No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

I am not sure how many people died of Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma in 2013 - I know of 13, but I am sure there were more. I have ACC, but I had a quiet year in 2013 - scans in April and then again in October showed no evidence of progressive disease, but I have no idea what 2014 will hold.  This cancer is unpredictable, described in the medical literature as relatively indolent but relentless. Very few people are diagnosed with ACC - only about 1200 a year.  It is on the list of the NIH Office of Rare Disease Research, which makes it an orphan disease. Most people have never heard of the ORDR.  I know I had not.

Lisa, an Australian fashion model, died last January in her early 20's.  She lived only a few years after her diagnosis. Alicia, a single mom from Chicago who raised tens of thousands of dollars for ACC research in her lifetime, died at 41, 22 years after her first diagnosis.  Doug Millet, a brilliant businessman whose obituary received half a page in Business Week died at 49, just 17 months after his diagnosis.  Marina, a lovely Swiss woman and former CEO was 53. Just last spring she was celebrating the tenth anniversary of her diagnosis.  Doug from Georgia, a devoted husband and father,  lived about two years after his diagnosis at age 59. Kathy  died at 48, 23 months after her diagnosis in 2011. Amir, a successful engineer from Iran and Massachusetts was 52; his two daughters are still in high school. John was 39, diagnosed 15 years earlier at the age of 24 before either of his two young sons was born. Kellie died yesterday at 37 leaving two young sons, both born since her diagnosis in 2000

I attended an annual support meeting for East Coast survivors last month.  With 22 survivors present we set a world record for the most ACC patients in one room.  I wonder if Guiness would be interested in publishing that?  This was my second meeting since my diagnosis not quite two years ago. There is something about gathering with others who share a similar life threatening illness that feels quite spiritual.  I never would have guessed how deeply connected I would feel with others in the room, most of whom I have never met.  Some I have corresponded with through an online support group. I recognized their names before their faces. I knew the histology and location of their tumors before I knew their hair color or height.  I knew intimate details about their surgeries without realizing they taught at Ivy League schools or had exhibited  art work at MOMA.  We all sat together in a church hall, atheists and believers, PhD's and laborers,  politicians and social workers with a single powerful common denominator.  That sounds grim, and a lot of tears were shed, but our shared experiences brought plenty of laughter and a feeling of almost cameraderie.  I felt like I was with my family, my tribe, my church.   Fellow sufferers share a deep commonality that makes outward differences seem trivial by comparison. Having just met, we knew each other well

What was said that day?  We were each asked to introduce ourselves, to say why we were there - as if it were not obvious - and to say what our greatest hope was. A chemistry professor  diagnosed four years ago said this was the first time she had attended the meeting because it took her that long to show her face.  Another quiet woman joked that she came because this was the cool cancer group - as if we were somehow the elite of the oncology world because of our rare diagnosis. A husband said his greatest hope was to sit on the porch in a rocking chair next to his wife when they were both old.  A woman teared up as she told us sang at her daughter's wedding this year, twenty two years after first learning she had ACC.  She added that she came to the meetings every year because she would never forget how desperately alone and terrified she felt when she was first diagnosed.  The rest of us are fascinated by her case since we all want to still be here in 22 years.   

Over lunch we traded stories, compared treatment options and choices, evaluated doctors and hospitals, talked about how we coped with a cancer that is so uncommon most doctors have never heard of it, that is so unpredictable that statistics are meaningless. One couple recounted how they had found a research lab that sold them forty mice on which to grow the husband's particular tumor.  Since no chemotherapy agent has been found that works for more than 30% of ACC patients who take i,t patients have their own tumors mapped to try to find which gene mutations they possess.  While Matt was in the OR having his metastatic lung tumors biopsied, the unfortunate mice were readied at the lab.  A friend carried the tissue samples across New York City to the lab in an insulated lunch box so the mice could be infected while the tissue was fresh.  It's a great story so far.  We all wish it would have a happy ending but we know it's not a fairy tale.

The meeting broke up around 3.  Most people there were planning to attend a fundraising gala that evening to support research for a cure.  We attended last year when the adolescent band hired to entertain the crowd sang "Only the Good Die Young."  I'm sure they had no idea what they were saying.  We had to get home that evening so we skipped the party this year. On the way home I attempted to parse my feelings about the day.  Although the gathering showcased the thing that keeps me awake at night, it also left me feeling comforted and warmed.  I felt less alone with my secret than I often do.  I felt compassion for others who face the same threat I do, most of them cheerfully and bravely.  I was reminded that my own private struggle is not as solitary as I imagine it to be, that I am not an island but part of a continent.  

I had dinner the other night with my brother and his wife and two other couples, close friends for many years. We were celebrating a day I once thought would never come.  My sister-in-law made reference to the reason for the celebration once or twice during the evening  - not to the day we were commemorating,  but the years in between that day and this.  I toasted the occasion heartily, but didn't really want to speak about April 5, 2000.

The occasion for dinner was the ending of my brother's parole.  Fourteen years ago he was convicted of a crime and taken from the courtroom in handcuffs.  The trial had lasted only two days; the jury deliberated less than two hours. His wife and I sat together in stunned silence and horror, warned by the bailiff not to make any outbursts.  We met briefly with my brother's lawyer in a conference room near the entrance to the courtroom, across the hall from another  room where we could see friends hugging each other, tables laden with food and drinks as if prepared for a party.  No one consoled us or offered to bring snacks and drinks. But then we could not have eaten anything anyway. I heard the lawyer talking through the noise in  my head, but I did not comprehend most of what he said. The things I did remember about the likelihood of a short sentence turned out not to be true.

We waited till most people had left and then went out to the parking lot to find the battery dead in our car.  I wondered if anyone would even give us a jump - no one had made eye contact with us since the verdict was read.  A gentle-faced woman took pity on us, and we drove away in silence.  I remember stopping at the house where my brother and his family used to live - now for sale since they were no longer welcome in their community or church.  My sister in law needed to pick up something. The house which had always been so full of laughter and children's voices was as silent as we were. Then we began the two hour drive to the town where I lived and where his family had been staying while they waited for the outcome of his trial. Three of us had driven down that morning, but only two of us returned.  I don't remember much of our conversation - I don't think we said much.  I do remember my sister agonizing over how to tell her children the news.  At the time they were 14, 12, 9, 6 and 3 years old.  I also remember the terrible unspoken thoughts about what was happening to my brother.  Since I've heard his account of that time I think it was better we did not know.

