So how is Murray?

One of my favorite and most faithful blog readers asked how our Murray is. I wrote about Murray, our sick kitty, here and here and so here is the update:

Things are not good, not much worse, and they are also not conclusive. No one can even tell us if cerebellar hypoplasia is progressive or not. Our theory is that if it happens in utero when the mama cat is sick or if she is given a distemper shot (and this seems to be the claim), and it causes lack of development of part of the brain of the kittens, that it seems impossible for that to somehow “kick in” at age nine months as it did with Murray. How did that part of his brain function the first nine months when he was walking just fine and then all of a sudden worsen in the matter of a week? So, our theory is that doctors and people on the internet (whose doctors have diagnosed their cats with cerebellar hypoplasia) tend to use cerebellar hypoplasia to refer to a range of neurological problems that cause similar symptoms when the actual causes are very varied and unknown. So one doctor says it is CH, our alternative doctor is sort of like “try this homeopathic medicine and see what happens” and none of the doctors has any suggestion about the next steps, short of trying various natural remedies or doing a $1200 MRI. We don’t feel up to (and the shelter also doesn’t think we should) try to get a third opinion given the already substantial costs and tests we have already run that all came back normal. He is declining slightly - his walk gets worse and he sometimes looks a little hunched over - but he also still eats well, gets up and hangs out, and spends a lot of time following our other cat Gustav around trying to get him to cuddle him. We still hope that he will plateau and be just fine. If he worsens a lot more, we may try to go to another vet. We hope that the homeopathic, natural stuff will start to work. Keep him in your thoughts.

Murray the Kitten Teaches Me About Compassion

So, we took in a foster cat named Murray last summer after another foster home said that he was impossible to tame. He was found on the streets of Dorchester, MA as a kitten and all the cuddling of him didn’t seem to work like it did with other kitties. He is the only kitten we’ve ever had to wear gloves with because of biting. But he has improved. He even purrs sometimes when we pet him when he is half-asleep and he ADORES our semi-outcast cat, Gustav who none of the other cats like so well.

June passes, as does July. Come Christmas, Murray is still happily living with us, only letting us touch him when he is sleeping or eating, of course making it impossible to adopt him to a permanent home.

Wolfgang says to me, “Murray is such a cute little dum-diddle-dum.” Just sort of wandering through life, not knowing how good he has it, maybe not the brightest cat ever, and with this funny little waddle where his legs sort of fly out in every which way. But he loves Gustav so much and snuggles up to him and is clearly a happy little guy, enjoying eating a lot, and taking 8 naps a day.

Come mid-January, we are saying, “Gosh, do you think something is wrong with Murray’s legs? His walk does seem to get worse.”

And come yesterday, Murray was running away from me and he legs got all tangled up and he fell. Maybe just a slip?

Then eating his breakfast this morning, his legs were slipping out from under him. The vet said it isn’t an emergency, and tomorrow will be just as fine as today so we take him in tomorrow. I’m not sure if this is because they were just too busy and figured it is so dire, what difference does a day make? (Preliminary internet searches don’t paint a promising picture of back leg problems in cats.) But we can only go to this one vet because he only charges the shelter we volunteer for half-price, so we just wait until tomorrow.

As I was trying to lure Murray out from under the bed to check on him, I realized how much he has taught me. Wolfgang and I are just so worried about him. We want to make sure he isn’t in pain. Enough to eat? Does he want to rest in the nice warm cat bed by the heater? We want everything to be okay with him and for him to live a happy, good life. And it just made me think about all the animals that have sweet little personalities just like Mr. Murray who suffer so much and never get the sort of love and kindness that Murray has been able to get - Murray brings out the love in us - the caring, the compassion, and the selflessness. No small task to bring that out in humans which, in some respects, have a spotty record of caring, compassion, and selflessness, this human included! But, Mur says, “Hey, even though you were planning on going to a class at 1:30 tomorrow, this is the only time the vet could see me so you’ll just have to not take that class.” In their own ways, animals and other dependent creatures (like human children) call us to be our best selves - to care for those who need caring for, to attend to suffering, to give love.

For me, care for Murray and care for the suffering of other animals that have the ability to suffer are such important parts of my faith and my life. I know I am not a perfect and it is just a little part I can do. But, as much as it hurts me to see Murray’s little legs, I am so happy to be able to care for him, take him to the doctor, and give him extra treats. I just feel like so often we say, “Oh, what can we do about all the suffering of the world? All the misery?” And our little animal friends are sometimes teachers to us if we are wiling to listen.

