Graduation and Resilience

I am beginning to realize that parenting a teenage child out of foster care requires two attributes more than anything else: resilience and openness. These are the same attributes required, I think, to do the work of social justice, and to teach, and to write.

It is important to be able to weather the ups and downs in the process; the difference is that those ups and downs are more tangible, more painful or joyful, in the parenting process than in other areas of my life. It is also important to be open both to the depth of love and pain AND to the wonder of every moment. In writing, this is true, or a good piece can't get written. In social justice work, this is true, or the horrors of our communities and world will overshadow what is beautiful and good and keep the activist from doing her work. In teaching, it's true, or else the students will stop being people and begin to become obstacles or problems. In parenting, it's true because it's the only way to make parenting something other than the hardest job of one's life--and to keep from numbing out, from simply going through the daily motions.

This week began beautifully, as I recounted in my last post. Mother's Day was amazing; the entire weekend was fabulous. On Monday, my Fundamentals of Writing students came over--I'd promised them a party if they all passed (there was one failure and one near-failure, but I went ahead with the plan anyway), and they surprised me with a beautiful card and a gift certificate to my favorite restaurant. They were genuinely grateful for our work together--and I felt like I'd finally figured out how to teach this class to at-risk college students in my eighth try. Lisa was a part of it all, and she loved having the company.

And then, two days later, she walked out of her therapist's office 15 minutes early and wouldn't explain why. I was weary; we drive 1 1/2 hours each way for her to see a therapist who is qualified to help her. In the car she finally told me a horrible story of something that had allegedly happened to her--a serious crime--right before she came to live with me. I'd heard the story before; she'd told it once, then admitted it wasn't true and that she'd only wanted to make sure I'd still take her damaged, and to make sure everyone from her previous life--therapists, social workers, foster parents--still cared for her.

But now the story was back, and she claimed she'd been "forced" to take it back earlier. I wanted to believe her, but I didn't. Still, I went through the necessary steps, just in case. I told her I'd love her if she was lying, if she'd had a flashback and thought it was true but it wasn't (very possible in this case), and if it wasn't true. By Thursday, she was saying, "maybe it happened, maybe it didn't." I told her it made sense to be confused, and to test me. She wouldn't admit completely to either, but she held me tight and put her head on my shoulder and cried a little. For the rest of the weekend, she was gratefully affectionate; she knew she was lucky to still be loved and cared for after that.

And then came graduation at the college where I teach. S. came with me to the Native American Honoring Ceremony on Friday. We watched several students I love dearly receive blankets or quilts, held tightly by their mentors and families. We listened to an honoring song and felt blessed. On graduation day, S. decided to come and watch. She listened to a controversial speech by a graduation speaker I admire. She watched me on stage as I cheered for the students who crossed, took a diploma.

I'm going to miss them. It wasn't an easy day.

Afterwards there was a graduation party at our home for two students who came to Greece with me and their big Native American families. The amount of food they carted here from South Dakota was startling. S. had willingly helped me prepare, but when the dog food got spilled, and when I wouldn't let her bring the dog out of his kennel, when the house got crowded and no one was paying attention to her, she got angry--and mean. At one point, she shouted at me in front of a house full of at least 40 people. Then she went upstairs.

I asked out loud, to no one in particular, "Should I go after her?"

Nobody answered at first. I looked around the room, realizing suddenly how quiet it was. My students looked sympathetic; their family members averted their eyes. And then my student's stepmother, who has raised six kids (and more, if you count nieces and nephews), said to me, looking right into my eyes, "Don't you dare. Let her stay up there awhile." She was startlingly beautiful and confident; I realized I had both an ally and someone who truly understood. Then, she calmly handed me some fry bread and berry sauce (I can't remember the name of the dish). I ate gratefully, felt better.

When S. returned, she interrupted multiple conversations, stepped on my foot multiple times (painfully), told me repeatedly how horrible I was and how much she hated me, smeared a delicious berry dish onto my arm. Eventually, people left the back porch and headed back inside, realizing we needed some time alone. She was too distraught to be disciplined or to listen.

For awhile, it was only the two of us and one little boy who was enjoying using my broomstick to pound pine cones into a hole in the back deck. I watched him for awhile while Lisa went on with her tirade, staring until I felt myself numbing out. "Don't go away," I told myself fiercely.

And that's when my student's stepmother came out to sit beside us. "You know," she said, to me, but knowing S. was listening, "I got a beautiful mother's day card from my stepdaughter last week. I cried. It's the first time she's acknowledged my role in her life." Then she locked eyes with S. "She does what she does because she loves you," was all she said, and then S. walked away, at least a little ashamed, and went upstairs again to calm herself.

We sat in silence, this woman and I. I'd never met her before, but I knew her stepdaughter well. College had not been an easy ride for her; she'd partied too much, drank too much, had at least one major trauma at a party, which she'd chosen not to report; she'd faced the common problem of feeling not a part of either world after coming here (no longer a college student, no longer a full participant in the lives on her reservation). She'd faced the humiliation, over and over, of one or another of us professors pulling her into our offices to berate her for being smart but not trying hard enough.

