The next morning, we awoke to stillness—the ship had docked in Freeport, the Bahamas, a mere sixty-eight miles from home in West Palm Beach.
We stayed onboard the near-empty vessel, lingering over breakfast on white linen, the table overlooking an electric blue bay.
Steph was back to normal. She looked beautiful in the soft sunlight, the hazel of her large eyes glowing.
I was so happy with the tiny coffee cups I could easily hold. Each time the waiter poured more, Steph opened the cream and sugar for me. Oh, life’s little pleasures.
She brought me waffles and eggs and fruit from the self-serve buffet. I eat at a glacial pace, the muscles of my mouth failing. Patiently, Steph waited.
The waiters finally asked us to leave. They had to prepare the table for lunch.
We changed into bathing suits and lounged around the ship. Under canopies on deck. At the pool.
We talked and talked, which is something Steph and I have rarely done before, just the two of us. No cell phones. No kids (five between us). No pets (six). No friends (hundreds). No distractions.
We cried together. Really cried.
The conversation turned to my birth mother.
Over the last couple years, as I have peeled back the layers of my own heritage, Steph has expressed nothing but support and happiness for me. And a few times, in the most tenuous way, she has said maybe she would look for her own birth mother.
“I so wish she would look for me,” Steph said, which broke my heart.
Now here is where you have to understand Steph’s personality. You see, Steph is a hard-core addict. Her juice? Her buzz? The thing that gives her a glorious high, leaving her glowing inside?
Pleasing people.
All her life, Steph has made pleasing others more important than satisfying herself. I remember one Thanksgiving at her house, she invited a female friend who does little but annoy her and poke fun at her.
I am protective of my big sis. I could see how much the woman’s nagging was hurting Steph. So I basically threw her out.
“Why the hell did you invite her?” I asked.
“Because I was afraid she might get upset if I didn’t,” Steph said.
To which I am certain I gave a major eye roll.
The next Thanksgiving, Steph got a hair bolder and did not invite her friend. Rather, she asked all us family members not to drive our cars to her house so no one would know she was having a gathering and be hurt they weren’t invited.
Mind you, it was Thanks-effing-giving.
In our family, we are conditioned not to talk candidly of our most trenchant emotions. Or hurts. Or fears. But that day on the ship, Steph told me one of her fears: that even mentioning her birth mother would hurt Mom and Dad.
She worried the search would be disappointing. Would she even like the lady? Would the lady even want to meet her?
The only thing Steph knows is that the woman was seventeen years old when she gave birth at Good Samaritan Medical Center in December 1964.
“A baaaaby!” Steph said with empathy.
I wanted to drop the emotional hammer on Steph and tell her my thought: that I would very much like for her to try to find her birth mother before I die, so that I might meet her and say, “You brought to life an exceptional human being who God divined my sister. And it was indeed divine. Thank you.”
But on the ship, in a rare moment of self-restraint, I did not drop that hammer.
Rather I emphasized that it was a decision for her and her alone, independent of what anyone else thought, and that she must quiet her chattering mind to make it.
Which in Steph’s case is akin to asking a dog to drive.
For she has another serious addiction: the phone.
You can see her every day zipping around town in her bright red Mazda hatchback, a pretty blonde—hair wet as she hurtles from one commitment to another—yammering away on her BlackBerry.
As Dad said: “That car must run on lithium batteries. The phone has to be on for it to go.”
When a profoundly emotional thing happens, Steph’s style is to call scads of people and tell them about it. Which, I’ve witnessed firsthand, drives her crazy.
Last year, when Mom was near death, a distraught Steph would call several dozen people and tell them Mom was bleeding out after surgery and not likely to survive. Then Mom would rally, and Steph would have to call everyone back a day later.
Mom would have another near-death experience—a bowel obstruction—and Steph would burn up the minutes once again, then have to call everyone back when she rallied again.
“Steph, stop it! You’re making yourself crazy. Let’s just operate on a need-to-know basis.”
On the ship, as we discussed searching for her birth mother, I suggested that she not call a host of friends and talk, talk, talk about looking for her.
“It does not matter what other people think,” I told her. “Try weighing the pros and cons alone. In peace and quiet. Listen to what your soul is saying, and not the people around you.”
That’s our thing, I realize now. Something special between the two of us. The thing fully realized on that trip.
Not traveling. Not adventure.
But being there for one another, so that we may unburden our hearts. Uncrowd our minds. And hear what our souls are saying.
In the six months since that trip, Steph and I have grown even closer. For months now, she has helped me dress, eat, brush, sit, stand, and walk.
She flew three hours with me recently to New York City, although she is panicked by flying and had not done so in years. She knew I could not manage a restroom without her.
I am kinda like having a two-year-old again. A two-year-old who smokes a lot. And God bless Stephanie—a respiratory therapist—for lighting me up without complaint.
“Just don’t tell my students,” she always says.
