Turn and Face the Strange.

 Me, my Dad and Ludvig in "our" park.  Grant ave, Waukegan, Il.  1969

When I was three we lived in Waukegan. In the upstairs apartment of  a polish flat with heat only in the kitchen.  One day my Mother took me to preschool at the church behind our house and then went home and had a stroke. I have only scattered memories of this time, and no idea what happened when.  Just that these snippets of things happened.  I remember I was in the morning preschool, I remember watching the sky outside the windows turn darker than it had ever been while I was at school.  It felt very late.   I remember my Dad trying to comb my long flyaway hair into a ponytail.  I remember riding on my Uncle Ross' lap down the long dirt road that led to our landlords house.  My Dad was in school at Naval Station Great Lakes.  I remember visiting my Mom in the hospital.  Too young to be allowed back in the ward I waited in the lobby.  I remember her in a hospital gown, with an IV pole walking down the hall towards me.  The carpet in the lobby was orange.  I remember my Granny came from California and we all went to O'Hare Airport.  My Mother in a wheelchair with my dog, Ludvig,  in a carrier on her lap.  My Granny pushed the chair and I hung onto the handle.  At some point we ate hot dogs.  I was confused and scared.

Much later when I was nine and we lived in Western Australia in a prefab house painted Easter egg blue with dark blue trim my Mother look me to school one day and then went home and collapsed.  By the time I walked myself home from school she had already been taken away by the Flying Doctor service to a hospital in Perth. Nearly 800 miles and a three days drive away.  I remember going to stay with her friend Raelene, I remember getting postcards from her about her nurses and wardmates and the hospital volunteers who brought her flowers and magazines and letters from home.  We had no town phone service.  Just the mail and telegrams.  In 1975 rural Western Australia was still pretty cut off. I was lonely and confused and angry that no one would talk to me.

In 1982 I drove off the school one morning in Washington.   In Oregon my Dad fell into the Columbia River and drowned.  I remember that I had argued with him the last time I had seen him the week before he left on his trip.  I remember hearing my mother scream when she opened the door to three men in dark blue suits.  I remember frantically searching for my Grandfather and lighting a cigarette for my mother whose hands were too shaky to do it herself. I remember my favourite teacher calling and asking what I would do if I started to cry in class.  I assured him that I wouldn't. I remember calling my favourite Uncle to tell him the news.  He drove like a madman for three hours to get home.  I made the arrangements, met with funeral directors, called relatives.  I was 16.

I didn't think about these things when I decided to tell Doodle that I was sick, and that I would be seeing lots of doctors and that I might be really tired for a while.  I hope by making things low key and understandable that he will not suffer the crushing confusion and loneliness brought on by knowing that the adults you trust are keeping a really big secret from you.  I am not trying to keep any secrets.  I don't want to go into the specifics here, but if you want to know what is going on with me, please ask.  I am happy to talk.

I don't know if all parenting is reactive like that.  My parents did A so I will do X instead.  I expect they were doing what was expected of them.  Both times they were far away from home and I would guess pretty scared. Like the proverbial duck, peddling like hell under the water and attempting calm above.  I am not very good at that.