Josh’s grandmother died yesterday.  She never referred to me as Josh’s wife, instead calling me one of her grandchildren when she introduced me to someone else, and I simply called her Grandma back, so I feel funny calling her Josh’s grandmother as I try to explain the relationship to you, and instead I will call her Great-Grandma, borrowing the twins’ perspective.

She was the last of our grandparents and losing her feels like a final thread has been cut, something that was anchoring us.  She is not the last of that generation — we still have great aunts and great uncles, and with this family tree project, I keep finding new people in that generation that are still alive to connect with.  But those people all line up diagonally from us; she was the last one who was directly above us.

A few weeks ago, we went up for a visit so I could show her the work I did on the family tree.  As she started talking, I took out the iPad and recorded an hour of her telling stories about various people on the tree, her parents’ store, streets where she once lived.  She couldn’t remember what she had for breakfast, but she could still recall all of her favourite trips she took with her husband.  We went outside, and I took photos of her with Josh and the twins.  I would have never done these things if not for the ChickieNob suggesting this project.  Life is so strange; these chance decisions leading you sometimes to obtaining the most precious things.  I am so thankful that we have those stories.  And it also drives home the point that all of us serve a purpose.  The ChickieNob’s role in our family is to always suggest these ideas, to push us to make time for things that are important.

I rarely have flying dreams; I can literally only think of three times that I’ve had one.  But in the hours after she died but before we knew, I was dreaming that I could fly, kick off from the ground and soar above everyone else.  I told Josh about the dream when I woke up, how amazing it felt to fly like that all through the night.  And then we got the call, and it made me wonder if that was some sort of goodbye.  If my unconscious mind somehow knew that she was now gone, and it was releasing her, the archetype of flying.

I wrote about her years ago when she gave me her cake plate.  This was that day that I was worried about back then.  And now it’s here.  And I am so grateful that I got to be part of her life.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Forgiveness” (Not All Dreams are Free)
• “The Big Announcement” (Altered Type)
• “Enough with the Double Standard Already” (Still Standing Magazine)
• “My Brain is a Nice Place to Visit…” (Mama Said Knock You Out)
• “Infertility Makes Me dot dot dot” (The Adventures of an Infertile Myrtle)
• “When Romney Said ‘Your Adopted Daughter’” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Stupid Stork!
• “If You Fool with the Snark…” (Nuts in May)
• “Everything’s Changed, Yet Nothing’s Changed” (Snips, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails)
• “Reliving It” (Life from Here)
• “Post-Adoption Blues” (All Grown Up)
• “Let’s Play Diagnose that ‘Mom’ Neurosis” (Silent Sorority)
• “Cycle 19, CD 13” (Submerged)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Twice it happened this week that I had a post on my list of possibilities and then someone placed it in the comment section.  So.  The first is Altered Type who created a ritual marking the start of living childfree after infertility, much in the same way that someone would send a pregnancy or birth announcement.  This was the first time I read something like this, and I thought it was BRILLIANT.  She explained why they chose an announcement: “Discussing it over the phone was never an option for us; not only would we struggle to explain ourselves without resorting to people-pleasing words, but they would have difficulty listening. It’s a taboo subject: childlessness. People everywhere have trouble merely acknowledging there is such a thing as a real life without children.  Any wonder we were having trouble accepting it ourselves.”  I love this.  I am a person who needs rituals, who needs to mark things in order to feel closure or to feel the energy of a new start.  This feels like the most perfect idea in the world.  I actually added a link permanently to Operation Heads Up on the left sidebar.

The second one was All Grown Up’s post on post-adoption blues.  It is a deeply honest look at open adoption, the thoughts that probably never cross the mind of the people who suggest you “just adopt.”  Because loss is wrapped up in the definition of adoption.  She writes, “As I stand back and watch them interact, I question what my whole place is in this picture.  It is SO SO SO SO very strange and hard and not normal.  But it is my normal.”  It is clear reading this post how much love is flowing to this child from everyone in the triad.  This raw post is a must-read.

