Facing Fear

Elena spent a lot of last summer afraid that she was going to have an accident. I don't mean an accident where someone gets hurt - I mean she was afraid that she wouldn't get to a bathroom in time. Last summer I learned where most of the grocery stores within a few miles of us keep their bathrooms.

Starting the second week of September, Elena didn't want to go to school. She wouldn't tell us why. It wasn't her teacher. She loved her teacher. She'd been waiting three years to have this teacher. It wasn't anyone else at school. She loved playing with the other kids.

Each day when Kim or I would take her she would cry and say she didn't want to go to school. At the end of the day we would pick her up and she would be as happy as can be. Kim and I were stumped. Elena hadn't been this way when we'd dropped her off at pre-school or at Kindergarten. What was different?

Her teacher called me one day and explained that Elena was very afraid of wetting herself at school. We talked to Elena about it. She understood that she could always ask a teacher to go to the bathroom and they would let her. Still she was upset when she went to school. We sent her with a change of clothes that she kept in her locker in case anything happened.
Maggie showed us a side of herself that made me proud. Maggie never resisted a chance to tease Elena when it was over something insignificant. But Maggie recognized this was serious and so she quietly told Kim and me that Elena had had an accident in Chinese class and it had embarrassed her.

Elena and I made a deal. If she would go to school five days in a row without crying, she could bring a special headscratcher into school and use it to scratch her teachers' heads if they would let her. There were a couple of days where it was close, but Elena made it through the week.

And then it happened.

The thing she was most afraid of actually happened. She had an accident at school. She was so wrapped up in an activity that she had waited too long. Her teacher got her her emergency clothes and she got cleaned up and changed in the girls room. When I picked her up after school her teacher told me quietly what had happened.

But here's the thing. Once it happened it was no big deal. No one teased her. She didn't feel particularly embarrassed. Accidents happen. She shrugged it off.

To our relief and surprise, Monday morning she couldn't wait to go to school. She was excited to go. Kim had washed her back up clothes and put them in a bag for her to keep in her locker at school in case it ever happened again. It never did.

I'd forgotten all about this incident until last week when Kim was at school to help sell tickets for Carnival. Some first graders waved to her and told her to come up to their classroom because they were cleaning out desks. They told her that she would have to clean out Elena's desk.

She asked them what they were doing down stairs. They said they were taking some items that nobody claimed to the lost and found. One of the items was a little bag full of clothes. Elena's emergency clothes. Kim waited until the kids had gone back to their classroom and picked up the bag. She looked at the little outfit that she'd sent to school to give her little girl comfort and backup. She put it back in the bag and handed it to a friend who has a little girl who will be able to wear it.

Carnival

Last night was Kim's last time working with ticket sales at the Boulevard Carnival. It rained a bit during the first half hour, but the night turned out to be a perfect one for the event. Maggie and the other fourth graders were carnival veterans. They knew the games they liked and the food they wanted. I held on to most of Maggie's tickets as she ran off to do this or that. I wasn't rationing her tickets so much as making sure that she checked back in from time to time when she ran out.

Kim, as usual, spent the evening working. She'd been selling tickets all week. Tonight she was walking around with Officer Vince taking the money from the ticket and raffle sales into the school office to be counted and later deposited. She was easy to spot in her yellow "just in case it rains" windbreaker and her white beach hat. She kind of looked like Paddington Bear as she stopped at the various booths to check in.

There wasn't a lot for me to do. This was my fourth year at carnival and Maggie didn't really need supervision. She'd been pretty independent last year. I guess it's the usual progression.

When Maggie was four and Elena was just two, Kim had brought them to their first carnival. Maggie was set to start Kindergarten at Boulevard in the fall and this was one of the things that Kim was doing to make Maggie feel more comfortable in her new school. That summer they would go play on the Boulevard playground and walk back and forth to our house so Maggie got to know the way.

The next year, Kim volunteered for a couple of committees. I was out of town so her mom and sister took the girls around that night. Ever since then, Kim has worked carnival and I've taken the girls.

The first year was special because they had been to carnival twice and I'd never been. They tugged me one way and then another to show me the games they liked the best.

"Come on dad," Maggie would say, "I'm going to get my face painted."

