Family FUNdraiser Day at the Grandie’s School

When the Maxwell-Smith clan gathers, there’s bound to be fun. As older daughter Mosa once said: Ours is the family that puts FUN in FUNeral. While no one we know died recently, the five of us had a fun and marvelous weekend together.

Younger daughter Megan arrived from San Luis Obispo area Friday evening. She, her dad and I talked until midnight. Among other topics discussed was her newly published book: Could You Live Underwater? Co-authored with Jade Rivera. We’re so excited for their completion of this curriculum book! Published by Prufrock Press, it is for teachers to help students cultivate design thinking which is a problem-solving, experience- based way of approaching science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. Megan honored us with an inscribed copy in appreciation of our life-long encouragement of her writing skills. She writes invitingly, with wit, humor and correct grammar, even! Ain’t that a hoot!? We all went to bed happy, two of us popping our pajama buttons with pride.

Saturday morning’s skies opened to pour down heavy rain which threatened to continue dampening our parade for the entire day, but we discovered as we drove that there are many micro climes in Oakland. By the time we arrived at our granddaughter’s school, it was sunny and dry. Yay! 

Food, fun, fotos, and fabulous buying opportunities abounded. Grandparents are designed to drop bundles of cash at these events. We lived up to the design expectation.  Bath Balls, Beads, Books and Candles now grace our home, along with teeny tiny photo booth pages that, with a magnifying glass, will remind us for years to come that we were somewhere… together… and who’s in those photos with us? 

While Mosa went elsewhere Saturday afternoon, the Grandie, her auntie, and we grand-parental units came back to our house to play some more. After our granddaughter’s father picked her up, Megan, Mark and I stoked up a fire and did parallel play with books and correspondence, and/or napped until dinner time. I enjoy cooking, which is a good thing, considering how many meals I make in a week. We had more wonderful talks over salmon, salad, veggies, baked potatoes, and wine

Megan picked a perfect film for the three of us to watch after supper: Gifted starring Chris Evans, McKenna Grace, an amazing actress who is seven-years-old, and Octavia Spencer of Hidden Figures fame. Like Hidden Figures, this film, too, celebrates the extreme gift of mathematical genius. Heart-warming.

Brunch on Sunday included more play and conspiratorial conversations between the Grandie and her adults about how to celebrate Megan before she had to drive home. We ended with storytelling; each one of us adding a sentence or two in round-robin fashion. Unicorns, Narwals, hornless horses and friendships were the featured elements of the story.

Don’t like good-byes, but come they do, and go do the kids.

Mondays may feel blue, but are filled with memories of a happy weekend behind us.

What Is: After Andrew

What Is…

The sound of one heart cracking?

Not a break, like something that can be glued.

Not a hiss like a balloon deflating.

Not a crash like a crumpled fender that a little body-work could set straight.

The sound of one heart cracking is subtle. Internal. An imploding soft thud. The once sturdy walls caving in on the center, as if protecting the core of one’s being from unbearable anguish.

Anguish. Squish. Squish.

Make a wish: Take me instead or too.

When a child dies, you remember your own pregnancy and the first time you heard the detectable heart beat. The midwife let you listen to it on her doppler. You remember your eyes widening, your smile being unstoppable and how, though you knew because the flow would not come, you knew because your breasts were so tender, you knew  because your face was glowing so that even the woman at the bank asked, “are you in love?,” that you were totally alive in that moment of awe-filled hearing of the truth! And you were in love. And in love with the idea that Life had chosen you to carry itself deep within your own dark and quiet. The astonishment of hearing that heart sound out-loud in the midwife’s office made it irrevocable. Real.

Joy infused every cell, made you swell in secret pride. This tremendous gift of LIFE bestowed. You opened to let life flow through you and here it was.

Now, you cared about what you ate for the first time in your whole selfish life. You put this Belly Person ahead of any wanton want for babka, booze or bread; put new life to work to clean up your diet. Brewer’s yeast for brain development. Leafy greens for skin and bones. Protein Protein Protein. You felt like a howling meowling mama cat: Meooow, give me meat! Meowwww, give me kidney! Meooooooooowww, give me sweetbreads! And you ate and ate your fill until it was time to sleep for two and you woke to eat for two again and drank carrot juice and ate sauerkraut and kimchi so the child would have culture.

