For Jamen

Dear Jamen-

There is a lot we didn't know about each other. I wasn't as lucky as your family and friends or as my sister was in getting to know you well, but I know enough to know that you were the kind of person who would have made me a better person, a better Mom. You would have made my kids better people. I know this because I have seen the company you kept and I know the incredible character of the family from which you come.

I am now a mother of 3. I don't think you knew that the last time we saw each other. In fact, I don't think even I was all that aware of MacKenzie's impending arrival the last time we spoke. It was the day of yours and your sister, Ashley's, birthday last October, a year ago today. You may not remember, but you, your family and your friends made my children feel right at home. Ryan chased Noah around your backyard tree and Ashley and Mary took turns making sure little Addie didn't eat anything more harmful than dirt. Your family has been a second family to my sister, Alexis, and like a second family to my kids. If Ashley weren't so close to Alexis, I might steal her best friend status for myself. Your mother comes to Noah's soccer games and your father rushed to my parent's house during the Station Fires to help move their valuables to safety and keep a careful eye on the fire's encroaching flames. If you are surprised by any of this, you are exerting far too much modesty. This is just the nature of what you and your family would do for friends. You gave Noah a book when Addison was born called "I'm a Big Brother". I remember this because it isn't everyone who thinks to celebrate and observe the importance of an older sibling at the birth of a new child. You did. Somehow I doubt that kind of generosity and perception was unusual for you. I am profoundly grateful for all that your family has done for me, for my children and most especially for my sister, who found great strength on the Marathon circuit at your guidance. You are the example I hope to set for my children. The world has been left a better place because you were in it. Your legacy will live on in the friends who loved you well and the family who took such pride in the life you led and the whole-hearted way in which you led it. It is my hope that I will pass on to my children your zest for the outdoors, your passion for sports, the goodness you saw in everyone and shared with anyone who needed it and then maybe, just maybe, I can raise a kid who is half as good as you. With any luck, I will convince that amazing family of yours to help see me reach that lofty expectation.

You are greatly missed, Jamen Amato

Ah, self- confidence. I should remember to pick that up the next time I'm out.

Looking back on all the awkward years, I would have said High School was the lowest point for me. A close second would have been Junior High, but even in Junior High I scored the occasional "Will you go steady with me?" note in my locker (so what if the handwriting was my mother's?). Nothing torments the soul and self-confidence, though, the way High School does. And nothing prepares you for how recklessly you must defend and prove your self-confidence like college. Is it any wonder, then, that by the time you reach parenthood, you look around in amazement and think "who qualified me for this task?"

You can imagine my surprise, then, when at that victorious moment of departure from the hospital after two days of sleeplessness and an on-going, drug-induced state of happiness they place a small, helpless child in my arms, wish me luck and, with no obvious signs of concern at my crazed look of panic, roll me out the door. This was my introduction to parenthood. There are no rules. There is no preparation, no required IQ test or behind-the-wheel exam. There is no manual. I remember thinking as they pushed my wheelchair down the post-natal hall towards the exit sign, "That's cute, they're letting me practice carrying the baby. Maybe in a few more days I'll be ready to try diapering on my own." I think the post-natal nurses take bets on the exact moment new Moms realize they're screwed, that they are heading for the unknown without a book of rules, that they're proceeding without the efficient, practiced care of licensed professionals. For me, it was that sudden whoosh of outdoor air coming in through the double doors opening under the hospital entrance sign that suddenly and irrevocably penetrated my veil of the hospital's sense of security. I felt like turning myself in, unleashing those pent up High School feelings of inadequecy on the poor, unsuspecting volunteer who unwittingly drew my discharge papers from the volunteer desk. "How can you entrust this child to my care? Do you have any idea just how immature I am? I still hide fruit loops in my bedside table so that my husband can't steal them from the exposed vulnerability of the kitchen cabinets. There is a very good chance this child will never know the delectable taste of sugar cereals because of my inability to share. How can you just stand there, smile at us complacently and wave us off knowing this child may never experience sweets until college?" And they do, you know, smile and wave, as you drive away from the only source of parenting security you know: the hospital, where Vicadin and a chipper night-time nursing staff make all ills go away.

What is crueler still is that in the safety and relative peace and quiet of your car, you convince yourself in that short, 10-minute drive home "this isn't all bad. How hard can it be?" As you cross the threshold into your home, your inner sanctuary, those awkward years at High School and even Junior High came back to haunt you. You think just because you gave birth to them, your children are pre-disposed to love you, to accept you, to want you in their exclusive social circle. My kids are not yet 5 and I find myself hoping they'll think I'm cool enough to host play-dates at our house. And if you think the peer pressure from you own kids is bad, just wait until you get sucked in to the black hole of mommy cliques. High School lives on long past graduation. It doesn't die, people, the games just grow more advanced, more manipulative to include your children. It would have been nice to find self-confidence back in Junior High/High School. Maybe then I wouldn't be wearing this target on my back that says "Pick me, choose me, include me." " Yes, I can chair that committee, raise 3 children and try to work part-time." "Sure I can bake brownies for the whole preschool class and remember not to include nuts, to make them organic and to divide them into cute, cellophaned packages of four with Pottery Barn perfect ribbons on top." How hard can it be?