the ELLA echo

thinking of aly

my friend aly died about 12 hours ago, from colon cancer.  she was just 26 years old.  aly was a local theatrical stitcher who sometimes worked for me when i was still designing costumes.  she was dear and sweet and kind and gentle and sassy and smart and talented and loving and every good thing you could say about a person.

aly had a young spirit but an old soul, and i liked her from the start.  she developed the grannie habit of always having a piece of candy ready to give to ella whenever we visited.  the last time we saw aly, she gave ella two pieces, because she thought it would be a while before we'd see each other again.

tonight i can't sleep, with memories like that filling my head.  i look at my own sleeping child, in her footie pajamas and sweet brown curls, i think of how she has spent the past two days in a kelly green wig and her cinderella dress, feeling like the most beautiful being on earth--knowing that aly's mother has memories like that too, of a little girl dressed like a princess, of a grown woman dressed in a wedding gown, and that her very last dress-up memory will be the one of her child dressed for burial.

and i think of aly's husband, terry, who is already a widower at an age when most people are buying their first home and dreaming of their first child.  i think of how he and aly did it all--for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part--they lived the whole marriage vow in less than three years.

and i think of terry's and aly's parents, who have watched their children go thru these indescribably hard, grown up things, and knowing they have been thinking the very same thing i think when i look at ella--"they're just babies"--how utterly helpless it must feel to watch your child go thru these things and be able to do nothing to stop it or fix it or make it easier.

i think of how utterly lost i would be without rudi, knowing full well that one day, one of us will have to live without the other and simply refusing to think of what that even means, because at least for now i have the luxury to do so.

i think of course of my own motherhood, of how i have laid my hand on ella's chest every single night of her life, to feel her heartbeat and the rise and fall of her breath--to reassure myself that she is still here and that everything is ok--thinking each time that one day i won't have the privilege of doing this anymore, that one day she will leave and have a life of her own away from my motherly attentions, and pushing out of my thoughts the knowledge that there are other, unthinkable reasons why this insane little ritual might be taken from me.

there's no point to this post, really, except that i thought maybe downloading the voices in my head would make it possible to sleep tonight.  so i'll say the obvious thing, because i'm a mother and that's what we do:  hug your children. hug your spouse.  and be kind to yourself because you're someone's baby too.

good-night, aly.  thank you for being my friend.

the difference

my last blog post hit a nerve with some readers (as i expected it would). some understood me to say that children should be allowed to get away with whatever they choose.  some thought i meant that children should not be held to any standards of decency or civil behavior.

but read it again.  nowhere do i suggest that children--or anybody--be allowed to be rude or disrespectful, or that they be permitted to endanger themselves or others.  what i did say, explicitly, is that i believe my child should be allowed and encouraged to think for herself, to learn to exercise her own good judgment--that i do not believe it is good for her, or good for society, for her to take what she is told at face value or to accept as gospel the word of someone who has not made their case.

so—what do i expect in place of obedience?

cooperation.

the difference is just this:  obedience says, "do what i say".  cooperation says, "work with me on this".

obedience is a top-down relationship.  the person having the most power forces the other to bend to his/her will, regardless of purpose or reason.  by contrast, cooperation is a relationship of partners.  each relies on the other for support and contribution to a shared need or goal. 

regular readers of this blog know that ella is a cooperative child.  this is partly her nature (and i plan to write about the challenges of this characteristic soon)--but i believe, based on my experiences with other children, that it is also a function of how they are approached.  when an adult says to a child, "please do this, because XYZ,", the child learns that his help is needed, and he learns why. a habit of explaining things to children sets them up to expect reasons that make sense, that put things into context.

when one day the child is confronted with the person who says, "i'm in charge, do it my way," without providing any reason for this assumption of power, the child will have been equipped by his previous experience to expect some evidence that what he is being asked to do is reasonable or has value.

in other words--the child learns to think for himself.

adults are sometimes threatened by children who question their authority.  in my experience these adults are the ones likely to exert the most effort towards obedience.  while i don't judge their reasons for this, i do wonder if this is the best method for achieving the goal.