We returned to the house where the children had spent the day playing and Eileen and I sat in the living room.  I remember her visibly shaking.  She brought the children in one at a time to tell them that Daddy would be away for a long time.  As she spoke I mentally calculated the age each child might be when their father returned.  Even with the false hope of a 3-5 year sentence, it seemed like an eternity he would be gone, an eternity in which his children would grow and change and become unrecognizable.

As things turned out, he spent 8 years behind bars and the last 6 on parole.  He was finally cut loose last Wednesday, free to come and go as he pleases.  He is no longer a family doctor but a laborer for a remodeling contractor.  Four of his five children no longer live at home.  We are all older, tireder, sadder and perhaps a bit wiser than we were fourteen years ago.  The chapter that began so dramatically ended almost without a notice - a letter in the mail instead of a gasp in the courtroom.  I may finally write about that time which had the power to alter so many lives so profoundly.  I may be able to say things I have never yet said.  But right now I am just glad to put it behind me.

I have spent a lot of time in doctors' offices over the last two years.  I have had the opportunity to compare the digs at the rural Mt. Ascutney Physicians' Practice, the sprawling and spacious Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, the 11th floor views of the Charles River and Cambridge at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, and the no nonsense offices of the Cancer Center at Massachusetts General Hospital.  While most doctors are extremely punctual, my oncologist at MGH is dismally backed up every time I see her.  After I had waited a half hour at my last appointment I began to write a sketch of the examining room, out of sheer boredom.  Here it is - a peek behind the scenes at the Head and Neck Cancer Center on the 7th floor of the Yawkey Building, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA.

The floor is speckled linoleum, half green and half cream. The exam chair in the middle of the room is dull grey, its cushions more like a bucket seat in a mid-priced car than the recliner it mimics.  Its base is shiny and cold; its posture is not inviting.  Also in the room is a sink, a step-on scale, a metal lidded trash can and a set of cupboards labeled, Dressing, Diagnostic Supplies, Gloves/Chux, Tracheostomy Supplies, IV Supplies, Non-Sterile Gloves, Chemo-spill Kit, Emesis bags, Slippers - M and XL, Exam Table Paper, Sani-cloth Wipes.

The ceiling is made of dropped tiles and flourescent rectangles.  There is a metal track for the privacy curtain which is currently pushed up against the wall. Square gray air vents sport neon orange stickers  telling the date they were last cleaned.  The cupboards look like chipboard - like a cheap kitchen.  The counter top is gray like the chair, the sink is stainless steel.

On the wall there is a light box for viewing x-rays, a hanging blood pressure cuff, eye and ear scopes and a small sign reading, "Emergency Trach is located on inside door of dressing supply cabinet or in code cart."  In case you need one. A clear plastic rack over the sink holds three boxes of latex gloves- blue on top and bottom and white in the middle.  There are brand names all over the room, the same ones I remember from other offices: Kinberley-Clark, Maxant, Steris, Welch Allyn.

By far the most eye-catching feature of the room are the laminated posters on the walls. They are part of a series entitled "Making Science Personal - Head and Neck Cancer."  That's pretty personal for me.  One shows a drawing originally rendered in colored pencil of the Pharyngeosophageol Junction, which looks like a tiny pink, striated uterus surrounded  by lots of muscles and two silvery fish balanced on top of a long pink muscled tube that resembles a PVC pipe.  It is much larger than life.  Sharing the same wall are several cutaway head and neck posters, all in disturbingly bright colors.  There is a lot of peach, accented with bright blue and red.  They are hard to focus on, but hard to look away from.

Taped on the wall also is an 8x12 calendar printed on a plain piece of white copier paper.  A box in the lower right hand corner lists "Holidays celebrated by Massachusetts General Hospital," plus several emergency phone numbers.  I can't help but wonder how the hospital celebrates.  The calendar hangs slightly crooked - suspended by a crinkled piece of scotch tape.  A nurse I have not seen yet sticks his head in the doorway and asks casually if I'd like a flu shot while I wait. It feels like a consolation prize, an attempt to placate me. "Can I get you a shot while you wait?"  I never get flu shots, but I think, "Why not?."

I was once again rearranging bookshelves the other day.  I have not done it for a long time.  I like my shelves to be perfectly organized so I know where each book lives.  But I do not have nearly enough bookshelves for all my books, and I have small children who rearrange my books often, browsing through the adult non-fiction and biographies in search of books to take to bed at night.  Then also, two years ago my husband let my brother remove all the books from two of my large bookcases in order to shore up the beams in the basement in that corner, and the books were returned hopelessly jumbled.  I have not had the time or heart to reorganize all twelve shelves plus the micscellany on the tops of the bookcases, so the books have been confused ever since.

In this area of my life I have to have things perfect or I can hardly face them.  Not so in the rest of the house. My kitchen cabinets are always in disarray.  Either my organisation scheme is completely unintelligible to my family, or they just don't care, but every time someone unloads the dishwasher the pans, casseroles, mixer parts, and infrequently used appliances get put somewhere different.  I never know where to look for anything  besides silverware in my own kitchen.  And it doesn't bother me that much.  My pantry is untidy, and God forbid if I ever need a flashlight or extension cord.  I may be looking for hours or until I forget what I wanted it for.

  But it bothers me to no end to know that my bookshelves are in disarray.  I have not had the time to overhaul every bookcase for years - really, not since we moved back from Malaysia five years ago when the books, once carefully packed into storage boxes, were unsorted back onto the shelves.  Most of the time I actually avert my eyes from the worst shelves when I am working in the "schoolroom", as I am now.  I try not to think about all the books still in boxes in the attic and the storage unit, the boxes in the back of the one closet in our house.  It is too overwhelming. It would keep me awake at night.

But this week I am trying to clear off a few shelves in my daughters' bedroom, the shelves that house the works of various playwrights and the individual copies of Shakespeare and the particularly special old children's books. The girls need more room for their little girl stuff.  In the process of looking for new book-homes I found myself rummaging around in the glass front bookcase that holds my father's collection of Winston Churchill books.  The large, coffee table format books have one special shelf, and there I came across two baby books.  They were sparsely written in, as all but the first child's are. I think I stopped buying baby books altogether after the fourth child.  But this week I sat on the wood floor and thumbed through the book with the Mary Cassatt painting on the front cover that I bought when my first son was born.  There was more writing on the first few pages than later on, except for the Baby's First Christmas page. Near the beginning between the Family Tree page and the My First Teeth I had made some notes about his hospitalization for jaundice at 5 days old.  Although we had tried to avoid a hospital stay by laying him in front of a sunny window in a cardboard box that was supposed to work kind of like an easy bake oven, the weather was cloudy that week and he never turned from yellow to pink.  I remember that part.

