Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 36

(2/7) “When Gene was in fifth grade, his teacher stood him up in...

(2/7) “When Gene was in fifth grade, his teacher stood him up in the front of the class. I forget what he did. Maybe he’d forgotten his homework or something. But she stood him up in front of all the other kids, and said: ‘This is what will happen if you don’t work hard.’ It was devastating. Gene took off running, and they found him several hours later wandering down the highway. That day will always stand out in my memory as the beginning of Gene’s period of anger. Adolescence is a tough age for any child. But it was especially tough for Gene, because that’s when the world began to progress away from him. His differences became more apparent. Most kids his age were playing sports. Or talking about girls. But Gene would come into my bedroom every night and want to play with Barbies. Or dress up in our mother’s army uniforms. I didn’t have time for that anymore. I was too busy becoming a teenager: going on dates, experimenting with drinking. And Gene resented that. I started to become a symbol for all the things he’d never have. At some point our little kid fights began to escalate. Gene is very strong in his right arm, because it’s the only one he can use. And he began to push me around. But he was always still Gene. So he’d stop the moment I began to cry. One afternoon I made him especially mad. I was a little brat back then, so I’m sure I said something horrible. Maybe I told him that he couldn’t play with me and my friends. So he began to chase me. I ran inside the house and locked the door behind me. Gene began banging on the glass window. Knowing him, he was probably terrified I would tell on him. So he pounded the glass so hard that it shattered. I ended up with a small cut, which absolutely destroyed him. When my mother came home she found him sobbing uncontrollably on the floor. He confessed everything. The first thing my mother did was go outside and smoke a cigarette. But when she came back inside, she called us into the living room. We thought for sure we were going to get grounded, but she didn’t seem angry. She seemed worried. ‘Take a seat,’ she told us. ‘Because it’s time for you to know what happened to Gene.’”

(1/7) “For my eighth birthday I received a Barbie dollhouse that...

(1/7) “For my eighth birthday I received a Barbie dollhouse that I’d been dreaming about for months. Gene wanted to play with it too, because he loved all things make-believe. But after a few hours he sat down on the dollhouse and crushed it. He cried so hard afterwards. He kept promising that he’d pay me back. I was probably mad about it for a few days, but of course I forgave him. Because Gene was just Gene. His physical disabilities were obvious, but it was much more than that. Gene couldn’t understand the things that the rest of us understood. Even though he was my older brother, I still tied his shoes for him. I still held his hand when we crossed the street. We knew he hadn’t always been disabled, because we had baby pictures lying around the house. There was no dent in his head. No shrunken arm. But my mother never really discussed what happened to him. Occasionally she’d mention ‘the accident,’ but we always assumed it was a car wreck. And we were living on an army base in Germany, so there was no family around to tell us differently. But I never pressed her on it. We were just kids, and Gene’s disabilities never bothered me. We spent our days getting into good mischief. We’d explore empty buildings. We’d play in drain pipes. One time we decided that it was time for Gene to ride a bicycle. My mother would have never allowed it, because he was paralyzed on the left side of his body. And he wore a full set of Forrest Gump leg braces. But it was something he’d always wanted to do, so one afternoon I hoisted him up onto my little pink bike. He wouldn’t even let me use the training wheels. I used my shoelace to tie his one good foot to the pedal, and I pushed him as hard as I could. It was a magical ten seconds. Then he toppled over onto the concrete. When he stood up there was road rash all over his body. But Gene didn’t seem to mind. He has this thing—when he gets excited, his left arm flies up in the air. He has no control over it. And on that day his arm was raised completely above his head. He screamed a war cry. Like a victorious king. And it’s still my favorite memory of him, all these years later. Because it captures his spirit so well.”

(2/2) “When my mother died, I felt a responsibility to carry her...

