Our Daniele - A Mother's Remembrance

Our Daniele

by Rachel Frazin

August 20, 2009

When I think about my children it's like a kaleidoscope of images, sensations, voices, smells. All the years blend together. So difficult to distill anything distinctive from the soup that is parenthood. Yes and life lived in a family. I will try.

Daniele came into the world in our home in Milwaukee Wisconsin with a lovely sigh. No lusty cries. She took her time - about 24 hours. With the help of my dear friend Carol Jones - a nurse midwife - she was born at 1:40 AM. Michael chose the music Gustaf Holtz's The Planets - Saturn was playing as she crowned. This was dramatic music with sheets of sound that crescendoed and then slowly softening. A portent? That birth was the besAt experience of my life up until then.

Those first few months, she spent a very dreamy, lengthy time suckling - 45 minutes every few hours. I contented myself while nursing with the book "The Life and Death of Nian Chen" - a story about a Chinese woman who was incarcerated during the Chinese cultural revolution. As someone who tried to extend my adolescence as long as possible, I could relate to Ms. Chen's sense of confinement. But mine was of my own choosing, which made all the difference.

I adapted my rhythms to hers. Sleeping when she slept. Waking to eat and do the mundane household tasks.My most vivid dream occurred about a week after her birth. I had her out on my bike in winter and parked it and forgot about her. When I came back out she was frozen. Wow was I relieved to wake up. Of course I have some of the same feelings of remorse now - could I have done anything to prevent Daniele's death?

I longed to start reading to her. I went to the library when she was 3 months old, but then turned back when I realized I was jumping the gun.

It's not so much that she liked to talk but that she did it so well. Her interest in animals showed up early. She could imitate the whole barnyard. If you asked her how a snake laughed she'd say, s s s. By 15 months she was distinguishing lions from leopards.

And she loved to laugh. Mike delighted her with all kinds of physical shenanigans. When she was four months old, Mike found he could throw socks at her feet and she would erupt in giggles - over and over and over. She understood silly from an early age.

Mike introduced her to the Milwaukee Zoo that first winter of 1985. She was hanging precariously out the back carrier on a subzero day but somehow they made the rounds of the outdoor cages. He was never sure how cold she got. Mike had worked as a zookeeper and he wanted to delight and impress her early with the enormity of those big creatures - elephants, giraffes, and hippopotami.

She offered us such a gentle introduction into parenthood. No tantrums. Just very likeable company. When I brought her to NYC at 23 months to see our friends Eileen and Liz she took trains, planes, and buses without a whisper of complaint. I would explain what we had to do and she would just do it.

When I found FAO Schwartz Toy Store in Manhattan I thought I had entered Oz. An expensive One. So I bought one board game involving matching like-colored balloons and we sat waiting for a plane, playing the game. So serene. The difference between colors just popped for her. Her keen visual sensibility was already evident.

She never ran away from us. All we did was reason with her and she would adjust her behavior accordingly. Socialization came easily to her - at least in the early years when it was just us.

Jon came along - she wasn't too keen on him. She had been the belle of the house for almost 4 years so one couldn't blame her for being a little put out with Jon. I tried all the usual tricks -help Mommy like a good big sister - go get his diaper and special time just for her, reading or playing but she was too savvy for that. She knew the throne had been pulled out from under her.

We saw a few signs early in her life that she didn't like to conform to the group just the way everyone else did. At the College of St. Catherine Montessori school, she was supposed to come in and sit on a circular line. She usually hid under a table first. When she did get to the line, she sat just a few inches off of it.

Fran Oulette taught her dance after preschool once a week. Come recital time she threw herself on the floor and refused to budge. I believe she objected to all those parents' well-intentioned appreciation. I honestly think she knew she was being patronized and her pride rejected it out of hand. Even then she demanded substantive respect on her terms.

At two and a half she'd hang out in her diapers and t-shirt at the next door door neighbor's house. She was willing throughout those preschool years to separate from us to find some interesting nearby experience. But she was always careful to stay out of harm's way. She was already developing this strange combination of risk-taking and caution which served her well during adolescence and her young adult years.

She did slip on the stairs at Christmas and broke her elbow. When they casted her and later when they buzzed it off, she sat stoically throughout. She had an aversion to showing her fear to others. A cool little kid from the start.

So we had no idea that things did scare her. On the first day of kindergarten I proudly put her on the big yellow bus bound for St. Paul Open School. She hesitated for a second before climbing up the big stairs. Unfortunately when she got to school there was no one there to greet her. After awhile someone figured out there was a forlorn five year old standing alone on the curb. Most kids would have cried and asked for their Mommy.

She scored so well on the entrance test that I sent her to first grade at Capitol Hill Magnet in St. Paul - a public school with an accelerated program. She insisted on wearing two different colored socks everyday - she was staking her claim to her individuality early.

Even as early as second grade she was focused on the importance of having friends. She wrote George Bush Senior and suggested having a national "Friend's Day." The local WCCO news station picked it up and interviewed her about her idea for the 5 PM news.

