Tattoos and Thank-Yous

These tattoos were inked Christmas of 2010.  The book spines have my children's names on them.  They are both on my lower back.

"Mrs. Johnson?" one of my third graders asked as I was bending over to tape student work to our classroom door.            

                                                                                                                 

  "Yes?" I inquired, turning to look at her.      

                                                            

"Thank you for teaching us math" she said with a hug.                                                      

Surprised, I squeezed her back and thanked for the compliment.    

                                                          

 "Are you enjoying that I assignment?" I questioned, "Is it a little challenging, but fun?"

   I was thrilled with her seeming enthusiasm for the math assignment.             

                                    

"No," she replied, "I'm just reading your back.              

                                                   

 "My back?" I replied puzzled, "Did someone stick a note on my back?"  Third graders would think that a very funny joke to pull on the teacher.                                                                                    

                                                                          

 "No," she answered and pointed to my lower back, "your back!"                                                    

An Important Discussion About The Fresh Beat Band

"When did they get a new Reid?" I said as I got dressed yesterday morning.  This brought my husband into our bedroom to watch the t.v.
The Fresh Beat Band was on, distracting Hewson while the rest of the family got ready in the morning.  Being lazy, older parents this time around, Nick Jr. is a babysitter at our house much too often, and is always part of our morning routine. 
Mike watched the t.v. for a moment.  "Didn't he have an English accent before?"  I asked.  Reid didn't not appear on the screen right away.  Mike grabbed the remote and rewound the show to find Reid.  He pushed play when I said, "There, that's him.  Aren't they calling him Reid?" 
Mike watched for a few minutes them answered, " Yea." 
I replied, "Those are the type of clothes Reid wore aren't they?"
Mike murmured agreement and commented, " The hat is different."
"It is?" I questioned.  We discussed the hat for a few moments.  At some point our 13 year-old daughter had come into the room.I noticed her shaking her head.
"What?" I asked.
"Are you guys really discussing this?" she said.
This made me smile.  This coming from the same girl who had been singing "I just want to go bananas, na-na, na-na, na let's go bananas..." the other morning in my classroom before school.  A song frequently sung by The Fresh Beat Band.

Yes, we were discussing whether or not The Fresh Beat Band had a new actor playing a regular character.  After all we spent almost every morning with them.  Just as when she was about Hewson's age we discussed whether or not we liked Steve or Joe better on Blue's Clues, 
We're parents and whether we like it or not, often our lives revolve around are kids.  Deciding whether or not there was a new Reid was similar to me asking her who she liked better Jacob or Edward?  (She's only seen the movies.)  Or pointing out to Rilyn that his music had a definite country twang and having him explain it wasn't country, it was folksy and blue grassy.  (A.J. said it was country folk from Utah County.)  Whether their three, thirteen, or sixteen, I find myself discussing and pondering things that I mostly because I'm a parent.
Someday when she's a mother and I'm long past babies, I'll probably find myself researching or debating what to do to get a baby to sleep through the night.  Not because I need to know, but because it will be important to her.  Also, I'll get to smirk when she's discussing the latest preschool show.  And a character change will warrant a discussion because she's spent so much time with the characters of the show.

Hewson just came in to asked to play Nick Jr on the computer.  I said after I was done writing my story.  Logically he wanted to know what the story was about.  When I told him The Fresh Beat Band he started singing, "Friends give friends a hand..."

