Different but Same

A few weeks ago my son shared with me that the parents of a girl in his first grade class visited his class. They talked about how she was adopted from another country, they explained her physical disability, and explained that she is more the same than different. My son shared more details about this visit than anything else that has happened all year. So, when I dropped my son off at school this morning at the exact same time as this girl’s mom I was compelled to talk with her mom. Another compelling moment :o) I had to thank her for teaching my son and let her know how much he enjoyed it. I got choked up and fought back the tears, apologizing in the process.

I’ve been striving to teach my children about “different but same” their entire young lives. After I got to my car I was able to process our brief interaction. So, why was I emotional? As an advocate of children I realized it had nothing to do with my child, but for all children. I wish that all children had such loving, devoted parents who could take time out of their day to teach and explain their child’s unique, sometimes challenging life, to their peers.

So the next time you find yourself thinking that something or someone is the same but different try rethinking it or them as different but same. There is no need to fear each other’s differences, but rather to embrace them.

Maybe this extra exam I need to take won’t be so bad after all. Today I’m feeling like a school counselor again.

Tzefuncte

I feel like I’m overdue for a blog post, but the truth is that I feel tzefuncte. My mom was a brilliant Scrabble player, a human dictionary really, and this was her word. It sounds Yiddish to me so I can understand why many of you may not know the meaning. I’ll give you a one-word international definition: blah.

In spite of the warmer, sunnier weather this past week, I am ready for spring’s arrival, but that will have to wait as we get about six inches of snow by tomorrow. I’m having a bit of grad school remorse, wondering what I really want to be when I grow up and to add to that I found out today that I have to take another exam in order to obtain my school counseling license in Wisconsin. I hate standardized tests.

That’s all the complaining I care to share.

So, tonight I’ll eat some ice cream, watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and remember that, “Some days are like that, even in Australia.”

On a related note: Please make a donation and make me run… http://main.acsevents.org/goto/darialeith

American Cancer Society

9/20/07

It was 3 years and 5 months ago today that my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. It was the day after my birthday, my daughter was just shy of her first birthday, and I had started grad school a mere two weeks earlier. When I got the call (on my cell phone) confirming what I feared was true, I was walking out the door to take my kids (then 11 ½ months and 4 ½ years old) on walk. There was no time for tears, there was no time for asking “why” questions.

October 2008

Unfortunately I knew why. My mom was an extremely heavy smoker, up until 13 years prior to being diagnosed...she quit “cold turkey” after her father passed away just three weeks after being diagnosed with stomach cancer. A vivid memory of my childhood is of being in the car with my mom who would drive with the window cracked, even in the dead of winter. The window was always open, it was never a “weather permitting” act. I remember coughing loud and exaggerated asking her to put out her cigarette and close the window.

For the second year in a row I am running in the American Cancer Society’s local run/walk in April. Please visit my fundraising page to read how the American Cancer Society helped my mom and to consider making a donation of $5 or more. Thank you. 

http://main.acsevents.org/goto/darialeith

Sweet Sixteen

Humidity and Wind Chill: Two side effects of the south and north

The other day some one asked me how long I lived in Alabama and if it was humid. After living there for six and a half years I didn’t let myself complain that it was too humid unless the millisecond I walked outside my palms started sweating or if I took a minimum of two showers in one day because I was stinkin’ sweaty.

I moved to Wisconsin eleven years ago yearning for the return of the four seasons I grew up with; spring, summer, fall, and winter opposed to the four seasons I adapted to in Alabama; humid/too hot to go outside, football, perfect weather (that one really lasted for 2 seasons :o)

Up here I don’t let myself complain it’s too cold until I walk outside and my nostril hairs freeze instantly upon my first inhale outside…like this morning. Today I found myself telling my daughter that it “warmed up to 0 degrees” – what an oxyomoron.

It’s all about layering…

The Power of the “Written” Word

After a friend unexpectedly passed away last Monday a blog was created to share memories of this amazing man who died too young; he was 46 years old. Many people shared conversations they had with him through this blog, myself being one of them. I found it both comforting and eerie when going through emails I found a perfect quote that he wrote about another person who unexpectedly died too soon and too young.

This past week I have thought a lot about my mom’s death. She died from lung cancer in June 2009. She was only 64 years old, also too young. But I had a nearly two year warning that she was likely to die too young and too soon. For a week after her death I stayed in her home in Florida alone, with the mission of finding what I called her treasures. Not the treasures of jewelry or even photographs, but of the written words she left behind.

