High In the Sky

Jennifer, our first child, was born in 1964. She was a careful, rather quiet individual, private and a thinker. When I took her for her first day of Kindergarten I told the teacher that she was shy. After a day or so she corrected me: "No, Mrs. Hawks, she's reserved, not shy. She checks things out before she joins in." Mrs. I-Don't-Remember-Her-Name was right on.

Four years later Ms. Dana-Banayna joins the family. From the moment she's born she is Personality Central. I wrote a poem about her once, that began: "Neighborhood girls would take her for walks, she was such a friendly baby."

Therein could be the theme.

I have a photo of Dana on the beach, she was probably 3 years old. She's posed -- or scrawled -- and that is the beginning of my realization that my 2nd child has a slogan on her forehead, which reads:

ANYTHING GOES!
(Big Time)

Well, it took a few more years before she began to fulfill the prophesy, and she did it fully.

In her teens she began to skip school, hang out with the wrong people -- I know, I know, she was one of them! It was just the two of us. Jen was in college and doing her own life. Dana's father and I had divorced when she was 3-ish. We lived in California, he in New York. It got to be hellish.

I had to do tough love when she was 18. She had her forehead label on, pulsating. I was doing all the classic things to enable her. She was into drugs and alcohol. And whatever. So she had to leave. It sickened me. We were close to hating each other.

I did Al-Anon for a few years, which saved my life.

Long shot into future. It took years for her to come around and decide to change her life. In 1997, when she was 28, she checked herself into a rehab facility and spent the next TWO YEARS getting clean and sober. We celebrate her anniversary.

When Dana and her partner Monica were visiting earlier this month -- they live in New York -- we went to a carnival at a park in town. Right before we left to go home Dana wanted a last ride that Monica and I were not in the least bit interested in. Like risking our lives. There went Ms. Anything Goes, flying in a disc way too high in the sky. Then she threw her arms up -- not holding onto to anything -- and had the most glorious 5 minute ride in the sky.

My "baby" had made it, and was gloriously alive.

Oh, and big sister Jennifer is no slouch either. She's had a few different careers, now lives in Canada and supports herself as a freelance writer. She also is a pilot -- a very careful one. More on her later.