What I Did Over Summer Vaction: A Report From a Teacher

   As August comes to a close and the school year zooms towards me, I find myself once again awake during the wee hours of the morning.  Why can’t I sleep?  Sleep eludes me because my brain is much to busy.  There are too many things to contemplate: lesson plans, seat arrangements, kids clothes to buy, new tattoo ideas, money and where, oh where, did the summer go?  I will soon be greeting my new students, in a new classroom, in a new grade.  (I am not feeling stressed, I am not feeling stressed.)  As I greet this new batch of youngster and get to know them, the first topic of conversations typical begins with, “What did you do this summer?”  So to calm and focus my mind I will give my report on what I did this summer.
    I worked three days a week tutoring students in math and reading.  I enjoyed the opportunity to work one on one with kids and focus on their needs.  It’s a nice change and helpful perspective to experience after working with 20-24 students the rest of the year.  Also, I’m a teacher, therefore I need the extra income. I spent many hours each of those three days a week planning tutoring lessons.  The other extra hours I found myself at school I used to move into a new classroom and become familiar with Class II.  I’ll be teaching second grade for the first time this year and there is a lot to learn.
    I spent MANY nights this summer having “School Dreams.”  These are common for teachers to experience.  However, my dreams started in June.  In my dreams I’d often show up for work and it was the first day of school.  School had started earlier than I expected and my classroom wasn’t ready.  Other nights they’d rearrange the building plans, change my room on me and I couldn’t find it.  One dream had me cramming a bedroom into a corner of my classroom, like a college dormitory, where I was expected to live throughout the school year.  I then also had to fit my normal classroom full of books, desks and shelves into the same space.  They moved the offices into busy hallway spaces and I trashed their cubicles out of anger.  Changing grades and classrooms has been a large part of my dreams.  My dreams rarely strayed to the norm where I frequently spend time yelling at three particular in-laws.
    I went to some fun concerts this summer.  I saw Michael Franti with my sisters.  Concrete Blonde and Carlos Cornia with Mike and his siblings. Kings of Leon with a whole bunch of family, including my teenagers.  I enjoyed each of these concerts and wish I had more money to go to more concerts.  We were supposed to see U2 twice, but Bono got hurt and they rescheduled.  Live music was a highlight o my summer.
    I made a deal with my 13 year old daughter.  I love to embarrass her.  I tease, but I’m also very frank and ask lots of questions.  I tease that I’m the “after school special” mom.  Sex, drugs, rock and roll, no topic do I avoid.   I want to be honest and talk about the pros and cons of temptations and choices she’ll have to make.  Then I want her to make smart, hopefully logical decisions.  Finally one day as she was brushing me off with her, “Okay, okay, I know, I know. Mom please stop talking.” 
    I said this to her, “I’ll bargain with you.  You can annoy me with your ‘Please, please,’ begging and your ‘ It’s not fair’ pouting, and I can embarrass you all I want.”  She gets to be annoying, I get to be embarrassing.  Mostly it’s worked.
    I went to my 20 Year High School Reunion.  I’m one of those people who gets excited for these things.  I like people and facebook has made it even more exciting to see people you talk to often.  Of course, instead of losing 50 lbs. like most people do for these types of things, I gained 50 lbs., but that’s life.  I still loved seeing people.  Especially people who hadn’t been there 10 years ago.  I had the best time talking to a guy who remembered me better than I remembered him, but he was the most fun to talk to.  A good friend and on again off again boyfriend throughout high school had seemed to drop off the face of the earth, then suddenly he was there to see again.  I had a blast and wished I had more time to talk to more people.  Unfortunately, I didn’t want to make my ride stay up too late.  It made me think 10 years is way too long.  More people remembered me than I thought would.  I’ve changed a lot, it was fun to see people’s reactions.
    After my high school reunion we had a family reunion of sorts.  It didn’t go very well, and unfortunately, how poorly it ended up was not a surprise to me.  It was tiring, took a lot of avoiding, watching what I said and trying to buffer people.  It was survival mode week for my family.  Feelings were hurt, offenses were taken, but I really don’t know how it could be avoided.  There are many perspectives and I don’t know how they’re ever going to coincide.  Looking back I think my wish is that more people would have stood up for themselves and each other.  I just worried about the consequence of how my actions would effect others.  It was complicated and remains so.
    I didn’t write any books this summer.  I’m a little disappointed.  I just didn’t seem to have time.  I didn’t blog much either.  Again the time seem to slip away.  One of my favorite and most powerful experiences of the summer was a writing opportunity with my sisters.  I am so proud, overwhelmed, and grateful for the experience.  It was truly and important event in my life.  We wrote a five part series telling our individual experiences with my dad’s cancer and death.  I think it was excellent writing and unique in the view from five different perspectives.  If you haven’t read it check out early blog post here @http://meremayjohn.blogspot.com/ or my sister’s blog http://www.theinquisitivemom.blogspot.com/.  I’ve been amazed at people’s reactions and it was a great bonding moment before the later storm of the family reunion.
    Well, now that I’ve gotten a lot off my chest, maybe I can go to sleep.  If I could just stop imagining and designing the two tattoo ideas I have in my head.  I sketched a little bit.  Also, my family (hubby) will not be thrilled that I’m obsessing over these sudden creative urges that I can seem to stop planning.

