"Because of Katie" Book Review

It took me a few beats to type the word 'review' in the title of this post. Mostly because I was searching for a more accurate word which I failed to come upon. This is not a book I am reviewing because it was assigned to me from some third party or chosen from an array offered to me by BookPleasures. I am not so much reviewing this book as singing its praises and encouraging you to go find it and read it. Every so often I come across a book that moves me profoundly. Even so, I can generally write a review of it and move on. "Because of Katie" went one step further and not only moved me but left me with a sense that this book exists for a much higher purpose than simple entertainment.

I know many books strive to do the same, especially nonfiction, especially memoir, and some do manage to leave the reader with that feeling of expansiveness that leads people to recommend them over and over again. "Because of Katie" is different in that it possesses that expansiveness as well as a solid groundedness. Karen Boren Gerstenberger wrote this book not because she was an aspiring writer who wished to share her story, but with an eye toward teaching, informing, deepening understanding of what a family is going through when they are dealing with a major crisis. Her gentle yet firm message comes through without judgment as she describes each step of their journey through diagnosis, aggressive treatment and hospice care for their daughter's terminal cancer. She is able to acknowledge both strengths and areas for improvement at each point along the way, with each person they encountered.

This book is an absolute gift from Gerstenberger to each and every person whose lives are touched by severe illness or injury. From relatives to hospital personnel, communities looking for ways to help and other support staff, every person who has occasion to be in contact with families struggling with uncertainty and discomfort will find lessons in here taught with concern and gentleness.

I am generally a very fast reader, often finishing a book every two to three days, especially if I am enjoying it. "Because of Katie" took me nearly two weeks to finish for several reasons. The story was compelling but painful and difficult to read as my daughter is the same age Katie was when she died. I found myself empathizing with Karen on many different levels, especially given the years of experience we had with Bubba's undiagnosed illness and our trips to and from the hospital. I also read slowly because this book is absolutely packed with information and I wanted to be sure I gave myself time between chapters to decompress and absorb it all.

The detail with which Karen writes about the hospital stays and the upheavals to their family's life brought me right in to the story. The tenderness evident in the way Katie's family responded to her needs and the acknowledgment of her desires (fairly typical for a 12-year-old girl, but not so easily met) is a testament to the high value this family placed on love and shared experience. While their experiences were most certainly unique, there are so many powerful messages about how to reach out and become more effective in our support of families in any kind of crisis that the book itself has the potential to become a teaching tool for multitudes.

I would like to thank Elizabeth for prompting me to read "Because of Katie," and Karen for sharing her wisdom with the world. I am honored to have been allowed this glimpse in to your family's life and feel the better for it.

You can get your own copy of "Because of Katie" here.

Funny Girl

Last week Lola was on edge off and on for a few days. She has trouble with transitions and the weather has been crazy around here - sunny one day and snowing the next - and basketball season ended on a Saturday with lacrosse starting a mere two days later. She expressed her discomfort with the upheavals in her routine by erupting in to hysterical outbursts of screaming about seemingly pathetically small upsets (like being told she had to put her laundry away before watching TV). She was unpredictable - teary one minute and her normal, smiley self the next.

Thursday morning she woke up slowly which is terribly unlike her. She normally bounces out of bed with enthusiasm and a rush to greet the new day. She balked at being asked to eat breakfast and gather her schoolwork up and just wanted to sit on the couch and watch television. She moped out to the car and when we arrived at school, burst into tears when she remembered that her least favorite teacher was teaching that day, substituting for her favorite teacher who would normally be there.

I asked her to climb in to the front seat of the car and close her eyes. I turned on the seat warmer, told her to place her feet on the floor of the car and take a few deep breaths. I guided her through a simple chakra-energizing routine (she loves visualizing the colors of her chakras and sending energy from one to the next) and then asked her to sit quietly and think of a few things that make her unique and special. Is she generous? Funny? Loving? Clever? Artistic? Musical? When she had a short list in her head (I didn't ask her to share them with me or justify them in any way), I asked her to choose one of her favorites and hold it in her mind, surrounded by a color of her own choosing. I asked her to think of a few examples or ways she exhibits this trait in her daily life and sit with those for a moment. When she was done, I had her breathe deeply one more time and open her eyes. The whole thing took about five minutes.

She seemed much more calm and relaxed when I walked her into the classroom and said goodbye.

At the end of the day when I came to get her, she bounced into the car with her normal mile-wide grin, clamoring for a snack as she rattled off details from her day. Mid-sentence, she stopped and said,

"Hey, Mom! You know that meditation we did this morning? You know what I chose? Funny. I'm funny. And I swear that I was the funniest today I've ever been. Just congratulating myself this morning for being funny in my head made me more likely to be funny all day long. I swear I cracked everyone up all day long. It was awesome!"

