R is for Remember

Sorry I'm dragging this one on so much. The experience was really life changing and not in a positive way.

Waking up on Friday, we gave thanks that yet another tree hadn't fallen to add to our misery and then opened our bedroom window to peek at the damage. The tree!! Boy was it a large one!! This one was spread all over the backyard.

On further inspection it looked like a tree in our neighbor's yard had fallen on another tree in his yard and both had fallen into our backyard. And along the way they had managed to crash a sugarplum tree in our yard and take it with them. Three trees ..trouble comes in threes I guess. 

Yet another neighbor of ours came in on Friday and helped us board up both the windows very securely, and managed to  cut away part of the tree so we could access the windows from outside. Power came back by afternoon and we were warm and almost close to normal once again. The thaw was pretty steady after that and by Saturday we were really really back to our lives the way it had been seven days ago.

Insurance should take care of most of the expenses and overall we came away much less affected than a lot of people we know. My Tai chi teacher had a tree go through her roof and will probably have to demolish and rebuild her house, six to eight months work. All their possessions stuck there and damaged probably by the elements of nature.

And Portland overall has been pummeled. Numerous trees down, quite a few on houses, some fatalities and in general, the fury of nature has left us massive reminders. The clean up is going to take time. We still have the darn tree staring at us and today might be the day it might get cleaned up. The windows are going to take much longer. They are usually ordered on demand and take time. So we are going to be left with scars of this storm for quite some time. 

But they also serve as lessons. Valuable ones. Like don’t mess around with nature. You never win.The imagery that came to mind was that of a tigress lazing around with her cub who keeps being annoying, nibbling her ear, grabbing her tail or in general being a pest. The mother puts up with this for a while and when her patience is finally exhausted, she lets out a mighty roar that literally peels the pants off the cub, who cowers at her feet, ears flattened, eyes beseeching.

Nature is our mother. We all came from her and she never ceases being the mother. We do not ever outgrow nature. We don’t go off and become independent . We will never hit a point where we don't need her. She is the one who keeps us alive. Feeding us, clothing us, sustaining us, giving us shelter.  All the supposed advancements that men have achieved? Peanuts compared to what she has gives and continue to give us. And when we are pared down to our basics, we are just muscle and bone with skin over it and all that is needed to sustain us is within nature.

Lose power and you find the value of fire. Lose power and you find the value of warmth. Walk in the dark and learn the value of light. Worry about your refrigerator going off and learn the value of fresh food. Frozen water pipes teach us the value of fresh water. After all, what we need to survive is food, shelter and clothing( optional no??). Nature has it,all of it.  Maybe in an unrefined form but it is all there.

When humans decided to 'tame' nature to their whims, nature waited and watched patiently. Centuries of 'advancement ' which included defiling nature just for our benefit.  Forests decimated, waterways rerouted, artificial materials dumped into oceans and released into the atmosphere. She waited and watched. 

Our neighborhood used to be a Christmas tree farm or some such thing. It was cleared away to build houses. A few trees were left behind I guess. Large firs with fibrous roots tend to be clumped together  and the roots intertwine underground and hold them all together in a rock solid bond. But indiscriminate chopping and leaving lone trees or trees farther apart, so the house can be built just so, or for nothing other than aesthetic purposes, backfired this time. Bending nature to our will for selfish purposes when nature has her own reasoning for things never is a good idea. We've learnt that firsthand. Painful lesson this. 

So it all depends on how much we will pay heed to nature. We can always start small. Have sustainable practices at home like reducing the use of plastic. Recycling as much as possible. Reducing food waste. Composting.Reusing things as much as possible. Using water sensibly. Planting native species in the garden. Small baby steps, but will definitely count when enough people do it.

Respect nature and most important of all, remember. Remember how it feels to have nature take revenge on you for all the abuse heaped on her. You will not make it, unless you heed her not so gentle reminders.

R is for Rage.

Wednesday evening was really a weird experience. The realization that you had been forced to leave your house and you wouldn't be able to stay there because of reasons beyond your control was swirling in my mind. While we loaded the dishwasher and prepped a meal and sat around the table, all that I could think of was how we had to make the difficult choice of whether to stay home or leave. Nature felt threatening at that point. We were at its mercy.  But we had made it home safe and sound and the power was back on, the house was warm, the water was hot and our beds were cozy and were ours to sleep in! Well, that was that. Back to good old life with all its everyday occurrences.

