A Safe Place To Fall

I tried something new at my daughter's gymnastics class this morning. Instead of joining her 3-year-old class on the floor, I stayed back to watch her from a distance.  In previous sessions, I had stayed by her side, guiding her through the motions and encouraging her along the way. This morning, though, felt different. She seemed more confident, more ready to conquer the class on her own. Off she ran, ponytail bouncing, to take on the world.

At one point during the morning, I stood watching her struggle on the balance beam. Even though the beam was no more than two feet off the floor, the fear on her face was clear.  Twice, she fell off, and twice she climbed back on. It took all I had to stay put. I wanted to run and rescue her, to save her from the angst of having to do it all on her own.

As I watched, I realized what an incredible gift it is for us, as parents, to let our children fall. To let them fail.  Because when we learn to tolerate failure, we also learn to push ourselves towards success.  And if we can't tolerate the thought of failure? If we are paralyzed by the fear of falling? Then we don't even climb up on to the beam. 

Then my little girl got stuck.  She reached the end of the beam, and she didn't know what to do. Her little face crumpled and she started to cry.  My mother bear instincts took over and I was at her side in a flash, pulling her into my arms and telling her that she was brave and strong and amazing for having gotten as far as she did. 

Those moments on the beam seemed to capture the careful balancing act that we all maneuver as parents.  The hardest part of parenting isn't the long hours or the laundry or the doctor's visits or the PTA meetings.  Not at all.  The most challenging part of parenting, at least for me, is the constant struggle between stepping up and stepping back; between pushing our children toward independence and giving them the support they need; between letting them fall, and catching them when they do.

There's more though. This dichtomy doesn't just shape my mothering.  It also forms the shadow that is the loss of my own mother. It exists at the very heart of what it's like to live without her here.

On many levels, my life without my mom is so much more than I thought it would be. Losing her was like getting shoved onto that balance beam and left there all alone.  At first, I didn't want to take a step. For a long time, I remained frozen in place. The hand that had always been on the small of my back, guiding me across the beam was suddenly gone. It was terrifying. 

When I did take a step, though, what a marvelous step it was. I gained courage and trust in myself. I learned I could wobble, and not fall. I learned I could fall and get back up. Without a safety net, I thrived in ways I could never have imagined. I grew up.  I am who I am because my mother is not here.

But. There is still a little girl inside of me. One who sometimes gets stuck on the end of the beam.  Whose little face crumples and whose arms reach out to be gathered up and swept into that place of love and safety and all things good again. Except it's no longer there.

Don't get me wrong.  I have many people in my life who love me. I am lucky that way.  I have an ever-present source of support and encouragement from the people who believe in me.  I am not without. 

Still, there will always be an ache for that which I have lost. In all that comes with losing a mother, the most profound is this: There is no longer a safe place to fall.

"You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”
― Anne Lamott

What I Should Have Said

When last I wrote, I was on the verge of change. I was in the process of leaving a job I'd worked for twelve years of my life.  I wasn't just leaving a place of employment, though.  I was also leaving behind stories into which I'd woven myself: stories of families and friends and coworkers and young children with bright eyes who said their first words in front of me. Stories of joy and hope...and stories of heartache and courage. I wrapped those stories up the best I could, tucked them deep inside of me, and stepped out into the unknown.

Five months later, I've got a whole lot to say about my adventures in my new job.  The most pressing of which is this: I have found myself once again.  But that part comes later. First, there is the part that explains a bit more about how I got lost.

Over this holiday season, I've been asked a couple of times, "What exactly happened at your other job, anyway?" The answer, of course, is complex, in the way that life often is.  There are layers that cross over people and time; strings that are tangled together and, when gently pulled as though to release one, the others become hopelessly knotted that much more.  And yet, after allowing my thoughts to simmer for five months, after gaining distance and perspective and confidence once again, I think that I can say this with a fair amount of certainty: There were things I should have said. 

