Giving Up

For several months, I had been seized by a lingering headache. A dull throbbing, as if someone put a vice on my temples, tightening it ever so slightly. The other day, I realized that I've been having an ongoing dialogue with my sister in my head, going over snippets of what I could remember of our arguments, replaying her complaints, trying to decipher what she was saying, trying to see them from a new angle. Sometimes, I'm pleading with her, other times trying to reason, and then on other occasions, screaming and cursing her out. Depending on what's going on in my head, I'm either hopeful, resigned, or angry. And when I'm angry, the anger seethes out. And then the tears fall, whether I'm with Jeff, my kids, or some random stranger.

I realized that I've been doing this for the past seven years, ever since she estranged me. Trying to find some way to open a channel of communication. Trying to find my way out of this Kafka-esque maze, trying to shake the surreal out of my reality. Last month, I went to New York after avoiding it for three years, reluctant to go back and be hit in the face with our broken family, reluctant to put my parents in the awkward position of dealing with their daughters in separate transactions, as if we were hostile animals to be kept in separate cages. I finally decided to return, because I no longer had my children's ages as an excuse for not traveling long distance, because I no longer wanted to live in avoidance.

We decided to tack it on after my college reunion in Chicago to avoid making two trips to the East Coast. Soon after we arrived in New York, I found out that my sister's wedding at City Hall was scheduled to be held that week. What crappy planning on our part. How worse could our timing have been?

It turned out to be a strange week, with me encouraging my mom to wear a dress, not trousers, to the wedding and urging her not to show up empty handed, even if she already gave them a big fat check. Then shopping with my mom to help her buy a dress for the event, helping her pick out a wedding present, a card, wrapping paper. Then driving her back to Rite Aid because the wrapping paper turned out to be clear cellophane instead of silver lining. Listening to my parents talk through the logistics of the day, figuring out which train to take to the city. Me, always the dutiful daughter, offering to drive them to the train station so that they wouldn't have to walk blocks in their get up from the only lot that wasn't filled by mid-morning. Watching Jeff drive off with them in my place to go to the train station so that I could avoid making a scene in front of them with my mom's makeup all done. Standing next to my mother as she talks to my sister on the phone listening to her explain why she can't come out to Long Island to meet us for dinner even though Jeff and I are visiting with our kids.

In the midst of all this, I found myself seething at my parents. When all this started, I had begged them to help me somehow. To help us with this breach. To try to find some way to help us resolve this. But they claimed to be powerless. When does she ever listen to us, they said. What can we do? 

I found myself screaming at them. You're the parents. Show some leadership. Other parents figure out a way to help. Why can't you! Why are you so passive? When have I ever asked you to help me before? I'm so angry at you, so angry. 

My parents advised that's how things are sometimes. You grow older, you grow apart. You now have your own family to worry about. Siblings can't stay close when you have your own lives. 

I was disgusted by their sense of fatalism, their passivity. I argued with them and tried to convince them of their power, their ability to persuade, to lead. To keep the family together.

I found myself vowing never to come back. It's too hard, I told my mom. It hurts too much.

The rest of the visit, however, was amazingly pleasant, despite all this. We arrived to find the house immaculate and stocked with all things organic, including bags of cherries, pints of blueberries and raspberries, cereal, milk, meat, and even the bath and hand soap, this from my parents who had previously stepped into their local Whole Foods once. They splurged the kids with new gifts of toys and mounds of snacks. And they had rounded up all the toys they could find remaining from our childhood days.

Most mornings, we packed a huge bag of snacks and piled into our rental minivan, where my mom sat next to our son, and my dad next to my daughter (who found it amusing to wave at them periodically during the drive when she wasn't napping). We spent the days as tourists with my parents, visiting the Museum of Natural History, the Long Island Children's Museum, the Cradle of Aviation Museum. Taking a cruise around the Statue of Liberty. My children rode a carousel with my parents, who said they might as well since when are they going to have another opportunity. My mom first insisted on riding the horse that pumped up and down, but as the whirl of the power started, she jumped off and plopped next to my dad on the fixed bench. We spent two mornings at a driving range where our son played putt putt golf with my parents, even though the grounds were sopping wet from rain the prior day. After, they yelled at the guy working on the golf course to get the train out, their grandkids wanted a ride. The guy ran over to some rusty shed and came out creaking in a 4 car train, dutifully blowing the horn to let the kids know that the train had arrived. We all then piled on and sat in that damn thing as the guy drove us over a rubbled path and circled the parking lot twice. The remaining mornings, we spent with our kids giggling in a kiddie pool in my parents' backyard while Jeff menaced with the water hose.

Then, every day, just hours after we had stuffed ourselves with a full breakfast, they herded us to a restaurant where they ordered dishes upon dishes, encouraging us to eat, heaping food on our kids' plates. When they saw how well our son ate at their favorite Korean BBQ place, they made plans to return three days later. Then after we had stuffed ourselves, they had us pull over at a Korean grocery or Whole Foods so that we could pick up more food. And as we drove home, my dad pointed out to my three and half year old son every single golf driving range or course on which he had played.

As our visit unfolded, I found myself exhausted. But with a slightly different perspective.

I started to realize that it's time to give up hope. To give up hope of having a cohesive family. To give up hope of reconciling. To give up some romantic version of the Waltons that we'll never be. When I found out about my sister's wedding, I realized that a part of me had been holding out for an invitation to the wedding, because my mom had told me late last year that she planned to invite me. How foolish I had been to hope for some reconciliation after all these years. Let's face it. When someone hasn't talked to you in seven years, you aren't getting a damn invitation to her wedding. And it's time to face that. We're never going to reconcile. Not after seven years.

When someone refuses to talk to you for seven years, nothing can change. They are not willing to entertain any new set of facts, any new piece of information to inform their actions. They don't want to see it through a new perspective. They have already made up their minds. They have closed themselves off. It's so obvious now, but I don't know why I didn't see that before.  

Even if I had anything new to say, I don't even think it'll make a difference. For most of our adult lives, I had been such a good sister to her. I don't think she would deny it. I always thought of her and always included her in my life. I can't remember a single close friend of mine that I didn't introduce her to. I remember her calling me when she was in high school, needing help convincing my parents to let her go to her choice of college. And I did as requested, talking to my parents for hours on the phone, doing all I could to convince them. I remember keeping her boyfriends secret from my parents and always being available to listen to her talk about the guys in her life, her work situation, her friends, her books. I always invited her out to visit me wherever I lived, sometimes her and her friend, paying for her plane tickets and whatever expenses she incurred during her visit. I remember going out to North Carolina to help her move, even getting stung by a bee in the eye during the process, and doing that again when she was living in New York. I remember taking her on a trip to the Yosemite, to LA, to Paris, paying for all of the expenses, the tickets, figuring out our itinerary for the whole week. I remember always buying her a souvenir first before even buying my own whenever I went away on a trip. I remember helping her move in with me in San Francisco, buying her ticket, clearing out a room for her, buying her new furniture, even when I was strained with my new mortgage in my new house, and throwing her a brunch so that she could meet all of my friends.

Despite all that, she didn't see any point in giving me the benefit of the doubt. Of taking pause before kicking me to the curb. Not that I think I should get a free pass. No, but I should have had some reserve of goodwill to at least warrant a second chance before exile. But it made no difference. So why should anything I do in the future make any difference?

What hurts the most is that she gave me no room to be a human being, blind to my own flaws. And that she cut off any hope of me learning from her, growing from our tensions, gaining a new perspective as a result. I remember her complaining that I demeaned her by ordering for her in the restaurants when we ate out. And now I look back and think it so strange that I did that. Why did I do that? So strange. But maybe not so strange in a family where I order for my parents at every restaurant. But whatever the reason, she gave no latitude for me to be blind to my own actions, to have the generosity to accept that I may have some human flaws that I could one day overcome.

But it hardly matters now. That reconciliation is never going to happen. I see that now. I told my parents this time. I told them my expectation that I will not see her until one of their funerals. Their eyes widened but they nodded along.

But I'm also realizing that we could be a family without my sister. Me, with my kids and Jeff, and my parents. We could still be a family. And I don't have to wedge my sister in the middle to make us cohesive. We could still be a family with just us, without her.

I let this problem with my sister get in the way of my relationship with my parents. Because I blamed them. I blamed them for not being able to help us. I thought they had failed in one of their basic functions as a parent. I also blamed them for us getting into this predicament in the first place. For putting me in the role of the domestic taskmaster while they worked 16 hour days. For making me my sister's keeper. For using me as a conduit to speak to her when they couldn't figure out a way to connect with her directly. For using me to influence her when they abandoned their own powers. But my dad is in his 70s now, my mom in her late 60s. There's too little time left to quarrel.

After our plane landed in San Diego, I called my parents to let them know that we had arrived. My mom answered. After the initial greetings, she said, "I wish we could come out to visit you once a year and you could come out to New York once a year." I found my responding, "Maybe, Mom. Maybe..."

Hawaii

Next week, we're heading out to Hawaii. We love going out there. The kids love playing in the water, and we stay in beautiful resorts that feel like paradise. We live a blessed life, and we know it. Jeff and I say it to each other almost everyday -- how lucky we are to live as we do. We have very few worries, we have beautiful children, and we have each other.

Last summer, we took my parents with us. It was our way of saying thanks for them helping us with our daughter after she was born. They put their lives on hold for almost a month to help us out, and we repaid with ten days in Big Island. When we stepped into the lobby of The Fairmont and saw the panorama of the resort grounds, my parents' jaws dropped. I had taken them to Hawaii before, but we didn't stay in such a nice place last time. Every morning, before we even woke up, they had walked all over the grounds, looking at all the flowers, the trees, the birds, and the geckos. Then we met for the breakfast buffet, where they piled up their dishes as I had never seen them piled up before. Then they got up for a second round, before going back for desserts.

