Losing My Religion

My world was filled with all things Armenian.  My parents spoke Armenian, we ate Armenian, we listened to Armenian music, went to Armenian "affairs," we went to an Armenian Apostolic church every Sunday — the hub of Armenian life.  But all of a sudden when I was eight years old, we just stopped going to church. No explanation. No acknowledgment of this great change in our routine, our social life, and the loss of many things Armenian.
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I was in the office working on a manuscript when someone ran in to my cubicle and said, “Hey there’s a big parade down Third Avenue and it’s the Armenians!” because they knew I was Armenian and so I took the elevator down five flights to the street where hordes of people were massed on the sidewalks, waving banners and flags and shouting 


        “Down with the Turks!” 
        “Make them admit it was GENOCIDE!”

In my overalls and saddle shoes I was swept into the frenzy of people cheering and waving on the marchers — men, women, children, some very old covered in black like old ladies in mourning, carrying posters with enlarged grainy black-and-white photos of swarthy men who reminded me of my father and my uncles and my Grampa Joe.  All seemed united in this march to have their voices heard, to make the world listen to their pleas, to speak out for those for who were silenced so many decades ago.

I had grown up hearing stories of the Turks massacring the Armenians. It was a mantra throughout my childhood:

Turks are barbarians.

Turks are murderers.

Turks stole everything in their culture from someone else.

Once when I was in Studio 54 or Bond’s in a fiery red halter top and black shiny leggings with black strappy high-heeled sandals dressed to the nines for a night of dancing, I spotted a young handsome dark-haired guy — very good looking and very short; reminded me of my Uncle Onnik with his black curly hair and his bright white grin. I thought, “This guy really wants to dance but he’s afraid to ask because he’s short and doesn't want to be turned down.”  So I marched right over and I yelled above the ear-splitting sound, “Do you wanna dance?” and he lit up like a 1000-watt bulb and we danced onto the floor and in a flash we were both smiling and laughing, having a great time.

Over the blasting music I leaned into his ear and shouted, “So where are you from?” and he replied, loudly, “Istanbul, Turkey” and I had to laugh.  In a city of eight million people I asked a guy to dance who was a Turk. 

I shook my head, leaned back and yelled, “I’m ARMENIAN!” and his animated face drained of color, the smile slid from his mouth, and he frantically gestured while yelling back, “I am NOT Turk!! I am NOT TURK!  I am Kurd!  I am KURDISH!  Do you know Kurds??  We hate the Turks!"  And I gestured to him to move from the dance floor into a hallway where the music wasn’t quite so loud and you could hear each other without screaming.

“Of course, I know what Kurds are — you're mountain people from the eastern part of Turkey.”

And then looking somewhat relieved he said, “I only say Istanbul because in America most people don’t know Kurds or what Kurdish is.  I say Istanbul because that is all they know of Turkey."


"So where are you from?"
"I am from Diyarbakir.”

And then the color drained from my face.

“MY grandparents were from Diyabekir. I can’t BELIEVE that you are TOO!! That’s CRAZY!  Out of all the places in the universe, how could it be that you’re from Diyarbakir?” and he smiled broadly and began to tell me about himself and how he ended up here.

news.bbc.co.uk

“In Turkey I was conscripted to Army so I moved to Istanbul where I became surgeon.” he explained in his heavily accented voice.

“A surgeon?”  I asked.

“Yes. Surgeon, I was surgeon in Turkish Army for two years!" he told me proudly.

“But did you go to medical school?” I asked incredulously. I mean I knew the Turks weren’t to be trusted but still, making someone a surgeon who was going to operate on their own kind — in less than two years?  That sounded really unbelievable.  Even for the Turks.

“No.  No medical school. Just Army.”  He didn’t get why I was reacting the way I was.

“I can’t believe you were a surgeon,“  I insisted in disbelief.  “Well, how was it when you operated on people?”

“Operated? I don’t understand this word.”  he said with a perplexed face.

“You know,"  I said gesturing with both hands in a slicing motion, “when you cut people open to fix them and sewed them back up?”

He looked at me in horror. “I did not CUT people, I was SURGEON!”  he insisted emphatically.

