“Oh, no!” Dave’s mom gasped the first time someone handed Tiffany to me while I sat in my wheelchair. I turned sideways a little, gently crammed her into the armless space along the right side, and leaned over to give her a big smooch on her forehead. With her little body snugged in by my hip and armrest, her head and neck supported by the backrest, she was like a papoose. She wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, in all the years my two children were babies and toddlers, neither one ever fell out of my wheelchair. That’s not to say that on occasion I didn’t think about throwing them out.
For years, I mourned that I was unable to walk and hold my children’s hands, not realizing the gift I’d been given, of having them sitting at my side in my wheelchair. While I cooked, did chores, did almost everything, they were snuggled up against me, until they were three or four years old. Another of life’s silver linings.
The six months we lived with Dave’s parents were a special time for all of us. In many ways, Tiffany’s birth was a major landmark—we’d survived, and now we could thrive. We had accomplished many of our goals. I’d learned how to walk, returned to Los Angeles to live independently and finish my residency, and passed my boards. Now we were building a house where we’d be in charge of our lives again. But, perhaps most important, the gift of a new life helped Dave’s parents as they took on their invaluable role as grandparents. We needed them, and they needed us.
Creating a family was one thing. Building the house was another. Excitement was high as we started: grading a lot that had never been built on, placing the forms, and pouring the concrete foundation, with parts of pipes that would eventually become plumbing and electricity sticking up. My favorite part was the framing—smelling the wood and seeing the ghosts of rooms appear as the two-by-four Douglas fir studs went up. Why can’t houses smell like that for the next twenty-five years? I loved looking out of the rectangular spaces that would become windows and doors and skylights, places that would bring the outdoors in.
Summer turned into fall. Things slowed down. If we dropped by unexpectedly, we might or might not find workers on-site. The promise of a house in six months dragged into nine, essentially another pregnancy. By Thanksgiving, the workers stopped coming to work, and by mid-December, our dream of a family Christmas in our home was fading fast. The only leverage we had was withholding the final payments the contractor was requesting.
“We need to move in,” Dave said one night.
“Are you crazy?” I said. “There’s no electricity and no hot water.”
“Well, we can just pretend we’re camping,” he said.
“Hmm, I’ve camped a lot in my life . . . Why not?”
Dave continued, “I’ll take our mattress and a camp stove down there after work tomorrow. I’ve talked to my folks, and they said they’re happy to keep Tiffany here with them. You and I are going to start living down there.”
Now you’re talking. I felt myself start to smile.
For the first few nights, we didn’t have electricity, but one toilet had been installed, so we were able to get by without using the port-a-potty or digging a hole in the backyard. It was almost civilized. We would come home from work, eat dinner at Dave’s parents’ house, play with Tiffany, put her to bed, then drive five miles to our dark house. We would park in front, and Dave would haul me up the steps. While I held a flashlight, he’d carry me into our bedroom and set me down on the bed. We were so tired that we were asleep within minutes.
Early each morning, we drove back up to Dave’s parents’ house, took showers, got ready, and went to work. This got our contractor’s attention. That and the fact that we were withholding his last payment, the payment he needed to pay his employees and suppliers.
“Let’s have Christmas dinner here,” I said one morning. “After all, this is our house and we’re in charge here.”
Dave looked at me for a minute, then said, “Why not? We can make the food at my folks’ house, bring it down, and warm it on hot plates.”
And so a large piece of plywood set on sawhorses became our first dining room table. Folding chairs, paper plates, silver utensils, red candles, and a pine-bough centerpiece in an otherwise empty house became our first Denver Street Christmas dining display. My parents and brother and sister joined Dave’s family in celebrating family, love, and renewal of the human spirit.