After eating, we usually headed over to the beach so that my son could play in the water while I sat under the cabana with our infant. My parents joined us some mornings, and on others, they went to play golf. Then it was time for a meal of crab rolls and hamburgers. After, the kids napped indoors while my parents napped in the cabana. In the evening, we went out for dinner and ate delicious sushi at the fabulous Monstera restaurant right outside the resort.

I had never seen my parents so relaxed and happy. Most times, when my parents visit, my mom is so busy trying to help that we usually get into arguments. I ask her to stop doing my laundry or my dishes, and she shoos me away, telling me to go watch my kids. Then, she gets exhausted and then gets irritated with my dad for not helping enough, even though he does everything she asks him to do. When we were in Hawaii, there was nothing to do. All they could do was relax on the beach, take walks, or play golf. No time for irritation.

This past month, we went to NY to visit them. On a table in their living room, they had the framed photos of Hawaii that I had sent them. And attached to the frame was a coaster from the resort, where my dad had jotted down the dates we had spent in Hawaii.

This year, we are going alone, and I felt a little guilty telling them that we were going. But we are already planning a trip to Sedona with them this winter, and I expect my dad to save another coaster from that trip.

Giving Myself a Break

A couple of months ago, I met with an admissions assistant at University of San Diego's Masters in Family Therapy program.  He was a young guy -- in his early 30s perhaps. We chatted for just 30 minutes about the admissions requirement so that I can start thinking about how someone like me -- someone post career no. 1, someone midlife, someone with a family -- can start to incorporate a masters program into her life. We sat in a small conference room, he with a brochure, me with a purse and a single piece of paper with all of my questions. I asked all the questions off of my list, and he gave me the answers that he gives in his capacity. After the short meeting, I walked around the building, briefly peering into classrooms where lecturers stood in front of whiteboards and a few kids in hooded sweatshirts sat hunched over their computers. As I walked around, I found myself muttering, "Really? Am I going to leave my kids at home with some stranger so that I can come sit here? Really??"

Shortly after that visit, I pushed aside the idea of doing a MFT program. If I'm so ready to push it aside, maybe it's not the right path for me. Maybe I really wasn't that into it in the first place -- not that committed to the idea. Maybe...

For the past few months, we've had a babysitter for about 12 hours a week so that I can figure these things out. I haven't been doing anything with that time other than blogging and entertaining the idea of doing something with my writing. I love writing. It grips me at my core -- deep inside where it really matters. Like any other craft, I need to keep at it -- practice it, immerse in it -- knead it like dough. Despite my shortcomings, I find it fulfilling in a way few other things are. But how do you make a living with it, make it a career? I know others do -- so why do I doubt that I can? I feel like such a coward at times. I've never taken a risk in my life. Not really. And I wonder what I even have to say that's worth saying -- really, is anything I have to say any different than what anyone else feels or says? And how could I ever write as beautifully as some of those writers out there? What about all those people with PhDs in literature, those who've read everything worth reading? I haven't read a book in ages -- I feel like such a phony.

Last night, I read some interviews with Kazuo Ishiguro. For the past year, I've been obsessed with his book Never Let Me Go, and I can't stop thinking about it. So I was just poking around on the net after putting my son down for the night, and what a pleasant surprise that he wasn't schooled in literature. He wanted to be a musician and went onto writing only when he couldn't make a success of a music career. He then went onto a MFA program. In one of the interviews, he identified the few writers who formed the foundation of his writing. I copied down that list.

I'm still floundering, but it's clear that I need some more structure. I've been all over the map lately. I sometimes think I should get the MFT because I can use that knowledge as a basis for writing anyway, even if I decide not to become a therapist. Other days, I'm convinced that I need to become a journalist, and build my foundation for writing that way. I've also considered just blogging -- using this as my basis for writing and launching my writing career that way. Since my time is so limited these days anyway, isn't that a good use of my time?

I've even been going back and forth about signing up for an online class. One class. Which takes up just a couple of hours a week. Just because it's right around dinner time, and I'm not sure whether I should delay the kids' dinner time so that I could sit in front of the computer.

What is wrong with me??!!

Ugh, ok, as I'm writing this, it's becoming obvious that I just need to sign up for a class. Stop feeling so guilty. I'm allowed to do this, right? What's the harm? I can spend a few hundres bucks on a class. I can. Really. Right??

My Favorite Time

Near the end of the day, after I've stacked all the crusty dishes in the dishwasher, washed the highchair tray for the eighth time that day, picked up smeared beets and clumped shredded cheese and sticky rice off of the high chair and floor, scrubbed the bottles and tiny spoons with the brush, and left all the leftovers on the table for Jeff to handle, I pick up my little girl. Even though I had just given her a bath less than an hour earlier, little gobs of rice and cheese are tangled in her wisps of hair. She smells of sweet potato and milk and cheese. I cart her over to the sink and rinse off what I can, even though she protests by pulling her hand back before all the soap has been washed out. I stretch her little limbs to meet the faucet once again and shrink back when she threatens to grab its mouth and splash us both. As I carry her down the hall to change her yet again, she giggles and coos and talks to me in her secret language.

We make our way upstairs, with her still cradled in my arms and a milk bottle in my hand. I bounce up the stairs with a little extra jolt to squeeze in her last fun for the day, as I exclaim, "Bouncy, bouncy, bounce!" She giggles with each jolt, squeezing her eyes and scrunching her nose. Upstairs, I click on one reading lamp, just enough to help me make my way across the room, where I bundle her in two layers of wearable blankets, and with the push of a button, I make raindrops magically fall without rain. As I zip her up, her hands rise to her eyes and she rubs and rubs as if suddenly lured by the spell of sleep.

I pick her up once more and we move back across the room to sit on the glider. There, I nestle her in my lap with her back stretched across my left arm. With my other hand, I pick up the bottle and hold it up for her. Her mouth reaches for it eagerly, even though we had just eaten minutes earlier, and she fills up for the night. Her head rests on the hollow of my neck, and she slumps with a sudden heaviness, as if giving in, no longer fighting. I rock ever so gently, gently enough to help her find her rhythm of sleep.

There, while she drinks, I hold her. I pull her in a little closer and press my cheek against her forehead. I feel her warmth, her softness, the tickle of her hair. I breathe in the familiar, comforting scent of her skin. I listen to her breathe. I kiss her all over her face and pull up her tiny hand to plant some more kisses there.

When she is done, she pushes the bottle away. She rubs her eyes some more, and I keep rocking her. She rolls herself over and pulls up her head to look at me. She puts her delicate finger on my nose to say "nose." Then she folds herself into a little ball on my lap and shifts around to find a comfortable spot. I pick her up once more and ferry her across the room. I swing her slowly as I walk, whispering, "It's sleepy time." I lean over to kiss her a few more times, to smell her, to breathe in her breath, before I lean over to lay her in her crib. I run my hand down her hair and her cheeks as I say good night. With her eyes barely open, she kicks a couple of times in the air, then rolls over onto her stomach, turns her head to face the wall, and positions herself for sleep.

I linger a bit. Standing over her crib, I watch her shift and settle down. I see her back rise and fall. I fidget a bit with the curtain and then the stuffed animals sitting by the side. Then I watch some more. Then, reluctantly, I tip toe away and leave her in the care of the night.  

Our Weekend

When Jeff worried on Saturday evening that Sherlock may not make it through the night, I brushed aside his concerns. "He'll be fine," I said with a wave of the hand. "You just gave him his medication. It takes some time for it to kick in, and when it does, I'm sure he'll start eating again. You'll see."

Earlier that day, a little after 2pm, we arrived home after brunch at our friends'. All morning, Jeff waited for a call from the vet and the result of the biopsy, which would then determine the course of treatment. He spoke to the receptionist who told him that the vet wasn't in on the weekend and wouldn't be in until Tuesday. "I was told that we would have the results in 24 hours. We cannot wait until Tuesday," Jeff told the lady evenly. "Our dog is sick, and we need to get him his medication." Hours and multiple calls later, we finally had the medication. Sherlock hadn't eaten for days, and we were hoping the medication would help him regain his appetite.

After he fed Sherlock his one and half pills of prednisone, Jeff prepared the guest bedroom for Sherlock. He couldn't stand to leave Sherlock outside in such condition, despite T's allergies. He laid some towels on the carpet since all of Sherlock's beds were now weather beaten and filthy from being left outside. Jeff spent the night down there after helping put the kids to bed.

In the morning, Sherlock looked better. He still wasn't eating, but Jeff put some peanut butter around his pills and helped him swallow. In his bowl, we left out two of his favorite foods, salmon and cheese, and left to do our outing for the day. When we returned after lunch, we noticed that Sherlock still hadn't eaten and had thrown up what little he had. He was sitting by the side of the house, and Jeff cajoled him to his kennel where he could lie on his pad. When Sherlock started walking, his gait was staggered and he barely made it across the narrow yard.

While I was inside helping T go down for his nap and feeding S, Jeff sat outside with Sherlock hugging him and petting him. About an hour later, I went outside to see how they were doing. I saw Jeff sitting in front of the dog house crying. "I think I have to take him in," he said. "Look how he's suffering." Through the grates of his dog house, I could see Sherlock prostrated with his sides heaving up and down as if he were weighted down with bricks.

