Three Little Words

Three Little Words

A Memoir
by Ashley Rhodes-Courter


[Note: Some explicit references to abuse and pedophilia can be disturbing for younger readers. Recommended for 18+]


Ashley Rhodes-Courter is a phenomenon, an inspiration, a powerhouse of progress and change in the child services. This book started out as an essay titled, "Three Little Words", for NYT - an essay about her adoption day, which won a grand prize in June 2003. People expected the three little words to be "I love you", but readers find out that it is actually, "I guess so" - the three words which sealed the deal to make her adoption official.

Ashley's teen mom lost custody of her by age 3, and since then Ashley was shunted from foster home to foster home in the Florida foster care system for the next 9 years. Some of the stay was brief, some longer; some were tolerable, some were outright abusive; yet, she endured, and tried to thrive. Knowing that nobody can take away her education, she excelled in the school system no matter which foster home or which public school she went to. Sometimes she never got to spend a full year in the same school, and that did not make her withdraw into herself. Instead, she found ways to stand out through her achievement - be it essay writing, or public speaking, or acing the tests and being a straight-As student.

The book is a memoir, recounting her experiences upto and including her adoption by the Courters and her successes thereafter, including being invited to the White House as President Clinton's guest, winning an essay to spend time with her favorite author J.K.Rowling even as a teen. Her life has been one painful event after another until she found herself surrounded by so much love and care with the Courters that she was able to give back, and give back generously.

I could not put this book down, and had to finish reading it in one long sitting, one recent weekend. To think that the childcare services are so steeped in bureaucracy and neglect that many children fall through the cracks never to resurface is infuriating.

Being a gifted writer, Ashley's words cut deep without being bitter or resentful. Her honesty and her unique perspective on the traumatic events in her life are not paraded for pity but shared with clear insight into the  breakdown in the system which allowed this to happen, not just to her, but the thousands of other kids with no families.

Her question still remains unanswered probably: Why do states pay a fortune to foster parents rather than helping the biological parents out? If her own mother was given the financial support that the vile Mrs. Moss was given, wouldn't their lives together been a lot less painful? Why are the likes of Mrs. Moss allowed to get away with cruelty time and time again while the biological parents are penalized at the first hint of failure as a parent?

Her other book Three More Words tries to answer all the questions we have from her first book, plus shares her journey as a foster care parent.

[image source: http://rhodes-courter.com/three-little-words/]

Grandfather Gandhi

Grandfather Gandhi

by Arun Gandhi & Bethany Hegedus
illustrated by Evan Turk
published by Simon and Schuster


Mahatma Gandhi's grandson, Arun Gandhi, gave a talk that Bethany Hegedus attended, just after she was trying to find her bearings post-9/11. She was immediately inspired by the stories, one in particular about channeling anger; she wanted to bring it to the kids. So, she wrote to Arun Gandhi and thus the literary collaboration was born to bring us this amazing book that offers multiple layers and lessons.

And, Evan Turk was only 12 years old when the collaboration began. By the time the book was acquired for publication about a decade later, Turk had fortuitously graduated from the Parsons School of Design in NYC and presented the winning sample that completed the book's visual presentation.

The story is set in Gandhiji's Sevagram where 12-year old Arun arrives for a visit. He is nervous about his much-revered grandfather and resents that the life there is without electricity or plumbing, and that the food is just bland boiled pumpkin. But most of all, he resents that he has to share his grandfather with so many people who always surround him.

When playing a soccer match with the local kids at the Sevagram, Arun is shoved by an older boy, making him miss the goal. An infuriated Arun picks up a rock with full intention of using it, to return the hurt that the older boy had inflicted, inadvertently or not. Arun imagines the puzzled stares of his fellow players wondering how, being Mahatma Gandhi's grandson, he could get so angry. This is the turning point in the story that leaves us with a lasting lesson.

When Arun finally gets to talk to Mahatma about this incident, full of guilt and shame, Gandhiji surprises him by saying that he gets angry too, and that anger is like electricity. "Anger can strike, like lightning, and split a living tree in two. Or it can be channeled, transformed. A switch can be flipped and it can shed light like a lamp." Arun is amazed at the realization that when his grandfather gets angry, he doesn't lash out but works to make lasting changes. "...anger can illuminate. It can turn darkness into light."

The illustrations are full of emotion, bold, raw, and complex, brilliantly complementing the story and bringing symbolic imagery. The mixed media collage uses fabric for clothing Gandhiji and Arun in the pictures- clean, white and simple; the communal eating scene has shiny foil for pitchers and plates and utensils; Arun's anger when he picks up the rock comes across as a tangled mass of black yarn, writhing, vicious. The page showing a fluffy strand of fiber being spun into yarn in a charka, with threads everywhere and people laying down, with the charka spokes making them look like the Vitruvian man is a favorite as well.