"What are you going to get?" asked Elena.

"A soccer ball," said Maggie.

"Well, I'm going to get a butterfly."

They stood in line and each held the tickets to give to the older girls who ran the face painting booth. When Maggie was in first grade those middle school girls looked so much older. Last night when Maggie had a pink heart painted on her cheek, they didn't look so old.

"Oh dad," Elena said as soon as her butterfly had been finished, "we've got to go to the toilet."

"Didn't you just go?" I asked.

"No dad," Elena said, "the toilet. We've got to go to the toilet."

"Oh, I know what she means," Maggie said. "She wants to go to the outhouse game."

"Yeah. It's so funny dad. You are going to love it."

So we went over to a booth with two toilet seats  arranged with the lids up and a hole under the seat. The kids were given these things to toss that looked like rolls of toilet paper. Three cylinders with little tails. Elena missed all three. Maggie got one in. No one walks away a loser at the carnival. Each girl could choose a consolation prize. Some little item worth a penny or two.

Now the spell had been broken, we'd played a game. The girls wanted to play another one. They shot a plastic puck at a target with a plastic hockey stick. They tossed bean bags towards a sharks mouth. The chose teachers and put their tickets down and waited to see which teachers face would come up on the roulette wheel when it stopped spinning.

"I want Miss Shorter," Elena whined.

"She's my teacher," Maggie snapped back.

Elena wasn't happy but recognized some logic in that retort. She moved her marker.

The girls wanted to eat. We stopped by the ticket booth and took Kim's order. Elena carried the turkey wrap and water over to Kim while Maggie and I brought the hot dogs, popcorn, and juice over to a table. The girls went back for watermelon. They played a bit on the playground. I steered them back to the games. The did the lollipop pull and the can crush. They looked at the items in the silent auction. They eyed the bicycle being raffled off.

It was one of those perfect nights.

As an aside, I'm amazed as I write page after page here how many perfect nights we had during Elena's short life. Sure there were the frustrating ones where someone is crying or the girls are fighting or someone (maybe even me or Kim) is in a horrible mood. But there was a surprising amount of perfect days and nights. At least the way I remember them.

We stopped at the prize table at the end of the night and traded in the prize tickets that the girls had won here or there. After what seemed like a very long time, they finally chose the rub on tattoos and the bracelet and the glittery pencil and we headed home. We walked the long way home. We never walked this way. Kim had to stay and count the money so me and my girls walked home talking about the games they had played and the people they had seen.

The next year was much like the one before it. The three of us walked around together and they chose what activity they wanted to do next.

Last year was special in two ways. First, even though this was Elena's fifth time at carnival, this was the first time she was going as an actual Boulevard student. She knew teachers and students there. She wasn't just Maggie's little sister, she was a member of the school. Second, Maggie was old enough that she wanted to walk around with her friends. She promised to check back regularly with me or Kim but she wanted a little more independence.

O.K. I walked around with Elena and Maggie would come back to see how we were doing every ten to fifteen minutes. Elena was such a shrimp that people would let her get a little closer during the different games and so she was accumulating more prize tickets than usual. We all met up to eat as usual and then Maggie was off on her own again. At the end of the night they spent their time shopping at the prize table and we walked back the long way and swapped stories.

This year there was a part of me that didn't even want to go to carnival. I knew we had to for Maggie but I also knew how tough it would be without Elena. To compound that, we're now leaving the Boulevard community. Maggie will be done with school on Thursday and we won't have the next three years in this school as we had expected. This carnival was one more symbol of things not continuing the way we had expected.

So this was Kim's last year of working at carnival. Maggie, for the most part, didn't need me. She'd stop by to check in or to see if I wanted to go with her to see the baskets in the silent auction. We walked through and put down the opening bid on some artwork her Kindergarten teacher had painted. We went and got some food together and then she was off playing games and talking to friends. At the end we walked around together for a half hour. I just love her independence.

As the night came to a close, Maggie headed over to trade in her prize tickets for more junk. While Maggie was inside I watched Katie for a few minutes since Mike was inside helping Jack at the prize table. I lifted Katie up into an elevated garden. Then I lifted her down again. Then up. Then down. Then up. Just as I was getting tired of the game she turned to me and said, "knock knock."