We completed our move the first week in January. Our new, king-size mattress was already directly on the floor, without a frame. This allowed me to get down out of my wheelchair easily so I could butt-walk around and play with Tiffany as she learned to crawl and walk. My old college dorm collection of orange crates, concrete cinder blocks, and painted one-by-six boards became our bedroom bookshelves. A set of drawers was already built in next to the closet. Two large papasan chairs sat in the otherwise empty family room. Tiffany’s crib and a small changing table went into her room. It wasn’t fancy, but it was home.
Our hodgepodge kitchenware was quickly hidden away in the cupboards. Our nice china dishes and crystal remained packed away in boxes and stored at Dave’s parents’ house. The kitchen table was built in with bench seating on two sides, leaving the other sides open for my wheelchair so I could sit down easily with or without my legs. It also took up less space and kept me from having to deal with chairs getting in my way.
The custom-built dining area was almost perfect.
“I’ve got it,” Dave exclaimed one evening. A big grin lit up his face.
“Got what?” I said.
“The perfect piece of furniture that will make your life amazing!”
This sounded unbelievable, but was I ever wrong. Dave’s second furniture brainchild became the centerpiece of my life for several years. The eight-by-four-foot table he designed and built was covered with foam and Naugahyde and occupied a corner of our otherwise empty dining room. With two sides butted up against walls, this utilitarian, wheelchair-height platform became Tiffany’s changing table, my exercise mat, and the space where I could wrassle with Tiffany and later Brian. It was also the place for my peculiar one-handed, pat-it-out-and-pretend-it’s-ironed form of finishing the laundry.
In keeping with our wish to be outdoors as much as possible, the first real furniture we bought was a patio table and chairs. Over the next five years, we built a garage and furnished one room at a time, only as we could pay for them.
Now that the house had become our home, we set about creating our oasis. No doorbell and an unlisted phone number were idiosyncrasies we became known for. After busy days at work, we craved peace and quiet. We indulged in our love of music, morning-time Bach and Mozart, and jazz after work in the evenings: Brubeck, Shearing, Bolling, Davis, Hancock—names from our parents’ generation that we passed on to our children. TV was outlawed in the family room. Instead, a big sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace became our refuge for reading to the kids and getting them ready for bed. Many times Dave carried them asleep up the stairs and put them gently into bed without their awakening. They loved it as much as he did.
Having graduated from college and medical school in the ’70s, I was on the front edge of the “supermom” era—a term Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says was first used in 1974, when I was halfway through medical school. The dictionary defines it as “a woman who performs the traditional duties of housekeeping and child-rearing while also having a full-time job.” I realized pretty early on that being a supermom was next to impossible for me. My disability was severe enough that I would need housekeeping and childcare help, even if I didn’t work.
When I got home from work, I often lingered in my car in the garage—the in-between zone for me. My “doctor” workday done, I readied for my “mom” time. Dinner, homework, chores, the family together. There was a sameness to my “doctor” day. “Mom” time evolved as our children got older and their needs changed, from diaper changing and lullabies to wrassling and homework, then on to sports activities and dating. I suspect that all families with two working parents worry about the time they
do or don’t spend with their children. “Quality time” was a popular catchphrase. Was this a rationalization for spending less time with our children than we spent at work? Were my kids glad I wasn’t home with them, or did they feel neglected?
I realized pretty early on that being a supermom was next to impossible. There was no way I could ever have been one. Just being a good mom was hard enough, but it is enough.
To my dismay, I found myself waking at night, haunted by more issues. Motherhood was wonderful but made me very dependent again. I was physically unable to care for my baby by myself. This put more responsibility on Dave. I’d come to realize that my role at work was just the opposite. I was most independent and functional when I was there. I needed very little assistance and was just as efficient as my colleagues. It seemed to me that I should take advantage of working, because it was where I was most productive, yet I knew the importance of motherhood and being a wife would outweigh my job in the long run. I wanted to be engaged with both: work and normal mom stuff.
Childcare. Driving a car. Keeping house. For my sanity, we needed to prioritize our needs.