My mom was a writer, a poet, and a human dictionary.  I knew she had written poems while she lived with cancer. I had the conversation with her many times how I planned to do something with these poems after she was gone. I’m still processing what and how to do it, but I truly believe I have each poem she even wrote and kept.

Having her written word and that of my friend is more personal than having photographs. It’s proof that they were here, had their own thoughts and style of expression.

After my mom died I pressured myself to journal again, not for me, but for my children so that long after I am gone they will have my thoughts in my own handwriting. At some point I had to stop beating myself up and just do what works best for me, some handwriting and some typing. Each of these blog entries I first type and save on my laptop. “They” say anything typed on the Internet is permanent, but what if my future grandchildren can’t find it?

Compelling Moments

Yesterday after rushing to the side of a friend and her son after hearing of the sudden death of her partner of 13 years and my friend of 4 years I thought about the few other times in my life I was compelled to move so quickly.

There were the times (two different times and people) I was on the phone with a relative listening to them cry, trying to comfort them…two people I had never heard cry before. Immediately upon hanging up the phone with one I bought plane tickets and the other time I borrowed a car and was out the door within an hour driving through the night to be by their side. The only other time I can recall feeling so compelled was when a dear friend shared with me via Facebook that she had just had a miscarriage. I typed two words, deleted them, closed my laptop and found myself in her house a mere 5 minutes later.

What it comes down to is simple: you can only feel a hug in person.

Comfort Food

I have had the privilege of living in three distinctly different regions of the country. I was born and raised in the Northeast, went to college in the South, and have lived in the Midwest now for over a decade, the region where both of my children were born. I miss things from each region I no longer call home, but it all centers around one thing…FOOD! If you’ve never lived in varying regions you may have no idea how regional food is.

For starters depending upon your personal experience you may have no idea what a knish is. I miss potato knishes, even kasha knishes, but mostly potato. Heck I can’t even find kasha in a grocery store here. So, after many weeks of cravings I decided to make potato knishes in my very own kitchen. I have to admit I impressed myself immensely. It didn’t rival those of NYC street vendors, but it tasted enough like Waldbaums where I happily ate all four…but not in one sitting.

But then there are corn muffins. I am surrounded by corn fields (not literally, oh that would be frightening to me to look around and not be able to see over my head). Every August I buy some of the sweetest corn I’ve ever tasted, grown just down the road and bought off of a pick up truck in a bowling alley parking lot. Yes, you read that right. For the past two summers I have even shucked, scraped, blanched, and frozen thousands of kernels to eat during the long winters. Very Midwestern of me, I’ve been told (also buying a ¼ of a cow put me in this category, but that’s for another time). But to the corn; I’ve yet to freeze enough to last that long though, thankfully Bird’s Eye and Green Giant are sold in the freezer section. But corn muffins? Nowhere to be found?! So, after succeeding at potato knishes I bought some corn meal and made corn muffins. Besides I’m good at baking….cookies. I ate half a muffin and threw the other eleven straight in the garbage as I mourned Stew Leonard’s.

Then there are other foods I wouldn’t even attempt to cook in my kitchen, knowing there’s no chance I could fulfill my taste buds’ and stomach’s desires. PIZZA. Sure there’s a pizza place on every corner, but nothing that even resembles New York pizza, NYC pizza that is….years ago I learned New York is a vast enough state to have more than one “type” of pizza. DONUTS. If the country runs on Dunkin’ then where’s my Dunkin Donuts!?!? DELCIOUS ITALIAN FOOD. Warning: If Olive Garden falls into this category for you I’m sorry. Now I enjoy Olive Garden, but it doesn’t fulfill my want for delicious chicken parmigan, meatballs, or baked ziti. Although I do make all three in my kitchen it’s not the same. BAGELS. Just thinking about it makes me sad. Not a single bagel place here or where I lived in the South could stay in business long enough. <sigh>

Sorry Southern states the only food I really miss is Mexican…that’s right I have found no rival to Pepito’s. Then again that may simply because of half-priced margaritas on Tuesdays and the many memories made there with great college friends.

So, not only can I not afford the real estate back east, but I can’t afford to gain five pounds a week eating to my heart’s content. That’s right, two years ago I fulfilled all my cravings during a weeklong visit and gained 5 pounds.

Thankfully Haagan Daz and Ben and Jerry’s can be found in grocery stores nationally. Carvel though, nowhere in sight and every birthday I mourn the loss of yet another birthday celebrated sans a Carvel Cake.

I think I’ll go eat a brat now. Oh wait, I don’t like brats. I miss Hebrew National bullet bologna eaten on an Arnold roll. Speaking of rolls, how hard is it to make a decent hard roll, put some butter on it………