by Sally Quinn
Ben practically had to carry me out to the car. His reaction was that she was full of shit. I didn’t get there quite as quickly, but when I did, I was outraged. Ben knew and I knew in my heart that she was completely wrong. We knew this child. We thought Quinn was extraordinary in so many ways. He just had a different way of learning and simply couldn’t take tests.
We called the Lab School. This was the first they had heard of the testing and her conclusions and suggestions. They were equally outraged. Needless to say, he stayed at the Lab School and never went back to that psychologist. Even now, though, I get angry just thinking about her.
* * *
Twice I’ve been visited by someone who has died. The first time was Adrien Lescaze, our friends’ young son who died in Children’s Hospital at the time Quinn had one of his surgeries. The night he died I was in my bedroom at home when I was awakened by a noise. I looked up at the ceiling in the corner of the room and there was Adrien. He was hovering, as if about to take off. He said he had come to me because I would understand—because of Quinn—what his mom was going through, and he wanted me to tell her that he was happy and that he would be fine. Then he disappeared. The next morning I wrote Becky, his mother, and told her exactly what had happened and the message that Adrien had given me. She took enormous comfort in the letter and she told me that for years she carried it with her wherever she went. I get goose bumps even now just thinking about it.
The only other time this has happened to me was when Ben and I were staying on Martha’s Vineyard at Kay Graham’s house. Kay had had a dinner the night before, and a lot of our friends were there including Bob Woodward and our mutual closest friend, the national editor Larry Stern, who lived next door to us in Washington. He had just turned fifty. We had all had a lot of wine, and after dinner Larry and I were talking in the living room. At one point Larry, one of the wittiest people I knew, turned to me and said, ominously, “The dark witch’s Sabbath has begun.” I had no idea what he was talking about. I decided we had all had too much to drink and called it a night.
The next morning, Ben and Kay and some others were playing tennis when I got a call. Larry had just had a heart attack and was being taken by ambulance to the Vineyard hospital. We jumped in the car and headed to the hospital ourselves. It was hot and stuffy, and I rolled down the window. As I did, Larry flew in the window and, as if holding on so that he wouldn’t blow away, said he had come to say good-bye. He said he had tried to warn me the night before of what was going to happen. “Tell Ben to be careful,” he said. By the time we got to the hospital, Larry had been pronounced dead.
A year later the now famous story by reporter Janet Cooke appeared in the Washington Post. It was a story about a child drug dealer named Jimmy, brilliantly written and reported. The problem was that it wasn’t true. It wasn’t until she won the Pulitzer Prize that the facts came out. Ben was universally castigated by the press and the public. He offered to resign. It was only because he worked for Don Graham that his resignation was not accepted. It was the darkest moment of his career.
* * *
A couple of years before we had that unpleasant report from the psychologist, I had another experience that confirmed my belief in Quinn’s special talents. It began when I went to a health spa in California. I was asked the first night if I would like to sign up for a labyrinth walk. I had never heard of the labyrinth; to me a labyrinth simply meant a maze. It was described as a circle where you walk to the center and back, and it is used as a meditation tool. I declined. It sounded too hokey and New Agey for me. However, one of the counselors said that a lot of businessmen had been there for men’s week and many of them who walked it swore it had changed their lives. That intrigued me. I signed up for the nighttime walk.
The labyrinth was behind the buildings on a slope in a clearing in the woods, amid a grove of oak trees, their curling branches nearly touching our heads. Torches and candles burned and, as I recall, there was some drumming going on. We were all dressed in pale kimonos. It was very mysterious, and I liked it right away. We were told to concentrate on something important to us, a question or a problem, and then to walk one by one slowly toward the center. Though this labyrinth looked like a maze, it was not one you could get lost in. The path led directly to the center where we were to pause, focus on the issue at hand, and when we were ready, to go back the way we had come, this time more quickly if we felt like it.
I walked it with a number of women, some walking faster and passing others, some taking their time. I don’t even remember what I concentrated on; at that moment for me it was more of a game than anything else. I didn’t have any particular epiphany, but the walk was pleasant enough. What didn’t appeal to me was the group experience. I found it hard to concentrate when others were passing me or walking before or behind me.
I read up a bit on labyrinths and discovered they originated on the island of Crete with King Minos of Knossos. They were a great part of Greek mythology and culture. Later the labyrinth was adopted by other cultures and certain religions. During the Middle Ages, Christians who couldn’t go on pilgrimages to the Middle East would often walk the labyrinth as a symbol of their journey, sometimes on their knees. Probably the most famous one is on the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France. It is often used for meditation, but it can symbolize the search for meaning in one’s life as well.
A day or two later, before dinner, I decided to go up to the grove alone. The sun was beginning to set, my favorite time of day. It was warm with a slight breeze rustling the branches. The trees were casting their shadows on the labyrinth. It felt instantly mystical to me. I stood for a long time at the entrance and concentrated on Quinn. Quinn was around six or seven at the time and had so many medical and learning problems that I was constantly distraught. I almost never left him, but Ben had been insistent that I really needed to get away and he was right.