Thursday began all clear and calm, apart from the occasional wind gust. We went about our usual routine. Noel had no school on account of burst pipes and such in  most school campuses. The harvest festival back home had been drowned out in this mad storm and to make up for it, I made three traditional dishes that Noel ate with so much relish that I was happy we could leave our memorable experience of the last few days behind. 

Noel had therapy at 4.00 in the evening and I set him up online and walked downstairs to brew a cup of tea for myself. Fifteen minutes later, the power went out. That literally sent a chill through me. All the memories of the last few days came rushing back and I looked out the window. The wind was picking up and the rain was not heavy but since the temperature had barely made it past freezing, it was literally icing up when it hit the snow from the previous few days. Bad, but hey we had made it through one event, and if we sit tight, another one should be a breeze isnt it? Wrong!

While the cold was making us uncomfortable, it wasn't as bad as it has been the past weekend and it was manageable. Since we had done it once before, we prepared dinner, ate it and as usual set up things for bed. But this time we decided to lug three mattresses from upstairs and line them up in front of the furnace. We all remembered our hips hurting every time we slept on our side the previous Saturday night when we only had comforters between us and the hardwood floors. Funnily, everything seemed easier this time around because we felt confident about what to do. And the forecast was for icy rain only until the next morning. The wind gusts were strong, but if trees had held fast the last time around, why wouldn't they do so now?

We settled down around 7.30 p.m in the living room, Noe lounging on the temporary beds set up on the floor, and Manny, Vincent and I on the couches encircling the makeshift beds, all huddling as close to the fireplace as possible.We each had a device in hand, a phone or a Kindle and were engrossed in whatever it is we were watching/ reading. 

About fifteen minutes in, we heard the loudest thud possible like something had fallen on the house and we all sprung up in a fright. Speaking for myself, I stood rooted to the spot because I was sure there would be something falling through to the floor of the house soon. And the sound seemed to come a bit farther from where we all were. The silence following the fall was literally deafening, except for the wind gusting outside, an eerie whistling.

Probably 20 seconds in, we started talking all at the same time. And we rushed to the staircase, climbing up really fast, anticipating the worst. My nightmare was that we would see the sky through a gaping hole in the roof, with the icy rain falling on the carpeted floors. And a tree trunk splotch in the middle of it.

We had kept all the doors, upstairs and downstairs closed to conserve heat. So we went upstairs and opened the door straight ahead and literally braked to a stop. That was Manny's bedroom and his window( which we had installed only in 2022) was in the process of crumbling to the carpeted floor. The glass was tempered and so it didnt break or shatter. It was like watching glass breaking in slow motion. But it was falling right onto the floor and the clinking with every bit that fell. All of us were watching slack jawed as it cascaded slowly to the floor. We promptly stepped back afraid we would step on glass..that would be like adding insult to injury. Unfortunately, there was netting behind the glass and with the darkness beyond we couldn't see much on what precipitated this breakage.

In a minute it hit us that if the upstairs was messed up, then the area just below was probably affected too.

The room exactly below that room was our master bathroom. So we trudged below to see what had happened there. We had just opened the bedroom door when we heard it. The wind. It was howling so loudly. We walked in and slid the bathroom door open and the full fury of the wind and rain hit us. The horizontal pleated blinds over the window was billowing into the house and the same slow motion glass fall was happening.  Except this was collecting in our jacuzzi tub( which was exactly underneath the window) which by now had an inch of glass in it and more falling in. And we looked up straight  at a tree waving in the wind.  If we could reach out and if the jacuzzi wasn't in our way, we'd have been able to touch it. Whoa!!

This time we weren't just slack jawed but stood with our mouths agape, rooted to the spot with no words being exchanged at all. 

Ten seconds and we unfroze. Thoughts racing, we came alive to the biting cold. The temperature was still below freezing and now that the window(s) were open to the outside world, the air came rushing in. 

First observation: the tree seemed to have only struck the windows and the pointy top end was what we were looking at. Which meant that the roof was intact and not damaged. Or so we hoped. 