We agreed that this was a cool new meditation to keep in our bag of tricks and I tried it myself the following morning. The trait I chose was generosity and you know what? Lola was right. I found myself being more generous than normal all day long. Simply because I had recognized that generosity was one of the things about myself I like the best.

What trait would you choose?

How Many Sex Offenders Live in Your Neighborhood?

"Tell her I said this isn't a fun game." Bubba's face was dead serious as his fingers swiped across the screen of my iPad. It was 10:15 at night and we were supposed to be playing a rousing game of Scrabble (which he usually wins, by the way). Instead, we had our county's sex offender location website pulled up and there were thirteen little flags planted within a five mile radius of the house we had just put an offer in on.

Our real estate agent had sent me a text message fifteen minutes before to ask me to call her. She couldn't say exactly why, but something had made her pull up the list of sex offenders living in the neighborhood of the house we fell in love with. She wanted us to look up the site.

We did.

Bubba was not amused.

Thirteen flags. One with a notation that said "multiple offenders" instead of offering the name and photo of one man (they were all men, in this case) and the subsequent description of his offense(s) and likelihood to offend again.

I wasn't sure what to think and our agent wasn't, either. For comparison purposes, we pulled up the list of those who live near the house we've lived in for the last ten years. Seven.

I had to go through each and every one of the individual profiles, reading about their crimes:

sex with a minor

indecent liberties (what does that even mean? Could be sexual harassment, even)

statutory rape

rape of a child

Ugh.

Oddly, the ones that were noted as "noncompliant" didn't bother me in the least. That means they haven't checked in with their probation officer and there's no way to verify they actually still live there (or ever did). That gave me hope that they had moved on.

The one that bothered me the most was the house with two offenders in it that was less than a block from a daycare center held in someone's home. Home-based daycare less than a block away from two known sexual offenders. I wonder how often that happens. I suspect more than we think.

Within this five mile radius, there are four home-based daycare centers, four schools, three parks and hundreds of homes.

I went to bed not knowing what to think.

I woke up and searched the directory of families at Eve's school and learned that also within this five mile radius there are seven families whose children attend the same school as Eve.

I looked at Bubba and said, "I don't want to be ruled by fear."

We knew that moving from the 'burbs to the city was going to prompt different kinds of discussions with the girls. We knew that it would require some adjustment on our part - smaller lawns, closer neighbors, more noise - but were focused on the benefits to this point. Benefits like driving ten minutes to school instead of 45. Benefits like being able to walk the dog without having to put him in the car and driving to a park or trail. Benefits like being part of a more diverse community.

Methinks we got diverse.

Ultimately, we didn't change our minds about the house. We still love it and feel like it is a good neighborhood. We may have to have some challenging conversations with the girls about freedom and independence earlier than we anticipated, but it is situations like this that force us to find clarity around our family's values and principles.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable part of this entire exercise was when I began asking myself deeper questions about where convicted sex offenders ought to be allowed to live. I am a bleeding heart liberal who knows that people are products of their environment. That said, while I can have compassion for someone who has lived a life that led them to sexual violence, I wonder whether it is possible to be rehabilitated from that and I am not willing to put myself or my children in harm's way to find out. I do believe that housing two convicted sex offenders four doors down from a daycare provider is a bad idea. I also can't imagine how difficult it must be to find a place to live if you carry that past on your back. But the consequences are so enormous that I find myself wondering if stopping the cycle of sexual violence might require some ideas that I find uncomfortable.

I suspect that my abuser was himself sexually abused and that led him to an understanding that, for him, power could be gained by abusing others. In my case, the abuser actually lived in the home where the daycare was being provided, harming untold numbers of vulnerable children whose parents trusted his mother to care for them. Because of the shame and stigma associated with being a survivor of sexual abuse, and the resulting low percentage of cases actually reported, I wonder whether, once someone has shown that they are capable of that sort of violence, it ought to be shouted from the rooftops for all to hear. I know that is cruel and perhaps overzealous, and I truly do not want to be ruled by fear, but as I imagine my girls asking to walk to the corner store on a sunny summer day, I want to be able to tell them which people to avoid at all costs. And the truth is, short of memorizing the faces of each of the offenders living in the neighborhood, I can't.

Books and Reading, Reading and Books

My latest book review for Book Pleasures was posted here last week. It is a fun read and, at less than five bucks for the digital edition, it's totally worth the money.