Slowly I began to follow the winding path into the center of the labyrinth. When I reached it, the evening was so still that my senses were heightened and I could hear twigs breaking and birds twittering and the wind rustling. I sat down in the middle, cross-legged, my back turned from the entrance, and began to meditate. For a long time I kept my eyes closed. Then I looked up. What I saw astonished me. It seemed to clarify everything that I was wondering about. I hadn’t noticed before but right in front of me, surrounded by the oaks, was a magnificent evergreen tree with wide-spreading branches that seemed to be reaching out to embrace me. It was so much more beautiful than all the other trees. Suddenly I saw Quinn as the evergreen tree. He was alone in the midst of all these other trees, but he was the most gorgeous tree of all. Despite all his problems and his differences, he stood out among them as the special beautiful tree. I just sat there in the center of the labyrinth, thinking of my precious child and how unique he was in this world and how much I loved him. It also made me realize that I needn’t worry about him so much anymore. He was going to be fine. He was going to be Quinn.
That walk did change my life.
It wasn’t over yet. The following year I had a reservation to go back to the California spa. Then we got word that the cognitive testing Quinn had been scheduled for at Children’s Hospital had been postponed until the week I was to be away. I decided to cancel, but again Ben insisted I go, saying there was nothing I could do but sit outside the doctor’s office and wait. Ben would take him, and I needn’t worry. I went.
The day of his test I decided to go to the labyrinth to walk it at the exact moment his testing would begin. Happily, I was alone once more. I concentrated seriously on Quinn’s test, praying he would do well. Slowly I began to walk the labyrinth until I got to the center. Once again, I sat in the center and stayed there, focusing on the grand evergreen for the amount of time the test would take. Then I got up and made my way back to the entrance, glancing one last time over my shoulder for good measure.
When I got back to Washington, Ben and I were summoned to the hospital to get the results of Quinn’s
tests. The doctors looked particularly grim. They went over the numbers with us. They were terribly sorry to tell us, they said, but he had scored miserably on all the tests. However, and they brightened, there was one test on which he had the highest score they had ever seen. “What was that?” we asked. “The maze,” the doctors replied.
* * *
It was only recently that I remembered having written about religion in my second novel, Happy Endings, and I was stunned to realize that so many of the thoughts that I have today are evident throughout that novel. My main character, Allison, is an atheist who has lost a baby girl and, in one scene, confronts a Catholic priest with her rage at a God who could allow such suffering. “But you must have an answer,” she says, “for why a supposedly all-powerful good God would cause suffering. Otherwise you wouldn’t have devoted your life to him.”
The priest responds quietly: “We are faced with a leap of faith here. Faith is ultimately not the result of a rational conclusion.”
To which Allison lashes out: “Bingo! . . . You’ve just said the magic words.”
Reading this again recently, I could see all my questions about faith and God bubbling to the surface at that time. It wasn’t until much later that I learned the word theodicy. There was actually a word for what I was thinking and feeling.
Theodicy is a theological construct that tries to answer this question of the seeming paradox of a divine being allowing so much suffering in the world. It is best summed up by Greek philosopher Epicurus:
Is God willing to prevent evil but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
***
Quinn was sick so often that sometimes I would just shut down from fear and exhaustion and sorrow. One year in a ten-day period around my birthday I wore the same ugly yellow T-shirt and white cotton pants every single day as they got dirtier and dirtier. I didn’t wash my hair. I didn’t put on makeup. I was listless and detached. Ben was seriously worried about me. I knew I had to pull it together when he sent me a bouquet of yellow roses for my birthday. I hated yellow. Ben knew this. Subconsciously he must have been thinking of my yellow T-shirt.
When Quinn was a young teenager, he went to Children’s Hospital for his regular speech therapy sessions. His therapist began to suspect that he might have a particular syndrome. She had a friend at the National Institutes of Health who was working on a project having to do with a fairly recently discovered syndrome called Shprintzen syndrome, named after the doctor who had identified it. It later became known as VCFS, or velo-cardio-facial syndrome.
VCFS manifests itself in some 180 different symptoms. The most prevalent are heart problems, voice and throat problems, and some forms of facial deformity. Quinn had a bone on one side of his jaw that jutted out just slightly, which had never been explained.
We went to New York to meet Dr. Robert Shprintzen and for Quinn to be tested. When we walked into his office, he took one look at Quinn and told us that he had VCFS. The tests proved positive. Because it is hereditary in 50 percent of the cases, Ben and I were tested too, but both of us were negative. This was a genetic mutation. I was distraught, but Ben did not have to carry me out this time.
If you read the description of VCFS, it is horrifying. As it turns out, Quinn has a very mild case. Some patients actually are admitted to institutions for mental and emotional disorders. There can be terrible facial deformities. There are those who die of heart problems. We were lucky. (There’s that word again!)