Mom's Side: The Final Voice

I cannot express what an incredible experience writing my story and reading my sibling's narratives has been.  Today my mom shares her perspective.  Here is the final voice from my family's encounter with cancer and the loss of my father.

To read my children’s comments on their father’s death has been a very painful experience for me, yet I know at the time all this was happening I probably could have changed nothing. I cannot explain to anyone how devastating a cancer diagnosis one January day so many years ago was for me. I was forty years old and my oldest child had just gone to college, years of working to make a marriage the best it could be had finally reach the point of having a little time for ourselves and seeing our children begin to progress to delightful self sufficient individuals. In within a few moments my whole world changed forever. The fear and anger I felt that day are something I will always remember. I remember calling my friend on the phone and just bursting into tears. I cried off and on for the following three years. How could this be happening to my husband and our family?

From the beginning of his diagnosis we had always felt my husband’s illness would be terminal, having a sense of this does not make it any easier to realize it is true. It is a path which changes over time and as it becomes more prominent it is harder and harder to have a normal life. My heart aches as my children write about not being able to talk to me as their father’s illness progresses. Towards the end of his life my life was in complete disarray for many months before. I was not only watching my husband become extremely ill day by day, I was also dealing with the knowledge my father was very ill and I could not be with him, because of Lyn’s illness. I was so torn between the two most important men in my life each one so very ill and I couldn’t leave one to be with the other.

By September of 1993, my husband’s illness had progressed to the point where he had tumors on his brain stem and in his lungs. He had tried chemo the April before, but the results we had hoped for did not continue. The doctors were quite frank and told us not to expect anything beyond the first of the year. After dealing with an illness for such a long time, I was torn emotionally; there was a part of me wishing my sweet husband could be out of his pain and this nightmare could be over and the other part of me who wanted to cling to him as long as I could.

One morning eleven days before Lyn died we received a 5:00 a phone call telling us my father was dying and to come quickly. Sitting with my father for his last few hours was probably the most therapeutic experience my husband could have had. When my father died it was as though he realized it was okay to let go, that the world around him would survive and he could move on.

I can’t even recall the next eleven days very well. We attended my father’s funeral, relatives on my side of the family came from Utah and my very social husband was not even well enough to socialize during the evenings or at the family gathering after the funeral. All of the sudden his life seemed to be drifting away. As the days progressed, his breathing became more labored and he needed a breathing machine for oxygen and he could hardly function. More and more he used his narcotics to control his pain and he was growing weaker every day. We spent many hours just holding one another and talking of little or nothing, but enjoying quiet moments together.

On the day he died we started at the doctor’s office to have his lung checked and ended up at the hospital so they could help him breathe, our few months turned into a few hours. When I called Meredith we both expected him to make it for at least a couple of days from our discussions with the doctor. I never thought it would be a couple hours later I’d be calling her to tell her that her father had died.

Close friends came to see Lyn for the last time, by the time they arrived he was unconscious, the wife sat down next to his bed and held his hand, she was holding his hand when he drew his last breath. I rarely admit how sad I was not to be the person close to him during his final moments or how hard it was to have to call my children and tell them their father had died or to greet my two youngest who were bringing dinner with the knowledge their father had just died.

When I returned home there was a group of people waiting to offer comfort and help, yet my greatest wish was to be alone, to cry and grieve for my losses of the last two weeks. Unfortunately life doesn’t allow this process and it was a few months before I could face my personal pain and loss.
I often tell people how much I miss my husband and my children wish they could share their life moments with him, but I will always be grateful for the sweet experiences we shared during his illness and the precious life lessons learned.

Mindy's Story

When I think of my father, the strongest memories I have are of the way he smelled of Old Spice and the outdoors, the dark mustache he always wore, the warmth of his generous smile, and the deep, soothing timbre of his voice. I once had a substitute teacher in high school who distinctly reminded me of my father. I felt a dual reaction to this realization. A part of me wanted to sit and stare at him forever, soak in the familiarity of him. Another part wanted to curl up in a corner alone and cry because I realized the sharp memory of my father's face was fading and would continue to dull over time. 

