August and Everything After.

I just had no intention of living this way
I need a phone call
I need a plane ride
I need a sunburn
I need a raincoat
And I get no answers
And I don't get no change
It's raining in Baltimore, baby
But everything else is the same.

debut

I became the Executive Director of CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) in Jefferson Parish in February. On March 29, we held our annual Light of Hope gala, our largest annual fundraiser.

I had several friends attend the event, and their support meant the world to me. I was very grateful to have so much love in the crowd for my first public event. My friend Katy took this picture of me giving my speech.

Here's what I said:

Thank you all so much for being here this evening.

I'd like to first thank the gala committee for their remarkable work to make this event fun, delicious, and profitable.
I'd like to thank the Board of Directors for their support and also for making the wise decision to hire me.
I'd like to recognize my staff, who work tirelessly to make the world a better place. Tonight, they are all wearing blue ribbons, which signify child abuse prevention awareness. Please seek them out, thank them for their efforts, and find out how you can be a part of our cause.

Right now in Jefferson Parish, there are 40 children waiting for an advocate. 40 children in foster care who the court has appointed someone special to, but no one special has arrived yet. Please take a moment to consider someone special to you who would be interested in becoming a child's voice in court.

I've now been in this position for eight weeks, which is enough time to know I inherited a truly talented staff and one of the most successful Court Appointed Special Advocates programs in the country.

It's also enough time to realize you can't learn everything about the juvenile justice system from watching Law and Order. So I've been to Jefferson Parish Juvenile Court every week to observe, to witness superb advocacy, and to learn our children's stories.

The money raised tonight goes directly towards services provided to children who are in Jefferson Parish's foster care system.

All of these children have one thing in common: someone who was supposed to care for them did not do so.

CASA strives to make sure these children have another thing in common: a voice in court.

CASA advocates spend 8-15 hours each month talking to everyone in a foster child's life, from coaches and teachers to doctors and social workers. They testify under oath about what is the best interest of the child, which could mean more tutoring, more extracurricular activities, or more visits with Dad.

In 2013, 75% of our advocates' recommendations became orders of the court.

Historically in Jefferson Parish, about 85% of CASA children whose case closed received a permanent placement. This means that 85% of our children were adopted by or reunified with people committed to care for them. For life.

On my second day as CASA's Executive Director, I put on a suit jacket and some new lipstick and went to court. I had previously only been in courthouses as part of field trips or jury duty... but a thousand friends have made the ill-advised decision to attend law school, so surely I could manage.

The first case I heard is one of a girl I'll call Emily. She had been abused by her stepfather unbeknownst to her mother. She was removed from her home and sent to a series of different schools. She participated in therapy. All of this just made her miss her mom more. Her mother divorced, found a new home, and tried to spend as much time with her child as possible.

At this hearing, the judge decided to reunify mother and child. Emily, who had been relatively reserved, as teenagers are wont to be, jumped out of her chair and exclaimed: "I get to go home?! You mean, I get to be a normal kid again?!!!!"

And, in that moment, I began to get it.

My job is to help extraordinary children feel normal.

Thank you all for making that possible.

*

For those of you who missed the gala but who would still like to contribute to our cause, please visit our donation website.

topography

Louisiana
constantly surprises me.
Sugarcane. Levees.

brick

In 1983, my parents moved to Wilmington, NC. The family next door had a girl a year younger than me and then got pregnant with a boy who would be two years younger than my brother. The four of us were practically inseparable.

Then in 1986, a family moved across the street with a girl my age and a boy my brother's age. So I ended up with two "sisters." Our parents coordinated Santa: one year we all got dollhouses (which involved at least one bottle of bourbon and a Masters in engineering to construct, according to our fathers); the next year, all of us got bikes, which we would learn to ride in our circular driveway.

I truly know how lucky I am that my parents still live in the same house that I grew up in and that they are still married to each other and that they still like each other and that they are both still healthy. I know that one day they will downsize and move away, and the number that has been in my cell phone as "home" since the day I got a cell phone 15 years ago will go to someone who has not had AT&T long distance for more than three decades.

My parents never once switched during MCI vs. Sprint (the pin drop years). I wonder if, in their future locale, my parents will even be able to sign up for a phone plan that doesn't have call waiting. (Yes. You still get a busy signal if they are busy. As God intended.)

