RIP Mr. George Richardson

Mr. Richardson was a summer fixture for me as a child, more constant than sunscreen (which we didn’t have). I never knew him as a fall, winter, or spring guy. For all I knew, he returned each summer to Pocasset like a loon. Like we did.

With his classic flat-top crew-cut (his hair was always white) and his buck teeth, Mr. Richardson (we never called him “George” in those days) delivered our boat motor each summer and drove the silver ski boat for hours and hours every afternoon, teaching us all to ski with his characteristic favorite advice. You know what he always said. Nothing. And it worked. We all learned to ski under his silent, patient tutelage.

But the most fun to be had with Mr. Richardson was in the evenings. Rushing through dinner, we let the screen door slam behind us when the red truck appeared outside our cabin. Before Mr. Richardson could lift our garbage can off the nail in the tree, we were in the back of his truck, ready to do the garbage run with him, collecting from every cabin and riding all the way to the dump down the road where we hoped to see something exciting, like a rat. Summer just didn’t get any better than that..

Karen and I grew to be best summer friends and I spent a lot more time around Mr. Richardson. So I was lucky enough to discover that behind his thick glasses were twinkling blue eyes. And I got to go horned pout fishing with him in the evenings, sitting in Jennings Stream at dusk with Janet, Karen, and our green drop lines, then pulling the barbed fish up, left and right, while Mr. Richardson patiently took each and every one off our hooks with a gloved and practiced hand. I felt privileged to be in that boat. Mr. Richardson, as usual, rarely said a word.

To see Mr. Richardson was to see a man whose work was never done, but who was never in a hurry. He slowly and purposefully went about doing, well, everything there was to do. When I try to hear his voice, mostly all I hear is a meaningful silence. Followed, sometimes, by a slow, “ayuh.”

It seems that my summer innocence ended around the same time Mr. Richardson became George. It just hasn’t been the same around the beach for many years now without George quietly going about his ways. And even though I know that time marches on and change is inevitable, still, I miss those days. I miss those colorful beach chairs that George built and maintained. I miss that silver ski boat and the long line of skiers waiting to be towed—on skis, not tubes. I miss the red truck and those horned pout and grabbing leaves on the narrow road, which I also miss, and I even miss the dump. I have missed Mr. Richardson for many years now. And now I will miss George too.

Today is George's funeral in Wayne, Maine in the church where we were married 23 years ago. It is the same church where our son, Noah, was baptized 15 years ago and then memorialized a year later. It is an altar we know well. So even though we are 3000 miles away from George's service today, still, we are there in spirit. Rest in Peace, Mr. George Richardson, Lord knows you’ve earned it.

K3

Still Nine-Eleven

Isaiah’s chubby fingers fondled my neck as I strolled along the beach, my almost two-year-old riding behind in his blue backpack. The air suffused our skin with September warmth and the sky blanketed us in blue, the ocean reflecting its beauty with a peacefulness that would soon be shattered. Later, I would recall this tranquility and remember another day twelve years earlier when, like today, an unusual stillness had permeated the air as I took my lunchtime walk along the San Francisco waterfront. The bay had glistened calmly and the gulls were silent. The earth was holding its breath but we didn’t discern its foreboding. In a few short hours it would exhale a 7.1 Richter scale “OHM,” blowing buildings off their foundations and dangling cars and passengers beneath buckled bridges. This day would likewise bring a bustling city to its knees, forcing folks to shed their coats of isolationism and embrace one another like small-town neighbors seeking comfort and reassurance. But this day would not be defined by Mother Nature. This day would be remembered for Human Nature. And I was preoccupied by my own struggle with life and death.

I kissed my son’s fingers as the gentle Atlantic caressed her baby sands, the comforting weight of my chattering bundle an antidote for the loss of his brother, our ninth baby, due to arrive that very day but who had died mysteriously in March. I’d headed to the beach that morning to think about the short life held four months within the depths of my body and which remained in my soul, like a tiny shard of glass not yet tumbled smooth by time. I smiled at the glimmer of hope now known to me by flutter kicks in my womb and prayed all would go well this time. The gulls screamed overhead, sensing no earthly need for silence.

We concluded our walk and drove towards a doctor’s appointment with my radio tuned to its typical NPR, my meditation interrupted by breaking news unfolding a mere hundred miles away in Manhattan. I listened, stunned, as the familiar voice told how a plane was engulfing thousands in a jet-fueled hell while the beautiful blue day shone all around us. I called my husband who turned on the tv as another plane struck the second World Trade Tower. “People are jumping out of windows,” he said.