Second: we needed to stop the wind and rain coming in the house, else we would freeze to death literally. 

Our neighbor had heard the noise and we could see flashlights bobbing in his front yard. We yelled out to him to come in and the blessed guy, we are forever indebted to him, slipped and slid and made it to our house. We all stood staring at the mess and we finally decided that tarpaulin might do the trick short term.  

It took us an hour, but we managed to use a cordless drill and tarpaulin and seal both the windows. All this, while gingerly walking around the broken glass on the floor. Flashlights held just so, flapping tarpaulin held tight, screws handed out at exact intervals, reminders yelled out about not stepping on the glass, all the while the mind churning..are we safe?

We had already observed really tall trees in our neighbor's yard swaying like mad in the wind and if one of those was what we saw through our window, there were a few more  left doing that mad dance. Would they fall? And considering the direction this one fell in, the possibility that they would fall on our house was almost one hundred percent. They were all over fifty feet tall and as much as our house was set back from the neighbor's fence, they could reach our roof. We had proof of that staring right through our windows. Did a weak tree fall? Or was it a healthy one? What was the chnce there were more weak trees? Or what if that really didn't matter?

Peering into the darkness through the window in our bedroom looking up these trees backlit by an eerie white sky, we could see them almost bend with the furious wind. And to me it seemed, one of the taller ones would fall straight through our roof into our living room. The one where we had our fireplace and the one where we had set up our beds.

I shared my concerns with Vincent and we decided to move into the family room near the kitchen. It was much smaller,  but atleast to me, it seemed like it was safer than the living room. Mostly it seemed like it was out of the way of the trees.  

So we dragged the mattresses, only two would fit there, and lined them up. Manny decided to sleep on the couch. It was close to ten o' clock by then. We wearily went to bed. 

Vincent did another funny thing. He made us pack our bags one more time. Just in case a tree fell on the house and we had to leave. But I had to remind him that we were well and truly stuck. With icy roads all over, how would we drive? Where would we go? But we did pack, just for our peace of mind and left our bags by the garage door. By that time, I had hit rock bottom in my mind. And then I decided that if this is what God had in store for us, then this is what we would do. Trust in him and close our eyes in slumber.

But we barely slept, Vincent and I. Every wind gust had us lift our heads from the pillow and sharpen our ears for any scary noise. The creak of a tree breaking, the whoosh of a tree sailing through the air,the thud of a tree falling.This happened the entire night, but without any of these things happening. 

Morning dawned and we were all alive and well, albeit a little wary of what we would find outside the window.

Can I tell you more in the next post?

R is for Rainbow

 When you are over fifty I think the shock value of things goes up. Like saying, "In all my fifty years, I've never seen this ever happen !" has a certain zing to it.

I got that chance a couple of weeks ago. Not fifty but twenty seven. That is the number of years I've lived here in the US, in Portland specifically and yeah, I've seen nothing like this ever! Then I spoke to my 79 year old neighbor and she said she hasn't seen anything like this in her entire life and just like that my protestation bombed out!

Anyway, the forecast did call for winds in the 40 mphs and temperature in the teens. But what was not accounted for was the heavy rain that preceded this event.That had loosened the roots of tall plants, which I learnt from this bitter experience, have fibrous roots, and the deep freeze hardened said roots and the wind gusts toppled them like dominoes.

We were all warm and cozy, making videos of the snow swirling around in the blowing wind thinking about the fact that it always deposited itself in our frontyard.

And just like that, the power went out.

Well, no biggie. They will work on it soon. Maybe when the storm abates, which should be by end of day? Right? Boy we didn't know then how wrong we were!

We hunkered down, ate lunch, huddled in front of the one working furnace in the house, and gradually, ever gradually the temperature in the house started falling. From the seventies to the forties is a long ride and by the time that happened,the chill was biting and we were in the dark, with candles nd flashlights guiding us from room to room. We became aware of how reliant we were on electricity. No microwave, no dishwasher, no refrigerator. Water and heat was not a problem, but still one felt handicapped by things that were no longer working as they should be. But we managed to cook dinner, eat it, dump all the plates in the sink and run off to bed. Bed, being three comforters put over the carpet in the living room, followed by pillows and multiple comforters and blankets for warmth. We were all lined up close to each other just to retain as much body heat as possible. The furnace was still running but it was no match for the rapidly falling temperatures that started to actually make us shiver. Dressed in socks and gloves and jackets in addition to pajamas, we still felt it. 

