It was September 1996, and I had just started my first year of teaching.  I had landed in Thomaston, Georgia at a time in my life when everything seemed to be going wrong.  I was 22 and had no idea just how often things would veer from my idealized plans. The fantasy?  I would be seriously dating my college boyfriend with whom I was completely smitten.  After graduating from the University of Georgia in June of 1995, I would begin a graduate program in clinical psychology somewhere in the southeast so that I would be within driving distance of my very-important boyfriend.  I would distinguish myself as a bright, serious student with revolutionary insights into the field of psychology and clinical practice.  All of my obsession with making A’s in all of my classes, getting research experience, and doing an internship would have dovetailed perfectly into this well-crafted plan.  I would be fulfilled, in love, and very happy. The reality?  I did graduate in June of 1995.  That much was accurate, but I had not been accepted to any of the clinical psychology programs to which I applied.  (I had chosen the most competitive field of graduate study in psychology because if I worked hard enough, I could do anything.  After all, my mother had told me so.)  After an extremely brief tenure at the Department of Family and Children Services, a longer tenure working at a local gift shop through the holiday season, and a very interesting period working at a psychiatric hospital in Atlanta, I had taken a job teaching children classified as “severely emotionally disturbed.”  For this, I would be paid “good money,” compared with the one hair above minimum wage I earned at the hospital.  Plus, I could fix all of the disturbances in all of my students because I was Wonder Woman. What happened to the very important boyfriend, you ask?  I apparently wasn’t very important in his life.  I was heartbroken but determined to recover.  I applied again to graduate schools.  I had taken the Kaplan course and raised my GRE scores ever so slightly, hoping that would do the trick.  This would be a sort of gap year.  I would get an apartment in Macon and commute the 50 miles to Thomaston.  I’d hang out with my friends who were still in town and visit Atlanta some.  The year would fly by. I started my teaching job days after leaving my job at the psychiatric hospital before I had even finished moving my belongings from Atlanta.   I had never taught before, (My mother was a teacher, and I had sworn that I would never teach.  Never say never.) but my new employers said that was no problem.  If I could do physical restraint (I could.) and manage the kids’ behavior (Of course.), then I could figure out the teaching.  No big deal, right?  I had attended elementary school.  How hard could it be to teach in one?  (Insert ominous music or maniacal laughter here.) One evening, during the pre-planning days, I was pacing back and forth in my parents’ kitchen talking on the wall phone when my knee popped out of joint, and I fell to the floor.  That’s right, talking on the phone, not water skiing or hang gliding or playing frisbee.  After hobbling around on crutches for a few days and having my mother drive me the 50 miles back and forth to work, I saw a doctor who said that I would need outpatient surgery.  So, on the first day for the students, when I had planned to be establishing perfect order and starting to cure all of my students’ problems, I was having arthroscopic knee surgery instead. A week later, I was getting around pretty well, had been cleared to drive, and was only keeping crutches handy for emergencies. It was time to go back to school and meet my class for the first time.  I only had one job to perform versus the two jobs I had been expected to do at the psychiatric hospital, and I had an assistant.  I could do this.  And then I met the students. At the psychiatric hospital where I possessed so much behavioral expertise, I worked on a locked unit with a nurse.  If an emergency arose, we could “call a code,” and a team of people literally came running to help.  At my new gig, my classroom was in a run-down building on the somewhat deserted campus of an alternative school with many exits, no locked doors, and I was barely ambulatory.  One of my students had been described as a “runner,” meaning that she ran away at the drop of a hat—and she was fast.  The second child had been removed from his home due to extreme abuse and neglect and had a multitude of emotional and physical problems, not the least of which was encopresis.  If you do not know what that is, be very glad.  It means that a person defecates in his or her clothing or basically anywhere besides a toilet.  The third child was poised to transition back to his regular school and was supposed to be “easy,” but he was none too impressed with me.  For one thing, I had no idea how to teach and, worse, I was not Ms. Cathy, their beloved teacher, who was not returning.  The students held me personally responsible for this. Seven exhausting school days followed during which Sally ran away—or threatened to—daily.  Adam stood by my desk every morning grimacing and farting right over my coffee, while I wondered whether they were more than farts.  Michael refused to do anything unless my teaching assistant asked him to.  You could say that this was an exercise in humility. Then came the straw that broke the camel’s back, me being the camel in this scenario.  I had a head-on collision on my way to school.  Because of the 50 mile commute, I had to leave home in

