Save the Prouty Garden

A pearl in the oyster that is Boston Children's Hospital

"In many ways Prouty Garden saved us."

The Children’s Hospital in Boston will always be a special place for my family and me. The facility itself, the wonderful caring nurses and staff, dedicated doctors and residents are simply amazing. My daughter was treated there from the time she was six months old until she aged out at 22.

We were such regular visitors to the orthopedic clinic the nurses and doctors knew us all by name and the rotation of residents by reputation. Among the many procedures my daughter endured was a nine-hour surgery that enabled her to run, not fast, but steady. She spent weeks in the hospital.

Then when she became chronically ill as a teenager we spent the entire month of November at the hospital - even Thanksgiving Day - her favorite holiday. And like most parents of children who have to endure a hospital stay I was right there with her day and night.

Needless to say I became pretty well acclimated to the Longwood medical campus and all it has to offer from fast food to shops and galleries. Within the hospital I found the family lounge on every floor, the kitchen for a midnight snack, and the door to the stairwell for my daily cardio exercise running up and down nine or ten floors instead of taking the elevator.

But by far the greatest discovery I made was the day I found the Prouty Garden wandering in search of a family library. The halls that interconnect old and new sections of the hospital are well lit but still cavernous so when I saw sunlight splashing into the hall ahead of me I was intrigued.  The light led to a small but significant park encased in the concrete walls of the medical mecca. In the center a huge tree reached for the open sky as its web of roots clung to the earth. There were benches and a fountain, flowers and grass so inviting I removed my shoes and walked barefoot as if I were back at home in my own yard. There was sun on my face for the first time in days and I recovered a sense of calm lost amid the flashing lights, tweets and buzzing, and piercing alarms of a medical floor. It was indeed an oasis.

Established in 1956 by Olive Higgins Prouty in memory of two children she lost, the Prouty garden has been since dedicated as a memorial to all the children who have unfortunately died at the hospital. But it is so much more than that. It is a place as well for the living.

Trust me there is nothing more challenging in life than seeing your child suffer. It takes so much out of you both physically and emotionally. Finding that garden was like finding a little piece of heaven in my daily hell. I could hardly wait for my daughter to be well enough to leave her room so I could bring her there. While I can’t say enough about the great work of the medical staff, in many ways the Prouty Garden saved us, gave us medicine you can’t get from an IV bag or dispensed in pill form. To smell the flowers and fresh cut grass, to see birds and squirrels, feel the breeze and the warmth of the sun gave us a little peace in our daily battle. I remember thinking what an amazing gift it was.

So when I learned the administration has plans to bulldoze it to build an addition to hospital I could hardly believe it was true. Could they actually be so short sighted?! Historically, environmentally, and spiritually Prouty Garden is profoundly significant and should be preserved at all costs. It is the pearl in the oyster that is the Children’s Hospital in Boston.

So for what it’s worth I add my voice to the countless patients and parents, doctors and nurses, and families who lost children at that hospital, please don’t kill the one thing that gave me hope even in the darkest of times. Please keep the Prouty Garden.

*To learn more please go to SaveProuty.org and make a donation and please sign the online petition. 

Shedding some light on MLK Day

Was the Civil Rights Movement just a dream Baby Boomers like me have never woken up from? After getting into an inadvertent philosophical debate with my daughter, I had to pinch myself.

Yesterday I sent my daughter, a college junior, a link to a multi racial a cappella performance of “Shed a Little Light” in honor of Martin Luther King Day. The video made me nostalgic for the days when my children were young. Every year on the King holiday I would read to them from his letters, sermons and his epic “I Have a Dream” speech.

Sending the link was my way of connecting with my little girl over the miles that separate us on what I consider a pretty significant day.

“Thanks momma,” she texted me back as millennials do.

Then she went on to tell me, “. . . let's not forget that there's a reason this is MLK day and not Malcolm X day!! Mainstream America loves Martin Luther King because his activism was respectable (ie. palatable to middle class liberal white ppl) and fairly conservative. By all means take tomorrow to honor a man who did so much work to mobilize and empower black people but don't blindly accept him as the face of the civil rights movement.”