"Oh, no..." was all I could manage to say, and we cried and cried. "Tell me if that's not the right decision," Jeff asked through his tears. And I said, "I don't know, I don't know. I don't know when you're supposed to do something like that. How do you know?"

Jeff walked down the driveway with Sherlock's pad to put it in the back of his truck. Then he came back and waited for me as I finished petting him. He tried to cajole Sherlock out of the kennel but Sherlock couldn't move. Jeff reached in and pulled him out. Then, he picked him up and carried Sherlock's drooping 63 pound frame to the truck. There, Jeff hoisted him up on the back door propped open and climbed up. Once up there, Jeff picked up Sherlock once again and placed him on his pad. From his pad, Sherlock lifted his head to look at me as I stood on the curb. Then they drove away.

Jeff returned less than an hour later. I saw him come in through the gate and start throwing things away. Two doggie bowls, a doggie pad, kennel, a roll of poop bags, shampoo, brush. He said Sherlock didn't even make it to the hospital. When they arrived, Sherlock was barely breathing, and he died in Jeff's arms in the back of the truck.

Just two weeks ago, he seemed perfectly fine. Then this past Thursday, we found out that he probably had cancer, and three days later, he was gone. I can't stop thinking of the book Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, where people are born burdened, fated for a cruel end, and yet they live looking forward, propelling themselves to the next rite of passage. When I read the book, I thought days on end about how true it was, and now I can feel how true it is. And I feel so burdened -- burdened with our fates and what we've brought on ourselves -- by having a pet, by having children. I think of our aging parents, of our numbered days, our vulnerability.

I wish I had been kinder to him instead of treating him as a source of irritation all those days. That I had petted him more. That I hadn't shooed him out of my way all those times. That I had been more of a pal than an enforcer.

Maybe I'm too old to be learning these lessons, but then again maybe you're never too old to learn such lessons. I think of the 10 years that passed so quickly, and how those years sum up to nothing more than the time spent with each other. And I think about how I have to love my children and Jeff a little more, how I have to hug and kiss them a little more, how we have to laugh a little more. I think about my friends I want to see, the talks we can have, the times we can share. I think about being a little more kind, a little more generous, a little more forgiving. And with those thoughts, life feels a little less and a little more at the same time.

Another Day

When we awoke, it was a day like any other. Little T ran into our room, screaming, "I'm awake! Mommy, Daddy, I'm awake. It's morning time!" In spurts from her crib, Little S cried "mamamamamama, mamamamama," until Jeff crawled out of bed and picked her up. When I managed to drag myself out from under the cover, T wrapped himself around my arm and screamed, "Mommy, I want to be with you, I want to be with you!" as he smothered me with open mouthed kisses.

I pried myself loose and ran downstairs to grab some milk for S and headed back up. After the milk, the change of diaper, the pee-pee on the potty, the undressing of pajamas and then the dressing into the day's outfit, after a discussion on whether it was a school day or a swim class day, we all scurried downstairs. After Jeff burned the frozen waffles and made another for T, after S nibbled on prunes and kiwi to make her business a little less unpleasant, I took my shower. Then I ran into the garage to unload the laundry dried the night before and to load yet another load in our never-ending cycle of laundry. When I turned with my basket in hand, I noticed a stack of plastic bins leaning, threatening to crush us, and I called Jeff into the garage to rearrange the plastic bins to remove the one with the broken lid on the bottom and set them straight. After the rearranging, we made plans to go out for lunch. Then, Jeff hurried out to take T to his morning swim class while I cleaned the smeared fruit off of S's face.

When Jeff and T returned, I loaded the kids into the car to go to playgroup. At E's house, we nibbled on snacks, chatted with other moms and cooed at other babies, rubbed smeared paint off of T and S as they expressed their artistic inclinations at the craft table. After the hour passed in what seemed like minutes, I hurried out with the kids to try to make it home in time to meet Jeff as we had planned. In the car, I checked my phone and noticed his email, canceling our lunch, explaining that he needed to take Sherlock to the vet for a follow up exam, that it wasn't looking good.

I drove around with the kids strapped in their carseats, little S fast asleep, T prattling on as he always does. We headed for the McDonalds drive thru, where I could feed T his lunch without disrupting little S's nap. After debating the disadvantages of the cheeseburger versus the chicken mcnuggets, we settled on the cheeseburger, which he promptly decided not to eat after poking five holes through the buns because he found the cheese not to his liking, although he ate the apple slices and drank the milk. I drove us back home and finally, impatient, and unable to entertain T any longer, I awoke S from her nap and herded us inside. After some playing with legos and magna tiles and tea sets, T fell asleep after I bribed him with an after-nap movie.

Three hours later, Jeff still wasn't home, and I left him a voicemail and a text, wondering what the hell was taking so long. S and I flipped through fourteen different board books, pointing at dog, dog, ruff, ruff, kitty, kitty, meow, meow, and duck, duck, quack, quack. I refilled the ball popper again and again as she giggled and bounced up and down in delight. We walked around the living room and then through the kitchen, and then through the living room again, with her soft tiny hand wrapped around my index finger. I wedged myself between her and the garbage drawer where she likes to practice her newly discovered hobby of throwing tissues away, after daintily dabbing away at her little mouth, me hoping she would never discover the crushing pain of closing doors.

As we took yet another turn around the living room, I heard the gate squeak open, and I scooped S up and headed to the front door. There I saw Sherlock lingering around his dog house next to the bowl of dry food still left uneaten, his belly shaven of fur in a large rectangular patch the size of a laptop, and no sight of Jeff. Still carrying S, I walked out the front door, toward the front gate when I saw Jeff come out from behind the garage where he had been throwing something out.

He saw me, came up the three steps into our front yard, and standing with his hand extended to steady the swinging gate, said with an attempted smile, "I took him for a swim," pointing at Sherlock. "How did it go? Did the vet figure out what's wrong?" I asked.

And he looked up once again and looked back down, with his hand still on the gate, as he said, "So, he has cancer. They did all the tests and the ultrasound showed the lumps and they're pretty sure that's what it is. And we can do chemo but it's eight thousand dollars and it may or may not give him another six months and I always thought it made no sense for dogs when there are kids out there who can't get treatment and maybe we just donate that money where it can be used for a kid. They think he has a few weeks left, but they have some steroid treatment they can try..."

And he kept talking as if he were afraid to stop talking, afraid to take a breath, afraid to let the words run out. And as he talked, my ears must have gotten stuck many words ago, right around the beginning when he said the word cancer and a part of my brain must have been trying to process it because I stood very still as the word began to sink in. And I felt myself starting to crumble. It was as if someone had injected me with some narcotic, making my body feel heavy, weighted, overtaken by emotion and tears that just sprang out of nowhere, and I started crying and Jeff said, "You're going to make me cry now."

I reached out and we held each other with S in between us, in front of the gate, both of us leaning in to each other and staring at Sherlock through our tears.

In Honor of Sibling Day

When we were planning our family, Jeff and I never considered stopping after one. We always wanted to have at least two children (although, much to Jeff's horror, I initially floated the idea of going for four.) The reason was partly selfish. We didn't want to get stuck playing Legos with our kid until he left for college. But we also considered all the benefits siblings can provide each other. Like having a partner for Ring Around the Rosie. And having someone who will eat the rest of the mashed sweet potatoes (which T always does) instead of having countless Earth's Best jars accumulate in the fridge. And making up some silly song for his sister to make her giggle even though she has no idea what he's saying. And giving each other a little smooch when the other falls. We wanted our children to be there for each other when life's hardships inevitably surface. We wanted to find a way for them not to feel so alone in this world. To feel like there is always someone who has your back, who is sitting with you in your corner, even when Jeff and I are no longer around.

I've always been glad not to be an only child. I think I would have hated it. I pitied some of my friends who had no siblings. So many of them seemed lonely. And some seemed overly self-involved. And a few others seemed to have narrower exposure to the world, which I attributed to them not having as many influences within the family. Not all my only child friends were like that, of course, and I also have some perfectly well adjusted friends who have no siblings. But even they have to carry more burden than I would prefer in looking out for their parents and worrying about their well being as they age.

I know I learned a lot from my siblings. Even from my brother's heavy metal music, which I found painful to listen to at ear drum breaking volume. My sister introduced me to a lot of literature and ways of seing things. And we used to talk so much about our family issues -- and everything else. I miss that.

Yesterday morning, I saw a couple of posts on Facebook about Sibling Day when I first woke up, and I found myself bawling when I was later using the bathroom. Our family seems like such a failure these days, and I'm not sure why that is. Why our family fell apart when others manage to hold theirs together. It feels like the biggest failure in my life. It colors everything, making all else feel somewhat hopeless. Whenever Jeff and I have an argument, even the most trivial, I find myself saying, "Well, this is going to shit like everything else." I feel pessimistic and flawed, as if it is all my fault. As if I really don't have any skills in managing human relationships. I also feel alone in this world in an existential sense, in a way I've never felt before, even though I have a wonderful family of my own.

I've been reading about sibling strife to understand better why we have so much in my family. The book I recently finished profiles 60 different sets of sibling of different backgrounds and ages. I'm amazed to see how varied the specific disputes can be and yet, when it comes down to it, it seems there is just a handful of root causes of sibling friction.

I've heard many times that when siblings don't get along -- not just fight now and then, but are antagonistic to each other -- often, the deep down root of the conflict is not with each other but really with the parents. In other words, a sibling does not dislike his or her sibling because he/she is a fundamentally bad person. Rather, the sibling is angry or grieved about some sense of unfairness at the parents' treatment of the children. For example, when a parent favors one child over others, the unfavored child expresses anger at the favored child, but it is really the parent whose behavior should be addressed.

