George

I thought I had completed the mini-bios of all members of the Mahlou clan when the image of George’s face came to mind. Now, how could I forget George? He was another one of those accidental clan members like Vanessa (and her three children), Ksenya (and later, her mother Zina), and Shura. Ours, but not ours. Clan, but not kin. Nonetheless, clan George was/is, and so I include his mini-bio on this blog. (I am clearly delving into a pleasant past in order to avoid too much thinking about the current unpleasant present -- we all have our coping strategies!)

George worked at the same copy shop where Donnie served as the design center (yes, Donnie was referred to as “the center” since no one else worked there). I don’t recall just what George did. I think it was photocopying, folding, and stapling or something else along the lines of what machines, not people, do today. George and Donnie began work at about the same time, worked in close proximity, and had to consult occasionally on the end result of design products. So, they became pretty good friends pretty quickly.

It was at the newly formed friendship point that Donnie learned that George had no long-term place to live. The only landlord who would take him in was the owner of a skid-row-type flophouse, where George lived in a dayroom. The problem was not George’s meager copy-shop salary or his specific job. That would have been quite sufficient to pay rent on any simple efficiency in Salts, and many, if not most, people in Salts worked in blue collar or agricultural jobs. No, the problem was not the color of George’s money; it was the color of George’s skin. George was black. It seemed such an anomaly: Salts has a majority population that is Hispanic, grudgingly accepts Caucasians, and tries to dissuade other ethnic groups from settling in. (I wish I could say that it is better today, but I cannot say any such thing with any certainty.)

At this time in our lives, Vanessa had just moved out. Donnie and I had been discussing whether or not to move back into our master bedroom suite. Moving back would not have been that much work, but we were already used to our bedroom on the ground floor. (The master bedroom suite was below the ground floor and had a separate entrance and bath, neither of which we really needed, being the only people rumbling around in the 13-room house in which we had raised the large Mahlou clan.) George’s appearance on the scene was a great alternative: we could rent the master bedroom suite to George for whatever he could afford. Like Vanessa, he would have to share kitchen facilities, but being a New Englander, for me all life takes place in the kitchen, not the living room. So, I welcomed company in the kitchen again. Life would be back to, well, life – a place where people interact.

George agreed with alacrity and pleasure. We all lived together cozily as a mini-clan . George was very quiet. Mostly, he kept to himself, occasionally coming upstairs to watch television. Months later, when Shura arrived with his father, who stayed with us until we had Shura’s surgeries arranged, I did not have a chance to introduce George, who was usually around only for a while after work and before going to bed. The plane carrying Shura and Lyonya arrived very late, and so we all tumbled into bed upon reaching the house. I showed Shura and Lyonya, who would be getting up after Donnie and I had gone to work, the location of the important things – bath, towels, kitchen, television, etc. That first evening Donnie and I both had to work late. Arriving home around 6:30 (Donnie was still at work), I found Shura and Lyonya sitting on our stone-step entrance. I thought that they had decided to soak in some sun rays, but no, not exactly.

“Beth,” said Lyonya with wide eyes and great excitement, “est’ muchshina na divane.” (There’s a man on the couch.)

“Muchshina? Kakoj muchshina? Otkuda on poyavilsya?” (A man? What kind of man? Where did he come from?)

Then Lyonya whispered, nearly in terror, “on chernyj.” (He’s black.)

I wanted to laugh, but I controlled that urge. Imagine the scene! Up from the downstairs at the end of the day (I guess he had been there about a half-hour) comes a tall, brawny, African American, who turns on the television and sits down, not knowing that there were two Russians in the kitchen. George could have guessed who the Russians were when they popped into the living room from the kitchen because he knew that we had gone to the airport to pick them up the night before. However, I had forgotten to say anything to them about George. Moreover, George spoke no Russian, and they spoke no English. They fled to the outdoors! Once things were straightened out with an interpreter (yours truly) available, we all had a good laugh.