I continued driving to my appointment, life marching on for the rest of us. “Did you hear about New York?” I asked the ultrasound technician as she scanned my belly, casually chatting, not expecting any more disasters. I should have known better. My three-month-old swimmer had stopped kicking inside of me and now lay crumpled on the bottom of my womb. Like the day, we all finally became very still. Screaming gulls filled the void where a heart used to beat as people stepped out of windows, flying off to meet my baby.

Duncan Munchkin Kittel

11/17/01 – 7/27/11

Who loved: hot dogs, peanut butter, coconuts, snow, bones, tennis balls, other dog’s toys

And hated: fireworks, loud noises, delivery trucks, mailmen, people touching his ears, that old woman who walked on Second Beach with a white hat

Duncan was born the runt of his litter to Tatum Smallwood on the coast of Oregon and became ours as a promise fulfilled to Christiana with the vision of a mid-sized dog. (He never knew his father.) When we moved to Rhode Island from Salem in 1999 we left our dog, Dude, behind with Andy’s parents and Christiana begged us to let her have one of the first-grade classroom quails. Andy said no but promised her she could get a new dog after we settled in. He flew across country the following December and brought her promise home in time for Christmas and snow. From then on, Duncan always loved snow and would bury his nose in it and sneeze. As we traveled home from the airport we tried on names and asked, “What would be a good east-coast name?” Dunkin Donuts being the quintessential representation of New England, we answered, “Dunkin Munchkin!” And so he was.

Duncan chewed on our stairs and scratched our floors, growing in our hearts and family and vastly exceeding everyone’s expectations until he reached 110 pounds. He was one year younger than Isaiah and they grew up together with Isaiah riding him like a horse. He went to puppy training at the Potter Shelter and passed K-9 training and when we moved to Portugal he stayed with Matt, his trainer, spending a lot of time in Vermont that winter playing in the snow and sneezing with Matt’s other dogs. When we returned, Duncan was five and graced the cover of the Newport Daily News in full color walking Second Beach on a winter day with Andy and I during the controversial leash law debate. He had no leash. Duncan spent many, many happy hours walking with us on the beaches of Rhode Island, Oregon, and Costa Rica chasing tennis balls (each ball lasted only one walk), sticks and coconuts.

Duncan ruled Mohawk Drive, often laying in the middle of the road and blocking traffic. Our yard was littered with his collection of stolen pet toys from the neighborhood animals. His morning routine consisted of walking the kids to the bus and waiting for the bus driver, Gene, to give him a dog treat. After waving goodbye he trotted over to the horse barn and played with the dogs that lived there. Once when he wore the cone of shame for some minor surgery these folks signed it as if it were a cast and it was then that we began to realize that Duncan knew everyone in the ‘hood,’ including folks whom we did not. He spent his days between our house and Jack and Kathy’s across the street where he tortured their cats, Grace and Buddy. When the hour approached each day for Don and Rosemary to come home, Duncan headed across the street to await his daily treat from them. He knew everyone and their schedules and was doubtlessly more popular than were we.

When we moved to Costa Rica, Duncan drove with Andy and Micah in the Black Panther from Rhode Island to Playa Conchal, riding in the back seat as their security guard. It was in the tropics that he developed his obsession with coconuts, ripping them open with his teeth, no easy feat, until he came to the nut inside. He waited all day for someone to throw them to him and never tired of retrieving it. Sometimes he dropped them in the pool and sat and stared at them for hours. He was relentless and could carry them, whole and heavy, to the beach where we would do our best to shot-put all 20 pounds of them into the ocean for him to swim after. He loved to swim in the warm, salty Pacific and we always laugh about the time he was chasing a ball around the pool and he slipped and fell into the deep end. When it came time for us to leave, Duncan flew solo internationally on Continental to Oregon where the Smallwoods picked him up and he hung with his ornery mom until we arrived to build the yurts. A few months later we went up the river to a bonfire and brought Duncan along to see his mom, thinking she would be happy to see her son. She was not, barking at him like he was an intruder.

Duncan was a great friend to G’ma Kittel while we lived with her and she spoiled him with treats and let him sleep in the house. When we finished building the yurts and moved up the creek he made himself at home and usually slept underneath the yurt right beneath where our bed was. Any time we arrived home he came out from under the shade of the yurt to greet us, running alongside the car as we came around the yurts and parked. He was always a very happy fellow and befriended everyone he met. He took to sunning himself in the middle of the forest service road just above our yurts which is where that the Lincoln County dog officer picked him up. It was then that he earned his title, “a dog at large” while serving his time behind bars, even though Andy attempted to inform them that he was simply “a large dog.”