What  I did not remember was that when we took him to the hospital the nurses exclaimed over how strong he was, - "He looks more like five weeks than five days," one reportedly said.  And another commented on the way he recognized my voice among all the others. Reading these funny snippets of long-forgotten conversations about a baby who has grown to be an accomplished adult still awakened in me that secret mother's pride.  Although I feel a bit foolish admitting it, something inside me swelled a bit when I read the long-forgotten compliment.  What did it mean even at the time?  That I had done something wonderful by giving birth to such a strapping baby boy? That he had somehow surpassed his nursery mates by virtue of - of what?  Why should anyone feel anything resembling pride about this supposed feat of strength and maturity in a newborn infant?  But like Mary, we keep all these things and ponder them in our hearts, over and over again.

I heard Anne Lamott on the radio this week. I only caught the last 10 minutes of the interview but it was worth hearing.  I hope to listen to the entire interview another time.  Anne has been given such a gift of grace along with the ability to minister it to others.  It just flows from her. After only 10 minutes I felt as if I had been embraced and soothed and warmed.  I almost fell asleep right there in the parking lot. It was wonderful.

 My daughters love her books, mostly, I think, because she seems so accepting, so unjudgmental, so unlike their mother.  I know at least some of my grown children feel that there is some kind of hierarchy of love and approval in our family, and fear that they will earn less-favored nation status in our eyes if they make choices we disagree with.  And I struggle with their perceptions. As a parent who loves each child infinitely, but who is nonetheless happy with some of their choices and grieved about others.  I ask myself, "Why am I not more like Anne Lamott?  Should I be more like Anne Lamott?  Is it always bad to make judgments?  Why do they feel like I am judging them when I try so hard not to? 

I think the answers must be tied up somehow with the different roles that parents play in children's lives over time.  My young adult children still remember me as the one who set the rules and the standards, and who tried to enforce them.  I am the one who taught them what is good and what is wrong.  I am the one who disciplined them when they transgressed, who praised them when they did well.  I am the one who built hedges about them to keep them away from things they were not yet ready to deal with. I did not talk to them like Anne Lamott does because I was parenting them. ("Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?" Hebrews 12:7 ) And they do remember what I taught them; they know what I believe even if I never speak a word about it again.

As I tried to reconcile myself with Anne Lamott, I thought about the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.  When my children were young I gave them the commandments and disciplined them when they disobeyed or fell short.  I set the standard high, and tried to engrave it upon their hearts with my imperfect stylus.  I wanted them to know when they were doing right and when they were doing wrong, all with the hope that one day they would order their own lives according to the Truth when I was no longer there to make them outwardly conform. And when they grew up they were no longer under the/my law. The New Testament writers spent a lot of time explaining that concept to the church.  It's not easy to understand how the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the same person. It's hard to change your way of thinking. We all struggle to reconcile law and grace.
 Whether my adult children realize it or not, I do understand our relationship has changed.  What I once owed them, I owe them no longer.  What they once owed me, they owe me no longer. All we owe one another now is to love one another, to pray for one another and to offer forgiveness and grace to each other when we need it. And we all need it often. We stand together before God and before the cross.  We are no longer in the same relationship we were previously, and we all need to understand that. 

 I think there may still be hope for me to become more like Anne Lamott. I only wish I could write half as well.

 

Here's an old musing.  I found it when going through a list of unfinished drafts.  Anna is 25 now, so I obviously wrote it awhile ago. But I think these same thoughts still, so I'll let it see the light of day.


My firstborn recently turned 20. She celebrated her birthday on the other side of the world from me, though even if we had been in the same hemisphere we would not have been together. She is at college now, and family birthday parties are a thing of the past. But I couldn't help thinking of her all day, even if she was not thinking of me, and found myself trying to remember birthdays past, years past, wondering once again what time is - how it passes, what it means.

I find it so very, very strange to consider how utterly gone the past is. I still stumble over the fact that one cannot retrieve a single piece of the past - that the baby, the toddler, the little girl, the teenager who lived with me for nearly 20 years no longer exists - at least not in any of her former incarnations. I can call up snapshots in my memory - mostly based, I am afraid, on actual snapshots - I find I often have memories of photos, not memories of moments or days.

Like the denizens of Our Town, I find I cannot remember a single day out of my life - not in its entirety. I know I spent years nursing babies, changing diapers, taking toddlers for walks in a huge, double stroller, reading picture books, waking many times a night for feedings, giving small children baths, exploring brooks and worrying over fevers and coughs, but that life is gone - and when I look in the mirror I could almost believe that the young woman who lived it is gone, too. Gone where , is the question?

As I thought about baby Anna, lying in my arms for the first time, 2 year old Anna sitting down beside me with an armload of books commanding, "now read!", 5 year old Anna playing "greedy little mice" with her best friend, 8 year old Anna exploring the brook at our new house for the first time, it dawned on me like a revelation that if we are to really love someone, we have to love them as they stand in front of us - in their present incarnation, if you will, since we humans seem to be always appearing in different forms, the soul clothed in constantly changing garments. You cannot truly love an earlier version of someone unless you love them as they are today.

You cannot love a memory - you can cherish it, treasure it, carefully store it away in the mind's archive, but you cannot love it. Love is active, it is doing, it requires a real world object; you cannot act upon a memory. Faith without deeds, the Apostle James, reminded us, is dead; the same is true of love. I can only really love a real person, the one who is here now.

That is easy in the case of Anna, who is very bit as charming at 20 as she was at 2, but it becomes harder and more uncomfortable truth if I apply it to others in my life. Yet, I am wasting my time wishing this person or that one were more like they used to be, back when. . . . . And I am showing by my inconstancy how feeble my love really is - how un-lovely. People change and change and change and change, but love never fails. "Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds."

Meditation on my left eyebrow

I have half an eyebrow over my left eye. It is never going to grow back.  My eyelashes are returning, as is the hair inside a temporarily bare triangle right in the center of my head.  My skin has regained its normal color, the swelling in my face has gone down considerably and may resolve completely.  I can't breathe through my left nostril - it has fused shut as a result of the radiation - but that can probably be fixed by surgery, not easily or painlessly, but it is possible to make my nose as good as new. My eyebrows, however, will never be the same.

Every day when I look in the mirror I will remember that I had cancer growing in my face - "head and neck cancer" is how it is inelegantly described in the literature. I will perpetually be reminded that my face was irradiated with the maximum allowable dose of proton beams in an attempt to kill the tumor cells that had silently proliferated in my sinus and my orbit. I may be heartened by the fact that the cancer seems to be under control, but whenever I catch a glimpse of that assymetrical brow I will remember that some things can never be fixed. 

