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Mother Hen

Sep 21st, 2009 by

Every now and again I get slapped in the face with the fact that becoming a mother to Simon has changed me at a pretty profound level.

Sometimes the realization comes with a groan, such as the day I made a sandwich for Matt and caught myself cutting off the crusts and dividing it into tiny squares for him. Now, this is such a cliché of motherhood that it was featured in an article called “You know you are a mother when….” our local paper ran on Mother’s Day in 2008.

Becoming the living embodiment of a cheesy Hallmark card was not easy for me. In my own arrogant and defensive mind, I have approached this whole motherhood thing as an iconoclast. NO ONE is going to tell me how mothers feel about anything, thankyouverymuch.

With this attitude still more or less intact, I found myself talking to a colleague from the Sudanese Refugee Education Fund board of directors a few days ago when she referred to the two of us and some others on the board as being the Lost Boys’ “network of local moms.”

I immediately protested. “Moms? Speak for yourself! I’m not that much older than they are. Big sister maybe, but not mom.”

And I meant it at the time. After all, the person I’ve been working the most closely with lately is my Sudanese friend Gabriel, the invited speaker at Adath Jeshurun’s selichot service ten days ago. At nearly 30, Gabriel is just ten years younger than I am. He’s earned his degree, landed his first professional job, started his own non-profit foundation, married, and started a family. In terms of life milestones, we’re peers. In terms of life experience, he’s got a huge edge on me.

Last night he came over to my house to work on a new speech and join my family for dinner. Just as it was time for him to leave for a work meeting, the heavens opened and rain poured down in buckets.

“Gabriel, do you have an umbrella with you.” I asked.

“Oh yes, I have one in my car,” he replied.

“In your car?” I protested. “But you’ll get soaked before you even get there! Here, let me dig up one for you to use.”

About fifteen minutes later the rain got even harder, coming down in the kind of sheets that make roads slippery and visibility shrink, all accompanied by furious thunder and lightening. Normally when this happens my thoughts turn immediately to worries about keeping my basement dry and lights on. But not last night! Last night all I could think of was that my friend was out in his car, driving a good distance in terrible conditions.

I wanted desperately to call and make sure he was OK. Or call and leave a message for him to call me to let me know he got home OK. This morning I’m considering what work-related excuse I can dig up to call to make sure he’s OK. And the minute those thoughts ran through my mind, I realized I sounded just like my mom and had joined the network of local moms after all. I realize many non-parents of both genders out there would feel and act the very same way. My friend Amanda, for example,  has always been the protector to her friends. But I haven’t. For me, all of this began to appear about 35 short months ago.

Posted in Friends, Jessica | 2 Comments »

The “N” Word

Sep 18th, 2009 by

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the word “normal.” As in, what is normal for a three-year-old, such as a fear of loud noises or insects, and what is not normal in a three-year-old, which may well be Simon’s level of fear.

This all came about rather suddenly. One spring day my two-and-a-half-year-old boy was cheerfully stomping on ants while I took him away and lectured him about “ant families” and running in circles in front of our favorite ice cream shop while cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles roared by.

The next thing I knew it was late summer and my almost three-year-old son started to cry whenever he saw a gnat, ant, or mosquito, worried that a captured firefly might “hurt me” and became paralyzed by fear when he heard loud noises. Any time a plane flies over head, he freezes in his tracks, grabs my leg, and cries. Any time a bus roars by he stops what he’s doing, grabs my leg, and cries. Ditto back-firing cars. Ditto big trucks. Ditto metal power washers on decks and roofs. Ditto smoothie-making blenders. Double ditto loud thunder. Triple-ditto fireworks.

Not too surprisingly, this all began to appear around the fourth of July when the bugs were thick in the air and the fireworks deafening. We made the unfortunate error of leaving my pyrotechnically inclined brother Perry’s house on July 4 just as he set off something incredibly loud. Matt swears it was a concussion grenade and that Simon’s cheeks wiggled from its power. Whatever it was, Simon shrieked from instinctive, deep seated terror and has been terrified by loud noises ever since.

I assumed this was a phase. I assumed it was typical of three-year-olds or nearly three-year-olds. I assumed that it was to be expected given Simon’s sensitive nature. And I assumed it was annoying, but no big deal.