I was ten years old when my father started experiencing mysterious pain in his legs. Looking back, I am not certain which is worse: watching someone endure pain without answers  or knowing for certain that they have a rare form of cancer. His diagnoses came somewhere around my eleventh birthday and it seems that I should be able to recollect the exact moment my parents broke the news. When it comes to my father's illness, however, my memory seems to be broken in some way, shattered into disconnected fragments.

The way I remember things, dad endured multiple surgeries over the four years he was ill, as well as chemotherapy and radiation. In some ways, cancer treatment became a regular part of our lives, bringing with it both despair and moments of hope. When I think of those days, I can distinctly hear Dad in the bathroom, retching violently, clearly in agonizing pain. I recall watching him grow pale and frail,  confused as I witnessed someone I saw as so spiritually and intellectually strong become so physically weak. I often try to replace memories of him lying on the floor or curled up on the futon in pain with healthy, vibrant images of my father.

As I've discussed Dad's illness with my family over the years, it's become clear to me that everyone expected dad's death but me. My parents never made empty promises to us. They walked a fine line between helping us to understand the reality of dad's illness without unnecessarily burdening us. I cannot imagine how difficult this must have been for them. To this day, I hate those moments in films when a parent promises their child they'll never leave because I know this is a promise they simply can not keep. 

My father was sick for four years, with frightening news of new tumors, difficult treatments, and times of recovery. His illness became my reality and, while I did not want him to suffer, I was not prepared for his death. I lived from day to day and did not want to imagine life without him. What others recognized as signs of a terminal illness, I must have internalized as another difficult part of the cycle with hope of recovery again. My father suffered a great deal, but we had wonderful, cherished times together as well. I recall watching Dad lose every bit of hair on his body, down to his eyelashes. But then hair started to grow anew, returning to his head soft as a newborn baby's. Hopeful in it's own way.

I, frankly, don't remember a sudden turn in Dad's death, meetings with Hospice, or recognizing that he was letting go. This gap in my memory disturbs me, but I feel helpless in recovering it. Perhaps reality simply became too much to internalize, so I protected myself. This Pollyanna strategy worked in its own way over the next few years, as I tried to comfort myself with platitudes of faith, reassure others that everything was okay, and take on other's happiness as my responsibility, whether they asked me to or not. It eventually failed me in college, when the weight of my feelings became too great of a burden and I struggled through debilitating depression.

I carried guilt over the day of Dad's death for years. I was 14 and hanging out at home when my mom called from a routine check up to tell me that they'd found new tumors on Dad's lungs. To my shock and dismay, they checked him into the hospital and gave him only the weekend to live. Devastated and overwhelmed, I asked my mom if I should tell my sister, McKinzie, this news or wait to let Mom and Dad explain things to her. Mom, in her kind way, relieved me of that burden and told me I could wait. 


McKinzie came home from work and I told her Dad was in the hospital, but nothing else. We didn't rush to the hospital, but actually stopped to grab Taco Bell for lunch on our way. When we arrived laughing at some silliness, Dad was gone. I felt for years that I'd robbed McKinzie, my fellow traveler of those years, of the small bit of preparation she deserved for that moment. Years later, I revealed this regret to her and felt both shocked and relieved to hear that his death did not come as a surprise for her. I, alone, seemed woefully unprepared for Dad's death.

While I wish I could have spoken to my father one last time before he died, I am grateful that I saw his body on that hospital bed. It may sound odd, but I understood in that moment that our spirits and bodies are separate. I kissed his cheek, but knew that his spirit was no longer there. This knowledge confirmed what I believed about life after death, as have sacred, quiet moments when I've known he is not permanently gone. As I've struggled with grief, longed to know him as an adult, and wrestled with the loss of him, this knowledge has sustained me.