"Who's there?" I smiled. It's the same with all kids this age. Maggie had gone through it and so had Elena. I knew what was coming next and I new it would crack me up anyways. She was going to tell me some joke that she didn't understand and didn't get quite right.

"Banana," she said.

"Banana who?" I prompted.

"Banana orange," she answered and laughed and laughed.

I laughed too. It's kind of the twist on the whole thing. The joke isn't funny and that's exactly what makes it funny. Then the child leaves thinking they told a funny joke so they tell it again.

And she did. And when I stopped laughing at it she mixed it up.

"Orange," she said.

"Orange who?" I replied knowing her answer is supposed to be "Orange you glad I didn't say banana."

Instead she said, "Orange banana." And then she laughed. And then I laughed. It reminded me of my girls. In a good way.

Maggie came back outside and stood with us. She showed Kate what she'd gotten at the prize table. Kate needed to go to the bathroom just as Mike was coming back out the door. He took her and Maggie and I headed home.

Maggie and I kind of glanced at the long way home. Our last year at carnival while Maggie was a Boulevard student. I asked her which way she wanted to go. She shrugged. Yeah. Me either.

We went the short way home.

Art Therapy

When Elena was first born, Kim wanted to make sure that she was still spending enough time with Maggie. Maggie was two and a half and so it wasn't that she was ever excluded when Kim was hanging with Elena, but Kim wanted to make sure there was one-on-one time with just the two of them. They would read together and play together but they particularly liked to do art projects together.

When Elena went down for her nap, Kim would often spread out newspapers on the kitchen floor and she and Maggie would sit next to each other working on a painting, or a drawing, or some craft project. It would always start well. They would talk about what they might make that day as Kim got the materials together. Maggie tended to have a great attention span for this sort of work so she didn't wander off or get bored. It could have been the art or it could have just been the pleasure of having her mom all to herself.

Every time they worked on a project together, they would end up fussing with each other. You see, Kim is a perfectionist and she'd rather not share. In class and with peers Maggie is very respectful of other people's projects, but with her mom she always had to reach over and make some contribution.

I'd walk into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee and see them working side by side. It was an idyllic picture of a mother and daughter. I'd sit in the other room and do some writing. Then I'd hear it.

"Stop, you're ruining it."

Not the voice of a three year old. It was the voice of her mother.

"I was just helping you."

"That's very nice," Kim said, "but I'm o.k. on my own. Thank you. Why don't you just work on your own picture Maggie."

"I'm done. I think your sky needs some cerulean."

Maggie loved the word "cerulean". For a long time she pronounced it "kerulean". She'd read it on a crayon and worked it out herself when she was four. When I finally understood what she meant I asked "ssserulean".

Maggie paused to look at the "c e" on the crayon and shrugged and said, as always, "oh well."

Maggie and Kim continued to work on art projects even when Maggie was older. From time to time Elena would join in. Last winter Kim picked up gingerbread house kits for the girls to work on. One for each. Each kid was allowed to pick a parent. Elena chose me and Maggie chose Kim.

Maggie quickly mixed the sugar with water before she read the instructions. Soon she had one gloppy mess. Kim was trying to work carefully and neatly and Maggie would see the need for more sugar and just dump more on.

"You're ruining it," said Kim. It was a flashback that made us all smile.

Elena looked over at them and did what she did best: suck up. "I'm so glad I chose you to be my partner daddy," she said.

Maggie rolled her eyes. "Oh brother."

"Just look at theirs," Elena said. "Theirs looks like crap."

"Elena," Kim said, "that's not nice."

"But it's true," Elena protested. She was right but then again so was Kim. So Elena struggled with this conflict and looked for something nice to say about their house. "You've used up all your candy," she admired.

"Thanks," said Maggie oblivious to all of the negatives that had come before.

Maggie came over to see how our house was doing. Elena had been much more reserved in how we decorated it. She gave careful directions of what she wanted where and we iced it and assembled it according to her standards. A lot of the candy was eaten before it made it to the house which added to the simpler lines on ours.