Despite continuing worries, in some ways I was relieved. At least we had answers. We finally knew why Quinn had been through all this. Most of the medical problems he had had were symptoms of VCFS and manifested in the syndrome. I really had begun to believe that Quinn and Ben and I were under some kind of curse. Was I paying over and over again for those hexes? Every time we turned around something else was wrong with him. As it turned out it was just one thing, one disorder with many faces.
* * *
When Quinn finished his freshman year at the Lab School, it was clear it wasn’t working for him anymore. The high school wasn’t as supportive as the lower school had been and he wasn’t doing well. He was miserable and cried every day before he went to school.
Much to my dismay, Quinn wanted to go away to boarding school. I couldn’t stand the idea of letting him go, but we made appointments for him to look at several schools in New England, including the Gow School for boys, the oldest boarding school for the learning disabled in the country. It was a spectacular campus outside of Buffalo, New York. Quinn loved it. After touring it, we left for Boston where we spent the night. The next morning we were heading down Storrow Drive to see another school on the Cape. I hadn’t realized how upset I was at the thought of his leaving when suddenly I had an excruciating pain in my chest; I felt as though a rock had fallen on me. The pain ran down my arms and I was having trouble breathing. I was sure I was having a heart attack.
Just then an ambulance pulled up next to us and stopped at a red light. Not wanting to alarm Quinn, I said to Ben in French, “I think I’m having a heart attack.” Without hesitating, Ben put down his window and yelled at the ambulance driver, “My wife’s having a heart attack.” With that the ambulance turned on the siren, pulled over in front of our car, and before I knew it I was strapped to a stretcher and headed for Massachusetts General Hospital, which just happened to be right in front of us, with Ben and Quinn following in the car. Soon I was hooked up to tubes and Ben was consulting with the cardiologist.
It turned out that nothing was wrong with me—nothing but stress. I was released in a few hours. We never went to see any of the other schools.
Quinn went to Gow that fall. The head of the Lab School told us that it was much too rigorous academically for him and that he would flunk out. The math professor at Gow told Quinn that some people could do math and others could not and that Quinn would have to accept that he was one who could not. Quinn made the varsity tennis team that year as a freshman, and at the end of the year he won the math prize and made the honor roll. Good old Quinn. He never stops confounding people.
One of the happiest days of my life was while he was at Gow. He made a speech to the National Association for Learning Disabilities at the New York Hilton in front of eight hundred people and got a standing ovation. Ben was as emotional as I was. The three of us went back to the Mark Hotel bar and celebrated with a bottle of champagne.
After Gow, Quinn went to Landmark College, the only college in the country for those with learning disabilities. It was not a total success. He needed more structure. He stayed for two years. He then studied film at American University the following year and stayed at home while he was having two foot surgeries. Finally he spent a year at the New York Film Academy, which he loved. We were terribly worried about what he would do, but he got hired by a wonderful filmmaker, Mark Muheim, who kept him on for several years.
Quinn is an idea machine. He’s managed to create a successful career for himself doing many different great projects. He has worked in film, launched a successful website for young adults with learning disabilities (friendsofQuinn.com) that was later acquired by the National Center for Learning Disabilities, and authored a book titled A Different Life, which later became the inspiration for an HBO documentary. He and Ben also did a book together, A Life’s Work: Fathers and Sons.
The only thing missing was a girlfriend. Quinn had never really had an actual girlfriend, though he had dated sporadically. One Christmas about eight years ago I was given a gift of a reading from an astrologer, Gilbert Picinich, who turned out to be very good. I continued to consult him occasionally when Caroline was away for long stretches of time or unavailable. I had him do a reading for Quinn and Ben. As a present, I typed up their readings
and put them in an envelope under the tree. The astrologer told me, as had Caroline all through these years, that Quinn was going to be fine. He said he was going to meet someone he would marry soon. He also said he must take yoga lessons. So I called a friend of mine to get the name and number of her fabulous yoga teacher, Pari Williamson, who was known as the best in Washington. I signed him up for six lessons and put that in an envelope under the tree too. Quinn took one yoga lesson with Pari, and they were engaged in two months and married two years later. Quinn adored her, as did Ben and I.
Part Three
Meaning
To find meaning in the mystery of existence is life’s final and fascinating challenge.
—Huston Smith, The World’s Religions
Chapter 17
There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.
—Anaïs Nin
The death of a parent seems a natural time for someone to raise questions about meaning, purpose, one’s own mortality, or the afterlife. For whatever reason, I did not experience the deaths of each of my parents as provoking religious questions but certainly spiritual feelings.
My mother had her first major stroke in early December when she was seventy-four. It was the night of the Kennedy Center Honors, and Ben and I were at the event. Apparently Mother had been standing in the kitchen, spooning her bacon grease into a frying pan, when she collapsed on the floor. Quinn, who was ten, was spending the night with my parents and ran into the library to get my father, who had just turned eighty-five, and he called 911.