The Tooth

I start each and every day the same way. With a three way text that brings together Lodi, Orange County and Dublin, Ohio. We are committed. We are busy, busy, busy...with politics (we don't always agree), children (we always agree, they are difficult, but we are perfect), dating (one of us is single, she does not always like our advice), husbands (we always agree, I won't say about what), and the most important of all...our bitmoji fashion! And each and every morning...we laugh. Though miles apart, sometimes I will spit out my coffee and laugh. We find ourselves to be incredibly funny! And we are! We really are!!!

We met in college. I moved in to my sorority house, a bold move for a basically only child with nervous, insecure tendencies. Harper was my roommate. One of five roommates. She didn't come for a few days, and by the time she arrived, I was sick from sharing a room and starting to rethink this grand idea of sorority house living in a big way. Let's just say I had started to formulate my "exit strategy." In life it is very important to have an exit strategy for all things, and I was planning one quickly. With Harper came my last hope. Maybe she and I would connect, and she would be the answer to my prayers. Prayers were answered at 6:30 our first full morning together.

I am a life long non sleeper who wakes at the crack of dawn no matter what has transpired the night before. Up until 4 studying for mid terms? I still wake up at 6:30.  Drinking until the bar closes? Still up at 6:30. This does not find you a lot of soul mates in college, and my three days in the sorority house had already shown me that the house stayed asleep until at least noon. On Harper's first morning I popped up at 6:30, and there she was, already awake. And that, was the beginning of best friend history.

Witt, our third bestie,  would find her to way to us a few months later and we eventually all settled into the same room. Room one besties. Harper had an unusual circumstance. A circus like quality that made her uniquely interesting. She was missing a tooth. Born without it. Not noticeable to the regular human eye as she had been bestowed upon a magic retainer...with a fake tooth attached. As a three year roommate, I was acutely aware of said tooth. Before you waste any time feeling sorry for Harper as a toothless college student, don't. As sad as it is that she is toothless, Harper has also had a magical set of hair bestowed upon her as well. A luxurious, always blonde (without hair color added), ridiculous to this day at 40+ years of age, Christie Brinkley head of hair, that I am not the least bit bitter or jealous of. Except that I am.

In college, once you are 21 of course, there tends to be a certain amount of drinking, or maybe even over drinking that goes on. The 6:30 wake up was often groggy, unclear, lacking focus for the first few minutes. A collection of thoughts , if you will, a series of quick questions to be asked and answered. And for me those first few groggy moments often occurred as I stared right into Harper's tooth. The tooth had some rough nights. It could be discarded or misplaced carelessly upon arriving home, depending on how the night's activities had unfolded. Whatever the case may be, I was accustomed to waking up to either the tooth itself, or Harper frantically whispering, "Oh God, where is my tooth?"

There are several legendary stories in regards to the hunt for the missing tooth. My college sorority sisters get together once a year, and it turns out that many had been in hot pursuit of the allusive tooth during our years together. The missing tooth was important to find, as in college it is nice to have all your teeth in place when attending fraternity parties and socials.

It is in one such moment, when a hunt for the missing tooth is needed, that I make a fatal and tragic friendship misstep. I do not misstep alone, but do so with Witt. We betray our bestie and go on to face a Karma that I am still living out to this day.

One day the tooth is missing, again. Harper is certain it has been left at 7-11. Why the tooth would be at 7-11 is a question that remains unanswered to this day. She does not? cannot? will not? Is to embarrassed to? go look for the tooth. Witt and I are headed there for the mandatory daily diet and intake of Big Gulps and tootsie rolls, we agree to? volunteer? Give in to? Whatever the circumstance, we set out to find the tooth. Only, when we get there, the task seems harder then it did upon conception. The 7-11 worker is cute, it would be embarrassing to ask about a missing tooth. We are easily distracted, it seems bothersome to ask about the tooth. We are selfish, we don't want to ask about the tooth. It isn't our tooth? Is it necessary to embarrass ourselves and put ourselves out over this tooth? We are young and it turns out, bad friends. Not only do we not ask about the tooth, we return to the sorority house and lie. We announce we have asked about the tooth, it is not there, but we have left our name and number in case it is found. Harper will believe this story for the next 20 years.