Simon’s teacher and the director of KIP, however, disagree. And that’s what has set me off to the books and the pediatrician, in that order.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My first hint that Simon’s behavior fell outside the parameters of normal came when a friend saw Simon react at a park. “I don’t want to freak you out,” she said, “but you see this in kids with Asberger’s. I’m not saying he has it—I don’t really know much about it—but if it happens all the time and he has this much trouble, you may want to have someone check him out. But again, I don’t want to freak you out, and I’m certainly not saying I think anything is really wrong.”

Later that day, after the same friend watched Simon happily play soccer and converse with a  neighbor, she looked at me and said “never mind.”  Still, the seeds were planted that Simon’s sensitivities were not looking normal—whatever the heck “normal” is—to others.

Then about two weeks ago, when I went to pick Simon up from school, his teacher and the school director greeted me and expressed their concern. After seemingly getting used to school by the end of the third week, he had two particularly tough days in the fourth.

Specifically, he was back to having a very hard time with transitions during the day, and he was frozen with fear on the playground to the extent that he abandoned his regular play-mates and unhappily stood alone. Worse, their attempts to comfort him didn’t see to be terribly comforting. Meanwhile, he can’t explain why exactly the loud noises scare him, he cries whenever another student cries, and when I ask him about school his usual response is “school is loud.”

I, arguer of all things, can argue this one pretty convincingly in both directions. In the “he’s fine” column, I note the following:

  • He’s always been sensitive.
  • He worked through this last year AND at camp.
  • During the week in question, his teacher had missed a few days and I had traveled.
  • When I Google “toddler fear loud noise”, it seems pretty common.
  • He’s not even three!
  • His dad was a lot like this when he was little.
  • His uncle was (is?) terrified of fireworks, too.
  • I’m no great fan of loud noises or changes.
  • My niece cried every day for six weeks when she started preschool at an older age, and she’s ok.
  • That day at the fair, two days after the teachers spoke to me, he had a blast and rode a pony.

In the “Oh God, something is wrong with my child” column, which is accompanied by visions of years of therapy, special schools, and a life of misery, I note these items:

  • These ladies have seen a lot of kids under their watch, and it doesn’t look normal to them.
  • It’s getting to the point where, as the saying goes, “it’s interfering with our daily lives”.
  • All the other kids seem to be doing better.
  • While he did OK at school and camp, he decidedly did NOT do OK at the teacher appreciation lunch, where Mr. Magic scared the bejeezus out of him and required his being removed to his room, or at his friend Leah’s birthday party, where he took one look at the crowd and the hired clown in her living room and announced “I can’t like this party.”

The “Oh God” list is shorter, to be sure, but has some real zingers in it. So we’ve seen our pediatrician, and I have a list of child psychologists to consult.

More on that trip to the doctor’s and my subsequent research in the next post.

Posted in Jessica, KIP (Preschool), Toddler! | 1 Comment »

Comic Relief

Sep 17th, 2009 by

I am just back from New York as of midnight-ish last night and am sufficiently exhausted from VMworld, two big work projects, and two days in a too small, too hot, windowless and frankly soul destroying room.

I’ll play catch-up soon. Right now I have laundry and napping on the brain. But, before I forget, I have two thirds of a hilarious Jewish-Buddhist haiku to share, compliments of an equally hilarious coworker of mine.

If there is no self,

Then whose arthritis is this?

As I have a newly arthritic right foot, I responded particularly well to this.

Posted in Jessica | No Comments »

Mothers & Fathers

Sep 12th, 2009 by

Here, in a short vignette, is the difference between mothers and fathers boiled down to its essence.

Simon has discovered the book It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. He wants us to read it to him before every nap and every bed-time, and he revels in telling us that “Lucy is cross”, that “Sally is a little bit upset,” and that “Charlie Brown had trouble with the scissors.” It’s adorable.

Matt and I, when reading the book to Simon, both adjust the text for length and toddler comprehension. In the pages where Snoopy is atop his doghouse, pretending to be a WWI flying ace fighting—and then being shot down by—the Red Baron, our parenting takes dramatically different turns.

When I read it, Snoopy is pretending to be a pilot who lands in the countryside and then goes exploring in the dark. It works with the pictures, and it keeps me from having to use words like “war,” “shot,” and “enemy” that I’d rather Simon not hear or know about. He’s got his whole life to learn about these sad things; at not quite three I’d like to preserve his innocence.  So in my telling, cute little Snoopy is dreaming of earning his wings and taking a European holiday.