When my supervisor said, "You are like my ex-husband.  You are manipulating and controlling me. You're creating rigid boundaries and making it very hard for me to work with you."  I should have said, "No.  I'm asking for you to be here when you say you will be, to meet with me, and to respect me as an employee.  And although I am your subordinate, I have every right to ask that you either support me in my efforts to complete the tasks you've given me or take back those things that have fallen to me as I've worked to pick up the pieces that you've dropped."

When she said, "Others don't trust you.  They say you are insincere. They say you don't care about them and you only care about yourself."  I should have said: "If others have truly said those things, please ask them to talk to me, because I clearly have work to do. And yet....and yet...I doubt that is what they said. Because, although I am sometimes shy, I am one of the most authentic and trustworthy people you will ever meet.  And if you can't see that, then that is something that resides inside of you, not me."

When my supervisor said, "You are rallying the troops and making me into a target.  You need to stop talking to other people; you need to stop pushing agendas and making a mess of everything."  I should have said, "No. I'm doing what needs to be done, because you are rarely here and the program is suffering badly. And if in doing those things, others begin to see me as more of a leader than you, that's because this is what a leader does.  If others stand up for me, rest assured I have not asked them to do so. I have too much pride to ask others to speak on my behalf.  And, should our peers have negative opinions of you, they have come to those conclusions on their own.  Because, unlike you, I do not speak badly about others; despite what you have said about me, I have done nothing but attempt to support you in front those who you are supposed to be leading."

When she said, "You are a square peg in a round hole. I need someone who knows how to work with others.  I need someone who can take in a lot of information and communicate it well.  You clearly aren't capable of that." I should have said, "I am more than capable of processing a large amount of information, making excellent decisions and communicating well with others. Please refer to my previous eleven years of outstanding performance appraisals, the variety of new programs I have created, and the strong community relationships we have as a result of the work that I have done.  And, if upon examining these things, you find that you are threatened by them, than perhaps we have found the reason that you act the way you do."

And when my supervisor looked her boss in the face and lied about her presence in the clinic, when she used half-truths and lies to throw me under the bus as if I were the problem, and when she then then proceeded to come and ask me for help once her boss was gone, I should have said: I quit. 

Oh wait, I did. 

At least I got that one right.

Looking back, reading through what I just wrote, it somehow doesn't seem so bad after all. But what I'll tell you is this:  When words like these come from someone you trust, someone who has power over you, someone who is exceedingly adept at saying them in a way that make you believe what she is saying, when comments such as these start small and grow, when they are slipped into voice-mails and dropped into e-mails, when they become part of daily life, these words gain power. Somehow, somehow, these words become weeds that insidiously snake their way through a garden and eventually overpower the beauty that was once there.


I know that I am trustworthy. I know I'm not manipulative. I know I am sincere, and smart, and good.

But for a period of time last year, I doubted all of that. 

And leaving?

Became the one of of the best choices I'd ever made.

For the past five months, I've stepped into challenges over and over again. Honestly, I didn't know if I could do it.  I didn't know if I could take on three college courses and teach them at the same time as I supervised and supported students working as new clinicians. I didn't know if I could stand in front of 65 college students without stumbling over my words. I didn't know if I could inspire students to grow. I didn't know if I could learn all the new technology needed to teach an online class; if I could reach across distance and still somehow create a learning community just the same.  I didn't know if I could find my place among a whole new set of colleagues, if I could trust myself to share my opinion without a quaking voice, if I could believe in myself again. I didn't know if I had what it took.

But I did. 

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face... you must do the thing you think you cannot do.” 

-Eleanor Roosevelt

The Hard Part

I resigned from my job this past week.

I know this is a small thing in the grand scheme of life.  Especially today, in the wake of the news of another mass shooting, I am all the more aware that resigning from my job, especially when I know that I have another great one to go to, isn't a tragedy. It's a blessing. I know it's not big news to the world, and I know, soon enough, it won't even be big news to me. But for today? To me? It's huge.

It's not that I'm not excited for my future. I am. I will be moving out of a pediatric speech-therapist position, into a teaching position at our local university. I'm not just happy about this, I'm giddy. I've always loved all things academic.  Last year, when my son started school, I practically drooled  with anticipation as we walked the aisles of Target, gathering the requisite supplies for the start of his new year.  Walking into libraries makes me feel like I've arrived home. I love to read, and to learn, and to teach and to grow.  What's more, I love helping others do the same. Moving out of my current job into this new one....it's like a long lost piece of myself is clicking back into place.