Both the seven and ten year old really liked this book and its message. "Why did Arun pick up that rock?" is a question they kept asking, not wanting to believe Arun was capable of hitting someone with it. "Why did they not have electricity? Why did they eat only pumpkin mush? Why did his dad have to clean everybody's toilet?" While they did not grow up with a reverence and affection for the Mahatma like I did, they have heard enough stories about him from me regarding Indian Independence Movement that they were happy to see the softer, familial side of this person who is larger-than-life even today.

[image source: http://www.grandfathergandhi.com/book/]

Begone Dysphoria!

As I sit rocking rhythmically, instinctively tightening my hold around feverish Oggie jerking and lurching trying to find a position to settle in, my mind wanders to the first time I felt a strange sense of helplessness: when baby Ana was curled up on me with a 102+ fever; my mind raced faster than my heart then, conjuring up several possible worst-case scenarios within the space of 5 minutes, leaving me feeling inadequate and jittery.

Cuddling Ana on the left and cradling Oggie on the right, grateful for the large and accommodating rocking chair, I try to find a comfortable position making sure the pacifier is within arm's reach in case Oggie can't settle down and the hand towel stays put on my shoulder in case Ana has another spell of vomiting.

Vignettes of my mom brushing neem leaves over my chicken-pox-infected body fade away to reveal my dad holding my long hair back with one hand and supporting my forehead with the other as I retch over the toilet throwing up laboriously... which in turn brings to focus the blurry images I thought I had repressed of watching my brother in hospital room recovering... and finally, my roving mind settles on a crowded waiting room at our family doctor's office with its stomach-churning disinfectant odor and pots of boiling water for sterilizing the needles prompting me to clutch my dad's arm tighter asking, "Usi poduvala?" and quickly adding, "Enakku usi vendaam, Appa". (Will they give me a shot? I don't want a shot, Appa). I couldn't understand how my dad could be wrong especially after he picked up his 5-yr-old daughter, looked her in the eye and reassured her that the shots were being prepared for someone else, not her!

Something about caring for the kids when they are sick brings out morbid thoughts, despite Logic and Reason trying to explain that this is how babies all over the world develop immunity and learn to fight off microscopic invaders that constantly attack their tiny little bodies...

Perhaps the melancholy mood right now is just a by-product of sleep-deprivation and exhaustion compounded by the sheer effort needed to stay calm and function efficiently at all costs, or perhaps it is just a coping mechanism reminding me to slow down and recognize the precious things in life at this juncture as my mind probes and brings forth sepia-toned snapshots of a relatively careless childhood...

Sitting on the baby-seat in the front bar of my dad's bicyle, confident that the dangerous-looking 45° angle at which my dad pedals and swings his leg over to seat himself is not going to throw me down, I wait for the right moment to ask, "Appa, I like cone ice-cream very much. Can I have one today?", as sweetly as I can as he starts pedaling steadily towards the market... Licking the generic vanilla ice cream scooped on top of the small sugar cone, I look longingly at the small striped spinning wheels in the newly installed weighing machine outside the market when my dad fishes out the 75 paisa required to operate it... out pops the little rectangular antique-white card with a fortune on one side and my weight in kilos on the other which I promptly hand over to my dad for safe-keeping till we get home, where I know it will join many of its other comrades safely inside an old cookie box...

The unconditional support for my fleeting obsessions - be it perfumed erasers that looked good enough to eat, with alphabets on them urging me to collect all 26 at a tender age, or, posters, magazine/newspaper articles and pictures of favorite cricketers at awkward adolescence... the fussing and ministering and open concern when I fell ill... the staunch empathy for my hopes and dreams... these are the memories I chose to etch permanently.

The nostalgia that suffuses me every year around Navarathri and Deepavali stems from sweet memories of going shopping with my mom for the thambulam items, grouping and arranging them in small baskets (sort of like party favors) for the guests, choosing a silk saree for my mom to wear every evening for the nine evenings that Navarathri is celebrated, rising up early morning on Deepavali to get an oil bath, put on new clothes and eat a traditional meal... long walks to the local temples, spur-of-the-moment stops at Iyengar's bakery on the way for fresh baked onion bun and thool pakkoda, bus rides across town to Parry's Corner for wholesale shops that specialize in craft supplies...

Try as hard as I can, my mind is unable to zoom in on any single specific incident that made me feel unloved or neglected, despite the fact that there were quite a few circumstances where raised voices characterized the verbal exchanges while quite a few others involved the dreaded silent treatment.

Reassuring. Very Reassuring.

I do have hope after all... Ana and Oggie perhaps will tuck away memories of visits to the Museum and impromptu snacks at Cinnabon^®, harvesting tomatoes in our garden and picking berries in the nearby farm, reading books at bedtime and cuddling together on the sofa on weekend mornings... and perhaps, just perhaps, they will choose to fondly remember resting on their mommy's chest as she rocked them gently during their bouts of illnesses comforting them in her own quiet way and graciously delete the memories of their mommy raising her voice at them every once in a while as she struggled to cope with her responsibilities...