I guess what I'm saying is that I grew up in a place where not much changed. My childhood centered on reading/writing, playing sports, and exploring the world of our yards with my brother and our friends.

Of all these adopted siblings, I was the oldest (by six weeks), which I'm sure I took to mean that I was the one in charge, and I'm sure no one else was really allowed to question that. I also know that I developed a maternal mentality. None of these qualities have particularly waned through the years. What was "bossy" as a girl became "bitchy" as a teenager and became "leadership" as an adult.

That's how I tell it, anyway.

But my maternal instinct remains. I still feel responsible for other people. I want to "fix" them, like I used to "fix" skinned knees or vases broken from rambunctious behavior or a mistake. After years of therapy, I try really, really hard to not credit/blame others for my feelings or be credited/blamed for theirs.

But some people *do* make me happy. One "sister" came over for dinner tonight. We ended up going to different high schools and drifted apart, but she found me on Facebook a few years ago. So tonight she left her husband in charge of her two boys and showed up ready to eat in a home where she had once enjoyed many years of Nintendo. Daddy poured champagne and chopped up meats that had spent most of the day smoking. Three generations ate together. After dinner, we snuck away and spent hours talking about how parenthood has affected us, how our careers have come to be, how our relationships with our parents have evolved, why God matters, how difficult it is to come home again.

Her parents moved from the neighborhood when we were in college, and then they divorced, so returning to our neighborhood was bittersweet at best for her. As she said goodbye, we stood in my parents' (no longer circular) driveway and stared at her old house, pointing out rooms that had been "ours" and wondering where the new owner(s) sleep or watch TV or eat or cry.

It's like that Miranda Lambert song, The House that Built Me. (Go ahead: judge me for liking terrible country music.) And while I can't fix brokenness, I can start healing.

The house that built me
built me full of love and strength
gave me the ability to observe
gave me insight
gave me a sense of values, inquiry, stability
taught me how to treat others.

alliance

(submitted to United Airlines' Customer Care online portal)

subject line (from the drop down menu): Alliance Flight Experience

To whom it may concern:

I understand that United Airlines is not responsible for the weather, for New York City's heavy air/ground traffic, and/or for Newark's single runway for departures/arrivals.

However. The experience I had flying with you yesterday went from dysfunctional to manic. Rapidly.

I was originally scheduled on flight 4212 on 12/8/2013. Blessedly, this flight was canceled well in advance of my trek from Manhattan, and I was automatically rebooked.

I arrived at EWR on 12/9/2013 to take flight 4292, scheduled to depart at 12:30pm. The first of 10 emails to arrive from United over the course of the day informed me of a delay. (I did not receive an email every time the flight was delayed or the gate changed; that would have increased my inbox by at least 15 more emails.)

I arrived at the designated gate (A25). 20 minutes before we were meant to depart, we had a gate change (A22). Zones 1 and 2 boarded, then unboarded. We were told of a necessary aircraft change. Some of the reasons given: it was too small; for our size/load, it would require between 1 and 3 fuel stops en route; it could not handle the wind.

We were told to board at A20. We boarded. Then the pilot announced that there was an engine leak. We waited to see if it could be repaired. Alas, no. WE ALL UNBOARDED THIS SECOND PLANE and were sent to A23 to await an arriving plane we could borrow.

We boarded this final plane (our 3rd) at this final gate (our 4th), five hours after we were scheduled to do so.

This experience was greatly improved by our crew. John B., our flight attendant, maintained a great sense of humor ("Welcome to flight 4292, nonstop, same-day service!") and offered unlimited alcoholic beverages and snacks for the duration of our flight.

The captains, as frustrated as we, kept us informed and made decisions that made us feel safe. Their honesty earned our trust.

Mechanical failures. Customer service success.

Emily
(my initials are EWR. curses.)

shirley

Eulogy given on May 19, 2010

In 2007, CBS debuted a new sitcom called the Big Bang Theory.  For those unfamiliar with the show, it centers on the roommate duo of Sheldon and Leonard, two socially awkward but brilliant physicists at a nearby university.  Their across the hall neighbor is Penny, an attractive young Nebraskan who has come to California in order launch her acting career.  While the show has had strong ratings, with my parents it quickly gained cult status.  Monday nights between 9:30 and 10:00 pm were off limits for anything beyond that week’s episode.  Despite being rather flummoxed by the technology, Dad quickly discovered how to DVR all the episodes.  When it came time to pick out a present for his most recent birthday, the complete series DVD set was my obvious choice.  If I talked to my parents on Tuesday nights, I knew the first few minutes would involve a recap of funniest jokes from the previous night’s episode.  Mom and Dad were such fans of the show that I felt I had no choice but to watch, for fear of no longer being to understand all of their references.  When I finally got around to watching the show, I realized why they enjoyed it so much.  They were not watching the Big Bang Theory, but rather, were watching CBS’s version of the Jon and Shirley story.