I just shook my head.  “Then I don’t know what you mean, because in our language, a surgeon is a doctor.”

He just looked at me with his black eyes wide and repeated, “I was not doctor. I was SURGEON!” and then all of a sudden I laughed out loud and said, “OH — you were a sergeant, a SERGEANT in the army — ” and he smiled and beamed, “Yes, I was Sergeant in army!” and that was that.

The crowds on Third and 50th pushed me blocks away moving downtown and as the crowd continued its march, my eyes were filling with tears, my throat was stifling cries and I knew I needed to get back to work.  I rode the elevator up to my floor still overcome with emotion, unable to control the flood of feelings welling up inside. I burst from the elevator (to the astonishment of those nearby) and ran to my cubicle past my coworkers, surprised at my obvious state of distress.  They bombarded me with questions:

“What happened?!”

“Are you alright??”

“Did someone hurt you?”

“What’s wrong???”

I couldn’t answer.  I couldn’t get any words out. I just continued sobbing uncontrollably and then Susan, came up to me.  She worked around the corner from my cubicle, was more senior, so we didn’t know each other well, but she simply wrapped her arms around me, hugged me fiercely while repeating, “It’s alright. Everything will be alright.” She gave me great comfort without asking a thing in return.

It was a day before I could explain to Susan what came over me, how the sight of all those Armenians, all those voices rallying to be heard made me feel ashamed — that I didn't go to Armenian church; that I didn't speak Armenian; that I wasn't out there protesting. This parade was to commemorate the deaths of hundreds of thousands who were forced to endlessly march through the desert until they dropped from thirst and starvation.  And yet the only thing Armenian about me was the food I ate.     What kind of an Armenian was I ? 

Did this family survive?

From One Stove to the Next

April is a month of significance for me, for many reasons — one of which is the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.  As one cousin said, " we are coming up to the 100th anniversary of a genocide that nobody remembers. Everyone remembers the Titanic perhaps because of the wealthy individuals on board?...it doesn't pay to be poor."   


It's not only that the Armenians were a poor people, they also came from a land that the rest of the world didn't and still doesn't need or want.  They are resource-poor. This first genocide of the 20th century has been swept out of the halls of history like so much unnecessary sawdust.  


Adding salt to this staggering wound, not only did the world stand by and allow this massacre, it is still unacknowledged in a universal way because it would offend those of greater geographic importance.  You know how it is these days in human rights, countries only get outraged and act when there's a risk to something or someone they value as important.  

But at least the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum underscores the genocide's importance by including the following on an opening wall of its exhibit:

"...I have placed my death-head formations in readiness -- for the present only in the East -- with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" [Source: Adolf Hitler, Obersalzberg, August 22, 1939, speech delivered by Hitler to the Supreme Commanders and Commanding Generals; as stated by Former Bureau Chief of the Associated Press in Berlin, Louis Lochner in his book, What About Germany?]

So to underscore the importance of the Day of Remembrance or Genocide Memorial Day  [From Wikipedia: The Date commemorates the Armenian notables deported from the Ottoman capital in 1915, of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, most of whom would be executed, which was a precursor to the ensuing events.] leading up to April 24, I'll post three pieces that connect to my heritage.  I hope you enjoy them and the importance of "Armenianism" in my life. 

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While single in New York, I lived three blocks from an Armenian grocer, Karnig Tashjian's. There, a short walk up Third Avenue, I could purchase any ingredients I needed and peruse a refrigerator case filled with ready-made goodies. True, it wasn't exactly like what I got at home, but the little old ladies were in the back of shop chopping and mixing and filling, and whatever I bought was enough to satisfy my taste buds until I'd made it home.

It was then while I was single that I started to cook some Armenian things because I just wanted to have them more often. I can remember having a terrible craving for luleh kebab (LOO-leh-ka­BOB — a torpedo-shaped ground lamb hamburger). I checked through the only Armenian cookbook I had from an aunt who'd given it to me as a Christmas present in 1977; it was even signed by the author, Alice Antreassian. I looked up the recipe for luleh kebab, went to the store for the ingredients, and dove right in.

