Photo Essay: Orange Tic Tacs (Sitka, Alaska)

Photo Essay: Green TK (Sitka, Alaska)

Saving the World

TK and Nick are superheros today, and I -- merely the mother, after all -- am the office secretary. The game is this: as TK and Nick "work" at play cash registers in their "office" (a Bob-the-Builder tent in the corner of Nick's living room), I am stationed on the couch fielding phone calls from the many imaginary and quite distressed citizens of Juneau who need superheros to save the day.

"Oh! Calling Batman and Super Purple Girl!" I call out. Batman emerges from the Bob-the-Builder tent, his black bat ears askew, his glasses falling down on his nose. Super Purple Girl steps out slowly, concentrating on the sparkly pink lip gloss she is applying to her lips. I clear my throat, ever the good employee. "Downtown Juneau is being attacked by enormous evil butterflies!" I announce. "Will you deal with it?"

Super Purple Girl throws her lip gloss aside, and thrusts her arms into the air. Batman strikes a manly pose with both hands on his hips. "Yes!" they shout together, and they pretend to launch themselves into the air, running pell-mell down the white carpeted hallway toward Nicky's room, where ZAP! and POW! are the sounds of the defeating of evil butterflies.

When they return -- inevitably sporting pretend injuries and exhaustion -- I always breathe out in secretarial amazement: "Oh, wow. You superheros saved the day again!" Nick and TK puff up with pride, and then disappear again into their office until the next phone call. . .

And I perch on the couch, thinking. TK doesn't play superhero with her girl friends. She and her girl friends rock dolls to sleep; they dress up in pink princess crowns; they dance wildly to hiphop music. Actually, TK plays like that with Nick, too. But I'm not just contemplating how special of a friend Nicky is. I'm thinking about superheros, and my daughter's ardent belief in their real ability to save the day.

For about a year, TK has quietly insisted she will grow up to become a teacher or a doctor, and then return to Ethiopia to help people there. Already a girl with a strong sense of justice and empathy, she has recently developed a grown-up look about her when she discusses her birth country: she sets her jaw, and looks out into the distance, announcing that she'll make it better there when she gets older. A few weeks ago, when the two of us were sharing dinner, she brought it up on her own. "Mommy," she said quietly, "in Ethiopia, lots of people don't have enough good water."

I nodded, waiting.

"And lots of people can't get to doctors." Her little brow furrowed. "Like my birth mommy. She couldn't get to a doctor."

I pulled her off her chair and onto my lap and held her close. "Isn't that why you say you want to be a doctor, sweetheart -- and go back there?"

She sat up straight suddenly and lifted her little chin. "Not a doctor, Mommy! I'm going to be a superhero when I grow up, and I'll go to Ethiopia and save the day -- for everyone!" Her deep brown eyes flashed.

I held her closer, wishing superheros were real.

But a week later on another night, the two of us were engaged in a pretend battle between Monster (me) and Super Purple Girl. I tramped into the room, growling and clawing the air, announcing that I wanted to eat little children, when TK leapt off the couch in superhero pose, her hands flipped palm up to me.

"Aaarrrrr!" I growled. "What are your powers, Super Purple Girl? You can NEVER defeat ME!"

"My powers," Super Purple Girl proclaimed in her biggest voice, "are that I LOVE YOU!"

And so the monster melted, and was glad to be defeated and hugged tightly on the couch.

And so TK's dreams of helping Ethiopia are possible, too -- more possible than any mere secretarial mother may be capable of imagining.

I must get back to work, though. The phone is ringing off the hook with distressed citizens, and the superheros will need a snack soon -- and no one can defeat evil butterflies or slime monsters without a little yogurt and some goldfish crackers in their bellies first. . .

Fridays with Nick and TK

Every Friday, at 10 a.m., TK's good friend Nicky joins us for the day. I suppose it's my "job" on Fridays, though it doesn't feel anything like a job, in that it's pure joy most of the day. In fact, Fridays with these two rambunctious, sweet 4-year-olds are a therapeutic time (thus my loose allusion to the popular title "Tuesdays with Morrie") -- advice about how to live and how to see, a model for how to prioritize my time, a reminder that all one really needs is a great imagination, yummy snacks, and a silly and dependable friend.

I'll let them show you a glimpse of our Fridays themselves.



"While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about."
~Angela Schwindt

It Will Be Okay, It Will Be Okay

This week, after days of near-zero temperatures and an evil wind, all the heating pipes in our badly built house froze, then thawed, then burst -- then leaked -- then poured. Buckets of urine-colored water poured from the living room ceiling in multiple places; thick rusty sludge dripped from the ceiling of TK's room and my room. We follow the plumbers' advice and cheerfully place buckets everywhere -- until I notice the rusty drips on TK's white bedspread and burst into tears.

Why did I bring my Ethiopian daughter to live in Juneau, Alaska? It's dark here, and cold, and everything either mildews or molds apart into soggy, saturated pieces. The wind howls outside, and the sidewalks are so icy it's safer to drive to the store than to walk. We live indoor lives in this town; venturing outside is a production of hats and gloves and rainboots and raingear that some of my neighbors seem to find endearing, but that I find tedious. Now outside is inside, running in rivulets and waterfalls from cracks in the ceiling. No escape from the water.

