by Su Meck
On July 13, 1992, Kassidy Taylor Meck was delivered by cesarean section. My sister Barb wrote in her journal a few days later: “7-18-92: Su and Kassidy went home yesterday and all is going well. Su sounded so upbeat and happy. She feels better than she has for months. They [Su and Kassidy] are already more like best friends than they are mother and daughter.”
Dr. Muir is a big reason why I held on to Kassidy until the middle of July. He kept telling me, “Your daughter is in the best possible place”—inside me—“and the longer you can hold on to her the better she will be in the long run. You can either have a few months of discomfort now, or there is a possibility that she will suffer a lifetime of discomfort if she is born too early.” The first time I saw her, just like when I had first heard her heartbeat, I fell head over heels in love with her. I was terrified that I was going to break her somehow, and I worried constantly about whether she was feeling too warm or too cold, or if she was hungry or sleepy. I didn’t know who to ask how I was supposed to hold her, or how I was supposed to know what she wanted. Because I had two young boys, everybody just assumed I was an old pro and knew exactly what to do.
I remember Jim bringing Benjamin and Patrick to visit their new sister and me in the hospital. Benjamin wanted to read her a book, and so he brought Dr. Seuss’s Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now! from home. He sat and read that book particularly loudly to Kassidy and Patrick. He was so loud as he read, and so close to her (so she could see all the pictures), I thought for sure that Kassidy would be afraid and start to cry, but surprisingly, she didn’t.
I can remember holding Kassidy and just staring at her. She had, and still has, these huge, gorgeous blue eyes. I was scared to death that I was going to hurt her because I didn’t know what I was doing, and I desperately didn’t want to do anything wrong.
Benjamin says he remembers the day that Kassidy came home. “Kassidy was asleep in her baby carrier and you just set her right down on the family room floor. It’s so strange to think back to when she was so tiny. I know that some of the memories that I have of Kassidy as a baby and toddler are kind of secondary memories from pictures I have seen, or stories that you tell. But I can remember both Patrick and me looking at her and then each other and thinking, ‘We don’t want to deal with this.’ And so we played outside a lot more often. When Kassidy cried it was really loud, and you would just drop whatever you were doing and rush to her immediately. I can remember it taking you like more than ten minutes to change Kassidy’s diaper. You were with her pretty much all the time. Kassidy nursed until she was almost five, which was probably excessive. And maybe because of that, you two were always together. Even now, you’re more like sisters than mother and daughter.”
It’s true that the dynamics of our family were fairly unusual. Kassidy and I never had a typical mother-daughter relationship. We always seemed kind of on a different wavelength than most other mothers and daughters. I was just beginning to learn how to learn as Kassidy came into my life. Benjamin and Patrick’s job in the family was to look out for us. Then there was Jim, who was always really far away, traveling for work.
I probably did devote much more time to Kassidy, at least initially, than I did to anyone or anything else. To some extent, I just didn’t know when to stop. Exactly how much care was enough for a completely helpless baby? Patrick and Benjamin, and even Jim, probably felt a bit neglected, and in all likelihood they felt a bit resentful of Kassidy at first. But I couldn’t help myself. Kassidy became my everything in the summer of 1992. She was my happy, healthy, perfect baby girl. And she and I, in a sense, ended up growing up together.
Right before leaving the hospital with Kassidy in July 1992. I was a nervous wreck!
13
School
—Supertramp
After Kassidy was born, Jim went back to his life of traveling. He was now working for a management consulting firm in northern Virginia and his territory was “the world.” So instead of just being away for days or weeks, he would be gone sometimes for months at a time. Sure, they paid well, but Jim essentially sold his soul in order to work there. This particular company made the fictional company in John Grisham’s book The Firm look like a friggin’ preschool. I rarely knew where he was. Jim never left us itineraries, and I didn’t know enough to ask for one each time he left. And I probably would not have been able to read them even if he did. He would occasionally call from wherever he was, but often the difference in time was puzzling to me. How was it that he could be getting ready to go out to dinner if I was just getting the boys their breakfast? How was it he was telling me good night right as I was coming home after teaching my morning aerobics classes?
