MamaStories

I’m reading an interesting book called Talking with Children about loss, written by “Good Grief” counselor Maria Trozzi and co-authored by Kathy Massimini.

I’m always picking up books like those. I read Hope Edelman’s Motherless Daughters, for instance, when I was pregnant, and got many comments, mostly in the vein of “how can you read that now?”. But I am unashamed, because I’m a writer. It gives me the license to “imagine things” without having to be embarrassed about it. So, yes, I’ve imagined the worst for Amie: what if she died, what if I died, what if her father died? I’ve “lived” through these scenarios, and would like to, one day, write a novel about one of them and really explore such an event.

But I read these books first of all because, as any mother, I want to know what to do, or I want DH to know what to do, if Amie experiences a loss. I want to be prepared. Being a bookish person I naturally reach for texts, and find there my knowledge and my hope.

One of the first tasks of mourning, writes Trozzi, is understanding: understanding what death is. Not “going to sleep”, “passing away,” “going to heaven” or “being lost. Death is a physical process that ends everything that we call “human” that attaches to a person’s body. A child needs to understand that, and we need to stop using euphemisms. If a child doesn’t understand the most basic meaning of death, he or she will never be able to deal with loss, will never be able to mourn.

As I read that, I realized I had already started this task with Amie. For one, as I wrote earlier, I don’t want her to be ignorant of where her food comes from: that beef was a cow, that sausage was a pig, the wood in the hearth was a tree, etc.

But it has gone further. Many months ago Amie had repeated nightmares about a dinosaur. She woke up screaming and often would refuse to close her eyes again, because there was a dinosaur in the room, or it was coming. The way we helped her through this fearful time was by simply telling her that the dinosaurs are dead.

“What’s ‘dead’?”

“Dead means the dinosaur can’t move, can’t walk. Dead means he can’t talk, or listen, or look. Dead means his body is lying in the ground somewhere, buried, often even crushed to pieces. So he can’t get up and come here.”

She was quite resourceful. She said:

“But this dinosaur isn’t dead.”

“That’s not possible. All dinosaurs are dead. That’s why we call them a special word: ‘extinct’. ‘Extinct’ means that all the dinosaurs, without exception, are dead. So no dinosaur can come here.”

Sure, she was the only 2,5-year-old who knew the meaning of (and could pronounce) ‘extinct’. But hey, I believe in the power of words (and of their definitions, and of their correct application to the things in the world). And this was one clear-cut example of that power. Amie’s nightmares stopped.

Amie is ill again. She has “upper respiratory problems”. One child sniffs > Amie gets a cold. Our trip to the Science Museum was fun, but by the evening I could see that we had brought home more than a bunch of good memories.

Yesterday she spent the day glued to me. She slept until noon! On me. DH took this sweet picture of us on the sofa.

I look so sleepy, don’t I? It’s not the book I’m reading  though. Try staying awake with such a warm, sleepy body weighing you down!

The book is actually really good. It’s Rick Bass’ Where the Sea Used to Be. I love Bass’ short stories and novellas - I think I’ve read most of them. This was his first full-length novel. I must say I didn’t like the first 31 pages of it: they didn’t speak to me at all. Luckily I don’t give up on books so easily. I was on the verge of feeling very sad and disappointed when, on p.32, the book finally opened up to me, the characters became alive, the language beautifully evocative.

I haven’t been able to put it down since, but the new Orion Magazine arrived in the mail yesterday, so now I struggle to divide my time between the that, Where the Sea Used to Be and The Magic School Bus. And my own novel, and this blog, and some letters I need to write. And playing with the zoo, and the paints, the doll houses and their various assortments of denizens. And the dishes, and laundry…

I’m sitting in the living room, it’s 9:30 pm. And I am listening to Amie screaming that she wants Mama to lie next to her and that she wants to go see Mama.

DH has been ill for a week so he has been sleeping in the guest room/study and has also not been putting Amie to bed at night - I usually do the nap. This evening is the first time he is putting her back to bed and she is hysterical.

The first time she climbed out of the bed I heard him say: “Mama will be angry with you.” This seemed to stall her - the thought of angering me?! - and she stood in the corridor, at the bedroom door, screaming pathetically, not knowing what to do.