And you watched as your navel and spine parted company and waved across the span between them and around a miraculous astronaut floating - upside down - in your dark and formerly quiet. S/he got hiccups. Often. Your whole belly thump-jumping with each brief spasm of her/his tiny diaphragm. 

What will this baby be? Who will she or he become? 

Doubt-bouts began, doubling in size at night. The dark thoughts about giving birth to a ten pound turkey, a monster, a freak. Don’t read or listen to other people’s horror stories. It might be contagious.  You remember worrying about having attended a friend’s home birth when you were only four months along, and how that turned out to be a hospital Caesarean birth because the baby boy’s head was too large to fit through your friend’s opening. Sixteen centimeter head. Ten centimeter opening. A NO GO situation. Houston, we’ve got a problem! You remember wondering: Is it catchy? Remember worrying could this too happen to you?

When  a child dies, you remember that as you got near time to deliver, that you were an equal mix of worry and certainty that all would be well. And that, even though there were many days when you felt like a beached whale, and that no clothes fit except for your husband’s old 42 inch waist pants with suspenders to hold them up and XXL T-shirts, you worried and wondered if you were truly ready to meet this belly person face to face.

Labor began. And it was such a rush! You began writing in your journal at midnight when your water broke and the earthy scent of sweet amniotic fluid surged from you unlike any scent you’d yet been privileged to sense on this wide wonderful world. You woke your beloved when contractions were three minutes apart. You had him call the midwife and two friends who wanted to be there. Every one seemed to arrive at once and at transition - the last few centimeters of opening that allow for the child’s head to emerge. You remember wanting your night gown OFF, no, ON, socks OFF, no, ON and all off again, and nothing was right and you remember telling your beloved to warn your friends that this was transition, the hardest part, and that after this it would be easier. And it was. The pushing stage was orgasmic. The baby’s head pressing through you like one continuous giant orgasm. Who knew giving birth could be ecstatic? And the midwife held the mirror and let you feel the dark curls on your baby’s head about to emerge. And you remember tears of joy at the imminence of the dream fulfilled - of meeting face to face this magical person who had peeped over the edge of baby heaven and graciously determined that YOUR womb was the one s/he chose to grow in. You could hardly wait. But you had to pant blow the last few contractions so as not to push too fast and cause harm to yourself from too swift an exit of that dear head. Too fast can tear tender tissues. So you panted, despite the URGE to PUSH with all your might. 

And the baby slipped out of your dark and quiet, head first into the light of an eight o’clock morning and the birds were singing outside the window and the dog was under the table the midwife set up for the birth and your beloved was holding you and the baby at the same time as she - yes SHE was put to breast and all of you were beaming in the light of new life so fresh from the other side and the miracle bonded all of you in that moment such that when a child dies, you cannot fathom the possibility or breach the divide between life and death. Nothing about the death of a child is ok. NOTHING prepares you for this anti-flow-of-how-life-should-be event. Nothing.

When baby Andrew died, the thoughts of my own births welled up and the empathy I felt for Andrew’s mother and father was extreme. I understood something of what they lost. I sobbed. I raged at the unfairness of death’s whim to take this child, any child. I understood when their marriage also died. I understood that the death of a child is the hardest of all deaths to make sense of, to come to terms with, and to go on living past that watershed moment. Period. 

Andrew became my teacher that one and only day I met him. I went home and appreciated afresh my own living daughters.  I thank his spirit often for the graciousness to teach me more about the Great Mystery whose capriciousness we can love, hate, be baffled and befuddled by, and perhaps ultimately accept as What Is.

