The Owl

Written on June 9, 2002

In the end of August 2000, I had just returned from a disastrous field season at our archaeological dig in Turkey.  I’d been forced to leave in disgrace due to a long sequence of stupid mistakes on my part, and on the part of others around me.  Although the following year I was brought back and completely forgiven, at that moment I was devastated, fearing the reputation I had built in the field had been destroyed.

I returned to my home in downtown Buffalo, the two bedroom apartment I’d lived in for more than 3 years.  I returned to my landscaping job, and the strength-leeching, pointless relationship I’d been trying to wrench my way out of for months.  Although I’d kick him out some months before, I was still tied to him, and it was me he called when he was in trouble.  And I went.  He still had a key to my apartment, and he would come and turn up in my living room in the middle of the night when he’d been out all night on a binge. 

I wanted out.  Out of the relationship, out of that apartment, out of the city.  Within a week I had found a new apartment (the first I looked at) and discussed moving immediately with my landlord. 

The first of September I moved from my roomy downtown apartment to a small 2-bedroom apartment over a 2-car garage.  The place was perfect – still within the confines of the urban area, but surrounded by woods, with lots of space and lots of quiet.  A garage in which my car could huddle during the blasts of Buffalo snow, and a yard.

A yard.  Trees.  And the place to put in a garden of my own.  It had been a burning desire for me for some time.  I’d taken stabs at growing things at the apartment – some bulbs in the beds in the courtyard.  These were promptly killed the following spring when my landlord decided to put in a rock garden.  Some window-boxes on the roof-top terrace, with geraniums and wave petunias, vinca vines, impatiens….whatever I thought might look good.  They thrived, but I was gone during the height of the summer and had to leave others to tend them, to enjoy them. 

I settled in quickly to the new place, although my finances were severely strained.  The next few months were in some ways a nightmare, in some ways beautiful.  I started my gardens, planted out more than 200 bulbs, many of them gifts from my mom’s gardens.  And I sat back to await spring.

In October I finally broke away from the pointless relationship, with a sudden realization that I just didn’t want to be in it anymore. 

I spent a financially strapped winter, teaching a High School Latin class part time, working for a local company as a consultant, and awaiting spring – my garden, landscaping, a new start.

I changed phone numbers 3 times.   The ex kept calling, kept managing to get my number, kept showing up at my door.  Then, on New Year’s Day, he called me and threatened.  I’d never felt he was an actual physical threat before.  For the first time, he scared me.

Throughout it all, I reveled in my new home.  It was small and cramped, but it was away from the constant sirens, the revving engines, the motorcycles screaming down Delaware Ave., the thump-thump of a pimped-out car’s stereo.  I fell further and further behind in the rent, the utility companies threatened to turn off the heat and electric. I would lie in bed at night, waiting to fall asleep, dreading the next day of working a teaching job I hated, and listened to an owl outside my window.

Across the driveway from my house is an old willow tree.  In winter it resembled a broken and arthritic body, hunched over the snowy ground, an ancient woman standing guard over my life.  And in its branches, every night as I lie in my bedroom under my grandmother’s feather comforter, the owl would whoo-whoo into the night.

It was such a joy to me.  I’ve always loved owls.  We had a few on the farm when I was young, barn owls that made their nests in the oak rafters of our 100-year old barn.  However, in all that time, I’d never had the simple pleasure of listening to one call out in the night.  In Greece I saw them once in a while, even startled one out of an olive tree one day during survey work.  It flashed over my head with a nearly-silent WHOOSH, and careened off into the heavy air laden with the  drone of the cicadas.

My owl was like clockwork.  Every night, after slogging through grading, writing worksheets, brainstorming new ideas to get my uninspired students involved, and searching for the money to pay the bills, I’d finally crawl into bed disheartened and alone.  I rarely answered the phone, because it very likely was the ex, still bothering me.  And lying there, the owl would call, around 11:30 each night.

Whooo hooo! 

Such a soothing sound.  My mind would clear, and I’d drift off to sleep.  More than once I tried to spy out the bird itself, wanting to see what brought me such simply joy.  I never did, and it was bitterly cold out, so I didn’t go out to find it.  I feared the opening of the door would scare it off, anyway.  I wanted it to stay.

Winter slowly turned, and spring eventually took it’s reluctant hold of the Niagara region.  My garden began to sprout – daffodils, tulips, crocuses.  I was seeing a man named Gus, but that didn’t last long.  Wrong man.  At the end of May, I was fired from the teaching job.    Trumped up charges of fraud allowed the principal who had hated me to force me to resign.  The fact that I actually wanted to teach and hold my students accountable never sat well with him or his coddling relationship with the parents.  Latin is evidently a fluff class, which was news to me.  I continued to struggle with my finances.  Landscaping restarted and I worked that in addition to the consulting job for some weeks until they let me go too.  All the while, my owl continued to wish me goodnight with it’s eerie call.  I lived, I healed, I struggled to redefine myself after a long, trying time.