So thanks Murray for letting me love you. And thanks for reminding me to love all animals the best I can who suffer just like you do with your little legs. I hope it is nothing and the vet makes you better.

Love, Elizabeth

When there is not a thing you can do

The mother of one of the boys I mentor has had a stroke. I have known her for 13 years. Her health has never been good, but it doesn’t make it any easier for anyone. There is no one there to be her advocate - to manage things. When someone in my family is hospitalized, there are enough of us to hold vigil - drinking coffee from the coffee vending machine, telling stories, sitting in silence together - whatever it is we do when we wait and hope together. And always someone who works closely with the doctors - explores the options, makes sure the person is comfortable, attended to. In the case this lovely woman - all of her family has children, no one else to watch the children because everyone works so much, precarious jobs, no car, no money, etc. Just getting to the hospital is an ordeal, much less staying there, going back and forth, negotiating with intimidating white doctors. I HATE living so far away and there is nothing I can do. She is in the ICU and there are blood pressure issues involved on top of the stroke. She has no minister to attend to her either. Sigh. I know that her family is doing all that they can. I know that the young man I mentor is scared and hurting. Sometimes there is just no good way to make things better. And we can only do what we can do. Which isn’t very damn much.

On Dying Well

We have been in Germany, where my partner is originally from, for two weeks. The closest friend of their family is 87 and in the last days or weeks of his life. It was very frustrating on several levels, not the least of which is my inability to understand or speak German to him. So I just had to sit there and smile and say hello and good bye and see if I could figure out what was being said by picking up a few words. Before I started ministerial training and went through the death of an aunt and two grandparents, I had what I think could reasonably be described as a death phobia. It started when I was in elementary school and went on for a very long time, really up until the past few years. I was very overly preoccupied with people I love dying, very nervous when they left to go to the store or on a trip, or really anywhere that something would happen to them. I thought about death a lot – my own or my loved ones – and generally couldn’t talk about it or think much about it without getting quite distraught. This was not a normal “gosh I don’t want my loved ones to die.” It was really a huge problem.

Taking a classes at divinity school and being a student intern minister, as well as needing to be strong through the deaths of my family members, helped me get over this. It just sort of faded away. Thank goodness.

All of this is to reflect on the challenges of dying well, both in the U.S. and in Germany. Something I could not have even began to think about until recently. My family members all had hospice care, which somehow I imagined to be widespread in Germany which it is not. My grandma died with friends and family around her, people coming and going either to simply be present to her, or to bring food, or to share memories – to laugh, eat, and cry. This is how people should die. In their homes, with their loved ones, with skilled nurses and hospice workers asking the right questions, preparing people for what is to come, reassuring, and listening.

Frederic is dying in Germany alone in a room in a home for old people or people with disabilities. No one has spoken to the family, nor to my mother-in-law (who is his best friend) about what to expect, how to best be with him, nor have they spoken to him in a respectful or loving way. He is a patient. He said they are rough with him when they bathe him. We were there to say goodbye before our flight, and although he is confused and can’t talk much, he said, (in German), “Gipsy, I want out.” Gipsy is my mother-in-law. He wants out.

He is an old person that they are waiting to die, washing only because it is their job, not cleaning him up in his bed soon enough so that when we came in he was laying there half naked in his own waste, distraught and confused. And alone. Dying alone is horrible.

It was interesting to see my minister-mode turn on so quickly and so naturally, and it was reassuring to me about my calling. What were his wishes? Perhaps he wanted to talk about his life? Did he have a living will? Perhaps you should offer to put the bed up a little more? I left when I saw him half-naked, knowing of course that he might prefer privacy from a visitor. Perhaps we should only enter the room one at a time – three of us seem to overwhelm him… all these little things I did and thought that seem so basic, but seemed also desperately needed in a situation where everyone was sad and upset and confused.

It was painfully frustrating to not be able to do more. To know that he lay alone in his room because it was simply not the thing to do to be there. His family was not there even every day. He was in the care of underpaid staff.

This is not to criticize anyone involved really, because it seems like this is just how it is done, but to wish for a different system. And to look forward to being able to contribute more through my ministry to the idea of dying well. Both through example, but perhaps eventually, through training others.