Then she added, “In conclusion, stay woke.”

Huh? Did I just get schooled by my 21-year-old?

Not so fast little girl.

“One raised consciousness with militancy, the other moved mountains with consciousness,” I answered her, “What would the world tolerate today?”

I grew up in Philadelphia just north of the Mason Dixon line in the 1960s where as a young girl I experienced a kind of racism my children will never know. There were stores and restaurants we simply couldn’t go to. There were children I wasn’t allowed to play with, names I was called that still hurt me to this day. Evaluating my daughter’s assertion through my lens of life experience I can assure you there was nothing palatable about King’s activism. More Gandhi than Genghis Khan, King was no less a warrior for social justice. I’m afraid this generation may never understand the kind of courage it took to wage the Birmingham campaign in the face of the most entrenched and defiant pool of racists in the country. But they might listen more openly to Malcolm X.

Both King and Malcolm X took a courageous stand against racial segregation and for social justice at great personal sacrifice and risk. And yes both men paid the ultimate price at the hands of an assassin.

The charismatic leader of the Nation of Islam began his campaign rejecting King’s nonviolence stance and featuring hateful rhetoric against the white race, Jews and even blacks that didn’t agree with him. Especially those who questioned whether black supremacy was a responsible answer to the Ku Klux Klan. He was, in a word, divisive.

But he was also a seeker of truth and unafraid to alter his thought process when he found it, even if that truth was in conflict with what he believed in before. His brilliance could not be contained in a place, a time or an ideology vulnerable to extinction. He grew to embrace multiculturalism as the answer to the racial woes of this nation and the world. He was indeed a great warrior for justice and deserves to be recognized.

Sadly, what the nation remembers of Malcolm X is his militancy, which was probably the biggest hurdle to a proposed act of Congress in 1993 to establish a national holiday in his name.

But in San Francisco, San Jose and Berkley in California they have marked the Malcolm X holiday each year on May 19 since 1979. Observances including conferences and heritage festivals are held throughout the country and at the Malcolm X Elementary School in Washington DC where the day is recognized as an annual day of peace.

I am awake now Savannah, and while you won’t likely convince me that MLK is any less worthy of this day, let us turn our thoughts today to Malcolm X.

In The Bag

Hard to believe he has been gone 24 years. That is nearly half the time I had my older brother Steven in my life. He set the bar high on all kinds of things like fashion, art, activism, and personal integrity. Highly opinionated he held nothing back and apologized infrequently. Didn’t need to. He was either right or the collateral damage was best ignored.

He still has a huge impact on me.

Like yesterday morning when pulling myself together to go out into the world. Got three appointments before noon yet I throw on a pair of Capri sweats, a powwow T-shirt and sneakers. I roll the elastic bottom of the sweat pants to just under my knees for the knicker effect exposing leg scratches I got chasing the dogs through the brush over the weekend. Three long red rips of broken skin are glossed with a coat of Neosporin but there will definitely be scars.

“You got that frumpy, don’t give a shit look down,” his voice in my head tells me.

I ignore him because he is right. I don’t give a shit.

“I tried,” he sighs.

He is right again.

When I was 17 he invited me to the big city for a makeover. With all the confidence of Versace, the flair of a runway model and the determination to climb Mt. Everest (which aptly equated his task) Steven marched his hick sister up the steps at 234 Berkley Street in the Back Bay of Boston. The historic building had been the city’s original Museum of Natural History and a landmark for its architecturally astounding stone and brick features and grandiose windows. The current tenant was the upscale retailer Bonwit Teller. That meant little to me at the time but I will never forget the experience.

I skipped every other step trying desperately to keep up with Steven’s long stride. Lucky for me I was wearing my high top Pro Keds sneakers. Steven insisted I remove the jingle bell looped into the laces, a short lived fad adopted by girls at my high school meant to announce the coming of the cool chicks. It was admittedly pretty annoying and eventually dictated school policy banning the dreaded “jingle bell.”