Not that Steph is always the most calm person I know, especially under pressure. Recently, she drove Marina and me to an appointment in my BMW, a car I bought for its keyless entry and push-button start after I could no long turn the key in the ignition of my van.
Steph drives me now, for I am no longer able. Usually, that’s fine. But this time, she and Marina got out and closed their doors, forgetting where the key fob was: inside the car with me.
It was high noon on a summer day, and I was locked inside my black car with a black interior dressed in black. I couldn’t reach in my pocket for the key, and couldn’t lift my arms to unlock the doors. Like I said: a two-year-old.
What did Steph do? She freaked out. Tugged on the handle again and again, trying to magically open the locked door. Yelled and banged on the window. Looked around frantically for, I don’t know . . . a rock to throw through the glass?
”Pipe down, missy!” I mouthed through the closed window. “Calm down! Stop!”
Poor Marina was trying to calm Stephanie, to no avail. My sister was wilting in the heat. She was so panicked, she wanted to call 911.
“Just wait,” I said. “Calm down.”
Sweat dripped in my eyes. I could not wipe it away. I focused. Scooted left in my seat, closer to the unlock button in the center of the dashboard. I leaned forward and mashed the button with my head.
Click! The locks popped open.
I rolled out “like a sausage,” as Steph laughs when describing it now.
When we arrived home after the appointment, Steph locked me in the car again. And lost her mind again, just like the first time.
During another recent mishap, I was the one who lost my cool.
I had broken my left thumb—snapped accidentally as someone turned me over, unaware my bum thumb was extended. I was in bed resting when my sixty-pound dog Gracie stepped on said thumb. I wept.
Steph was trying to comfort me. I was so upset I couldn’t tell her how I w
anted my hand moved to relieve the pressure. Steph stood over me, flummoxed, weeping too.
You can tell a lot about a person by how they touch. And a lot of people now touch me, as they dress me and clean me and move me around.
I am constantly saying to others, “Careful. Slowly. Don’t forget my thumb . . . ,” or my legs, or whatever body part is flopping behind.
I am constantly telling Steph the opposite: scratch more fiercely, press firmer, pull harder. Her touch is too gentle.
She’ll brush out my tangled hair delicately, like she’s performing surgery. “Just yank the brush through!”
“Oh, I don’t want to hurt you! You sure?”
“Darling, I would not suggest it if it hurt.”
She strokes my head every time she moves hair out of my face.
She says, “I would do anything for you,” and I believe her.
I believe in her.
My children adore her. “Hello, sugar plums!” she greets them each time she sees them.
When Marina accidentally dyed a blond spot in the front of her hair, she asked Stephanie to fix it.
Wesley will sit on Steph’s lap longer than any other human being’s, including me. “Can I spend the night at your house?” he often asks her.
Aside from John, Stephanie is the one person on the planet I have absolute faith in to raise my children. I know she will love them like her own.
What providence that God gave me such a sister.
What peace of mind.
For me, sweet Steph, you are the greatest gift of all.
Everyone Should Keep a List of the Little Things They Love
(found on my iPhone, dated March 2012)
Smokin’ hot 4-inch heels
The sexy feeling I get while wearing them
When Gracie licks my face
When no one is screaming at home
Starbucks chai tea latte skinny
Freesia: the smell, the colors
Lavender sunsets
Any sunset
The grace of an orchid
A chilled fine white wine
A friend to share it with
The silly feeling it leaves
Sitting by the dryer vent emitting fresh soapy air
Chinese potstickers, steamed not fried, with that soy-based sauce with little green onions
A beautifully iced cake that tastes as good as it looks
A handwritten letter from a friend
A steaming bath in a clawfoot tub
When my dog lies so close to me on the bed I can feel her heart beating
When my children do the same
A cup of coffee first thing in the morning. Cream and sugar please.
The song “Clair de Lune,” because it reminds me of my sister
A pedicure when the lady rubs my feet and calves
When you can see rainbows in the sprinkler mist
When someone scratches my head for me
The Gift
April
Panos
In the late fall of 2009, while a series of doctors fumbled to figure out what was wrong with me, my mental detours started in force. My attempts to find some flippin’ reason for my body’s problems other than ALS.
My birth mother Ellen didn’t help, as there was nothing wrong on her side.
That left my birth father.
In her second letter, Ellen had named him: Dr. Panos Kelalis. And in the next sentence, she told me she had heard through the grapevine that he was dead.
Dead.
Dead, dead, dead.
Dead.
I had never even considered the possibility.
Poof! Gone in one sentence was the chance to know him.
The chance to ask him why we are how we are.
The chance to say, “I am a part of you. And you a part of me.”
I was angry, and I questioned Ellen’s character. She had kept my birth father and me apart, unknown to each other. Had she only contacted me because he was dead? Because then she could dodge dealing with him and his family?
My thoughts were unkind. I had lost my birth father. And it hurt.
Don’t focus on the loss, I told myself. Focus on the opportunity. The chance to explore the man he’d been.