As my partner and I think about the possibility of a baby in the coming years, and what it takes to make a good birth and bring a life into the world with minimal medical intervention and trusting the wisdom of the body and our love for ourselves and the new life, and it seems equally important for us to remember what a good death means. How we can slip from this world to the next with as little pain as possible, and as much love and comfort as possible. Because we do not like to talk about death, and because we don’t like to think of it, it seems that it can too often be put in a small room in a big institution, and we try to leave it either to staff who can change adult diapers, or to doctors and machines who try to “save us” from what we cannot be saved from – old age and the slowing down of bodies that just happens.

We are in the process of getting life insurance, and our finances more in order, along with arranging our own wills and living wills. It seems important for us all to do this to save our families from the challenges that Frederic’s family has faced in deciding how to proceed and what to do as he faced his last moments on this earth. Let us all do this to save our families the anguish it can sometimes present and help making answering hard questions easier at the end of life, as well as to think about what a good death would mean to us.

I have also faced the challenge of comforting my partner through all of this. I am a firm believer in some sort of world/life after this on here on earth, and he is not. Wow, does that make it hard to comfort someone facing death. Often “They have had a good life” can be a good approach if that is in fact the case – however, when the dying person has not had a good life – and there is nothing more to look forward to, that appears to be even more of a bind. But perhaps that is for another post.

In peace and prayers for Frederic as he leaves this earth,

Elizabeth

What does it take for mentoring “at risk” kids to “work”?

So I have “mentored” three young men for the past twelve years. They rank in the top five joys and blessings of my life. I love them so much and think they are just so amazing beyond words. That said, it has been hard. Very very hard. For them. For me. These are my thoughts on that process and on the “afterschool tutoring”/”mentoring disadvantaged kids” trend that is quite popular these days. This is a tad long, but I think worth it, as it is one of the areas I am most passionate about and actually know a little about.

First a note on terminology: I put “at risk” and “work” in quotes because I’m not sure if either of those are the greatest terms to describe what I am talking about, but I can’t think of others that work better. I think we label inner-city and/or minority kids “at risk” and it turns them into Those At Risk Kids rather than just people trying to make their way in the world. That said, kids whose families are poor, kids who grow up in the inner-city, and/or kids who are part of a minority ethnicity/race, face a whole host of factors that stack the cards against them, and it is important to acknowledge that they are up against a lot that has really nothing to do with who they are and everything to do with the way our society is structured. I say “what does it take to make mentoring “work”?” because the whole idea of what is a “success” that has really “worked” makes it seem like mentoring is meant to churn our “good” members of society. This is a problem. I wanted the boys I mentored to be happy, safe, and feel loved, like most people want for people/children who they care about. Part of this is the hope that their criminal record would be non-existent or minor, that they wouldn’t have children earlier than they were ready, that they wouldn’t be involved in drug sales (one of the only lucrative jobs available to them with the sort of sucky inner-city education they got), that they could have a job that make them happy and feel secure, that they would find a partner they loved, etc. This is different than the grappling, desperate hope of preventing “those kids” from becoming criminals, which is the underlying message/goal of lots of inner-city mentoring/after school programs.

So, enough with terminology. I think you get the point.

The main thing I wanted to raise in this post is that afterschool tutoring programs and mentoring programs mostly serve the purpose of exposing privileged teenagers to social injustices. The best result of this is that they are more aware of these social injustices and aware that they are structural issues (and not because poor/minority folks are lazy or bad parents, etc.). This is actually important because I can’t think of any other way to get privileged people to understand their privilege, and to understand social injustice other than getting to know people different from them. Volunteer programs help with this and the good ones help volunteers reflect on this, and integrate it into their world view. The idea would be to produce volunteers who will be moved enough by their experiences to want to change the world.

What these programs usually don’t do is actually help the kids have any more stability in their lives, get better grades or be less “at risk.” I know that there are exceptions, but by and large, these programs do not actually help the kids. The best programs realize this, and instead do the programs with the knowledge that it is mostly about volunteers learning from communities, with a sometimes side-benefit of actually supporting those communities in the struggle for the justice that they deserve.

The programs mostly don’t work because, first, the schools that poor and minority kids go to are so bad that a little tutoring here and there by high school students cannot even begin to compensate for the inadequate education that kids from inner-city schools get. (How do I know this? The book Shame of the Nation by Jonathan Kozol deals with this extensively, and I did the research for the book so I’ve poured over these stats and narrative accounts, and studies, um, a lot.)