So yes, I'm excited about my future, for the part of the story that is yet to come. That's the part of the story where I get to find out who I am. But this part of the story? This is the part where I have to say goodbye.  This is the part where I let people down. 

I'll be saying goodbye to families.  Families who I have loved, and mentored, and laughed and cried with. Families who have trusted me with their children, who have looked to me to guide them as they have fought the uphill battle to make their children better. Families who need me. And now I will have to look them in the face and tell them I am leaving; that I will no longer be a part of their child's story. 

I'll be saying goodbye to colleagues.  Colleagues who were not just colleagues, but who were family. Colleagues who cried with me when I lost my mom, who stood in my living room to welcome home my baby boy, and who showered me with joy when they found out I was expecting my baby girl. They are a huge part of my story and it is hard to let them go.

And, I'll be saying goodbye to what I thought might be. Leaving my job requires me to let go of the dreams I had for the program that I poured my heart and soul into over the past twelve years of my life.  As much as a piece of me is falling into place as I move into my new job, I am also leaving behind the pieces of me I have woven into the programs and people and families that I have loved.

So off I go, to leave.

The good part is coming, for sure.

But this?  This is the hard part.

Metamorphosis

I've always been drawn to butterflies.  The grace with which they move draws me in, as does their fragile beauty.  It's more than that, though. More than anything else, it's the idea of metamorphosis that truly mesmerizes me. Over and over, I find myself falling into the notion that we are only born into our most beautiful form when we fully surrender that which we cling to so desperately.  This process - the one by which we become what we were truly meant to be - is anything but painless.  But it is only through giving into the pain of that we have lost that we find ourselves again.

I've been through the process before, so it's not unfamiliar to me. Losing my mom to cancer was one of the most profoundly scary experiences of my life.  When she first became sick, all I could taste was fear. Looking back, I'm not at all sure that I understood that I could exist without her here. It took every once of courage I had to propel myself forward into the hospital room in which she struggled for life; to squeeze her hand and smile and reassure her that we would go on without her here when we all knew that life wouldn't go on, not the way it would have been; to crawl into her bed, place my hand on her face, and cry as she lay dying. And yet when she died? All I could feel was love. Profound, earth-shattering, life-sustaining love.   Her death transformed the way I lived. 

My second trip with transformation soon followed, when my husband and I made the decision to adopt. Again, the fear. Again, the grief. Again, the unexpected, life shaping love that emerged from loss.  I had been so attached to the idea that I had to conceive a child that my view of life had narrowed only to that. In surrendering this dream, I found myself face to face with the beautiful baby boy who transformed my life in ways that are too many to enumerate, too deep to capture with mere words. 

So I'm not inexperienced with this idea of metamorphosis, not by a long shot.  That doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt, though. This time, the third time it's happened, it has hurt just as much as the first two. The pain of loss was sharp, the process of change was confusing and complex, and once again, in the moments of chaos that existed before the change began to occur, I truly doubted whether or not I was going to make it through.

The story is long, so I won't go into detail.  What I will say is this: This past year, I found myself in a situation that made me doubt all that I knew to be true. It is a story that involves someone I trusted deeply. Someone who held a lot of power in my life. Someone who, intentionally or not, set out to take away a piece of who I was. And almost succeeded.

In the midst of all of this, I found myself full of doubt. Rather than listening to the voice inside of me who knew who I was, I listened to the voice of another person who thought she knew better. I listened to the things that were said about me, about who I was and what I was trying to do, and I let myself believe them.  Even though I knew deep down that something was wrong, something was off, something was not what it seemed. I still let the words in.  I let them start to define me.