The most disconcerting aspect of George’s appearance for Shura and Lyonya paralleled that of the people of Salts: his skin color. African Russians are quite rare. Most of the Blacks I personally knew in the Soviet Union came from Africa and attended Patrice Lmumba University (the informal nomenclature, the full name literally being the University of Nations’ Friendship Named After Patrice Lmumba). Otherwise, I never saw anyone of African origin, and neither did the Robert Robinson, the author of the book, Black on Red, a well known biography of an African American (Robinson) working temporarily in Russian before the 1917 Revolution and being trapped in the Soviet Union for many years afterward as a result of the Revolution.

There is more to be said about skin color, prejudice (even when people don’t think they are prejudiced), and how coming to know people as individuals washes away the surface differences, such as ethnicity and race. How well we know! My son-in-law gets picked up nearly daily for DWM (Driving While Mexican) in South Carolina.

For now, I will stop with saying that George lived with us, accepted by our neighbors, until he had to return to Chicago to tend to ill parents. We enjoyed having him as a member of our clan, and he seemed to enjoy being a member of the clan.

Perhaps I have remembered him at this time because of the passing of Ray. Ray was another African-American member of the Mahlou clan, which, with Hispanic (Lemony and Blaine, and, of course now, Nathaniel and Nikolina) and Native American (me through my father's line) blood swished into the mix, is becoming quite colorful!

I have no pictures of George that have survived our multiple moves, including to the Middle East and back. Therefore, I cannot even promise to post some later -- and then forget to do it!

What I do have, though, is a very interesting film about a teacher demonstrating the effects of prejudice to grade 3 children, an amazing study in how easily it is to develop prejudice, how insidious the effects are, and how to train people out of it. It is called A Class Divided. It is a famous study, so some of you may have seen it. (I had not; a student of mine while teaching in Lithuania told me about it.) If you are not familiar with it, click on the title. You will not regret it it. It is a fascinating and awesome study and good documentary.

Tender Mercy for Ray and Noelle

Many, many thanks to all of you who have been praying for Ray and our family, especially those who promised to pray at 6:00 last night as he was taken off life support. There was no way to let you all know that the 6:00 prayers were excess -- but, then, are any prayers really excesss? -- for Ray had already passed away by that time.

At 9:20 a.m., Noelle called me at my office. She told me that the hospital had just called. The doctor relayed the information that Ray's respirator hose had suddenly and unexpectedly torn, and he had died instantly. The doctor added that no one had touched the hose at all, so there was some puzzlement as to how it had happened; this is not something that they routinely worry about or look for.

That event made unnecessary the need to go to the hospital at 6:00, give permission to remove Ray from life support, and watch him die. While Noelle is experiencing much grief from losing Ray, there was wonderment and immense relief in her voice as she told me what happened. She had been very apprehensive about the planned trip to the hospital.

"This is a blessing, Mom," she told. "A real blessing. He did not die by my hand, by my concurrence that he should be unplugged. He just died because his life was over."

Sometimes God's kind mercy is so startling that one cannot even say a normal prayer but just keep repeating over and over in awe and gratitude, "My Lord and my God, THANK YOU!"

Concurrently posted on Blest Atheist Modern Mysticism.

Clan under Siege

As we prepare to remove Ray from life support tomorrow evening and I prepare to leave for Lithuania on annual leave to help out a friend who is in desperate need for a professor of linguistics to teach a senior year required course, the need to balance the competing requirements of funeral, trip, and emotional support for Noelle seemed to be challenging enough. Apparently, not so.

Yesterday I learned that we have a very senior official from the US government coming tomorrow afternoon, right before our trip to the hospital, and I am the one who has to brief him on our planned new projects about which I have blogged in the past. That should create a sense of nervousness -- my boss is certainly nervous -- but with everything else going on, it is just going to be another hour of my life that comes -- and goes.

More important and overshadowing even Roy's pending death is the news that Shane received this morning. He was handed his paycheck with a note to see the chief of police (his supervisor's supervisor). The chief of police told him that today was his last day. He would not give any reason. Shane puzzled over any possible explanation. His performance, if unsatisfactory, should have showed up as an issue before this, but he was given a pay raise for his excellent performance. If the organization had a budget crunch, others should be aware of it and other jobs should also be on the cutting block. Neither is the case. No one else was fired, and there has been no talk about budget crunch. We are pretty certain the reason is because Shane has missed so much work from having to be with Nikolina during her surgeries, followed by his own appendix surgery. A couple of months ago, the Human Resource office made an inquiry into the amount of leave he had used. (He was entitled to the leave, never going into a negative leave status, but he did miss a total of three months because of the medical emergencies.)

