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Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Advocacy

The funeral By Delinda McCann

6/29/2018

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Life is full of sad days. Some are sadder than others. I woke in the dark and mentally went over my arrangements for my husband’s memorial. I had the music selected. His business partner and our son-in-law would speak. Our youngest daughter volunteered to read scripture. The caterers had confirmed.
 
I hauled my body out of bed and went searching for my lists. I’d mailed reminders about the time and date to those I thought would feel left-out if they didn’t receive extra attention—mostly his family. I counted the number of replies against the numbers I’d given the caterer. I showered, did my hair up on top of my head and wished it was thicker, or had more body. 

The sky grew lighter, but thick heavy clouds hid the sun. The clouds looked as dark and heavy as I felt. I skipped breakfast, feeling too heavy and weighted down to eat. I dressed in black—black stockings, black dress. My good black pumps felt loose on my feet. Had even my feet lost weight over the past three months as I watched the love of my life or the bane of my existence, depending on his mood, drift away to a new world and a new reality? 

The time came for my son-in-law to pick me up. We took my car because my children would need their rental to return them to the airport at the end of the day. I’d drive home alone.

We rode in silence to the church. The pastor greeted me with a hug and took me to her office to coordinate the last minute details and have a time of prayer. My children joined me and passed around more hugs. The ravaged grief on the faces of my beloved children hurt almost as much as the raw exhaustion around the empty bleeding hole inside me. 

I opened the door to the pastors office and stood where I could see my my husband’s brothers arrive, but they appeared to be late. My closest family huddled around me. Finally, five minutes later than we were scheduled to start, I shrugged and turned to the pastor. “We can’t wait longer. Other people have commitments later. We better get started. They’re probably stuck in traffic.” 

The service was lovely. The choir outdid themselves on a gospel arrangement of Glory Land. The eulogies were perfect. I turned, hoping to see my husband’s brothers. Surely, they would want to say a few words about their brother. They hadn’t arrived. My brother spoke about what an excellent brother my husband had been to him. Friends, clients, and coworkers took turns saying kind words. Finally, the trumpet player stood, held his horn to his lips and signaled the end of the service and the end of a life by playing Copeland’s Fanfare for a Common Man. Now, I had only the reception to get through.

We recessed. I stood to receive guests with my daughters. My eldest took my arm to guide me to the correct place to stand. “Where are the cousins from Dad’s side?”

I looked at the approaching crowd. “Didn’t they arrive? His brothers aren’t here. Something terrible must have happened on the way here.” I pictured a car accident or a heart attack. Maybe they ran afoul of a mass shooter on a freeway overpass. It must be something horrible to keep his family away. I twisted the lace on my sleeve. I had given them the correct time and address, hadn’t I?

My son-in-law stepped behind me. “Give me your phone, I’ll call so we know what happened.” 

I smiled and hugged neighbors who tried to say comforting things on their way to the buffet. I tried to hear my son-in-law on the phone. “Oh. Oh, I understand. We expected…we were just worried.”

I hugged friends from our brunch group at church. My son-in-law leaned forward. “Hal’s at a golf tournament. He doesn’t know where his kids are.” 

I nodded and wanted to scowl, but turned to hug my niece. “What a comfort to have you here today.”

“He was always there for us.” My niece moved on to be replaced by a former client.

“He was the most caring doctor I’ve ever had. We’ll miss him.”

Another face appeared, another hug. “You take care of yourself. You’ve had a rough three months.” I remembered this face. She was one of the hospice volunteers. She moved on.

My son-in-law leaned close to me. “I just talked to Tracy. They forgot the service was today. Her folks went to a company picnic.”

My eyebrows flew up as I realized that the people I worked so hard to comfort, the people closest to my husband, hadn’t bothered to show up. I plastered another smile on my face and hugged my cousin.

“You brought our family a good man. He fit in so well with our craziness. I loved his laugh.” 

I briefly felt a little warmer. 

“You look tired. Give me a call if you need help with any chores.” Our contractor who’d built ramps for the wheelchair squeezed my hand.

“When I’m more rested, I’ll want the ramps taken down.” I smiled again and glanced down the line of people who were waiting to speak to me. I knew they were wishing they knew what to say. Nothing anybody says makes a difference. Being present was all I needed from them. Glancing at the line, I saw more cousins, then a group of people from the clinic. A familiar-sounding laugh caught my ear. Spots danced before my eyes. I focussed on the group of people from the clinic. There, in unrelieved black, with a black hat at a jaunty angle on her head stood the woman who’d slept with my husband ten years ago. How dare she show her face here, laughing and flirting with the men around her.

“When was the last time you had anything to eat?” A second-cousin stood in front of me.

I tried for a social smile.