We can fix a lot of things - medically, physically, relationally, emotionally, but a sad fact of life is that there are things much more significant than eyebrows that can never be fixed, that will always be broken, marred, shattered or scarred. We don't like to admit anything is inexorably damaged.  We all have the urge to fix what is broken, to heal what is hurt.  It feels so hopeless to say something has been destroyed, that nothing can be done, but sometimes that's the truth.  We can apologize, but we may never be forgiven. We can make restitution, but we may never be considered trustworthy again. We can try to take back our words - swear we never meant them, but they may continue to hang in the air, forever clouding the atmosphere between us and another person.

The writer of Ecclesiastes mourns that "what is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is not there cannot be counted."  He's right. For  many things there is no easy fix - for some there is just no fix under heaven. Thank God there is still Heaven.

My youngest daughters are finally learning to play pretend.  When they first came home from Ethiopia they did not know how to play.  They knew several games like jacks and tag, but they did not know what to do with blocks, dolls, playdough or dress-up clothes.  Nearly two years later they are figuring it out.  Their favorite make believe scenario is school, since that is what they know best.  Perhaps they will graduate to being princesses or astronauts before R is too old for such games, but for now they take turns being teacher and pupil.

Yesterday L was the teacher.  She got her classroom ready and then called R to come to class.  Apparently something was amiss about the teacher's appearance since I heard this interchange from the next room:

R:  What, are you getting pragnant??

L: (hesitates) Well, someday I will.

R: No! It's a question!  Answer yes or no!

L: (cornered) Well, yes.

And then class began.

a mystery to me

My mind is full of cancer these days.  My inbox is full of messages from others who have the same cancer I do, and I actually look forward to reading them.  I sometimes go off by myself to read them in private, because they are not for everyone in my family, they are only pertinent to me and they may contain a message, a chip of information, that could save my life.  You never know. I am disappointed if a day goes by without finding at least one message with the adress ACCOI - Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma Organization International.  If people knew this they would think I was obsessed with my cancer.  Which I might be.

I am not especially anxious these days - I have moved through the initial terror of the diagnosis, the stark realization that I will actually die, perhaps much sooner than I had expected - or not expected, to be more precise.  I am far beyond the days when I hated pressing the elevator button for the 7th floor of the outpatient building because I believed that was tantamount to announcing loudly, "I have head and neck cancer."  I don't hide my patient ID card in the back of my wallet anymore so I won't accidentally see it when I am looking for something else and be reminded of the insidious tumor growing just beneath my unsuspecting eye.  I am in a different place now. 

Now I read about Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma every chance I get.  I take my Ipad everywhere with me and look up a scholarly article or two while the pasta is cooking, or I reread (again) the FAQ's on the ACCRF site during the commercials.  Although I am no longer spooked by my hospital ID card, I notice I am careful to bookmark those articles which say hopeful things and avoid returning to the ones that use terms like "dismal outcome" and "relentless course."  I prefer the ones which emphasize the prognosticatory value of histologic grade, (mine is not so bad) rather than the ones that discuss outcome based upon tumor stage (mine is not so good.)  For someone who does not believe in the power of positive thinking, I go pretty far out of my way not to encounter negative information. 

And I am not sure why I am always reading about, thinking about, having to ration how much I talk about this disease.  What exactly is its hold on me?  Why does my obsession with it seem almost like a fascination, an infatuation sometimes?  I am not sure. Perhaps it is just because it was such a huge part of the past year's experience, because it is now part of who I am.  Perhaps it is because it has the quality of a public secret -  everyone knows about it, but no one  really shares the experience with me.  Secrets always have a certain power.  Maybe I can't forget it because not one day has gone by in 10 months that I have not touched the place near my eye and felt something alien there. Would I miss it if it were gone?

I don't know.  Maybe I am like a grieving person - not able to forget the source of my grief until enough time has gone by.  Maybe I am actually more anxious than I think I am and I am constantly trying to assuage my fears.  Maybe I am just intensely curious - I have always read immoderately about any new subject which has captured my attention.  Two years ago I bought every adoption book on the market, devoured them and then let them gather dust on the shelf.   So perhaps it's nothing more than a new interest.  Who can say?  Not me.

I read in Romans chapter 4 the other day about the faith of our father Abraham who is remarkable, and remarked upon, as much for what he did not do as for what he did.  What he did was believe God - Romans 4:3 asserts positively that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.  But Paul goes on to consider Abraham's thoughts and actions in more detail, carefully dissecting his belief, showing it to be a far more complex action than it may seem at first.

Few if any human choices work in only one direction.  One "yes" often implies many "no"'s.  Choosing one course means not choosing at least one other course. Any positive choice is also a negation of alternative choices.  That is why so many events in life seem bittersweet, and also why choosing can be so difficult. Choosing to forgive necessarily means choosing not to think about the wrongs we have suffered, not to wish evil upon those who have hurt us.  Choosing to love often means not having things our own way, not tallying offenses.  The apostle Paul's poetic definition of love in I Corinthians 13 contains as many  negative descriptors as positive ones. So it is with Abraham. What he did was believe God, what he did not do was grow weak in faith, consider his own body, stagger at the promises of God.

This dissection of Abraham's belief appeals to me - probably because I have a natural affinity for contrariety- but also because it touches upon the purely physical, earthly realities which provided the context for his faith.  God's promises were not supported by any secondary causes, they were in direct contradiction to what Abraham knew to be true about his body.  He was too old, he was not getting any younger, there were no technologies available to circumvent the problems of old age and impotence.  So he ignored what was right in front of him, he declined to consider it, he did not dwell upon it, he did not consider it an impediment.

Having chosen to affirm God's trustworthiness and deny everything he knew from experience, he then did not stagger at the promises. I love that image. Staggering implies weakness, exhaustion, infirmity, sometimes intoxicxation.  The sheer improbablity of God's promise might have caused Abraham to hesitate, to teeter, to topple, to totter.  He might have lurched, careened, dithered or pitched right off the path. He did not reel, he did not sway, he did not vacillate, he did not waver.  He proceeded calmly and firmly in his belief that God was able to do what He had promised, all evidence to the contrary. By an act of the will his step was unshakable and true; he did not stagger.

In my own faith journey I have spent a lot of time staggering about.  I have bumped up against or stumbled over phenomena which appear to be obstacles to the promises of God.  I have stopped to consider at length the kind of  things which Abraham refused to consider - my human weakness, the frailty of my flesh, my tiredness, my diseases. I have often not known whether I actually believed God or not.