This is probably part of the problem in my own case. Not to blame the parents. I think most parents do what they can, what they believe to be right. And I know my parents had no bad intentions. But like most people, they have their blind spots, their unquestioned cultural norms, their own weaknesses and needs. And they tend to be passive more than proactive, and for large segments of our childhood, they didn't have the time to be actively engaged in our lives. I think a lot of the problems in our family stems from a combination of these factors.

I also think sibling relationships need a lot of help to follow the right course. I see it in my own children. They have so much affection to share, but at the same time, there is inherent competition for attention and control. Without some intervention from me and Jeff, I don't know whether my children could have a healthy relationship. We have to set limits and teach them how to treat each other -- and to respect each other. And to see each other as individuals, not just as the younger or older sibling. There is an inherent imbalance of power, and I make an effort to help our older child be sensitive to that. I also try to teach them to value having a cohesive family. I tell T, "Do you know that you and S are going to be such good friends? When she learns to talk, you can talk to her about anything and everything. You guys will have so much fun together!"

I'm not trying to say that I am blameless in my fallouts with my own siblings. I know we've all done things we regret -- and wish that we could have found ways to conduct ourselves more maturely and with more foresight. But severing a family relationship is such a drastic act, and I can't help but wonder if the tensions in our relationships didn't result from a pattern of unhealthy behavior that should have been addressed along the way. If the relationship wasn't already at a breaking point.

I thought reading about other siblings would make me reflect further about my situation. It has to a degree, but it has also had this unexpected effect of making me want to wash my hands of the whole thing. Seeing others persistently engage in such painful and noxious battles makes me want to disengage. When I read about these other siblings, I wanted to tell them, just move on! Live your life. Why keep going back for more?

Yeah, good advice for myself. I'm starting to realize that there is nothing you really can do when someone in your family cuts you off. You can mourn the situation, but you can't change their minds -- not unilaterally. And I think the willingness to throw away a relationship may reflect the reality that the relationship was unhealthy to begin with -- and maybe the one throwing away the relationship wanted to find a way to come out from under the burdens of the relationship. That for them, the burdens outweighed any benefits.

And I can see that a little more objectively now, without feeling so defensive. And understanding that the relationship may not have entirely been about me but also about the dynamics of our family or my sibling's sense of self helps me to understand that maybe some separation is for the best. Because that person no longer wants to continue to engage in that role in the family. Or needs to affirm herself, to say, "I'm worthy of more than that. You can't treat me like that." Or no longer wants to be in the shadows of another, to see herself in comparison with her sibling. Or maybe a separation from the sibling somehow helps them salvage the direct relationship with the parent somehow, although I'm not sure why it works like that.

I wonder at what age we start to see ourselves through our own eyes. When do we stop viewing ourselves through our parents' eyes and judge ourselves to be inadequate? When do we stop being the one who was loved less? The one who didn't receive the kind of approval we felt we deserved? When do we stop competing against each other? When do we stop re-living the childhood wrongs we feel we suffered at the hands of our sibling? And when do we recognize childhood acts for what they were -- as immature behavior of children with underdeveloped judgment?

It's amazing that you can live the remaining 60-80% of your life stuck in the mold set by those first 18 years. Or fighting it. Or bitterly engaged in repudiating it. And still feeling angry, or deprived, or cheated.

I think the only thing you can do is to find a way to achieve your own happiness. It sounds so trite, but it's not really. You have to find a way to get your emotional needs met -- and to even get to that stage, you have to work on yourself and figure out what your emotional needs are. You have to find a way to figure yourself out -- and a way to be honest with yourself. I don't think you can have a healthy relationship with others unless you're happy with yourself -- and I know I need to work on that to protect my relationships with my own family.

I'm not sure where I am on that road, but I know I have a long way to go. There are things about myself that I don't even know I don't know. I have so many blind spots about myself. But thinking about this makes me feel somewhat liberated -- and helps me start to pull my head out of the muddle.

So for all of you out there with healthy sibling relationships, I envy you -- and I toast you. I hope you took note of the day that just passed and made a point to celebrate it in some way, however small.

The Paranoia of a Mother

Being a mother makes me paranoid in a way I never expected. Every grandma, car, or dog we pass on the street is a potential enemy, and I keep my fangs ready to attack if necessary. That sweet faced blond college girl texting behind the wheel of her Prius? She's better stop long before the stop sign or I will scream bloody murder until I wake her out of her iPhone stupor. That lanky teenager hunched atop his skateboard careening down the sidewalk? Don't even dare swerve toward my baby in her stroller because I'll kick a rock in front of his wheels before he can say narly. That grandma walking her pitbull? Yeah, you'd better believe I'm going to cross the street because I don't want to have to try to pry that dog's jaws off of my baby's neck.

As if the everyday encounters weren't enough, I go looking for trouble. I scour the papers and read up on every abduction, every murder, every accident involving a child. I could not stop myself from reading every article on Leiby Kletzky, the Newtown massacre, Jaycee Dugard, you name it. I scour the stories of the incidents, the reactions of their family and friends, their funerals.

Every time I read about one of these kids, my teeth clench. I start rubbing my forehead and feel my chest tighten. I cry for them, their parents, their siblings. I jab my husband lying next to me reading some technical manual (if such things can be read) and say, "Can you believe this? Can you imagine something like this happening to us?"

"No, no, I can't" is always my husband's whisper of a response. As I rant on, he asks how I find this stuff -- and why am I always reading such stories?

I'm drawn to them. Somewhat curious, perhaps, and completely horrified. But I want to know. Where were the parents? What did the parents do or not do? And most importantly, what did the predator do? It's not just morbid curiosity. I feel as if we have to prepare. What IF something like this were to happen to us? What IF? And how can we prevent it? Who are these monsters? How do they think? What is their m.o.?

We have to come up with a plan of action. We have to know our enemies.

I imagine how I would react. What would I do if something unthinkable were to happen? If someone were to break into our house, how would I fight back? Would we bonk him with our $2 flashlight? I'm poorly equipped with not even a single martial arts class, barely an hour of self defense lesson. I've had fleeting thoughts about whether I need to equip myself with the proper tools.

We have perfectly rational friends, those with higher degrees, sensible and thoughtful people, without even a splotch of red on their necks -- those who seem like one of us -- arm themselves. "What, you bought a gun? You're willing to kill someone with that thing?" And they always respond, "Well, if I have to..."

One friend who is considering buying a gun has two beautiful daughters. Not yet teens. They are breathtakingly beautiful, sweet, and so, so innocent. Our friend wants a gun to protect her daughters. "What if some asshole tries to hurt one of them? I'm going to take that motherfucker out." She is tiny, our friend. Always with a smile on her face. And she loves babies. All babies. I can't even imagine her with a gun. Or shooting someone. But she would do it, take out that motherfucker, if she had to.

I wonder who is the fool here. Me, or those millions of people with guns in their possession. In the event of a break and entry, or god forbid, some kind of riot or a massive earthquake where law and order breaks down, wouldn't we want to protect ourselves, our children? I think of those images from the LA Riots, when those Korean grocers guarded their stores from their rooftops, brandishing their rifles. And I thought, "Damn right. Defend yourselves and what is rightfully yours." And aren't our children worth protecting more than a bunch of groceries? And if something were to happen, something terrible, would I be able to stand by helplessly? Wouldn't I want something -- anything -- to fight back?

Of course. Of course. What parent wouldn't? I would use it -- I know it in my gut. And I wouldn't be sorry because I would be doing what I had to do to defend my children. Every parent must feel this. And every parent has the same right to defend her child as I do.

So what does that mean? A couple of guns in every household. Teachers armed with guns. Guns in glove compartments. Guns in strollers. Guns at amusement parks, at basketball games, at picnics.

I think about when my children become old enough to play at their friends' houses without me. Do I ask the parents first -- "Do you have guns in your house? How is it secured? Can I come by to make sure it's not in a place where the children can access it?" And walking down the street, I now have to worry about people with guns in addition to texting drivers, reckless kids on skateboards, pitbulls.

I grew up with a lot of fear -- in New York in the 80s. It was pre-Giuliani New York, the days paralyzed by the murder of Kitty Genovese, the smoldering anger of Bernie Goetz, the rape of the Central Park jogger. I never went out at night, and if the sun started to set while we were out, we scurried home, looking over our shoulders. As I grew older, that fear never left me, even when my parents escaped to the placidity of Long Island. I remember coming home from work, in the quiet of the evening, looking all around the vicinity from within the safety of the locked car before I darted out and ran the 20 feet to our front door. When I was in law school, I remember stopping in my tracks and waiting for the men to pass me after making deliberate eye contact with them before I continued, because that's what I learned in a self defense class. Now, even though we live in the sanctuary of La Jolla, where people leave their french doors gaping open and elementary school kids roam the neighborhood on their own, I still look over my shoulders in the evening.

That kind of anxiety still lives in me. And that is my view of the world. A dangerous place where people prey on each other. Where you keep your door locked at all times. Where there is a monster lurking behind every corner.

Our three year old went through a monster phase recently. He was scared to sleep at night because he said there was a monster in his room. He didn't want us to leave, and he wanted to keep his door open. We wanted to allay his fears, so we told him how monsters don't really exist except in books and movies. When that didn't work, we told him that the monster was a cute cuddly monster, like Elmo. When he didn't believe us, we let him sleep with our dog in his room, until we found out that he was allergic to dogs.