A fitful sleep and come morning we woke up to bone chilling cold in the house. Brushing was torture, the water was very cold. We managed to brew coffee and drink it to warm ourselves. But it was no longer cozy in the house. Breakfast done, we became aware that this was not sustainable. If it were warmer, we'd make it. But with the temperature barely rising to about 20 degrees F, we knew that we'd have to do something. Vincent took a walk around the neighborhood and came back home convinced that power would not be restored anytime soon. He had seen firsthand, the destruction, but in hindsight, that was just a fraction of what it turned out to be. We decided to wait out the mess in a hotel room.

That part was not the difficult one. We managed to snag a room for two nights at a hotel and since there was yet another smaller ice storm forecast for Wednesday, we booked another  room in another hotel, planning to come back home on Wednesday when the temperatures were expected to hit the forties by afternoon, melting away this whole mess. Power was restored Monday evening but we chose to stay out until Wednesday. 

Wednesday came around and everything had been going according to plan and we packed up at the hotel and drove back home sighing in relief and anticipating a slide back into routine, when the first roadblock hit. The temperatures were still stuck below freezing at 1.00 o'clock in the afternoon and the Highlander couldn't make the slope up to our house. Damn!

We drove back into the neighborhood at the bottom of ours and parked the van which promptly started sliding in the ice. Vincent managed to somehow park it in a flat area without crashing into any of the vehicles on the street, and between the three of us, Vincent and Manny and myself, we slipped on tire socks around the front wheels. It involved clinging to the vehicle and sliding and slipping to the wheel, holding the rim and slowly settling yourself on your knees and slipping the sock in, and all this at below freezing temperatures. Have you tried putting on  leggings one size too small for you? That would be a cakewalk considering the effort to make a tire sock wrap a tire. After spending a precious hour on the two socks, we finally drove up the slope to our house one more time, but nope! No go. The vehicle still couldn't make it up the icy slope. What now?

We skulked back to a Grocery store/ Deli where we could sit and figure out what to do. We kept tracking the temperature rise and at 4.00 o'clock, it was supposed to hit 34 degrees F and that might melt the ice enough for us to make it home.

So back we drove home and this time, it worked! Man!

Walking into a toasty warm house where the heater had been running and the lights were on ( because we had left them on before we left) was the happiest feeling on earth! The relief!

Little did we know that the worst was yet to come.

Time and tide

If you are fifty, then thirty-five is about seventy percent of your life. So, reconnecting with someone you haven't seen that long is in itself a gratifying experience. But when that period of no contact is filled with pretty much all of life's significant events, that reconnection becomes all the more memorable. After all, when you meet people whom you last saw when all of you were in school uniforms and slogging away at chemistry and physics and math while hitting puberty and all the attendant issues, you really, really have a lot to catch up on. 

We were really barely sprouting wings then, and then in the blink of an eye, seemingly, we are sprouting grey hairs and painful joints. 

We weren't exactly best friends in school or anything, but our orbits intersected sometimes.  It was probably taking the same bus to school, or a shared love of basketball,  or common friends from back in school. But the moment the idea germinated, it was taken up by all of us and there we were, the day after Christmas, sitting at an Indian restaurant, drinking tea and rose milk and soda and munching on idli and dosas. That in itself I think, makes one feel the emotions of childhood rushing back into one's bloodstream. After all what can be more thrilling than feeling fifteen again, munching what was everyday food for us back then?

We all started filling in the gaps very tentatively, and managed to catch up on most of what had gone on in our lives. We were loud and raucous and jumping between English and Tamil. But it struck me later- our children and their goings on filled most of our conversation. We had extremely professional women in high positions at the table, but the talk was about the kids and their shenanigans. Husbands  were casually mentioned in the conversation, but we kept swiveling back to the kids. Their schooling, jobs, talents, love life. 