I followed that recipe religiously and made 40 lulehs! I hadn’t realized I needed to cut back on the quantities because I wasn't cooking for a family of four. Still, I was happy — lulehs for now, lulehs for later!  I hovered over my wall oven (an oddity in-and-of-itself in a New York studio apartment) anxiously awaiting the buzz of the timer with salivating mouth. 


Finally it went off, I pulled the rack out of the oven and before they could even cool, bit in to taste my first attempt — to savor the delicious mouthful and...and....and...they were...AWFUL!!  Unbelievably awful!  So awful that I spit that mouthful out! They did not taste a thing like anything I'd ever had, and in fact, they tasted so distasteful that I threw them away, all 40 of them. (Throw food out?  People who know me will be shocked.)

Dumbfounded, disappointed, devastated, I called home. I got my dad. He interrogated me.

"Did you use a recipe?" he barked.

"Of course, I did Daddy!" I said incensed.

"Did you get the meat ground twice and have the fat trimmed?" he queried.

"Yes, I did," I answered smugly, thankful I hadn't skipped over THAT part of the recipe.

"Whose recipe did you use?" he finally asked puzzled and running out of mistakes I could make.
 
"I used the one from the AGBU cookbook, the one... "

He interrupted mid-sentence, "You can't use THAT cookbook!" he snorted.

"What do you mean? It's an Armenian cookbook... I — "

He cut me off, "THAT'S not OUR kind of Armenian cooking! You have to use something with Dickranagertzie cooking!  No wonder it doesn't taste right!" he yelled in satisfaction at having discovered the fatal flaw in my attempt.

I burst into tears sobbing that it was the only Armenian cookbook I had. It was given to me by his niece!  How was I to know? 

Disgusted, my father told me he'd have my mother call me when she got in and hung up. I pitched the luleh kebobs (sacrilege in an Armenian household) and gave up trying for years.

Then when I (finally) got engaged to an "odar," (aw-DARHD = outsider or non-Armenian), my Aunt Vic (sister-in-law of my mother's sister) gave me an Assyrian cookbook that had been compiled by the ladies of an Assyrian church. My father nodded approvingly, "Now that's a cookbook."

"But Daddy, this isn't even Armenian," I protested.

"Never mind; never mind...that's what you need. The Assyrian way is the closest to our way of cooking."

Sure enough when I checked the index, there were three versions of luleh kebob, none of which resembled the one in my Armenian cookbook, so I was prepared to give them another try. Now, many triumphant batches later, I've got luleh-kebab under control.

This past Christmas I was looking for something unique and lasting to give our now 22-year-old twins and I thought about a family recipe book. They were living away from home and had been calling frequently with,, “Mom?  How do you make...?” or “Mom, if I’m making ___ what do I do first?”  I’d compile the recipes that they loved and save them from the mistakes I’d made.  

It seemed a good idea but I never thought through how much time it would take.  Retyping, reformatting the recipes, printing them and then organizing them in scrapbook-type albums with 8 ½ x 11 sleeves I could insert the pages in, making a table of contents, etc, etc.  It was hours and hours and hours of work.  Christmas was looming closer and our son was due home the next night, so I worked late to finish, get them wrapped and hidden at the back of the tree.  These presents were my pièce de résistance gifts.  They would be given out last.

When they opened them, their faces showed that they did realize what I had done, but they just stashed the albums and went on to the next thing.  I tried not to show my disappointment at their not making the connection that this was my heritage that I was passing on something important and meaningful.

But the other night, while wandering through a museum exhibit, when I least expected it, I received the following text message:

MOM I MADE THE LULEH KEBOB THEY’RE DELICIOUS!!!!

Mister Burson Wasn't a Nice Person

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I know it’s going to sound as if I was a real rebel in high school but honestly I wasn't.  Most of the time I was running around from activity to activity like Little Mary Sunshine except I was miserable inside. 

I always had a hard time with math.  In some part I attributed this to a change in schools when I was in fifth grade.  In my new school they had already covered fractions and I missed the foundations on that and thereafter struggled with certain basic concepts.  This was before there were calculators available on every device in your life. You couldn't avoid math.  You had to take algebra and geometry if you planned to go to college so — algebra and geometry it was.  My algebra teacher, Mr.Viglione, was a kind-hearted easy-going guy who coaxed me through the class and was always encouraging.  My experience with geometry was quite the opposite.