Flash forward. I am a mother. I have four girls. I married a man with a genetic history of braces. I am at the dentist and orthodontist all the time. I am also less than observant. At some point, I don't want to say when she is 7 or 8, but it is that late in the game, we notice our third child is missing a tooth. Born without it. Same tooth as Harper. What are the odds? The missing tooth lands me in the orthodontist office where the kind, low talking, sensitive orthodontist begins talking me through the missing tooth and the steps that we will need to take to fix this situation. It is all very serious, except to me it is not.

Because I already know all he is going to say about the tooth. I have lived the life of the retainer, and the bridge, and the missing tooth and I know the steps. And not only that, but as he is telling us the steps...I am not a 30 something mother of four sitting respectfully in the orthodontist office hearing the plight of my poor toothless child, no, I am 20 and laying in my top bunk, looking at Harper's tooth every morning. So, I do what one does in this situation, I start to laugh. I start to quietly laugh, and then I laugh loudly. Which startles the orthodontist. Maybe other mothers with toothless children aren't laughing during his speech of procedures? They aren't. Because when you do the orthodontist, who is unaware of your tooth history, thinks you are laughing at your toothless child.

Well, there it was. My comeuppance. My pay back for the long ago tooth search lie. The tooth betrayal had come back to get me. I would take this bad Karma for both Witt and I. Lie on the sword for us both. Pay thousands for those tooth steps that needed to be followed, smile weakly at the orthodontist each visit when he gave me a condemning look, and yell my apologies each time the tooth was lost and I sent a daughter off to high school toothless. Clearly this was enough to even the score.

Only, it wasn't.

I went to the dentist last summer. A solid visit. Things seemed good. I am a lifelong inconsistent flosser. I know this. I also had gumms that were incredibly sensitive through four pregnancies, and then really rebelled after chemo. I have had some rough dental years, and finally I have my gumms and teeth back on track. And I had been flossing, a lot. I was on top of my dental game. My hygienist, who I think finds me frustrating (and by frustrating I mean crazy...once she told me coffee and red wine were staining my teeth, I told he I could not give up the coffee, but I would immediately switch to vodka and ditch the wine if needed), agreed that my teeth looked great. She was gloating, I was gloating, the dentist came in to check my mouth, he was gloating.

Have you ever seen Law and Order: Criminal Intent? In the early years there is this one detective who always says, "I have just one more question?" It is this "one more question," and it's answer, that will bring down the suspect who previously looked as though he would walk away free. This is what happened in the dentist chair, "Real quick, does this one tooth ever bother you?"

"Ummm, no, food gets stuck there a little, that's why I have been flossing more, but it doesn't hurt or anything. No real problem." And with that we were poking at the tooth, taking more x-rays, and sitting back in the chair. No, no...we were all gloating! We all agreed! Things were good...only they weren't.

I had TOOTH TRAUMA. A rarity. Something seen in professional football players. Very odd circumstance it would happen to me. He doesn't actually see many of these cases. And then began the list of steps that would be needed to take care of this.

Tooth extraction. Healing for 6 months. Post put in place. Healing for several months. New tooth put in. Oh, and a retainer...with a fake tooth...because you will be TOOTHLESS, at age 48, during the healing months.

Well, OK then. Karma was not finished with me. Once again, I would take my comeuppance. I would lie on the sword for Witt and I. Pay thousands for the steps to repair my tooth (insurance only covers tooth removal, not replacement...in case you were wondering). I sadly headed home (insert sad Charlie Brown music here) to text my besties of the cruel punishment that Karma had handed out to me. I texted out the news. Explained my tooth trauma, hit send and waited for Harper to respond unsympathetically, and for Witt to be humble and kind. Protective and sad for me. Supportive as she would know how unfair it was that all these years I, and I alone, had taken all our hits. I had been the one to suffer for the day we had made the tragic friendship misstep and betrayed Harper.

