Labels: Boston, By Dawn Yun, College, Connecticut, English cucumber, Grand Tetons, homework, New York, school is over, school vacation, summer camps, summer school, World History, Yellowstone

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I had just returned from our first writing salon of the year. I listened to Jay complain about the unfairness of algebra homework, while Mimi held onto my leg as I tried to walk down the hall.

She asked if she could sit in my lap and I said of course. Mimi hesitated, than leapt onto me. I wondered why she thought before acting.

Mimi felt heavier. I tried to put my chin above her head, but it didn’t fit.

Something was odd. Something was different.

As I put my arms around her, I realized what it was -- she had physically outgrown me.
There was a gap between us. A distance apart.

Almost nine months earlier, nearly the time it takes to give birth, I labored with the delivery of a very different kind of announcement: I was told I had cancer. Just that word. . . 

I had no idea how unbelievable it would all become. How sitting still for even a few minutes would be a major accomplishment. How senior moments would became EVERY moment. How much I would change.

There were times I would lose it and my husband and children would just stare because they were not used to seeing me this way.

Early on, during a three-month wait for a definite diagnosis, in my mind I journeyed to my own funeral. It was difficult for me to look at my family because then I would have to consider that possibility.

Now I know it’s in an early stage, but the disease is chronic and unusual. There is no net.

For some two-hundred nights I have applied a topical chemotherapy drug that smells like a bomb and is derived from one. I’m in a clinical trial, so the experimental agent comes in a yellow and black bag that looks like police tape, and my bathroom hutch resembles a crime scene.

Each tube of medication is plastered with warning labels.

In psychedelic pink: Caution: CYTOTOXIC DRUG. Dispose of properly.

In neon yellow: CAUTION: New drug limited by Federal Law to investigational use.

In bright orange: HIGH ALERT MEDICINE.

I feel like a spotlight is on me and a helicopter hovering above.

But then seriousness sets in. I know my situation has affected my children emotionally. My son will come into my daughter’s room while I stare off into middle distances that are never far enough away. “You’re OK, right?”

Mimi will move toward me but then face away with her back. She reminds me of a pissed-off cat. She wants to love, but she is afraid.  Mimi has asked me not to die.

Today, when my husband dropped me off at the Cancer Center, my daughter began to cry as hard as the rain outside pounded. “Wait!” I pleaded to the valet. “I need to hug my daughter.” I felt her hot tears mingle with my own. Her body was warm and enveloped me as we clung tightly. 

Labels: algebra, breast cancer, clinical trial, cytotoxic drug, Dawn Yun, diagnosis, homework, labor, senior moments, topical chemotherapy

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My eight-year old is clearly overwhelmed.

I sit in front of the computer listening to, and striving to maintain, some level of empathy for my daughter’s crying jag. But I realize that it’s the byproduct of a life-long collision course in self-discipline. She lies on her bed at once pouting and sobbing.

“I’d rather spend the whole day in bed than do this project!”

And how best do you respond to a third grader who bemoans the fact that she can’t spend her Sunday afternoon shopping with Dad because her first real research project is due in two days? You talk to her. You show her how. You convince her to take the reigns of her own self and break the task into smaller pieces. It’s fun! I used to LOVE homework!

But the yelling and lecture fail. She’s still in uncontrollable tears. I dig for the empathy. (Dig, dig, dig…)

I come from the ethic that you must be responsible and finish your work. Do it the right way, before having fun. And it wasn’t until the freedom of college that I had any sense of option about the matter. It is in this practical mode that I commit the heinous act of erasing a sentence at the end of her report so that she could write more and be factually correct.

She now comes completely unglued. I have to take a step back and be human, not Mom. Not a scholar. Do you remember third grade? After my family moved to Washington D.C., in the sixth grade, I clearly remember being overburdened by school. Arkansas elementary schools hadn’t even required a research project, but once I enrolled in a prep school, there were moments I went crazy from the pressure. The amount of work we’d cram into three to four hours every night seemed relentless.

The top mark, grade A, was rare to come by. B+s were more common. Mother helped me study until she gave it up for her own labors in law school. And I seemed to get the hang of things better once I became more familiar with the study process in general and less naïve about the teacher’s expectations.

I do remember Mom’s sense of empathy and compassion one night. She said, “Lauren, I don’t know how you’re going to get through all this!” Followed by, “You can do it. I know you can.” We had the first quarter of medieval history laid out on the dining room table and an exam the next day. It seems, in retrospect, as if she were saying the same doubt/little cheer to herself, the young, self-conscious wife of a newly-elected official.

My daughter, Lilia, and I popped some popcorn and eventually revisited the table where the project lay in all its vexatious glory. We came up with a plan for the next step and I apologized profusely for erasing her sentence.

Then I said, “You can do it. I know you can.”

By Lauren Cargill

Labels: grades, homework, Lauren Cargill, medieval history

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I hate math.

I’ve always had a contentious relationship with math and all its offshoots – trigonometry, geometry, algebra, calculus, etc.

I barely managed to scrape through the subject at school. I could never understand why I would need to learn it. I will never have any use for this was my reasoning – how will it ever help me deal with real life?

But this last weekend the heavens opened, a light shone down on me, and the angels sang in exalted chorus.

All is revealed: I will need it to help my daughter with her math homework.

This epiphany is of little comfort as I try to understand the handout from her teacher listing the math strategies she needs to master and practice everyday.

Now is as good a time as any to regret daydreaming about writing “My Great Novel,” instead of paying more attention in math class.

“So Mom, should I use the nine strategy for this one?” she asks.

“What do you think – should you use the nine strategy?” I query back. This I did learn -- if you don’t know the answer to something, just repeat the question.

“Can you explain this to me?” I ask my husband that night giving him the handout.

“It’s really quite easy,” he says, after giving it a quick once over. When someone says something is easy, it never, ever is. Half a minute later my eyes have glazed over.

I try to calculate how many ounces remain in the leftover wine bottle on the kitchen counter. But, darn it, that needs math, too. Besides, I don’t think there’s enough in there to make me believe for just a moment that I’m Einstein anyway.

I’m back to the present and my husband has grabbed a piece of paper. It’s covered with examples of the different strategies and how to work them out.

“So you see, you put this here and then its pretty easy. . . it all falls into place as long as you remember this basic principal,” he is pointing out.

Five minutes of my life that I will never get back.

I stare at the numbers and they’re sticking their tongue out and mocking me.

Oh, god. . . how I HATE math.

By Tania Malik

Labels: angels, homework, math, novels, Tania Malik, wine

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