Looking back now, I still can't explain how it happened. It seems so absurd.  How could a grown 35-year-old woman let someone else decide for her who she was supposed to be? But the words, they slid into the tiny, shaking six-year-old who resides inside of me, the one who still doubts herself and her ability to shine in this world.  The one who looks to others to tell her if she is a good girl and quivers at the thought of disapproval from someone that she loves and admires.  The words, they found their way into the cracks of my self-confidence and, in those dark spots, they grew.  As they grew, they pushed those cracks wide open until the darkness started to pervade the all of me.

The solution to darkness is always to find the light. Focus on the light, not the darkness.  And that is what I did. I learned to meditate. I learned yoga. I learned to share the darkness with others who loved me, so that it didn't consume me from the inside. I watched for the light of close friends, I borrowed it for a while, I let myself bathe in the light of the love that was shone on me. I stepped back, way back, and invested in myself. I re-examined what I knew: about myself, about the world, and about the people in it. I started to run again. I got strong.  I stood up for myself. I learned the difference between being defensive and defending my own worth. I learned that sometimes the best way to truly love someone is to let them go. I found my way back to myself, only to find myself forever changed.

Be assured: it wasn't without consequences and it wasn't without loss. My life path has changed. For a while, that shook me again, to my core. And yet...and yet. I now know that I can never go back. I am too strong to allow another person to define my worth in this world, despite what consequences flow from the changes that I've made to assert who I am. I can't say what the future holds for sure, but I know that the world is waiting, and I know there is goodness there.

And that, my friends, is how I am learning to fly.

Perhaps strength doesn't reside in never having been broken, 

but in the courage required to grow strong in the broken places.  

Just Another Day In Paradise

My Mother’s Day wasn’t perfect. The weekend brought rain and snot. At one point, I found myself huddled in a car with a crying, snotty Baby Girl and a crying, cold Joseph, watching the soccer game that Joseph was supposed to be playing in (I kind of deserved this, since I had completely underestimated how cold it was—it is NOT supposed to be 35 degrees in May—and had forgotten to bring gloves or a hat for Joseph). I didn’t get to sleep in on Mother’s Day, as I’ve learned that me sleeping in only leads to a grumpy husband who didn’t get enough sleep, and then no-one is happy. So I got up with the kids, bright and early. I didn’t get the tulips I wanted, even though I sent my husband an e-mail that said, “FYI, I like tulips.” Apparently the message was too subtle. I changed my outfit twice before going to church and still had massive amounts of snot on my shirt when we arrived. We ate out at restaurant for lunch, but between a squirmy baby who had missed her nap and a hyper 5 year old who literally *jumped* out of his chair four times, I didn’t get to eat my food until it was cold. There was laundry to be done, a house to be cleaned, and dinner to be made. And nobody else volunteered to take over those duties.

So, my Mother’s Day wasn’t perfect. But I chose to love it anyway.

I chose to love it because I know full well that there are too many women who ache to be mothers and are struggling on their journey to get there. Woman who will spend Mother’s day trying desperately to forget that the one thing they want—to have a baby to snuggle and kiss and rock to sleep at night—seems to be only a distant dream that will never become a reality. Women who have lost babies who were part of them, if only for the briefest moment in time. I know this because I was one of those women. And so I chose to love the snot and the tears and the laundry and the chaos because they are part and parcel of this amazing gift called motherhood.

I chose to love it because my son has another mother, his Ethiopian first mother, who didn’t get to see him jump off of chairs today. As grateful as I am for the joy that this amazing little boy brings into my life and as much as it physically takes my breath away when I think about the prospect of not having him here, I will never forget that my joy comes at the expense of another mother’s loss. I wish I could reach out to his first mother to tell her that Joseph is safe, and he is happy, and he is loved. Oh, how he is loved. But I can’t. And so I chose to love the day and this boy and all his energy to honor the sacrifice his birthmother made. And I chose to love the day because I am heartbreakingly aware of how, with just the smallest twist of fate, I would not have had the chance to hug this little boy and watch him jump off chairs, and see him grow up before my eyes.