The response from Witt was this. "Oh my God, me too."

 Wait. What? Me too? She must be joking. But she wasn't. At age 48, at precisely the same time, we were both diagnosed with TOOTH TRAUMA. At 48 we are toothless in our middle class suburbias. We are wearing "flippers" like we are 8 year old contestants on Toddlers and Tiaras. The teeth get lost. We have both had moments where the tooth is lost (theater parent club meetings and parent teacher conferences) and we know that there are discussions in which people may or may not think we are meth addicts.

There are many lessons to be learned from this I am sure. Be a good friend. Be a considerate person. Don't lie. The lesson I have learned is...when asked to look for a tooth? Do it. just do it. And also, just maybe, don't mess with Harper...the Karma will get you. Because Witt and I are toothless with mediocre hair at age 48, and Harper has a tooth (dental technology has improved since the 1980's), and still has her Christie Brinkley hair.

Change

I made a lot of changes this last year and I drug my husband and family along for the ride. We have settled in from that round of change, and mostly my family is done hating me for it. No one is done complaining, but the hatred seems to be seeping out and we are back on track to normalcy. A small break before I start another round of change. However, the next round really just involves me and doesn't impact everyone on the same grand scale. They will still complain, but they really shouldn't.

We sold a big house. A really big house that I  loved for years and that suited our family in a really practical and great way. Everyone had their own space, we celebrated life there with big extended family parties, friends flowed in and out  the door, and it was a great place. Until it wasn't.

At some point I slowly started to hate the big house. Resent it. The upkeep, the maintenance, the empty space once my oldest daughter moved out...and the list goes on and on. So we sold it. That sentence is a very abridged version of the year and half journey it took to get it sold, but that's how I am choosing to remember the process...so we sold it.

We gutted our rental condo, redid it all like we were a show on HGTV and I was the designing star, and now we live here. This might also be an abridged version of how it actually happened, but it is how I am choosing to retell it.

My conservative husband had to be convinced this was a good idea. I won't say that there was an ultimatum given, because that seems unfair to the partnership of marriage, but there was an ultimatum given.

Telling people what we were doing became humorous too. Lots of wide eyes, lots of bewildered head nods, a few "Why would you do this?" "Won't you miss your big house?" "How will you all fit?"

My favorite was always, "But, you will by another house won't you?"
Sure, sure we will. But, I don't think we will. I don't want another house. Maybe we will buy another house or condo someplace else, maybe at the beach or my true love Tahoe, but no I don't feel we need to buy another house here, because I love the freedom of enjoying my home, but also walking away for a weekend or week and not worrying about anything.

It is the simplicity of our home I am in love with.  The rest are learning to love it, but they don't need to love it.  I am not raising them to love their home forever, I am raising them to get their act together and get on out. Go to college, live life, and come back and visit us. And go to fabulous places and we will visit you!

I love the idea of us being a family here. Christmas and New Year's Eve this year were fabulous. We were all together, we did our traditional immediate family things as well as our traditional extended family things. It was holiday perfection. But, things will change, they have already started. Each year we lose a kid to "adulthood." Our oldest was only home just under a week for Christmas. She has a job, and a boyfriend...a life of her own...to get back to. Our high school Senior has a job, she almost didn't make it to Christmas Eve. Adulthood...the curse and the blessing. So thrilled they have a strong work ethic and are contributing...wait! What? You can't run away to Tahoe skiing with us?