I remember these kinds of issues and challenges raising seven kids, three of whom were physically disabled. Balancing work and home often left me nervous that a particular supervisor would not understand the need for me to be with one child or another during a medical crisis, especially when we were experiencing wave upon wave of medical crisis during the 1980s. Fortunately, most of my supervisors were very understanding. Still, many times I feared for my job, and other times I observed other parents released from work for "lack of availability" because of the need to take care of handicapped children. These are some of the many of the hidden challenges in raising children with birth defects.

Contrary to our hopes for him, Shane is following us down the thorny path of trying to provide for Nikolina and Nathaniel in a society that is not highly supportive of children with special needs, let alone of their parents. Many parents I met over the years dropped out of society and survived on welfare simply in order to have adequate medical care for their children. We did not do that. We did without the luxuries of life, as well as many necessities, in order to provide adequate medicine and education for our children. Anything beyond that was a "want" and not a "need," and we gave up many of our "wants."

Shane is getting ready to do that. Since Lemony has been full-time occupied in taking care of Nikolina and Nathaniel, the family is now without an income. More frightening is that our million-dollar baby (Nikolina) may be without health insurance coverage -- and that is just not an option. Shane has some ideas for short-term financial survival, is looking into the cobra option for continuing his current health insurance (which, unfortunately, may cost more per month than his monthly unemployment check), and he has already put out feelers for employment opportunities. (Creative survival ideas from readers are also welcome!)

Well, besieged again, the Mahlou clan will gather its forces and outlive the siege, I am certain. God is always good to us, and Shane has an excellent attitude. "Just think," he told me, "this might be a door to a new position that is better than what my current job has been."

Yes, Shane, I think it will be! God has a way of turning bad into good. Who knows what exciting plans He may have in store? We just have to help Him help us by helping ourselves and each other -- and then hang on for the ride because God's rides are usually WILD!

Joy in Despair

For me, in dark moments, moments of grief, I am helped by focusing on moments of joy for the past, knowing that life is a balance of both. As we await the pulling of the plug and the formal end of Ray's life, with the understanding that he really died a week ago and has been artificially kept alive thanks to marvelous modern technology, I think back to something that happened a few years ago and which I describe at the end of my book, Blest Atheist.

Even if there are difficulties ahead, there will be help and protection. There will also be rewards. There always are. With God, the rewards are unanticipated and unusual. The simplest among them are the greatest.

One evening last December, the thought came into my head that I should take my evening walk around the mission grounds early. Normally I walk there around 9:00 p.m., and it was only 6:00 when I felt the push to go outside for my walk.

No, I thought. Why would I want to go now? Even though the eventide falls around 5:30 on December nights in San Ignatio, I still prefer to go later—after dinner and dishes and before retiring for the night. It is a marvelously restful way to end the day. Walking brings out the happy endorphins, and just being at the mission provides great encouragement toward prayer.

No, I’ll go later, I thought and began cleaning the kitchen in preparation for dinner. Then the impulse came again. The “argument” went back and forth a couple of times until I approached Donnie, who usually accompanies me on these walks.

“Donnie, how do you feel about taking our evening walk early tonight?” I asked.

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know why,” I answered. “I just feel like we should go early.”

Donnie acquiesced and quickly assembled his pipe tools. (He likes to sit and smoke while I walk.) We opened the door and stepped out under the night sky. And there it was, spread across the heavens: a breathtaking lunar ice halo.

Ice halos are rings of light that surround the sun, moon, or other sources of light, such as street lamps. The ones in the heavens are caused by millions of ice crystals in thin, cold, cirrus clouds floating in the troposphere reflecting and refracting light. This particular ice halo was circumhorizonal, a rare phenomenon for which adequately descriptive words, other than scientific ones, are even rarer. Refracted light from the moon spread in a 360-degree circle all around the sky on the same level as the moon yet at the same time touching the horizon wherever we turned—or so it seemed although in actuality the circle of light was parallel to the horizon and not lying upon it. The halo filled the whole sky, with the full moon in its zenith filtering a stream of light through a gossamer foramen in the firmament onto the mission grounds below.

