Autism: A Cause To Stand Up For

What affects more Americans than diabetes, AIDS, cancer, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy or Down syndrome combined?

Autism.

Over 2 million Americans fall under the umbrella of brain developmental disorders referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorders. ASD creates social and behavioral challenges, which often include repetitive mannerisms. Researchers are yet to identify the cause, but attribute it to a combination of genetic make up and environmental factors.

Every spring, since 1970, the U.S. celebrates National Autism Awareness Month, so before April slips away I wanted to get on board. http://www.autism-society.org/

Although the exact cause of ASD remains a mystery, what specialists do know is that the numbers are increasing at an alarming rate. The CDC estimates as many as 1 in 88 children or 1 out of every 54 boys and one out of every 252 girls is born with ASD.

Statistics indicate that more than ten million individuals are afflicted worldwide. Five years ago the United Nations declared every April 2nd as World Autism Day. Across the continents, people are encouraging others to stand up for autism to increase awareness and funding for research. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csYs_aSXFcQ

Unfortunately in many parts of the globe, autistic children are institutionalized due to ignorance and lack of early intervention measures and public health programs. The more obvious signs of autism usually emerge between the age of 2 and 3 and behavioral therapies can be most effective the earlier the disorder is diagnosed. http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/index.html

A career change in my teaching role led to work in my school’s learning support department, which coincided with a time when I became more limited by illness and a medical treatment that required minimal light exposure and maximal eye protection. While walking in the shadows, wearing black glasses and gloves, I bump into obstacles. I am forced to see the environment through different parameters too. Working with special kids is a great fit; I am a quirky adult.

Everyone who has ever worked with ASD individuals knows that every step forward in understanding their universe is a move in the right direction for they may not have the capacity to understand ours. To comprehend the world of autism demands infinite patience and persistence, but the rewards are immeasurable.

Please take time to witness the triumph of an Asperger’s boy and basketball. Stand up and raise the roof for autism!

J Mac Greatest Basketball Story Ever

Family Easter Tradition in France -A Table in Normandy

Though, Gérald and I, as empty nesters, will dine tête a tête this Sunday, our hearts are filled with memories of holidays past  when our children were younger and we were surrounded by family. As with every celebration in France, Easter begins and ends à table.

Normandy is appreciated the most at mealtime when land and sea are perfectly marinated. Mamie cooks the traditional Easter favorite, leg of lamb.  At the head of the table, Papie carves the tender meat fresh from a newborn romping on the rolling green hillside only days before. But back up, each course is an event worth savoring.

toasting champagne

toasting champagne

First a toast of champagne and a light amuse bouche aperitif. Next act is naturally an egg based, a soufflé as light as cotton candy, followed by a platter of seafood: shrimp, crab legs, clams, oysters, bullot, something for everyone’s palate.

The main lamb course is always served with flageolet, a mini lima bean, that reminds me of the word flatulence and of course, bean jokes inevitably enter the conversation, sending the children into gales of laughter. Mamie always has a special dish for every family member, so a garden of vegetables -beans, broccoli, potatoes, spinach, tomatoes – also grows out of the linen tablecloth.

The children eat with the adults where they risk being reprimanded to sit up straight. However, I never notice table manners; my fork and knife are usually in the wrong hands. Softhearted Mamie excuses the grandkids early and they scamper upstairs to read Lucky Luke or Astérix comic books until called for dessert.

Each course is accompanied by wine, a light white Burgundy for the seafood starters and then a heavier Bordeaux for the meat and cheese. Every big meal is followed by a green salad and cheese platter with triangles of creamy local cheeses like Camembert and Pont L’Evêque.

family feast

family feast

Dessert always includes seasonal fruits, which in the spring means luscious strawberries. Like little elves, the children reappear to gobble up berries dipped in fresh cream. The kids magically disappear again when they smell the coffee brewing. Papie ceremoniously opens the antique Normand hutch and pulls out his bottle of Calvados offering, “a little taste.”  True Normands swear that the fiery apple brandy aids the digestion. During weddings and christenings, the “trou Normand,” a shot served on sorbet in the middle of the feast, is customary.

Throughout each course a lively repartee of sarcasm, word play and arguments ensue that to a soft-spoken Norwegian American sounds like verbal abuse, but is only part of the French art de vivre and their love of language and debate.

Just when you think your belly will burst, Mamie rings a bell and the children race downstairs, for in France, bells, not bunnies, deliver eggs. As a token of mourning for crucified Christ, church bells remain silent from Good Friday until Easter Sunday. On Easter, when the chimes ring again, children rush outside to see the bells fly home to Rome, after dropping chocolate Easter eggs from the sky.

boy with Easter basket

boy with Easter basket

finding eggs on the balcony

finding eggs on the balcony

The children crowd onto the wrought iron balcony to find eggs tucked behind the potted geraniums and tulips. While they devour the chocolate figurines, the adults, too, savor a delicacy from the local chocolatier. Everyone moans of stomachaches and swears they will never eat again, but a few hours later after a stroll by the sea, we are à table again discussing the favorite French topic, food.