When Matt reads the book to Simon, the very same two-page spread includes very few words, but rather is comprised of a five-minute percussive and pantomime tour-de-force in which Matt graphically imitates air battle, faltering engines, and a slow-motion crash into enemy territory.

So there you have it. One boy. Two parents. One story. My telling: A Year in Provence. His telling: Band of Brothers. Vive la difference!

Posted in Family, Jessica, Toddler! | No Comments »

Say What?

Sep 9th, 2009 by

I’ve gotten some unexpected responses to pretty simple questions of late. Such as:

Jessica: “How was school today, Simon?”

Simon: “I have to stop crying at school.”

Right. I guess I know what the theme this week has been.

Jessica: “Are you friends with Anieya at school?”

Simon: “Yeah. Anieya cried. I cried. Anieya hurt her leg. She got a band aid. She had to go to the hospital. But she’s OK.”

I thought this was total fantasy, but now I think I know where it’s coming from. Stay tuned.

Jessica to Ella’s father at open house: “Hi, I’m Simon’s mother. Simon talks about your daughter all the time.”

Ella’s father: “Oh? Did she whack him over the head with her leg?”

Excuse me? Now, this would have stunned me into silence, except for…

Jessica to Ms. Jill: “Is Simon friends with Ella? We’re hearing a lot about her lately.”

Ms. Jill: “Oh yes. But she might have scared him this week. She has a prosthetic leg, and she took it off earlier this week. Some of the kids were freaked out.”

I think that must be the Anieya story. I’m guessing the teachers explained why Ella has a prosthetic leg, and I heard the confused toddler version.

So there’s a snapshot of early days in the twos, brought to you by conversations taking an unexpected turn.

Posted in Jessica, KIP (Preschool), Simon says..., Toddler! | No Comments »

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Child Psychologist

Sep 7th, 2009 by

I’m going to post out of order here. It’s been a topsy-turvy weekend that launched on Friday with a fair bit of angst and wrapped up just a few hours ago with a palpable sense of relief.

I’ll discuss the angst part in greater depth later. For now, I’ll just report that Simon’s teacher came out to talk to me Tuesday because she was concerned about Simon’s difficulty making transitions in class and his terror of loud noises on the playground. He had two pretty rough days in a row, and the consensus among her, the aid in the room, and the school director is that Simon’s behavior is outside the normal range and needs to be looked at by a professional.

Friday night was not so happy in our house. Part of me is/was convinced that Simon was exhibiting nothing more than typical toddler and typical introvert tendencies, exacerbated by my absence for most of the week. And the other part of me is/was convinced that I should listen to Simon’s teachers and look into getting him help for some as-yet undiagnosed mental thing.

Tonight I find myself less panicked all round. We went to a big family festival at the Whitworths’ church today, and Simon had a ball. Picture a big raucous carnival in a giant noisy parking lot filled with lots of people and stimulation. It’s the type of scene I struggle with myself and that Simon usually can’t handle at all.

Well, he had a ball. The first booth he spied was a basketball shooting station. It was filled with older children, so I tried to steer Simon to a toddler bag toss right next to it. That’s just as good, right? Wrong. Oblivious to the older children, Simon wanted to shoot some hoops. So Matt held him up to dunk a few times, and then we worked on dribbling. Simon delighted us and himself even more by sustaining a short dribble (right-handed, oddly enough) several times in a row.

Next up, we decided to line up for the pony rides. Now here my prediction was that Simon would not be able to stand in the line and might very well freak out when placed on an actual pony. Wrong and wrong again. He waited in a crowded twenty-minute line just fine, and when he got up close and personal with the pony he smiled with anticipation. As the pony walked in circles Simon got a feel for the saddle, held on tightly, laughed and bounced, and had a grand old time. After one or two circuits, I could see my services were not needed, so I dropped my hand from his back and just walked behind him.

Next up, we petted goats and some huge Argentine rodent I’d never heard of before, sat amid the crowd and ate ice-cream, waved to a passing fire truck, and acquired a yellow balloon. Several planes flew overhead—these a particular source of concern lately—and Simon was either unfazed or looked up and waved at them.

It was, in short, a day made in toddler heaven. And it was also a day that—difficulty with transitions and fear of loud noises such as trucks, motorcycles, and planes aside—makes me think that while Simon may have a small “p” problem that would benefit from a bit of professional advice, that at a fundamental level everything must be OK.