The sneakers were blue and quite by accident matched my farmer’s style bib overalls under which I wore a brightly colored tube top, a wardrobe staple in the 1970s it was essentially a band of elastic fabric wide enough to contain our lady parts and extended generally down to mid waist level depending on our cup size. Needless to say these garments were highly prone to wardrobe malfunction.

Quite honestly it never occurred to me to feel out of place until we stood inside the great hall of Bonwit Teller. The three story skeletal dinosaur remains that once filled the space would have been far less intimidating than the chicness of the pencil thin, haughty clientele and giddy sales clerks bustling all around us like we were invisible.

I was sure neither my intellect or bank account entitled me to stand in the throng three ladies deep at the make-up counter until my brother raised one hand over his head, snapped his fingers and got the attention of a woman behind the counter who immediately recognized him.

We easily pushed through the half starved socialites and I hopped up onto a padded stool where the woman looked at me and said, “oh my.”

The two of them busied themselves with my face and hair for about half an hour until I looked like a young Lena Horne about to go muck the stalls.

Steven picked this and that, lipstick, foundation, eye shadows, and blush and paid the woman what I thought was more money than all of it was worth but for the bag. Our purchase was neatly packed in a Bonwit Teller paper bag with looped handles at the top and the trademark pink stripes that matched the awnings on the front of the building.

I learned to use the makeup, but I cherished the bag. It became a container for all sorts of things I collected over the years until it finally shredded beyond functionality.

I loved that bag.

I loved my brother.

They are both, sadly, gone.

A year of being Mindy's human

This past year has been full of delightful new experiences despite that at times Mindy scares the hell out of me.  She has such paranoia of city sidewalk grates she will veer into the road and risk a rolling MBTA bus before walking over the grate.  Really.  Now I know to pick her up and carry her safely across.

On a trail walk she seemingly vanishes. But it’s an optical illusion. One second she is right behind me, the next second - gone.  In reality she has stealthily slipped by me on her tiny legs effectively morphing through a low blind spot.  I panic and back track looking for her until I realize she is right in front of me.

A pretty little pooch despite freakishly short legs Mindy is blessed with a permanent smile regardless of her mood that is actually a pretty constant state of “What do you have? I want it.”


She is so irresistibly cute even supermarket employees ignore obvious health code violations when Mindy accompanies me on quick trips for the essentials.

And on trips to the bank she is on a first name basis with the teller at the window where she makes her treat withdrawal.

She is the subject of countless viral You Tube videos (be sure to click the links), social media posts and #MindyMadness memes where she is not shy expressing her liberal political views and social justice agenda. Or some days just being a bit silly.

A corgi is simply a very special kind of dog that can only own a special kind of human.  How lucky am I?!

She is smart, very smart.  And yes, she barks. She barks a lot, loudly.  But she is communicating.  I have learned to understand her every command from the most basic to the complex of her boarder line multiple personality disorder.

“Feed me!”

“Take me out!”

“Throw the ball!”

“Throw the ball again!”

“Throw the ball again damn it to hell!”

“Scratch me behind the ears!”

“What the hell?! Why did you stop? Continue!”

“Don’t you dare rub my belly!”

“Rub my belly again. I dare you!”

“Is that cookie? Give me that cookie!”

“Are those car keys in your hand? Take me for a ride!”

She hates the vacuum but not in the fearful way you might expect from a small animal confronted by a big loud mechanical thing. She runs right toward it barking ferociously and tearing at the beater bar with her gnarly teeth. As counter productive to cleaning as it may be it's pretty damn funny to watch.

It wasn't until spring that I learned about her obsession with the garden hose.  I was attempting to water the plants and Mindy jumped into the blasting stream of water yelping with delight.  I had never seen anything like it, but really she has been amazing me with her antics ever since she got here. 