While the plumbers tromp mud up and down the stairs, I stand in TK's room and sob in great gasping breaths, the tears streaming down my face. . . until I feel a little hand patting my hip. I look down. TK is patiently mopping up the drips from the ceiling with a dish towel while she pats me reassuringly with her other hand and shakes her head wisely: "Don't worry about it, now. It's going to be okay. It is going to be okay!"

Two days later, when half of the living room ceiling collapses from water saturation in a thunderous boom (while I watch from the couch, where I lie sick with the stomach flu), I chant TK's reassurance like a prayer. It's going to be okay, it's going to be okay. Don't worry about it, now!

We move her birthday party to a friend's house -- a sweet, sweet friend who decorates doorways and chairs with purple streamers and balloons, planned party games, and bought prizes just so it will feel festive and warm and DRY. How many times does TK smile at me -- as she dishes up the huckleberry ice cream for everyone, as she plays pin-the-tail-on-the-hamster, as she demonstrates dance moves for everyone -- in that reassuring, wise way?

Aren't I the one who should be reassuring HER?

That sweet little person. Today, we decide to begin a new birthday ritual: to watch the videos the adoption agency (Children's Home Society) gave us when we left Ethiopia two and a half years ago. One is an interview of TK's birth father, including footage of the tukul in which she was born and the land that surrounds it. The other is a video account of her three months at the orphanage -- and our first few days together. For an hour, we watch those videos. I push pause when TK asks me to -- because she wants to know why people aren't wearing shoes in the Ethiopian countryside, because she wants to look at the tukul for awhile, because she wants to hear her birth father pronounce her name again. This is the first time TK has ever seen these videos. We talk, and talk -- and laugh at her toddling self, at the way her laugh looks the same on her baby self as it does on her 4-year-old self. She cuddles on my lap. Above us: the gaping hole in the living room ceiling.

What is calamity, really? Broken pipes and a hole in a ceiling in a rambling three-bedroom house in a good, safe neighborhood in a good, safe town with electricity and free public schooling (and shoes) hardly qualifies. Do I forget sometimes? Do I forget to be grateful for shoes, for shelter, for the safety of my body and the education of my child? Yesterday, I was annoyed the grocery store didn't have kale. Tonight, I was grateful for every bite I ate.

What separates us -- those of us here (even in leaky houses) and there in Ethiopia -- is not the grace of any deity, or a reward for any work, but chance. I celebrate my daughter's birthday with her and feel overwhelmed with gratitude -- and with sorrow, because her birth mother, Amarech, died and did not get to know the wonder that is Mitike, because Mitike is growing up so far from her home country and culture and birth family. And I worry: can I give her the life I so want to give her? The life her birth family hoped she would have?

After lunch, TK snuggles into her warm (and dry) bed with me, ready for a nap. I've just told her a story and sung her a song. She's got one arm around Purple Bear and one arm around me. I gaze at her. I cannot believe how much I love this child. My heart aches with it.

And then I remember to be grateful for that: with love, it WILL be okay, even if the world literally crumbles down all around us.

TK and Baby Jesus

It's Christmas time, and 3.5-year-old TK -- the daughter of a lapsed-Lutheran, questioning-Unitarian mother; the granddaughter of two Lutheran ministers; the child, by birth, of a country that has embraced Christianity and Islam and animism in neighboring regions -- is trying to understand Jesus.

Jesus. That little baby born in oh little town of Bethlehem, away in the manger, no crib for a bed. Angels-we-have-heard-on-high sang to him, and we-three-kings brought him gold and oil. The cattle were lowing, and Rudolph won't you guide my sleight tonight? Where's Santa?

Jesus. TK scrunches up her face and studies the nativity scene at her nana's house: the tall slender figures carved out of a dark wood; they look African. She's heard the story; her mama's told her many times, from many different angles. But the shepherd with the long staff bothers her. "He's trying to poke the baby Jesus' eye!" she cries, and moves him to the far end of the table. She gathers the others close around Jesus in the manger. They seem to huddle there, as if guarding each other from the cold of the world outside their circle.

Jesus. In a small Lutheran church in a small Iowan town, TK studies a stained-glass window over her aunt's shoulder, and wants to know if that long-haired person in the white robe is Jesus' mommy. Her mama explains that no, it's Jesus; some people think he had long hair. TK whispers back, "That can't be Jesus. He had brown skin. Like ME." She scans the congregation -- all descended from Scandinavia and Germany.

Jesus. TK leaves a plate of lasagna out for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, a mug of orange juice, a plate of cookies, and a drawing. "Do we leave something for Jesus, too?" She's not trying to cover her bases, to make sure she gets enough presents. She wants to take care of everyone, always. The lasagna is because she worried that Santa might eat too much unhealthy food in his travels across the world.

Jesus. Her mommy doesn't know, really. He might have just been a man, TK. What does "Immanuel" mean? "God is with us." Singing, "Christ the king was born today," she asks, "He was a king?" But her mommy isn't sure.