But I have also seen tremendous growth in her in the last year. She really connected to the elders in Greece, one of whom spoke to her about the importance of knowing and loving her roots while also achieving what she wanted to achieve in life. She made a real impact on an elder in the community whom she visited regularly as part of an internship; he is going to miss her.

Now, she's pregnant. I was so worried when she told me. She was worried, too--terrified of how her family would react, of what her future had in store for her. But she made a decision to stop drinking, to have the baby, to tell her family, who stood by her. She made a decision to do her best in her last semester of college, to get her degree. Through all of this, she remained relatively without affect, quiet, reserved, at least around her professors. I had to ask her friends how she was doing, really, because I couldn't always tell.

As the last year of my student's life ran through my mind, I said, finally, "I'm sure she wasn't easy to raise."

"Oh, no, not at all."

We both laughed. "How long has S. been with you?" she asked.

"Not quite two months."

"We've taken in nieces and nephews at this age. They come angry. They take it out on you."

"She has plenty to be angry about."

"Of course she does. And she expects you to send her back." She paused, looked me straight in the eye again. "But you have a big heart. So you're not going to do that. You're going to figure out what works."

I told her that so far, we'd been able to process things, and she'd taken consequences--but today was different. She was meaner, angrier, and I was actually afraid her reaction would get more violent if I disciplined her in front of everyone. I said I'd decided to do it later.

"That makes sense," the wise mom-of-many told me. And then she repeated, "You have a big heart."

(Did I say resilience and openness were the two attributes most important for parenting? I should have added love).

A few minutes later, my student called me inside. She wrapped a Native American honoring quilt around me, and I burst into tears immediately. Like I said, she doesn't say much, but I knew what it meant; I knew it was a big deal. Then she hugged me tight. Then her stepmother hugged me and said, "Thanks for everything you've done for her." Then other student gave me a beautiful beaded pen and keychain--it was remarkable, made by her father.

I couldn't stop crying.

Awhile later the families began to leave, until only the students were there--and then more students began to arrive, including some GLBT activist students with whom I'm very close, and also several alums who had come to see their friends graduate. It was an impromptu, sober party, all of us sitting in a circle, talking comfortably. There was tangible love and joy in the room. S. came down again, in a wonderful mood, joking with everyone, complimenting everyone. We talked until there was no more to say, until saying goodbye was hanging over everyone painfully. And finally, after a last round of hugs, they left.

But luckily, I happened to glance out the window just in time to see them all come together in a big group hug on my front lawn. It was an amazing and a lonely feeling; I knew they'd come to love each other in this place and with me watching, helping them here and there through all the normal college dramas, from running social justice-related organizations to practically failing classes to falling in and out of love. And now it was over. They were graduating.

"Your student is going to be a great teacher," S. had said, unprompted, earlier that day about one of the students in that group hug. I thought about him going off to New Mexico to do Teach for America. I thought about his road trip out there, how he'll have time alone to take in the wonder of this new step in his life. I thought about the confusion in another student's life; he turned down an opportunity for grad school because the place didn't feel right to him, and now he doesn't have a plan--but he is smart and talented, and I have no doubt that he'll figure something out. And then I closed my eyes and remembered one of the students her freshman year, afraid to even come into my office--I would have never guessed I'd be hosting her graduation party. And then, finally, I imagined my other student with a baby in her arms, held tightly in the embrace of those who love her.

I nodded. I am a part of all of these lives, I thought.

And then it was time to deal with my daughter. I told her what the consequences were. I told her how hurt I'd been. I explained why her behavior was so inappropriate, how selfish it was to act the way she'd acted. She said, "Well, no one here has had as hard a life as I have."

But that wasn't altogether true. The students whose parties I'd thrown had known hard times, times of deep loneliness and pain. The students who came to visit had lost family members and friends in the process of coming out, had struggled in other ways as well. Two of the other faculty who'd been there had dealt with alcoholism and abuse in their families of origin or choice. I told her these stories. I told her she needed to stop expecting that nobody cared or understood. I told her she needed to be a part of this community, but only she could make that choice.

"We all want you to be OK. We all want you to be able to say later to your abusers, 'look at me, you didn't ruin my life.' But you have to make that choice. Everyone who was here today is behind you, everyone."

She nodded. She knew it was true.

"It's about being open to the love around you," I said. "And about resilience."

"What does resilience mean?" she asked.

"Staying true to yourself and your path, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how much the past haunts you," I told her.

And then she agreed to the consequences, said she was sorry, and went to bed. Before I fell asleep, I wrapped myself in that quilt and held it tight around me. I felt the warmth and love of all the students I've mentored in my 12 years of teaching. I'd promised my first-year students who had come over earlier in the week that I'd throw them another party when they graduated. Four years is a long time, and at the same time, hardly any time at all. I closed my eyes and saw my students in their little circle on the front lawn, a group hug, and felt myself enclosed within it.

I knew what I was doing mattered. And then I went to bed--but not before S. came out of her room to give me one last hug and kiss and say goodnight again.