As Jim traveled the globe, I would like very much to say that Benjamin, Patrick, Kassidy, and I led an idyllic life in Montgomery County, keeping the home fires burning, so to speak, awaiting the arrival of our man of the house. In reality, the kids and I continued to lead a chaotic life, with six-year-old Benjamin and now even five-year-old Patrick acting as the men of the house. I was getting better at remembering what needed to be done, as long as I had my huge stickered calendar. Meals were kept simple, but occasionally forgotten. Having a baby, even a baby as easy as Kassidy, still took its toll on all of us. We continued to play the “What are we doing today?” game each morning and I think that helped. The boys can remember me having a lot of “lightning,” and even though my episodes didn’t faze them, I still can’t imagine what could have happened during those times when I was all but incapacitated. Scary.
That fall Benjamin started first grade, and Patrick was enrolled in afternoon kindergarten at Goshen. Fortunately, the school was close enough that I could put Kassidy in a stroller and walk to get both guys in the afternoons. Mostly I remembered. If I didn’t, Benjamin waited for Patrick’s teacher to bring out the kindergartners, got Patrick, and they walked home together. No biggie, right?
Benjamin started getting “homework” in first grade, so my formal education started about that time as well. Benjamin and I learned to spell fan, man, ten, pen, and land together. Another week we learned win, thin, on, pond, and spin. On and on we went. Every week there were new words to learn and spell. I did all the activities with Benjamin. He helped me with ABC order on Mondays, and we would come up with silly sentences together on Tuesdays. On Wednesdays, we wrote each spelling word out five times. Boring. The test was always on Friday, so Thursday nights at bedtime we would quiz each other. Even Patrick, by this time of the week, knew how to read and spell all Benjamin’s spelling words.
I got a job volunteering in the Goshen Elementary School library one afternoon each week. I took Kassidy with me. Kassidy had the ability to charm everyone around her with her blue eyes, her bright smile, and her happy disposition, so it was seldom a problem. She sat quietly (most days) while I shelved books. In truth, I never did much shelving. Instead, I sat in the stacks with Kassidy and tried to read, looking at the pictures in those children’s books and picking out words I had learned from Benjamin’s, and eventually Patrick’s, spelling lists.
In math, Benjamin was learning addition and, later in the year, subtraction. We bought flash cards and took turns coaching each other. Again Patrick learned his addition and subtraction facts right along with us. I’m thinking now that Patrick must have been really bored the following year in first grade.
I suppose I am making this sound far too simple. Picture the cozy kitchen with Kassidy asleep on my shoulder as we are all sitting around the kitchen table. Benjamin and Patrick sitting quietly eating their after-school snack while dutifully working on their assignments from school. Then picture the exact opposite, and that might be a bit closer to the way it really was. Kassidy had to be awakened from a nap to be put in her stroller and taken out in the cold so we could pick up her brothers from school. She was sometimes whiny and hungry. Benjamin and Patrick were thinking that the last thing they wanted to do, after being cooped up in school all day, was sit down and do homework. They jus
t wanted to play. But if I had to teach a class that evening, they would have to come with me to the health club nursery. Or if they had dance class, gymnastics, or choir, then homework had to be done first thing or it would be forgotten altogether. Nobody was happy with this arrangement. Benjamin had the attention span of a chipmunk when it came to schoolwork, and I constantly had to bring him back to the task at hand. Patrick got bored easily and wanted my undivided attention. Duh! He was five!
Many afternoons all this homework business ended in tears and/or shouting, with homework simply left unfinished. Sometimes I would try to write a note to Benjamin’s first-grade teacher, to explain that he understood the concept of the math work sheet, but was able to complete only five of the twenty-five problems. She probably thought Benjamin had written the note himself.
