Dusty In My Heart

February 2007

by Sally Klein O'Connor

Dear Dusty Rose,

There are always a million-billion things to do in our lives--or so it seems. There is rarely enough time to just breathe and take in the scenery of the moment. Posing for your senior portrait was one more thing on the agenda of a normal, everyday, banana-and-raisin-pancake Saturday morning. No big deal. We drove out to Simi and found the studio. I was just unbuckling my seat belt and looked over at you for just a moment. It was meant to be a cursory glance but all of the sudden I was caught looking through a zoom lens.

I noticed you were taller in the seat next to mine--not by much, I might add, but just enough to make me wonder when that happened. As I zoomed in closer, I was confronted by a young woman blossoming into adulthood. Those deep dark eyes were full of an intensity and depth that comes with age. Finishing your senior year in high school, preparing for the prom, cap and gown, and college--how did it happen? My face was hot and my eyes were wet. People told us when you were born, how quick the years would go. It didn't seem that fast to me. They were so full.

8-2-88 (Journal)

When I told FO' (Michael) on his birthday that he might be a daddy, he pulled the covers slowly up over his head and said, "I'm too young to be a daddy!" But ever since we saw the doctor he's been getting more and more enamoured of the idea. He tells bad jokes and sings baseball songs to my belly...

Did you know that if you were a boy you could have ended up signing Cody Skye O'Connor when people asked for your autograph? Yup! There was no escaping the poetry in your name. It came from two people very much in love but too young, even at thirty, to understand what real love looked like. Through the years you have been very good at pointing us toward the deeper ways of love.

2-13-89

Sometimes it just knocks me out when I realize we're really going to have a 'baby.' That another presence is going to come into our lives with a whole different personality! And our lives will never be the same. In this little life will be reflections and pieces of us--good and bad--and I can only pray Lord, that You will give us the grace to love this child with a little of the love You have for us!

The whole process of letting go began when you were born. For nine months we went everywhere together. You ate what I ate, and when you didn't appreciate some of my more exotic taste in cuisine, you made sure to let me know about it. We slept together all the time--except when you were up and I wasn't. You swam all over the inside of my belly and kicked me just for the fun of it. You pretty much owned me and you were certainly in no hurry to vacate your accomodations. You were very reluctant to participate in the birth process, no doubt a foreshadowing of your expressions of discontent whenever you are rousted from your pillow before noon. Nevertheless, despite your silent protests, you were born.

You still owned me, but everything was different. It was hello and goodbye at the same time. I sang to you as the nurse laid you on my belly, and then you were carried away. You still ate pretty much whatever I ate, but now you sucked it out of me violently and occasionally sent it back, with no remorse whatsoever. Still, I adored you.

And you--well, you adored "Big Puppy." He was a gift from your Auntie Kate. Soft, fluffy, all around cuddly friend and companion--complete with collar and tag, which was rather extravagant for a stuffed animal. From the start, you and Big Puppy were inseparable. He went everywhere you went--all over the country. Soon after, he was joined by "Puppy O," and the dynamic duo became a trio. Alas, the brief saga of Puppy O ended tragically at a Motel 6 in Albuquerque New Mexico. Several hours later it was discovered Puppy O was missing. His whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

10-17-91

Walked with Dusty up a dirt road to the reservoir to see the ducks. It was beautiful. Dusty held my hand all the way and kept singing her A-B-Cs all the way through. When I asked her who made the moon--she said "God made the moon." She is so sweet! I love her with all my heart, Lord. Thank You for her!

You have always been precocious, reading by the time you were 3 1/2 years old. But it was more than your ability to learn. Your capacity for thought and feeling has always run deep. Many people would say you were an "old soul." I was sure you would turn 40 before you turned 5.

5-28-96

Dusty "wowed" me when she loved Sarah. Sarah is 3 and is difficult. She wouldn't share with Dusty and Dusty was really hurt and mad. Then we talked about it and prayed and then Dusty said she wanted to be alone for a minute. A few minutes later she was back in Sarah's room. Sarah was still being grouchy so I commented to Dusty that she didn't have to play with Sarah if she was going to be grouchy. Dusty turned and said to me that's not what Jesus would do. A little while later they were playing together and they have been friends, mostly, ever since...

4-28-97

As we came together at 11AM on Saturday morning to prepare for the seder that evening, we prayed and worshipped and took communion in front of the cross, in the sanctuary... Dusty started talking to me about her cup. She said that the grape juice in the cup made the cup soft (it was a dixie cup)--and that reminded her of the blood of Jesus in our hearts which makes them soft. Then she was pushing and pulling the cup in many different ways. And she said that that was like God who could mold our hearts any way He wants... She's only 8.