Mr. Burson was a short uptight Pee-Wee Herman-looking guy who had slicked-back hair, wore a suit and had this precise character about him.  Everything FIT.  Except for me.  Those angles and planes never seemed to add up and he was annoyed each and every time I asked a question in class — which was frequently.  He always answered, but in a way that didn’t always help me get to the answer and he replied with such disdain that eventually I stopped asking.  Still I had to pass and it was looking doubtful I’d get by with more than a D.  

Now for someone who is used to A’s a D is a blow.  And I had the kind of father who ONLY saw the misses.  If I brought home a report card with all A’s except for one C in Algebra, he’d bellow, “What’s this C?”  If the next marking period that C was a B and I had a C in Phys Ed, he’d say, “Well, you know gym is important TOO.”  I couldn’t win.  Not with my dad and certainly not with Mr. Burson.

One particularly difficult class (could it have been cosigns and tangents or are those not parts of geometry?) I kept asking questions because I knew we’d have a test and these would be on it.  I guess his limit was reached when he shouted (and if I’m not mistaken, threw a piece of chalk at me), “What’s the matter with you, are you stupid or something?!”  Well that did it for me.  No matter how I looked at it, he was the teacher and it was his job to teach me and it certainly wasn’t to humiliate me.  In my 10^th grade superiority I gathered my books and notebooks, got up and left the class, went straight down to the Assistant Principal’s office, fuming and furious. 

Mr. Herold tried to get me to calm down but I had one thing in mind: I wasn’t going back in there until the weasel apologized.

“Be reasonable,” he said.

“It’s not my fault he can’t do his job.  HIS job is to teach me and if he can’t find a way to make the subject understandable — then I guess HE must be stupid!” I shot back.

“You don’t mean that.  This is a simple misunderstanding,” he entreated, trying to get me to calm down.

“Oh no, it’s not.  He called me stupid in front of the entire class!  I AM NOT stupid!  AND he needs to apologize to me in front of everyone or I’m not going back.” I stubbornly dug my heels in, hugging my books tighter to my chest.

“Well, let me see what I can do.  Take a seat outside in the office until next period. And work on your Geometry!” he nudged smilingly.  I really liked Mr. Herold. He was a real adult but a straight shooter with kids.  Not all that huff-and-puff authority stuff like the principal, just a real guy who seemed to like kids and want to help them.  

“Come see me after last period.”

After all these years I don’t know if it’s just a figment of my imagination but in my mind at the end of that day Mr. Burson was in Mr. Herold's office and apologized for losing his temper —  begrudgingly — without ever looking me in the eye.  I felt the satisfaction of having HIM a bit humiliated in kind, but it wasn't in front of the class.  Still I knew there were limits to what I could demand — even when right is right.

When I was a teacher you’d think I’d have learned the lesson that humiliation was not an appropriate strategy in the classroom but there was a time — once — when my patience was tested, when nothing else had worked, and so, I resorted to humiliation. Immediately after I'd done the deed, I wasn't proud of it. 

James Walker, wherever you are, I hope you’ve forgiven me.

You Is Important

Aibilene tells little Mae Mobley…

You is kind.

You is smart.

You is important.

I read The Help but I hadn't seen the movie and just watched the DVD after spotting it at the library.  So it surprised me when I heard Aibilene say those words over and over — instilling self-esteem in that little girl.  I hadn't remembered those words from the book. I hadn't reacted the first time I heard her say them to the little girl in the film — but all of a sudden it struck me.  She was brainwashing her in the most positive way and I only recognized it as such because I’d used brainwashing myself when I first started teaching.

My first class of thirty-one kids.  Everyone told me how slow and low the class was — low in scores, slow to learn.  As a rookie alternative-route teacher,  I troubled over how to turn that around.  I didn't start out thinking about brainwashing.  I just knew they had a sizable hurdle to get over academically and while I’d try the best I could to advance their skills, as a newcomer, they were each going to need something more.

At that time in New York, there were end-of-year tests, much like the End-of-Grade (EOG) tests in North Carolina and everything rode on how well you did on that test — for both student and teacher.

One morning I faced my class and said, “I want everyone to follow me and do what I do.”

