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

Follow the Light

One facet of life I have learned to embrace in a town where "tan" is a verb is the absolute lack of any kind of schedule on most days. It takes some getting used to for us over-scheduled Americans with our color-coded calendars, but easing into the day and trusting it to bring it on is a lovely change of pace. I am never disappointed looking back at what has transpired when the sun sinks into the sea at day's end. While my friends in the States are waking up to a Saturday morning and negotiating the commitments of the day with their spouses about who will take X to indoor soccer and who will head to the hockey rink with Y, Bella and I are carrying our white plastic chairs out to the short wall that separates us from the beach to drink coffee and watch the world go by.

Yesterday we exited our casa with the intention of watching the surfers and reading her Wizard of Oz script since Bella is to be a munchkin in her stage debut. As we were settling down in the morning shade, we noticed a few trees down from us a double line of people extending from the top of the playa to the water's edge. Thinking it some kind of Little Mermaid wedding rehearsal where the bride emerges from the sea to join her landlubbing spouse, we turned back to Dorothy when Delbert, the rasta surf instructor, sauntered over and said, "Baby sea turtles are hatching." Now we have watched countless female turtles heave themselves up the beach and have worshiped at their feet with sand flinging in our faces while observing every step of the turtle-egg-laying process on many a star-filled night And recently I was paddleboarding around a mating pair of olive ridleys when an extra male-in-waiting surfaced right in front of me and exhaled loudly. But the running of the babies is the one step in the making of sea turtles that I have never seen. And the fact that a turtle dared to lay her eggs on Tamarindo beach qualifies as a small miracle in and of itself.

I grabbed my camera and we ran over to watch, arriving at the water's edge when what appeared to be the last little guy took his final sandy steps and was introduced to the salt water he would call home for the rest of his or her life. Baby sea turtles do not have sex chromosomes so the ole' pink or blue is completely dependent upon the temperature of their nest. If the eggs incubate at an ideal 83 to 85 degrees they will be a nice mix of each. Anything warmer results in all females and anything colder creates a hundred or more bouncing baby boys. As a wave washed over this particular baby and he was given the old sink or swim mandate, he never hesitated for a second, bravely paddling like a pro away from the crowd of humans photographing his every first step.

With a sigh of happiness and a prayer that this would be the one in a thousand to survive, we began our journey back to the land of Oz awaiting us in our chairs and were just settling down in Munchkinland again when we noticed that folks were still congregating at the top of the beach from whence the baby turtles began their journey. Some of the few things we understand about sea turtles include that they are born with a caruncle - word for the day. A caruncle is a sharp egg tooth which gives the pointy appearance to the little guy here. The caruncle is used by the ninos to break out of their egg shells and then it falls off, bringing to mind a sweet anthropomorphic image of the turtle tooth fairy depositing gifts of tiny molluscs under sea sponge pillows. Once the baby turtles come out of their shells (pun intended) they remain underground in their flipper-deep nests for days slurping up raw egg-yolk from their shells and building strength like Rocky in training, only not for a title match but to survive their first few days at sea during their crash course in deciphering food from non-food.

(This, incidentally, has become more of a challenge for the lonely little turtles thanks to all the tiny floating plastic pellets and tar balls we have introduced to their snack selection, which is one of many contributing factors as to why all six species of the world's sea turtles are listed as threatened or endangered and why you, too, can pay thousands of dollars per week to "volunteer" to save them in countries like this one while the rest of us are busy tanning.)

Meanwhile, back in their hole, the hatchlings chat amongst themselves and determine when it is time to move on up. Then, in a remarkable feat of sibling cooperation unknown in the mammal world, they all coordinate their efforts and work harmoniously to dig themselves up to the surface. Once they approach the light, they resist the urge to break free of the claustrophobic confines of their womb, demonstrating remarkable reptilian restraint by waiting until the sand cools off, which typically signals night. The wee ones can then emerge under the cover of darkness and avoid daytime predators as they scramble towards the sounds and sights of the sea, swimming away to the rest of their lives. The end.

Bella and I then observed people running from the top of the beach to the ocean cradling something in their hands. "What are they doing now?" we wondered as we abandoned Zelda, the wicked witch, to her unlucky fate and returned to have a look. To my dismay, I saw that our Tica neighbor was now on her chunky knees in her housedress digging into the turtle nest and pulling out handfuls of baby turtles and eggs. A group of misguided mammals all joined in on the action, thinking they could somehow improve on what these reptiles had somehow been successfully doing for over 200 million years without them and their supposedly superior intelligence.

To my horror, they started pulling baby turtles out of their eggs and rushing them down to the sea. When a few of us folks tried to curb their enthusiasm, myself included, by begging them to leave them alone, Tica threw her weight around and imparted her infinite wisdom that the nest was too deep and too compacted from, of all things, people walking on it and that these turtles would die if they did not save them. Save the turtles? Even though they did risk becoming breakfast for hovering birds and crabs, the process of crawling the gauntlet from sand to sea is considered to be a critical event in the new life of a baby turtle. They need the exercise to strengthen their flippers for swimming and they need to smell the particulates of their natal beach in order to return once they have survived their "lost years" at sea, having successfully grown to the size of a dinner plate instead of being served on one.

Saddened and concerned, we returned to Oz where only Zelda's legs were happily sticking out from underneath a house. Later that morning Bella and I were walking on the beach past the spot where the turtles had become swimmers when a couple stopped us. "We found this swimming around," the husband said, cradling a baby sea turtle in his hands with some combination of shock and awe. "That is probably because it is disoriented," I told him and informed him that this was where it had had its first swimming lesson that morning. "This would be a good place to put it down and let it crawl back in the water," I suggested. He glanced at his treasured souvenir and determined, "No, I think it's tired. I think I'll hold it and let it rest awhile." "Whatever," I thought resignedly, "I am sure you know best." We walked on, our heads filled with ruby slippers and swimming turtles, towards whatever the rest of the day would bring.

K3