Imagining A Life in Danger: Empathy for the People of Japan

As I watched the horrific events in Japan unfold during this past week, a few thoughts kept surfacing: 1) that we humans are not in control, no matter how much we like (or need) to believe we are; 2) that disasters don’t discriminate or privilege anyone, and 3) that safety is a relative and temporary illusion. Watching the faces of the survivors and hearing their translated tales, I tried to recall if I ever felt my life to be in danger.

There was the time when I was 9 and in the 4^th grade. It was October 1962 and all the grownups in my world were worried. I heard whispers about Cuba and bombs and Russians (who I’d decided were very dangerous). I was mostly mad because the Russians were responsible for the forbidding of costume-enhanced Halloween celebrations in school for fear costumes might interfere with our ability to respond to a crisis. And then there was the rehearsal for that portended emergency when we were all herded into the gym and directed to board school buses, though confusingly different ones from normal. My worries were the whereabouts and safety of my little sister who was somewhere in the crowd with her second grade class, and whether I would remember the right bus number to look for in a real crisis.  But not death…. I was not afraid I was going to die.

There was the sunny morning in September 2001 when I emerged from my morning subway commute just before 9 a.m. and overheard snippets of a conversation between a food cart worker and a customer as I headed for a meeting at another university. Airplane…. World Trade Center….Crash. Instinctively, I looked south though I was heading north and saw clouds of smoke. I kept going, looking back again and again in disbelief as the beautiful morning turned grim and dark. I listened to the swelling street buzz that hadn’t yet solidified the reality of intent to kill. The next two hours were a blur as confirmation came from different sources that we were under attack. Pentagon bombed…. Another plane headed possibly for the White House….. Air traffic grounded all over the country…. Terrorists… A tower collapsed. Frantic I-love-you’s whispered through increasingly impossible to establish land and cell phone connections. The not-quite-believing eyes of fellow New Yorkers en route to nowhere fast as public transportation ground to a halt. Screaming, screeching sirens raced south. People of every kind clustered around cabs against curbs with open doors, their radios blasting the news as it evolved. I was scared, of course, but my worries were about maintaining contact with my daughter, being able to reach my mom, who would be frantic, to let her know we were ok, and finding a source of accurate information. But not death….. I was not afraid I was going to die.

 There was the snowy night in mid-January 2004 close to midnight when my daughter and I were on the road, less than twenty miles from our destination after having driven over three hundred. My father had been given a few weeks to live and we were driving “home” to see him. We were chatting, the roads were snow-covered, the painted lines and the edge almost impossible to discern. But with over 30 years of experience driving in wintry conditions, I was not afraid. Mom was expecting us and there were sure to be cookies frosted and ready to eat. We had climbed a small incline and coasted down to almost the bottom when my wheels hit the edge of the road. I overcorrected and suddenly we were spinning once, twice in slow motion, spinning off the road. I knew not even which side of it, I was so disoriented. It was pitch black; a two-lane rural road without overhead lighting, and thankfully, little traffic at that hour.  I knew when we left the road because of the thud the tires made when they hit the snowy piles of whatever lay invisible beyond the shoulder. Then the car was on its side – my daughter’s side. I stopped trying to steer. I looked at her, her gaze was fixated on me, her eyes round with fear, her mouth opened in a scream that I don’t remember hearing. Then we were upside down, suspended in place by our seatbelts. I heard the back window shatter all over the back seat. I remember thinking I wished I knew where we were going to end up – in a tree, a phone pole, water, down an embankment. I struggled to recall the terrain during daylight hours. Then the car was on its side again – my side, and finally we landed right-side-up and stopped moving.  Obviously, we lived to tell the story though the car did not. My worries were around how scared my child looked, about being stuck in the middle of nowhere with a thoroughly disabled car, and having to call mom to tell her what happened. But not death.  I wasn’t worried about dying, although I probably should have been.

That’s it. I am unscathed and very, very fortunate. I have tried to imagine how truly terrifying it would be to have the earth knocked off its axis underneath me, to have nowhere to go to be safe, not inside, not outside. And what it would be like to have a wall of black turgid water carry away my home, my car, my pets, my family, my town, making the danger of death real and likely. Stir in the insult-to-injury threat of nuclear meltdown and my imagination simply fails. As I read articles on line published by every major news outlet that began, “Japanese officials acknowledge slow response to nuclear danger was the result of being overwhelmed by the earthquake and tsunami,” I just wanted to scream, “YA THINK??”

I know no single person in Japan although I am aware that a child of the person-who-does-not-want-me-in-their-life lives there somewhere, hopefully safe. My personal connections to Japan are limited to my Honda, my electronics, and wonderfully uniform beads for weaving.  My heart aches though for the human faces I see and do not know. All I can do is to press the “Help Japan” button on my Yahoo! Homepage, which will allow me to donate to the Red Cross effort there.  But that just does not seem like enough.