“You’re dead on your feet.” He stepped forward, grabbed me around the waist then bent down to get his arm under my knees.

“Oh. Oh no. I don’t need to sit.”

He picked me up, then turned to his wife and said, “Kami, get her a plate of food. She’s ready to pass out.”

The president of the women’s association at church rushed forward. “Here, set her over here.” She waved toward a table with a centerpiece of real flowers. “I was wondering when she was going to collapse. We have a plate for her in the kitchen.” She pulled out a chair at the table close to the buffet. 

Alice from the woman’s group bustled around finding me some silverware and a napkin. “I’m going to get you some coffee. You don’t have a lick of color in your face.”

Mary set a plate of filled with ham, fruit salad, pasta salad, scalloped potatoes and a roll in front of me.

Carrying on by myself, I was accustomed to. Having people notice my distress and wait on me demolished my defenses, and tears leaked down my cheeks. My best friend from college sat beside me and took my hand. “Hang in there. You look exhausted.”

I leaned close and whispered.  “That Whore is here, black hat, loud laugh. Keep her away from the girls. I’d rather not do a scene.”

“She’s just here to stir up drama.” Ruth stood and made her way to my daughters still in the reception line. “Times up, you girls need to sit. You’ve had a rough few months trying to work and help your mom.” She turned toward her husband. “Honey, get your face out of the food and get something for these girls.” With an arm around each of my daughters, she herded them toward a table of cousins about their age.

Family and friends rushed forward to wait on my daughters. The reception line disappeared, and I felt a cup of hot coffee being shoved into my hand. “My God, you’re pale.”

I nodded. “I think it finally hit me that the caregiving is over. I’m exhausted.” I turned to my plate. People filed by, giving me hugs and kisses while I ate. 

Ruth abandoned me for a few moments, but another cousin took her place. “Okay folks, let her eat in peace for a few minutes.”

Much to my surprise, I cleaned my plate. I set down my fork and turned to greet one of the doctors from my husband’s clinic. Much to my horror, The Whore stood behind him waiting to speak to me. I could hear her talking to the person behind her. “We were really really close when I worked there. When I heard he passed, I was so shocked. I didn’t know he’d been sick, so this is all so fresh for me.”

I suddenly felt old and fat and saggy. My carefully chosen dress that looked so chic when I tried it on in Nordstroms, felt frumpy.

My pastor put her hand on my shoulder. “I need to see you in my office. I can’t put this off any longer.”

I stood and dumbly followed the pastor to her office. She closed the door behind us. “Ruth told me about the problem here. Have a seat. You don’t need those kind of reminders today.”

I sat, and she handed me a box of tissues. “I understand his family didn’t show.”

I shook my head. “Probably didn’t want to come inside a liberal mainstream church.” I tried to smile as if making a joke. “I suppose this is their way of breaking off all contact with me and the girls.”

We chatted for a few minutes until we were interrupted by a knock on the door. My daughter stuck her head in the door. “We’re off to the airport. Do you have keys to your car? Can you drive yourself home?”

I nodded and stood to hug my children goodbye. 

“Bye the way, Mom, don’t worry. We wouldn’t have given The Whore an opportunity to draw more attention to herself.” They ducked out the door and hustled to their car then for the planes taking them to their homes.

Finally, the weak sun that had hidden behind the cloud cover all day sunk below the horizon. Friends, family and enemies went home. My brother walked me to my car. His wife tucked a plate of leftover food into the back seat. “Are you sure you can drive?”

“I’m tired, but there won’t be much traffic, and it isn’t that far. I can make it.” 

Moments later, I pushed the button on my garage door opener and parked my car beside my husband’s truck, then realized I had absolutely no idea how I’d gotten home. I shuffled into the house, turning my ankle once in my high heels. I set the plate of food in the refrigerator.

“Can I eat that?”

I looked up at the shadow standing in the hall. “No. You’re dead.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are dead. I just had a lovely memorial for you. About one hundred people came—mostly from church. Now, you’re dead. Move on.”

“I don’t feel dead. I was sick, but I got well.”

“Your brothers and their kids didn’t come to the service.”

“I told them I’m not dead.”

“Believe me. You’re dead. Now move on.”

The shadow turned toward the hall. “You’re a crazy old woman. I’m not dead.”

“You’re dead. I’m not going to argue with you any more.”
​
I heard his feet shuffling down the hall or was that just my imagination and the settling of an old house?
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I Cannot keep Silent By Delinda McCann

6/22/2018

1 Comment

 
A few days ago a friend of mine remarked that she couldn’t stop crying over the children who are being separated from their parents at the border. She couldn’t sleep for wondering what she could do to stop the horrific cruelty. She’s depressed.