McKinzie's Story

Dad dying was like a dark grey gloom that never seemed to end rather than a flash lightning that comes and goes quickly.   It started mid eighth grade where I thought my biggest concern would be how I’d do on the girls basketball team unfolding into the fall of my junior year when I wished the only thing I had to worry about were my grades in geometry.  Life became a bipolar cycle of treatments, surgery, fear, stress, loneliness, disappointment, happiness, relief, and back to treatments.  Though the cancer never left, life became an effort to  make the most of the times when Dad wasn’t home sick in bed, not working, unable to sit and build his planes, or join us for things like dinner.  I hated all these treatments and surgeries and the ups and downs that it created. 

His chemo best illustrates what made his cancer treatments and surgeries so hard.  I don’t remember exactly where his cancer was at this time (I think either his stomach or lungs) but this treatment created six of the most miserable months of his illness.  It involved one week of intensive chemo, administered in the hospital.  This meant Mom had to yo-yo between us kids at home and Dad in the hospital.  It meant short visits with Dad that week and missing my parents at home.  This was followed by two weeks of recovering from the chemo treatment at home.  During this time Dad would progress from being gravely ill, susceptible to any bug/virus,  and not really accessible, to slowly getting better.  The next week he would finally be able to work, eat dinner with us, do “normal” things.  Then it would start all over again.  For six months we functioned on this four week cycle.  This general cycle, however, permeated throughout his illness, manifesting when he would have a surgery, or whatever the doctors recommended in an attempt to fight the cancer. 

While I hated these treatments, I knew that each one  gave us more time, extending Dad’s life a little longer and making his death something that would happen later rather than sooner.  Each time he got “better” I had more time to sit and talk, learn how to drive, laugh with him, and watch him build his planes.  That was true until the two weeks following the death of Grandpa Beckstead.  In the weeks following his death something changed in Dad’s health from “relatively good” to “horribly bad” .

Grandpa had been fighting his own battle against cancer for about 2 years.  We new that by the beginning of October Grandpa didn’t have long to live.  On Thursday Oct. 11 our family got a call that Grandpa was dying.  Merilee and I chose to go with my parents to Tacoma to join other family members to be with my Grandpa as he died.  At this point Grandpa said very little but we new he could hear us as we talked to him and each other.  It was not long after we arrived that he passed away.  While there was a feeling of sadness there was also a sense of peace, comfort, and relief in his death. 

In the days following Grandpa’s death and funeral it seemed that Dad turned a switch, not to off,  but to dim.  Where Dad seemed to be doing o.k. he began to struggle.  Walking, talking, and breathing became difficult.  A distinct wheeziness to his breathing developed and the doctors starting telling us we had till Christmas.  This changed to a month, and then to weeks.  The gravity of the situation really sank in for me when Mom meat with the hospice worker to set up home care. 
The details of the day Dad died and the events following alternate between being fuzzy and crystal clear.  I know that Thursday I went to school, probably went to work, and finally home where Mom called (or I called her) and was told to pick up fast food before Mindy and I headed into the hospital.  I don’t remember feeling rushed to get there as Mindy and I swung by Taco Bell and then to the hospital.  We were a bit jovial as we headed into Dad’s hospital room where I remember knowing instantly that something was wrong.  Mom was there with family friends, the Rollins, who had stopped into see Dad.  In the time it took us to get there, Dad had died.  He went from dying sometime, to months, weeks, days, to hours.  In that instant the thing I was able to focus on was my mom’s reassurance that my Dad’s death had been very similar to my Grandfathers.  My Dad’s death carried that sense of peace, comfort and relief. 

Prior to Dad’s funeral we had a brief viewing.  I went in to look because others had encouraged me to do so.  I only stayed briefly.  For me that was not my dad, and I wanted to remember him not necessarily in perfect health but as a living person.  As his funeral progressed kind words were shared,  beautiful music sung, and giggles resulted.  The giggles came from Mindy and I as we suddenly felt a consistent vibrating pew below us and noticed Mike (my brother-in-law) attempt to still Meredith’s bouncing knee.  I remember thinking that Dad would have chuckled too.