Andrew

My teacher Ray Castellino referred a family to me in the early part of 2000. Six month old baby Andrew had been diagnosed with “failure to thrive.” His mother had plenty of milk, and had attended La Leche League meetings while pregnant so as to be prepared for the lovely journey of nourishing her babe, yet Andrew was the size of a two or three month old. Lethargic, with little or no muscle tone, and eyes mostly closed or at half mast. He was not much interested in nursing. Not emaciated scrawny, but thin, with legs curled like a newborn. He was not tracking his surround, engaging with his parents, moving around, or making sounds of any kind - except an occasional whimper.  As compared to typical behaviors of a healthy six month old, Andrew had reached few if any milestones. 

I set up my treatment table between the family's dining room and living room, invited the mother and father to sit, and asked if the dad would continue to hold Andrew. Talking to the baby and the parents, I told them there was nothing here anyone had to do. If anything was going on that didn’t feel right for any reason, any one of the four of us could just say or motion pause or stop, and we would re-evaluate what we were doing. Maybe we would continue in that same direction after discussing what was going on, or maybe we would do something else. I spoke directly to Andrew, telling him that his mom and dad loved him and had asked me to come today because they were worried he wasn’t growing as fast and as strong as he could be. I was here to listen to his being with my hands. I told them all that Andrew was an important part of the conversation, and that I would always ask before making contact.

By way of modeling that, I asked the mom’s permission to put hands on her first, so she could know what that was like before offering to listen to Andrew's system. She was agreeable, even eager. While his dad held him on his lap, Andrew seemed to be in a sleep cycle with random twitches throughout his body and face. I put my hands on the mom’s shoulders and, after a few moments, felt the rock-hard bracing there soften ever so slightly. After a few more breaths, and a huge sigh from the mother, I asked to move my hands - one to the back of her head and one to her forehead. She nodded. Another deep sigh after a few minutes, and I acknowledged that all three of them had a right to feel overwhelmed by the stress of these past few months.

Can you imagine wanting to become parents and doing all that was in your power to make sure there was a plan for success, only to have a mysterious malady descend on your newborn, robbing him of his ability to thrive? There was no other diagnosis. From a medical perspective, they were told some kids make it, some don’t.

Now, it was time to put hands on Andrew. Usually, I find it best to work with nursing babies while they are nursing, but Andrew’s lack of interest in the breast led us to Plan B.  Dad lay his “sleepy” son on the table, face up. 

Sitting at the side of the table and speaking softly to him, I told Andrew I’d like to put my hand on his back. I paused so that idea could sink in, then slipped the palm of my hand under his tiny lower back. This tipped him slightly to his right side - facing the living room window which was shuttered. My finger tips nearly reached his shoulder blades. As I listened, Andrew became my teacher that moment.

Every culture has a word for what animates us all life long. Prana in India, Chi in China, Ki in Japan, Miwi in the language of Aboriginals of Australia; life force, spirit, or soul essence in English. There is a vitality, a stuffness to the tactile feel of that essence - similar to the invisible force you feel when trying to push the South poles of two magnets together. 

First, I listened to Andrew’s essence. He did not protest. His life force was thready, dry, a whisper. As if part of him was elsewhere. I wondered where. I asked silently if he wanted to stay. Could he not for some reason? 

Of course, there was no verbal response from him, but rather a deeper breath as he too shifted to a more relaxed yet more present state - as had his mother. From pale and inert, his cheeks colored a bit. His eyes moved beneath nearly translucent blueish lids. A smile flickered on his lips, then quivery chin and protruding lower lip. After three very quick breaths, a sigh. We three adults watched the play of emotions across this tiny being’s face and body as if transfixed by beautiful cloud formations in a sunset sky. 

The light outside had shifted and a beam came from between the shutters over their front window, streaking right to the side of the sheet-covered table where Andrew continued to rest with my hand under his back.

After a few moments, I asked to make contact with his feet. Parents nodded. I told Andrew I would be moving my hand from his back. He stretched his legs out as I slipped my hand out from under him. His lips pursed and one arm went out to his side in a mini stretch. “Here comes my hand, Andrew.” I gathered his tiny heels into one hand and placed the other just about two inches away from the crown of his head. I could feel more than warmth at his crown. While still thready, there was slightly more organization in the field. I could feel that “stuffness” of his essence coming into a coherent directional flow between feet and crown. 