Mourning Dad

I listened to a father and his son on the subway recently one morning.  They were having a real conversation. Dad listened intently to his son’s opinion about something that had happened in school and asked thoughtful questions. It was a sweet moment and it made me feel sad.  I think about fathers a lot. Two friends, one from almost 30 years ago and the other in my current workplace, mourn the loss of their dads within the past year. Their sadness is palpable. They each had remarkable and very close relationships with their dads. I envy them. This past week was the 7^th anniversary of my father's death. I remembered him on that day (February 15), but I do not miss him. This also makes me sad.

My dad, about whom I’ve written nostalgically (In Honor of My Dad, 10/15/10), and I did not have a genuine relationship. I spent my childhood yearning after him but he was wrapped up in his own world which consisted, besides work as an electrical engineer and owner of a large mobile home park, of membership in several fraternal organizations, being a ham radio operator, running for political office, starting a paint manufacturing business, overseeing the metamorphosis of an old school bus into a state-of-the-art motor home, starting a newspaper and functioning as editor/writer/photographer, and being the president of many things. Almost every night of my early youth, he would dress up in what my sister and I called his “monkey suit” to go to a meeting at the Masonic lodge. And almost every night, I would climb up into his arms and ask him when he would be staying home with us.  He always came home after we were sound asleep, and although my mother swore he never missed a night of coming in to kiss us goodnight, it doesn’t count when you’re unconscious.

When he was home, he was a lot of fun if he wasn’t lost in thought about his own endeavors. My dad loved having kids because it gave him a chance at a second (and third) childhood. From him, I learned to love roller coasters. He taught us to swim and water ski, and maneuver a go-kart.  He swung us so high in our lawn swing that he ran right under it as he pushed. He built us a magnificent tree house and then slept out under the stars with my sister and me and our friends.  

It sounds wonderful, I know. And some of it was. But what was missing was real engagement. There were no conversations. No heart to hearts. No dispensing of paternal wisdom, guidance of any sort (except “Go ask your mother”), or reassurance. His idea of engaging with his children consisted of an occasional, “What did you learn in school today” – which always felt like an unanswerable question. Opinions ventured often resulted in tears (mine). My father had a very short fuse. One memorable moment was when I proudly announced in the first grade that if I could vote for president I would vote for John F. Kennedy. Kennedy. My father’s name was Ken. In my mind, a vote for Kennedy was an endorsement of my father and I wanted him to know I admired him. Maybe that would please him. A staunch Republican, my father did not wait for my explanation about why I felt that way  – he just blew up at my stupidity at expressing a “political” opinion he saw as opposite to his correct viewpoint. I learned to be quiet but I didn’t give up. I tried to learn the Morse code in 3^rd grade so he would think I was smart and want to teach me about his radio equipment. He drilled me on the dahs and dits which I struggled to memorize and got irritated when I made mistakes. He read books on hypnosis and past life regression. I read them when he finished, hoping we could talk about them. He played the piano. I played the piano and made it my mission to learn his first piano recital piece from his childhood. I was determined that he would notice me, value me, pay attention to me. I am nothing if not tenacious.

The nearest we came to a real conversation was my 21^st birthday, which was two days before I was to be married. I hadn’t known the man very long – not even a year. He was much older than I and from a different world. The engagement was short and very stormy.  My father came to my apartment that day bearing a dozen yellow roses and said he wanted to talk to me. This was unprecedented and I was caught, unsure of how to be, embarrassed, and wanting to escape. We had had a huge fight about a boy when I was fifteen and I’d been enraged at his audacity for thinking he could suddenly assert his authority after being absent my entire childhood. Ever since that time, being alone with him felt torturous. He cleared his throat and told me that he knew the wedding was but two days away. He acknowledged that I’d had a bridal shower; the cake and flowers were set for delivery, and my dress had been picked up. However, he wanted me to know that if I wanted, if I felt it wasn’t the right thing to do, it would be ok to change my mind and not go through with it. He was acknowledging what I knew in my heart – this was not the right man for me. But years of silence and lack of real connection and trust conspired to keep me vigilant and defensive and I was simply unable to take in his words, let alone allow them to affect me. I assured him that getting married was exactly what I wanted to do. He looked at me dubiously, but said, "okay", and took his leave. The end. Almost.

* * * * *

In early January 2004, his doctor gave him 3 weeks to 3 months to live. He had cancer of the esophagus. He wasn’t ready to die. There was still so much he wanted to do, including winning a fortune on the horses. He wanted to teach me his carefully devised system of handicapping so it wouldn’t die with him. He ran out of time. I was with him most of the last 48 hours of his life. He was weak and in pain. My sister and I dripped morphine down his throat throughout his last night and whispered in his ear what a wonderful dad he’d been while his wife slept upstairs, exhausted from long nights of his restless activity. Morning came. He’d been quiet for a few hours so when his wife awakened, I went home to my mom’s to shower and get some breakfast. As I left, my dad aroused, opened his eyes, and waved goodbye to me. An hour later, his wife called to tell us he’d taken his last breath. I watched the funeral director and his son put my father in a body bag and take him away, feeling nothing. My sister and I planned the funeral service.  We made photo collages, wrote the ceremony and presided over the event, with dad’s favorite ragtime music playing in the background. He would have approved of his send-off.