He has since outgrown his fear of monsters. But we went through a lot to help him feel secure in this world, to feel less threatened. Because we want him to believe that he lives in that kind of a world, where not everyone is a monster, a potential threat. Where people are kind to each other. We don't want him to grow up with anxiety, with stress, with fears that make him shrivel. We want him to thrive, to be confident. We want him to be the yellow daisy in the middle of our flower garden, not the dandelion growing in the crack of the footpath at the cemetery.

I want our children to grow up in Michael Moore's Canada, not City of God's Rio de Janeiro. Dorothy's Kansas, not the Wild West. And when I think about how we create that kind of a community, I don't picture a lot of guns. I picture a community where people can resolve their differences without weapons. Where the mentally impaired cannot pick up a semi-automatic. Where there is help for people who need it. Where everyone is included, even the socially awkward, the shy nerd, the difficult misfit. Where the social contract hasn't frayed so much at the edges that people feel the need to fend for themselves.

As a parent, I can't stop imagining all the threats around us. But I also imagine utopias, a better community for my children. And maybe the only way to get there is to start imagining it.

Back In Charge

If there ever were such a thing as an Homeliness Pagent, I could have been a contender. I might even have been a semi-finalist. And if they had a bowl haircut competition, I could have been crowned the Homeliness Queen, with my coiffure in place of the tiara.

In middle school, I stood a good foot taller than most boys in my class. I have photos from my 6th grade birthday party, me "dancing" with my arms fully extended and resting on the shoulders of a scrawny blond boy named Stephen, who probably weighed about 30 pounds less and stood 18 inches shorter. My back hunched like Quasimodo, straining to shrink, straining to fit in. Coke bottle glasses resting on my oily nose. Hair that looked like I conditioned with bacon grease. No zits, thank goodness, but bushy eyebrows, flimsy K Mart t-shirt and no name jeans with some pair of nondescript shoes.

My parents downplayed the importance of looks when we were growing up. Initially, my dad refused to let us grow out our hair because he said it would "interfere" with our studying. We were prohibited from wearing make-up of any kind. And designer clothes? Out. No pierced ears. I don't remember wearing any jewelry. In 7th grade, I went to my friend Susan's house and was shocked to see her dresser covered with an assortment of little baskets overflowing with earrings, rings, bracelets, necklaces, sunglasses, and swatch covers. I hadn't realized before then that you could have more than one of each of those items.

I have always been awkward when it comes to looks. As a child, I was always the tallest for my age and rather chunky. I also reached puberty prematurely. One other girl and I were the only ones with boobs in fourth grade, and of course, she and I were friends, probably out of commiseration. Back then, I assumed I was chosen for this acclaim from some random luck of the draw, but now I wonder if our regular meals at Burger King didn't account for a surplus of hormones in my system.

Our diet only got worse when my parents started working long hours at the store.  With limited time to grocery shop, they stocked the fridge with boxes and boxes of frozen food from their fast food joint. We ate eggrolls for breakfast. And for lunch. And for dinner. I don't remember eating much else. Oh, and Hungry Man meals and Banquet Fried Chicken with rice and ketchup, which we of course consumed in front of the TV. There was a spurt in my early teens when my speed of growth outpaced my caloric intake, and I slimmed out for a short stretch. But the fried food soon caught up to me.  

It also didn't help that we rarely exercised. When we were little, we played an occasional game of tennis. And swam in the summer. But as we grew older and were left to our own, I rarely exercised, except to hit a tennis ball against the side of my school building when I was bored.

By the time I arrived in college, I had excess fat and a shortage of confidence. I always stood with my arms across my stomach to hide the bulge, and wore loose shirts and jackets to mask the crowning.  I never thought guys would be interested in me. I only had secret crushes, although I gave myself away with my ogling, awkward stammering, and undisguisable blushing.

It wasn't until I was forced to take a PE class in college that I started exercising. Sure, we had PE classes when I was at Cardozo High School in Queens, but I don't remember doing anything resembling physical activity. A bunch of us girls just stood around chatting until it was time to change out of our t-shirt and shorts. I figured college would be pretty much the same. To fulfill my PE requirement, I signed up for jogging because 20 of the 40 minute class were reserved for changing. I expected to fill up the 20 minutes of class pretty much the same way I had spent my time in high school.

The first time in my jogging class, I just walked. Very slowly. Often, my PE teacher jogged in place alongside me, trying to encourage me to pick up my pace. No pressure, just a smile, a wink, and a little "why not"? I just smiled and kept walking. That's how I spent the rest of the quarter. Then, one evening, a couple of years later, in the middle of Chicago winter, with the wind chill factor hitting the teens, with land blanketed with snow as far as the eyes could see, I ran out of my dorm in a pair of sweatpants and two layers of long sleeved knit shirts. I don't know what came over me, but I started running. I ran north on S. Shore Drive, past the apartment buildings to my left, past the field of snow on my right, along the lake that undulated with blocks of ice as large as Toyota Tundras. Even though it was late in the evening, the snow lit up the landscape around me, as if I were in the glow of a giant angel. I felt safe even though I was alone on the streets, and all I could hear was the sound of my own breathing. Steam rose from my mouth, my teeth hurt from the cold, and my cheeks felt completely numb. I ran as far as I could and turned back when my sides started to ache.

When I returned to my dorm, I was sweating and breathing like a horse. The sleeves that I had extended to cover my gloveless hands were wrinkled and damp. I ran into a friend in the lobby, and he said, "What the hell are you doing?" He looked at me like I was crazy. I felt a little crazy. I don't know what got into me that day. Maybe it was one of those days in college when I had spent too much time alone reading Thucydides. Or mulling over my future and feeling utterly hopeless. Or pining over some boy who would never see me in that way. But whatever it was, it was one of the best days of my life.

That was the day when I first realized that I was in charge of my body. Well, not really completely in charge, but still, not its slave. When I understood that I didn't have to feel bad about the way I looked and could do nothing. That I could stop being that chubby kid. That I could just run off the fat. That I wasn't stuck.

I spent good chunks of my 20s and 30s running. All I did my third year of law school was run and throw pottery. I clocked about 35 to 40 miles a week, sometimes 45. The first few years I lived in San Francisco, I lived in the Marina, and I spent hours running along the trail in Crissy Field. I am never completely confident, and I always feel 10 pounds overweight. But I no longer feel like a walrus.

When I got pregnant, I stopped running. I let myself go. I was partly afraid of running, especially after all my miscarriages. But I was also tired all the time. I thought it was important to listen to my body telling me to nap, to rest for the baby. I gained a lot of weight during my pregnancies, about 40 pounds with each. I lost most of that weight through breast feeding, but I somehow managed to regain 10 pounds of it in the last few months, probably because I kept eating as if I were still breastfeeding. I also lost a lot of my muscle mass during the last few years.

When I'm unhappy with the way I look, I feel downright bad. I hate looking at photos of myself. I wear raggedy t-shirts from Target that I stocked up on while I was pregnant. I wear the same jeans over and over again because I'm afraid to put on newly washed pants that are no longer stretched to my comfort. I let my hair grow out with their split ends because I don't want to look at myself in the mirror at the hair dresser's.

Last month, I started running again. I signed up at 24 Hour Fitness and got on the treadmill. I barely made it to 3 miles. But I still went back the next day. I'm up to 5 miles now. And I started doing P90X videos that my friends have been doing. I'm determined to get myself back in shape. I want to feel good about the way I look again. I don't want to stand with my arms blocking my stomach, and I don't want to hide behind large t-shirts. I don't want to waste time trying to recover from feeling bad after seeing photos of my blubbery self, and I don't want to stand around straining to shrink. My time is better spent exercising.

There are people who say you should love yourself no matter what. I don't buy into that. It takes too much energy to recover from feeling bad, to work on my emotional landscape. It's easier to shed the weight.

I'm giving myself two months to lose 10 pounds. Anyone want to do it with me?

Quote of the Day

"When we tell our stories, we change the world." Brene Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me

Dialogue

Our three (and almost half) year old has been exploding with words these days. From the minute he wakes up at 6am until he goes down at 8:30pm, he is spewing with words (with a mini break for a nap in between). New words, old words, made up words, repeated words, he has them all. In the car, he bombards us with questions from destination A to destination B and has a running commentary on every house, car, person, dog, cloud, and blimp we pass.

The other week, we passed acres and acres of almond groves and grape vines as we drove from our friends' house in South Lake Tahoe to visit some other friends in Montecito. T spotted a field of trees, their branches elegantly arched like outstretched limbs, blooming with wisps of delicate white, feathery flowers.

When he saw them, he exclaimed, "Look, Mommy, those trees look like ballerinas!"

Sugar Plum Fairies, anyone? Such poetry from my little man.

When he talks, Jeff and I do all we can to listen (well, most of the time). We lean toward him, we crane our necks, we bend at our knees. We parrot back his words to show we understand. We answer all of his questions, even after the eighteenth "why", even after he circuits back to the same question he asked three questions earlier. We nod our affirmations or explain why we disagree. We open our faces with surprise or scrunch them with consternation. We do all we can to continue the dialogue.

Sometimes, however, his precious words come out a little muddled. It could be that the word is a tad too big, and all the vowels and consonants get jumbled and squashed in his tiny mouth. Or in their hurry to land in our ears, the words run into each other, one unsuspecting fragile mound of syllables tripped and overrun by a bully on its heels. Or little T forgets to breathe in the middle of his rushed sentence, and all the words abandon their beginnings and endings and leave us stranded in an incoherent blob of sounds. The latest has been T's insistence that his words can sound the way he damn pleases, and if he wants to pronounce "cat" as "chat", that's his prerogative.