Duncan was diagnosed with bone cancer as we packed up to come home from our second year in Costa Rica in June. When the kids and I arrived on Father’s Day he was so happy to see us and still managed to walk the road with us. But the cancer spread rapidly and he must have been in a lot of pain as the tumors grew daily before our eyes and his hind leg became useless. Still, he rarely complained. He visited Christiana in RI in a dream and told her he could wait for her arrival at the end of July. And he did. He waited for her in the shade under the yurt, gradually coming out only to eat. His friend, Mocha, visited him daily and kept him company. Christiana arrived and Duncan rallied enough to take one last evening stroll with us down along the creek. The next day we loaded him into the van for his final trip to the beach. He made it down the ramp to where we all collapsed in the warm, soft sand and pet him. He watched the other dogs playing and even socialized with a few of them as we made our way back to the car for the sad trip to the vet. The vet came out to the car and relieved Duncan of all of his pain while reciting the poem, “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.”

Duncan’s pain was erased and ours began. He left us with sand in our ears and tears streaming down our faces for our great and terrible loss. We brought his body home and laid him to rest in a large hole under a gnarled apple tree, scattering wildflowers in the freshly turned earth. A moss-covered crook in the branch juts out over the foot of his grave and it is lovely to sit in and swing your feet. It is Bella’s favorite place to climb to and practice her jumping off. Countless times in the ten lovely years that Duncan was ours I would find myself on his tail end as he greeted one friend or another, bearing the brunt of his enthusiasm unhappily as he smacked me with the strength of his strong appendage. Duncan lived the motto, “Wag More, Bark Less.” Now we will sit on a mossy cushion watching the flowers bloom and blanket our beloved Duncan, wishing forever to complain so again.

Photo Book

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When It Rains...

It pours. And it is, pouring, right now. Rainy season is upon us here in the tropics, as well as graduation season. Many years ago I suppose we figured out that this time would come when Hannah would be graduating from some as-yet-undetermined college and Micah from a similar high school. And even though we have had all these years to prepare ourselves, still, it is impossible to foresee anything until it is staring you in the face. I am fairly certain we never imagined that Micah would be graduating from Country Day School in Costa Rica.

But he has. With honors. Perhaps even as valedictorian of his class but the school has been unable to calculate that particular honor, math apparently not being their strong subject, being that the director hit the stage carrying only 7 diplomas to the commencement for 8. Woops. And this one short week after we witnessed Georgetown successfully distribute diplomas to over 6000. (Okay, it is true, however, that GU also distributed over 6000 commencement books to the proud participants on which the cover boldly proclaimed 2011 in gold lettering accompanied by three words - Commencement, Georgetown, and UniverISty. And this in their 222nd year of producing commencement books. I believe they may be hiring a new copy editor if you can handle the pressure.)

Out here on the playa we are CDS-G, as in the Guanacaste branch of our American school in paradise. The original campus is in San Jose and they appear to have the same math affliction as Friday's Tico Times sported a shining photo and listed no less than 78 colleges and univerSIties that their graduating class of 40 will be attending next year. Pura Vida.

We had a lovely graduation night on Thursday last with speeches by each graduate and flowers for each proud Mom. Micah distinguished himself by winning one of the school's two special awards - The Ann Wellnhofer Science Award. Ms. Wellnhofer was the first science teacher at the school some 11 years ago when it opened but it seems she was subsequently fired for being out-spoken. I am assuming he was chosen for his science ability only. Tough shoes to fill, perhaps. Thank you Anne, wherever you are.

And so our year here in paradise is coming rapidly to a close. We came with the intention of allowing Micah to graduate with his amigos. Check. Hats off to Micah. We are very proud of you.

K3

Lucky Stars

Two days ago was Friday the 13^th. Yesterday was Jonah’s 13^th birthday. Only I don’t really get how that works in heaven. Having died at birth, he never even learned to breathe, much less eat cake. So I am not sure how he celebrated the first of his teen-age years. Here on earth one of us was rowing, one was mowing, one was living out of her car, two played basketball, and one was beating a pinata at a birthday party. I ate cake. Not angel food, but chocolate with chocolate chips. And it was delicious. So let me be the one to say, Happy Birthday Jonah. Wish you were here.

I am not a numbers person. I like words. But if I had to pick a number that seems to recur in my life it would have to be 13. I was born on November 13th and before I retired my uterus from active duty, it held 13 babies in various stages of development. So, 13 is the most likely candidate for my lucky number, although I have never considered myself to be particularly lucky.