* * * * *

I remember his death seven years later and feel nothing. But the 50+ year old loss? Ever present.

Cranky & Irritable

I’m cranky and I’m irritable. There are no better words to describe me at this moment…. Those who are around me on a daily basis will concur that it is, in fact, not just this moment, but lately almost every moment. To them I apologize for my poor behavior, or more to the point, my sharp tongue and my impatience. I am truly trying to control myself but I am slip-sliding.

I’m not 100% sure why this is my state. But…..

I’ve been deeply, unshakably sad for months because someone I wanted to be in my life does not want me in theirs. The post-mortems of every last one of our communications have been endless as I’ve struggled to figure out exactly where I went wrong in misreading signals and misunderstanding intentions. Some of the attraction is the residue of a childhood yearning to be loved and valued by a narcissistic parent. There is also an element of identifying with the aggressor. More than once, I have become emotionally involved with someone who really frightens me with their potential for ferocity. If I can get the one who bites on my side, then perhaps I will not be bitten. But toxic once is toxic always.  

Sugar has been a challenge. I wrote a few weeks ago about an intention to cut down, to detox myself from that sweet drug. I admit that it’s been very, very difficult. I have managed to limit my consumption of ice cream to two teaspoons at a time, no more than once a day. I pay attention to it when I eat it. And I put the carton away without too much longing. When the freezer stock of ice cream is gone, I won’t buy any more.

Except for one birthday celebration, I have avoided sugary treats at work. But every day is a battle. I get to Grand Central Terminal in the evening and have a few minutes before my train. My attention strays to the Snickers, Milky Way, Almond Joy, and Peanut M&Ms displayed in Hudson News. I pass at least three bakeries in the terminal. Cannolis, my favorite fruit tarts, cupcakes decorated like art, cheesecake, black and white cookies – they entice me to come closer. I tell myself I don’t really want them, and then I admit I’m lying. I desperately want them. I imagine they will make me feel better, soothe whatever is hurting. I can also imagine some people saying, “Oh go ahead, stop depriving yourself, life is short.” And I understand their point. But they don’t understand mine. If I give into the craving, I take steps backwards. I will just have to start over and I need to keep going, to push through this. I need to get past the point, if it exists, of thinking, believing that I will feel better if I just consume some sugar-laden delicacy. Sugar is a short-term “fix.”

Winter is the anniversary of the deaths of both of my parents. My mom died five years ago in early January; my father seven years ago in mid-February. My mom was thirty years old when I was born. When she was alive, I always considered that thirty-year difference as a kind of insurance policy. Whatever age I was, I still had thirty years before I would be her age. But now she’s gone, the policy is no longer in effect.  I wonder whether I even have another 30 years. I’m not afraid to die, unless it’s violently. It’s just that there’s so much I still want to do, I find myself feeling panicked that I’ll run out of time.

I awaken in the morning and although I used to look forward to eating breakfast and having that first cup of coffee, all I want to do is turn over and bury myself in the blankets. I used to love my work. But the cumulative effects of too many and unrelenting demands over too long a period of time in an increasingly no-win situation, too few staff (the ones I do have are FABULOUS), no positive reinforcement and little awareness of what actually happens in “a day in the life” from most have taken their toll on my body and my spirit. Someone had the audacity to say maybe I could “use” people more creatively to do the work of my department. My tongue bled though my real desire was to draw blood. I could do that creatively.  

My best friend and I talk about the earliest possible time we can retire, question whether we could retire now and survive financially (probably not), and wonder if we have sufficient emotional stamina to make it until such time as we can. She is feeling about the same as I am these days.

My “heart mother” tells me about a place in Vermont that attracts artists and craftspeople. My daughter sends me a position announcement for a job in upstate New York that she thinks would be perfect for me. [Can’t we find some place where it’s not so darned cold for half the year?] I go on realtor.com and check out the cost of real estate in warmer places. I wonder whether there is a place where the cost of living is less than where I live but where there’s enough happening to keep my interest and my neighbors don’t all hold political and social views that are polar opposites of mine. I consider and reject various parts of the country for that reason, the terrain or the weather. I’m not afraid of uprooting myself, of going where I know no one. I’ve done that before. But I also know better than to believe in the geographical cure. And as if to caution me, there is an article on line this morning about moving where taxes are lower. The comments to the article are vehement in pointing out what citizens give up in services to get lower taxes. Sadly, there is no easy solution. 

Still something needs to change, whether it's circumstances or something inside me. A friend from my co-op, now happily retired, and I used to walk together in nice weather and talk about our upcoming “dreads” for each week. Once the “dreads” were isolated events…. Now they are full days.

I’ll figure it out. I’m pretty resourceful. I’ll stop the wheels from spinning before the tires blow out. I must.