What three (and almost half) year old has not had a mispronunciation or two. Or some jumbling or slurring of words. Maybe even a lisp. It comes with the territory. We understand that. But what we did not expect was the explosion that happens after we fail to take in what he has to say. If we misinterpret what he has said, he unexpectedly becomes silent. Then, his little lips start to tremble. Little mounds of tear well up in the corners of his eyes. Then the bawling starts. In between the slobbering and the hyperventilating, he shouts, "You MIZ-understood ME!"

It's as if we told him that he could never play with Buzz Lightyear ever again. Or that Mickey died. Or that he could no longer sleep in his Lightning McQueen bed. It's as profound an upset as he could experience in his three and half years of existence lived with a belief in Santa, an unquestioned expectation that food would appear whenever he hungered, and the unwavering knowledge that he could get his star as long as he peed and pooped in his potty.

When his tears start to fall, we entreat him to repeat himself. "Help Mommy and Daddy understand what you said. Can you say it again?" We give him our most concerned smile, attempting to convey that fortitude is what is required at the moment, that we are ever so eager to understand. Sometimes, he shouts back with a big "NO!" and continues to cry. But after some cajoling, he repeats himself -- and sometimes (reluctantly) again -- until we understand. "Oh! Is that what you said. Now we understand! What a good thing you repeated yourself. And you know, I don't know if blimps have steering wheels. Do you want to look it up when we go home? What a good question!"

I've been thinking about his need to be heard and to be understood. To not be misunderstood. And I think about my own experience growing up in this country. Where I often felt as if no one understood what I was going through. That words were often inadequate to convey my perspective, my experience. That even if I spoke, not many could really understand because they had a different frame of reference. How I often chose to stay silent because it seemed so pointless. And I wonder how it impacts us. What do we do with this apparently deep seeded need to be understood when no one does? Where do all those upsets and tears go when those we want to make understand cannot?

I would like my children to have their crying fits now, when we can identify the source of their frustration, rather than later when it takes five therapists to untangle the causes. I want them to have the faith to know that we try, that we'll always try to understand, even if we misunderstand each other at times. I want them to keep trying talking to us, even we seem to lack the ability to understand, even if we at times may be too busy to hear. I want to instill that fortitude in them, the fortitude to keep trying, because if we give up on words, we can so easily lose each other. And losing them is not something I -- no parent -- can stand to bear.

On Self Esteem

Self esteem was in short supply when I was growing up.

Not that anyone was out to crush us. We just didn't have an environment where there was such a thing as self esteem, much less a sense of self. I'm not sure if my parents thought of us in those terms -- as individuals with individual sense of selves. To them, we were children -- viewed as a unit, perhaps more or less interchangeable, with roles to play and futures to fulfill. Of course, they knew us as separate people, with distinct personalities, but I don't know if they necessarily thought of us as contained beings ripe enough to possess inner lives worthy of consideration. We were beings in the making, nascent and malleable, billowing with potential and room for improvement. Their job was to help us ripen, prevent bruises and defects, and deliver us for perfection in the hopes that such painstaking preparation would help us weather future storms.

When I was younger, I remember my mother scrutinizing me for potential defects. In middle school, I walked slightly pigeon-toed. My mother walked alongside me, block after block, reminding me to point my toes straight. Over and over again, she made me walk along the divide in sidewalk cement to use as a guide for my misaligned feet. Her reminders were incessant, and I remember feeling harangued. Just leave me alone, I muttered. It does not matter. But to her, it did matter. It was her job as the mother to correct my defect. She focused on the potential of a corrected defect; all I heard were the words that I was somehow defective.

Another defect I had was my right eyelid. When I chewed, my eyelid flinched ever so slightly with my jaws. My aunt noticed it when I was a child, and my mother zoomed in like a moth drawn to the light. She stared and stared while I ate. Try chewing this way, she encouraged. No, try it another way. To no avail. She gave up when she realized that the movement was involuntary. My only choice was to chew less, which I tried to minimize under my mom's watchful eye, or to chew with my head down. Once in my early 30s, my mom called me out of the blue. She wanted to know if I wasn't seeing anyone, couldn't get married because of my eye. I laughed at the time because the idea seemed so absurd. But to this day, I feel self-conscious and flood with shame when someone notices.

When I was younger, I often felt inadequate. I didn't have much going for me. I stood a good foot taller than most kids in my class. I reached puberty early. I had oily skin and hair. And on top of that, I had a mom who had no problem pointing out my defects.

Now that I'm a parent, I can understand some of those concerns. You want your child to fit in, to belong. To not be that child with a blaring "difference" who could be rejected by a society of primitive beings we all have to learn not to be.

I can see how she was coming from a place of fear. But I can also see how we approach the world from radically different points of view. When faced with a "difference," you can teach your child to accept the difference -- in herself first. To love herself. To build within your child an inner reserve of self esteem and confidence so that she can face the world, and in turn, force the world to make room for her. But to do that, you have to accept that difference first, and you may be more inclined to accept that difference if you see that difference as an intrinsic part of your child. Because you believe that the body (and mind) is a holy temple.

Alternatively, instead of accepting the difference or defect, you can reject it. You don't accept it as an intrinsic part of your child, and you do whatever it takes to eradicate it. This rejection may come from a place of shame, but it may also arise out of concern for your child's welfare, out of fear that your child may be spurned. And it is far simpler to "fix" your child than to fix the world. But this approach can also be viewed optimistically, as a sign of tenacity, that anything can be conquered if you try hard enough, if you work on yourself. Maybe if you were raised in a society as rigid and as socially conforming as South Korea was in my mother's youth, you may see no choice but to conform your child. Because that is the best way to maximize the chances of your child's success.

I can't help but wonder if I would have received her efforts to "correct" me with a better attitude if we had been raised in Korea. Back there, blunt criticisms are unleashed without any attempts at nicety, and it is not uncommon to be told openly that you are fat or unattractive. Maybe if we too had been raised with the same standard of socially acceptable communication, we would have developed the same armadillo skin that could have helped us weather the criticisms and seen them as something constructive, as she intended.

But it wasn't just this. I think it was my parents' ambitions for us that, ironically, did greater damage. My parents had three children, but one dream for all of us. They wanted us to become doctors or lawyers, some kind of professional. It was their idea of security, of fulfillment. It was the best they could imagine. Their children would have money, an earning potential that could never be taken away. And we would have the respect of others, a degree to elevate us in the eyes of others.

Their dream, however well intentioned, had little to do with any of us. Although none of us showed any inclination to become a doctor or a lawyer, they failed to see this in their zeal. My parents tended to disregard our individual traits that didn't align with their prospects for us. And when we showed promise in any other field, whether in playing an instrument or showing our creativity otherwise, it mattered little. Of course they humored us by attending the annual holiday concert, but we were quickly made to understand that excelling in those areas held no value. It was as if they took their pruning knives and lopped off those traits they deemed undesirable in the hopes that we would tend in the direction they set out for us.

But I don't know if we ever recovered from their efforts to shape us. We felt the pain of having parts of ourselves shunted. The implicit message we received was that those traits were neither worth having nor knowing, but to us, they felt like they contained the seeds of our inner essence. It felt like a rejection in the deepest sense, as if they were telling us that we were not worth knowing, not at our core. And it felt like a failure -- their failure to see us for who we really were. And to this day, I can't help but wonder if those thwarted parts were the very things that could have helped us define ourselves, helped fulfill our destiny.

Our sense of rejection created a cascade of issues that none of us children ever addressed, or at least not really well. Suppressed of our distinguishing traits, I think we felt interchangeable -- and hollowed. We became fiercely competitive with each other, even though we never acknowledged it. But we expressed it in the way we always compared ourselves to each other, in the way we resented each other. And we lived with the seed of fear that we could never measure up, that we would never reach the standards that others set for us.

It's hard for me to blame my parents. They were no more ambitious for us than most other Korean parents we knew. If anything, my parents were more easy going. They never sat us at the piano for hours with a stick in hand. They never made us practice for hours. They never prohibited other activities at the exclusion of the one they chose. They were moderate, but even so, they followed the prescribed methods of their time and culture. And they believed, with all of the best intentions, that they were creating the best environment to optimize the future of their children.

But no matter the good intention, I see our upbringing through the American lens, where acceptance is touted as the higher road, and self-confidence, the key to one's success. And through this lens, I am sensitive to the scars my siblings and I bear and what I interpret to be markers of low self-esteem. We are quick to anger. We have a tendency to read into comments, to scour another's words and to find offense in them. To take things personally. To get our feelings easily hurt.  All of us are a little needy -- in need of more attention, more affirmation, more affection. And I don't mean to oversimplify things by pinning everything on the parenting we received, but it's hard to argue that there isn't some connection.

I think of the difficult task of parenting. You could have all the best intentions in the world.  You could plan and hope for the best. You can clothe and feed your child, wipe off that snot, break your back washing laundry by hand day and night, run to the doctor in the middle of the night with desperate fear of that abnormally high temperature as your baby cries and screams at the top of her lungs in your ear. You can refrain from eating that bowl of rice you hunger for because your child wants it, and you limit yourself to the scrapes left over from the last meal that your child rejected simply because he wasn't in the mood to eat the rest. And you can worry in a way you've never worried about another human being, not because something horrific has occurred, but simply because you understand the ever-present dangers of this world as well as the frightening vulnerability of your little person. And you are determined to do whatever it takes to protect this child.

You could do all that, year after year. But the world changes on you. And the standards of parenting change. Your now grown children see the world through a different set of eye, a different measure of approval. And your parenting cannot surpass the boundaries of culture or time. No. You do what you believe to be right at the time, but what you believe to be right is a product of your own upbringing, your own culture, the beliefs of your time. You do the best that you can, and pray that your children will one day have the ability to reflect, the maturity to understand, and the inner resources to appreciate. 