As many of you know or have read, my mother has dementia.  She lives in a memory care facility, where she is usually happy and cared for by kind, nurturing people.  Even so, I always have to adjust my mindset before walking in.  I like to think of things to talk about and often bring Mama something that I think she will like.  The best advice I’ve gotten is to travel with Mama where she wants to go, in her mind, and, physically, to the degree that I can. On this occasion, I went to visit Mama after school.  I was a bit tired from a day of teaching and tentative, as my last visit had been tough.  On the visit before, it had been close to Halloween, Mama’s favorite holiday, and I had brought a flashing jack-o-lantern necklace, which she normally would have loved, and a package of Halloween-themed Peeps, a favorite treat of hers.  But Mama did not love these offerings. She came in from the beauty shop after I’d been waiting for just a few minutes, and I could hear her as she approached, saying, “It’s bad.”  When I saw Mama, I recognized what the trouble was.  Her hair, though carefully styled, had been fashioned into a firmly-set helmet of curls, which was not the way she liked it.  She did not hide her displeasure.  Mama did gobble up a Peep, but when I gave her the necklace, she said, “It’s bad.  Take it away.”  I put it out of sight and tried to talk to her a little, but soon Mama turned to me and said, “Leave.”  This took the breath out of me.  She had never told me to leave before and, of course, it hurt my feelings.  Still stunned, I asked, “Do you want me to go?”  Mama said, “Yes, go!  You’re bad.”  I could feel the tears well up, and I told her I’d see her next time.  On the way to my car, I started to see the humor in Mama’s reaction, which evoked memories of my sons as toddlers when they were hungry, tired, or just plain having a fit, and nothing could make them happy. When I came in the next time, Mama was wearing a “Happy Birthday” headband.  It was not her birthday, but she always has loved a party or celebration.  I had decided against bringing any gifts this time and hoped that she wouldn’t be disappointed.  Mama picked up a book, the title of which I don’t remember, but it was a children’s book. We sat down in the day room together, and Mama asked me to read it to her.  It was a bedtime story that rhymed and led us through all of the routines of taking a bath, putting on pajamas, reading a story, and saying goodnight.  When I finished reading it, Mama asked me to read it again.  This went on two or three times.  For that space in time, everything melted away, except our togetherness, the predictable words, and the soothing rhythm.  Then, Mama wanted to read the book to me.  She said, “This is the kind of story we always used to read,” and she began the first of several times reading the book to me.  The tears came quickly as I was enveloped in the familiar, loving ritual that I’ve shared with my mother all my life.  Sometimes she involuntarily repeated words or phrases, but the words flowed with ease, and she read with confidence and calm. My mind traveled to one of my very first favorite books, Mommy, Buy Me a China Doll by Harve and Margot Zemach.  The story has all of the elements that young children enjoy, rhythm, rhyme, and repetition and, of course, a subject of interest, which, for me, was dolls.  I was a little girl who loved baby dolls and always asked for one for Christmas.  The story is playful with the repeated request, “Mommy, buy me a china doll.  Do, Mommy, do.”  The mother replies, “What could we buy it with, Eliza Lou?”  Then the story goes on to describe the different scenarios that would make the buying of this doll possible.  As a parent, I can see how this story could be considered glamorized begging and the wearing down of a weary parent but, as a little girl, I could picture myself as Eliza Lou in a playful, loving banter with my mother. I remember Mama reading this story to me over and over again.  I don’t remember her saying “no” when I asked, and I don’t think she did.  Books and reading were limitless.  I know now that Mama had to have been tired and probably wanted to do something else, at least some of those times, but it never showed then.  She just read and read about “. . . Eliza on her Mommy’s lap, Sleeping on her Mommy’s lap, Dreaming ‘bout a china doll, Sleep, Eliza Lou.”