I went to her, gave her a hug and explained calmly that it was Baba’s turn to take her to bed and I was right nearby. I carried her to the bed and she resumed her crying. Baba was a bit upset that I hadn’t been angry like he had said.

I felt I shouldn’t be angry with her. I wanted to be supportive (”I know you can do it”) and sympathetic (”I know how you feel”), but also decisive (”I am not coming to bed, you have to go to sleep with Baba”).

I feel Amie and I have become very close this last week, perhaps due to Baba’s semi-absence, perhaps due to her having a high-fever flu over the weekend and spending a lot of time close to me. She comes to give me hugs and kisses more often, more intensely too - harder squeezes, bone-crushing snuggles, softer kisses, the expression on her face always almost one of pain and worry. I hadn’t thought she would also have separation anxiety. Her babysitter came this morning and she let me go off to work without a thought…

Now she is coming out again and I am resolved to sit here in the sofa and not give her a hug. Can I smile

…

I didn’t give her a hug, kept a neutral face, and told her to go back and no, not climb onto the sofa next to me. Baba was right behind her and for a moment we were at an impasse. Amie sobbing in the middle of the living room, me on the sofa trying to keep my cool, Baba in the corridor looking in not knowing what to do.

I could tell he didn’t think I was being firm enough. I told him to pick her up and hug her - as I was evidently prohibited from doing - and to carry her up and down the corridor a couple of times.This seemed to work: she calmed down, probably because she could see me each time they passed by the living room. But then she began to insist she sleep next to me on the sofa - which she did when she was sick - and we were back at square one.

Baba carried her back to the bedroom and closed the bedroom door. She is now screaming even more hysterically and I heard her pulling on the doorknob but Baba must have brought her back to the bed.

Now it’s 10:10 and she is still crying, but calmer, or more exhausted. It reminds me of along period months ago, when she was having such separation anxiety it was almost debilitating to herself and all around her. She screamed when she was dropped off at daycare, when Baba tried to put her to sleep, even when I left the room, and we couldn’t get a babysitter…. She screamed so badly at nap in daycare that we changed her to a mornings-only schedule, which helped tremendously (sleep seems to be a factor here). We stopped the Baba every-other-day bedtime to an only-Baba-bedtime, and after a couple of bad evenings (never as bad as this), it became her routine. We went to Singapore and India where she was kind and open to so many people… When she came back to daycare they called her “a different Amie!”

She needs to be up early to go to daycare. The practical part of me says to just go in and take over and, exhausted as she is, she will be asleep in 5 minutes. The wife part of me feels for Baba - though it is also somewhat upset at his berating me for being too soft - and wants to respect Baba’s belief that if I do that, it will give her the message that screaming will get her what she wants. That’s a belief I subscribe to… but in this situation? The Mama part of me says: just go, go! Then: no, wait! If you go you might precipitate another bout of separation anxiety…

Now she is quiet. Is she asleep?

How to love and nurture your child and also make sure that her love is not so exclusively of you? I want her to love others, for their sake, of course, but for hers first of all. Because what if something happened to me? What if one day I’m not there for her, and the only way she could stop crying is from exhaustion? I think of that possibility every day. I know it happens. But why do I feel that I have to be prepared for that - that I have to prepare her for that?

Why is it is so damn painful! How can something so soft be so damn hard!

It’s 10:20 now and still quiet. Can I go in yet and hug her?

News alert.

This is in from the Childbirth Connection:

Relentless Rise in Cesarean Section Rate
The National Center for Heath Statistics has just released the preliminary U.S. national cesarean rate for 2006: 31.1%. This rate has increased by 50% in the past decade, reaching a record level every year in this century. The most common operating room procedure in U.S. hospitals, cesarean section involves considerable morbidity in women and babies and expense for private payers/employers and Medicaid/taxpayers.

They have a .pdf of a Mothering Magazine article called “Cesarean Birth in a Culture of Fear” on their website. And lots of other information. They’re definitely worth a visit.

Ah well, I’m still not feeling better. Now the voice has gone too, which is such a pity because I can’t read books to Amie, or sing a song, or tell a story. Or even ask her whether she wants cheese or peanut butter… She takes it all in stride, though, and often whispers back at me, very seriously and sympathetically.

This weekend we’re having friends over from NY City. We have visited them and crashed at their place too often, but they rarely reciprocrated. They lead such busy lives! But this weekend they’re coming!