Not long after I started mentally prioritizing things, Dave, ever the list maker, said, “Olsie, have you thought of the lists we made when we were in Salzburg?”
“No, not recently.”
“Well, I have. In fact, I found them in a three-ring binder the other day. Wanna see ’em?”
I knew exactly what he was referring to. Everything he’d done that first year, he had duly typed up and placed chronologically in a utilitarian blue cloth binder. He’d done much of it while I was still in the hospital. Seven of the pages were from the first week in Salzburg. Two pages were Dave’s—in his normal, tiny, hard-to-read, classic doctor penmanship. The five in my new, awkward left-hand print were partly handwriting practice and partly a detailed wish list for my unasked-for new life.
I pushed myself over to his desk and saw his list first:
Problems to solve:
Place to live in San Diego
Transportation
Bathing, toilet
Communication
Kitchen
My list was longer and went into more detail. In fact, four of my pages spelled out the issues and what I thought might be solutions. The first page was the shortest:
Personal
Rehabilition [sic]
Proffessional [sic]
Socially Marital
Family
Psycological [sic] adjustment
Sports activities
Occupational adjustments
Desirable goals: drive
We were quiet as we looked at each page. In the two years and five months since the accident, we’d worked hard and accomplished many of our goals. Noticing the misspellings on my pages reminded me of how disorienting it had been to start writing with my nondominant left hand. I paused to remember how scared I’d been seeing all the incorrect words, how I’d had to force myself to spell words out loud to correct them, how I’d wondered if I’d ever be able to spell easily again.
Dave took my hand and placed it between his two strong ones. “I’m so proud of you. You’ve—”
“Wait,” I said. “Stop saying you. It’s us. We’ve done this together.”
I realized that while we had crossed off many of the things on our lists, we weren’t finished. I still couldn’t drive. And if I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t be a “normal” mom.
The Night Shift
I hear the sound I wait for, even in my sleep. The baby is crying. Tiffany. She’s only a few weeks old and still so small that her cries, although persistent, are soft. They are demanding but not unpleasant, and I know they are as strong as her little lungs and larynx can make them. Cries of need. Cries of vulnerability.
Instinctively I rise, slip on the jeans that are beside the bed, and make my way through the 2:00 a.m. darkness, taking care not to wake Linda. I sneak barefoot into the otherwise quiet bedroom that holds the crib and gently grasp the crying infant, with one hand behind her head and the other holding her firm little body, and revel in the feeling of cuddling her up to my chest. She’s still crying, with her eyes closed, but this is the best. I know she probably needs a diaper change and feeding. I will take care of those things momentarily, but this holding is the reward. My baby. Our baby. There is no joy in the world that is so heavy. Linda, dear Linda, has kept her promise to me, and I know I must continue to keep my promise to her, and now to Tiffany.
Linda knew my feelings about kids long before we got married. I love them. I grew to love them during every pediatric rotation I did in medical school. The pediatric nurses in the hospital, from the neonatal ICU up to the wards, loved me because I would hold the sick children, care about them, and empathize with their agonized parents. I found them so easy to care for and care about. Holding a sick child and helping soothe it through its illness was one of the most fulfilling experiences I ever had. The worst were on the pediatric psych rotation, where I saw what happened when kids had only part of a parent, or none at all.
I quickly got used to the secretions and the excretions and the vomitus that might come forth, so I wasn’t squeamish in the least. These were innocent, sick children suffering from illnesses they could never understand, and thus represented the ultimate in vulnerability. I could easily have spent a happy career as a pediatrician. So I wanted to be a dad. Especially to Linda’s children.
“I know what you want,” Linda said when I realized she was pregnant. But then concern took over. “Can we do this? Is this a good time? Will I be able to keep walking? Will I be able to work?” The glowing skin of her face betrayed well-founded anxiety. She fixed her gaze on my eyes and held me to account.
