“Excuse me?”
“Yes, Frieda?”
“I can’t unbuckle my seatbelt.” I leaned over and extricated her. “I can’t open my door, either.” I did the honours. When we entered the hall I delivered Frieda’s lengthy allergy scroll and her EpiPen to troop leaders Bubbles and Rainbow. I thought they took it pretty well, considering the fact that they’re volunteers, not the staff of a pediatric ER. They did have one question for me, though: “Did Frieda’s mother sign the consent form we sent home last week?”
“What consent form?”
“The one giving the children permission to sing at the nursing home next Monday. See?” She pulled one out of Kristen’s coat pocket. Jan had signed it. “If she forgets to send it in, Frieda won’t be able to go.”
“I’ll let her know when I see her later.”
After Beavers and skating ended I chauffeured the girls home. When we got to Frieda's house I unbuckled her seatbelt, opened her door and walked her to the front porch. Several knocks later, her mother appeared.
“When you take Frieda next week, don’t forget to bring her permission slip for singing at the nursing home,” I reminded her.
“Would you mind taking her next week? My husband’s going to be out of town again.”
“Okay.”
After I drove Frieda home the next week she said, “Thank you,” and then quickly added: “My mom said to ask you if I’d be able to get a ride again next Monday.”
“Sure Frieda, we’ll see you then.” She made the same request the following week. And the week after that. And the week after that, too… . Finally, one night I went in and asked Martha, “Didn’t you say that she’d only need a ride every second week?”
“Oh, yes, I did, but since then my husband’s schedule has changed. Now he’s away every Monday. I hope that’s all right with you.” No it’s not all right, it’s bloody inconvenient!
“Well, I guess so. When did you say your car would be repaired?”
“Um… we decided not to go ahead and get it fixed after all. We’ve put it away for the winter.” Wonderful.
So Frieda became a permanent part of our Monday evening routine. Kristen would fetch her at 5:45. Ellen would buckle her in and off we’d go. You just never knew what little misadventure Frieda was going to have. Most of the time she didn’t have her permission slips. She often forgot to wear her winter boots. On the days she did have her boots, she usually forgot to bring her indoor shoes. Once our automatic garage door surprised her and she screeched like a miniature banshee. I’m guessing she had never seen one before. Amish much? Another time her mother gave her $15 to bring to the Beaver troop leaders and she somehow managed to lose it during the 30-second walk from her house to ours. That night Jan and I fretted over whether we should pay it for her. Fortunately, Kristen found the missing money on the road the following morning. On one occasion Beavers was held an hour earlier than usual because the hall was going to be used for some other function between 6:00 and 7:00. I notified Martha of the schedule change weeks in advance. The pickup at 5:00 went smoothly. When I returned to drop Frieda off a few minutes past 6:00, her house was dark and deserted. I asked her where she thought her mother might be.
“Probably at church,” was her response. On a Monday night?
“Which church do you go to?”
“The one with the cross on it.”
I had no choice but to take her to the arena with us. Normally I read medical journals while my girls skate. Not that day!
“Excuse me, can I run over there?”
“Sure, Frieda.”
Two minutes later: “Excuse me, can I run over there again?”
“Sure.”
“Excuse me, can I hop down those stairs?”
“Go for it, Frieda.”
“Excuse me, do you think my mom will be home when skating finishes?”
“I sure hope so.”
“Excuse me, I’m getting cold.”
“Here, Frieda, you can wear my coat.”
“Thank you! My hands are cold, too.”
“Would you like to borrow my mitts?”
“Thanks!”
“No problem.”
“Um… .”
“Yes, Frieda?”
“I have to pee.”
Sigh… .
A couple of months ago Frieda set the record straight regarding the nefarious Harry Potter.
“Excuse me?”
“Yes, Frieda?”
“You know the Harry Potter movie?”
“Yes?”
“It belongs to SATAN.”
“What?”
“It belongs to SATAN.”
“Well, we sure liked it.”
“Oh. Was it funny?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Oh. I never saw it.”
Last week Frieda’s family pulled up stakes and left our small town in search of greener pastures. On the morning of their departure Frieda came over with a batch of freshly baked cookies and a homemade thank-you card. Inside the card was a crayon drawing of me and four little girls driving down the road in a minivan. The girls were all holding hands, and everyone looked happy. Even the sun was smiling.
We’re going to miss you, Frieda.
Chiaroscuro (Light and Dark)
What’s worse, preparing incessantly for a war that never comes, or maintaining a state of blissful ignorance and getting caught flatfooted when the bombs start falling?
Educating my children about racism may help reduce its sting when they finally encounter it firsthand, but it will also hasten their loss of innocence. I’ve always been of the opinion that if my kids have to learn certain unpalatable truths about race relations, I’d rather they get the facts from me than from some bozo on the playground. I can mete out the required information in carefully measured doses, which is obviously far superior to having someone unexpectedly dump the entire toxic payload on them in one fell swoop.
Gradual desensitization makes more sense than abrupt immersion, doesn’t it? Sure it does. Unless… . Unless the anticipated immersion never occurs. What if I’m preparing them for something that’s never going to happen?
I’m black and my wife is white. Although our three daughters are of mixed racial heritage, history tells us that society will view them as black. Jan and I aren’t sure about how best to prepare them to cope with racism. I favour taking a no-holds-barred, worst-case-scenario approach and teaching them everything up front. She prefers the concept of letting them gradually come to their own conclusions.
I don’t want my daughters to develop an unnecessarily jaundiced view of the world, but I don’t want to see them get blindsided, either. What’s better, idealism or pragmatism? Should I hope for the best or plan for the worst? Tough choices. But then, no one ever said parenting was going to be easy.
Lost in Translation
“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”
- Captain, Road Prison 36, Cool Hand Luke
I have a patient named Irmgard who doesn’t speak any English. The first time I saw her in the office she brought her friend Roy to translate. The conversation went something like this:
“Hi, I’m Dr. Gray.”
“Roy.” He shook my hand, then pointed at his comrade. “Irmgard,” he said. She waved. I waved back.
“Could you please ask her what’s wrong today?”
They conversed in their language for a while, then Roy turned to me and said something like: “Hibida bibida pain hibida vonch stomach hibida shrek tang two weeks.”
“ What?”
“Hibida bibida pain hibida vonch stomach hibida shrek tang two weeks.”
“Um…She’s been having pain in her stomach for two weeks?”
“Yes.”
“Has she ever had this before?”
They spoke again. He looked at me and shook his head, “No.”
“Has she had any change in her weight or blood in her stools?”
They conferred. At length he told me: “Hibida bibida same stretch munch nona lollapalooza.”