I also love the idea of being a family in other places. The places they live in  for college. The places they live with their families. Fun places we decide on as a family. Hawaii? New York? A family favorite, Newport? the choices are endless


I knew I would love the simplicity early on. We were homeless for a brief while after we sold our home, but were still working on our condo. So we found an Air B and B house to rent. It had three bedrooms and one bathroom. Our family of 5 1/2 (Nicole being half as she is away at college) went from three bathrooms to one for about two months. I braced myself. I thought it would be a mess. It wasn't, it was fine, we adjusted. Nicole was even home for awhile and we adjusted just fine. In fact I noticed right away, we even thrived. We talked, spent time together, and interacted. In the big house everyone was just going to their rooms and closing the door. Now we were all in the same space. I liked it.

We live on the east side of town now. We are right off the 99 freeway...I love that. We walk to the football games...I love that. We are five minutes form dance...I really love that. The train goes by our house and it rattles everything...we all love that, except my husband, but he is trying. I love it all. It turns out I should have always lived under a train, I find it soothing.

There has been such a gap in my blog. I started when the girls were little. They were young girls with quirky stories, and I was  a young mother trying to find my truth. Now they are young adults with quirky stories, and I am an older mother trying to live her truth.

Change is not always easy. We probably made this change a year or two before it was necessary. I remember telling my husband, "I just don't want to stay at the party too long." So we left the party early. I have always been a girl who leaves the party early.

Here comes 2017. My changes aren't over, I've really just laid the groundwork for the next party. I lingered at the last party for 19 years. I look forward to year one of whatever party the next 19 years brings.

When is it Time for Funny?

I'm not sure when the right time is for funny. I am an amateur comedian at best. In light of the death of Joan Rivers, I realize that funny can happen fast. In fact, Joan would encourage funny to happen fast. It probably happened much faster than her daughter Melissa was ready for, but she knew her mom. Joan would have wanted funny fast.

In my family, my immediate family, the one I grew up with, funny is important. If you are going to sit down with my dad, my brother, and I you better be prepared to keep up. There is a sarcasm and quick wit that runs through our blood.

My grandmother passed away in her 94th year. She was 93. We never say 93. I always say, "in her 94th year." I am both mocking her and paying tribute to her when I say, "94th year." It is a long story, but it is definitely important to note that is important she get credit for the 94th year.

At my grandmother's funeral, my brother was late. He was young, in his 24th year, and had zero concept of time or responsibility. I was old, in my 34th year, pregnant with child number three and had so much responsibility it was choking me. I was peeved at his tardiness.

Fashion and style were important to my grandmother. I have lived in the shadow of that expectation my whole life. She passed it on to her daughters, and they have passed it on to their only daughter and niece. At heart, I just may be someone that could live happily in sweats and leggings and a big fleece shirt. It is her legacy that forces me through the doors of Gap, White House Black Market, and Ann Taylor each season to "get it done" so to speak.

My mother is a fashionista. She has style. Naomi is 71, looks 50 and with grace dresses like she is 40. She was about 60 at the time of my granmother's passing, had the body of a 30 year old and was in a word, "hot." She wore leather to the funeral. She looked good.

I was prickly with my brother for being late. Until...he leaned over the pew at the church and in the middle of the service whispered in my ear, "I didn't know we were wearing costumes. Why didn't anyone tell me mom was coming as cat woman." And just like that, all was forgiven.

There is a 9/11 story I never tell. It never seems like the right time. It never seems like the right thing to do. But it is funny. It was the first funny. It was told to me about 8 that evening. And I laughed. I laughed for the first time in about 10 hours, and for me that is a really long time without laughter.

My friend Mary and I were very close. Taught together, pregnant together, similar lives. Her daughter Annie was 5 on the day of 9/11. She probably sat on the couch all day. She probably heard her mother tell our story on the phone about 100 times. She had it down cold.

The brief version of what she heard goes something like this:
Corey was in New York
Corey was in the World Trade Center
Corey was there for  Morgan Stanley training
Corey was on a break during the morning session
Corey was in the bathroom and when he came out and everyone was running
Corey never looked back and ran down 50+ flights of stairs and out the building to safety.