I held up one finger (they held up one finger) and said out loud:

“I will stay calm.” And they repeated, “I will stay calm.”

I held up two fingers and they did as well.

“I will do great on this test.”

“I will do GREAT on this test.” They repeated.

Three fingers: “I believe in myself and so does my teacher.”

“I believe in myself and so does my teacher.”

They looked around at one another, their eyes questioning, their faces puzzled, their thoughts quiet.  "Do it again and do it louder.” I instructed.

“I will stay calm!” They called out.

“I will do GREAT on this test!”  Their voices rose.

“I believe in myself and so does MY TEACHER!”  It was a chorus.

We continued to do this the first day and then every day, at random throughout the morning and afternoon.  They thought it was a game.  They thought I was crazy, but for whatever reason, it made them smile.  Whenever I just held up my fingers and then called out “I WILL stay calm!”  “I will DO great on this test!”  “I BELIEVE in myself and so DOES my teacher!” they followed me in unison.

The next week I switched the order around and I stopped saying the words.  I just held up two-three-or one finger and they had to respond. And respond they did.  In some ways it was like a religious call-and-response.  We kept on with this practice, their smiling faces singing out the words of reinforcement.

Then I told them they had to NOT say the words out loud but only think them.

I held up my fingers, they held up their fingers and no one said a thing. At times some faces crinkled up as if they were thinking hard, other faces were calmer and still had their smiles.  They were building a belief in themselves.

Finally it was time for the only one to be holding up any fingers was me and no one said a thing.  They just THOUGHT the thoughts.  I had resorted to brainwashing.

We did this silent ritual before each spelling test every week.  Before the science quiz.  Before the reading comprehension tests.  Kids that never did well started to do better.  Kids who did well did better.  It seemed crazy but I saw them improving. After report cards came out that quarter pretty much everyone had done better than before.  

Unexpectedly, after school, Carolina (pronounced caer-o-LEENA) came back into the classroom with her father. She said he wanted to see me.  Carolina had to translate for her father because he didn't speak much English.

“My father says he wants to know what you’re doing here.” she said shyly looking away from me.  This was indicative of her Hispanic culture, children did not look adults directly in the eye.  I didn’t know this when I started teaching but one day in the teacher’s lounge, complaining loudly how frustrated I was that I couldn’t get some students to look at me when I was talking to them, one of my colleagues explained that this was how they were taught — it was considered disrespectful. 

I knew why Carolina wasn't looking at me but her father wasn't either.

Carolina was a pretty, shy girl, with pierced ears and a gentle manner. She never gave me any trouble in class and just came each day and sat at her desk and tried to do her work.

“I don’t understand the question Carolina,” I told her, ”Does he mean the subjects we study?  Does your father want to know the schedule of subjects for the day?”  She translated in Spanish and spoke in her usual soft voice.  

“No,” she told me looking at her father while talking to me, “He says that he doesn’t understand how I am getting A’s in spelling when I’ve never had them before. He wants to know what you did.”

“Well tell him you’re working very hard,” I said smiling at her through the translation, “and that we’re practicing how to do well on our tests.   Tell him I’m very proud of the progress you’re making.”

As she turned toward her father, and prattled in rapid-fire Spanish, her beautiful white teeth began to show through her lips and I could see that he saw that she was happy and then he looked straight at me and I was happy and as he put his hat back on his head and rose from the too small chair, he was smiling and happy, too.

When Aibilene in The Help is forced to leave the household and her heart breaks at leaving sweet Mae Mobley with a detached mother who shows her little love or affection, she focuses hard on Mae, squats down and holds her at the shoulders and says firmly “Do you remember what I taught you? I need you to remember what I taught you.” and the little girl responds back:

“You is kind.  You is smart. You is important.”

I hope my thirty-one kids (wherever they are) remembered as well.

All About Food

While I'm taking a break from writing, I hope you'll take a look back and read something you missed among these food-related posts, Denise James


Escaping With the Pilgrims, Fork, Knife, and Spoon, Emeline

The Newest Baby Dragon

Dear Andrew,

It will be many, many years before you read this, but I hope your Mom or Dad will read it to you at some point.  I wanted you to know that your birth was highly awaited from coast to coast!  This gift is something I specially picked out for you and I wanted to tell you why.