And then there was the common bane of almost all  women hitting the half century - perimenopause and its horrors. Hot flushes were discussed in great detail, followed by falling hair and flooding periods and birth control and endometrial ablation and hysterectomy ..the list goes on.  Using hair dyes was a side discussion!

Travel seems to be another hot topic. All of us seemed to like it and there was talk of past trips and future plans.

In the blink of an eye, time was up and since we all had things lined up to be done that day, we had to break up the reunion and get back to being 50 year olds again.

But the feeling I walked away with was contentment, a sense of joy that after thirty five years and innumerable milestones that each of us had individually and collectively hit  we could always be those eager, enthusiastic, wide eyed kids with the world before us, discussing our greatest achievements- our kids.

Lovely reunion! Here's to many more years of reunions, however fleeting!

Squishy Bits

 Had my Mammogram today.

That single sentence conjures up a laugh, a smirk, a slight pit in your stomach and a shrug with that feeling it's not a big deal. Manny is old enough to have a discussion about it with me without feeling embarrassed or rolling his eyes, but even he had a clip from 'House' to play to me and laugh over.

I have been having mammograms annually for the last ten years. The first one was obviously excruciating because it was the first time and for an, ahem, well endowed person like me, getting all the squishy bits on the machine was a task and then they sandwich it between two X-ray plates...whoa!! The unease! Memorable! And to top it all, they called me on a Friday afternoon telling me that they found some irregularities and wanted me to come over for another mammogram and if needed, an ultrasound. And the earliest appointment they had was on Monday morning. Wait a minute, I remember writing about this in a blog post from looooong ago...anyway, it is a new experience every time, so I'll keep going. 

That was my worst weekend ever. You worry about not just yourself, but your family. You imagine their struggles with you gone forever. Your kids are still small and you know your husband would be devastated. I was 41 then and the fact that you might have a terminal disease was a horrendous thing to face and my entire weekend was misery. But come Monday, I went in, was given the all clear, and then I went on a tirade with my PCP about the thoughtlessness of the scheduling personnel who left me hanging for an entire two days with the worst fear ever. So she referred me to another imaging place where they have mammograms as well as ultrasound  facilities available, so that, if a mammogram is iffy, you are sent right away for the ultrasound and then things proceed from there.

So starting 2015, I've been going to the same place and have become comfortable walking in there. I've been lucky for a few years when I've had the same technician who squishes my bits every year. But every single year, you stand there having the procedure done, and wonder, is this the year you are going to be caught? And this year my appointment was for a Friday the thirteenth, ha! Considering the fact that breast cancer is pretty prevalent these days and I do have a family history(well, one unmarried aunt in her late 60s, but still) of the thing, you are never sure. A very close friend of mine is a survivor and I know a couple of other acquaintances who have been through the struggle.

So you stand there, holding your breath like they ask you to and wonder. You look anywhere but at the machine doing its thing and think of other things to keep you from freaking out and your ears are sharpened to figure out if the technician takes a quick breath in. You try to look at her, does her facial expression change? Does she look worried all of a sudden?

 I remember they used to have the screen up where you can see it until a few years ago, I remember looking at the images with no expertise whatever and trying to make sense of it. Does it seem ok? Are those white patches normal? Luckily they've taken the screens away and so I don't have to freak out at stuff I know nothing about. 

A mammogram is a weird procedure, you have a stranger touch you very intimately and you are supposed to keep a straight face. Generally there is an air of embarrassment in the room, which is remedied by the technician's light banter. Today she asked me what my plans for the weekend was. Mindless replies, questions about your kids...more standard replies. She, it is always a she, thank God, walks away to do her thing at the screen and you wait to see if she stops talking. Does her tone change? Worried voice? I sound like a sissy, but this is me at my mammogram every year. 

Today, she wanted a repeat of one scan and my heart was on the floor. Damn!! I'm starting to freak out. But deep breaths in, hold your breath for the machine to scan and its done.

She is typing away and after a few minutes, tells me she has sent it to the in house radiologist and will be back with my results. And then she says, " You can change into your clothes, I'll be back." and walks away. That's when you notice that you have been holding your breath in all that time. If they do not need follow up images, that is a good sign. She can actually see my past scans and if she cannot pick up any anomalies, there is a good chance that radiologist cannot either. While she cannot give me the all clear because she is a mere technician, she can atleast set my mind at ease. Which she did in the subtlest way possible, "Change into your clothes".