At five o'clock on the evening of 9/11, after hearing the above ALL day, with the news probably on the tv ALL DAY, and being left to her own devices ALL day....Annie had a friend over. And the friend asked, "what happened." And Annie said,

"Oh, our friend Corey was in New York...for bathroom training and....."

The rest doesn't matter because, I laughed. At bathroom training, I laughed. Long and hard and with total sincerity, I laughed.

I don't know when the right time for funny is. But I love that story, and today, on year 13, inspired by Joan Rivers, it seemed like the right time to tell it. You have heard all my deep thoughts on this subject, today, for me, it was time to share the laugh. Be inspired to be better, be inspired to be strong, be inspired to love, be inspired to care, but always laugh when you can. You need the laugh to get you through the moments where you never think you will again.

Never, NEVER, Say Never...

At times in your life you have a good friend that you meet through your children, and you experience life moments or milestones with them that you don't forget. My friend Robbin and I have experienced summer swim team together for many years. Our years at the pool have changed as our children grow, and each year has different stages and characteristics attached to it. It is our early years at the pool that I have been reflecting on lately. Our children are the same ages, both of us having multiple children (3 for her, 4 for me) and both of us having a younger child that kept us in the baby/toddler stage a couple of years past our tolerance for it perhaps.

The early years we shared at swim team were probably best titled, "The Drudgery Years." Those years when you are lugging a ton of crap to the pool, the kids are too little to help out, someone is always whining, someone is always at the baby pool (which is fenced off from the rest of society and slightly alienating by nature), and it was demanding both physically and mentally to get there every day. I was always grateful for her presence there and the small bit of adult conversation we were able to have in the midst of the drudgery. 

These days our children are older, independent teens and our younger children out of the baby pool and somewhat self sufficient. We have become the mothers we used to stare at longingly from inside the baby pool fence. We are able to drop off at swim practice and run errands,  go work out while they practice, or not even show up and have an older child drive them. We see each other in passing, we wave from our cars, and our time together is fleeting compared to our daily hours together in those early years.

In fact, my life has changed so much that this summer I didn't even make it to the first two meets. My mother handled meet number one while I was on a real vacation with just my husband, and my husband handled meet number two while I was on my annual girls' weekend. It was actually sad for me when I missed the second meet and my husband had to send me pictures and updates. These days swim meets and banquets are where Robbin and tend to have our time to catch up, and I haven't been there so we are behind this summer in a really big way.  Last week she caught me in the parking lot. We were laughing at her first sentence.

She wanted to tell me what a beautiful swimmer Paige was. This shouldn't make us laugh, but it does. We laugh because we share the history and evolution that is Paige and swimming. And, if you follow my blog, you share the history of Paige and swim as well. During the drudgery years I wrote a blog about it. After laughing in the parking lot, I reread my blog on Paige and swim. It is one of my favorites, and I will repost with this one for those that are new readers and may need the history to appreciate the update. Upon the reread, I was reminded that we learn the best lessons from our children and our parenting of them. The title of the post was, Never Say Never, my parenting motto. And after rereading I realized, once again, that when I forget that motto...it bites me in the ass...always! Even when I least expect it. Even when it doesn't seem even remotely possible that I could be wrong. Always where Paige is concerned.

This weekend I made it to my first summer swim meet. Paige basically took first in backstroke, first in her A team relay, and second or third in everything else. I knew this going in because I had heard about it from everyone even though I hadn't seen it live. Hearing it, and seeing it are two completely different things. I stood humbled as I watched this beautiful girl swim to victory and success. Now, I cried a little instead of laughed. She is perfection in the water.

I wish I had two things to go with this blog. I will do my best to give you the visual in words because one of these things I don't possess, and the second I probably can't figure out how to attach.