Belief has always been something rather nebulous to me.  I am never sure where I fall on the belief/unbelief scale.  Do I believe? Do I really believe? (Clap your hands if you believe in fairies!) Some days I feel buoyed up by belief, while other days I feel faithless and despairing.  I just don't know what belief looks like, what it feels like.  So it is helpful to me to have a few "do nots" to check off.  I know if I am spending time and energy considering the reasons why God's promises might fail.  I know if I am filling my mind with human probabilities rather than divine prognoses.  I can pull myself up short and say, "Whatever you do, don't do that," and hope that by not doing the things Abraham did not do, I may end up doing what he did do - believing God.

     We live across the road from a fairytale house, a little gnome home. Unlike our austere, upright colonial which has scarcely changed its expression since 1796, this house grew up over centuries, with several discrete rooflines and an assortment of windows. The original brick house was built in 1792 by the owner of the mill powered by the waterfall in the sideyard. Once a straight white rectangle, the primary structure has settled comfortably into the ground; its shingled roof mimics the uneven foundation line where house meets earth. It is hard to imagine the windows were ever square; they sit at crazy angles now, their twenty-four small panes framed by mustard colored shutters, each hanging at its own tilt. A narrow, sheltered red door flanked by rusty lanterns is never opened. Instead, a deep, shaded alcove closer to the barn serves as the front door, its granite steps lined with rangey potted plants, statuary in various stages of deterioration. A weathered old fireplace mantle leans against a corner; a tufted old gray cat crouches on the top step, waiting to be admitted.

     This morning the squat chimney in the center of the oldest roof was puffing pale gray smoke into the pale grey morning sky. Frosty skeletons rose behind the house - white birches, tall firs, a weepy willow. A clapboard section of the cottage with a bulging bay window sits uncomfortably between between the original bricks and the attached barn. Its straight roof and flat-topped gable are awkwardly out of place between the undulating roof lines of the older house and white barn  whose rippling roof is half covered with creeping green moss, amplifying the impression that the house simply arose out of the ground. Its wide sliding door has a smaller, hinged door cut into it, curved at the top like a picture from Hansel and Gretel. Another iron- hinged door and two uneven windows punctuate the  clapboards. The barn leans slightly to the right as if falling into the yard which drops away toward the brook. A rickety fence follows the slope of the hillside in stairstep fashion, petering away into the hoary, white, leaf-naked woods.

This afternoon we went snowshoeing behind the fairy house, in the fairy woods.  We awakened to snow this morning, which immediately called to mind both Jack Frost and Robert Frost, poet of the northern New England landscape.  The snow fell softly all day until we ventured out at mid-afternoon.  The light was already purple, hinting at the early nightfall which would soon envelop the woods. We walked past the heavily laden, giant pines, tramped our way through leafless, fragile bushes, stepped awkwardly over fallen trees and slid gingerly down hills before we leapt over small brooks, still running  black and noisy in the midst of the snow.  We picked our way through the wreck of an old barn, its beams frosted with snow, and stopped to watch the spray of a waterfall rushing over a frozen bank.  We peered down into an abandoned empty well and scrambled past a rusty old swingset thrown away a child's lifetime ago. Even that cheap, rusty piece of detritus looked mysterious and evocative under its snowy drape.

Though we tramped about for an hour, we were never very far from home, and when we turned toward our neighbor's cottage we caught a glimpse of our own house across the road.The scene could have been a hundred years old or more - two ancient, white houses with candles visible in the windows.  If you ignored the cars in the drive, you could imagine yourself coming home for dinner in 1930, 1900, 1850, or even 1800.  The woods, the road, the houses, the waterfall would all be there. The snow is timeless, too.

I remember a  morning when I sent Lily and Rachel out to the car to look for Lily's bright pink parka. We had spent the whole day in the car the previous day - the eye doctor in the morning, the pizza restaurant for lunch, back to Rachel's school in the afternoon for a presentation about music lessons. Lily was carsick on the trip to the doctor so she got to ride in the front seat, an unusual treat for her. It was a long day and I was not surprised that all our belongings had not made it into the house when we got home.

So that morning we unearthed Rachel's schoolbus yellow jacket from the pile of coats in the breezeway, but Lily's fuschia coat was nowhere to be found.  I sent the girls out to check the car. I was pretty sure the jacket would be there. Grabbing my own coat, I scrabbled through the key basket looking for the right key ring, dropped my phone in my purse and headed out the door, careful to slam it hard so the dog could not push it open while we were away. Juggling purse, keys and coffee cup as I slipped behind the wheel,  I asked the girls chattering excitedly in the backseat if they had found the coat. No, they said, but they found Lily's leftover pizza from yesterday's lunch! They were both very interested in the pizza; the box was opened and the four leftover pieces were dangerously close to landing on the backseat in all their greasy glory. But, Rachel said, with real regret in her voice, "No, Mom, the coat is not here. I don't know where it is."

The glaringly pink coat, was, of course, right in front of her on the front passenger seat. The pizza box, however, had been on the dashboard, so they had had to climb directly over the coat to get to  it. How, I asked myself, and them, could they have missed it? It was in plain view. But of course, I know how they missed it. Because I have missed the obvious myself when I was distracted by something that caught my eye or my imagination, something that looked more interesting and fulfilling than the mundane task at hand. I can not only walk into a room and forget what I am looking for, I can walk through my life and forget why I am there. If I don't remind myself every day what is really important I lose my focus all over again.

I woke up this morning again trying to remember what was really important in my life, in anyone's life. I had fallen out of this habit for a while- a cancer diagnosis and then seven weeks of treatment had actually pushed that big question out of the way for awhile.  I knew what I needed to do every day when I woke up.  I did not need to evaluate my choices or compare my life to anyone else's.  Everything was crystal clear for awhile.  But now I am back to my everyday life, to the housework and shopping and childcare.  The crisis is over for now, at least, and I lie in bed as the room grows lighter and wonder if I have done anything in my entire life that is of lasting worth.  I wonder how to salvage the hours of the day ahead so that I will have something to show for the time I've spent when I climb back in bed tonight. I recall the orthodox formulas I have memorized over a lifetime - "The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever"  "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your strength and all your mind."  "He has showed thee, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you - to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."  But I still wonder every morning what it means to love God, how to do that in the next 12 hours, the next 12 years.  The older I get, the more mundane my life appears. I will probably never publish a book, never do some great humanitarian work, never run a marathon, never have that second career that will make up for the lack of a first career! Every morning I feel like I need to figure out again how to love God and walk humbly with Him in the midst of cleaning the house, doing the endless laundry, taking the dogs for walks and occasionally writing a paragraph or two.  I don't know why I have to grapple with the same questions over and over, why they never stay answered.  Maybe the answers are part of the daily bread that I must receive anew from God's hand every morning. Or maybe I just have a really bad memory for important details.