Cancer is devastating, causing grief, sadness, and immense stress.  In my experience it also brings out the best in people.  I am grateful for those who supported, prayed and helped out my family and myself.  My family was blessed by the gentleman from church who knew a couple of pizza’s would help relieve the stress of feeding two hungry kids at home.  He did not do this just once but many times. The elderly friend of Dad’s who popped over to do yard work without a word of his presence.  The big sister away at college who sent thoughtful letters of encouragement and love to a sad younger sister.  They were looked forward to and appreciated.  The friends and family who  took the time to plan and come to my surprise 17th birthday party in the few days following Dad’s death.  While I remember the sadness of those times, I remember those that eased the daily stresses and helped bring some joy to myself and my family more. 

Merilee's Story

 Here is my sister Merilee's story.  I am the oldest and she comes next out of four May girls.

I cried.  It was nothing new.  If I had to count, I’d probably done it nearly a thousand times in the last three years.  But this time, it felt different; I knew that tides had changed and it was now “the beginning of the end.”
It had already been about three years since Dad was diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma cancer.  He had undergone radiation, 2 surgeries, and chemotherapy.  I shouldn’t have been surprised by the call from my mother saying they’d found more tumors.  But I was; I was surprised and devastated, and I told her my premonition.
She denied it of course, as did my Dad.  It wasn’t the beginning of the end as I claimed, it was just some tumors they found in his lungs.   Just like the other tumors they’d found over the last few years.  We’d have plenty of time left to enjoy our father.
Perhaps they thought I was just being dramatic, as I suppose I was sometimes during my teenage years.  But as I sat in my one bedroom apartment, alone, I felt the emptiness close in around me.  I was nineteen, I lived alone and feared that everyone I loved would eventually leave me.  I wrote of emptiness, loneliness and despair in my journal, because I had no one I could talk to about my heartache except myself.  My sister and childhood friend had moved to Utah and married by this time; it was difficult to explain the agony of watching our Dad die when she was so far away.  My boyfriend had left on a mission and shouldn’t be bothered with trivial things like death.  My roommate had moved out, probably because I was depressed and consumed by the fear of losing my father.  No doubt I was an effective mood dampener.  Who wants to deal with death when life and love await?  I hadn’t yet developed a relationship with my two younger sisters to confide and call upon them for comfort and strength.  In fact, my parents frequently asked me to spend time with them, help them take their mind off the stress at home.  And I felt it would be a burden to talk to my mother or father; they had enough to deal with without having to deal with me.  It was my job to make everyone happy, not depressed with my problems – even if they were very much the same as everyone else’s.   I didn’t believe I would ever feel more alone than I did then.
On March 25th, 1993, they operated on Dad to remove the tumors in his lungs.  It was then everyone learned what I already knew; it was the beginning of the end.  And while it would usually feel good to be right; it felt awful and I was without the skills or life experience to truly grasp the pain of death.  I didn’t fear what lied ahead for my dad on the other side, I didn’t even fear that I may never see him again.  I simply ached inside, knowing I would never be ready to let go.
When they operated, they found tumors along the lining of his heart that they were unable to remove at that time.  They would wait, and do it later.  He spent nearly a month in the hospital following that surgery; and I visited at least once every day.  What else could I have possibly done?  I was consumed by the fear of his death, of not being there for him, not being ready, and not understanding how I would survive.
He called me crying one day from the hospital, afraid and unable to reach my mom.  The middle class certainly didn’t have cell phones back then and she wasn’t at home.  I dropped everything I was doing to rush to the hospital.  I would have done anything to stop the pain, but I was helpless. 
They never got do perform the surgery to remove the remaining tumors.  Dad died six months later, almost a month after his 47th birthday.  For all the effort I had put into being there for him when he was in the hospital for a month, I missed him the day that he died.  I missed him by mere moments.  My mother had called shortly before my shift began and called every hour thereafter with an update.  He was progressively getting worse.  Every time I insisted that I would leave work right then and be there, I was assured he would be there when I left.  Five minutes before the office closed, Mom called.  He had just died.
It wasn’t supposed to happen so fast, although the reality was he’d been sick for nearly four years.  He only went for a doctor’s appointment.  He was supposed to be home when I got off work.  But he was dead.  He was gone; and I knew instantly that it would be too long before I would ever see him again.  I crumbled into pieces that thereafter took me years to put back together.  Years before I would ever even learn to talk to my own family about the pain that I felt when he left.