Number one: A photo of 7 year old Paige. Seven year old Paige forced to be on a swim team with older sisters who swim easily, well, and with confidence. Seven year old Paige in goggles that are two tight for her face and pinch in her eyes, but she deems necessary so that NO water gets near her eyes in any way. Seven year old Paige in her flippers walking the perimeter of the pool (with the tight goggles still on). A slow, purposeful, exaggerated, high lifting walk intent on just making it too her spot. Seven year old Paige smiling at our tent on Sunday of championship weekend, a day that in her own words goes like this, "Is Sunday the day I get to sit and read and play games while my sisters swim? I love Sunday!" Seven year old Paige never once complaining about her hatred of it all. Seven year old Paige determined to make it through.(I know Robbin has this visual locked in).

 Number two: Video of 12 year old Paige swimming to first place with the ease, grace,and confidence that true swimmers have.(Robbin's idea)

Somewhere between my blog of 7 year old Paige and 12 year old Paige, a swimmer was born. I wrote in that last blog something along the lines of, "...and while she may never be an Olympic swimmer..."  I remember thinking at the time that I was so proud of her, but that we would probably quit swim about this time. Drop summer swim and swimming all together when high school started. Because it was OBVIOUS she would never want to continue, or excel at it.

Paige has requested to swim year round after summer swim. She wants be ready to swim in high school in a year. Summer swim championships are next weekend. Paige will swim on finals day..Sunday, multiple times.

Please note the capitalization in the second never in the title of this piece. I stand corrected. I am humbled I was wrong...in every way.

I think I will end the blog in this way...please look for Paige in the Summer Olympics 2020! Never say never...

Entitled

This is what I know about parenting...it is difficult. There are moments of great success and then those damn kids turn on you and there are such lows you think you will never climb back out of them. I also know that with four kids, enjoying the moments of their success is fleeting because you are really just jumping from one kid's low to the next. All while they yell, say, demand, ask, whisper, sign, smoke signal the words...mom, mommy, mother, mama. They never yell for dad, even when he is standing right there.

Nicole is leaving for college in August. When I started this blog she was starting high school. I am busy this weekend getting off announcements, cleaning my crack-like house for a party, and shuffling children to sporting events. Same old, same old. I am not going to lie. Nicole has been an easy kid to get to college. Maybe she is setting me up for a ridiculous fall into disaster when she gets there, but she has been easy. She did the hard work, she got in to the college she wanted, she had back up choices in case it didn't happen, and blah...blah...blah...she has been easy. That being said, she can also be very entitled.

I am not sure how this happened. I think some of it comes naturally to children living in suburbia in the year 2014. I think some of it is innately part of her personality, and I think some of it is our fault as parents, because in many ways she has lived a life of, in my humble opinion, great privilege. She has a car. It is our old Navigator. To be fair she loves it. She was happy to get it, embraces the odd awkwardness of it's size, smiles at it's squeaks and creaks, and never once has asked or insinuated a new car would be nice. Our driveway is often seen with a BMW, or convertible this or that when her friends come over, and Nicole always happily jumps in her old SUV and drives off. She also has a job. A good job. She does parties and camps at the local gymnastics place. Great hours, good pay, nice boss and she has a great work ethic. Super proud of all this. She has been diligently saving for months so that she can help pay for sorority costs at college next year.

Two weeks ago she had a fender/bender in the school parking lot. Her fault. And here is where the entitled aspect of her personality comes roaring in. It bothered her so little, or she found it so unimportant, that she did not tell us for two days. When it did come up, she was very dismissive of the whole thing. Rather nonchalant. As though it was no big deal. "Not really any damage," says she "But,oh by the way I gave him my insurance information and now he is calling me. Can dad talk to his dad?"