I also had a new essay published in the online magazine Buddha Chick yesterday that you can check out here. It's a free magazine and has some really great writers. If you like to read about women's spirituality, you may enjoy it. And if you like to write about it, read an issue and submit some of your work. It's unpaid, but a great community to belong to.

I realized I'm also woefully behind on updating the sidebar of the blog that lists the books I'm currently reading. The truth is, I read two or more books a week, on average, and I'm not very good at messing with the format of the blog, so I rarely change it. Here are a few of the titles I've read recently, with a decided bent toward nonfiction.

1. "Girlchild" by Tupelo Hassman. The lone fictional work on this list, I highly recommend this book. What an amazing work by this new author! The book is written from the point of view of a child and her voice is spot-on. I think many of us can identify with the desire to grow up and get the heck out of our hometown, but this little girl has more incentive than anyone I know. Despite that, she is as tough as they come and has a unique way of looking at the world.

2. "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand. This is the author who wrote "Seabiscuit" and, while I'm not generally drawn to biographies (I prefer memoir), this was an epic ride and a history lesson all in one. I prefer to learn history by way of personal stories, anyway, so for that reason, this story reminded me a bit of another book I loved, "The Zookeeper's Wife" by Diane Ackerman. This is the heartbreaking story of a soldier who became a POW during World War II and his astonishing survival.

3. "Moonface: A True Romance" by Angela Balcita. I love me a memoir, especially with dark humor and medical interest. This has all of that and more. I actually read this one quite a while ago, but highly recommend it.

4. "fathermothergod: My Journey out of Christian Science" by Lucia Greenhouse. Another memoir that educated me immensely. I know of Christian Science only what the media tells me about parents who refuse medical treatment for their terminally ill children or Tom Cruise and the way he slammed Brooke Shields for taking antidepressants. It was very eye-opening to read this account of a young woman growing up steeped in this way of life and coming face-to-face with its limitations when a loved one falls ill.

What have you read lately that you can wholeheartedly recommend?

I am Afraid of my Twelve-Year-Old Daughter

There, I said it. It occurred to me yesterday that this is what that feeling is, but it took a while to say it. I tried to couch it in different terms like "intimidated" or "nervous," but it turns out I'm afraid of her.

She isn't violent or mean, physically abusive or bullying in any way. And even if she were, she's petite, so I could totally take her.

She is ... well, certain.

Determined.

Fiercely independent.

This child taught herself to walk. Bit by bit, methodically and with a decided refusal of assistance from any other human being, she pulled herself to standing, shimmied along the couch on her own, practiced standing in the middle of the room to catch her balance. For days she seemed on the verge of walking, but made certain she could do it without incident by standing and clapping one day, standing and waving her arms another. It is the same when I'm in a yoga class working on eagle pose, starting with the arms and then lifting one leg to wrap around the other. Once I've got that steady, I center myself and lift my gaze molecule by molecule to ensure I won't fall. Eve did that with walking. Two weeks after she had begun standing and perfecting her balance, she took a few steps. She practiced sitting down slowly so she wouldn't topple over. She never fell. She was not one of those toddlers you see with bruises on her face and arms because she was overconfident. She didn't have that drunken gait most eighteen-month-olds do. She took it slowly, step by step on her own and worked it out.

She also potty-trained herself and refused all offers of help. When she was learning to read, she was adamant about not letting me look at the book with her. We had to sit cross-legged on the floor, facing each other so that I could only see the cover of the book and she read out loud to me if I was lucky.

The day she noticed that the neighbor kids all rode their bikes without training wheels, she banished me to the house after asking me to remove hers. She put her helmet on, pushed her bike out to the cul-de-sac, and fought that thing for 30 minutes. I know because I was hiding under the living room window stealing glances every once in a while. She fell, got up and tried again. I knew enough to not go outside and offer assistance. Even then I was afraid. Not that she would get hurt, but that she would be angry with me. From the day she was born, Eve has known somewhere deep in her soul that asking for help means she can't do something herself. That she isn't capable. God I hope I didn't somehow instill that in to her DNA. That's what I was taught by my parents. Asking for help is a sign of weakness.

She did it. And the entire neighborhood heard about it when she began whooping with joy as she rode that tiny bicycle back and forth like it was Seabiscuit in the Kentucky Derby. The smile on her face was absolutely the best thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Pure pride. Joy of accomplishment. Triumph.

And so we come to middle school. Where she struggles to convince Bubba and me that she is an adult. She can handle it. She understands more sophisticated inside jokes now and reads more adult books and is certain she knows how to deal with anything that comes her way. But she isn't. She's twelve. And offering to help her with anything is throwing down the gauntlet. It infuriates her despite the fact that I spend hours crafting my speeches to her in order to not make her feel 'stupid' or 'juvenile.' Trying to tell her that I am here to support her in any way she deems fit, not show her how superior my intellect or experience is. It doesn't matter. She's not buying it.

