as mine were wasted on the body of a Serbian peasant . That I was not ugly too was seen as a disrespectful affront maybe? If the random comments of cruel children and supposedly well meaning adults were not enough, as an actress I also had complete strangers comment on my body- a tyrannical costume designer who humiliated me , to my face, in front of a roomful of people. An audience member who told a friend that she was watching my thighs jiggle with amusement when I did a tap number in a short dress. The sales lady who questioned the wisdom of my burlesque number because I was so much “bigger than the other girls.” Comments from boyfriends – yes from boyfriends too. I had one when I was 15 who suggested I “give up eating fried foods.” Little did he know that I was only familiar with fried food from tv and magazines. No, not really. But almost.

What really hurt was the implied message that I just wasn’t good enough.

But motherhood changed me and saved me.

Pregnancy was not easy . It difficult for someone with body dysmorphia and an eating disorder to witness their body just expand on its own accord. Having gained 60 effortless pounds with my first pregnancy, I exercised and dieted through my second , until my doctor put a stop to it. Salad, he said, was to be eaten with a meal, but could not comprise the whole meal. He said that my body had a lot of work to do and needed to be fed.

The results of my pregnancies, all four of them, left me in awe of this wonderful, magical, imperfect body. I developed respect for my body. Admiration even. And as I grew older, and less immature, I was finally ready to own it. All of it. I am impressed with, and thankful for, the strength of it. Its grittiness and determination to survive and thrive . The robust health of it. It’s sturdiness and formidable heath, pound advantage not withstanding. Fertile as a Mesopotamian floodplain, it has, after all, made four humans entirely from scratch .

So I forgive my mother. A thousand times over. And thoughtless children, unworthy boyfriends, rude strangers , and maybe even that costume designer . The amazing thing is that even though the messages that I was receiving all pointed to my not being good enough , I harbored the suspicion that I might well be more than than enough . That I might in fact may well be fabulous.

And that also was a gift from my mother. To be loved so intensely does something irrevocable to one’s sense of self.

I still have a dodgy relationship with food. And I still obsess and diet and in fact I am dieting this very moment . But I know with my whole heart that I am much more than my dress size and more than the sum of my parts.

And if diet number 347 doesn’t work, I could still always move to Serbia .