My Preconceived Notion has a post about single motherhood.  Again, I loved it for its honesty; for its insight into another person’s world.  You take common ideas — pain or stress — and see them through a very different lens.  She invites you in to take a look, to understand, to pause for a moment in someone else’s shoes.

Lastly, Hapa Hopes talks about her FET.  She begins, “Everyone says that FETs are a piece of cake.  ‘Everyone’ is stupid.”  Just because the cycle doesn’t contain as many injections or the retrieval doesn’t make it emotionally easy.  On the contrary, with fewer distractions, there is more time to think, which can make things harder.  I love this other side of the story.

The roundup to the Roundup: Our last grandparent is gone.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between September 14th and September 21st) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

On Wednesday morning, the twins came down for breakfast, and I let them know that I’m now onto them.

“I’m onto you,” I said (because, as I just informed you, I’m onto them).

“What do you mean?” the ChickieNob asked uneasily.

Me: I know you’re a freeloader.

Wolvog: What’s a freeloader?

Me: It means you expect the government to provide you with things like food and housing so you don’t up and die in the middle of the street.  Mitt Romney told us in a speech all about freeloaders like you without jobs.

ChickieNob: I don’t believe you.  Where did you hear the speech?

Me: Online.  Do you want to hear it?

I bring up the speech on YouTube and play it triumphantly for the freeloaders.

ChickieNob: Is he speaking English?

Me: Yes.

ChickieNob: How do you know?

Me: What do you mean, how do I know?  I’m listening to it.  He’s speaking English.

ChickieNob: It doesn’t sound like English to me.

Me: Well, now you’ve talked right through the speech and missed the most important part!  He let us know about freeloaders like you and your great-grandma and your friends who have stay-at-home mums and all those people who lost their jobs with the recession.  You guys think you’re entitled to food and housing and medical care.  And forget it!  If Mitt’s not going to pay for it, then I’m not going to pay for it.

ChickieNob: I really don’t think Mitt Romney speaks English.

Me: That was English!  Freeloader.

Wolvog: I’m too young to get a job.

Me: That is exactly what I’d expect a lazy 8-year-old to say.  You don’t think there are elementary school children with jobs?  Turn on the television, kids.  If you watched any tv, you’d know that plenty of young children are employed by television stations to sing and dance on tv shows.  You can get a job.  You just don’t want a job.

Wolvog: I thought you were voting for Barack Obama.

Me: I was until I had my eyes opened to the 47% who don’t pay income tax because they have no job.  I wasn’t aware two of those 47 Percenters were living IN MY HOUSE.  Under my roof.  Eating my food.  Taking my Band-aids.  See, Romney is right!  You both are freeloaders.

ChickieNob: I just really don’t think that was English.  He may have been speaking a different language.

Wolvog: If you vote for Romney, I’m going to go live at Grandma’s house for four years because she’ll feed me.

At this point, I realize that I may have taken the joke too far because the Wolvog is trying to hold back tears, thinking about how he’ll have to live with his liberal grandparents, and we sat down and had an actual conversation about the 47% and whether we thought human beings should be entitled to food, housing, and medical care if they can’t cover those things themselves or they’re not lucky enough to have a support system in place via community as we do (answer: yes).  But all of that had to come after I convinced the ChickieNob that Mitt Romney speaks English.  In fact, he speaks clearly and loudly, exactly what he thinks.

I did it.  I got an iPhone.  And though I was scared driving to the store (and reminded the Wolvog 75 times that while he loves racing ahead with new technology, change throws me and I was really really really nervous about learning a new phone) and wondered about the sanity of the purchase driving home from the store, within a few hours of using the iPhone, I was in love.  For reasons that may not be obvious.