Then in late spring, perhaps around the first of June, work crews began ripping out all the trees which surrounded the properties where myself and a half dozen other people lived.  Forty years ago the area had been a dump, and our time had come for the superfund to clean up the mess.

Within 2 weeks, all the trees were gone except those immediately on our property.  I was told the pines behind my willow would go soon too, as well as the pole-building behind them.  When I left for Turkey in early July, I could see the bustle and lights of Transit road, a half-mile away over what used to be thick woods.

It ripped me apart.  My quiet haven was being ripped out of the ground. 

I spent my field season in Turkey, worked hard, had an extremely successful season, and returned to a home totally changed. 

My willow remained, but it was the only tree between me and Transit road.  Everything else was barren earth.  The backhoes and bulldozers were still hard at work.  They were digging down up to 40 feet, removing the tainted soil, and trucking in new dirt.  The plan was that nothing could ever be planted there.  Once it was clean, the area would be capped with clay, another layer of soil, and guarded indefinitely to be sure no one tampered with it, and nothing more substantial than low brush would grow. 

And my owl was gone.  I would lie in bed and listen for him, or sit outside at night, straining for some sign he was still there.  I mourned, and got on with rebuilding my life.

I’d gotten a new job, and only worked landscaping while the drug test for the new job was being processed and the paperwork was finalized.  A permanent job, something I’d not committed to before.  Always before I’d avoided permanent positions, because I wanted the freedom to finish my PhD, to travel to Turkey for field work every year.  I realized I had to fix my financial situation before I could do anything else.

I started my new job on September 4, 2001.  On September 10^th I met a man, and shortly thereafter fell in love.  On September 11^th, everyone’s world was shattered by terror.  I lived, I worked, I began to dig my way out of my financial hole. 

By January I was able to start saving money, to pay off old debts.  I loved a good man who wanted to take care of me.  My life felt like it was finally coming under control again.

Then, in mid-march of 2002, I lie in bed one early morning, awake before my alarm, and heard a quiet sound from outside.

Whooo-hooo!

For a split second, my heart stopped.  I lie and waited, hoping I hadn’t mistaken a pre-dawn morning-dove for something else. 

Then it came again…

Whoo hoo!

A grin split my face from ear to ear, and I wanted to get up and dance with joy.  He was back, if only for a moment, and I lie and listen to him until I had to get up for work.  I glided through the morning, happier than I’d remembered being in a long time.

I’ve not heard him since.  I don’t really mind.  I know he’s still around, and I listen for him.  But he’s still alive, still out there stalking the night.  He brought me a small moment of joy when my life was in tatters around me.  I almost felt like he came back to check on me, to see if I was well, and when he saw I was, he felt he could move on.  He is now probably in the woods on the far side of the road, too far away from my house for me to hear him.  There he will find game, and the shadows in which he can hide.

I wish him well.

Having A Type 1 Diabetic Child - The First Year

Photo credit: Rosie Kew/Clique

When your child is diagnosed Type 1 Diabetic, if you’re anything like me, you think you have a pretty decent idea that your life is about to change completely.  I was aware enough of the disease and how it is managed to know that it meant finger-sticks and shots, and to know that my heart was breaking because I knew and she didn’t – she had no idea that I was about to allow her to be poked and prodded and examined and that she would have to keep doing it for the rest. of. her. life.

What you don’t know, and what no one can explain, is how completely it will change in other ways. 

I didn’t know that sleeping through the night would become the exception rather than the rule.  Or that you both love and hate technology, because it has improved so much that it allows your child to live a mostly normal full life…but it is still so new that it fails often, and that little bit of uncertainty is hell on earth.  I didn’t know that I’d be struggling not only with the results of the disease, but with the emotional impact on a child I love.  I didn’t know that some people will scoff at the seriousness of the illness, and will treat my child as if she is overreacting when she’s upset about it, and scoff at my statements of stress and exhaustion. 

I never would have guessed that an appliance that makes delivering insulin so much easier would become hated in a way that no one can imagine unless they’ve relied on it day to day for their very life. 

I wouldn’t have believed it possible that a child’s personality could change so much, so quickly.  Or that the failure of some to empathize and understand could hurt so much. 