In November, I was assigned a thirty-minute time slot to have a conference with Benjamin’s teacher. I was nervous. This was something new, and I didn’t know what to expect. Benjamin was not allowed to go with me. I don’t remember having Kassidy with me, either. Did I leave her at home with the boys? I must have. When I got to the school, I walked to Benjamin’s classroom and I stood awkwardly in the doorway until the teacher acknowledged me. She took a thick folder off the top of a large stack of thick folders and invited me in. She showed me to Benjamin’s desk and looked at me. I looked back at her. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, she said, “Please have a seat.” Where? On Benjamin’s tiny chair? At his tiny desk? She sat down on another tiny chair, so I sat down, too. She asked if Mr. Meck would be joining me. I almost laughed out loud. Sitting on these tiny chairs? No way! I couldn’t even picture Jim in this classroom. I said I didn’t think so because he was in Thailand. She looked at me again and then continued (this is an approximate conversation):
Teacher:
Please look in Benjamin’s desk.
Me:
(looking in Benjamin’s desk.) It’s kind of messy.
Teacher:
Yes. It is. And that’s after I had him stay in from recess yesterday so he could clean it.
Me:
Oh.
Teacher:
He did not clean it. He sat in here and ground up almost all of my colored chalk instead. He made a terrible mess.
Me:
I’m sorry. (I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. This was even more difficult than I imagined it would be.)
Teacher:
In fact, Benjamin rarely does what he is told to do. He does not sit in his seat properly. He bothers all of the other children. I’ve had to move his desk four times this year and it’s only November. He sings constantly. He has a smart mouth and sometimes talks back. He does not ever complete his seat work. He has a terrible time staying on task. I fear he won’t learn to read this year, because he has appalling attention problems. I’ve never seen such dreadful attention problems in any other six-year-old. Ever. His handwriting is atrocious. He doesn’t even seem to care or try. I think we need to get him on some sort of work contract right away.
(I just sat there in stunned silence. Should I be writing any of this down? I didn’t understand half the words she was saying, so I think I may have sort of tuned her out until she came back with:)
Teacher:
So, Mrs. Meck, what do you think? What should be done?
Me:
Um.
Teacher:
I think a work contract is the best first step to getting Benjamin back on track. He’s obviously a bright little boy. He has an amazing vocabulary for someone his age. But he needs direction. He needs focus. He needs discipline. Is there a place and time he always does his homework at home?
Me:
(I thought of the craziness that was “homework time.”) Yes.
Teacher:
Because I noticed that his homework is rarely completed. Do you check his homework?
Me:
(I thought of Benjamin and me doing our spelling words in ABC order together.) Yes.
Teacher:
And I’m sure you have noticed that it is often not completed.
Me:
Yes. There’s not always time.
Teacher:
I know there is a new baby at your house. Benjamin always talks about Kassidy. Benjamin always talks. I understand it must be difficult for you, but please try to make sure he does his homework every night. It’s best for him to form good habits for schoolwork at this stage of the game. I’m sure you understand. Thank you for coming.
I didn’t understand at all but I was dismissed as another mom and dad entered the room together. Benjamin’s teacher walked to her desk, set down Benjamin’s folder, and picked the next one from the top of the pile. I left, went home, hugged Benjamin, and cried.
Benjamin’s school days never got much better after first grade. He struggled with everything associated with school all the way through high school. He hated going. He hated doing homework. He loved to read, once he finally learned, but hated to write. He didn’t make friends easily, but didn’t seem to care too much about that, either. Outside of the classroom he was intelligent, curious, inquisitive, very funny, and perceptive. There is no doubt he was a handful. Looking back, he was much smarter than I was at a very early age, and could talk his way into and out of anything. He began to be a compulsive liar, but the stories he told were often funny and sort of interesting and insightful.