I could almost hear the proud words, “Look what I did!” The hymn of Isaac Waats came to mind instantly: “The moon shines full at His command, and all the stars obey.”

On the mission grounds canopied by the horizon-to-horizon crystal glow, I walked, my arms extended. Irrepressible joy spread past my fingertips, riding on the splendor of light toward the horizon.

Then it was gone. Had I come at my usual time, I would have missed it.

These then are the things that have been seen and experienced by the blest atheist. All the events reported herein [in the book] have enriched my life, but the greatest of these was God sharing with me the lunar ice halo: “Look what I have done!” The hound of Heaven had finally caught me and then had shown me what I had been missing: “Look what I have done!” Indeed, I could almost hear those words and a few more: “Look at what I have done—for you, for all people, because I love you whether or not you even believe that I exist.”

All the miracles that God has done in my life and in the lives of others through me have been wondrous, but pulling me outside to view the ice halo stands out above them all as the most affirming act of God’s love. The miracles were about healing and turning bad into good. They have been important, of course. Viewing the ice halo, however, was about relationship: God’s relationship with me, God’s relationship with all of us. When God called me from my house onto the street and into the field at the mission, I understood that I was special—not special out of many, but special among many, special like all people are special to God.

On an individual level, I was and am at best only a Good Samaritan, and still God wanted a relationship with me. In so many ways, I was and am but a child who finds the adults who can help a sick child artist, a crying lady, a boy in white, or an orphan dying from brain tumors. Like a child, I have no burning desire for financial gain, material possessions, or fame and power. Those desires were beaten out of me in my youth. Although many of these things have appeared unbidden in my life, my true treasure is the people who have come into my life from all continents of the world. There is where my heart is. I want to “pass on” the good that God has brought into my life by using my linguistic proficiency, cultural acumen, and multi-domain knowledge gained from living in the land of splat! to connect people who need help with people who have the ability to give help, no matter where they live or what language they speak. For what good is money if it cannot be used to help those in need? What good are material things unless they make this world a friendlier place: a blanket to warm a homeless man, food for a hungry family, clothes for those burned out of a home? What good is power if not used to empower the powerless to be free to flourish? What good, too, is dreaming an impossible dream if it does not kindle the dreams of others? What good is reaching an unreachable star if it does not sprinkle light onto a dark existence? What good is happiness if it does not splash joy onto dispirited ground, inspiriting the life within to sprout and reach for the heavens? If, indeed, as I have found, helping those in need, making the world a friendlier place, empowering the powerless, kindling dreams, lighting the dark, and splashing joy across the land is what a Good Samaritan does, then I want to be a Good Samaritan for life. To my delight, God seems willing to use me in that capacity. For certain, God knows my heart and what I treasure.

God has many Good Samaritans. Some, like me, are blessed to help a few wounded souls in intensive ways. Others are blessed to help many people in more extensive, but less intensive, ways. Some God leads with their full knowledge. Others, like me for so many years, God leads through their hearts alone. In return, God gives them a treasure far greater than money, honor, power, or prestige: they know a perfect joy that nothing else can give.

I am sure that others saw the ice halo that night for God encourages all people to step bravely out of the grey boxes in which they are cowering and stride buoyantly forth into a divine world resplendent with color, love, and joy. In our tiny town, though, I was the only one who showed up at the mission to see the splendor on that particular winter evening. Others may have showed up elsewhere for the ice halo could be seen for miles. Perhaps even more were called to behold it but were not listening. Those who did listen experienced an unrelenting tug to come outside and witness an awe-inspiring manifestation of God’s loving caress ephemerally spread against the heavens and permanently imprinted in the mind and on the heart.


Note: Concurrently published on all Mahlou blogs.

Time Out from Blogging in Reverence for Life

You may have noticed a lack of blog posts this week. There is an explanation beyond the fact that I am once again on the road, this time in Washington, D.C. (or more accurately, Arlington, Virginia). I will probably be able to post Quick Takes tomorrow evening since I wrote most of them on the plane here. However, anything else may take a few days.