<b>Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah, and named it Ebenezer; for he said, "Thus far the LORD has helped us." So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel; the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The towns that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron to Gath; and Israel recovered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. There was peace also between Israel and the Amorites. (1 Samuel 7:12-14 NRSV) 

I grew up on the King James Version and the Fundamentalist tradition. In his pastoral prayers my father prayed weekly for shut-ins and backsliders.In Sunday school I learned the story of the importunate widow. I don't think I have ever used that adjective in my life except in this context, but I learned it at a young age. I knew the many-syllabic attributes of God as well as the fruits of the Spirit and the Armor of God which included such items as bucklers and girdles. I don't remember ever giggling about any of it, it was just a normal part of the vocabulary of my faith. I also knew scores of hymns by heart full of phrases such as "Awake my soul to joyful lays," When morning gilds the skies", and "Teach me some melodious sonnet."

One of my favorites was, "Here I raise mine Ebenezer, Hither by thy help I'm come." Though the Old Testament allusion might be lost on many modern hymnsingers, I can't remember a time when I did not know that it referred to an incident recorded in I Samuel 7in which Samuel set up a stone between Mispah and Jeshanah and named it Ebenezer, which literally means "stone of help." When he raised the stone he said, "Thus far the Lord has helped us." So, it shouldn't seem strange to anyone that I named the little black poodle puppy I received for a welcome home gift after I finished radiation treatments, Ebenezer. Thus far the Lord has helped me. We're calling him "Benny," since Ebenezer is kind of hard to yell out the front door, but his proper name will always remind me, at least, of what was happening when he joined our family.

My husband and I have often talked about erecting stones of remembrance around our house, but we have seldom done it. We love how the Old Testament and the Jewish tradition are full of physical reminders - on the doorposts, on the forehead, at the edge of the Red Sea - of what God has done, so that when children ask, "What does this mean?" the elders have an open door to recount the works of a faithful God. We have not made altars in our yard; the only markers we have left are gravestones for pets like the one that reads, "A good bunny who died of a sunny day." But this event - my cancer diagnosis and treatment - seemed big enough to warrant not one remembrance (the puppy's name), but two.

 The day I finished treatment Kevin and I walked down the narrow, old street across from the hospital and stopped for coffee at a small cafe. We had walked this street many times in the last two months, including on the first day we entered Massachusetts General Hospital to hear the recommendations for my treatment. That day we had walked in nervous silence before the appointment, and then baffled confusion afterwards when we were given two very different treatment options from which to choose. I have written about how we agonized over the decision, knowing whichever course we chose came with no guarantee of success. We prayed, asked counsel, and chose the course of radiation, which seemed a feeble weapon against a Stage IV cancer. Now that my treatment was over we revisited the cafe, and while we waited for our lattes, Kevin pulled out a small green ring box and handed it across the table. Inside was a beautiful, understated cigar-band ring. The band itself was brushed silver. Embedded in it were five small diamonds of varying size, scattered unevenly across the center of the ring. Kevin looked up the passage from I Samuel 17 that he had mediatated on the last three months which tells how David came against the giant with five smooth stones, and slew him by the power of God. We knew that 35 proton beam treatments seemed a small weapon to wield against a frightening disease, but we knew that their success depended not upon our doctor, but upon the power of our God. Kevin bought me the ring to remind us both where our true help lies. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine. Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!” David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground. So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

I received a wonderful message from an old friend a while ago. He is someone who has walked ahead of us on the road of international adoption. His words spoke deeply to me, since I know his family has suffered mnay hardships through their obedience to God's calling in their lives. He has experienced many of the things I prayed against as we pursued what we believed to be God's call to adopt. Some of his words were, "My prayer is that you will abide in Him, for He is near! When you feel as though you have nowhere to turn, He is there. When you feel as though no one understands, be reminded that He has walked that same road. When it seems like you aren't sure you can continue past this very moment, invite Him into that single moment and allow Him to walk with you into the next. He will prove faithful...to you, to the girls, and to His purpose. The funny thing is, His purpose may not be about you or the girls, but it will always be about Him, and that is sobering, at least to me."

It was the last sentence that struck me most. That truth about the purposes of God.
Because I, like many well-meaning adoptive parents have wondered many times what our adopting A and G would mean. I have wondered, "Why do we have these particular two children? What great things will come of this huge change in their lives? What will they become? Perhaps," IVe thought, "one day A will be a doctor or G will be a teacher and they will return to Ethiopia and help to save their people." (Should we name one of them Esther???) Or, more humble, but still gratifying, "Maybe one of our children will be so moved by their experience that they will do this or that or the other great thing." Surely, I've thought, something wonderful will come of this.


But when I begin to presume on the purposes and plans of God I am reminded of my experience several years ago, when God rather precipitously moved our family to Southeast Asia for most of two years. I remember how much thought I gave to trying to figure out God's purpose in our being there. I remember actually saying to people, "I'm not really sure yet why God has us here," as if it were only a matter of time until either I figured it out, or it God revealed it to me. My questioning was honest, good-hearted, sincere, and ultimately unsuccessful. I don't think we, or at least I, ever got any insight into the big picture. I never gained any understanding of God's intentions for our family's life beyond what I already knew - that He meant for us to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with Him. (Micah6:8)

Maybe my notion of God' purpose was too narrow. When I was looking for one reason, mayber there were many. Maybe we were there so my children could develop compassion for the world, so we could meet a particular aid worker, for us to help a student finish his education, for us all to see our own culture with different eyes, for countless other reasons I've never thought of and never will. Maybe it was all those things and many more. Maybe it was not really about any of those things.

Maybe God' plans, like His character and being, are so beyond our comprehension that we are foolish and presumptuous to even try to name them. I wrote the first part of this entry months ago, before I encountered the next big fork in the road - my diagnosis of cancer.My friend's words are true in this situation, too. And perhaps I have learned something along the way after all, since I have spent much less time and energy this time trying to figure out what God is doing in my life. I have tried to remember that whatever is going on, it is not really about me. It's about God and His plans. What is required of me, as a steward, is only to be found faithful (I Corinthians 4:2). I don't have to know the plot, I don't have to figure out what God is up to. I only have to be faithful.