Two minutes later, official paper saying my scan was clear in hand, she walks in, gives me the all clear, wishes me  a happy weekend and ushers me out.

And I walk out into the sunshine, and get in my car and drive home. Rinse and repeat, next year and the year after and on and on.

But there might be a woman walking in today who will be asked to stay longer, have more tests and given a referral for further tests or for an Oncologist. Someone for whom, today marks a before and after segue.

And so, thank God for his mercy and grace and care. He gives us burdens we can bear, and the strength to bear them, and the faith to fight the good fight.

Pomp and Circumstance.

That cliched tune!! I've heard it twice in the span of a month and it still moved me the second time as much as it did the first.

Creighton's Commencement was a large affair. At the CHI center in Omaha, Nebraska - where NCAA Basketball games are played (that was Manny's thrilling observation), almost 900 seniors were graduating and all the pomp and circumstance possible, was on display. To have yet another college graduate in the house is thrilling and I am excited about what Emmanuel will do. The future is here, his for the taking. Way to go Emmanuel!!

But Saturday's graduation was a whole another thing for me. 

When you first hear the fact from, experts, no less, that your child is not 'normal', the floor drops from under your feet. Cinematically, things screech to a stop. The world takes on a duller sheen and the lustre is gone off from everything. Stuff looks flat and blah. And the future? Pfffft..off in a puff of smoke. It is no longer there. It looks hopeless and bereft of joy.

If my description seems too exaggerated, ask any parent with a newly diagnosed child. They might probably burst into tears and say ,"Yes, that just about describes how I feel right now!" So, yes. That was how I felt. The feeling lasted months. But you have this little, live person in front of you who has more practical needs - like wanting to eat, be taken out to the park and the stores and everywhere, wanting clothes to wear and toys to play with. And the rest of the family is relying on you to keep things running. So in that fog of sorrow, you do everything. All the things you would otherwise do. This huge gray cloud hangs over you, but life doesn't pause for you. 

And the practicalities are calling. Does he need more assessment? How about therapy? What kind? Where? Which therapist? Who will guide me through that labyrinth? Will insurance cover all this? Can we afford it otherwise? You stop thinking about the distant future and think of today, the next day, the next week.

For every person who I've heard say Child Protective Services worries them and how culturally different parents are looked at with suspicion, and children are forcefully grabbed away from them...the world that opened up before us when Noe was diagnosed, was all taxpayer funded programs. These are bureaucracies, but some of the personnel are the kindest, most thoughtful people you will ever see. Comforting and reassuring parents in this situation is a very tricky job and they do it admirably.

The Regional Educational Service district aided with the diagnosis, pointed us to the right resources and placed him with the best possible intervention services. We are forever grateful to them for that.

Public school took over when he turned five and he has been with the Public school system all his school years.

His journey has not been without hiccups. He has been to eight school in 13 years and the change in environment must have been confusing and unsettling for an autistic kid who thrives on routine. But my little warrior took it all in stride. A couple of school changes were my idea - that they were better suited to his needs. A couple more were the Special Needs team's idea- again because they were better suited to his needs. But we were wrong sometimes and right sometimes. Noe went along with the supposedly normal folks deciding his placement for him and gamely moved schools when he was made to. We moved houses and so moved school districts, he went along with that too. Each move entailed getting used to a new set of aides, teachers, therapists and of course classmates (each with their own diagnosis and behavioral issues and needs etc.). Again, he never lost his equanimity and went with the flow. I think I was more frazzled with each move  than he was!

After all the toing and froing, he started High school at Beaverton High and I was this puddle of worry again about the whole process. The longest he had been at the same school was two and a half years. Would we beat that record by lasting all four here? We were leaving behind a lot of positive experiences and of course a lot of negative ones, one of which entailed us pulling him out of the public schooling system completely. But we were back there, fingers crossed, not very hopeful, because our experience showed us that despite all the resources at their disposal, any special needs classroom is only as good as the teacher that runs it. 