Upon arriving here, I received an urgent phone call from Noelle. Her significant other of ten years' duration had a heart attack during dialysis (he has no functional kidneys) and is currently unresponsive. X-rays show a swollen brain, and doctors would like to have permission to pull the plug. Noelle, our hopelessly hopeful, never-say-never, that-empty-glass-will-soon-be-overflowing child, wants to wait. Probably Lizzie will be the one to make the decision for everyone, as she did in her grandmother's case ten years ago. That time she decided that keeping her grandmother alive artificially was in no one's interest, including her grandmother's, since even if her grandmother came out of the coma, she would not be able to care for herself or even think since all functional brain tissue had been destroyed by a brain bleed. Since Lizzie is a professor of cognitive neuroscience, doctors are willing to share records and test results with her that they would not normally share with family members; they know that she will look at them dispassionately and make an objective and measured judgment as a professional colleague.

Lizzie has conditionally weighed in on Ray. Not having the x-rays yet and just listening to the description of what has occurred and considering his comatosity, she has informed her sister that in her opinion the situation is "bad." However, she won't give any final advice until she sees documentation.

A little background: Ray lost kidney function in 2006 and was comatose (without brain swelling or damage) for several months, then was on life support in a city five hours away until December 2007. It was a wonderful Christmas present to have him be taken off life support and breathing on his own. Then, in December 2008, he was released into a care facility and transferred to Salts where he was just a few minutes away from Noelle. That was another wonderful Christmas present and a prayer answered. Ray and Noelle have had a full year beyond what they hoped for together (or as together as they can be, considering that Ray cannot even come home to visit).

Until Lizzie weighs in with an informed opinion, we wait and pray. I have asked for Ray to be put on the Old Mission prayer list, and I would ask you to pray, too. It is difficult to know what to pray for since Ray, even if he regains consciousness, will never be able to come home, will always be tied to a dialysis machine, and will likely be in pain much of the time. Since God knows better than I do in all cases, I personally am praying that God will do what is best for Ray. No matter what we personally would like to see happen, the rest of us really are insignificant in this instance. I am sure that God will take good care of Ray without prompting, but I like to pray about it, anyway. I love the support and guidance.

So, with the exception of the Quick Takes and the MMM, I plan not to spend time blogging but being available to my family and to Noelle. (I will be home on Saturday.) Life itself is special, and we should take time to acknowledge that and show our reverence for what God has given us. It is unfortunate that we tend to do so only when Death looms or has completed its reaping. Nonetheless, better now than never.

The Episode of Noelle's Wrist

(I had planned to add the following "event" to those in the bio post on Noelle, but it was too long, so I am giving it a home of its own -- probably it will be easier to find here, anyway.)

Once when I picked up 5-year-old Noelle from all-day kindergarten, she told me she had fallen and broken her wrist. The teacher’s helper, who watched the children after school, confirmed that Noelle had fallen, had said that she had broken wrist, but had continued to walk around in her braces and crutches with no change in gait or obvious pain. I queried Noelle about that. She shook her head, held out her right arm, and with her left index finger pointed to her right wrist, saying “It’s broken right here, Mommy.”

“Yes, that’s what she told me,” confirmed the helper, “but there’s no swelling or any other evidence of a break. She picked herself up from the floor and started swinging across the room as if nothing had happened.”

“But I told you I broke my wrist,” Noelle interjected, “right here.” She pointed to the same spot.

The helper pointed out that if it were broken, Noelle would not be able to bear weight on it as she had all afternoon. Again Noelle interjected, “But it hurts when I swing because my wrist is broken right here.” For the third time, she pointed to the same place.

I told the helper not to worry about it. I would deal with it. We were both pretty certain that Noelle was simply feeling bruised after a tumble.
When I picked up Shane and Doah from their day care provider, Noelle held out her arm to them and said, “Hey guys, look! I broke my wrist right here.”

“Noelle, let’s talk about something else for a while,” I suggested. “Why don’t you tell us what you did at school today.”