(2/2) “When my mother died, I felt a responsibility to carry her resentment forward. I made sure that Jana knew her place. Whenever she tried to guide me, it was like: ‘You’re here. She’s not. And that’s not fair.’ But we respected each other’s boundaries, and we made it through my teenage years. Then during my freshman year of college I became pregnant unexpectedly. I felt so unprepared. And more than that, it was another milestone that brought back the trauma of not having a mom. Jana was the first person I told. I expected her to pity me, but instead she grabbed my face with both hands. ‘This is so great!’ she said. ‘We’re ready for this!’ In that moment I started sobbing. Because I’d always wanted to be a mother, and I’d just been given permission to be joyful. Jana supported me throughout the entire pregnancy. And it wasn’t just support, it was enthusiasm. She had T-shirts made. She welcomed my son with tears in her eyes. For the first time since my mother’s death, it felt like someone really had my back. One of the hardest parts of losing my mom was: ‘I’m never going to have this kind of love again.’ But I’ve found it with Jana. I have two sons now, and she has such a deep bond with both of them. She’s been so careful to keep my mother’s memory alive. She’s always mentioning ‘Grandma Michele’ to my boys. She sends me texts on my mother’s birthday. And one night she said something I’ll never forget. We were sitting at the dinner table, and she said: ‘I feel such a responsibility with these boys. Because I know your mom doesn’t have the privilege of being here.’ Those words meant so much to me. Last year I went through a very difficult period. During the pandemic I had to close down my business, and Jana supported me through the whole thing. On the night we finally shut our doors, Jana texted me a picture of my mother’s valedictorian speech. I’d never even seen it before. I didn’t know it existed. But Jana found it in the garage, and the words were such a balm to my soul. It’s what I know my mother would have told me: ‘Lives are made of chapters,’ it said. ‘And after one is written, it cannot be revised. But we can write a new chapter with each new day.’”

(½) “The conversations were tense. I remember one time my...

(½) “The conversations were tense. I remember one time my mom threw the phone across the room. So I could tell that the divorce was less than amicable. Dad ended up with holidays and weekends, and Mom was left with the rest of the parenting: homework, drop-offs, pick-ups. But she made it all look easy. Even while working full time as a nurse, she was still that lady that could whip up a meal. We didn’t have any grand traditions or anything, there wasn’t time for that. But we were best friends. She always found ways to be present. We loved to cook together. And she was the one I came to for advice. She always had this way of guiding me to my own conclusions. Whenever there was an issue with a friend, it was never: ‘you’re wrong,’ or ‘they’re wrong.’ She’d try to understand each person’s needs, and would encourage me to find the disconnect. But that empathy didn’t extend to my father, or his new wife Jana. Jana was much younger. And it was difficult for my Mom to see my father move on so quickly. There was clearly a lot of strain, and I felt a responsibility to not like Jana too much, out of respect for my mom. But it wasn’t easy, because Jana made an effort to connect with me from the start. Whenever I went to my dad’s house, she’d sit with me and read stories. We’d make birdhouses together. I remember spa nights with facemasks, and hair curlers. But I knew it was an easy role for her to fill. She got to be the ‘fun stepmom,’ because she never anticipated living with us full time. She was always able to drop us off at the end of the weekend. Then one evening my brother and I were home with my mom, and we heard her calling from upstairs. There was so much fear in her voice. I knew something horrible was happening. When we got to the hospital, the doctors told us that she’d had a brain aneurysm, and the next morning she was gone. Dad and Jana were vacationing in Mexico at the time. And this was pre-cell phone, so there was no way to get a hold of them. Days passed by. It was maddening. And when they finally came back, there was so much confusion. We all moved in together, and everyone was in shock. Nobody knew what to do. It was like: ‘Now what?’”

“My parents were refugees from Vietnam. And shortly after I was...

“My parents were refugees from Vietnam. And shortly after I was born, my mother got hired as a housekeeper. But she couldn’t bear to leave me with a babysitter. So after only three days, she tried to quit. That’s when her employers insisted that she bring me to work instead. Their names were Charles and Kathleen Timblin, and for the next seven years I would grow up in their home. They were an elderly couple. Neither of them had kids. And I was an only child, so they became my playmates. It’s not like they did much. He had a chair, she had a chair. But I would set up a partition in their living room and stage performances. We’d go to the park, we’d read books; I became part of their world. In the evening we’d eat dinner together and they’d listen to me talk incessantly. But they never yelled at me or put me in my place. I was allowed to play with anything in the house. There was a big rocking chair that I used all the time, and for my fourth birthday they bought a miniature one just for me. Eventually my mom saved enough money to open her own business. And on her last day of work, The Timblins said to me: ‘You’re always welcome in this home.’ I’d visit them three times every year: his birthday, her birthday, and my birthday. As a graduation present they gave me a check to help with my college education. Mr. Timblin gave me a hug, and said: ‘I just hope I can dance with you at your wedding.’ But by then his health had already started getting really bad, and it wasn’t long before he passed away. I started making an extra effort to visit Ms. Timblin. I’d always stop by Blockbuster and pick us out a tape, because she only had a VHS player. But we only had three more years together. Her memorial service was mainly distant family from out of town. I flew home from grad school, and all of them were so surprised I’d made the trip. Especially when I explained that my mom used to work for the Timblins. Nobody could understand why they meant so much to me. It was the first time I’d ever felt like an outsider. And only then did I realize how much the Timblins had made me a part of their world. I lived in their home for seven years, and not once had I felt like the helper’s kid.”