In the glowing light of the church on Christmas Eve, Grandpa Gerry, who is also Pastor Gerry, reads from John 1:5, "a light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it." TK's eyes sparkle in the flickering candlelight. She has thrown herself into snow angels, she has wrapped her arms around family members, she has jumped and danced and leaped and skipped. She is a light in a too-dark world.

Her mommy tries to be, too.

Jesus. TK wants a story as she falls asleep on Christmas Eve, tired, finally, after listening for reindeer hooves on the roof. "Once, the world was dark. But then a baby was born. . ." The ancient Greeks told the story of Pandora and her box -- and of what remained after sickness and sorrow had screamed into the human world. "Hope -- the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words and never stops -- at all." Light.

Hope.

Whales Singing

I have been dreading this moment all day -- this moment when I have to tell TK that our 46-year-old friend and neighbor -- and a father figure for TK -- has died suddenly in a running accident. My own sadness weighs me down; waves of horror at the randomness -- the unfairness -- of it all pummel me again and again. I feel nauseated.

I'm distracted as she chatters about her day in the pre-K room at Gold Creek -- who she played with, a silly story about the playground. Always, she asks me about my day. Always, she asks some specific question, like an adult would do: "What did a student do that was funny, Mommy?" She skips beside me, listening as I talk.

I can't bring myself to tell her the awful news I am carrying.

Finally, I stop in the middle of the sidewalk. I get down at her level; I look her in the eyes. "I have something sad to tell you. . ." I begin. And when I have told her, her deep brown eyes widen and then she murmurs, "That IS sad." I watch her, waiting for the cry of grief and anger that gripped me when I heard the news. But instead, Mitike furrows her little brow and straightens her back, and pulls from Greek mythology: "Who will go to the Underworld to get him?"

I love her. I love that she is nearly four and can barely understand the difference between imaginative story and reality. I love that -- if it were possible to trace Orpheus' path -- TK would volunteer the two of us in a moment. I gather her into my arms and murmur something about mythology and how our friend is actually, really gone.

None of us can comprehend that. The grown-ups in TK's life wander blindly through their days, stunned. Someone healthy -- and that GOOD -- can just. . .die? Someone with two young children, someone who was working to conserve forests, someone who was a good and kind neighbor and friend and father to everyone he met? Gone?

On the second day after we hear the news, TK's questions turn to the literal: Where is his body? Who will bury his body? What will happen to his body? I find these questions painful to answer, and I don't understand why. I grieve.

On the third day, TK calls from her perch on the potty in a restaurant bathroom stall, "Mommy, is he with Jesus?" I have no idea where she's heard that idea, though she claims she heard it from Nana.

"Some people believe that," I say, nodding.

"Do YOU believe that?" she asks, wrapping toilet paper around and around her little hand.

"I'm not sure," I answer.

"Is Jesus in the Underworld?" she asks.

On the fourth day, we discover our pet hamster has died. Normally, Katie and TK would be devastated; in context, the hamster seems even to them like a mere small animal -- and an old one, at that. I break the news to TK as we walk home from school, and she raises her arms to be lifted up. She's silent for a moment, gazing up at the mountains and the spruce and hemlock forests. "Mommy," she murmurs, "EVERYTHING dies." I hold her close, the tears rising in my eyes. "EVERYTHING. Even the trees."

Our friend worked to conserve trees. I've just written a poem about him in which I compared him to a rare yellow cedar tree. Tears begin to roll down my cheeks.

"Even the trees die, Mommy," TK murmurs again.

She doesn't ask more questions after that. She takes action, as only a nearly-four-year-old can take action. When our friend's 2-year-old son arrives in our house, TK wraps him in her small arms and good-naturedly vrooms his truck back and forth across the carpet with him, though she does not normally play with construction equipment. She works hard to make her little friend laugh, and when he announces -- out of nowhere -- his dad's name, Mitike nods encouragingly. She knows, somehow, how to listen -- and how to be gentle -- and how to love.

The morning after the memorial service, I am sitting alone on the couch in our living room, sipping coffee and remembering -- especially the moment I chose to share at the memorial, the moment about our friend's family and our family camping on Eagle Beach and listening to the humpback whales singing beneath the water's surface. I close my eyes. Often, I repeat to myself, "GONE." I still can't understand the word.

Mitike emerges from her bedroom, Purple Bear clutched close to her chest with one hand, and Horton the Elephant swinging from the other. She climbs onto the couch and cuddles close to me.

"What did you dream about, sweet girl?" I ask her.

"Whales," she says sleepily. "They were singing, remember, Mommy?"

No one is ever gone completely. That's why we hold our memories so tightly; that's why we tell stories, again and again. I do not know where our friend is -- but I believe in the human soul existing beyond our human bodies. Whales singing.

I know that we are not the only ones to have lost someone. I know he will not be the only one we lose. Already, in Mitike's little life, our friend is one among many who have died, including her birth mother -- he is just the first in her memory.

I am afraid of such a random, raw world. I am afraid of the finality of death. I am terrified to lose what I love.

TK cuddles closer, and I wrap my arms around her. "We just have to love each other and LOVE each other," she announces.

And so we do. Oh, we do.