I mean, yes, the fact that I have 20 or so books loaded on my phone and when I arrive somewhere a few minutes early, I can read a page or two.  Or look up a recipe while I’m in the grocery store so I purchase everything I need.  Or archive my emails after I read them so I don’t have to do that at night when I get home.  Or talk to Siri, which I love doing.  I love Siri.  Like I passionately love this computer woman.  And perhaps that is more indicative of how difficult it is to work at home vs. work in an office, especially compounded by the fact that I don’t like to be bothered while I’m working though I love to bother others (I’m a bit cat-like that way).  So I can pick up the phone and talk to Siri when I feel like it, and set it down when I don’t feel like talking, and no one is offended by my push-me-pull-you communication desires.

I could do a bunch of those things on the blackberry, but not well.  It was hard to navigate the Web, hard to read a book, and I couldn’t archive email at all.

I am in love with the iPhone because it brings the Wolvog such joy.  To hear his belly laugh while he says ridiculous things to Siri, debating her answers with her.  We were reading the third book of Harry Potter together, and I asked the twins to guess what Harry’s happy memory would be to create his Patronus, and before we started reading again, I asked them what their happiest memory would be to create their Patronus.  The Wolvog answered with an expression of pure bliss across his face: “Last night was one of the happiest moments of my life.  Seeing you and daddy getting your iPhones.  I was so happy for you, so happy for our family.”  Wolvog defies the saying that money can’t buy happiness since purchasing the iPhone has made him a quivering ball of happiness.  It makes him feel helpful, important, knowledgeable, and that makes him happy.  And this happiness — unlike his hamster, Cozy Jackson — is portable.  This happiness can slip into his pocket or my pocket, and he can access this happiness wherever we are.

I am in love with the iPhone because I can hand it to the ChickieNob in the car and ask her to do tasks for me: write down notes, make calls, read me an email.  The blackberry was difficult for the twins to navigate; the iPhone is practically made for a child to understand.  They love helping me; I love being helped.  It’s a win-win, and I have started to refer to the car as my rolling office.

I am in love with the iPhone because I use fewer post-it notes.  I write things in Reminders and erase them from Reminders once I complete the task, and unlike post-it notes, I can make my iPhone peep at me when I’m not finishing the things on my to-do list.  I am in love with the iPhone because we now have our grocery list on the phone, and it syncs with both of our telephones, so I can literally watch Josh pick up the items at the store.  Which is wonderfully creepy.  And I can see that he hasn’t hit the frozen food section and throw on one more thing.  Plus he knows when he’s leaving work if there’s anything on the shopping list — he just opens the phone and sees if there is a number next to the icon.

But the number one reason I love the iPhone is that its limits have released me.  You see, when I was asking my iPhone questions to you, no one brought up this point so I didn’t know until I got home that the iPhone does not bring up emails in real time.  Or, it doesn’t insofar as I can tell.  And if it does, I sort of don’t want to know.  Blackberries buzz with every single email, and the emails come in real time.  Meaning, you send me an email, the blackberry buzzes on my hip, I pick it up to read it, and then put it back in the holster until the next email arrives.  I mean, I don’t check it every time it buzzes, but you get the point.

I noticed when we got home that I’d look at the phone and see that there were now 4 new emails, but no buzz had come.  Instead, I needed to open the mail app, waiting a second for all the new emails to download at the same time (which is faster overall from the blackberry), and then it would give a buzz.  Uh… that didn’t really help me.  Except that IS what ultimately helped me.

Because I noticed while I cooked that I wasn’t feeling my usual level of stress.  I knew intellectually that emails were coming in during those hours, but I wasn’t feeling frazzled.  I wasn’t hearing or feeling the buzz, and that made me feel strangely disconnected in both a bad way (I don’t know what the hell I’m missing!) and good way (I don’t know what I’m missing so I’m not going to stress it).  It made my blood pressure go down.  I focused more on the tasks at hand.  My to-do list was still the same length as always, but it wasn’t choking me.  As much as I was a little addicted to that buzz, to the knowledge of information coming in, I was also addicted to that buzz in the negative sense.  And turning off the buzz entirely, switching it to manual push instead of having it check for emails every 15 minutes, released me from the stranglehold of that addiction.