You were born in the Year of the Dragon, one of the twelve signs in the Chinese Zodiac.  Children born in the Year of the Dragon are considered to be born under the sign of luck and to be original, confident, enthusiastic and fearless in the face of a challenge (among other great and not-so-great things).   And, of the five universal elements in Chinese Astrology, you are tempered by the element of Water, and so am I.

These are two of the things we have in common.  Even though I am so much older than you are (that’s another thing we have in common—your Gramma—she and I have been the very best of friends since 1973!), I am a Water Dragon like you and 2012 is our year. 

I also happen to love art and so when I saw this, I immediately loved it for you.  It was a dragon.  It wasn’t too scary or too goofy.  It was a watercolor. Finally, most excitedly for me, it could be your first piece of art.  
However, there were downsides.

It wouldn’t be anything useful.  You couldn’t appreciate it for years. And—art is very subjective; maybe your parents wouldn’t like it, and worse, maybe you wouldn’t like it. 

Still it felt worth the risk.  If your parents didn’t like it they could stash it in a closet until you were older.  If you didn’t like it, well, let’s not go there.  But if you did like it—if it became an object you loved, then you would always have it with you through your life and then maybe one of your children would have it and so on and so on.

This brings us to another thing we have in common—your mom—your precious, terrific, beautiful and loving mom.  I love your dad but my special bond is with your mom because I was there the day she was born—it was a gift and a treasure for me and one of the most important days in my life.

So, on another special day in my life sometime in the future, we will see one another and you will share what you feel about this dragon, but whatever you feel, you can tell me because I'll want to know, and even if you don't keep the art, please keep the love this gift was meant to bestow—from one dragon to another.

Cheshire Cat

I opened an Easter card from my aunt and uncle and was confronted with a yellowed clipping from the June 27, 1970 Mirror-Spectator with the headline: "Coveted Award to Denise James." It had been a while since 1970, and the 'coveted award' didn't jump to mind until I read that it was The Eisenhower Award for Citizenship. Each high-school graduation featured the girl and boy voted by the entire student body and faculty to “best exemplify high standards of citizenship and the American Way.”


When my name was called, I was quite surprised. I had expected the girl sitting next to me to win; I had voted for her. Debbi Tonnessen was a perky, ever-positive, bubbly kid who was a candy-striper at the local hospital and was forever cheering people up. I thought she deserved the award. We were sitting next to one another because all the seating was done by height and she and I shared the misfortune of being short and solid.

Not my high school but certainly reminiscent!
 Credit:Eric Crump/Marshall Democrat-News  

Debbi nudged me a few times amid the thunderous applause. "Get up," she insisted, "Get up! They called your name!" I looked at her blankly but then rose and made my way to the podium, garbed in cap and gown and smiling at the irony of it all. It was just one of those high-school things.

Earlier in the year, I had been called down to my gym teacher's office, Miss Lankenau (lank-ken-NOW). Miss Lankenau (Teachers were called "Miss" and "Mrs." back then.) was also the coach of my Varsity Cheerleading Squad. It was odd to be called out of class to go down to the gym, and when I got there, she looked kind of uncomfortable.

"What is it, Miss Lankenau? What's wrong?"

"Well," she said slowly, "I've been asked to speak to you about a problem we have."

"What's that?"

"The office has noticed that during assemblies you aren't saying the pledge of allegiance. That concerns some of the staff"
"Why?"

"Because you're not setting a good example, because as a cheerleader — "

"Not setting a good example!" I exploded, "How is not saying the pledge of allegiance, not setting a good example???" I was fuming inside.

"Well, people feel that you're not being patriot..." From the way she said, 'people' I felt clearly she wasn't one of those 'people.'

"I can't believe you're talking to me about this! If anything I'm being MORE patriotic! I actually thought this over and realized that I didn't agree with saying the pledge-of-allegiance! "

She pushed back in her chair and relaxed while I fumed.  "Why don't you tell me why you don't want to say it?" 