“I remember he couldn’t run. But I didn’t think any dads could...

“I remember he couldn’t run. But I didn’t think any dads could run, so that didn’t seem abnormal to me. Then one morning we were at a school breakfast, and he fell over. And the next day we were shopping for canes. But even when he got the wheelchair, his MS never felt like a big part of our childhood. Our parents made sure of that. We still went to baseball games. And took a lot of vacations. And Dad did everything he could to be a normal dad. He set up a stand in the backyard so that he could throw baseballs to us. And when we went to the beach, he asked the lifeguards to drive him down to the ocean, just so he could get in the water. In our living room there was a framed picture of Mom and Dad at the beach. It was taken before the disease. They were so young. Dad was hugging Mom from behind, and they looked so relaxed. Like they were taking a breath together. I looked at that picture so much, because it’s a side of them I never really saw. All of their time was spent managing things: Dad managing his disease, Mom managing everything else. So much of the parenting and caretaking fell on her shoulders. I don’t remember them having many date nights. Or lighthearted moments together. They were always so tired from doing the things they had to do. Several years ago my dad retired to focus full time on his health. And recently he was able to build a completely wheelchair-accessible house. He’s managed to get back a lot of independence, which has taken pressure off Mom. And now they have a lot more time together. They’re working on their relationship. They’re going to therapy. They laugh a lot more. They’re even cuddling up on the couch to watch movies, which I had never seen before. This has been my favorite chapter of their lives. For their anniversary I made one of those cheesy music videos, with a montage of photos. I searched through all our old albums. And I discovered the old photo from the living room that I loved. But that isn’t how I chose to end the video. Because I also found one more picture from that same day, that I’d never seen before. It was the two of them, hand-in-hand, running on the beach.”

“The pregnancy was picture perfect until the moment Hudson was...

“The pregnancy was picture perfect until the moment Hudson was born: 10 weeks early, and not ready for the world. They whisked him away before I could even see him, and he’d spend the next 67 days in the NICU. My husband Nick couldn’t afford to take off work, but every night he’d come straight to the hospital. He’d read books next to Hudson’s incubator. He’d sing him happy birthday at exactly 9 pm. The nurses were handling all the care, so Nick didn’t have to be there. He could have gone home and gotten some sleep. But he’d always stay for hours. Hudson was eventually diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, and he required constant care when we came home. There was so much stress, and so much to worry about. I tried to throw everything at the problem. I coordinated all the appointments. When Hudson began to miss milestones, I doubled down on my efforts. Nick was more relaxed about it. He was the fun one. He got to just ‘be a dad.’ And I’d feel a little envious at times, because all I wanted to do was ‘be a mom.’ But both of our roles were so necessary. Hudson can’t do anything by himself. He requires so much attention, and Nick doesn’t mind giving it to him. He’ll take him on miles and miles of runs. He’ll jump in the pool and push him around on a raft. And he always tries to pull me into the fun. He’ll say: ‘C’mon, Mom! Jump in the pool!’ Or: ‘Come dance with us in the kitchen!’ He’s always encouraging me to get out of my head, and just ‘be a mom’, if only for a moment. Every year Nick makes Hudson a custom Halloween costume for his wheelchair. He’ll spend several weekends working on it. We’ve had spaceships, and bat-mobiles, and garbage trucks. The tradition began in 2017. We’d just moved to a new neighborhood, and Nick wanted Hudson to have an authentic trick-or-treating experience. So he built a Skid Steer Loader, which is oddly specific, I know. But the idea came from a book that we’d read to Hudson every night. Each page had a different truck. And I loved the Skid Steer Loader, because she was a girl. And she had such a funny little verse. It made laugh every time we read it. So Nick decided to build Hudson a Skid Steer Loader. Because it was Mom’s favorite page.”

“She was the first person to call me by my full name. Even my...

