Escape Points (23 page)

A
s I was making my way to the gate at Washington, DC’s, Reagan airport, I got a text from Brendan asking when I would be home.

“Don’t worry, I cleaned up the house,” he wrote.

I had only been gone for thirty-six hours for a seminar I was co-leading for The OpEd Project. How bad could our house be? He was living at home in what we call the man cave in the basement, saving money to move to an apartment.

Minutes later my cell phone rings and it is Weldon asking how I am. I tell him I am trying to get through the TSA security check; he wants to tell me about his day at work in Chicago.

When I sit at the gate, Colin e-mails me from University of Iowa to ask if I can go over his resume because he has a career fair the next morning. I open the document on my phone. I respond to him that he needs to take out the comment that his boss told him he did a “kick-ass” job. He says he will.

And then he writes, “I love you from here to the garage.”

That’s what he said to me when he was about five or six. I would tell the boys at bedtime that I loved them from here to the moon,
Venus, or Mars. And Colin proclaimed his love for me was from here in his bedroom to the garage, a huge expanse of about one hundred feet. I know what he meant.

There is an inherent contradiction in the proposition of a woman raising men. It is not a sexist thing to say, it is not about culture, it is about otherness. The difference between us can be fraught with peril—the disconnect between what they know and experience and what I project. My sons are mine, but they are not like me.

My boys love risk and daring; I do not even like Ferris wheels. They are quick to react, impulsive. I try to think everything through, weigh every angle, and mostly I err on the side of caution. A quarter of a century into this lab experiment, I can definitively say that the concept of otherness in a relationship doesn’t mean you cannot be close. But the differences play out daily.

Anyone who claims there is no inherent opposition in action, attitude, or life approach for mothers and sons simply has not had an experience with sons like mine. Much of the time they believe I am completely wrong. Occasionally they will concede, but not without a volley.

As a parent, mother or father to son or daughter, every day you know there is possibility for delinquency, failure, haphazard mistakes, indelible marks, any and all horrors that become evident only when you are already in so deep you have to be extricated. You fear for your kids. You fear mistakes and missteps that change who they are and that make the future evaporate before it starts.

The examples are there every day for you to read about in the local newspaper, or hear about in the worried phone calls you get from other mothers you’ve known for years. Bad stuff, really bad stuff can happen to a son or daughter—drugs, alcohol, arrests, violence, burglary, assault, shoplifting, school expulsion, unplanned pregnancy, all of it, any of it. A few almost die from drugs and are forever in rehab. Or they sustain a limp from being in a drug coma curled in a ball in the backseat of a friend’s car for two days. And you know, just know, there but for the grace of God, go my children.

So as a single mother, the only parent charged with these sons, the only one of their parents paying attention, it feels miraculous when something awful doesn’t go down, like you are watching a tornado whip through your neighborhood from the safety of the basement and praying it doesn’t hit your house and tear off the roof, waiting for the glass in the windows to shatter, because you are certain they will. This doesn’t mean you do not have faith in your own children. It means you just know too much. Children make mistakes. It is not only about how hard you alone try. You have to have backup, you have to have other people watching.

Messy and complicated, that is how so many women label their lives as mothers, working outside the home or not, whether they are single or married, healthy or sick. I find that too simplistic and leaning negative.

I believe it mattered that I was able to forge a career from writing and teaching with the soul-deep belief in the sanctity of story. I write about my life not because I think I am so utterly fascinating, but because I think there are many women like me who have not had the platform to tell their stories and to share their truths. And in our true stories, we share connection. We glimpse hope.

Throughout our house are medals from wrestling tournaments on ribbons hanging in the kitchen, in each son’s room, in drawers and cabinets, on bookshelves. Wrestling was a part of their lives at a critical time for each of them. I was not the most important person to them and for that, I am forever in debt. In our house there are trophies and wall plaques, framed brackets from tournaments, photos of hands raised in the air in victory. They earned them all.

I know I was lucky. I had my brothers and sisters who always helped me. My brother Paul helped me so often, I do not know what I would have done without his assistance. My sisters Madeleine and Maureen as well. But for my sons, I was their mother but also the outsider. It’s not that I am so tied to gender roles; it’s just that with raising three men, I needed a translator.

Coach Powell was that person. We still e-mail back and forth. He is semiretired, handing the title of head coach to Paul Collins.
But Powell will always be the heart and soul of the team. Powell sees Weldon often as Weldon lives back in Chicago and helps out as an assistant coach for wrestling at the high school. I see Powell at fundraisers with his wife and he always wants to know how the boys are doing. How the men are doing. He loves them, and I know that in my bones.

Powell has been in remission for the last year or so. He looks like himself, healthier and stronger, laughs more often, appears to have a lighter heart. Powell and his wife, Elizabeth, had their first child in 2015, a son they named after his father.

P
apa Bill died before any of my sons were born; my father would have assuredly adored them. My late mother, whom the grandchildren all called Mama Pat, made me feel I could do anything I intended. Every moment of my life I felt sincerely loved by them. I still do. My sisters Mary Pat, Maureen, and Madeleine are always there for me and for my sons. My brothers Bill and Paul, especially Paul, exemplify the strength of kindness. I do not know what I would do without U.P., the nickname my sons have for their beloved Uncle Paul. He helps me daily.

Caryn Ward sat with me in high school gyms for more than a decade as we screamed and cheered on each of our three sons from youth wrestling though high school. We worked together and carpooled on I-290 for many years solving the world’s and our own problems on the commute. She is a fine editor and better friend. I am grateful to her for so many things, not least is her youngest son, Sam, who is Colin’s best friend. Sue Schmidt and Lisa Lauren continually make me laugh. My college roommate Dana Halsted knows me as well as my sisters do. And I am grateful for her honesty and deep friendship.

Linda Berger, Diane Frisch, and Julie Shelgren have been offering their love and generous advice as we all have worked to raise our sons for the past two decades since we were Mets Moms in Oak Park youth T-ball.

Most Thursday evenings I am huddled with my writing group—Elizabeth Berg, Veronica Chapa, Arlene Malinowksi, Marja Mills, and Pamela Todd. For years in our group, Nancy Horan helped shaped me as a writer as well. Katherine Lanpher, Susy Schultz, Deborah Douglas, Alicia Shepard, and Teresa Puente are journalists I respect immensely and dear friends who offer honest feedback and laughter.

At the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Jack Doppelt, Karen Springen, Susan Mango Curtis, Michael Deas, and Craig Duff were forever supportive and encouraging. Dan Linzer, provost at Northwestern, and Lindsay Chase-Landsdale, associate provost, saw the value of my expertise and gave me the chance to work with the talented faculty through The OpEd Project’s Public Voices Fellowship. I am grateful to Katie Orenstein, founder of The OpEd Project, for creating the opportunity for me to help others share their ideas with the world.

My doctors, Lauren Streicher, Kambiz Dowlat, and Joan Werber, are each exquisite examples of professional excellence and empathy; I owe them my life and my health and am grateful for who they are and what they have done for me.

Coach Mike Powell arrived in the lives of my sons as a man of integrity and intense personal courage. I am grateful for all he has done for my boys as well as for his candor and friendship. Hundreds of young men look to him for guidance, inspiration, and friendship, and his induction into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2015 points to his enormous influence.

Lisa Reardon, my editor at Chicago Review Press, was wise and encouraging as she helped me clarify this complicated story. I am extraordinarily grateful.

My sons are true blessings; Weldon, Brendan, and Colin enrich my life and my heart beyond measure.