Unaccompanied Minor

 

Adri deplaning in Dallas in 1994

Starting when she was five, Adri was able to fly to see me by herself, what the airlines call an unaccompanied minor. Prior to 9/11, at least, we could go into the plane with her and get her settled, but then she’d be by herself for the flight to and from. She’d get a necklace placard kind of thing, and a flight attendant would watch over her, but still. It had to be a lot, and it sort of amazes me that kids can fly solo at such a young age… but I was grateful.

The first time she was to fly to see me alone was in June 1993 right after her fifth birthday. I was worried that she’d be terrified and feel alone during the trip, so I had the sudden brainstorm to send her favorite doll that she kept in her Dallas home to her grandparents in Louisville with the suggestion that they give it to her as a surprise once she was seated in the plane. I hoped that this might help alleviate at least some trepidation and loneliness and make the flight at least somewhat bearable. 

Her grandparents thought it was a good idea and did this for me and her. They kept the doll under wraps until the last minute, and they said Adri beamed and smiled when she saw the doll, taking it and cradling it in her arms.

When I met her at the gate getting off the plane, she had doll in arms and her eyes lit up when she saw me. She was in a great mood and didn’t seem to be phased by the solo flight at all.

She excitedly told me about the flight, the meal she got, how the flight attendants were so nice, and asked if she would get to do that again.

The flight attendant told me she was the hit of the trip, talking with everyone, asking where they were going, making small talk with her seatmates, etc.

I really shouldn’t have been surprised or worried; Adri was the social animal that I only dreamed I could be. She was in her element, holding court at 30,000 feet with her doll on her lap and a glass of “free ginger ale, daddy!!” on her tray.

There would be other worries and concerns over the years, but at least I knew that flying back and forth solo several times a year would not be one of them.

|I had forgotten about sending the doll, but at Adrianna’s memorial service her grandmother reminded me of it. She told me that I’d always been such a good dad to Adri, and then proceeded to tell the story about the doll and how important and helpful it had been to her and them.

I needed to hear that on that day, and I’m thankful that they were able to tell me.

It’s been 8 months today.

MY Daddy!!!

While we were finishing up grad school, I was a stay-at-home dad for a bit with Adrianna. I loved it despite the real or just perceived stigma occasionally associated then with being a male at home with a toddler. At some point, however, it became apparent that Adri needed to be socializing with other kids, something that’s hard to do in an apartment complex.

In a moment of synchronicity, that very moment I saw a job listing for a substitute teacher for a local day care chain which had about five locations throughout Austin. I thought this would be perfect, since it wasn’t every day and one of the perks was that I would be allowed to take Adrianna with me and they wouldn’t charge me for the time she was there. Win-win.

I did this for a few weeks and it was great. I would have hated it when I was a child to be at a different school every day with different kids, but Adri was not me. Where I was and still am an introvert, she was an extrovert and big people person. She relished seeing new kids each day; it was everything she wanted and needed.

Within a few weeks the sub position morphed into a computer instruction position. Instead of subbing for teachers, I’d go from school to school and teach a supplemental computer class to those kids who paid extra for the privilege. This was better for me because it was a much more useful fodder for the ol’ resume, but also it provided much more consistency. I knew each day where I’d be and could plan accordingly. Adri still get free day care.

At some point they discontinued the computer classes (it was expensive buying new software every few months, and the two or three Apple IIe computers required at each school were not cheap, either) so I transitioned into first the assistant and then lead after-school teacher. These were the kids who’d go to primary school and then come to the day care when school got out because they’re parents worked until 5 or 6. Part of the job was driving a bus and picking up the kiddos at the various schools, which was actually kind of fun.

Because of this Adrianna finally had a full-time classroom that she went to every day, the two-year-old room at the Far West Blvd location right off MoPac. It was great to see her all the time and still be pulling in (very little) money.

Since my kids didn’t arrive until 3:30 or so, in the mornings I’d fill in for other teachers when they needed to be out of the classroom in order to keep the room in legal student-teacher ratio as required by DHS. Lunches, phone calls, if they were out sick, etc. Occasionally I’d have to be in Adri’s room, though we tried to keep that to a minimum.

All the kiddos of course knew that I was Adri’s dad (“Mr. Hank” as I was called, like I was a hairstylist or something.) She was kind of territorial of me, like many kids can be, and often jealously guarded our relationship from the other kids. I couldn’t just spend time with her, of course. Often, especially at the beginning when she was still getting used to the situation, if I was with another group of kids in say the Lego center she’d get jealous and want me to come see what she was doing.

Or, and this would make me laugh though I tried really hard not to do so, she’d casually walk over to the group that I was interacting with and make contact with each kid before glancing at me and state, with all the authority that a two-year-old could muster,

“MY daddy!”

Just so they were all clear who I belonged to.

However, there was a girl in the class who noticed this and sensed a potential weakness, a soft spot, a chink in Adri’s armor that could be used against her, because this girl, who we’ll call Erin mostly because that was her name, realized that this relationship was very important to Adri.