Maggie suggested that we put an icing walk way out front and stud it with candy. Elena liked that idea so I drew a curvy path with sugar and Elena carefully placed little colored dots along the edges. While Maggie was busy inspecting Elena's gingerbread house the roof on hers started to fall in. On another day that might have set Maggie off, but not today. She applied a little more wet frosting and held the roof in place until it dried.

"See dad," said Elena, "I told you theirs looked like crap."

This time Kim didn't correct her.

Pushing Maggie

Maggie is fairly cautious by nature while Elena was a daredevil. Maggie likes to know that she can do something before trying it in front of others. It's hard to get her to try something new in public. I've been trying to get her to play softball but her mind is made up and so she won't.

When we would take her to an amusement park with rides, it was hard to get her to ride anything other than the bench on the merry-go-round. Over time she moved to stationary horses and then to horses that would go up and down. Elena would be half her height and age and be on a horse going up and down while Maggie rode the bench.

One thing I love and admire the most about Maggie is that this never bothered her in any way. She took her own time to come off the bench and try other rides. Every once in a while Elena would tease Maggie a little and Maggie never took the bait.

But Elena would be having so much fun in some activity that Maggie would often join in. Elena would flip herself over with abandon on the rings that hang from the swing set so soon Maggie was looking to do tricks herself. Maggie never participated unless she wanted to. She was content to egg Elena on if the activity seemed too risky.

A couple of years ago we were on vacation in New Hampshire and we went on ride after ride together. We rode the flume where we took a casual ride in the water then up a ramp and then sped down the water slide to the bottom where the water came up over the side and soaked us. Two years earlier we'd been in line for a more dramatic version of that ride.

Maggie had decided, while looking at the people ahead of us on the ride, that she didn't really want to go on it. There was no way Elena could be talked out of going. So Kim took Maggie out of line and they waited for Elena and me to finish. The ride had made my heart skip a beat but Elena wanted to ride again.

But there in New Hampshire it was a different Maggie. She wanted to ride the rides that made me nervous. We went up in the crazy barn. A rectangular platform where a couple dozen of us sat strapped in. It raised up on a crane and spun and tipped until I thought I was going to be sick. Maggie enjoyed meeting the challenge of the ride and enjoyed it. Elena reveled in it. She whooped and held her hands in the air and kept asking "isn't this fun daddy?"

In one of our first trips to the Wisconsin Dells for a reunion with the Shen sisters we tried to get Maggie to go down the big water slide. This was a pretty tame water park and even the big slide wasn't that big, but Maggie had decided it was too big for her. I was in the pool with her at one point and one of the other parents called my name and pointed. Somehow Elena had gotten out of the baby pool without us noticing and had climbed the stairs to the big slide. Not even two years old she raised her hands in the air and gave a happy squeal as she came down the slide. One of the other dads was there to catch her as she came out the bottom.

For the next few years, Maggie and Elena couldn't wait to go down the big slide at each of the parks we stayed at. I would usually ride down with Elena and lift her up at the bottom or I'd be waiting at the bottom to pull her to safety after she landed and bobbed back up to the top in her life jacket. Once Maggie was comfortable, she would go down the slide with her other Shen sisters over and over again.

This year was different. We were in Wisconsin on Elena's birthday just a week after her funeral. It was like spending a weekend with our extended family. These girls we had known since we first saw them in China eight and a half years earlier. Their parents were fellow travelers in so many ways. This was our family that we saw once a year in the Dells like other family members that we saw once a year at Thanksgiving.

There was a giant hole for me and Kim. A fresh wound. So many things that Elena would have loved doing. So many things she would have done. We felt her absence and our Shen family helped us through this first weekend away. We had planned to celebrate her birthday there. We had planned so much that didn't actually come to pass.

But for me, the hardest moment was the glimpse of Maggie's future that we got there. She wouldn't go down the big slide. I know. It's no big deal. She went down slides that were bigger than the ones she was reluctant to go down years ago. But she wouldn't go down the big one. Not with me. Not by herself. Not with Kim. Not with any of the Shen sisters who offered.

I know that she is a strong person who knows what she wants to do. I know that there's nothing special about someone who will go down a waterslide and nothing lacking in someone who won't. But it seemed to be a metaphor. Elena played many roles in all of our lives but I worry about the loss of that role in Maggie's life. I worry that she won't keep trying new things without Elena pushing and pulling.