I have set up a cozy place in the kitchen for her to do homework while I cook dinner. Bought scented candles to light while she does it. Offered to put on any music she likes and ban Lola and her boundless energy from the room so we can have a peaceful place to work together. None of it works. She prefers to head straight up to her room and blast Taylor Swift and reappear fifteen minutes later to announce, "I'm done. Can I play on the computer now?" Occasionally, she will admit she is struggling with a particular assignment and, in the same breath, say that she'll save it and ask the teacher the following day at lunch. Rather than have me sit with her for five minutes to figure it out.

And therein lies the rub. I want her to feel successful. I want her to know that there are many people in her life that she can reach out to. But I want one of them to be me. And it isn't. And that hurts. And I wish I could say that this is a tween-girl phase, but it isn't. Eve has always been fiercely independent and stubbornly refused my assistance. I have been rebuffed so many times I am afraid to offer, but I know that this isn't about me and my feelings. There are times when I am the only person available to her and she is only twelve. We have to find a way to work together without anger or resentment, but I'll be darned if I know how to do that.

I suppose if I'm being 'enlightened' about all of this, the first step is admitting that I'm afraid of her. Okay, did that. Now what?

House Hunting is Hard Work

"Even on the most exalted throne in the world, we are only sitting on our own rear end." Michel de Montaigne

And I want my rear end to be in a comfortable place. It doesn't have to be exalted or even fancy, but I want to feel at home. And this house-hunting is exhausting. A few weeks ago I thought I had found IT. The One. My realtor and I walked through the house almost silently, reverently, neither of us willing to break the spell by speaking. The kitchen was a dream. The family room opened just off of it and the back of the house was lined with eight french doors leading out onto a private patio. The bedrooms were big for a house in the city and there was a basement complete with storage and carpet and an updated laundry room. There was light and a gorgeous gas fireplace and a big porch with a swing. I felt cocooned. Cozy. Comfortable. I felt at home. I could imagine us living in this house.

Until I stepped outside. I am not terribly familiar with the neighborhood and there is a busy street half a block away. The back yard is bordered by one of those pockmarked alleyways that some of the neighbors take care of and others disregard. Fine. I just stepped back inside. Ahhh. That's better.

I arranged for Bubba and the girls to come look at the house that weekend with me. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and the girls happily skipped through the house, imagining their bedrooms and spaces to hang out. Bubba was more reserved, knowing how I felt about the house, and he was determined to look in every nook and cranny. He took his time strolling through every room, opening drawers and looking behind furniture, taking photos and not saying a word.

After about an hour inside the house, we took the girls on a walk through the neighborhood, noting the local cafe and two schools within walking distance. I was nearly afraid to breathe, not wanting to influence Bubba or the girls, although the girls were already sold. They're fickle.

It was nearly two hours later, as we were back in our house, that Bubba dared to ask me whether I still loved the house. I had a hard time answering. I wanted him to give me a definitive opinion that would then inform my feelings. If he hated it, I could give up. If he was head-over-heels, we could celebrate and I could put my misgivings to rest. Oops, I just admitted I had misgivings.

The fact is, I could imagine living in that house. Entertaining in that house. Raising our kids in that house. Hosting family in that house. But I was stuck on what it felt like to be outside. The neighborhood behind and to the north is great - tree-lined sidewalks, lots of families. But the street that the house was on was busy and only half a block long before it dumped out onto a four-lane road complete with stoplights. Could I live in a neighborhood that attached to the back of my home?

Ultimately, Bubba and I decided to wait and see what else comes on the market. I knew it was the right thing to do, but I still felt unsettled. It took me a few days to figure out why.

I want to be done. I want to know where I'm going to live come July. I want to picture it in my head and decorate it a thousand times in my mind before we ever move. I want to start boxing things up in this house and make a list of furniture to sell that won't fit in the new house. I want to feel settled.

The realtor and I went out again today and, while I know she isn't trying to pressure me, she told me that with Spring approaching, houses are flying off the market, being snatched up within days of going on. I know this, having watched two potential houses I wanted to see come and go before we could schedule appointments to see them. We went to see two houses today, both in neighborhoods I know well that I know we would like to live in. I woke up with a smile, feeling optimistic that today would be the day we would see something great. Lest you laugh too loudly, can I tell you that we've been at this since October, looking three out of every four weeks in a month? We have kissed a lot of toads so far. More than I can say.