President Bush sent a note back saying Congress would have to adopt a resolution and he would have to sign it. He suggested starting the process by writing to her state Congressman.

Turns out she didn't thrive on the competition at Capitol Hill. She wanted to win bad but couldn't cotton to the banal, driven operations one must do to compete.

When she was 11 she developed headaches and sleeplessness. She saw road kill in the Rorhshot Blots the psychologist showed her. We took her out of Capitol Hill and enrolled her at St. Paul Open School. There she found kids like herself - searching for identities a little off the beaten path. There she felt free to be who she was.

Her Odyssey of the Mind team won second in the state. She was the person the team relied on in a segment called Spontaneous. Who would be better suited than Daniele to come up with a wildly creative answer to some wacky question?The team won second in the state.

She brought her love of animals to the Como Zoo Junior Docent Program. Daniele was the one they directed the TV reporter to for an interview. She was so poised before the camera. And knowledgeable about whatever slimy creature she was holding.

Initially phobic about dogs, she and Mike walked dogs for the Humane Society weekly for a year when she was 8. She started out 10 feet behind Mike and before you knew it she was marching side by side with the Great Danes.

She had us to know we had to have a family dog. She read this big book on dog breeds and decided on a standard poodle for the family. Two of us have allergies so she was limited in the end in what she could get. We brought Beauregard home at 10 weeks. I remember as we drove home - her breath bated - as she held him in her lap making sure he wouldn't be too scared in this strange automobile so far from his mama and litter mates.

There were many animals come and gone through the years. Boris, Natasha, and Birdie were our 3 well-loved rats. She'd let them run up her sleeve over her neck - which really gave me the willies. And when her friend Becky Alper showed her the litter of guinea pigs, she had to take one. And Bumba Finley joined our house managery.

Bumba who lived to the ripe old age of six altered forever our sense about when the dandelions come in and where in the yard. Hamsters came and went. And a stinky newt that even she thought was an untenable tenant in our home.

And lastly the snakes -the boa and corn snakes. When the boa named Crimson developed the snake equivalent of trench mouth, it wasn't Daniele who gave her the antibiotic shots around her spine that saved her life. She liked to wear the boa around her neck just to freak people out. When St.Thomas' ELS program came to our house to inverview us to see if we would be a suritable family to host international students, Daniele came down our grand staircase with the boa wrapped around her neck! She wanted to make sure the interviewer knew we weren't just any ordinary family.

At 15 she went to France alone for a month and worked at an archeological site - where uncovered an ancient path. She did run away to town once - and downed a couple of beers and got back before she was missed. She spent the rest of the time in France with her older cousin Nicole who showed her the sites of Paris.

She went out on her own and got her first job at the Science Museum of MN running birthday parties - evidently the best birth control in the world. She never babysat again.

She loved to work - especially as a waitress. Her patrons benefited from her fast mind and willingness to give just the right amount of attention.

Her friends meant more to her than anything in the world. I know she listened to others' problems and counseled them straight from the heart because she knew what it was like to feel the deep pain of rejection, anger at how unfair the world can be, and disappointment at how hard it is to make one's way economically.

Daniele engaged the world intensely and absolutely on her own terms.

Daniele wherever you are - we love you - those in this room today and many more whose lives you touched with your phenomenal sense of humor, wit and with your insistence on authenticity. We will miss you more than you could ever imagine we would.

November 2008 - Report from Europe

Dear Friends,

I arrived home just in time to vote. And what an election it was. The Europeans are surely whooping collectively this week.

Due to a lack of internet access, I failed to write about my stay with my family in France so I would like say a few words about it.

After a direct flight and taxi ride, I arrived on September 2 in Paris at my niece's apartment in central Paris where she was to wait for me before going to her office for the morning. I used the code to get through the exterior street door only to find myself in a dark corridor. I rang her apartment bell without response. The distant door to the stairwell and elevator was locked. When I tried to open the exterior door where I had entered it was also locked! So there I was trapped in the entryway in darkness. After about 5 minutes of reassuring self talk, I cased the exterior door and figured out how to manually open it. It is one of those large iron 250-year-old doors with an inside lever I hadn't seen. It was too dark to see the button on the wall that must be pushed in order to open the door using the knob. Feeling relieved, I stepped out onto the street leaving my 3 bags in the entry. I walked into the nearby patisserie and forgetting to say "Bonjour Madame, excusez moi, I have a problem" in French the way you're supposed to do if you want to be polite, I made a slightly frantic request for a mobile phone in English from those waiting in line for their morning croissant. A lovely English-speaking French woman gave me her phone and I proceeded to call my niece at all 4 of her available numbers with no response.

Nicole was 33 weeks pregnant with her first child at age 41, and I knew she had been having some contractions the week before. In fact one of my duties in addition to being a tourist was to cook and shop for her as she was on partial bedrest. So I had to wonder whether her absence could be due to an unexpected early birth. Yet I hadn't heard any such news when I had left MSP-SP 10 hours earlier.