Noe had literally blossomed into this cute, sweet, thoughtful, kind, happy, well adjusted young kid, who seemed on the road to allowing his potential to shine through. With the right kind of support and encouragement, he would be really realizing his potential. Will this be the setting that would set a match to his light?

I know I haven't talked about faith and God in this post at all.

Well, that was constantly an undercurrent the first few years. The constant anger with God for doing this to you. How disappointed you were in him. And then the teary eyed begging, to have him make your kid ok. And the bargaining, what you were willing to give up for that. The sleepless nights, the silent prayers....the asking, the asking again and again and again. The silence. The lack of a response. The needle never moving. Never at the pace you wanted. The improvement never fast enough. Until one fine day, you look up and go, "Fine!! If this is how it's gonna be, I'll stop asking and figure it out myself!! I'm done with you!"

 And figure it out you do. Therapies and interventions and supplements and playschools and gymnastics and Yoga and swimming. And after a few years, the realisation hits that, that was what He wanted you to do all along. Champion your child, fight for him with all your might, protect him, advocate for him and love him, more than anything. And most important of all, know that He is with you, beside you, patting you on the back for everything, hugging you when the going gets tough, and just, being there. Be still and know that I am God, He says. Feel his presence. I look at Noe and I see Him in his full glory. His best work of creation yet, if I may say so myself!

And He sometimes sends someone into your life, or more accurately, your child's life. Someone who supports your child and raises him up and nudges him into doing things he wouldn't have thought he could do. Someone who celebrates his achievements despite his disability. Someone who treats him no different than any of his peers and sets high enough expectations for him that he stands up tall to achieve it.

Remember the teacher being the lynchpin that holds it all together? We found her! And she is amazing. And what He (uppercase, ahem) did for me, she did for Noe. She used every resource at her disposal to help him do his best. She sent him off to Field Biology classes involving hands on agricultural experience. She pushed him into Ceramics and Art classes. He buffed up (a teeny bit) at Weight training classes, and learned to Zen out at Flex and Stretch classes. For a kid in a self contained classroom, he was barely in there, on any given day. He mentioned Taoism and  Buddhism and the Great Wall of  China and Gladiators and the Colosseum and boy was I floored!!  She helped him navigate Zoom classes when Covid hit and above all, she was his cheering squad, egging him on to do better and heaping praise at every achievement and fighting for him at every point, to be included in situations we neurotypicals take for granted. So much so that we went for ice cream after graduation and there's this sweet looking new graduate girl who hollers at him and then explains to me that they were at Beaverton High together! He was in the regular environment at school enough that he knew so many neurotypical kids who waved at him and said hello, whenever I went to pick him up at school. Sweet!

His progress was also helped by the myriad therapists and aides and everyone who volunteered in each one of his classes. The peer buddies who did activities with him and accompanied him on field days. Every single one of them is owed our gratitude.

And his Speech therapist who has watched him grow in the last seven years from an elementary school kiddo, into a deep voiced high schooler, we are forever indebted to her.

And his Occupational therapist, who helped him navigate some behavioral challenges and manage them independently, we owe her big time!

All of these people came into his life at exactly the time they were needed and everyone has a share in his success. 

But above all, we owe everything to the one who watches over us. Look deeply and you will see Him in everything and everywhere.

Blessed is the one who is pure in heart, for they shall see God. That is Noe.

I cried on Saturday too, but those were really tears of Joy. Fifteen years ago, I would never have thought Noe would wear a cap and gown and walk the stage and receive a diploma and make us proud, but he did, by God's grace he did!!

And now off to a new chapter, but I am not afraid. He who guided us this far, will lead us further. I am secure in that knowledge!

Go Noe!!

Half Life Period

I am beginning this post with a heavy heart.

Our Higher Secondary Chemistry teacher, Ms.Cecily passed away on Sunday and her funeral was today. Chapters keep closing around me and it reminds me of how one's life span is not for one to determine. And also how some of us are given more than others, for which we need to be grateful.

Having turned 50 about two months ago, I look back at how things went and then look ahead with curiosity.

But before that, an interesting anecdote:

I used to be the bell ringer in school in twelfth grade, not because of some innate bell ringing capability, but because my classroom was closest to the electric bell installed on a wall in the corridor. I used to sit in the first row just so I could walk out fast, ring the bell and walk back into the classroom as quickly as I walked out.