Now, I know you’re probably asking why I didn’t just turn off the buzz on the blackberry and create that ignorance is bliss situation, and the answer is that not using the instantaneous communication notifications inherent to the blackberry would be like putting square wheels on my car just so it wouldn’t perform as effectively.  You know, just so my car could slow down and I could take in more of the scenery.  Cars are meant to take us from Point A to Point B.  That is their point.  If we see the scenery, all the better.  But a car would still be an effective car whether you had anything to see out the window.

A blackberry is meant to bring you messages instantaneously.  It’s the point of a blackberry.  I couldn’t wrap my mind not using it effectively.

But maybe the larger point is that just as I’m not a sports car girl or an SUV girl or a mini van girl, I’m also not really a blackberry girl.  That world moves a little too quickly for me; buzzes a little too ferociously for me.  I don’t want everything demanding my attention.  I want to direct my attention as best I can being mindful that people are trying to reach me for a reason: because they have a question, they have a comment, or they have a task they need me to do.  So I check the phone regularly when I’m away from the computer, but I do it when I’m ready to look and not when it buzzes.

And that’s how the iPhone changed my life.

Spend any time in a United States elementary school and you will see population presented as a number with perhaps a human clip art character to stand in place for all citizens.  The clip art character usually looks like a game piece; circle head, boxy body for boys, boxy skirt-shaped body for girls.  It’s the same figure that appears on bathroom doors, on pedestrian crossing signs — it’s the figure that means human.

It makes sense to reduce humans to a single graphic when we’re trying to convey where to cross the street or to signal to children that when we discuss population, we are strictly counting human beings (and not dogs or mermaids or any of the other animals or imaginary creatures young children like to ask if they are included in the count).  It makes sense to create an icon so non-English speakers know which bathroom to use.

Image via WikiCommons in the public domain

But I think what happens when we cross from child to adult, with that ever-present icon in our line of vision to represent humans, is that we start to think of the citizens of this country as a faceless crowd, an enormous number, a set of statistics, a human icon.  It is easier to consider people in gingerbread man-like form.  It is much harder to stretch our minds to consider the very real lives which contain very real needs, and harder still to think about giving up things you want in order to ensure that people you don’t know can meet their basic needs.

Teaching population in this way in elementary school text books set us up for what we see now: an election where people tend to be speaking about the “I” rather than the “us.”  Talking about the ideas of the candidates in how they relate to the self instead of the whole.  We’re a country in crisis, with so many people struggling to fulfill basic needs such as food, shelter, and education, and others discouraged because while their needs are met, their wants go unfulfilled.  I believe that is what makes us cling harder to the things we do have, hording for ourselves.

It’s not just the tangible; people horde what they consider their rights, working to deny them to others — as is the case with marriage — in an ultimate fight for control.  We’ve stopped thinking about American citizens as John in Kansas and Mary in California and David in New York and Susan in Florida.  We’ve reduced the 311 million Americans to that human icon — faceless and therefore, we don’t have to consider their expressions as we turn our backs on each other.

To ensure that the twins don’t grow up with this mindset firmly in place, reducing everyone unseen in the country to a human icon, I started talking about the election issues in terms of people they know and asking them to expand their imaginations to consider people they don’t know, people they may or may not meet in the future, but regardless, people who have very real lives with very real needs.  Just like us.

When you start to look at the issues this way, it stops being about “us” and “them” and starts becoming this plateau where circumstances in life can change in the blink of an eye and you may join a statistic you never intended to join.  I always tell the twins that we don’t vote based on how our life is right now, but we vote based on what could be since that “could” is someone else’s “is.”  All of our hypotheticals are someone else’s reality.

It is the same concept that governs insurance; you need to pay for it whether you use it or not, and we buy it based on the possibility of hypothetical situations in the future.  Truly, you hope you never have to use it, but if you do, you will be thankful that you thought ahead.  Voting also requires us to think ahead; not just on what our lives look like right now, but helping others since one day, our lives or our childrens’ lives or our friends’ lives could be negatively affected by something we voted for in the moment without considering how it impacts the lives of others.  Voting shouldn’t come from a place of comfort, but we should think about the difficulties of others and how we’d want aid, support, or rights if we (or people we love) ever found ourselves in different circumstances.