Like teaching me  how to throw the ball, an activity other dog humans call “fetch.”  But who’s fooling who?  Mindy brings the ball to me, drops it at my feet, nudges it at me with her nose, then sits back and waits for me to throw it.  She brings it back and repeats the routine till I get it right.

And who knew a dog with legs hardly six inches tall would do the “gimmie your paw” stunt?  It just never occurred to me until a little kid came over and was low enough to the floor to ask Mindy for a paw.  She complied easily and looked at me as if to say, “What the hell have you been waiting for?”

I messaged my amazement to her previous human who suggested I ask for the other paw.  Sure enough Mindy doubled down on that parlor trick and gave up both front paws.

The first time she lowered the passenger window in the car I thought it was a fluke.  But I soon discovered the battle for the wind.  Since the child lock only impedes the rear door control panels and Mindy sits shot gun, my desire to conserve heat or air conditioning competes with Mindy’s desire to hang her head out the window.

I message her pervious human again and she messages me back “ha, ha. Girl knows exactly what she is doing.”

I owe such a debt of gratitude to that human being - Jen Brouillette. She raised this precious girl for eight years until changes in her life forced her to give Mindy up one year ago on the day after Thanksgiving.  Jen was moving - like the next day moving.  And the first family that agreed to take the dog brought her back.  They clearly lacked the intellect to have a dog like Mindy.  If I didn’t come that night the only alternative for Jen would have been to leave Mindy at the animal shelter.

Tipped off by a mutual friend I called Jen and we met for the first time in the darkened driveway of her cottage already packed for the move.  She handed me her beloved pet, a leash and a dog bed.

“She will go with anyone,” Jen said putting on a brave face. But I wasn't just "anyone."

I had to leave quickly. A prolonged good bye wouldn't do. Backing away the last image I saw of Jen was framed in the solitary warm glow of a bare kitchen window. She fell into the arms of her roommate and sobbed.  I’m pretty sure it was among the hardest things she had ever done.

A year later she can be confident it was the right thing to do even while I have neighbors who would argue otherwise.  Mindy is the self-proclaimed queen of the house. She is a companion to my 93-year-old mother who often doesn’t know who I am but calls the dog by her name. 

My daughter who is away at college has me text photos of Mindy on a regular basis to brighten her day. Mindy has become a bit of a celebrity on campus where she is an unofficial mascot of the Dartmouth Rockapellas.  When I brought her to campus on parents weekend I was flocked by a group of giddy sophomore girls I had never seen before in my life but they recognized Mindy instantly and had to pose with her for photos. 

She still has food aggression and despite that Dori is three times her size, Mindy maimed her big lab sister over a piece of broccoli that dropped to the kitchen floor between them. Nothing a little Neosporin couldn’t fix. We are more careful now when cutting vegetables at the counter.

She is otherwise a great friend to Dori who has been gracious and accommodating . The two of them take trail walks and beach walks and play in the yard where they compete for the ball or the Frisbee or what ever is being thrown and after the broccoli experience Dori pretty much lets Mindy win most of the time.

The arrival of a new kitten gave Mindy a chance to engage her herding instincts. Fiona has become a herd of one that Mindy protects from our big gray tabby BooBoo who has no patience for the kitten. But when ever BooBoo hisses or swats at Fiona, Mindy runs to the kitten’s defense.

Mindy is much loved in her new home but far from forgotten by her first human. I send regular updates about her antics and photos of her adventures. And late last summer Jen finally came for a visit. Mindy was ecstatic to see her They played ball in the yard and chilled with me on the porch. I think it made them both feel better. We hope she comes again. 

The hypocrisy of the season

You may find it ironic, especially as the nation raises the ghosts of my ancestors and gives thanks for the colonization of our homeland, but you won’t find me rejecting Syrian refugees.

It’s been nearly 400 years since the Wampanoag welcomed the pilgrims to live in our territory. By the time our Massasoit, Oosameequan, made his peace with them more than half of the Mayflower passengers had died. They endured an incredible and harrowing journey packed like sardines in an ill equipped ship to a new frontier thousands of miles from their homeland. They were men, women and children who fled religious persecution. Sound familiar?