My friend who started the conversation isn’t the only one who is depressed. When she mentioned her trouble, a flood of friends joined it. At the end of the discussion the question became what can we do? Posting about this on Facebook isn’t doing any good. 

Now, most of my friends have worked somewhere in the fields of children and disability services. They completely understand the magnitude of the harm that is being done to those children taken from their parents and incarcerated. Those that survive physically will suffer lifelong trauma. That trauma will be passed to their children. There is nothing that can be done to undo the damage to those children. This trauma has ripped from them the ability to reach their full potential. A portion of their humanity has been stolen from them and destroyed. I do not have the skills as a wordsmith to fully explain what is happening to these children. I have worked with children who have lost their parents. The pain I saw in their little faces never went away even when they were in safe and loving homes, even when they grew up and had children of their own.

I have also encountered those who have said that taking children from their parents and incarcerating them without due process is really okay. Let me promise you, it isn’t okay in any way shape or form to inflict such damage upon another human being. It is child abuse. It is soulless cruelty.
This is the point at which I join ranks with the depressed. In the course of my work, I have seen the horrific things that humans do to their young. I have PTSD from being close to that reality, and I have constructed walls within myself to keep the memories contained. The element of our current situation that got around my barriers is the realization of how many people are willing to participate in and even feed off of this level of depravity. People I know and respected shrug and say it’s none of their business. People I loved are willing to let this horror pass. I want to tell myself that they don’t understand that this behavior is illegal for a reason. People will condescendingly say, “Well, you know, Delinda, we really have to…” Under my attempts to rationalize away the behavior of my friends and neighbors lies the fear that they really are depraved monsters. These people are child abusers.

I am depressed—a lone soul abandoned on an island with a few others while madness rages around us. We are powerless to stop the raging storm.
So here we are faced with a violation of our forth amendment that rivals the crimes of Nazi Germany. What can we do? We can march in the street. We can write or legislators. We know those things will not help when so many are just fine with being cruel to toddlers. We hear the voices that laugh at our distress and know that the problem is greater than some children being taken from their parents. This time, marches in the street and a few fine speeches aren’t going to do anything for our cause. The people who support and excuse these policies are child abusers—not like many of the sick or desperate women I’ve encountered over the years. These people take joy in hurting the defenseless. They know what they are doing and feed on the power of hurting others. We must name the problem and prosecute to the full extent of the law.