Trouville Normandy – A Trip Down Memory Lane

When we lived in Paris, we joined the mass exodus leaving the city for weekend get aways to the nearest seaside in Normandy, to visit our French family.  Now the seven-hour jaunt from Geneva-Switzerland is harder to make, so I hadn’t been back for years.

As soon as I rang my French in-laws doorbell in Trouville, I was flooded with memories. The brick-framed, six-story walk-up built into the falaise along the Touques River,  has housed fisherman’s families since the 1700s. Step out the front door on ground level and you are on the quais of the bustling seaport, across the ultra chic twin city Deauville. However, out the backdoor, on the floor above, is Papie and Mamie’s place, which opens onto the winding cobblestone rue de Bonsecours.

Trouville from the bridge leading to Deauville

Trouville from the bridge leading to Deauville

The house echoes with footsteps. If the faded, wooden steps of the spindly, spiral staircase could talk, the stories they would tell! Not long ago, I listened with trepidation as my children giggled, racing up and down flights. Now my heart jumps as I hear the stairs creak with Papie and Mamie’s footfalls, afraid that they will slip. Papie just returned from the hospital after a lung puncture to remove fluid build up from a weakening heart. Mamie slipped on wet cobblestone of mainstreet and broke her wrist. Yet, still they insist laying out a banquet fit for a king, with an artillery of glassware and cutlery.

Mamie, with her left arm immobile in a cast, directs traffic with one hand from the kitchen nook to the dining table. She oversees the steady stream of courses on platters laden with fresh asparagus, green beans, sole fish, Camembert and strawberries dipped in cream, the finest Normandy has to offer from land and sea. Papie, frail after losing 10 pounds, still pops open champagne, serves aperitifs, pouring the wine, and argues about past skiing exploits with his son.

The seaside resort retains a sense of timelessness. Sea gulls swoop and dive above the fishing boats bobbing in the waves under azure skies. Daffodils dance on iron wrought balconies in the briny, spring breeze. Horses clomp down Main Street hauling tourist carts from the bridge connecting Deauville and Trouville, at one end of the road, to the casino at the other end.

horse & buggy in front of Deauville's casino

horse & buggy in front of Deauville's casino

 

As I walk on the beach, lined by 17thcentury mansions, I am overwhelmed with nostalgia. Young couples stroll the boardwalk with their arms intertwined. Parents with toddlers in tow pick up seashells; small children dig castles in the fine, white sand. School age kids race the waves as they crash the shoreline and teenagers kick soccer balls.

Nat & Nic on the beach      circa 2005

Nat & Nic on the beach circa 2005

kids growing up on the sand.

kids growing up on the sand.

 

If I close my eyes, snapshots of my children’s pasts flash by. Nat skipping alongside Mamie to play at the beach; Nic’s his eyes aglow carrying a gaufre, giant waffle covered in chocolate and whipped cream. Nat tugging on a kite string; Nic climbing over the Roches Noires. The two of them playing keep away with their cousins.

The magic of this historic spot by the sea is that throughout time’s passage, nothing changes; Trouville, like memories it holds, just grows older and more beautiful.[meteor_slideshow]

Community Support Showered on Yorkville Farmer After Open Heart Surgery

If you live anywhere near Yorkville Illinois who do you call for an extra hand if your hay needs bailing, your field needs tilling, your electricity needs wiring?  Family, friends and neighbors in the farming community-turned-to-sprawling-suburb have been seeking Cliff Westphal’s services for years. He is the first to lend a hand at the truck pull, 4-H stand, blood bank, local church and Yellowstone Lane neighborhood get together.

My brother-in-law has spent his lifetime serving others from a boyhood working the farm in the family for 65 years to his four-year tour in the Coast Guard during the Vietnam War as a young man, to donating his time for 17 seasons as an assistant coach at Yorkville High School where he once wrestled as a Red Fox.

A small town, family man with a strong sense of loyalty to his country and his community, Cliff understands the complicity between the land and man and shares its abundance with all.

He treats YHS staff to a hotdog and hay rack ride every fall, brings Westphal corn to cabin folk in Northern Wisconsin, works the best car deal for his nephew and drives his pick up half way cross the continent to follow his niece’s college basketball team.  He runs a regular O’Hare airport shuttle for family and friends.  Then he spoils the travelers with gourmet meals from the finest fare Mother Earth has on offer.

As beloved Bumpa to seven grandkids, he celebrates every passage of their lives, helping one granddaughter parade pet pigs at the fair and watching his grandson make his first tackle.

Ever the big kid at heart, he still sleds in winter and rides water park slides in the summer.  The day after he retired as an electrician at Com Ed, he returned to farming; any energy to spare, he pours back to the community. There is nothing Cliff can’t fix, so we all felt shocked when his body broke down unexpectedly.

