I Forgot to Remember: A Memoir of Amnesia (19 page)

That fall Benjamin started first grade, and Patrick was enrolled in afternoon kindergarten at Goshen. Fortunately, the school was close enough that I could put Kassidy in a stroller and walk to get both guys in the afternoons. Mostly I remembered. If I didn’t, Benjamin waited for Patrick’s teacher to bring out the kindergartners, got Patrick, and they walked home together. No biggie, right?

Benjamin started getting “homework” in first grade, so my formal education started about that time as well. Benjamin and I learned to spell
fan, man, ten, pen,
and
land
together. Another week we learned
win, thin, on, pond,
and
spin.
On and on we went. Every week there were new words to learn and spell. I did all the activities with Benjamin. He helped me with ABC order on Mondays,
and we would come up with silly sentences together on Tuesdays. On Wednesdays, we wrote each spelling word out five times. Boring. The test was always on Friday, so Thursday nights at bedtime we would quiz each other. Even Patrick, by this time of the week, knew how to read and spell all Benjamin’s spelling words.

I got a job volunteering in the Goshen Elementary School library one afternoon each week. I took Kassidy with me. Kassidy had the ability to charm everyone around her with her blue eyes, her bright smile, and her happy disposition, so it was seldom a problem. She sat quietly (most days) while I shelved books. In truth, I never did much shelving. Instead, I sat in the stacks with Kassidy and tried to read, looking at the pictures in those children’s books and picking out words I had learned from Benjamin’s, and eventually Patrick’s, spelling lists.

In math, Benjamin was learning addition and, later in the year, subtraction. We bought flash cards and took turns coaching each other. Again Patrick learned his addition and subtraction facts right along with us. I’m thinking now that Patrick must have been really bored the following year in first grade.

I suppose I am making this sound far too simple. Picture the cozy kitchen with Kassidy asleep on my shoulder as we are all sitting around the kitchen table. Benjamin and Patrick sitting quietly eating their after-school snack while dutifully working on their assignments from school. Then picture the exact opposite, and
that
might be a bit closer to the way it really was. Kassidy had to be awakened from a nap to be put in her stroller and taken out in the cold so we could pick up her brothers from school. She was sometimes whiny and hungry. Benjamin and Patrick were thinking that the last thing they wanted to do, after being cooped up in school
all day, was sit down and do homework. They just wanted to play. But if I had to teach a class that evening, they would have to come with me to the health club nursery. Or if they had dance class, gymnastics, or choir, then homework had to be done first thing or it would be forgotten altogether. Nobody was happy with this arrangement. Benjamin had the attention span of a chipmunk when it came to schoolwork, and I constantly had to bring him back to the task at hand. Patrick got bored easily and wanted my undivided attention. Duh! He was
fiv
e
!

Many afternoons all this homework business ended in tears and/or shouting, with homework simply left unfinished. Sometimes I would try to write a note to Benjamin’s first-grade teacher, to explain that he understood the concept of the math work sheet, but was able to complete only five of the twenty-five problems. She probably thought Benjamin had written the note himself.

In November, I was assigned a thirty-minute time slot to have a conference with Benjamin’s teacher. I was nervous. This was something new, and I didn’t know what to expect. Benjamin was not allowed to go with me. I don’t remember having Kassidy with me, either. Did I leave her at home with the boys? I must have. When I got to the school, I walked to Benjamin’s classroom and I stood awkwardly in the doorway until the teacher acknowledged me. She took a thick folder off the top of a large stack of thick folders and invited me in. She showed me to Benjamin’s desk and looked at me. I looked back at her. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, she said, “Please have a seat.” Where? On Benjamin’s tiny chair? At his tiny desk? She sat down on another tiny chair, so I sat down, too. She asked if Mr. Meck would be joining me. I almost laughed out loud. Sitting on these tiny chairs? No way! I couldn’t
even picture Jim in this classroom. I said I didn’t think so because he was in Thailand. She looked at me again and then continued (this is an approximate conversation):

(I just sat there in stunned silence. Should I be writing any of this down? I didn’t understand half the words she was saying, so I
think I may have sort of tuned her out until she came back with:)

I didn’t understand at all but I was dismissed as another mom and dad entered the room together. Benjamin’s teacher walked to
her desk, set down Benjamin’s folder, and picked the next one from the top of the pile. I left, went home, hugged Benjamin, and cried.