In a few days I will be on a plane heading north to Hannah’s graduation from Georgetown. I am as proud as a parent can be and grateful for the good fortune of having Hannah in my life. Hannah can not only breathe but she exhales in Portuguese. She lived in Rio without getting robbed (and DC) and imparted some amount of wisdom to young girls in a favela and pre-teens in DC public schools. Her Brazilian skills also include wearing a micro-bikini, creative sarong-tying, and mixing up a mean caipirinha. Hannah is good at eating cake and mastered the free daily flavor at Georgetown Cupcake. She won an award for her excellent shelving ability in the science reference library and can play a pretty good game of flip cup. She learned to row and to run and to understand Physics while keeping her sense of humor and leading her team as co-captain. And even though her family abandoned her by moving thousands of miles away, she found her way.

Hannah attended the inauguration of our nation’s first black president and slept on the mall under the stony watch of Lincoln to hold a spot for the preceding concert. She never used the computer lock I insisted on buying her freshman year which she insisted she did not need, and, indeed, did not. She lost one bike but managed to recover another. Perhaps she should have used the computer lock for her bike. She also misplaced one highly coveted office chair but hung on to a fancy flat screen tv and my sister’s futon. She once fell asleep while standing in a Southwest boarding line and has slept through every alarm clock ever made. Because of this, she missed one flight to Maine and was late for more than one final. But when her boat capsized during spring training, she successfully swam to safety.

Hannah of the Georgetown class of 2011: Wear sunscreen. In your potential future as a dermatologist, the wisdom of those two words will become increasingly clear. Congratulations on your many achievements as well as mastering the fine art of DC public transportation. Thank you for staying safe for four years and for making it through. Thank you for being such a great leader—to your team, your friends, and your siblings. And for being such a great daughter for your parents.

Mommy loves you.

Siempre Stamp

A few weeks ago my friend Susan was robbed. Now this in and of itself is sadly not a rare event here in paradise, where some have more para and others more dise. But the fact that Susan had also just lost her one and only sister, Karen, made this news that was just plain wrong. In fact, she had only just returned from her sister's memorial service in the big cold apple. At the time of the robbery, Susan was in her office creating a memorial video on her computer for her sister's children and was lost in cyberspace as the robbers happily helped themselves to her purse and the usual variety of easily-sold electronic items. Her dogs did their best to alert her to the I-theft in progress but she ignored them until they insisted. She was visiting with Karen, after all, who was laughing and talking and so deceptively real only inches in front of her. She had been feeling an aching void in her life where Karen used to be and the virtual fix was filling that emptiness. So who can blame her for cursing her dogs and staying in her chair with Karen?

The thieves took all they could carry. And while her friends cringed to hear the news, Susan philosophized that at least these were worldly possessions and therefore replaceable, given her recent reminder of the things that are not. And even though her passport was gone and a trip scheduled in a few days, yes, she could fly to San Jose and pay for a quick replacement. As she made her arrangements, the phone rang. Three touristas were walking up the steps from the playa nearby and had found some of her stuff, her passport included. She went to meet them.

"My friends were ahead of me," one of the girls told her, "and I was hurrying to catch up when I happened to look down. And then I spotted it. A postage stamp."

When Susan was leaving NYC the week before, her niece and nephew had encouraged her to take her sister's purse. Not wanting the whole thing, she decided to just take just one small thing that would remind her of her sister. Randomly, she selected a book of stamps. She tucked them into her wallet and had kind of forgotten about them until the girl said, "stamp."

The tourista continued, "I thought to myself, well that is odd, what on earth is a US postage stamp doing sitting here in the bushes? So I reached down to pick it up and that's when I noticed the rest of the things."

Apparently the thieves had sat in that same spot to survey their booty. And there they had discarded the items which were of no use to them--passport, credit cards, postage stamps.

"I was praying daily to Karen to come back to me, to let me know that she was still a presence in my life," Susan said. "As soon as that girl found those stamps, I knew Karen was here."

Folks often comfort themselves and others with the mantra that everything happens for a reason. And while we sometimes wait a lifetime to divine the mystery of purpose, for Susan this was a profoundly simple example. For even as she set about replacing her worldly possessions, her otherworldly ones were restored. "I lost my stuff, but found my sister. Not to say that I am glad I was robbed. But I am."

The booklet of stamps is tucked safely in her new wallet. Having never bothered to check what kind of stamps they were, upon their return she realized the cover proclaimed--Forever.

K3