Mothers and Daughters

My mother has the heartiest laugh. Her face opens up and a deep guttural peal rings out. In the middle of her laughing fit, she sometimes snorts and covers her mouth half heartedly as she doubles over in her spasm. Then she throws her head back as she clutches her chest with her other hand and you could see tears squeezing out of the corners of her squinted eyes. It never matters whether anyone else joins in. She is too busy laughing to notice others. Her laughter is always nearby and ready, as if waiting to be released like helium from an overinflated balloon. She finds humor readily, in the smallest incidents, anywhere around the bend. She used to often emerge from the bathroom in a fit of giggles, saying "Oh, it's so stinky in there!"  

Because of her laughter, I used to think of her as a jolly soul. Someone who saw the levity in life, who found humor in the everyday. But as I grew older, I saw a different side of mother. The side that had always been there, but one I had somehow failed to see.

From my late teens, I had been my mother's confidant. She would often sidle up to me late in the evening to chat. I would be lying in bed nestled with a book under a tiny lamp, and she would peek in with any excuse. Do you need more blankets? Are you tired? Did you have enough to eat? I would answer and move over to make room for her. She would drape the comforter over her legs and start the conversation talking about any random tidbit from the day. After a while, though, the conversation would drift toward the all too familiar terrain. Her feelings of neglect. Her anger. Her day to day complaints and frustrations.

For years, I just listened and nodded along. "Oh, really, Mom?" "That's so hard, Mom." "You have to take better care of yourself." I was her sounding board. I was her listening ear. I was her daughter.

Sometimes, though, I didn't listen very well. I felt some topics were off limits, that as her daughter, I should not have to listen to certain types of complaints, like her gripes about my dad. "Mom, you have to find some friends to talk to. I'm your daughter. I shouldn't be hearing about this kind of stuff," I would say. She would respond that she couldn't talk to anyone else because such things should not go outside the family. And I was her daughter. Who else could she talk to but her daughter?, she would ask.

The fact was that even if she wanted to, my mom had no friends to talk to. After we left Houston in 1987, I don't remember my mom ever having a friend or any semblance of a social life. She and my dad just worked. They did not attend church. They did not meet with any alumni groups. They did not know anyone apart from a few Koreans they knew from the old days.

Sometimes I tried to help my mom. I often encouraged her to nurture her relationships with the few people she knew. "Let's invite so and so over for Christmas, Mom," I would say. "I'll help with all the cooking. And if they're busy, let's figure out another date." Once in a while, she agreed, but more often than not, she refused, saying that hosting others was an unnecessary expense. Week after week, months after months, I offered to drive her to church, even though I had no interest in going for myself. Once, when I was home for a college break, I took my mom to meet my friend Cynthia and her mom. We visited their apartment in Flushing and chatted over coffee and tea. When I was graduating from law school, my friends and I organized a dinner with our parents so that our parents could meet each other. And another time, I took my parents to my friend Grace's house for a Thanksgiving dinner. But those events never transpired into anything more than isolated meet ups.

I used to worry about my parents' funeral. Who would attend? Who could we call to remember them and their days with us on earth? And I couldn't even come up with one name apart from our small family.

When I left for college, I felt a deep sense of guilt for abandoning her. For leaving to live my life while she lived so poorly. For having new experiences while she endlessly repeated her mundane routine. For eating at new restaurants and for meeting friends for coffee while she ate the same tedious meals day after day. For having the freedom to live my life while she was stuck in one she didn't like.

Once in a while, we talked on the phone. They were usually more perfunctory than anything else. But sometimes, I would receive a call in the middle of the night, and I could hear her desperation and loneliness. Once, she crushed her hand in the car door, and she described the pain and her feelings of neglect. "It hurts so much," she cried. No one took her to the hospital, and no one took care of her. And I cried from 800 miles away, feeling helpless.

It took me a long time to realize that my mom could help herself. Before, I couldn't see that she could have taken herself to the hospital. That she could have walked out of the store and demanded a different work arrangement with my dad. That she could have taken a train or a bus to church. That she could have learned to drive. That she could have learned English. That she could have said no to whatever she did not want. I could not see that until recently. All these years, I felt so much pity, so much sympathy, and so much guilt for all of her sorrows.

Every time I heard one of her complaints, I felt responsible. I thought it was my job to find a solution. I would offer her suggestions and brainstorm to try to find that magical fix. Or I would drive to the store to buy whatever it was she needed. Other times, I would intervene and scream at my dad. Or at my brother. Or try to cajole my sister to see my mom's point of view. I didn't realize that she may not have been looking for a solution.

Over the years, her complaints have not changed. She repeats them to me, but not to the person who should hear them. She believes in restraint, the kind of restraint that practices walking away with one's civility rather than giving them a piece of your mind, the kind of restraint that elevates harmony over personal needs, even if it means walking on tiptoes day in and day out. I do not understand my mother's need for restraint, for secrecy. Or her sense of powerlessness. I've asked her many times why she doesn't change this or that. Why she doesn't speak up. Why she doesn't express her dissatisfaction and demand a response. She often responds that she herself doesn't know, that she is frustrated with herself. To me, it seems so simple, so easy. But she lives in a different landscape that I do not understand. She answers to some cultural norm that accepts Buddhist form of suffering, some inner psychological need that she herself may not recognize, some standard of civility that seems pointless to me. Maybe she cried because she needed someone's expression of care for her more than bandages for her hands. Maybe it mattered more to see my dad's willingness to compromise than to implement the change that she complained about.

I hadn't realized how deeply her sorrows and anger had seeped into my bones. These days, suddenly, in the middle of the day, I feel a tightening in my chest. A sadness creeps in. Tears well up. A sense of helplessness. And hopelessness. Despair. As I wait for the emotions to recede, my brain starts to process the scenario. A week spent at home with the baby. A desire to go somewhere. Anywhere. Anywhere different. To see something new. To escape the familiar. And I remember my mother's constant longing to escape the confines of our hole in the wall burger joint, then the dry cleaners. Her frequent yearnings to see more, to see the world. And I realize that I'm consumed by her sadness even though I live in one of the most glorious places in this country with a view of the ocean in a spacious house, enveloped by the loving sunshine, just blocks from a beach.

Over the years, I have come to resist my mother's unburdening. I no longer want to hear her talk of her sorrows, her complaints, her frustrations. These days, I stop her short, and say, "Mom, you can change all that. It's in your power." And I proceed to advice her the steps to take, even as I hear myself sound like a know-it-all teenager. But I don't know how else to keep her emotions from oozing into my ears, into my bones. To keep these sorrows from settling in and filling up my well. And from overflowing when my own sorrows arise.

So many aspects of my life are answers to my mother. From high school on, I have always maintained close friends and kept them close to my heart. I always have confidants I can talk to about my deepest fears, worries, complaints, and I feel desperate when I don't have close friends nearby, like shortly after a move. And I like to have an active social life. I put in ridiculous efforts to entertain my friends. I invite them over constantly, and I make dishes with dungeness crabs, giant prawns, and nicest cuts of meat, despite the expenses.

And unlike my mother, I take pride in speaking out. In taking action. In finding my way out, whether it entails self help books, a run on the treadmill, a blog post, or a call to the therapist. If I feel wronged, I say so, and I'll raise the issue before I begin to stew. If I don't, I feel powerless, helpless, and I do anything to escape that feeling.

These days, I am on a hunt to find my equilibrium, to find whatever materials I need to fill in the holes in my life. I rebel against my mother's form of restraint because I'm living proof that it does not work. All of her sorrows and anger and fears still reside in me, and they threaten to grow, like mold trapped in the deepest corners of the closet. And I push aside the blinds, throw the windows wide open, reorganize all the crap, throw out what I no longer need, and let the sun shine in.

From the Land of Dog Eaters

Before the birth of our first child, our yellow lab Sherlock led the privileged life as the sole heir of a DINK couple. My husband fed him specially ordered never frozen raw meat. We often emerged from pet shops with $20 squeak toys that Sherlock shredded within minutes. During the week, a professional dog walker chauffeured him and a few other lucky hounds to Fort Funston, a dramatic cliffside beach on the west coast of San Francisco, where he pranced as happily as a prima ballerina. During our weekend walks in Noe Valley, we only frequented restaurants that could accommodate all of us, which usually limited us to a cozy French bistro with an illegal patio in the back.

After our son was born, all that changed. Suddenly, the crunch, crunch of the turkey neck dangling from Sherlock's jaws made us question the prudence of nurturing his taste for raw meat. We immediately switched to dry nibbles. And while we had previously experienced only joy and fascination in watching him chomp on his toys, we suddenly gawked at the sharpness of his canines and agonized over his instinct for tearing into squeaky little things. While the trips to Fort Funston continued, our family walks no longer included the dog after he tried to push ahead of the stroller one too many time. As for those cozy meals at the bistro, we started opting for dining indoors where our baby could be sheltered from the insidious San Francisco fog.

It wasn't only our activities that changed. The creature that I had previously described as a bright but petulant teenager suddenly became no more than a ball of fur. When he furiously shook his head to relieve his itchy ears, which he did several times a day despite his daily eardrop treatment, a cloud of fur emanated like the brewing of a great dust storm and a flurry of haze rose around his 63 pound frame. The puff of fur lingered in the air and then descended on everything around us, including the baby's blanket, the uncapped milk bottle, the dropped pacifier. Some strands of fur dug into the warp of the rug or became entangled in the fringes, and the rest drifted around until they formed stubborn dust bunnies in far reaches under our bed.  