Benjamin’s school days never got much better after first grade. He struggled with everything associated with school all the way through high school. He hated going. He hated doing homework. He loved to read, once he finally learned, but hated to write. He didn’t make friends easily, but didn’t seem to care too much about that, either. Outside of the classroom he was intelligent, curious, inquisitive, very funny, and perceptive. There is no doubt he was a handful. Looking back, he was much smarter than I was at a very early age, and could talk his way into and out of anything. He began to be a compulsive liar, but the stories he told were often funny and sort of interesting and insightful.

His third-grade teacher was a nightmare for him. She told me at his conference that November that Benjamin still was not reading because of his horrifying attention issues. She said that I would continue to hold him back if I didn’t consider putting him on Ritalin. I certainly didn’t want to hold him back, so I spoke to Benjamin’s pediatrician, and he started Benjamin on a moderate dose of Ritalin soon after Thanksgiving. And Benjamin did show marked improvement in school after that. He was reading within the month, and not simple chapter books, either. He skipped them altogether and went right to the Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner. He then moved quickly to the Madeleine L’Engle books like
A Wrinkle in Time
that Santa brought him that year for Christmas.

Hooray! Benjamin was reading! Except now he was constantly getting in trouble for hiding books in his desk and reading them when he was supposed to be paying attention to social studies or some other such “nonsense,” according to Benjamin. I kind of
agreed with him. Everyone had been so concerned about his learning to read, and then it seemed like he got in trouble for reading. I did not understand.

Eventually, Patrick started taking Ritalin as well, and homework got a bit easier in the afternoons. Not easy, but some days, easier. Both boys had daily homework by then, which was always fun. (Not.) Kassidy was two. That was fun, too. (Still not.) I continued to teach aerobics classes. Jim continued to travel. I got good at making excuses for him and why he wasn’t ever at concerts, recitals, games, and back-to-school nights. I don’t ever remember being sad or resentful, just unbelievably tired. After all, I was doing what I needed to do while Jim was doing what he needed to do.

One day, the family from whom we had rented our house in Montgomery Village for two years suddenly came back to the States from Australia. We had to find another place to live starting that summer. And to add to the excitement of having to move again, Jim started talking about relocating all of us “overseas.”

—The Bangles

I
n the fall of 1994, when Benjamin was eight, Patrick was seven (as was I), and Kassidy was two, Jim started talking about the possibility of us moving overseas to one of two places: either to Bangkok, Thailand, or to Cairo, Egypt. He was working for a “global technologies group” at a consulting firm and all I really understood about that job was that he was away from home traveling most of the time. As far as I was concerned, “Bangkok” or “Cairo” could have just as well been Ohio or Pennsylvania, as I had no real concept of what “overseas” really meant. I can vaguely remember thinking that perhaps it was a kind of letter . . . “Over-C’s” . . . like maybe it was a place that skipped “over” the letter
C
or something, although I had never seen an “Over-C” letter on
Sesame Street
 . . .

I was not familiar with geography, and even though I watched
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?
with Benjamin and Patrick, I didn’t really understand that there were whole other continents and countries far away from where I lived with the kids in Montgomery Village. I did sometimes attempt to read the
Washington Post,
or at least look at the photographs, and when Jim was home, he sometimes watched the news on CNN. But again, the places that I read about and saw on TV were somehow in my mind
only
in the newspaper or on TV. It’s hard to explain except to say I didn’t connect what I read or saw with anything
real.
It wasn’t until many years later that the paper or news on television actually held my attention for any length of time anyway.

The thought of moving again was not all that appealing to me initially. I was tired of the tedious process of packing up, and then unpacking, all our stuff. And then the worst part: learning where our belongings were in a new house. However, Jim kept telling the kids and me excitedly, “It will be an adventure!” That’s a good thing, right? Jim came home from his long trips to Thailand bearing exotic gifts and talking about live elephants in the streets and huge extravagant palaces. He came home from Cairo with more extravagant gifts and stories of irritated camels that spit and impressive pyramids. In addition to the “adventure” component, Jim convincingly explained that the family would get to be together because he wouldn’t have to travel anymore. His job would be in just one place and he would get to come home at the end of each day. That was enough for me! Sign me up! I realized that I was tired of living as a single mom, on call 24/7. In addition, I was teaching at
four different gyms, trying to help out financially as much as possible. There never seemed to be quite enough money despite Jim’s substantial salary as well as my own efforts. The thought that Jim might actually be able to help out with the kids—homework, the school morning routine, activities, meals, and bedtime—would certainly be a dream come true.