I had been doing this for a few months and had gotten the knack of not overthinking this..50 minutes wasn't a life time, so keeping track was not a monumental task. But obviously, once in a while, you obsess. And obsess I did, in Ms.Cecily's class once. I kept looking at my watch 10 minutes before bell time, and every 15 seconds thereafter. Why? I really don't know. But after a few not so surreptitious looks at my watch, she stopped teaching, looked straight at me and said," Kavitha, I think there is almost 5 more minutes for the bell to be rung and you, staring at your watch every 15 seconds, will not make it happen sooner!". Man, was I embarrassed! Embarrassed enough that I stopped looking at my watch altogether and forgot to ring the bell, only to see Vaigai, our Track star run past our class and ring the bell(which literally jolted me out of my state of rest), and walk past really, really slowly giving me the 'Look' - daggers maybe?? Ms.Cecily started grinning and all I could do was look extremely apologetic and wonder how to explain the fracas to Vaigai. Soulmate yes, but, being late to ring the bell.....sworn enemy!

When you have lived a half century, there are so many memories, good and bad. 

Some define us and what we are and how we've made ourselves into who we are. Reading has always been my first love and it is probably tied into my laziness, but my fondest memories are of books, passages from books that moved me, characters that I could identify with, locales that have made me yearn to visit them. And mostly, the memory of my dad indulging me by buying me books. I am returning the favor now, and hope he enjoys the experience. And my writing skills are directly related to my reading tastes.

 Some are painful and worth forgetting but stay on and no amount of scrubbing helps. The loss of my Ayah, my nanny, and the last time I saw her, she'd had a stroke and didn't recognize me, but when she did, the tears that she and I shed.....a dagger to my heart to this day.

 Some are joyful, giving us the same fulfilment every time we revisit them in our mind. Too many to list, but here's one: the feel of your firstborn as they lay him on your belly, still wet and slippery after birth. My first thought: He looks like me! I don't think he looks like me anymore, good!!

Some are pure bliss; I just have to look at my spouse to remember. My room mate in freshman year mentioning this kid in her class who was a total gentleman, unlike the other boors. Someone who always made sure the girls in the lab classes were also allowed to participate equally. Didn't think back then, that this person would be mine, all mine.

Some are embarrassing enough you want to forget them and sweep them under the rug, but they keep popping into your mind all the time. Like the time I accidentally hugged a perfect stranger and called her Mom..Whoa!! I was probably 6,  it was dark, but still, embarrassing.

Some are worth revisiting, just to see them from a new perspective- for me mostly it is tied in to Noe. My worry about him, his deficits glaringly there for me to see..his inablity to distinguish colors comes to mind. But looking back, that was not the point at all. The Maori word for Autism is "Takiwatanga", meaning," in their own time and space". I have finally figured out his time and space and it is so much better than mine. There is no anger, jealousy, sadness, rancor and evil in his space. Wish we could all inhabit it. This is a kid who walked with a broken foot to a mall because his teacher made him. Stoic because, in his space, pain is what it is. You live it. He is way more patient with his mom who sometimes barks at him and asks him to not yell, and asks him to keep quiet, or asks him to make difficult choices like what he wants for dinner! Nothing angers him, no one hurts his feelings. There is no evil around at all. Good memories all!!

So yes, 50 years worth of memories is a good place to learn from.

The most important lesson I've learnt? Life is a huge wheel, Buddha was right! Things happen and then happen again. You are the one that changes. Or needs to change. Life has the same beginning and end for all of us, and pretty much identical in between, especially if you zoom out. You need to stay alive, manage relationships and conflicts and take joy in life's pleasures both big and small, take consolation in life's sorrows, and go on and eventually bow out. Memories give you a better handle on dealing with things if they come around again.

So at this midway point in life( actually, way beyond the midway point, but let's be optimistic), I think leaving behind great memories is the goal. Like Takiwatanga, create a space full of calm and contentment, of happiness and tranquility. And if everyone could share that time and space, bliss indeed.

P.S: This one is for Manjal Manju who reminded me that I hadn't written much in a while...three posts in one day..okay Manju?