The day before his scheduled surgery to fix drippy sinuses, his family doctor discover his heart had a leaky faucet. So instead of a nose job, a cardiologist cracked open his sternum, borrowed a vein from his leg to bypass an artery, fined tuned the bicuspid valve and repaired the mitral valve, then wired him shut again. Twenty four hours later, he was sitting up in a chair, chatting about the latest Illini scores and asking « What’s for dinner? »

Oh sure, he’ll have to lay low a few weeks, but come spring planting season, he’ll be back on the tractor helping his brother in the fields on the Westphal Farm. This summer he’ll be driving the boat pulling the boat for gran kids on skis. And if all goes well, he’ll be flying abroad with his lovely wife,  my sister Sue, to « climb » mountains in Switzerland.

After all you can’t keep a good man down. As Yorkville knows, Cliff is its best.

Bon rétablissement et bisous de ta famille overseas!

Ellis Island’s 120th Anniversary Jan. 1, 1892-2012

On January 1, 1892, one hundred years ago today, a small island in New York Harbor called Ellis Island opened its portal as one of thirty US federal government immigration centers.  From that date until 1954, over twelve million immigrants, two thirds of all immigrants, primarily third class passengers, entered the United States through the “Island of Tears.” One of them was my maternal great grandmother.

In 1902 Christiana Norway, at age forty, Eugenie Rosholt, clasped her blond, blue-eyed, four-year-old daughter’s hand and boarded the Oscar II, a 140,000 pound ship with 898 passengers.  They were on route to New York to rejoin her husband, Johan Alfred Rosholt and young son, who unable to subsist in the far reaches of the northern hemisphere, had immigrated to Chicago for work.

My grandma - Martha Olson

My grandma - Martha Olson

Night and day, horizon and sea, merged during their stormy passage. Mother and daughter huddled together. The weight of Eugenie’s unborn child brought warmth, yet stole energy. On a clear, morning September 2, 1902, Eugenie carried Dagny on deck for fresh air. Etched against the shoreline, a giant, golden goddess glistened in sunlight.

They disembarked on a gangplank onto barges carrying them to the Immigration Center on Ellis Island, where the aliens waited in lines, inching forward in a shuffle-step. In the Great Hall (Registry Room), a doctor lifted Eugenie’s chin, poked a knife at her eye pulling down the lower lid and waved her past, nodding at the frail girl by her side. Had he looker closer, he would have noticed the shine of fever in the child’s eyes and turned them away. Mother and daughter, weary from the long voyage, were filled with hope, yet the great dream turned into a tragic nightmare. Dagny died a fortnight after arriving in America. Three and a half months later, Eugenie, pierced by labor pain, was admitted to the Cook County Hospital in Chicago. On January 25, 1903, minutes after Martha (my maternal grandmother) safely entered the new world, her mother left it.

Without a wet nurse for the baby, and unable to cope, a grief stricken Johan sank into depression and returned to Norway with Edward. He never recovered from the loss of Dagny and Eugenie. Martha, placed in the Chicago Children’s Home, became a ward of the state. Four years later, a Norwegian family, Anne and Alric Raymond, adopted my grandma. Martha never knew she had a brother until Edward appeared at her confirmation. She married Gustav Olson, also a Norwegian immigrant, on October 29th 1929, the day the stock market crashed during the Great Depression. Gustav died of cancer at the age of 47 leaving my grandmother alone to put her two older children through college and raise their seven-year-old brother.

My jovial grandmother never complained about her inauspicious debut or hard life, instead she spread good cheer with a welcoming smile and twinkle in her sea blue eyes.

The survival spirit of my ancestors flows through my veins. Like for so many Americans, Ellis Island remains etched in my family history, like a badge of courage.

http://www.ellisisland.org/genealogy/ellis_island_history.asp

A Free Christmas Gift – Hugs

I treated myself to a massage today as an early Christmas gift.  As the holidays approach our teeth clench, our shoulders tighten, and our low backs throb, as we attack our endless to-do list of holiday preparations.

Across Europe people share good cheer; but whereas the French blow air kisses to the cheek and the British shake hands, Americans hug, especially in the Midwest, especially in my family. Maybe it goes back to my Viking ancestry when close body contact meant survival. At any rate the Olson -McKinzie clan I grew up in were huggers, whether it was a big bear hug from mom or a special squeeze from Papa Mac.hugging siblings

Ironically during the Internet age in our fast paced, high tech society, we can access people across the globe instantly electronically, yet we have become more physically disconnected to others than ever.

People in the helping professions, like my nurse friends, have long understood the healing power of touch. Medical studies prove that touch decreases anxiety, increases the number of white blood cells, lowers blood pressure, increases endorphins, and helps you sleep better. The ancient ritual of hands on healing has been part of religious practices for centuries.

I love words, but words fall short.  No written expression can heal the mind, body, and spirit as greatly as the power of touch.

Though we associate this time of year with razzle-dazzle holiday glitz euphoria, for many people it is also a time of sorrow as they remember lost loved ones. Days are short and dreary; nights are long and lonely.  Everybody needs the touch of other human beings especially now. Even though economic times are tough, and we can’t all buy extravagant Christmas presents or afford a massage, hugs are free.

The greatest gift we can give is this season is ourselves.

Who have you hugged today?