I had NO IDEA how much work I would miss.  I am thankful every single day that I co-own my company, so I can’t be punished for missed work. I have no idea how those who hold normal 9 to 5 jobs or otherwise work for others can keep from getting fired:  The routine doctor’s appointments an hour away which require at minimum a half day away from work, and for my child away from school;  Your child's missed days of school due to unexpected illnesses, abdominal pain, complications.; The struggle to figure out what your child has missed, and how to make it up, and realizing that your child no longer cares and is blowing ALL of it off; The meetings with teachers, counselors, social workers;  The missed work due to utter physical and emotional exhaustion when you just can. not. do. It.

Field Trips.  Oh yeah, did I mention field trips?  Unless there is an RN or LPN included in the chaperones…you’re going too.

Birthday parties?  Those too.  You get to go to every single one.  You get incredibly good at googling menu items for their carb content, and eventually create a mental cheat-sheet of routine items that you see over and over again.

You buy a highly accurate scale, and carry it around with you on trips because sometimes it’s just easier to weigh food than estimate otherwise.

You dread trips to certain restaurants, because you KNOW the child will ask for that slushy that contains 140 carbs…and you know you have to say no because it causes her blood sugars to skyrocket and you spend days trying to get her back to normal.

You didn’t know that puberty was your enemy in this battle.  Hormones cause crazy things to happen to blood sugars.  As if the mood swings weren’t bad enough, now you have to contend with sudden fluctuations in highs and lows, in correction rates, in basal requirements.  And they Change. Constantly.

On the up side, you are instantly part of a club - Parents of kids with T1D:  other parents you can contact to commiserate, get suggestions, or just hang out with when you need that break.  You share stories of diagnosis, treatment, favorite foods.  You know these people will understand when you've just had it, and your body and mind are protesting the strain, and you just need to let it out.

Because here's the thing - you have no idea what the stress of being responsible for your child's well-being day by day, hour by hour, will do to you.  You think you know - after all, you are a parent!  You held this tiny infant in your arms, you were 100%, completely, independently responsible for keeping him or her alive through those first few terrifying days, weeks months of life.  You think, "No problem!  I got this!"

And, if you're lucky, you do got it.  You can learn to handle the needles, the blood glucose meter, the calculations of total carbs based on serving size, the conversions of grams to ounces, or vice versa, the correction factor tables, the dosage guides, the difference between basal and bolus, and fast-acting versus long-acting insulin.  What about insulin pumps?  Doctors and other diabetics sing their praises!  So, which one?  is this one better than that?  what do they do?  how do they work?  once you pick one, how do you program it?  how do you convince a scared child that yes, it will hurt, but it will make things SO MUCH BETTER!  what happens when your blood glucose reads HI and it won't allow you to bolus for that?  How do know when the cannula fails and your child isn't receiving ANY insulin when you think they are?  how to do you know when that happens?  What about checking for ketones?  Did your child stick that little test strip into her urine stream to make sure her body isn't building up poisons in her blood stream that can kill her?  If she didn't, how do you get her to understand she HAS to do this?  You want her to stick this WHERE?  EW!  When do you call the doctor?  when is it time to pack up and head to the ER?

Will tonight be the night when you wake up at 2:38am, for no apparent reason, and test her blood sugar...and have it read 12, and you cannot wake the child up.  Will this be the night you have to administer the emergency glucagone shot, and call an ambulance?  

Will this be the day you kill her......

No Problem!  I got this!

and you do...until you don't.  Until the stress and the sleeplessness and the worry finally take their toll, and your body says, no more.  You need rest.  You cannot do this alone.  

<deep. breath>

This is the life of a parent of a T1D child.  We don't want sympathy.  We do want understanding.  We don't want pity, or statements of "oh my heart breaks...that poor girl!"  We want better research.  better funding.  Fewer battles for insurance coverage for the medicines and supplies and equipment that is required to keep their child alive.     we want a cure.

and we want sleep.  uninterrupted, stress-free, sleep.  

On behalf of all of the T1D parents out there, I want to apologize for those times when we just don't have enough left to care about your  topic of interest.  It's not because we don't value you, or your interests, or your well-being.  It's because we only have so much, and sometimes we're just tapped out.  And we hate ourselves for it.  Please don't think I'm joking.  You think...no you KNOW...that you are a failure as a friend, a wife, a lover, a boss...whatever it is.  Because you just don't have anything left.

But you have to find it, because in a few days, hours, minutes, another crisis will appear and you will have to make that judgement call.  You will have to make another decision that directly affects your child's well-being.  You will have to approve having your child restrained in order to get the IV in, give the 10th injection of the day, the 2nd blood draw....