Usually, between the 6am and the 8am feeding, I would start my daily ritual of rolling the lint remover over as many toys as I could manage. Then, I would pull out the vacuum to suck up the fur and dander. While I futilely rammed the blunt edges of the suction into corners to try to reach tiny crevices, I thought of my doctor friend's comment when I fretted about having a pet with an infant in the house. "Who would want a dog with all that dander near a baby!" In those moments, I visualized dander drifting into my baby's mouth, into his nostrils.

When my mom visited, she too focused on Sherlock, or more specifically, Sherlock's fur. "You know, he's such a good dog, but why couldn't Jeff have gotten a dog that doesn't shed? That's his only bad trait." I assume she was referring to the dog.

After a cousin visited from Korea, she went back reciting a couple of criticisms of my housekeeping skills, one of which was that the baby's toys were covered with fur. I'm sure many of my relatives whom I haven't seen in over a decade have intimate knowledge of Sherlock's fur.

It wasn't just the fur. Before Jeff and I merged our households, Sherlock was Jeff's sole companion and had the run of his house. He curled up wherever he liked. He slept on Jeff's bed. Most importantly, he licked whatever he liked. He spent the greater part of his day licking the kitchen floor, lest he miss that one morsel, that one calorie hidden in the crack of the tile. He continued that practice when he moved in with me. Once the kids arrived, however, I tried to modify that behavior.

My friends envied what they saw as a cuddly Roomba. "You don't even have to clean up after your kid eats!" they said. "You're so lucky." I saw it differently. I saw a (relatively) clean floor being smeared with dog spit. And my pristine baby crawl and roll in that film of dog spit, spreading his hands in that spit. And my baby's dog spit covered hands being sucked by my baby's mouth. I vividly remember one of my second grade classmates sharing his ice cream cone with a random dog on the street. It ranks high enough on my gross list that I've remembered it all these years. And here was my baby sucking dog spit off of his hands.

Trying to prevent Sherlock from licking the floor is like trying to shoo a swarm of ants away from a rotting apple. I would send him away from one corner of the kitchen only to have him start at the other. Sometimes, I would scold him with a stern "no!" and send him to his pad. There, he would hunker down, cross his front paws, and droop his head as if to feign resignation. But his doe eyes would stare at me with the intensity of the New York Vigilante. The minute he saw me exit the room, he would spring off of his pad, dart across the room, and start licking the floor nearest the high chair. And the minute he heard my footsteps again, he would quickly skulk back to his pad. I would catch a glimpse of his sashaying tail and hind legs fleeing the scene of the crime.

In addition to the no-licking, I imposed another rule. No doggie on the rug. Since our rug took up most of the living room floor, that was a little unfair to Sherlock, I will admit. But I saw it as my maternal duty to protect my child's space -- space he needed to roam, to learn to crawl, to learn to walk. And to have his toys strewn about as he pleased without having the dog step on or shed all over them.

All these rules did not go over well. Sherlock and I battled constantly, territorially and psychologically. As dogs often do, he pushed the boundaries. At times, he would brush the rug with the tips of his paws, then wait a second or two, then inch forward more and more until the entire length of his front paws fully settled there. Other times, he would lick the floor only when shielded by Jeff, assuming that surely, the alpha male would stand up for his best friend. Otherwise, he would sprawl on the floor and pretend to lick his front paws, and by the time I noticed, he would be surrounded by a halo of dog spit.

Many years ago, I took a tour of Ano Nuevo, a state park about 50 miles south of San Francisco, where elephant seals beach themselves for the winter to give birth. While we watched a colony of seals sprawled all over the beach, the tour guide pointed to one nursing two pups. Since they give birth to only one pup at a time, the guide said that the elephant seal must also be nursing another's. "Bad mom," he said. "She doesn't have enough milk to feed both."

That image stayed with me. Not that I ever nursed Sherlock. The closest was when he licked my baby's spit-up off of the floor, which in turn made me want to puke. But the idea of diverting your resources to another living creature when you should be reserving them for your own offspring raised enough quandaries to unsettle a new, overzealous mom. And something about becoming a mom makes you think in primal terms. Maybe because we spend so much time bearing our chests and cleaning up poop (although not usually at the same time). Granted, our resources were not strictly limited. I knew that intellectually. But emotionally, I was living in a cave, shielding my baby from creatures of the wild and foraging for berries -- all while sleeping suboptimally and trying to get my own basic needs met.

The thing is, I never wanted to be that kind of person. You know, the kind of person who treats a dog like a dog. Rather, I wanted to treat Sherlock like one of us. Because I'm affable. Generous. Compassionate. Easy-going. All those good adjectives that go with being an animal lover here in America. And in America, you can't be affable, generous, compassionate, or easy-going if you're not an animal lover. It's true. Think about it. Have you ever seen a protagonist who hates animals? Who kicks them for fun?

Maybe I'm particularly sensitive to this image because I come from a land where they eat dogs. Sure, they tried to deny it during the '88 Olympics and claimed that it was a thing of the past, but we Koreans know it's not true. Some Koreans still eat dog meat, and you can see those restaurants when you visit South Korea. Not that I ever wanted to frequent such a place, although I cried when my cousin wouldn't take me when I was six.

Once, when I was in high school, I saw my dad kick a cat. It was incomprehensible. Sure, it was during one of the worst stretches in our lives when he was working 15 hour days. And he was going through a bout of depression and frustration. And sure, he was carrying a huge carton filled with buttermilk and the cat was in his way. But the kick was intentional. And I knew, as surely as I knew anything, that he wouldn't have done that had he grown up in America. Because my dad's not a bad guy. Not a mean bone in his body. But he's old school. With old world values. And the thing that differentiated me from him was that I grew up here. And I wanted none of those old world ways about me.

So when Jeff moved in with the dog, a part of me was secretly relieved. Now I too could be a dog owner. One of those people who frisked their dogs and jogged with them. And our children could grow up with a dog in the family. They could be the type of people who love dogs. And wouldn't that be the sure marker of true Americans?

But this dream was short lived. I hadn't realized that when you become a mom, you no longer have the luxury of putting your self image first or even the image of your family. You become a slave to your instinct, and everything is about your child's eating, cleanliness, and sleeping. Before kids, Jeff and I constantly bragged about Sherlock's superior intelligence. And I was fascinated by this creature who knew how to shake hands, roll over and play dead, and rang a bell to be let outside. After kids, however, all those warm and fuzzy feelings toward the dog vaporized, and I only saw him as a source of threat to my kid's safety, hygiene, and territory. I felt like a substandard mom who had allowed an intruder to invade her nest and take residence.

All that Sherlock did seemed like acts of intrusion. When my baby held a piece of cantaloupe in his hands, Sherlock tried to sniff it. When Jeff played with the baby, Sherlock tried to wedge himself in the middle so that he could get his butt scratched. When the baby napped, Sherlock barked non-stop. And when I was in the middle of bathing my little one, he would start ringing the bell to be let out to use the potty. In those moments, I cursed him out, but under my breath so that Jeff couldn't hear.

Perhaps to appease my guilt, I often sought affirmation from fellow moms. Because I found out soon enough that my reaction to Sherlock was common among all dog owners after they became parents, even those who had treated their dogs like their first babies. When I heard other moms complain about their own dogs, I took in every word. And brought them home to Jeff. Because the few times I argued with Jeff were about how I treated Sherlock. And how I insisted that we all wash hands every time we touched Sherlock. When I relayed these stories, I made sure he knew they weren't Koreans like me, because I didn't want to hear him to say, "Well, sure, they don't like dogs. They're Korean," even though I knew he said it in jest.

All my dog-owner friends said things start to change when your children grow old enough to play with the dog. That's when the dog starts to redeem himself in your eyes. Because he can now contribute, instead of just making making demands. He can play fetch and tug of war with your kids. He can make your kids happy.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, we found out that our now toddler son has asthma. And he is allergic to dogs. Allergic. So bad that he had to be admitted to the hospital overnight. Smack in the middle of the redemption phase. How's that for a twist in the story? For the past couple of weeks, not knowing what else to do, we've been keeping Sherlock outside full time (albeit in a nice, sheltered doggie house in prime San Diego weather). Jeff takes him for regular walks and plays with him. But for now, Sherlock's officially ostracized.

I no longer have to spend so much energy trying to contain the dog and his uncontainable dander and his licking tongue and his wily ways. I now have belated justification for my obsessive compulsive vacuuming and insistance that we all wash hands fifty times a day. Yet, I don't feel relieved. Instead, I feel a little sad. Maybe it's the guilt creeping in or a little sense of regret. Or ruefulness that my children cannot grow up with a dog, as I had secretly hoped. But it also seems wrong that any creature's twilight years should be spent alone, away from his family.

Not all is lost, however. Jeff's parents called this week and asked if Sherlock could move in with them. He could be good for Jeff's ailing mother who responds better to the dog than anyone else. And Sherlock's need to be a part of a pack coincides with my in-laws' need for companionship and perhaps something to love. He is good at that - being the object of someone's love.

It's not what we expected. We expected Sherlock to have more time to play with our kids. And to grow old with us. And for him to teach our kids some lessons along the way. I didn't expect such a sudden separation, at least not before I had a chance to make more room in our household for a dog again. And not before I had found my way out of playing the role of the evil stepmother. But life doesn't follow your plans. It also doesn't live up to the scenarios you entertained in your childhood. And time often runs out before you know it.

Our children won't grow up with a family dog. And I will never be as American as I hoped to be. But my son will be able to breathe. And Sherlock will have all the love he wants without some peevish lady chasing him with a vacuum. Maybe that's not such a bad tradeoff.