“She was the first person to call me by my full name. Even my family called me by my nickname ‘Sephie.’ But Mrs. Hart always used my full name: ‘Sephora Woldu.’ And that’s a big deal when you’re a second grader. For the first time it got me thinking: ‘Who is Sephora Woldu?’ One afternoon she gave our entire class a writing prompt. ‘Tell about your weekend,’ or something like that. I ended up writing this long story about breaking my mother’s chair, the good chair, that she kept wrapped in plastic. Ms. Hart gave me four out of four stars. Then she laminated my story and showed it on the overhead projector. When she read it to the entire class, it was such a powerful feeling. For the first time I realized that my writing could live outside of my homework. I could create a story that was bigger than me. And after that I fell in love with it. I began to write my own little books. And Mrs. Hart always encouraged me. She would correct my grammar, and make suggestions. But always, she told me I was a good writer. At the end of the year my family moved away. I gave my new address to a few of my teachers, but Mrs. Hart is the only one who wrote. I remember how surprised I was to get her letter. She wrote to me like a peer. And she always addressed the letters with my full name. We remained pen pals over the years. It wasn’t a regular thing. Just once or twice a year. But she sent me letters all the way through high school. I have no idea how she found the time. It wasn’t like I was her favorite student or anything. But she still found time to write. And it wasn’t just me, either. She kept in touch with so many different people. It’s like I was part of some grander tradition. Last year I published my first book through a small independent press. And one of the first things I wanted to do was give a copy to Mrs. Hart, so I wrote her an email. And we agreed to meet for a walk near my old elementary school. She brought along some of the letters I’d written her over the years. When she showed them to me, I asked her: ‘Why me? Why did you keep writing to me?’ ‘I write to a lot of people,’ she said. ‘But not everyone writes back. And you’re one of the ones who writes back.”

“It was an older couple from Louisiana. And there were a lot of...

“It was an older couple from Louisiana. And there were a lot of red flags, they weren’t even approved to adopt in their own state. But my sister and I were hard to place in a home. We’d already been in foster care for two years, so the agency decided to be more lenient with their rules. Our new house was out in the country. It was so isolating. And inside those walls we were put through every sort of physical and emotional abuse. I remember every Friday afternoon when the school bus dropped us off, my stomach would sink as it drove away. My only protector was my big sister Lacy. Right away our adoptive parents moved us into separate bedrooms to keep us apart, but we still found ways to communicate. Even today when I hear Lacy clear her throat, I’ll look to her for a secret message. She did what she could to shield me from punishment. She’d take the blame when I made a mistake. Our father was a very sick man. And Lacy did what she could to keep me from being alone with him. Even if that meant putting herself in harm’s way. Our mother would only take one of us on errands, and Lacy would volunteer to stay behind. She’d say: ‘Take Katie. She can go.’ We lived in that house for ten years, until the school therapist found out what was going on. Our mother got so mad. She called our father and told him to come home. Lacy and I climbed out the window and started running through the woods. I remember looking back and seeing our father’s truck speeding down the long dirt road. We knew there’d be no turning back. And we never saw our childhood home again. Some wounds will never heal. Both of us have struggled as adults. We’ve struggled with our self-worth, and shame, and making healthy decisions. And we’ve each had our own ways of coping. But I’ve finally reached a place where I have a house, and a career, and stable relationships. Every once in awhile people will say to me: ‘Look how far you’ve come,’ as if I’m the one who overcame our past. As if I’m the one who made it. But I wish they knew. I wish they knew about that little girl who would do anything to protect her little sister. And how anything I’ve become today, is because of what Lacy did for me back then.”

“My parents didn’t know much about deafness. They were young....

“My parents didn’t know much about deafness. They were young. They were adjusting to life in America. And they barely spoke English, so they had no way of advocating for me. I didn’t get my first hearing aids until elementary school. And those helped a lot, but they didn’t actually restore my hearing, they just amplified sound. It could be hard to pinpoint voices. And I still had to read lips, so I was constantly asking people to talk slower. It was exhausting. And I felt like a burden, like I was constantly pushing my disability on other people. Eventually I just stopped trying to engage, which came with its own set of problems. I developed a reputation as someone who never spoke. I got bullied quite a bit. The majority of my social interaction came from my older brother Brian. It was just a typical sibling relationship. We annoyed each other, and got in fights. I envied how easily he made friends at school. But he always made a point of saying ‘hi’ to me in the hallway. He’d even scream it sometimes. And that meant so much to me. Because people could see, that even if I didn’t mean much to them, I was important to somebody. After school Brian and I would watch a lot of TV together. It was a safe space for me. He was the one person that I never had to ask to turn on subtitles. There was no obligation to socialize, or interact, or anything else I struggled with. We’d just sit there. And be together. Maybe it didn’t mean much to him, because he had so many friends. But it meant a lot to me. Both of us are grown now. We’ve matured a lot. And we understand each other better. Not long ago my dog passed away, and it was so hard for me. She’d been with me for fifteen years. I’d leaned on her so much. And that first week I couldn’t bear to be alone. I went into Brian’s room and just plopped down on his spare bed. He didn’t say a word. He just turned on The Office and switched on the subtitles. He left it playing for the entire week. It was his way of being there for me. We didn’t speak much. We just watched the show together. But it was my way of silently telling him that I needed somebody. And his way of silently telling me that he understood.”