               As those who knew them back then, or even just those who have seen the wedding pictures, can attest, the parallels are remarkable.  Mom and Dad met while the two were living the same apartment complex here in Miami.  Mom was the attractive and extroverted flight attendant from Savannah while Dad was the bespectacled professor of history whose social skills were no match for his intellectual ones.

With season three of the Big Bang Theory almost over, viewers do not know what the future holds for Penny and Leonard.  So far they have dated and subsequently broken up, but the pair seem destined to get back together.  However, for those of us here today, there is no uncertainty about how things turned out for Jon and Shirley.  The two were wed in 1971 and travelled the world, stopping in nearly every interesting place this side of the Arctic. 

Then, in 1980, I burst on the scene.  Not surprisingly, the round the world trips stopped soon there after.  While growing up, and completely lacking external responsibility, I remember trips to places like the mountains of North Carolina and colonial Williamsburg.   Conversely, in the summer of 2007, when I was a summer associate at Sidley Austin and unable to get away, Mom and Dad headed out to Italy for several weeks.  Tomorrow, while I was to be at my desk in DC, they were set to embark on a multi-week trip to China.  I sense a pattern.

Despite their hoarding of the exotic vacations, I could neither imagined nor expected better parents than Mom and Dad.  Both gave me every opportunity in life to succeed, and at times, I was able to capitalize.   But while they gave me the opportunity, Mom was not going to stand back and risk fate running its course.

Like most youngsters who attend a weekly church service, I was enrolled in Sunday School at a young age.  At Saint Andrew’s, as in most churches, Sunday School was taught by volunteer parents and the students were grouped by ages, with a particular teacher tasked to a particular set of ages.  Despite not being raised in the Greek Orthodox faith, but having converted for the purpose of marriage, Mom volunteered to teach on Sundays.  Her first assignment was my class.  She did her job with aplomb.  Later, it came time for me and my peers to move to up to the next grade level.  Our new teacher?  Mrs. Alexiou.  Mom decided that rather than put my religious education in the hands of others, she would teach the Sunday school class I was in, regardless of grade.  And so it was, that my mother was the only Sunday school teacher I ever knew.  I was never told how my Mom was able to ensure that she would always be my teacher, but as those who knew her well can imagine, once motivated, not much on either the temporal or ethereal plane could stop her.

When it came time for me to choose a place to go to college, Mom urged me to leave Miami.  While she wanted me as close as possible at all times (a desire that never ceased, despite my age), she recognized the benefits to moving away.  As a result of such prompting, I have been fortunate to live in a host of interesting cities over the years, twice now in Washington, DC, Chicago, and New York City.  For those of you with hyper-detailed knowledge of my resume and wondering if I left something out of this list, no Columbia, South Carolina does not qualify as “interesting.” 

During my time in these places, Mom was interested not only in how I was doing in each city, but also, what I knew.  When living in DC, she would often ask what the buzz on the street was regarding passage of a certain piece of legislation.  I had to regretfully inform her that Congressional buzz did not penetrate my dorm room walls.  Mom thought that my admission to Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service meant I would be privy to all State Department gossip.  No, I would tell her, Colin Powell was not actively seeking my advice.

Whether it was about foreign policy rumors or just life updates, Mom loved talking to me, and I quickly discovered why she was such a fantastic human resources director.  Unlike Dad, who was happy to spend the entirety of a 10 minute conversation discussing the first half of a Kansas basketball game that was at the half (which Mom often described as evidence of Dad and mine’s mutual obsession with anything involving a ball), Mom would seemingly have a list of questions to ask about various aspects of my life.  Certain responses were never acceptable.  I could never describe something as “fine.”  Mom thought it was a phrase with no meaning.  She would rather things be miserable than fine.  Together, we could fix miserable.  But fine, did not convey anything.  Mom also hated if I said nothing had happened that day.  Surely, something must have happened, she thought.  One of my great regrets is that Mom always thought I was hiding parts of my life from her.  Not true.  There were days that consisted of a Mad Men marathon interrupted only by periodic naps on the couch.  I tried to explain to Mom that I was not obfuscating, rather, I was just boring.