When I imagine what Oosameequan might have been thinking looking into the eyes of an English born child staring back at him with wanting wide blue eyes and wispy golden hair blowing over her fair skinned face, her only crime in her faith, his decision had to be easy. And despite what occurred in the next generation, I don’t regret the welcoming tradition that still thrives among the Wampanoag to this day.

As Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, along with more than half of our country’s narrow minded state leaders, paint Syrians and Muslims with a broad stroke of potential threat they achieve exactly what the terrorists want from us - fear.

I have room in my home and my heart for Syrian refugees. Because it isn’t the people that bring hatred, it’s an ideology that consumes them. Historically it was an ideology fueled by Manifest Destiny and endorsed by the Doctrine of Discovery that sanctioned the oppression, wars and genocide perpetrated on Native Americans. An ideology of intolerance to differences.

Turning that boatload of hapless pilgrims away wouldn't have changed that eventual outcome. Change will come when we are consumed by knowledge, respect and tolerance for others. Stripping the ideology of hate in the name of false gods of any integrity. Like the Parisian man who lost his wife in the attack on Paris earlier this month but refused to answer hate with more hate.

Last week I was comforted to hear President Barak Obama offer clarity on the issue of what to do with refugees when he said that our greatest weapon against terrorists is to be fearless. But who was really paying attention?

As you gather together on the holiday inspired by this nation's original refugees feasting on your cornucopia of good fortune will you be serving hypocrisy pie for desert?

Closing our country to fleeing Syrians is not only the wrong thing to do, it will only provide a false sense of security. Our borders, like those around the globe, are eminently porous. Even Donald Trump’s money can’t build a wall high enough to shut us in. And if he could, is that really what we want?

Are our memories so short that we don’t remember how our nation breeds terrorists? From the government sanctioned genocide on Native American reservations to the wholesale lynching of blacks in the south by the KKK? Have we forgotten James Huberty gunned down 21 people in a San Diego McDonalds in 1984? The 1986 shooting in Edmond, Oklahoma when postal worker Patrick Sherrill killed 14 people making the term “going postal” a household phrase? That in 1991 George Hennard killed 22 people in a Luby’s restaurant in Killeen, Texas? In 1995 Timothy McVeigh was far more calculating when he made a 4,800 pound bomb of easily available materials and a truck load of fertilizer killing 168 people including children he knew to be playing in a day care in the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. In 1999 Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold set out to commit the most heinous and unimaginable school shooting the nation had ever seen killing 13 classmates in Columbine, Colorado. Their vicious act has since trended among mentally unstable teens with access to guns only to be outdone in particularly savage fashion in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut where Adam Lanza killed 20 first graders and six adults before he killed himself.

Carnage from mass shootings in places like Atlanta, Fort Worth, Honolulu, Wakefield, Red Lake Indian Reservation, Blacksburg, Omaha, Dekalb, Binghamton, Fort Hood, Tucson, Aurora, Washington, D.C., Charleston, Roseburg and too many other cities and towns across this nation to list have mounting body counts but can hardly be calculated in terms of devastated lives. All acts of terrorism committed here in this country - overwhelmingly by white men who are citizens of this country. The threat to America is already here and it’s called “U.S.”

Syrian civilians face a horrible fate. Trapped between ISIS militants and a corrupt and brutal government they have little choice but to risk their lives crossing dangerous seas in poorly equipped boats to foreign lands hoping to find refuge. Sound familiar?

To deny refuge to the truly disenfranchised and threatened innocents of the world, who are the real terrorists? Opening our boarders to refugees includes risk, but it’s risk far out weighted by the creation of a larger state of common good will toward an objective for world wide peace and understanding. Make that the dominant ideology, and while we are at it spread the word - killing in the name of your god does not make you a martyr and there are no virgins waiting for you in heaven.