Do you remember how you wanted Gaston, from Beauty and the Beast, to ask Jesus into his heart? At 4 or 5 you thought he was pretty cute and decided he wouldn't be such a bad guy to the Beast and Belle if he became a believer. I wonder how much of that kind of affection transfers over to little green Irkin aliens who plan to conquer the world. Tell me, who could love a character like "Invader Zim?" No wonder his cartoon is no longer on the air. But you not only love him, your writing on FanFiction.com has made him a very compelling "person." You have taken a fictional creature with no heart or mind, given him a very deep, psychological past and an ongoing struggle with identity. Not that it doesn't parallel some of your own struggles...

From the time you were a year and a half old we were on the road several months out of the year, staying in homes and hotels, meeting people all over the country. It was pretty exciting stuff--at least for us. You were a natural student and homeschooling seemed like a workable option. And for a while it appeared to be the right choice. But there was a longing in your heart that went unfulfilled.

Quite often the people Daddy and I met while on tour seemed to come and go like the scenery we would admire as we drove by. But it was not like that at all--for you. Each new place we would park our bags for a night or two, you were hoping for a friend. And everytime you thought you might have found one, we would pack up and leave again. Your tears would soak into Big Puppy's fur as we would wave and drive away. Daddy and I had never been on the road. We didn't realize how much you needed some real friends who were solidly in your life--not just passing through. When it became obvious that there weren't any candidates on the horizon you created friends to keep you company. As time wore on the people and stories you imagined became more intricate and involved, and you preferred your made-up world over the real world.

There were other, darker strains during those years that we finally noticed when we began to pay attention to what was happening to you. By the time we became aware of how much pain you were in, I wondered if it might be too late.

11-14-2004

At 15 my baby is so caught in her patterns and compulsions that she can't stop and drops deep into oceans of sadness. Depression. No surprise that the nice man said Dusty needs medication and handed us samples. Can you know enough in an hour to see what a person really needs? It seems like guesswork to me. But then there is God. I know You hear all those fragments and ramblings of prayer...

We wanted you to live out our idea of perfect--or at least as close as a child can come. We wanted everything to be good in your life, and needed to believe it was. After all, you are brilliant and beautiful! Please God, no pain! But everyone bleeds from the heart somewhere--sometime. There is just no escaping it in this life. There was a long trail of tears by the time Daddy and I really understood how much you were hurting. I cannot tell you how sorry I am for that.

That was one very long and hard winter. I wondered where your smile went, and if I'd ever see it again? I could only find brief hints of it in the intervals between the waves of darkness that kept crashing the gates of your mind and heart. Medication helped you surface and take the oxygen into your soul which would help you survive. The therapy you received from a good counselor taught you how to breathe on your own again. And this time there were friends--real people--who were there for you, in the simple, mundane, everyday ways that you never had when you were little. And slowly, but not so slowly that we couldn't trace the progress, you found your way back into life. There are scars from your struggle and I so wish, even now, that you never had to experience the least brush of pain in your life. I wish it for your sake--and for mine.

Still, as I write this, I know that so much of who you are, the qualities I admire most, are those that developed through your trials by fire. You are a truth teller, and it takes a lot of courage to stand for truth when you may have to do it alone. There is also a deep sense of justice in you--and mercy. For a couple of years you read everything you could find on the holocaust,--fiction and non-fiction. You pondered the injustice of it, and were overwhelmed by the suffering and fear. You have grappled with who God is in your life--honestly, painfully--working through what it means to believe Him, and then to trust Him.

Remember when we went to Ireland and the first concert was at Rodney's church? You wouldn't come in, but stayed outside during the worship time, fighting a heaviness that had suddenly hung itself over your heart. You wrote out scripture after scripture and prayed, until you could find your way into the back of the church and participate in the rest of the service. There is a warrior in you.

And can you party??? Oh yeah! In a church parking lot in Newtonards, outside Belfast, at 11PM, I can still see you dancing in the headlights of Jodie's car, after the concert. You were trying to get her to dance with you. Jodie, who had never even heard of Zoegirls before you indoctrinated her by blasting their songs on her car radio.

* * * *

Seeing you all dressed up in turquoise and black, spaghetti straps and heels--in preparation for your senior banquet--I find a woman emerging from all the sweatshirts and jeans that surprises even me. There is a beauty that shines in spite of your struggle. I can still see traces of a grace and poise you learned in the ballet lessons Grandma Betty insisted you take. You are beautiful in so many ways--in all the ways that matter most--and even in ways you can't accept as being true just yet.

As you come to this, your eighteenth birthday, I can't even find the words to tell you how honored I am to be your mom. Not to say you have always done everything well, or that your struggles are all over. No. But the person I see before me, still wrestling to become everything that God created her to be, is an amazing human being.

Pretty soon, sooner than calendars can count and I can wrap my head and heart around, you will pack up Big Puppy once again. But this journey will be yours alone. And as I let go of you, yet again, perhaps in one of the hardest ways yet, I am thankful to be able to call you my daughter and my friend.

1-12-93

So--Dusty's off to pre-school--her first day. With some amount of lump in my throat and caught with the taste of sweet and sad on my tongue I watched my little girl go. Yeah, I know this is maudlin--but it is so hard to let her go...

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