Posted in Family, Jessica, KIP (Preschool), Toddler! | 1 Comment »

Two Days

Sep 4th, 2009 by

That’s how long I’m happy being away from Simon. I know this for a certainty as I just wrapped the better part of five days being on the road.

I left town on Sunday. But we spent most of that day together, as my flight didn’t leave until he was ready for an afternoon nap, and I had packed the night before to free me to spend all of my time with him before leaving for the airport.

Then Monday, I worked a bit from my Berkeley office, had a lunch meeting with an author, met an advisor at Cal, and then spent the evening with friends. It was a good work day, and I managed to visit with the children of friends without missing Simon too terribly. In fact, his absence most certainly allowed me to spend more time with the other children, especially 3 ½-year-old Thomas, with whom I rolled cars, played with vintage Star Wars toys, and engaged in various other little boy games. So Monday was cool.

Tuesday was my busiest day of all. I was booked at my conference from breakfast until after dinner and had nine official work appointments. I like being busy and find conferences alienating and overwhelming when I have too much time on my hands. I got back to my hotel room just in time to check email and go to bed on Tuesday, with sufficiently little down-time that breakfast was tea and scones with an author and lunch was skipped entirely. So Tuesday was cool, too.

Then I woke up Wednesday and suddenly felt not cool at all. I missed Simon. It seemed wrong to have been away for so long. I had my meetings and did my best, buy my energy was lower than the day before. Whenever I saw a small child, I felt a little wistful. I was ready for my day to end—ready for my trip to end.

Thankfully, I got rescued from my doldrums by the arrival of good friends Katherine and Yun, the parents of a total of five children. Katherine arrived by dinner time, consulted with me on boys clothing at Zara, and then offered field-tested advice on the best Chinatown trinkets for little boys. I used to pass by the tables heaped with junk outside the seemingly identical shops lining Grant Street and wonder, “Who buys this stuff?” People with children, that’s who buys that stuff. And it’s not all alike, either. I learned that lesson as Katherine persisted in her search for the “right” toy cable car. Not all them ring when you roll them, she explained, and ringing is a crucial element in the toy cable car experience.

Arms loaded with new purchases, including matching pleather purses I would have turned my nose up at four years ago, Katherine and I retired to a nice little French bistro for a matching dinner of scallops and wine. Then Yun arrived just in time for some dessert and girl talk. She arrived bearing gifts for Simon, including a tee-shirt I almost ordered him myself (in the wrong size, might I add, while Yun got it right) and a super cool Automoblox mini car. If you aren’t familiar with these—and I wasn’t—they are wooden cars with exchangeable assembly parts that allow children to design and build vehicles of their own design. Also, and this is important, they roll like an absolute dream.

Simon went to bed last night clutching his Automoblox in one hand and his cable car in another. These women know their toddler stuff!

But more than the stuff, Wednesday was salvaged by four hours of companionship with these wonderful friends. Our backgrounds, lives, and kids are all wildly different, but we all genuinely like and respect each other and support our mutual choices. There was none of the competitive parenting or even sizing-up I sometimes witness, just an honest sharing of experiences, tips, frustrations, worries, and delights. By the time we said our goodbyes forty-five minutes after the restaurant closed, I felt better about my parenting and buoyed with new ideas for the same all at once.

When I teetered up to my hotel room at 11:00 Wednesday night, I still had to pack and get myself ready for a 5:00 wake-up call the next morning. This was going to be no easy feat, for my small rolling bag now had to contain an extra purse and pair of shoes of mine, four shirts and a sweater for Simon, three toys, home-made preserves from friend Christine, a bag of tea, and a conference book. It was closer to a geometry exercise than anything I’ve done in a long time!

I was physically tired when I woke up Thursday, but mentally felt much better than I had the day before because I knew I was going to see Simon that day. I also knew that just as soon as Simon is ready for a cross-country flight, my little family is going to plan a California vacation to spend time with all these people who made our separation easier to swallow.

Posted in Friends, Jessica, Toddler! | No Comments »

Tourist Attraction

Sep 1st, 2009 by

So I’m at the Louisville airport, walking beside the pedestrian walkway as I make my way from security to my gate on Sunday. On the walls on both sides of the hall are screens with a rotating collection of shots from Louisville.