Another reason they don’t work is because, there is a lot of talk about “loving the kids” and “building relationships” in these programs, but this doesn’t work if you volunteer for one semester, or even a year or two. As cute as the kids may be, “loving them” involves more than showing up once a week to tutor them. And they know it. Many kids from the inner-city have seen hundreds of people come and go, bearing gifts of bicycles, candy, fun games, parties, tutoring books (and often the message of Jesus). They are onto the game. They live it up. Play along. Hug you and smile, but they know that when it gets hard, the tutoring people aren’t around. Not when Dad goes to jail. Not when Mom looses her job, when the phone gets cut off, when the shots ring out.

Someone said something like this to me early in my conversion to Christianity when I was still trying hard to do everything everyone at my church told me to. They said, “Lots of people come and go in these kids lives. You need to be there for them.” So, when I got my first group of tutoring kids I decided, “Okay, these are my kids.” This is not to say, “Oh what a hero I am” but to say that mentoring can’t work unless it is for the long haul. Late night calls. Money transfers. Going out to Chucky Cheese even when you are so tired and just want to rest. Answering the hard questions and confused tears about why we are always stopped by the police - black kids with a white girl. Explaining to the people at ice cream store that we will not leave and you can’t just ban people from your store just because. Knowing when to be the tough big sister or when to just listen. Not having any idea what you are doing and needing to just keep going anyway. And explaining for the five millionth time why you cannot call each other gay even if you “don’t mean anything” by it.

Is mentoring some sort of answer? I would say absolutely not. It is great if you can do it. If you stick with it, love unconditionally, are willing to help financially, emotionally, even on those days when you are tired, and even when the mentorees make the ten thousandth bad decision (as most kids will do), it can “work.” It is the most rewarding thing in my life - the young men bring me more joy than I can put into words. I LOVE to laugh with them, and I am not a huge laugh-er. I think my presence and never-ending-even-when-it-seems-stupid belief in them has made a difference. But they still struggle SO MUCH because being poor in the United States is hard. Being black is hard. It’s like no matter how hard they try, there is often something else that just knocks them down. And there is only so much I can do, they can do, their moms can do. And my love and commitment to them hasn’t done much or even almost anything to change the system. And it has taken a whole lotta energy. I do it because I love them and they love me, but it is so so so frustrating to see that EVERY OTHER KID they know and I know from the tutoring program where I met them is not doing well. Pregnant very young. Shot. Jail. Abused. No decent educations. We sometimes go over the kids that we all knew, and we can’t come up with anyone doing well. It is depressing.

I don’t mean this to be some sort of authoritative article on mentoring or that I am some sort of guru. It is just that I don’t hear a lot of people sticking with the mentoring thing through elementary school all the way to college. It makes me upset to see mentoring programs that are all self-congratulatory and then don’t even have a long-term way to maintain contact with the kids. That is FINE if you don’t want to be in it for the long-haul, but if you want to make a difference, the long-haul is what it will take. I guess I am looking for more honesty about what these sorts of mentoring/tutoring programs can and can’t do for communities and their children. And honesty about what it really takes to make a dent in the numbing barrage of injustices that far too many children face every single day.

May we continue to do the hard work of love and justice wherever and however we can.

2000

2007

The Phone Calls

Some of you know that I have mentored some young men (from Dayton) for the past 12 years. (Am I old enough to have done anything for 12 years? Yikes. I guess.) I should write about it in more detail sometime - the young men and their families are amazing and they have been huge joys and lights and points of learning in my life.  I love them dearly.

Anyway, one of the young men (they are in their early twenties now) and his partner are going to have a baby. And a truck was set on fire in their backyard a few weeks ago. And he has no job. And his grandpa is sick.  And… and… and…

Every time I see his name on my caller ID my stomach drops.  I can almost guarantee it is not good news or it is a call for financial help. And how much to help?  How to help? I don’t want to project all my anxieties about the dreadful state of inner-city life and racism on my young friends. Yet, it rushes over me in too many ways each time we’re in touch. I cringe at the injustice they live with every. single. day. Like a heavy rain that never stops.  They don’t notice it as much as I do because they are used to it. Strong. Numb. Whatever.

Anyway, I need to return the phone call and hope that no one is dead or arrested.  I used to say just don’t tell me anyone is dead, arrested or pregnant.  I gave up the third one.

May God be with them. With us all.