“At school today I fell and broke my wrist right here,” Noelle responded. So much for distracting her attention from her newly found fascination with her wrist!
Lizzie was waiting at home when we all got there. Shane and Doah scampered into the house. It took Noelle a little longer to navigate the stairs with her braces and crutches, but as soon as she was on the top stair, she called out, “Lizzie, Lizzie! Guess what happened at school today! I fell and broke my wrist right here.” Lizzie was by that time at the door and able to see where Noelle was pointing.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” I said to Lizzie, “all she has been talking about since I picked her up is her wrist. It can’t be broken, or she would not be able to walk on it.”

Noelle interrupted. “It is broken, right here, and I can walk on it.” There went that pointing again.

“Noelle, it would hurt too much to walk if your wrist were broken. You would be in a lot of pain.”

“I am in a lot of pain,” she responded, “because my wrist is broken right here.”
“If you say that one more time,” I warned her, “we are going to go to the hospital and have it checked out.”

“My wrist is broken right here,” Noelle pointed out. With a smile she put on her coat, assuming that we were going to go to the hospital.

“Okay, everyone in the car,” I called. “We are going to go have Noelle’s wrist checked by a doctor.”

“Because I broke it right here,” Noelle chirped up with more pointing.

Ushering them all into the car, I stopped long enough to call Donnie at work and tell him that we would be in the emergency room for a while, maybe until after he got home. Then off we went.

The emergency room doctor listened to my story, then asked Noelle what happened. She described her fall, then held out her arm, and, pointing, said, “I broke my wrist right here.”

The doctor opined that it was hardly likely that Noelle had a broken wrist since he had seen how nimbly she had maneuvered herself on her braces into his office and onto a chair. “She would be in too much pain to do that if the wrist were broken,” he said.

“That’s what I thought, too,” I said. “But she does have a high tolerance for pain.” Actually, both Noelle and Doah ignore a level of pain on a daily basis that many people would find intolerable. It may be genetic. I have a high pain threshold as well, tolerating root canals and biopsies done the grin-and-bear-it way since I am allergic to painkiller.

After some hemming and hawing, the doctor decided to send Noelle for an x-ray just in case. While I don’t like extra x-rays – Noelle gets far more than her share of them – I was in a way glad that the doctor decided the way he did. At least, it would put the question to bed. If an x-ray were to say the wrist was not broken, it was not broken.

After a lengthy period of time, the x-ray and the doctor came back. He put the x-ray up against a light board and said that he had read it. He took Noelle’s arm, and pointing to her wrist, said with a touch of irony and a touch of surprise, “She broke her wrist right here!”

Who would have thought? Sometimes kids know best! It was good that she was persistent, a trait that she has needed as an adult as well.

Of course, a broken wrist for a paraplegic in braces and crutches is like two broken legs for a non-paraplegic person. No weight-bearing meant no walking. We did not have a wheelchair for Noelle, but the hospital loaned us one. Otherwise, I would have had to carry her home. Sheesh!

She did not get her first wheelchair after her sophomore year in college – so she did a good job of managing those braces and crutches for a very long time in spite of the braces reaching all the way to her chest and, therefore, weighing more than ten pounds. She finally went into the wheelchair when the bracemaker gave up on repairs – she was breaking the braces every few weeks from dancing, ocean wading, and a host of other physical activities not normally expected of someone in braces. It was and is frustrating that braces, which are more liberating than a wheelchair (at least, in Noelle’s mind), cannot be made strong enough to stand up to active adult use.

As for back then, when Donnie came home, Noelle held out her arm with its cast and told him solemnly, pointing, “Daddy, I broke my wrist today right here."

In 2010, Find Time for Family and Friends

Upon quite rare occasion, a post is pertinent to more than one of my blogs. In this case, the new year's resolution proposed by the title came from an essay I published in a collection of vignettes in 2003. I am dual-posting because it is about the Mahlou clan when the current adult crop were children and seems appropriate to a New Year's post.