I chose to love it because, all over the world, there are mothers who can’t feed their children or keep them warm or keep them sheltered from the rain. On my Mother’s Day, I got to give my children food without thinking twice about how I would make this happen. I got to clothe them, and when they were cold, we got to snuggle in a car, protected from the rain. And when they were sick, I got to wipe their noses with a clean cloth and give them medicine to ease their pain and tuck them into warm beds. I got to give them warm bathes and clean clothes. I got to keep them safe. So I chose to love the day because I know how extraordinarily lucky I am to be able to give those gifts to my children and how many mothers would do anything to be able to do these simple things for theirs.

I chose to love the day anyway because behind the joys of motherhood, there is a sadness that always lingers in the shadows. I miss my mom. I miss her smile and oh, how I miss her voice. Her voice, the one that had the ability to make me feel safe and warm and loved all over. I miss that feeling, the one of complete and utter unconditional love that only a mom can evoke. I miss her profoundly and deeply and achingly. And yet the grief is bittersweet. The bitterness is obvious. The sweetness is the clarity that such a loss brings about the brevity of life. That clarity shapes my days. I chose to love the day because I truly understand, down to my very core, that these moments with my children are excruciatingly, breathtakingly brief.

I chose to love my Mother’s Day. Though it wasn't perfect, it was full of moments that were oh-so-sweet. I woke up to Joseph spontaneously shouting, “Happy Mothers’ Day!” with no one to remind him to do so (remember, my husband was still sleeping). My baby girl woke up and smiled at me with her two new teeth peeking out. My husband presented me with a Dairy Queen cake which I had also requested (okay, so truth be told, my e-mail actually read: “FYI I like tulips and Dairy Queen cake.” He just went for the cake part instead of the tulips part). I felt my mom’s presence in church. At dinner that night, Joseph insisted I get the first piece of cake and crawled over into my lap to give me a kiss. I got to hug my children and watch them play and to put them to bed with full bellies, clean pajamas, and warm blankets. My day wasn’t perfect. But it was more than I deserved. And it was more than enough.

Last One Standing: The Daycare Incident

It was one of those moments that would make any mother's heart stop. I'd just arrived at Baby Girl's daycare, excited to see her beautiful smile after a long day apart. Her teachers greeted me at the door to her room, looked down to watch Baby Girl toddle toward me as she always does, looked at me in confusion when they didn't see this happen, and then looked at each other. And then one of them uttered the words that I never, ever want to hear again: "Where's Baby Girl?"

As it so often does in moments like this, time slowed to a crawl and actions began to unfold in slow motion. I watched the teachers as they checked the coat nook, followed their line of gaze to the picture window that overlooked the toddler playground, felt their horror as it dawned on them that they had left her out there, alone. Then we all snapped into action, rushing out to the playground. And there she was, my sweet baby girl, standing next to the toddler slide where she had been playing contentedly. Unfazed by all the drama, she saw me, smiled, and toddled over to me with her arms stretched up to meet mine. I picked her up, and held her. For the longest time. I just held her.

She had been lost for fewer than thirty seconds. But it was thirty seconds in which I felt the most vulnerable I have ever felt as a mother. The terror I felt in those thirty seconds was the helpless kind where you suddenly understand, down to your very soul, that your whole world can be irrevocably snatched from you in an instant. Kind of like when you are in a near-miss car accident and suddenly you realize how vulnerable you are all the time, speeding along at sixty miles per hour, mere inches away from the other drivers who hold your life in their hands.

After I gathered her up and left, I called the director to let her know what had happened. Then I drove home and did the next logical thing:I posted my situation to Facebook and asked for advice. I say this partly in jest, but there is a a bit of truth here as well: my Facebook friends have gotten me out of many a prickly situation. Like the time I came home to a bird in my house, panicked because I had no idea how to remove said bird from my house, posted to Facebook, and was gently reminded that maybe I should open a window. Oh.

So I posted to Facebook. Basked in the communal sense of outrage. Read the varying suggestions about my next steps. Waited for the horrible, scared feeling to subside a bit (wine helped), and then sat back to ponder the situation.