I knew what that look meant. It was the unspoken question. It was the same unspoken question she had transmitted to me from the bed in the ICU after the accident. Put into words, which are far less powerful than the look, the question was: Will you be there? Will you stay with me? Will you help me? Will you run away? And now: Will you help me with pregnancy and a baby and a child and a lifetime of parenthood?
“I will be here for you, and for our baby, and for other babies, and for our children as they grow. I will do anything and everything that’s necessary to make this work. I will get up at night and feed and change diapers. You know how I feel about kids and about wanting a family, and about you,” I said as I reached to wipe a tear that had rolled down her cheek.
“Okay,” she whispered, and smiled.
The bond between us forged another link. We would do this.
Clean, dry, powdered, and wearing a new diaper, Tiffany is suckling down the last half ounce of her half bottle. I’ve got her wrapped up in a comfy, soft cotton blanket, and she is resting in my arms as I sit in the easy chair. She is beginning to suck a little less vigorously, and her eyes are closed, and I know that she will be asleep in a few minutes. I give her a gentle squeeze and a light kiss on the forehead as she finishes her bottle. I hold her upright, with her face near a towel on my shoulder, and pat her gently on the back until she has released the air she has swallowed and is completely at ease. But I will enjoy the holding of my baby for a while longer before I put her back down and make her comfortable in the crib and then sneak back into our bedroom. I know that I will be tired tomorrow, and maybe for the rest of my life. I know also that I am a lucky man. I’m Dad. As with the other promises I made to Linda, this will be an easy one to keep.
I listen for the sound that I know to wait for, even in my sleep. It’s Brian crying. I slip out of bed and into my jeans and sneak out of the bedroom and quietly close the door. I find the source of the soft cries and happily pick him up and hold him to my chest. He’ll need the usual change and feeding, but this is the best. I love this feeling. It is as soothing to me as it is to him. I can keep him warm, make him comfortable, and satisfy his need for food. It is quiet. It is the middle of the night. There are no distractions. My wife and daughter are asleep and safe and undisturbed. I c
an enjoy these moments of holding my baby. Our baby. I say a silent prayer of thanks to Linda the Indomitable. The future, for now and for us, is just the next feeding. And right now, I’m just Dad. No other joy is this heavy.
CHAPTER 8:
Look, Ma, No Feet
As Dave opened the passenger-side door and slid into our car, I sidled up to the driver’s seat, turned, and plopped down. My rigid fake legs and feet hung outside the car. Grasping the bottom of my pant leg, I pulled my right leg up and swung it into the car and then, like a marionette puppeteer, did the same with the left leg. It was good to sit in the driver’s seat again and put my hand on the steering wheel.
In my head, I could hear the voice of my driver’s ed instructor yelling at the sixteen-year-old me for the umpteenth time: Ten and two . . . Come on, let’s get those hands at ten and two. I wondered what he’d say to one-armed me.
“Okay,” I said, with a smirk on my face. “If that’s all it takes, I can do it.”
My attempt at humor masked the churning in my stomach. What if we couldn’t figure out a way for me to drive? Being unable to do so would be a knockout punch that would compound my disability.
Dave sat in the front passenger seat, trying to exude optimism. Tiffany was a year old, and I’d finished my residency and was doing a fellowship in radiology at UCSD, with an offer for a one-year position there. In the two and a half years since the accident, I’d never driven anywhere by myself. I always sat in the passenger seat.
There was a lot riding on this. To hold down a job, I had to be able to get to work reliably, which would occasionally be in the middle of the night if I was called to go in to the hospital. I also needed to be a mommy chauffeur, trucking Tiffany and any kids who followed to school, doctor’s appointments, sports, and social activities. I wanted to do the grocery shopping by myself, maybe on the way home from work, maybe late in the evening, after the kids had gone to bed. And, last but not least, I wanted to pull my weight so Dave wouldn’t be handicapped in his career or his personal life by being the only driver in the family.
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