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Garden myths and Magic

6/18/2018

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One of the most common comments people make when they learn I grow cut flowers is, "Your yard must be lovely." This is a myth. My commercial gardens are nothing like show gardens. Yet there are some lovely moments. 
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These are my garden helpers. They eat bugs, slugs and my veggies. I'm going to have to build an ugly pen around the bean bed to keep them out of the green beans. They ate all my asparagus this year. I don't have bugs in my garden. They also mix poop with their straw bedding, which is wonderful fertilizer for roses, if I can keep hubby from spreading it around the fruit trees.
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This is Abraham Darby. He is so fragrant and prolific. This picture is a week or so old. I've cut all the blooms and sold them. I cut him back. He had bad black spot so was leafless. I'll feed him, and he'll look like this again in six weeks.
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A close up of Abraham Darby. This is an English rose. They don't last long as a cut so are expensive from the wholesaler. At my flower stand, I may put three of these 6" blooms in a $5 bouquet, because that is what is blooming in my garden that week.
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I need a better camera. This is a red dragon fly sitting on the beak of a heron sculpture by the pond. I was afraid to try to get closer and get a better angle. I've been watching this dragonfly. This is his favorite perch. I may get a better picture yet. It is just cool to see him perched on the heron's beak. The heron sculpture is attractive but it's function was supposed to be to keep the wild blue herons from eating the fish in my pond. The wild blue heron likes the sculpture and rests beside him between snacking in the pond.
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This is another heavily scented English rose. Before I sell these, I trim off the spent blooms and tidy up each bud by taking off the guard petals. I take the leaves off to give them better vase life. I also clip the tip off of each thorn. Roses are a little labor intensive, but my heavy scented roses fill the whole garden with fragrance.
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This is climbing New Dawn. To me this is a perfect shaped rose bud.
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I have more shade than sun in my garden, so I grow lots of foxglove. Every part of this plant is poisonous, but I love them.
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Here is a close up of the pink foxglove from the previous picture. I wait until they are two thirds bloomed out before harvesting. The bigger ones will go in wedding or church arrangements. Note in the background you can see my deer fence. It's eight feet tall. We just replaced this section this past winter. Unfortunately deer don't eat foxglove. They do decimate roses and fruit trees.
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Serendipity. The garlic is putting up blooms. I loved their structure in front of the foxglove and white lacy feverfew.
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This rose is Betty Boop. She's amazing. This is one of the oldest roses in my garden. She's been attacked by deer, lost in weeds and neglected, yet give her a little duck bedding and she bursts forth with new growth and lots of multi-colored blooms.
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I also grow much of our food. The cherries are a little late this year,. I have sleeves made out of a thin garden fabric that I'll put over the tree branches to keep the birds out of my cherries. The sleeves also prevent splitting.
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I grow multiple plants in the same space. This is one of my favorite irises with feverfew. The feverfew volunteers. Iris are tricky as a cut flower because the blooms dissolve as they age. The spent blooms need to be picked off as they wilt. I sell my iris when they have a second bloom ready to replace the first.
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Weeds, forget-me-not and marigolds. The weeds are an important part of my garden. They feed pollinators. They provide shelter for beneficials, and they provide structural support for the iris that were blooming here. When the calendulas get bigger the weeds will come out.
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My yellow daisies, sunshine, are just coming on. This plant will be a mound of color just before I harvest. It is growing next to Lemon Balm, which I use as a cut green. I also use Lemon Balm in pot pourrii to keep flies and spiders out of the house and greenhouse. Using my pot pourrii, I don't have pests in my greenhouse.
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This is a profusion of garden heliotrope, another flower not often seen in commercial bouquets. It will droop if harvested too young. The white flower below the tall heliotrope are Canterbury bells.
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This rose is midnight. I bought it to do a purple and cream colored wedding. The dark flowers don't last long but there is always another bud or three ready to open on the stem. I pick the spent blooms off before these go into a bouquet.
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I haven't got this bed weeded yet this year. Still, the lily insists on blooming and the garden produced a volunteer Mullen. I love the Mullen. They spring up where they want and provide a soft wooly accent wherever they are. The birds love them.
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Among all the greens, yellows and pale pinks, this deep magenta rose stands out. This is another heavy scented rose that blooms right after Abraham Darby finishes.
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Foliage is very fashionable this year. I love the different shades and textures of foliage. The red plant here is a ninebark. Every garden should have one.
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This was taken about six in the morning with the sun peaking through the trees. The soft colors and textures seemed to flow into each other. From here I have a ground cover rose getting ready to bloom. It will be used as a filler. The lime green evergreen is used for foliage year round, especially for Christmas. Going farther back I have a honeysuckle on an arbor and beyond that roses on an arch. The enchanted forest, full of hungry deer, lurks just outside the fence.
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gobble-uns vs People By Delinda McCann

6/6/2018

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Little Orphant Annie
James Whitcomb Riley, 1849 - 1916
Little Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay,
An’ wash the cups an’ saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away,
An’ shoo the chickens off the porch, an’ dust the hearth, an’ sweep,
An’ make the fire, an’ bake the bread, an’ earn her board-an’-keep;
An’ all us other childern, when the supper things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun
A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ‘at Annie tells about,
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘at gits you
             Ef you
                Don’t
                   Watch
                      Out!

Little Orphant Annie was one of my favorite poems as a child, probably partially because of my child’s horror of being an orphan. My mom assured me that there were no such things as goblins or gobble-uns. 

The poem had value in the teaching what is make-believe from what is real. We can play with the things that might frighten us and thus have power over them. We don’t need to be afraid of gobble-uns. 

There’s a funny thing about poetry. It’s timeless. Now, some may not like Riley’s rhymes as being unsophisticated. Others may not like the morality of this poem. However, curiously Riley seems to have hit our contemporary messages right on the head whether he meant to or not. The second verse is about a little boy who wouldn’t say his prayers, and he disappeared. The twist to the poem is that this is all make-believe. There are no gobble-uns. 

As adults looking at our current political situation, it behooves us to remember, gobble-uns are make believe. Those who don’t say their prayers are not going to be snatched away in the night, never to be seen again. There are no gobble-uns, just people. 

People are pretty much the same. We need food, clean water, clean air and shelter. Beyond that we need love. Even those who some consider gobble-uns need these same basic things. We may have different ideas about how to solve problems. We may have different ideas about what our problems really are, but at the end of the day, people are just people, not gobble-uns. 

It’s okay to listen to scary stories about what this gobble-un person or that is going to do, but we all need to remember, those scary stories are make-believe. We need need to focus on what is. What really did happen today? The things that are happening are our challenges, not the should’ve, could’ve, might or maybes. As children reading scary stories we learned to distinguish make-believe from reality. As adults we need to exercise those skills when we hear a scary story. Did this really happen? Who caused this to happen? Why? Is it likely to happen again and is this something that I need to take action on? 

Remember gobble-uns are only make-believe and people are people.

​
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    Delinda McCann is a social psychologist, author, avid organic gardener and amateur musician.

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