The first house was creepy for reasons I can't properly explain. It had a very strange vibe, not exclusively due to the deadbolt on the outside of two closet doors and the laundry room door. (Why would you lock someone in the laundry room?) We couldn't get out of that house fast enough.

I wanted to like the second one. It is in a terrific neighborhood. It has a backyard. It's not even officially on the market yet - a girlfriend of mine knows the agent. It is in our price range. It's Bubba's choice of neighborhoods.

The ground floor was lovely. Not perfect, but lovely. The upstairs? A great master suite and three itsy, bitsy, teeny, tiny bedrooms (one with only room for a crib and a rocking chair and a changing table). The realtor started on about knocking down walls and expanding things and putting in a murphy bed for guests and I tried to follow her. I really did. I wanted to think that these things are no big deal and simple and "just sheetrock."

So I'll bring Bubba and the girls to see it on Saturday. It's a shame to let a house this close to great in such a great neighborhood go without a second look. Or is it? I don't know if it's crazy to expect perfection, but I want to know that The House is out there somewhere and I'll find it. I'm willing to keep kissing toads as long as I know that when I need it, one of them will spring to life as a cozy home in a friendly neighborhood that won't require me to bring an architect or a plumber along.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just keep resting my rear end on this throne I've got and hoping the toads keep presenting themselves.

Meditation Revelations

Last summer I signed up for a free 21-day meditation series from the Chopra Center with a friend of mine. We agreed to do the daily meditations and keep notes and get together every few days or so and share our impressions. Sort of a metaphysical book club. It was so great for so many reasons.

I do meditate.

Sometimes.

But I have trouble doing it on my own. I prefer guided meditations and I own a CD or two, but get tired of them pretty quickly. I've learned that my monkey mind is pretty strong and tends to jump ahead if I've listened to a particular meditation more than a few times, assuming it knows what is coming next and preferring to finish the quiet time so it can get back to jumping frantically from tree to tree.

Having a daily guided meditation and a friend to keep me honest was perfect. I was actually able to trick my mind into acquiescence and had some pretty cool revelations during the three weeks I did it. Thereza and I had fun sharing our impressions of the meditations and, when it was over, I was sad to see it go (but not sad enough to purchase additional meditations - I'm cheap that way).

Monday, the Chopra Center started a new free round of meditations and this time there are four of us doing it. Today's meditation centered around the ego, part of myself I struggle with accepting, so I was surprised when the facilitator encouraged us to embrace and acknowledge our egos. He talked about it as an essential part of who we are and asked this simple question before allowing us to descend into silent contemplation: What is it that you think you own? Your car? The lane in front of you? Think about the tens of thousands of things you think you own - from material possessions to emotional responses to relationships.

And I dropped in to meditation. The first thing I noticed was that, in my mind's eye, the right side of my body appeared larger and more developed than the left side. I've noticed this phenomenon before and what it means to me is that I'm too much in my head of late. I need to stop thinking and categorizing and judging and acting and start simply being and accepting more. When I do that, the two sides of my body come into balance. I know it sounds strange, but that is how imbalance projects itself onto my consciousness.

The second thing I noticed as I asked myself the question, "What do I think I own?" was a pair of red Keds walking past my mind's eye. Instantly, I knew that these were my beloved red tennis shoes from my elementary years. Other visions slowly made their way forward, including the calico cat I rescued when I was eight or nine, our family's dog, the wallpaper in the guest room that my sister thought looked like nests of spiders, and all manner of other random things from my childhood.

Over the fifteen minutes or so that I sat watching these things march past, a couple of times I wondered why the only things my ego conjured up were things that I used to own. And then the barrier melted away. These were memories. Most of which I hadn't actually recalled until just now, but memories just the same. My ego is ruled by the past, by those things I wish I knew about my childhood as well as the things I know shaped the person I am today. The bulk of my ego treasure chest is cluttered with memory and black holes I wish I could fill with memories.

All at once, I literally felt my left side growing. It was as if someone were inflating it with air or blood was rushing to oxygen-starved tissues and suddenly my two sides were equal. Balance. The recognition that my ego is largely ruled by things that belong in the past was all it took to restore balance. Within seconds, I heard the meditation instructor's voice calling us back to consciousness and I felt clear-headed and centered.

There are times when a revelation brings quiet clarity, a certain knowledge. Today was one of those times, and the beauty of it is that I don't even feel the need to do anything with this knowledge. I am not spurred to go chastise my ego for living in the past or railing against things I can't change. I don't feel as though I need to go any farther with this information right now. Simply knowing is enough for today. It feels like a great accomplishment and, once again, I am struck by the realization of how powerful self-awareness is, especially when it isn't accompanied by self-judgment.