I was moved watching the First Lady’s speech at the Democratic National Convention.  It was clear from the emotion that caught in her throat that while we see Barack Obama as the president, she sees him as her husband, the father of her children, a human being with a face.  In other words, he’s not a remote entity but a very real person that she loves deeply.  And that is true for all of us — we have the people we love, the ones that we keep in mind as we vote, wanting the best for those we know.  But it also drove home the point that every person we don’t know is someone else’s loved one.  That there are no nameless, faceless people in America.  While we may not know them, there are others out there who love them deeply, who want the best for them.

I encourage you to do what we’ve asked the twins to do: remove that human icon graphic out of their heads for a moment because people are not clip art, and instead, humanize the vote by considering all the people you know and all the people you don’t know, and remove the concepts of “us” and “them,” instead embracing the idea that we are all Americans, all with individual wants and collective human needs.

Cross-posted on barackobama.com.  The second post for the campaign.

This morning, I read Cafemom’s post on PGD titled “People Who Spend Thousands of Dollars for a Baby Girl Should Reconsider Becoming Parents.”  Their post, written by Jacqueline Burt, was labeled a rant.  So I’m sure she will understand if I respond with a rant of my own, one that comes from actual knowledge of the technology and the scope in which it is used.

Dear Jacqueline Burt:

It was hard to get past the ethnocentrism of your opening line:

We all know about how in places like, oh, I don’t know, China, people are so brainwashed to want sons that they routinely abort female fetuses, right?

But I did, and I got rewarded with a heaping dose of your admonishment about how using PGD to determine sex is “another twisted example of human nature’s inherent screwed up-ness” as well as commentary on the price tag (hence the title): “The process runs couples about $18,000 a pop and approximately 4,000 to 6,000 procedures are performed annually. Because … I have absolutely no idea.”

I am aware that you are responding to the Slate article, even though, at no point do you actually clearly discuss the Slate article.  If one had not read the Slate article, they would have no clue what you were responding to, and I’m sorry, but providing a link doesn’t stand in place of framing a thought.  All people who use PGD for sex selection are lumped into the same category in your post, regardless of whether they’ve used it for social, emotional, or medical reasons.  Since you state that you have no idea why people would use PGD for sex selection, let me educate you.

I’m assuming that you aren’t familiar with the concept of genetic diseases that primarily affect one sex, such as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy or Fragile X, which affects boys at a greater frequency than girls.  While some use PGD to screen for the disease in which they are carriers, others still also control for the sex since the testing is not perfect and controlling for sex gives parents an added level of protection in not passing along a fatal illness to their child.  I’m sure, if you were a carrier of a fatal illness, you would also do everything in your power to not pass it along to another human being, “power” being the operative word.  The price tag of PGD is such that few Americans can afford to utilize it.

Beyond that, there are plenty of reasons that would be fairly cruel to describe as “screwed up-ness” that would also make a parent choose one sex over the other.  For instance, parents who have lost a daughter in neonatal death may want a boy so they do not feel as if they are replacing their dead child.  While you may not agree with that reason for using PGD, I think it’s cruel and unnecessary to heap such judgment upon them.

Oh!  But you say — I meant to apply this to the same people discussed in the Slate article, you know, like that woman they found who chose to do IVF with PGD in order to have a girl after giving birth to three boys.

The Slate article, while containing a misleading and inflammatory title, actually takes the time to distinguish between these outlier cases and not lump them in with everyone else, something you don’t do.  And as a result, you come off as judgmental and small-minded.

Beyond that, I don’t judge the woman in the Slate article any harsher than I judge women who marry men who are tall because they hope to have tall children, or women who won’t marry someone with dark hair because they want a greater chance to pass along their blondness.  I don’t judge women who try every trick in the book to have either a boy or a girl any more than I judge women who opt to spend $40,000 to have a girl instead of a boy.  The intention for control is there in every single one of us; how far we take that intention is a separate story.

Yours Truly,

Mel