 As it turns out it was a big deal and there WAS some damage. To the tune of about $800.00. She was still very dismissive. And here is a synopsis of what followed and was revisited several times over several days

-Oh, great, insurance can pay for that.
-Ummmm...No, you will pay for that.
-What? I can't pay for that.
-Ummm, yes you can. You have the money in your account.
-Yes, but I have been working really hard for that.
-Thank goodness you have, now you have the money to take care of it instead of having a payment plan with this guy
-When my friends wrecked cars they got new ones and insurance paid for that
-Hmmm? Well, in this house you are writing a check and paying for the damage
-This is very unfair. Why can't you pay for it?
-We did not hit his back bumper
-Why can't insurance pay for it and so on and so on and so on... Exhausting

In the end he paid the man. She was a humble Tigger, a quiet Tigger. And a Tigger that pulls out of our driveway and cul de sac at a much, more cautious pace. I am sure the lesson is learned, for the moment. As I write this I am reminded of my high school car accident. Where in reality, I did not pay for the damages, my father did. I am reminded that there is an extreme amount of hypocrisy in my parenting (some of which I have touched upon in an earlier blog). I am reminded that what I first said is true.

Parenting is difficult. Raising good children is difficult, having them take responsibility is difficult, and here's the thing...sometimes parents aren't honest about how difficult that is. This blog is all about my honesty. I am big on calling a spade a spade. An idiom I guess. I am not even sure of it's origin.

The Blind Side

I watched the Blind Side with Mary last night. Her choice at red box after grocery shopping just the two of us. Our teenager drove off to a swim party, the preteen and fifth grader had sleepovers and that left Mary, Daddy and I. It is a movie of inspiration I think. A reminder that there is a bigger picture, that we can all do better. I watched it differently than I did the first time. This time I was thinking of her children. I watched the scene where her teenage daughter ignores and defies her friends to go sit with her new 7ft, 350lb, African American brother, and I was thoughtful. I realized the attention and hype has always been about what that woman gave Michael Ohr. In reality she gave her birth children much more. She gave them a perspective on life that makes each of them a person of character. I am refocused. I would feel like I had done my job if I could do that.

Summer is a week out. I haven't blogged since September, and I have been less than committed since starting this two years ago. I loved the summer I started. Quiet mornings before the girls got up, typing and drinking coffee. I am sensing that I will make my way back to it this summer.

The last week of school is difficult for me. I am looking forward to the down time with my own children. We aren't doing summer swim team this year. First time in twelve years. This should make writing difficult to some extent, as my best stories always come from summer swim team. But, it is time for a change. A summer of no schedules and relaxation. A time to focus on the girls and their friends. Do the things I don't have time for all year.

I don't have time during the year because I teach. And this is why the last week of school is difficult for me. I love my class. It was a great year. I had amazing students and amazing parents. I am never ready to say good-bye. I said this last year, I will say it again next year, and I am sure the year after that. Blessed.

Tomorrow is my oldest daughters last dance competition. She is moving on to Lodi High Drill team next year. Bittersweet. I did NOT want to do competitive dance. I forbade it. I said NO. I said HELL NO. But, in this house sometimes hell no means, "Yeah, ok, maybe. Let's give it a try." So, try we did and it has been amazing for her. She is beautiful and confident and poised and talented. I am grateful to Miss Wendy for seeing all of that in my daughter and bringing it to the surface.

But, next year drill. Which brings a new commitment to Lodi High, football, basketball and all things red. I wasn't good at Lodi High the first time in 1986. There was no drill team (not talented enough),no proms (but, funny stories that I just might get to this summer), and a lack of understanding of who I was, and what I was all about. This would come to me later, in college. I tell my best friend (the best part of Lodi High for me, so I kept her), "I get to do everything I wanted to do in high school ...I just had to wait until I was 43."

Summer 2012...I am ready and inspired by the Blind Side...thank you Mary good movie choice! Next blog ...funny...I promise!,

9/11 Ten Years Later...

September 11, 2001 changed my life in many ways, but not in the same way most people will reflect and say it changed theirs. It didn’t change the way I feel about national security, it didn’t make me a more patriotic citizen, and it didn’t make me think about why this bad thing had happened to this great country.