At first I was bummed that I am so sick, and that they’re actually visiting during those worst three days - the having to run out of the room kind of cough, no voice, falling asleep in my chair/sofa because of the penicillin… But now I’m thinking: what a great time to spend with friends! I will just be a better listener. They’ll forgive me if I fall asleep. And they’re the our-home-your-home kind of friends, not the high-maintenance kind. So I can relax.

Amie is thrilled too: their daughter is a year older and Amie looks up to her immensely. It makes for very interesting conversations/interactions. Let’s see if she’ll readily share her toys!

Never in my life have I washed my hands so often! Twenty times a day?

I desperately don’t want Amie to get this throat-infection. It is so painful, it would just hurt me all over if now she got it too. I’m on penicillin, so it should be taken care of soon (if it’s bacterial, which we don’t know yet).  It’s been over three years since I’ve taken antibiotics… This one, however, seemed to just get worse and worse, not better, so I didn’t complain.

I remember a time when being sick was something of a luxury. I’d cut classes for a good reason, lie in bed all day with steaming tea, cookies, and books books books, and my journal of course. On certain sick days I would scribble up thirty pages in my moleskine (and I use the kind without lines because I have a small handwriting). I would read a novel cover to cover…

And sleep, oh sleep! I would sleep. You know? Sleep?

Yeah, that ain’t happenin’ anymore.

Today, on a low fever, I visited the doctor, did grocery shopping, put all that stuff away, did dishes, did (am doing) laundry, then picked up Amie from daycare, ran home with her in the pouring rain, and spent two hours getting her to nap. Something was dreadfully wrong with the blanket because she really did not want it on her Mama. And of course there is me trying not to cough, sniff, breathe in her face, making sure my hands didn’t touch her hands, etc…

Then I extracted myself from her sleeping body (sprawling, top-heavy, all breath and warmth). Then I had lunch. Now I am here, at the laptop, trying not to cough too much. This afternoon and evening it’s all me, because DH has a dinner - the kind where toddlers aren’t invited, and so neither are babysitter-reluctant Mamas…

My tea is ready. “Throat Coat,” it’s called, but despite its horrid name it’s rather yummy, with licorice.

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

• Ernestine

I will keep on revisiting Ernestine Huckleby, who in 1969 sat down with her family to a meal of home-raised pork in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The hog had been fed grains that had been treated with the pesticide Panogen, which contained methyl mercury. Two months later, three of the children fell ill. Ernestine, just 9, was by far the worst off.

As icons - warnings against the health threats of mercury and the negligence of big corporations - Ernestine and her family are still alive and well (cf. William’s comment). But Ernestine the child has been forgotten.  What happened to her? A search on the internet reveals nothing.

Today I got access to some old articles in the New York Times. I can tell you some of the rest of her story.

• 1970: First year

The long article “Mercury in Food: a Family Tragedy, a Federal Nightmare,” written by Waldron for the NY Times on 10 August 1970,  mostly deals with the history of the poisoning and the aftermath in government institutions, companies and courts of law. But there is some information about how the children fared, and interviews with their mother and caregivers.

We learn that, soon after exhibiting the symptoms of mercury poisoning, Ernestine complained of feeling sick and pain in her back. As she was taken from doctor to doctor, she got worse quickly, going into convulsions, losing her sight, and ultimately falling into a semi-coma. Then her older siblings, Dorothy Jean and Amos, started showing the same symptoms, and also slipped into comas. They were finally diagnosed with mercury poisoning and treated.

When they ate the meal, Mrs. Huckleby was 7 months pregnant. In March, baby Michael was born. On August 10, when this article was written, the baby still seemed fine.

The article is clear about the two older siblings. Dorothy Jean, who was the least affected, was the first to show signs of improvement, regaining most of her sight and learning again how to walk and speak. Amos too awoke from his coma, and was learning to talk and walk again, but he would never see again.

After informing us that “with Amos and Ernestine, the outlook is not so good”, Ernestine is no longer mentioned.

•  1971: Ernestine awakens from coma

The article “In 18 Months, Mercury-Poisoned Girl Is Almost Well”, written by Ralph Blumenthal for the NY Times on 6 June, 1971, reports on Dorothy Jean’s almost miraculous recovery. Amos is said still to be confined to a wheelchair and having difficulty speaking. At 14 months, baby Michael, who was thought to be normal at birth, turned out to be blind and severaly mentally retarded.