His third-grade teacher was a nightmare for him. She told me at his conference that November that Benjamin still was not reading because of his horrifying attention issues. She said that I would continue to hold him back if I didn’t consider putting him on Ritalin. I certainly didn’t want to hold him back, so I spoke to Benjamin’s pediatrician, and he started Benjamin on a moderate dose of Ritalin soon after Thanksgiving. And Benjamin did show marked improvement in school after that. He was reading within the month, and not simple chapter books, either. He skipped them altogether and went right to the Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner. He then moved quickly to the Madeleine L’Engle books like A Wrinkle in Time that Santa brought him that year for Christmas.
Hooray! Benjamin was reading! Except now he was constantly getting in trouble for hiding books in his desk and reading them when he was supposed to be paying attention to social studies or some other such “nonsense,” according to Benjamin. I kind of agreed with him. Everyone had been so concerned about his learning to read, and then it seemed like he got in trouble for reading. I did not understand.
Eventually, Patrick started taking Ritalin as well, and homework got a bit easier in the afternoons. Not easy, but some days, easier. Both boys had daily homework by then, which was always fun. (Not.) Kassidy was two. That was fun, too. (Still not.) I continued to teach aerobics classes. Jim continued to travel. I got good at making excuses for him and why he wasn’t ever at concerts, recitals, games, and back-to-school nights. I don’t ever remember being sad or resentful, just unbelievably tired. After all, I was doing what I needed to do while Jim was doing what he needed to do.
One day, the family from whom we had rented our house in Montgomery Village for two years suddenly came back to the States from Australia. We had to find another place to live starting that summer. And to add to the excitement of having to move again, Jim started talking about relocating all of us “overseas.”
14
Walk Like an Egyptian
—The Bangles
In the fall of 1994, when Benjamin was eight, Patrick was seven (as was I), and Kassidy was two, Jim started talking about the possibility of us moving overseas to one of two places: either to Bangkok, Thailand, or to Cairo, Egypt. He was working for a “global technologies group” at a consulting firm and all I really understood about that job was that he was away from home traveling most of the time. As far as I was concerned, “Bangkok” or “Cairo” could have just as well been Ohio or Pennsylvania, as I had no real concept of what “overseas” really meant. I can vaguely rem
ember thinking that perhaps it was a kind of letter . . . “Over-C’s” . . . like maybe it was a place that skipped “over” the letter C or something, although I had never seen an “Over-C” letter on Sesame Street . . .
I was not familiar with geography, and even though I watched Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? with Benjamin and Patrick, I didn’t really understand that there were whole other continents and countries far away from where I lived with the kids in Montgomery Village. I did sometimes attempt to read the Washington Post, or at least look at the photographs, and when Jim was home, he sometimes watched the news on CNN. But again, the places that I read about and saw on TV were somehow in my mind only in the newspaper or on TV. It’s hard to explain except to say I didn’t connect what I read or saw with anything real. It wasn’t until many years later that the paper or news on television actually held my attention for any length of time anyway.
The thought of moving again was not all that appealing to me initially. I was tired of the tedious process of packing up, and then unpacking, all our stuff. And then the worst part: learning where our belongings were in a new house. However, Jim kept telling the kids and me excitedly, “It will be an adventure!” That’s a good thing, right? Jim came home from his long trips to Thailand bearing exotic gifts and talking about live elephants in the streets and huge extravagant palaces. He came home from Cairo with more extravagant gifts and stories of irritated camels that spit and impressive pyramids. In addition to the “adventure” component, Jim convincingly explained that the family would get to be together because he wouldn’t have to travel anymore. His job would be in just one place and he would get to come home at the end of each day. That was enough for me! Sign me up! I realized that I was tired of living as a single mom, on call 24/7. In addition, I was teaching at four different gyms, trying to help out financially as much as possible. There never seemed to be quite enough money despite Jim’s substantial salary as well as my own efforts. The thought that Jim might actually be able to help out with the kids—homework, the school morning routine, activities, meals, and bedtime—would certainly be a dream come true.