As I stood around the entry wondering what to do, a woman came through the door who actually knew Nicole - and as I later found out was her only friend in the building. Natalie took me in and we started calling hospitals to see if Nicole had been admitted (privacy paranoia being less of an issue here than in the US) and had no luck. Just as I was negotiating a nap on her day couch - I'm not shy about where I sleep when I'm tired and need some zzz's - my nephew, Jean-Paul, came through the door to tell me Nicole had gone into labor after my plane took off and had given birth to a 2.6 pound baby girl and they were doing well. While feeding me tea and croissant in Nicole's 6th floor, very nice apartment with a big balcony overlooking the hood, he explained that Nicole's boyfriend Jean was driving up from Bordeaux that very moment and I would not be able to stay in Nicole's place as planned. In fact I needed to grab a few clothes and take the Metro with him to Montmartre where I would stay at my sister Susan's place. Now there was a reason I was staying with Nicole and not Susan ... but I was relieved just to get to a destination as jet lag was beginning to take its toll.

And so for the next two weeks I stayed at my sister's 5 story walkup - no elevator - 50 square meter apartment- which has a divine view of at least 240 degrees of Paris. We could see the Eiffel tower light up on the hour in the evenings, which I personally thought was kind of tacky. The only better place for a view of the city is the church at the very top of the hill, Sacre Coeur/Sacred Heart, which was built in the 1870's by the locals after the Germans had occupied their neighborhood for 4 months. They were certain God had punished them for their shameful ways so they were trying to make it up to Him. I think my sister, who is not a religious person, may have been thinking about propitiating someone or something at various points during my stay.

Now I am 7 years younger than Susan - critical ones perhaps from a generational standpoint. She is not a baby boomer. I am an aging hippie. She is the oldest. I am the baby. You get the picture.

Susan and her husband Jean and two children ages 4 and 6 moved to France in 1974. Jean's mother was there and living in the cultural capitol of the world seemed like just the thing to my then 26 year old sister. She got her master's degree in clinical psychology and began practicing in the hospitals of Paris. Jean joined an architectural firm and Jean-Paul and Nicole grew up to be two very well adjusted as well as gifted adults. Super with the accent on the second syllable as the French do.

When we were growing up in Chicago, Susan often had to take care of my brother and me as my mother was often unwell. My father never bonded normally with my sister as she was born while he was fighting in Europe during World War II. They first met when she was 2. He ultimately disowned her after she left home for Smith College.

My dad was much less ambivalent about my brother and me. Although he was given to anger and occational physical violence, he clearly loved us.

So my sister and I grew up in the same family but like many siblings we were treated differently by our parents. And we have carried that difference through our adult lives and it surely has affected our relationship. As the older sibling, she determined the nature of the relationship and being 7 years my senior and beleagured by responsibilities, she didn't spend much time with me. We shared a room but I don't recall much bedside conversation probably to do with my going to bed hours before she did and having zero interest in boys except for their toy cars and erector sets. When I turned 10 she left for college and I saw her a few times before she moved to France and then only 7 or 8 times in these past 35 years.

So now we were temporary roomies. Her husband, Jean, died last year of cancer so it was just us. In fact his death was one of my reasons for coming. I was there to support her during a hard time and maybe even create new connections between us.

Because she is older, she knows some family stories I don't. I try to unearth new stories when I see her. This time she described the great presents our maternal grandmother always sent her from Nebraska. She died (1953) before I had a memory of her so if she gave me stuff I wouldn't know. Our parents were always broke and didn't know what to buy. I can remember getting a toy iron and ironing board for Chanukah and I was a tomboy who didn't like to even play with dolls much!

She recalled the time she was supposed to be watching me in Chicago on the West Side and how I disappeared. She panicked and ran up to tell my mom who ran down and found me. The time I remember was when my brother and I took off on her in the suburb of Morton Grove where we lived later and walked along Dempster Avenue, a very busy street to railroad tracks where I waited while my brother scrambled down the hill into the woods. The police cruiser found me standing alone and waited until Bruce returned to take us home. I think Susan was probably in more trouble for that one but she didn't remember it. Or maybe we beat my parents home and she never told them.

We remembered living in the one bedroom apartment on the West side. I slept in the living room in a crib. But somehow my mom hired a wonderful African American woman named Cassie to clean the house. We were drinking wine and tsk tsking my mom for her strange priorities in spending limited money. Of course we each took our own analytical take on that.

She spent time at a neighbor's every day who took her in like a daughter. She was an Albanian immigrant who liked to read fashion magazines with my sister who was 7 or 8 at the time. Susan thinks perhaps this woman nurtured her because she didn't have her own daughter. Mom never liked us to have friends over and we reminisced about how throughout childhood we would worm our way into the hearts of adults in other families in order to have more fun and attention.

Through the stories and remembrances we grew in our relationship to each other even though the tensions of sibling rivalry and envy were still just under the surface.