"Well, I don't know much about this war in Viet Nam and I certainly don't read the papers enough, but it seems to me that it's kinda weird that we're in a war that no one's declared. I mean, kids are going to fight in a war that not everyone feels we should be fighting. Leslie Herndon's brother is there and he doesn't even know WHY! I just felt that saying the pledge was saying that I agree with and whole-heartedly support everything my country is doing, and right now, I don't feel that way. I don't feel the government is doing the right thing."

"You should know this stand may cause you some problems..." she trailed off.

"What stand? What problems?"

"Well, you're a member of the Varsity cheerleaders and the Girls' Varsity Club." 

"Well what's that got to do with this?" I asked confused.

"Some people feel you may not deserve to be on the squad if you continue to act this way."

"I can't believe this. I can't BELIEVE this!  So I take this seriously and DON'T say the pledge because I don't want to be BLINDLY following along and I get in trouble for it?  Isn't that what the Pledge of allegiance is all about?  Am I not living in a free country??" It took me a moment to let the steam escape.

I exhaled slowly and looked her in the eye.  "Listen, Miss Lankenau, you do what you have to do. If they want to kick me off the cheerleading squad for this, let them. I'm not changing my mind. I stand when the pledge is being said and I'm perfectly respectful, but it's my business whether I say the words or not. And if that's a problem, then it's somebody else's problem — NOT MINE."

My flurry seemed to leave her with not much to say. And though I was outwardly upset, inside I felt a sudden calm.

"Why don't you go back to class now and we'll see what happens." 

"Should I come to practice today?"

"Yes, come to practice. I'll see you later."

As I left her office and headed down the hall, on some level I knew she felt I was right.

When I returned to class (classes had changed and someone had taken my stuff on to the next room for me) I was so beet-red in the face that notes kept getting passed to me to find out what was wrong. Needless to say, I lost no opportunity to vent my anger. Before long, it was throughout the halls and the subject of conversation around various lockers.

At practice that day, Miss Lankenau didn't say much, she just said not to worry about it and let's work on that new formation for the basketball game Friday night.

Cheshire Cat by Ron Glive 

It was never mentioned again, but there at the end of the year and the end of my high-school days, as I stepped up to the podium and shook hands with the principal, I took the Eisenhower Award for Citizenship in the crook of my arm and thought about the “exemplary standards of citizenship and the American Way.”  


I had this big grin spread all over my face.        
                                               

My Cousin Dindoe

Linda lighting up a room

On October 18, 2001, we buried my beautiful, vivacious, always smiling and laughing cousin Linda. It was ironic that in a city surrounded by the sadness and loss of 3000, Linda would be mourned in much the same way as those fallen firefighters — a senseless death that came too soon. To her family, to her friends, and to her community, she too was a hero — not only in the way she lived her life, but in the way she managed her dying.

When I was maybe nine or so, we were playing “doctor” behind my Gramma’s house in the shed where we took our outdoor showers after coming back all salty and sandy from the beach.  That day down at the seashore, Linda told me about the facts of life, such as they were to a twelve-year-old! I don’t remember the details, but I do remember it was about sex, and your period, and how a penis and a vagina came together.  While the conversation was scary, I was so grateful that somebody thought to clue me in — Linda did that for me.  She always remembered to tell me what was going on just out of reach in the grown-up world around me.

Most of my childhood we spent every holiday together, a gaggle of cousins — Linda’s brother Bobby, the oldest; next oldest, my sister, Donna, then Linda, followed by my brother, and last, me.  On big holidays — Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter —  we traveled from home to home, father’s side to mother’s side or vice-versa, but on the other holidays — Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day and Fourth of July —  often Linda’s other first cousins, Johnny and Paulie (from her father’s side of the family), would be with us, too.  Years later, Uncle Charley (our mothers’ younger brother) got married and had two boys who joined the pack as well, but by then, our family had moved a bit further away, the older cousins started dating and going off to college, and those big gatherings were spread thin.

One time, everyone was getting together again because Linda was getting engaged.  I hadn’t met her fiancé yet, but while the aunts were scurrying to and fro in the kitchen, I remember everyone talking about what a “catch” Greg was.  I was puzzled by this talk because I was thinking that she was the real catch.  That night the family celebrated and we slept over.  I stayed in Bobby’s room because he’d gone home to an apartment of his own.  I woke up  to go to the bathroom but moved very quietly so none of the early-rising grown-ups would notice.  It was around 7 am. 