Ernestine, who was 10 at that time, remained in the hospital, having awakened from a more than year-long coma. She was still blind and unable to move except for rolling over and moving her arms a few inches. Probably it was around this time that the photo of her that heads this entry was taken.

But what was the extent of her brain damage? In other words, was she thinking and feeling? Was she conscious?  The article does not say.

• 1974: Ernestine goes home

Another article informs us that in 1974, Dorothy Jean and Amos were doing very well. Dorothy Jean lived in her own apartment with her 6-year-old son, and had two clerical jobs. Amos lived at home and attended a high school for the blind. He could walk again, though not for long distances, and spoke with difficulty.

Ernestine, we learn, returned home to be cared for by her parents.

• 1974-76: In court

Next there is a whole slew of articles on how the case fared in several courts.

The family lost its suit against the Federal Government, for $3.9 million, in August 1974. But they won the $3.6 million lawsuit against three companies, in that they settled out of court in February of 1976, just a few hours after the trial started. The figure of the settlement was never revealed,  except that it was “very generous”.

• The end?

That’s it! I could find nothing more. Are you as disatisfied as I am?

I’ll keep digging. I believe she deserves our recognition as a person - I was almost going to write, “as a child”, but today she would be 47 years old, if indeed she is still alive.

• A photograph 

I was leafing through an old National Geographic compilation book called As We Live and Breathe, The Challenge of Our Environment, when I chanced upon a two-page spread devoted to the Huckleby family and a large photograph that took my breath away. I reproduce it here, not knowing who the photographer or copyright holder is.

This is Ernestine Huckleby.

• Ernestine’s story

In 1969, in Alamogordo, New Mexico, her family sat down to a meal of pork from a hog they had raised themselves. A year earlier, the pig had been fed grains that were not meant for consumption (animal or human), but only for planting more grains. They had been treated with the pesticide Panogen, which contained methyl mercury.

Though all the family members showed high doses of mercury in their bodies, only three of the childen were severely affected. There is conflicting information on the web. The most repeated story is that “one was deafened, another was blinded, a third arrived at the hospital raving mad.” The photographs in the National Geographic book paint a more complex picture: a young woman (Dorothy Jean Huckleby) learning to walk with crutches, and a teenager (Amos Charles), blind but learning to speak again. Of the little girl, whose age I can’t ascertain, the book says “Blinded, mute, her hearing and powers of movement severely impaired, Ernestine Huckleby clings to life”.  There also seems to have been a baby still in utero when her mother ate the pork, and she was born with a severely damaged central nervous system.

• Iconized and forgotten

Back in 1970, when the story made national headlines, it forced the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to ban and recall all mercury-containing pesticides.  Today “the Huckleby Poisoning” still stands as one of the icons for the innocents who are harmed by environmental destruction in the interest of commercial gain and under the “watchful” eye of the government.

But Ernestine, she is forgotten.

When you Google “Ernestine Huckleby”, you get one irrelevant search result. The web, where everyone lives nowadays, does not acknowledge her.

This iconization is a good thing: such images stick in our minds and move our hearts like no theory, accumulation of scientific data or political manifesto can. They make us think, feel, speak out. But does it have to come at such a price?

• Dreaming of Ernestine

The world snapped a picture. The face became an icon. It discarded the little girl behind it, behind those eyes. 

Tonight I will dream of Ernestine, dancing and skipping, singing and laughing. Then I will dream about the world slamming shut on her. Is she still there, in that little girl clutching the stuffed animal with the pink bow? It is terrible to admit it: I hope not. I hope Ernestine too forgot herself. The alternative is simply too horrific.

Update: more of Ernestine’s story here.

• Dreaming of moving out

I love this place, especially when summer comes around, as it finally has. The hustle and bustle of Coolidge Corner and Brookline Village, the treelined streets, the many large, grassy parks, the general friendliness of the community, oh and not to forget the two independent bookstores, one of them the Children’s Bookshop. Work/school/daycare are less than 3 miles away… Who could ask for more?

Still, I often dream of moving out. I dream of it constantly, now.

But where is “out”? What does it mean?