When listening to the fluid tide that bathes the entire spinal cord and brain from tailbone to crown, a trained practitioner can generally tune into one of several different cranio-sacral rhythms - not unlike tuning a radio to a frequency or station you want to listen to. 

“The shortest distance between any two points is an intention,” said John Upledger, a Doctor of Osteopathy from the United States who, among other teachers, began to train non-DO students in the use of osteopathic cranial techniques. With practice, Cranio-Sacral practitioners learn to tune-in. 

Most of us humans are in tune with the subtle energies of our family members or intimates whether we talk about it or not. Maybe you’ve been at a party and opened a door to what you thought was a bathroom only to sense the couple beyond that door did not want to be disturbed. Without knowing why exactly, you closed the door quickly. That was their energy field expanding hugely. All of us do that unconsciously to warn others to keep out. Our language reflects the movements of our subtle body: He turned a cold shoulder; she seemed to shrink like a morning glory at sunset.

With no thought on our part, our breath of life moves. Some of our energetic flows go from top of the head to the bottom of the body and back again; up and down the spine in a rhythm that is distinct from our heart beat or our lung’s breath, which is created by the rhythm of our respiratory diaphragm. Other patterns go side to side; left-right, left-right. Some are so slow - like the Long Tide - that they seem to be ever expanding, never reaching an edge and contracting back, but ultimately, they do - if we're not on our way out of life. Some rhythms are very steady, open, close, open, close. What I felt from Andrew’s small system that day was unlike anything I’d felt before. 

Expansion similar to the Long Tide, but with silent crackling as if cellophane were being crumpled and disturbing the field but there was no sound component to the experience. It felt electrical and tingly to my palm above his head. His feet cooled. As they did, they became weightless as feathers. Silently, I asked where he was going. No definitive answer, but the shaft of light from the front window that had been at the side of the table came up onto the table top as the sun sank lower. There was a beam touching his right ear. His whole right side looked to be glowing.

After a while, darkness descended and we let it, the four of us sitting in silent sacred space.

Andrew died ten days after our meeting.

Oscar Makes Me Grouchy

For all the diversity present in the audience at the Dolby Theater Sunday night, Oscar seemed to favor white dudes most highly. Still. 

Change is slow. Change is hard for some folks. Change is threatening for white dudes who still hold the majority of power in the film industry. Still, I have hope for change.

Jordan Peele's screenplay for Get Out got a nod, thankfully, as did director Guillermo del Toro  for The Shape of Water, and the Anderson-Lopez songwriting family for best song Remember Me from the animated feature Coco.  But the fickle finger of fate flitted over but did not land on Mary J. Blige or Octavia Spencer for best supporting actress, nor did it land on Daniel Kaluuya for best actor in Get Out. He really was excellent in the role. I cannot speak to Denzel Washington's work in Roman J. Israel, Esq. because I didn't see the film. We still have a long way to go for equality to show itself in the Academy.

Jimmy Kimmel did an admirable job hosting. Perhaps his best line was about Oscar himself being the perfect man in Hollywood because his hands are always visible and he has no penis. 

Salma Hayek, Ashley Judd, and Anabella Sciorra introduced an important talking-heads clip about equality, diversity and inclusion after acknowledging that in the wake of Weinstein's exposure, there's impetus for change world wide. We must embrace Me Too and Time's Up and keep moving forward as humans together on this one dear planet. 

I'm not a white man, but my white woman status links me with the oppressors and with privilege. Still, I can pray for equal representation, equal pay, equal opportunity and do what I can do to encourage change. 

While Oscar's entrenched ways make me grouchy, hearing Frances McDormand's impassioned invitation for all  the women who work in films who were present Sunday night to stand and to be acknowledged, I also have high-apple-pie-in-the-sky-hopes for Oscar to visit all film crews with interest and to view with unbiased eyes the beauty in each story being told. I want the children to be able to see stories that inspire and that they can relate to. We're all going to have to stand together as the globe warms. Might as well understand one another's cultures, desires and dreams while we're standing there. We'll all be enriched that way.