To be fair, the rest of the children in the daycare room had just come in from outside. They were still taking their coats off. Baby Girl had only been alone for a minute and there's every possibility that the teachers would have realized she wasn't there in the next minute. In some respects, it was an issue of very bad timing: what are the chances that a parent would walk into the room at the exact moment a teacher had lost track of a child for a second? But there was also the haunting possibility that they wouldn't have realized their mistake, that she could have hurt herself, or been taken, or worse. And there was the simple, stark fact that a 14 month old should never be left on the playground alone. It should just never happen. Something went very wrong with a process that should have been in place to protect her.

There was a part of me that wanted to quit my job right then and there. To wrap her in my arms and hold her for the rest of her life. To protect her like a mother should. This anxiety I was feeling was not unknown to me; I had been in this place before. With all the losses that piled up prior to the arrival of my children, my life was a bundle of anxiety for a long time. My early days parenting Joseph were spent battling my overly active imagination that turned the smallest incident into something to be feared on a grand level. My pregnancy with Baby Girl was marked by the omnipresent feeling that something was going to go wrong (and not just in the normal "pregnancy is a bit anxiety-provoking' kind of way; more in the "I just woke my husband up at 2 am for the third night in a row, sobbing hysterically because I am convinced that I am going to die of the Swine Flu" kind of way). It's only recently that I've been able to trust in life again; to believe that I could sink into all this goodness and enjoy it without constantly worrying about the various ways it could be taken away from me.

So yes, there was a large part of me that wanted to pull her out of daycare completely. To take care of her myself and keep bad things from happening. But beyond the obvious financial and emotional ramifications of such a drastic choice, there was another a major problem with that logic: I'm not perfect either. Oh, I like to think I am. I like to believe that as long as my children are in my care, they are magically protected from harm. But in my heart of hearts, I know that this illusion of control is just that: an illusion. I'll be honest and admit that there have been many times when I've messed up and my children have gotten hurt or at least nearly so. I've bumped their heads on doorways, been too careless with my driving while they are the car, watched helplessly as they've fallen off ladders. And then there was the little incident that involved me bumping an axe off the wall of my garage and watching it miss my sweet baby boy's head by a fraction of an inch. Yeah, I'm not perfect. I can't protect my children from all harm, no matter how hard I try. None of us can.

If pulling her out of daycare wasn't an option, the next solution would be to switch daycares, immediately. This was a thought I entertained more thoroughly. It was a common suggestion to my dilemma on Facebook and I'm guessing it's the thing that most parents would recommend given the situation at hand. It's highly logical move. But. Baby Girl was happy at her daycare. Switching daycares with a 14 month old is not an endeavor to be taken lightly. She'd have to start the process of acclimating to a new environment and new teachers all over. This in and of itself is not reason enough to preclude a switch, but it's certainly a tally in the column of staying. Further, this daycare came with high recommendations from many people of varying backgrounds. In the world of daycares, it was one of the best. If something like this could happen there, it could happen anywhere. Switching daycares might feel good, but there would still be no guarantees that my daughter would be safe. The raw, hard truth is that anything can happen, anytime and anyplace. Life is fragile. There are no guarantees.

So I didn't switch daycares immediately. Instead, I talked to the director and the teachers and watched carefully for defensiveness in their responses. There was none. There was only contrition. And I questioned their processes. They had already recognized their error and had taken steps to fix it.

After all the talking, I chose to believe that it was a one time, fluke mistake that did not speak to the quality of the daycare as a whole. One of my Facebook friends commented that this was a compassionate response. To a degree, this is true. I do find it relatively easy to put myself in other people's shoes and I do seem to have an innate understanding that we are all flawed humans doing the best we can in a messy world (see above axe incident for proof of my own flawed humanity). But I think that it was more than a compassionate response: it was probably, in large part, a self protective response. I have to believe that it was a fluke mistake. Because if I start believing the inverse, if I return to imagining all the scenarios in which I could lose my children, if I spend all my time trying to do everything I can to protect them from any possible harm, I will not only go a little bit crazy, but I will lose the opportunity to live and enjoy the life that is right in front of me.

Don't get me wrong: I can be a mama bear when I need to be. My antenna is up, and if there is any further hint of misstep, there will be no third chances. But I don't think this is going to happen. My motherly instincts tell me that I can trust again. And in the end, motherly instincts are really all we have to go on. Now I just have to pray that mine are right.