The people who support and bring us the most joy are often the ones we most take for granted. At the end of their life, nearly no one says, "I wish I had spent more time at the office or on the golf course." Rather, most say, "I wish I had spent more time with my family and friends." I am as guilty as the next person of being a workaholic, but I have found some small ways to be with family and friends. I make sure that no more than a few weeks elapse without communication with each friend. I talk to my close friends who live nearby very frequently. They provide me support, and I think they do like to get that regular telephone call.

One way to find extra time with my family has been to involve them in my work. When my older son, Shane, was eight, I had to work some hours on weekends in order to get a textbook finished at work. All the children would come in with me. Shane, who seems to have been born with his fingers on a computer keyboard, would word-process the textbook, while the others helped with other things.

When Shane was in homeschool a couple of years later, he volunteered as a computer lab counselor-instructor at Doah's public elementary school in the morning. In the afternoon, he attended the local high school until after a few months he reverted to homeschooling because of boredom.

My boss learned of this and offered him an unpaid internship, consulting for her department in the area of computers, working around his homeschooling needs. From this experience came some very funny situations, one of which was a visit from a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland. Seeing Shane instructing one of the administrators in computer functions, the representative asked in surprise, "Do you teach children here?"

Without hesitation and without thinking how it sounded, the escort said, "No, the little boy is teaching the big man."

Clearly, Shane had become just another member of the staff. For me, it was a wonderful benefit of the job that my son could work and learn alongside me.

I have also taken my children on trips with me. In a large family, it is difficult to find time for each child, and at one point, we had seven children living with us. Taking one child along on a trip makes it possible to provide lots of individual attention, the effects of which can linger long after the trip is over. I took my oldest daughter, Lizzie, to Moscow, Leningrad, Akademgorodok (Siberia), Stuttgart (Germany), and Hawaii, and my oldest son, Shane, to Moscow, Kemerovo (Siberia), and Helsinki (Finland). Noelle, who has spina bifida, and Doah, who had a tracheotomy, often could not travel at the opportune time for medical reasons, but things did work out for California (before we moved here) and Hawaii for Noelle and for New York City for Doah. If I had not included my children in my work trips, I would not have been able to afford such family outings and such wonderful one-on-one time.

My husband, Donnie, does not travel like I do. However, he had a boyhood dream that he was finally able to fulfill in 1987: through-hike the Appalachian Trail. When Shawn first began homeschooling and was studying biology, botany, dendrology, and zoology, hiking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine seemed like a perfect applied learning experience. So, my husband quit his job and prepared to live his dream. He and Shane hiked daily around our hilly neighborhood, building up their endurance and trying out their camping gear. Taking the trail names of Huff and Puff, they set out for Georgia as soon as the trail opened to through-hikers in the spring. Huff and Puff, the latter at age 10 being the youngest through-hiker up until that time, soon became one of the trail legends of 1987. They were interviewed on Georgia Public Television, by Time-Life, and at least one magazine article was written about them. The other children and I got into the act by existing on peanut butter sandwiches and macaroni and cheese for the duration of the hike (the loss of Donnie's income required scaling back on food and I also had take on a second, night-time job). We picked out the trail foods we would package each week and send to the next post office along the trail and put out the weekly "Huff and Puff Trail Notes" for friends and relatives. Although Huff and Puff did not finish the trail, they did hike more than 1000 miles of the 1300-mile total before Huff (Donnie) injured his knees and had to stop. To this day, Puff (Shane) says that this is the most memorable part of his childhood.

I cannot say that Donnie and I spent as much time with our children as we would have liked or as much as they would have liked. It may be that children can never be saturated by parental attention where there's a healthy relationship. Other than the fact that Doah chose to learn from Beaver's escapades from "Leave it to Beaver" rather than from "Sesame Street" (which kept us busy keeping him out of trouble), I can't say that we had a Cleaver-style household, but friends and strangers alike have commented on the palpable family bond. Once, on a short car trip, when I was discussing child-rearing methods with a friend from a different cultural background, we got into a strong disagreement. Shane, then a 17-year-old college student and driving the car we were in, thinking that I was being criticized, spoke up, "If you ask me, I like the way I was raised." Right then, the whole car was flooded with the smell of sweet flowers.

MAY YOU HAVE A BLESSED 2010!

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Excerpted from a collection of vignettes, copyright 2003.