“Come visit here,” they beckon. I notice the images are all Louisville at its best. The skies are clear and sunny on the summer shots and equally clear in the many fewer winter ones. Twenty-somethings  laugh over coffee outside a cafe. Two women laugh as they exit a shopping center. A handsome chap is caught laughing and chatting into his cell phone at a work site. Happy crowds laugh and mingle at the St. James Art Fair. Everyone is so happy here! The buildings are all pretty, too, from the historic downtown ones to the federalist house in Butchertown to the Victorian and Arts and Crafts ones in the Highlands.

I can’t help but notice that it looks like the café is one in my neighborhood. And one or two of the houses is very close to me. Then I realize that a park scene is from a park I frequent quite often. Then I notice a family at a park that looks familiar: A tall-ish man is holding a boy, about  a year and a half old, over a creek so the boy can dip a toe in. A short, dark-haired women stands to the side and looks on.

“Hey!” I say to myself. “That’s Big Rock. I love Big Rock.”

Then I look closer.

“Hey! That boy looks like Simon. And that guy, he sort of looks like Matt… And the woman, that’s a familiar face…. And the boy’s shirt… Does Simon have the same shirt?  All so very familiar…”

Then it registers.

“HEY! That’s us! At Big Rock! On the airport screens!” We’re a freakin’ tourist attraction, baby.

I wait ten minutes for the video to cycle through again. I may be delusional after all.

Nope, there we are. Based on Simon’s age and my hair, I place the video at late spring/early summer 2008.

There you have it folks. Come to Louisville and see the sites. In other words, us!

Now I have to find someone who works for the city that can get me a still from the video. Because even having seen it twice I need third-party validation that it’s not all in my mind.

Posted in Family, Jessica | 1 Comment »

Tell Us about Your Child

Aug 30th, 2009 by

They sent me home with this little form on Friday, titled “Tell Us about Your Child.” It offered more food for thought than I expected. Owing to my god-awful handwriting, I ended up typing the sucker and filling it in myself. What they gave me was a slightly crooked, nth-generation copy with a drawing of kiddos on the side. One thing I regularly find charming about KIP is how low-tech the place is. I swear, I know there is still a mimeograph machine back in the office somewhere.

 

Anyway,  here’s the form as I filled it out, along with a helpful and handy translation in case you need help reading between the lines.

 

Tell Us about Your Child

 

Child’s Name: Simon Whitworth     

What kinds of activities is your child most interested in?

 

Simon loves music, reading books, playing any game that involves a ball, running, playing with toy cars/trucks/buses/airplanes, and finger-painting. He’s also a bit of a Curious George addict, loves animals, loves playing with sand or water, and loves being outside.

 

Translation: He probably liked camp better than school.

 

What does your child do especially well?

Simon has good fine-motor skills and is a clear and voluminous talker. He’s good at catching and hitting balls, stacking blocks, turning pages in books, etc. He’s also very in tune with others’ emotions and understands and uses words like happy, sad, scared, cross, etc. correctly.

 

Translation: The kid never shuts up, and he’s going to tell you about being sad or point out others being cross all the time.

 

What people (family and friends) are the most important to your child?

Mom (Jessica Goldstein) and Dad (Matthew Whitworth); Bubbie (Rita Goldstein); Zadie and Nana (Ivan and Ruth Goldstein); Grandma and Papaw (Jim and Evie Whitworth); Uncle Dan (Whitworth); Aunt Bobbie (Whitworth); Uncle Perry and Aunt Tia, and cousin Nathan Goldstein; Uncle Steve and Aunt Stacy, and cousins Liv, Maddie, and Ben Goldstein; Friends Sophie Braunstein and Leah Shuhmann; long-time babysitter Molly Myatt; cats Percival (Percy) and Tristan (Boodle).

 

Translation: Look at all that local family. Lucky kid!

 

Does your child have any particular fears?

Simon can be timid around new people (but not women typically), and is sometimes afraid of insects and spiders. He has a very hard time dealing with loud noises including motorcycles, planes flying low, loud cars, fireworks, and crowds. He will never be the first to jump into a fray; he always stands back to observe first.

 

Translation: Bit of a chicken. Please be gentle.

 

Are there any particular likes and dislikes?

Simon loves animals (just not insects!), music, the color green, all wheeled toys, bubbles and balls, books, and Curious George. He dislikes loud noises, changes, crowds, and vegetables.