One of Mom’s lasting impressions on all those that knew her was her impeccable fashion sense and constant desire to look her best.  But this was not for reasons of vanity or superficiality, rather, it was a basic belief that people in a civilized society should take the time to look their best.  And Mom did her best to impart this viewpoint on me.  One day, the two of us were out for dinner.  Dad was on business and Mom and I decided to get some sushi.  In the midst of our conversation,Mom looked at me and said, “we are going to get your teeth whitened.”  This was not said in an insulting matter, but rather, in the same matter of fact tone that others would note the need to pick up toilet paper.  And as one would expect, several weeks later, I found myself in the dentist chair, being fitted for whitening trays.

The year after I graduated from law school, I clerked for a federal district court judge in the aforementioned Columbia, South Carolina.  The first time Mom came to visit, I brought her to Chamber to show her my office and what it was I did each day.  Upon meeting the judge for whom I was working Mom asked Judge Seymour (a woman who has the distinct privilege of having her job spelled out in the Constitution and makes daily decisions which impact the lives of many) if the Judge could have me do something about my long hair.  Judge Seymour chuckled and said she did not mind my hair.  However, I am convinced that had the two talked longer, I would have received an escort by the US Marshalls to the nearest hair salon. 

But it was Mom’s second trip to Columbia that provides the best illustration of all that she was willing to do for me.  In Spring 2009, I had a tonsillectomy and septoplasty.  Despite being far from home, Mom flew up and was there with me as I was admitted for surgery.  The first face I saw when I woke up after surgery wasMom’s.  She kept remarkably detailed records of my medications and made sure I took everything I needed to in order to recover.  And she did all this while sleeping on a twin-sized blow up bed in my concrete floored apartment.  She never once uttered a note of fatigue or frustration.

Shirley Raiford Alexiou was one of the bravest women I have ever met.  She stared down Stage IV malignant melanoma and fought the disease as hard as she possibly could, never feeling sorry for herself.  I tried to tell her that I loved her every chance I got, though in retrospect it does not seem like it was enough.  Had she not been my mother, I would have wanted her as a friend.  But she was my mother and a better one I could not have imagined. 

Things are not fine today Mom, they are actually rather miserable without you.  But know that Dad and I have each other and we will do our best to continue to make you proud. 

malignance

My oldest (longest to stick around) friend has watched her father die for the past six years.

He has been in Hospice since August. Today begins "final stages." He has days or weeks to live.

I don't think there's anything else to say. You can build an empathetic vision for what that looks and feels like, right?

Besides, it's not my story. His aren't my details to share. Her story is one I hope to never know more closely than from the prayers and emails and texts we've exchanged. It's a story I hope no one ever has to know.

I met a friend for lunch today, after a morning spent crying softly for her, for him, for mortality. My friend ordered me tequila, let me talk for fewer minutes about it than I thought I needed, and then said:

"Did her father make you laugh?"

God, yes! And he made my friend laugh, and he made her mother laugh, and he made all of our friends laugh. He was incredibly good-humored.

I started thinking of weekends in high school spent in her kitchen, her dad reading the newspaper while she and I pretended to know how to make pancakes. I started thinking of all the laughter that kitchen held.

Which, of course, was Ed's point:
Remember the times when you laughed.
Remember when things were good
when you and your friend didn't know how to measure dry vs. wet goods
when we worried about acne and boys instead of wrinkles, acne, and boys
when we felt completely loved and safe and warm
when we knew nothing about prostates.

I have been to a friend's parent's funeral every year since 2008. In 2010, one of my favorite friends was putting off writing his mother's eulogy (because of course), and his other friends and I suggested he write about the times she made him laugh. The jokes, the teasing. No one wanted to cry any more.

His eulogy was perfect. His dry wit echoed throughout a chapel full of people who had loved his mother, who had their own stories of laughter, who wept when he broke down but who laughed honestly when he cracked his gorgeous, crooked smile.

Parents do the best job when they teach us how to laugh and how to love. That is the legacy we remember and for which are most appreciative.

So. Remember the times we laughed, and know that we will again, sometime soon.