Most of us aren't nurses, or doctors, or otherwise medically trained.  We're just moms and dads.  We were never taught how to do this.  We were never trained in how to make these decisions without investing our whole hearts into the process...to learn to accept that we are human and humans make mistakes, and we are just doing our best...this is our CHILD.  One of those people put on this earth that is our responsibility to keep healthy and whole.  

So, the next time you see that friend, or sister, or acquaintance,  whose kid is T1D....give him or her a hug.  Hold on to her, and say, you got this, but you can let it go just a little right now.  You are human, you are doing an amazing job, and you can just. let. go.  

And hold on for the storm is there, just under the surface, and it just might break over you.  

But that's ok...because, you got this.

Holly

Nothing Is Simple

Greetings....Welcome to my first ever Blog post.  I often feel I have things to share with the world, and no way to share them.  So, here we are.

Do you ever look back at your parents' lives, and wonder, "How in the hell did they make it look so easy??" Both of my parents are gone - My dad died 25 years ago, when I was 20 years old, resulting in the shattering of my nice, safe little home world.  He was a dairy farmer, and I grew up with him always around somewhere.  I didn't understand my friends whose dads had 9 to 5 jobs, or steel mill jobs.  Dad was always somewhere on our 250+ acre farm, working harder than anyone I've ever known since.  My mom died of a rare form of cancer some 6 years ago, a mere 3 months after we threw a 350 person 80th Birthday Party for her, with live music, catered food and deserts, and an open bar.  She danced, laughed, talked to all of her many friends and relatives, and within weeks was back in treatment for the cancer we thought she'd beaten.

I look back on my childhood with a sense of unreality.  I was the youngest of 3 - my brother is 3 and a half years older, and my sister is 11 years older.  We grew up playing on the farm, learning to help with all of the myriad chores required to make it work.  My mom worked there on the farm with my Dad.  I knew a parade of farm hands who were almost like adopted family members - they ate meals at our kitchen table, swam in our above-ground pool from time to time, included some of my earliest crushes and irrational dislikes.

Now, here I am, a 46 year old mother of 2, running a totally unrelated business on the same property where I grew up.  I am sitting right now at my desk in what used to be the milkhouse.  In fact, I am sitting inches from where my father died of a massive coronary so many years ago.  One of my 2 kids is my stepdaughter - she was 6 when her father and I got married.  The relationship is a combative one, thanks in large part to the disruptive nature of her biological mother's approach to parenting.

My other child is my 10 year old daughter who was diagnosed as Type 1 Diabetic 4 months ago.

My husband is a hard-working, brilliant, inspired, loving geek - he and I make up the ownership of our successful industrial automation company.

We have employees, all of whom I consider friends.  I care about them as I would a close family member, and invest in their lives as I would my own family.

And I'm bloody exhausted.

I know my parents' lives were solid.  I  know they didn't have all of the distraction we  have in our society today.  I know that things were somewhat simpler due to the simple fact that so many things were just accepted for what they were, without any questioning.  Sexuality, sexual identity, gender roles, religion, family.  I know they would both be baffled by many of the things we see and hear on a daily basis now.  I don't think either of them would be appalled if they'd lived through the changes - my mom was an immigrant, and despite not understanding my atheism, she never judged me for it.  My dad was a life long farmer, but he never begrudged that fact that neither my brother nor I was destined to continue the family tradition.  I have no doubt that both of them wondered what they would do with the farm when they were ready to give it up, since none of their kids were going to take it over.

I often think of them, when my exhaustion-fogged brain allows it, and wonder what they would think of me, and how my life is turning out.  Would my dad be proud of me, of us?  Would he have liked my husband?  Actually, there's little doubt in my mind that he and Russ would have been thick as thieves - Dad had the same off-kilter sense of humor that Russ has, the love of a great pun, the tendency to see things just a little off-center from most people. 

I look at friends and colleagues whose parents are still around, some of whom have very combative relationships with their parents.  It pains me.  I would give almost anything for one more day with either of my parents.  I want to grab my friends and shake them and shout DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THEY WON'T BE AROUND FOREVER?  DO YOU NOT SEE THAT WHAT YOU HAVE IS TO BE CHERISHED AND VALUED!!??

but....no one can teach that.  They have to live it themselves. 

Anyway.  This is my inaugural blog.  From time to time, with absolutely no regularity or reason, I plan to post my thoughts here, and share them with whomever might be interested.  Why?  I don't know.  Part of it is just to get out of my head the things that are stuck inside.  The other part is hoping that maybe something I've experienced will help someone else, or trigger a conversation, or maybe change a mind.

So, read on and enjoy, if you wish. I welcome constructive comments, both positive and negative.  I however will not tolerate pointless attacks. 

Thank you for sharing this journey with me.

Holly