Dr. Panos Kelalis. Dr. Panos Keh-LA-lease. For weeks, I turned the name over in my mind.
A doctor, as my mother always told me growing up. But I never quite believed her. Tee exaggerated many things. I mean, one semester of French, and voilà! Steph and I were fluent.
But my birth father really was a doctor.
And, by Jove, he really was Greek.
That had been the scourge of my childhood: my lack of ethnicity. My nondescript looks such a torment for my raven-haired Greek beauty mother.
No amount of Greek lessons, or performances of Greek traditional dances in little Greek outfits, would help. No amount of studying the Greek language with a bristly woman named Ms. Karadaras, who would pinch my ears if I didn’t concentrate, would satisfy Theodora “Tee” Damianos. I just didn’t look the part.
I was explaining this dynamic to a friend recently. It was something I had accepted years ago, but suddenly Stephanie, sitting beside me, started crying.
“It was never true,” she said of our mother’s criticisms. “It was never true. You were always so pretty.”
“I didn’t say pretty,” I said in my slurred voice, trying to speak slowly and clearly. “I said I didn’t think I was Greek.”
Now I had my father’s name. Panos Kelalis. As Greek as it gets.
I Googled away.
Dr. Kelalis was a surgeon.
Oh!
He worked for the prestigious Mayo Clinic, first in Minnesota, then Florida.
Oh!
He authored a seminal textbook for doctors in his field.
Oh!
His obituary in the Jacksonville, Florida, newspaper described him as an internationally renowned pioneer in pediatric urology.
In an instant, I felt so much smarter.
Gawd, I hope this is true, I thought.
As a journalist, I knew you could create a deceased person in your mind. Study his life. Define who he was. Create a feeling inside. Panos was dead, but not gone. I could re-create him in the things he left behind.
I requested a photo from the newspaper where his obituary appeared. It came, as all things seemed to, in a plain manila envelope. The next day, on my lunch break in a park, I opened it.
I stared at the gray-haired man in front of me.
These moments, when I first saw the faces of my birth parents, were not moments of blubbering. No crying out “Mama!” or “Papa!”, a primal urge released. Rather, it was a studied calm. A stealthy search for my face in theirs.
I started with Panos’s eyes. Our deep-set eyes, the ones that make me look like a raccoon if I put dark eyeshadow on.
I stared at the thick, skewer-straight eyebrows. Our eyebrows. Every time I had mine waxed, I said to the Vietnamese lady, “As much arch as possible, please,” and she said, “I try! I try!” I would have one big straight caterpillar across my forehead if not for her.
I noticed our round cheeks, the ones my mother so criticized.
I smiled at our nose, with the slight bulb at the end. Not so bad if you look straight at it. But from a low angle, a fat mushroom. In 2010, there was a ginormous picture of me in the newspaper meeting my new dog Gracie. My head was tipped up as Gracie licked my face, and my God, my nose looked huge.
In his picture, thank goodness, Panos stared at me straight on.
I thought: What a handsome fellow.
Then caught myself.
Most of my adult life, I have looked at men in terms of whether I was attracted to them. I had long entered the phas
e where I loved gray hair.
I thought: Doh! You’re not supposed to think he’s handsome. That’s your birth father.
Ahem. Okay. Distinguished, then. Panos looked so distinguished.
Near all my life, I had looked at the faces of the six Maass kids, my best friend Nancy’s face most of all. I had marveled at the similarities. Memorized how they looked alike: who had their father’s eyes, their mother’s cheekbones, who got the dip in the chin.
Near all my life, I had looked upon my finely featured mother, and my handsome father, and couldn’t find my face.
But in Panos’s face, I saw myself.
Myself—in such an impressive man. A man, in that moment, I wanted to know everything about. I wanted him to come alive in that photo and speak to me, the daughter he never knew.
I started to reconstruct Panos as best I could. His obituary noted he had been married to a woman named Barbara. There was no mention of children.
Oh boy! I thought. What if all this happened after he was married?
I pictured some beautiful doctor’s wife with a perfect life. Then me barging in and sullying a lifetime of memories with him.
No, please no.
I searched for a marriage certificate in Minnesota, since he worked at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester when I was conceived.
Nothing.
I checked the public records of Jacksonville, Florida, where he last lived, and found court records.
The state of Florida leads the United States in open-records laws. Lawsuits, arrest reports, divorces, even wills, are public domain.
My domain. As a court reporter, I had used these records for years.
I found Panos’s probate records. I saw there was ongoing litigation over his estate. There was a certificate of death, but no cause of death listed.
And there was a will, a spare document with three trustees: Robert Abdalian, Soulla Economides, and Stelios Iannou.
How the hell do you even pronounce that? I thought. And how do I locate them?
Only one name had a quick-click Google answer. There was a Stelios Iannou Foundation in Cyprus. Panos had left most of his estate to disabled children. Awesome. And not just disabled children, but the disabled children of Cyprus.
Until I Say Good-Bye Page 13