The reality is it changed my life for the better. And that fact, the fact that what was such a devastating tragedy for so many made my life better, is difficult for me to come to terms with.

I have basically lived my whole life in Lodi, arriving here when I was six, taking a break for college and early adulthood. It was a surprise to end up back here at age 31, pregnant with our third child. Transplants from the Bay Area, we had sold a house for a ridiculous amount of money, and we were headed to Sacramento for a job change for my husband. I left him here in Lodi, by himself, while I finished a job in the Bay Area. My conservative husband fell in love, and Lodi was where we stayed and settled down.

My whole life in Lodi had been under the radar, quiet, not easily recognized. I was the girl who didn’t show up in snapshots in the yearbook, just that one posed picture from picture day. I was an attorney’s daughter, and then later, my brother the bartender’s sister. No real identity of my own. September 11th would happen not long after our move here, bringing with it my newest supporting identity…the woman whose husband survived the 9/11 tragedy.

On that day, while a nation sat by TV’s in shocked silence, while people came to terms with the loss of loved ones, while the world began to mourn the losses…I was relieved, I was rewarded, I fell to the ground in gratitude upon hearing my husband’s voice on the other end of the phone. I would spend less than an hour thinking he was dead, and then the next ten years grateful for his survival.

There have been years when the actual day of September 11th has not bothered me. I have gone to work, taken the children to practices, paid bills, run errands and lived life like any other day. Often times, I end the current September 11th with my husband watching the footage from 2001. Many years the footage is new to me, as though I have not seen it before. The reality is… I probably haven’t. Because while the world watched their TV sets that day and into the next week, I did not. That week in 2001, I returned phone calls, talked to family, friends and business associates. I answered the door to reporters who had tracked us down. I waited for Corey to call when he could get through on phone lines, and later I made the travel arrangements that brought him home to us that next Sunday, the 16th.

There have also been years when half way through the day I want to curl up in the fetal position and cry. This year is ten years. The babies of 9/11 will turn ten. This is always the hardest for me to see on news specials or read about in magazines. Our daughter Paige will turn ten in November. She loves her father, she knows her father, and she is blessed to have him in her life. It is difficult for me to see the children, just like her, who never knew their father. We went on to have a fourth child in 2004. We have four girls. People assume we were trying for a boy I am sure. I wasn’t. Our last girl is our 9/11 baby. Proof that hope springs eternal, and in the end what is important is family, love, and the eternity that awaits us all.

In 2003, we went back to “ground zero”. The trip to New York that Corey had always promised me, made difficult by the fact that it seemed shallow and wrong to look forward to the things I had once dreamed of…the shopping, Broadway shows, a taping of Regis and Kelly. When people ask me about that day, and our place in history, the word that most often comes to mind is surreal. Standing at ground zero, surrounded by quiet whispers in a city of noise, surreal seemed more fitting than it ever had. To retrace his steps and listen to him talk of the events and the day, to listen to both the small and big things that he remembered, it all just seemed surreal. We went on to enjoy the trip…the shopping, the Broadway Shows, all of it, because in the end New York had survived, and that is how it survived and thrived, by people loving New York and all that it stood for.

On Sunday, September 11, 2011 our family will be at our church. We will be grateful. We will remember what is important. I will struggle to balance the guilt and celebration of the day. The guilt for all that I have because he survived, and the celebration for all that I have because he survived.

I wrote a piece for the paper on the one year anniversary. I ended it with this quote,

“Sept. 11th took so much away from our Country. God willing, I will cherish all that it gave me for a very long time.”

It is nine years later…I am still cherishing.


A quote from Corey, my husband: “Never forget September 11th. Never forget those months that followed. Months filled with nationalism, patriotism, volunteerism, bipartisanship, God’s love, giving and unity that galvanized us as one nation. Those qualities are still in each and every one of us today.”