• Peace and quiet

“Out” for me is, first of all, into a place where I can have some peace. I’ve become very sensitive - my senses have - to the small polluting ways of city life. All summer means to me, sometimes, is the surround sound of airconditioners: on and on they drone, while their owners aren’t even at home. Across the street, the engine of a parked car has been running for an hour now, to keep it cool inside. To top it all off, a leafblower starts up close by, filling the apartment with more noise and gasoline fumes…

Then it is hard for me to concentrate on the frolicking of the Red Cardinals in the bushes outside my window, and the beautiful narcissi bending in the breeze. I resort to terrible thoughts of vengeance. Like, last year I planted some wildflowers near our front door - one neighbor called them “weeds, all kinds of silliness”. Now they’re back: a neat row where I planted them, and all over the neighborhood! All those manicured lawns, overrun by weeds… Oops!

• That panic pushes me

But all “silliness” and petty griping aside, the roots of my pain reach beyond mere aesthetics. All those wasteful habits are guzzling away our children’s futures, polluting the air and the silence, our bodies and our souls. I read the news on peak oil, global warming, bees getting lost… and I feel lost myself. I try to keep my panic under control: I want it to be practical, constructive, realistic, rational, reasonable.

But I am overwhelmed with the feeling that everything I am doing is useless. I can’t concentrate on my dissertation, which needs to be finished by May next year. Or on my freelance writing or the potboiler that is so much fun to put together. Or on the many other projects I have knocking about in my head and on my desk. None of them will make a difference that will count.

And the small things we’re doing to make a difference don’t add up to enough.

• Cut and run

I would dearly like to make a difference here, make it work here. I don’t like running away; it seems like a defeat to me. And everyone (who is priviliged enough to be able to)running off to the country or the wilderness would just make matters worse. But I bump up against the limits of this place, this community, and they suffocate me. Not being allowed to compost, for instance, angers me. Every time we bring up renewable energy as an alternative to our oil-heating, we are ignored. Residents only think as far as they are planning to own their appartment: any “future investments” are up to their buyers.

I don’t get shrill (except here perhaps: is this shrill?). I’m not the assertive kind. I wish I were an activist, but I crumble in any kind of confrontational situation. I can’t make this place change. So I plan our escape. I count my blessings: easy access to information, an ability to do the research, and a husband who will one day, once I have enough information, arguments and confidence, understand the wisdom and the need to execute the plan.

• A child’s role

Amie plays a large role in my “enlightenment,” which started to burn more brightly a couple of months ago. Yes, she is almost 2 years old. But it took me at least a year to get over the shock of motherhood, to settle back into the habit of sleep and a clear mind so I could think beyond tomorrow.

Also, the rapid development of her cognitive and language skills is forcing me to more articulateness, thoughtfulness, and accountability.

Because, one of these days, she is going to ask: Why?

I dread that day, and I dream of it with a passion. And I want to be ready.

• The plan

So here’s the plan:

1. to be self-sufficient for a large chunk of our food: grow vegetables, plant fruit trees, keep chickens and even goats, and even, even bees…
2. to be self-sufficient for at least some of the objects we use: furniture, toys, clothes, housing, electricity and heating…
3. to be autonomous, self-regulating, responsible.
4. to be skillful, handy, creative, flexible.
5. to be confident and active after questioning, discerning, investigating (a never-ending process).
6. to be a good stewart of what little of nature is under our “control”, and respectful of the rest.
7. to be happy and joyful.
8. …

I thought it would be a long list, but this is really all I want. Is it so much to ask for? Is it so hard to get?

Amie had a mild pneumonia a month-and-a-half back, and she has been suffering from a little cough even since she recovered. On Thursday night the cough grew worse, her nose started running, by Friday morning we were at the pediatrician’s listening to scary words like ASTHMA and STEROIDS, and by Friday evening we were in the Children’s Hospital ER.

It’s not too bad: Amie’s on the Albuterol again (third box), and the steroids of course (the mention of which still makes me shiver).  But so be it…

I’m coming down with something too. I guess this is the one - and only (in my eyes) - drawback of co-sleeping: you catch one another’s germs more easily. Though I doubt I would still be healthy even if she slept in a room at the other side of our huge mansion.

So this is all to say that I might not be posting over the next couple of days. And I was just on a roll!