“Lin?”  I whispered insistently as I crept into her bedroom with its big  canopied bed and the frilly pillows.  “Can I get in with you?”  
“What’s wrong?” she said sleepily as she pulled the covers back and moved over to make way for me.  
“I just went to the bathroom for ONE minute and when I came back — my bed was made!”  

She smiled and we both snuggled under, giggling about the insane efficiencies of her mother and mine.

Under the canopy at the cemetery, as person after person passed by her casket, placed a flower on top, and came to hug and cry their grief with the immediate family, I squeezed her brother’s arm tightly.  “Bob, picture this — Linda gets there and the first one she sees is Gramma.  ‘Ho-kee-see (my soul), honey, sweetheart I love you, what are you doing here?  You don’t be here! I love you so much honey sweetie my honey Linda go, yahvroom (little one) —  don’t come yet!’  Gramma in her trademark three-paragraphs-all-in-one-sentence.”  Bob smiled and squeezed me back.  It wasn't until much later at the restaurant that Linda’s youngest daughter said to me, “Auntie?  Did you hear that a few days ago Mommy said to Gramma (Linda’s mom), “What’s Gramma doing on your head?”  At the time, my Aunt Maddy probably thought it was the morphine speaking and dismissed the notion of her dead mother sitting atop her head, but in hindsight, I like to believe that it was our Gramma, come to usher Linda to the next stop on her journey — that Gramma came for Linda because she knew her time had come. 

There was terrible irony in the fact that as another in our family who struggled with weight most of her life (just like me and my sister), Linda died wasting away from a series of cruel cancers.  It was more irony that of all the awful marriages and dysfunctional families out there, hers was a happy, tight-knit, loving family of five, whose three girls had matured into the kind of young women any parent would be proud to call their own.  None yet married — all just at the brink of real adulthood.  The time when, as a kid, you first begin to feel you’re finally on the same playing field as your parents and things even level out more as you become parents and join their once-exclusive club.  Sadly, it’s a time her children will never know.


My father called her “Din-doe.” I don’t know why.  “Dindoe — come over here so I can hit you,” he’d say — his way of teasing.  I have an old black and white Polaroid square shot of Linda, with those white edges framing the picture.  She must be five or six years old in a smocked bathing suit with the thinnest spaghetti straps and buckled shoes on her feet.  She is standing with her fists perched on her hips — this absolute scowl on her face as she stares down the photographer. It’s how I picture her entering heaven and greeting our Gramma, her dad, and mine.

It's Linda's birthday today. I hope she's up there given'um hell.

[PS I just learned that "Dindoe" came from me not being able to say "Linda"!]

Loss

On March 26 it will be seven years since my mother passed away.

Passed away...I’ve come to hate this gentle term that is meant to kindly refer to the loss of those we love. There is no “kindly” nor “gentle” about these losses. They rip and hurt and scar and damage and deplete and sometimes deaden. The death of one we love is often a partial death of ours as well. And while the departed is gone and so is their death, for those remaining, the death continues dying within us. The dying is referenced by the loss of things past, present and future. 


Every time you access a memory, remember something this person shared, you feel the loss. The loss of the one person who would’ve been the reality-check on what actually happened. The person who could serve to triangulate the memory — “Was this how it really was?”

Every time something happens — something good or something bad — you really feel the loss of the one you want to call and tell it to and get the response you were looking for — the “I’m SO sorry.” or “What the f#!@k ??” or “OH-that is so GREAT!!” or "What was she/he THINKING?"

Every time some milestone is approaching or the dream of a milestone filters into your brain — a graduation, a birthday, an anniversary, a wedding, a birth — you sadden at the knowledge that you will never be able to share this future with the one you loved. They won't be present and you feel the death a little bit more.

Some things help. Some do not. It’s hard to say what can make someone feel better about the loss, but in truth, it’s completely subjective. It matters not whether the departed was loved or hated. Both extremes lead to an inner dying. The death of one we hated is often worse as we never get to resolve what was not right; what wasn't fair; what has been left unsaid.

It’s only indifference that lets you off this hook.