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
—Elizabeth Stone

Words of Hate

I'm tired today. Too much Christmas shopping this weekend, too many things to do in general. I'm tired, and I'd planned to make my day a relaxing one. Drop off my son at school, spend the day with my daughter, indulge in a cup of coffee and a book during nap time. No blogging, no thinking, no doing. Sunshine and happiness topped my day's agenda.

Then I woke up this morning to a story in our local press describing a sign that a man had posted declaring that "no negros" were allowed in his business. The man doesn't hate all Black people, he explained. He's just had a problem with a few of them, and so he's going to take care of that by preventing anyone else with brown skin from entering. Well, okay then. As long as he doesn't hate all Black people.

So much for sunshine and happiness.

It would be easy to read this story, shake my head, mutter a few words to myself about the absurdity of this type of thinking, and move on with my day. To tell myself that he's just an anomaly--a blip on the radar of a post-racial world. The problem is, he's not. Whether we like to admit it or not--whether we know it or not--too many people continue to judge our nation's citizens by the color of their skin. This guy's not all that different from a lot of people. He's just ballsy enough to say it out loud. And if there are people like this who continue to believe that it's okay to post crap like that for all the public to see, imagine what people are saying behind closed doors.

So I can't just shut my eyes and move on. I'm raising a son who is going to encounter this type of thinking. He's going to bump up against people who think he is dumb or violent or lazy just because his skin is brown. It's my job to do everything I can, anything I can, to fight against this. And that means speaking out against words like these and calling them what they are: hateful, and ignorant, and shameful.

Most people who read this will agree that this man is out of line. Most will see that it's not okay to prevent people from coming in your door because they don't share the color of your skin. When racism is this extreme, it's pretty easy to see. What's harder to see is the more subtle racism that runs through our nation's blood. The kind that leads to Black men and woman being followed in stores more often than their Caucasian peers. Or stopped by the police for no reason. Or put in jail more often. Or blocked from living in certain areas by being denied mortgages despite ample income. Or placed in special education more frequently. Or called for job interviews and hired less frequently despite having equal credentials. The reasons for these phenomena are multi-faceted and complex, of course. But at the core of it all is the pervasive and often unseen belief that looking at a person's skin color will tell you about that person's character.

If you are Caucasian, it can be hard to see this subtle, systematic, everyday racism. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means that means that asking those of us who live in the majority to see the white privilege from which we benefit is like asking a fish to see the water he's swimming in. It's hard to see it when it surrounds and pervades your very existence.

But even if you can't see it, you can often hear it. Listen carefully. You'll hear it in the jokes made at family parties. Or in the casual comment that suggests that the family down the street isn't taking care of their yard because they are Black. Or in the off-handed suggestion that the Hmong teenager down the street is probably in a gang. Or when your uncle theorizes that black people are poor simply because they enjoy living off welfare. Or when people ask me if my son is smart. (And yes, they do). It's there. We all hear it. Now we just have to speak out against it.

It's not easy to speak up, of course. Most of us were taught that it's not polite to talk about race. Its uncomfortable. And more than that, speaking out puts us in a vulnerable position. We risk rejection, bad feelings, arguments. We risk making others uncomfortable. We risk losing friends. We risk offending family. We risk a lot by speaking up.

But the price we pay for not speaking up is greater. When we don't speak up, we end up condoning a world where it's okay to believe that the color of your skin actually means something about who you are. A world where we start to believe that "other" is scary. A world where it's okay for a man to post a sign on his door that says "no negros allowed." A world in which a man like that is not shunned from his community for posting such a sign but instead benefits from the attention he receives. A world in which I will soon have explain to my beautifully innocent son what "negros" are and why some people don't think they should be allowed in their stores, because I can't protect him from the realities of that world much longer. This is the price we pay when we don't speak out. And it's not a price I'm willing to pay.

Okay.

Enough of that darkness.

Excuse me while I go look for some sunshine.

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” -Martin Luther King Jr.