Swimming Outside the Gene Pool

I am a diffident person. I am the kind of person who will patiently let a confident novice instruct me about something I am expert in just to be polite. I will even ask a few questions for clarification. I never assume I know how to do anything, at least not as well as anyone else. In college I called my parents at the end of every semester apologizing for how poorly I had done that term, begging their forbearance and promising to do better the next term. And I was always shocked when my grade report arrived with nothing but A's. Roget suggests I might be called bashful, blenching, chary, constrained, dubious, flinching, rabbity or reserved. I am self-effacing, shrinking, shy, timorous, unassertive, unassuming.

I gave birth to seven children who bear at least some resemblance to me. They all learned to talk early, but learned to talk on the phone late. Some are still mastering the skill, and all are grateful for the faceless nature of facebook and texting, the shy person's friend. They are not all as retiring as I am, but none of them would ever be called bold or brash, cheeky, audacious or forward.
So I am a bit non-plussed by a daughter who told me which shoes she should wear to her first T-ball practice, when she had no idea what T-ball even was, a daughter whose favorite phrase when she hardly spoke any English was, "Mommy, no," often accompanied by a glare or a scowl. Now that she speaks the language almost perfectly her favorite phrase is, "I know." Almost any explanation I try to offer her is interrupted halfway through by, "I know," even though she doesn't. When her younger sister asks me a question about something she doesn't understand I have to be quick to get in the first word, or G will launch into her own, often incorrect, explanation. Had she been born into my family I am sure I would frequently be asking, "Where in the world did this child come from?"

But, of course, I know where she came from - Ethiopia. What I don't know is who she resembles, which strong-willed relative she takes after, or even what early experiences may have shaped her audacious personality. She is like a little bantam rooster in a house of retiring hens. She doesn't fit in very comfortably. Like most introverts, I value caution, self-effacement, thinking (long and hard) before you speak. Even as a child I secretly scoffed at classmates who waved their hands to be called on before the teacher had finished asking the question. As a parent I was always relieved that I never had one like that in my brood. I would rather never be recognized for what I do know rather than blurt out the wrong answer, and my genetic offspring either caught or were taught that same attitude.

Before we met our youngest daughters we had only pictures to study to try to imagine who they would be, what they were like. I knew this daughter was brave - she was always smiling broadly in the sad little orphanage pictures, and I knew she was fiercely protective of her little sister - she always had her arm around the sad little one's shoulders. But I did not know that part of what allowed her to survive her difficult childhood was a brash, dauntless, cheeky courage and the conviction that she could handle anything that came her way, that she already knew most everything she needed to know, that she didn't need any grownup to tell her what to do. So I find myself often piqued at her attitude, annoyed, rather than amazed by her confidence. Instead of praising her chutzpah, I find myself biting my tongue so I don't criticize her presumption. I recognize in myself the lack of grace and acceptance of her "otherness." I see how hard it is to affirm and value the qualities I don't naturally like. I am conscious of how easy it is to love people who are like me, and how hard it is to extend the same unconditional love to someone who is just so different from me. Of course, this is part of what God means to teach me through the experience of adoption. He has shown me how easy it has been to love the children born to me, whereas Christlike love embraces the unlovely (to me), rather than just those I feel comfortable with. He is showing me my pride, my judgmental attitudes, the shallowness of my "love" through this gutsy daughter who is nothing like me.

chapter one

I was thinking this morning as I pushed my empty grocery cart back to the curb that God is giving me what I have said I wanted - a chance to live out what I claim to believe.  I have written about that desire many times, and spoken it in my heart over and over. I have made choices which have involved a certain amount of renunciation, a willingness to take some risks and to allow God to change my life in some pretty big ways.  I have said "yes" to moving my family across the world, "yes" to adopting two Ethiopian orphans.  I have felt as if I were giving up my life for the gospel, to do those things that Jesus said His followers should do. I have felt willing.  But I realized this morning that I have been exercising faith as I chose those paths; now I need to exercise faith on a path I would never have chosen.  I cannot imagine choosing cancer if God gave me the chance.  I would have moved to Somalia, adopted ten more kids, given away all my money before I would have chosen cancer.  But I was not given the choice. God chose it for me.  This time when I give up my life as I know it, it is not of my own volition, and I don't like it.  I realize how different this is, and how much greater faith it requires. 

I have been reading James 1 and Hebrews 12 a lot lately,  Hebrews 12 exhorts us to "fix our eyes on Jesus, " a great corrective for me when I over and over fix my eyes on the mirror, to see if the swelling in my face is growing more noticeable, or fix my eyes on the computer screen reading chilling acounts in cold, clinical speech about the destruction various kinds of cancer can wreak. James 1 reminds me of the purpose of trials - that they are not tests to assess how much faith I already possess, but testings to produce patience and perseverance in me.  By definition both of those qualities require time, not haste, uncertainty and effort, not obvious happy endings.  If I knew this would all turn out the way I want it to, I could not learn patience or perseverance through it. 

So here I am in the place I never wanted to be, and the timing seems horrible.  My daughter is getting married in less than three months.  Will I be able to attend her wedding?  Will my face be swollen and disfigured from a recent surgery?  Will I still have both my eyes?  Will I be in the middle of radiation or chemotherapy treatment?  I don't know.  God knows.

Promises, Promises

A few weeks ago we had an impromptu picnic. The days for picnicking are growing short here in northern New England, and one of my older daughters suggested we pack a lunch and head to the park. We pulled out the old wicker basket and filled it with our picnic standbys - good, crusty bread, a few cheeses, fruit and drinks. There was still a sandy blanket in the back of the van which had never been unpacked after the trip to the beach two weeks earlier, so we were all set. The evening was surprisingly warm; we'd had enough chilly nights so far that I had pulled all the fans out of the windows, though I had not carted them up to the attic yet since Indian Summer was still around the corner. A late crop of mosquitoes annoyed us and some suspicious-looking red ants swarmed one daughter's flip flops, but the picnic was still a success - much better than eating indoors while the light still lingered till 7 and the trees were just beginning to drop coy hints about the colors they would wear this fall.

Heading home from the "penguin" - Lily couldn't keep the word "picnic" in her mind - my smallest daughter began reciting a litany of all the things she was not going to do the next day. She still uses the Amharic structure for negatives, putting the "not" or "no" after the verb.

"In the morning I take Ivy's candy, no. I touch Ivy's things, no. I hide things from Mommy, no. I squeeze kittens, no." She was so earnest and adamant about her intentions. She repeated her vows several times, going to great lengths to explain when these things would take place, "Tonight brush teeth, go to bed, sleep, wake up, have breakfast, then." I was touched by her resolve, by her remembrance of all the sins she had committed today. I was also reminded of my own resolutions, of all the things I have promised myself and God, over and over, not to do again tomorrow, or ever.