 

Translation: Please don’t plan a day where the kids take celery sticks outside to snack while observing spiders in their natural environment.

 

What observations do you have about your child as a learner?

Simon has a long attention span, a long memory and thrives on repetition. He will often read a story four times in a row before every nap or bedtime until he can recite it to us. He’s also very good at playing on his own, making up new ways to play with toys, and is just beginning to play “pretend” and engage in symbolic play. If Simon tries to do something and can’t, he’ll get upset and frustrated instead of moving on.

 

Translation: I have never thought about this question before. Ever. Not once. Still not sure if I answered it.

 

What are your goals for your child this year at school?

I want Simon to continue building on his social and fine motor skills and work on catching up with his gross motor skills, where I still think he’s a bit behind his peers. (Simon did not walk until he was 20 months old and still can’t jump.) I’d also like to see him learn to stand up for himself better; he’s a rather timid boy.

 

Translation: My goal is for him to have a decent time, continue to socialize, and not freak out. It’s a bit early for real goals, eh?

 

What else would you like your child’s teacher to know?

Simon is extremely sensitive and has a hard time dealing with changes. He’s also a classic observer who needs to check out a situation from the sidelines before joining in. He’s never one to jump into the fray. Finally, please note that Simon is left-handed.

 

Translation: I know he’s super sensitive and is going to cry at first. Please be patient with him. Please like him. And please don’t try to make him a righty, because that’s how my Dad’s handwriting got to be so awful. 

Posted in Jessica, KIP (Preschool), Toddler! | 2 Comments »

Ted

Aug 27th, 2009 by

I’ll  keep this short, because really what can I say that hasn’t already been said by those more knowledgable and eloquent?

I think I’ll just stick with a silly little story from my own experience. When I was 17, I spent part of a summer working as a United States Sentate page for the One Hundredth Congress. That was the summer of Iran-Contra hearings, of Bork’s failed nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the announcement of National Dairy Goat Awareness Week. Hey, it can’t all be profound.

My job as a page was basically to deliver and to fetch. Deliver briefings and agendas to the Senators’ desks. Deliver mail to their offices. Fetch them pens and water and deliver them to the chamber.

Most pages hated the mail run. Those halls were endless, and your feet hurt at the end of the day. But I loved it. It got me out of the stuffy office and allowed me to stroll through the capital building, the senate office buildings, and even ride the super-secret capital subway.  By far my favorite office to go to was Senator Kennedy’s. The first time I walked in, I took one look at all the Kennedy family photos on the wall, realized I was staring at originals, and felt the weight of history. If I arrived at that office after an hour of clomping through the halls in hard-soled navy loafers (dress code), my feet hurt a little less once I was surrounded by those images.

The highlight of any day was floor duty. We pages would all sit on the steps that lead up to the podium and await requests for errands, water, notes, pens, etc. You had to be aware of just a few things while on floor duty:

  • You had to be able to recognize every Senator. The fact that many used the same official photo for 15+ years was no great help. It was like online dating before “online” even existed.
  • You had to know their water preferences. Distilled? With bubbles? Ice? Tall glass? Senator Byrd, for the record, only drank distilled water from a certain jug whose provenance was his home state of West Virginia.
  • You had to remember where to stand and sit. There was a protocol for waiting, for being on deck, and for being summoned. The last thing anyone needed was a clumsy or oblivious page getting in the way of important business.

In other words, the last thing they needed was me. The highlight—the absolute highlight—of my time in the the Senate was the day I was next up to help, and Senator Kennedy approached the chair. Here was an icon, a Kennedy for crying out loud, and I was going to meet him face-to-face for at least fifteen seconds.

Turns out my meeting lasted a bit longer. Flustered, I stood in the wrong place, then moved awkwardly to correct course, and ended up tripping him.  He went down most of the way, caught himself with a knee on a step and an arm on the banniser, and pulled himself back up.

I’m sure my pupils were fixed and dilated from fear. And you know what he said?

“Oh my goodness, you are shaking? Are you OK?”

Yes, yes, I assured him. I would recover from tripping him.

“What’s your name, young lady? Where are you from?”

I told him.

“Well thank you very much for serving. And you have a good rest of the summer.”

It sounds and was so small a thing. Except many in that very chamber with half the experience and twice the ego would have excoriated me. But not Senator Kennedy. Never him.

The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

Posted in Jessica | 2 Comments »

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