A day before the equinox.  A day before the beginning of summer.  Sitting watching Julia’s swim class -- a little less stressed than I was on Monday when I was probably the only parent sitting at the edge of a chaise lounge tensed and ready to have the instructor tell me that he could not handle Julia.  But the classes are small -- 4 or 5 in her class -- and the teacher is young but not at all phased -- at least on day 4 -- of Julia’s occasional lapses of attention.  I wonder if he has done this -- taught a kid with challenges -- before this.  Julia is swimming with 3 boys and her attention lapses is not a extraordinary as it might be in a class of girls.  And watching the girls in other classes, I think my observation is spot on.  Girls listen, they line up when asked, they try what the teacher asks of them.  

Sometimes Julia hangs on her teacher and I wondered what the response would be, but the boys do the same thing.  And I don’t think any of them has challenges.  Interesting, one of the boys in her swim class is also in her class at school.  His father brings him to lessons and stays around.  When the kids (and instructor) went to the diving board, I got up to stay close and the father of this boy did as well.  I said to him, “Good to have another overprotective parent in class.”

So, to day I can almost sit back on my chaise and type.

A few more Julia things:

After swimming on Tuesday, we stopped at Waisman so that I could finish my work for the spring term.  Julia brought a book, a sketch pad and her iPad and I hoped that I could work for a bit more than an hour.  She found the family waiting room which is next door to to the Resource Center empty and there was a box of dinosaurs, some dinosaur books and a doll house.  She never opened her back pack and played for an hour and a half.  It was the first time that I tried bringing Julia to “work.”  Something I did much too often with Cheshire.  

When we were finished at Waisman, it was lunch time and we crossed the street to eat in the hospital cafeteria.  As soon as we went in, Julia told me that this was where Daddy died.  “Was this food that he did not eat?”  During his last week, David did not eat well.  One of the reasons that I called Cheshire home that week was to have someone else to be in the hospital to make sure that David was eating and drinking.  Julia heard that phone call when I said that and ever since attributed David’s death to his not eating.  At least in part.  

Julia asked if we could bring our lunch to David’s room and asked if maybe he was still here -- as if, possibly we could get him back if we only went to his old room, possibly we could bring him lunch and we could have him back.  The sweetness was heart breaking.  I’ve been in the cafeteria many, many times in the last three years although I remember when being there was sad and hard.  I had no idea the Julia would remember but no question that she did.  Again, we talked about David and dying and never coming home again.  She took it in again.  She did not ask if I was sad.  Something has changed for her.

At Marilyn’s session this week, we worked on the page in the trauma workbook that was about Miao-Miao being sent to school and Julia being told that she was stupid and not allowed to go to school.  She drew a picture of an incredibly angry Bai-Bai fuming like a volcano.  When she explained the picture to us, Marilyn asked if she was really angry back in China.  “No,” Julia said.  “I closed my eyes real real tight and went somewhere.”  When Marilyn probed further, Julia took the page back to draw a small t-Rex and a “machine.”  The dinosaur and the machine ate the Ayi who told Julia she was stupid.  When she finished her picture, Marilyn asked if Julia was the dinosaur.  “No,” with an intonation and could have added “Crazy lady” to her answer.  “I am the girl who is angry.  My friend, Lizzy, is the dinosaur who helped me.  She was a fie dun in China.”

Are these the answers?  Julia, angry and hurt, disassociating and making up the most terrifying thing she could think of to defend her.  Julia, who would only answer to Julia Dinosaur for more then a two years, is now the girl with a dinosaur defender.  And what is a dinosaur now, was the fie dun in China.  

The work book has been so very useful.  Every week we creep a bit closer to self-knowledge.  She owns her own story and perhaps she can heal.

Julia’s lesson is over and we sit, my tapping away and her drawing dancing dinosaurs on the chaise lounge that is now in the shade.  Yesterday, I was feeling like I could not make my body more.  I was going to nap during Julia’s therapy but I went outside to garden instead.  Slowly, very slowly, some of the messy garden beds are getting shape again, some for the first time.  I am working at an incredibly slow and unorganized pace and enjoying it immensely.  

And then, last night I had a dream about David.  It was one of those dreams that is so real that waking up is confusing.  I haven’t dreamed of David in a very long time and I still don’t remember many of my dreams.  In this dream, I came upstairs to our bedroom.  David was in bed  during the day.  I had something to tell him that was happy. I jumped onto the bed and snuggled up to him to lay in the crook of his arm.  I just laid there, smiling and saying nothing, feeling his arms around me and falling to sleep.  When I woke up, I was not sure where David went.  Then I remembered and was sad, but it was a much better the dreams in which I knew that David was gone but had no idea of where he went or why or how.