I complain, no. I want what everyone else has, no. I judge other people, no. I worry, no. I get impatient with my children, no. I think I am usually right, no. I overeat, no. I forget the log in my own eye, no. I gossip, no. I feel too wise to have the faith of a child, no.

What I remember most

Today is C's 21st birthday. She is on the other side of the world this birthday, like she was for the last, as well. Different country, but equally foreign and faraway. We tried to skype with her today, but she didn't pick up. I hope she is out with some new friends. I hope someone there knows it's her birthday. Her siblings decided to make some silly birthday videos for her and asked me to make one, as well. My first idea involved stuffing a pillow under my shirt, going for the pre-natal look. My eldest daughter laughed at me and said, "Oh Mom, that's what you always think of on any of your children's birthdays!"

Of course she's right. And why wouldn't I? Doesn't every mother? Don't we all wake on our children's birthdays remembering the morning they were born? Don't we all compare today's weather with the weather on that first day? Isn't every mother more conscious of the passing hours that day, remembering what was happening throughout the day? Doesn't every mother divide the day into the time before and after the child arrived? Maybe not; I don't think I've ever asked anyone else if they do.

But I do. I love celebrating my children's birthdays; I love decorating the cake and finding the gifts that will make them smile. But I always feel as if I am harboring a secret that day, conscious of the fact that I am the one who remembers the occasion we are commemorating, not them. Their actual birth days are immortalized in my memories, not theirs. On this day they are characters in my story as much as in their own. It's a funny thing.

So today I recalled the events of September 17, 1990. I remembered how I felt when I woke that morning in the hospital after the previous night's stalled labor. I remember my husband deciding it was OK to go in to the office, only to be called back a half hour later. I remember my closest friend, two months away from her own first delivery, sitting patiently with me after sleeping all night in a chair. I remember the doctor's tactless words, "by hook or by crook", before he left to do someone else's C-section, and the nurse's gentler manner. I remember my fears for this baby's condition and my determination to avoid any interventions. I remember how quickly she arrived and how quickly she was whisked away to be examined by the high risk pediatric specialist. I remember my relief when she was placed in my arms a short time later and how marvelous I felt after such a quick labor and delivery.

I remember, too, that one of the best parts of any sweet experience is recalling it later, taking the memories out and turning them over, looking at them again and trying to recapture the feelings that left me breathless at the moment. But I know, also, that memory is fragile in its malleability, that looking too closely or talking too often about an event can alter its shape. I call to mind Annie Dillard's caution to the memoirest - that if you really want to keep your memories, you should be wary of writing them down because they will become the words you have used to describe them.

So I only revive these memories occasionally, taking care to refresh them gently and somewhat cautiously. I handle them gingerly, trying not to look directly at them, to examine them too closely. I recount the story in its outline only, letting the details swirl about, coloring my recollection. But I don't try to pin everything down in black and white. I allow for some mistiness around the edges. I don't want to lose the wonder of that lovely, lovely day.

Too Many Daves

Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave
Had twenty-three sons and she named them all Dave?
Well, she did. And that wasn't a smart thing to do.
You see, when she wants one and calls out, "Yoo-Hoo!
Come into the house, Dave!" she doesn't get one.
All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!
This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves'
As you can imagine, with so many Daves.
And often she wishes that, when they were born,
She had named one of them Bodkin Van Horn
And one of them Hoos-Foos. And one of them Snimm.
And one of them Hot-Shot. And one Sunny Jim.
And one of them Shadrack. And one of them Blinkey.
And one of them Stuffy. And one of them Stinkey.
Another one Putt-Putt. Another one Moon Face.
Another one Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face.
And one of them Ziggy. And one Soggy Muff.
One Buffalo Bill. And one Biffalo Buff.
And one of them Sneepy. And one Weepy Weed.
And one Paris Garters. And one Harris Tweed.
And one of them Sir Michael Carmichael Zutt
And one of them Oliver Boliver Butt
And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate ...
But she didn't do it. And now it's too late.

-Theodor Geisel

Two too many Kevins

Our two Ethiopian daughters came with indeterminate birthdates. Their birth mother did not even make a guess at their ages, leaving the choice of dates and ages up to the social worker who did the initial orphanage intake interview. The girls' birthdates were chosen with some thought, and then also some randomness. Unable to ask the mother if she remembered even what season they were born in - Ethiopia's tourist slogan is "Thirteen months of sunshine," and every day does seem like the one before - the social worker presumably picked a month and day out of a hat. Amazingly, he chose a date already on my calendar as my fourth daughter's birthday for G's big day. A just missed our third daughter's birthday by two days. With 365 days to choose from, does that seem a bit odd?

The girls also came home with us saddled with strange names - not their first, given Ethiopian names, but their middle names. The adoption process in Addis Ababa dictates that all adopted children are given their father's first name as their middle name. So we have two little girls named A and G Kevin Horner-Richardson. We had never planned on changing our daughters' first names: they were chosen by their Ethiopian mother and both have beautiful meanings, but we found ourselves forced into choosing new middle names (unless we wanted them to go through life with the middle name Kevin). We did not realize at first that we had to choose their new names within 30 days of arriving home. Fortunately I finally read the fine print in our Welcome Home Instructions 26 days after we arrived back.

Feeling like we did when it was time to leave the hospital when we had not yet settled on a name, we tried our several in quick succession. We wondered if the girls had a preference - they certainly have strong opinions about most other aspects of life, we reasoned. "G," we said, "do you like Rachel or Rebekah?"

"What?" she asked, screwing up her face, twisting her neck and peering at us through the lower left corner of her eye like she sometimes does. I think she thought we were asking her about what she wanted for dinner, or which outfit she wanted to wear but she didn't recognize any of the choices.

"Names" we said brightly, wondering how to mime the concept, "Your American names." We ran through each of our own names, pouncing on the MIDDLE name each time, to try to make the point that in America we all have THREE names, but she thought we wanted to hear her Ethiopian last name, the one name we were not considering. We tried asking again what she thought of several possible names, but she just shook her head and began to look disinterested. At one point she laughed, and we wondered how we would know if a name we innocently chose might sound like something offensive in Amharic - which we never figured out.

So, we filled out the paperwork at the last minute with the names G Rachel and A Lily, followed by the ponderous Horner-Richardson. We don't know when, if ever, the girls will use those names. We wanted to give them the option of a name, should they ever want one, that does not make their softball coach ask what gender they are. (That happened this week.) They may never choose to be known by any name but the one they were christened with at the church in Woliso, Ethiopia, but this naming seems to be one more step in the adoption dance which we are clumsily trying to learn.