Therefor, just to get under Adri’s skin, just to exhibit some dominance, just to show that she was someone not to be trifled with in the two-year-old classroom, occasionally Erin would walk up to Adri when she was doing something minding her own business. She’d get really close to Adri, all up in her face before pointing to me and whispering into Adri’s ear,

“MY daddy.”

What can only be described as an evil grin would then slowly form on Erin’s face as Adri would FLIP OUT and start screaming,

“NO!!! NO!!! He’s MY DADDY!!! MYYYYYY DADDDDDYYYY!!”

At which point Erin would laugh and walk away, her job done.

I didn’t even have to be in the room. Sometimes when all the classrooms were outside and I’d walk near the section that was portioned off for the two-year-olds Erin would run up to the fence and then look for Adri, and after confirming that she was watching would state for all to hear,

“My daddy.”

At which point Adri would scream and gnash her teeth and have a meltdown.

Not great behavior from either of them, but truthfully, I always found it funny and touching that Erin’s behavior could bother Adri so much. But I also found it disconcerting that Erin would know what buttons to push and decide to push them, with glee, at just two years of age.

I often wonder if she was a little sociopath in the making, but she could have gone either way with such behavior, I guess.

For all I know she runs a successful PR firm now. You never know.

Here's a short clip from 1990 of her playing outside at the daycare, with a "MY daddy!!!" at the end:

 

One of Life's Little Jokes

Today I was reminded, to paraphrase Adri, of one of "life's little jokes":

In Texas we have to get a yearly inspection for our cars where you have to go to an inspection center and they make sure your car is "road worthy" by checking tire wear, wipers, rust, broken windshields, the horn, the lights, and most importantly the exhaust and emission system. You can't renew your tags without this, and you also have to show proof of insurance in order to even get the car inspected.

If you fail anything, you have to get whatever caused the failure fixed before you can pass, and it can get expensive, especially if it's some emission issue (catalytic converters are expensive), but even tires start adding up.

So here's the joke: When you can afford to fix such things, the car always passes, but when you're living paycheck to paycheck, it fails often.

These last couple of decades, when it didn't matter to me if it failed (I could afford to have it fixed, both monetarily and with my time; we have more than one car, so if one is out of commission I could still get to work, etc.), it always passes. No issues. In and out with my sticker, Bob's your  uncle.

When I was just scraping by, this would not be the case. I'd always need to fix something. Get a new tire, fix the gas cap, whatever. It was never (comparatively) cheap.

|When I needed it to pass because I was broke, it failed. When it's okay if it fails because I can afford to fix it, it passes.

Adri of course was also well aware of this little joke life plays on us as well, having (unfortunately) firsthand knowledge.

Now, there are many reasons for this what I'll call The Poor Man's Axiom of Safety Inspection Passage Odds:

If you have more money chances are you have a better car. If you have more money chances are you can afford to maintain it properly and in a timely manner. If you have more money and more cars you drive that particular car less and thus there is less wear and tear.

But despite all these logical explanations, I just think "luck" sometimes follows the money, for whatever reason.

Then there's the whole regressiveness of this car inspection scheme: whether you your salary is $1 million a year or $7.25 an hour (the current min wage in Texas), the fee was the same (around $40). If you failed and needed to get two new tires, those tires cost the same whether you were the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or a stocker at the grocery store.

But at least we don't have a state income tax, amiright?

Texas recently did away with the safety inspection part, by the way. Oh, we still have to pay the fee that that part of the inspection cost (it's added to our registration fee now), but you don't have to get it inspected. I guess all that talk about "keeping Texas roads safe" was just so much talk, because they don't care now.

But at least you don't have to take out time to go do it now, right? Well, wrong, if you live in a major metro area (all Blue politically, of course. Just a coincidence) you still need the *emissions* part done yearly, so you don't even get to save any time. And of course you can still fail the emissions and then figure out a way to come up with $3000 for a catalytic convertor or whatever they cost now.

 (I have no idea anymore since I can afford them now).

Of Empathy and Renee Good

Adrianna was almost 37 when she died, born in June of 1988, leaving behind two children. Renee Good was 37 when she was killed, born in April of 1988, leaving behind three children. This was of course not lost on me given my mental state, where everything I see, hear, feel, and experience these last few months comes to me through the filter of loss of my daughter.

This filter isn’t the source of my anger and despair over Renee Good’s murder, of course, but it is certainly amplified it, placing my empathy on steroids. It is filling me with even more range at those who’d shrug off the murder of this mother as some sort of FAFO, whose life could be written off by the person who shot her multiple times while proclaiming “fucking bitch” as he calmly walked away still masked.

It wasn’t his wife. Or sister. Or daughter. Who cares.

“Fucking bitch.”

I think one of the biggest differences between liberals and conservatives is the degree to which these two groups experience empathy. Often it seems that conservatives are unable to be empathetic or understanding about a given issue unless or until they or someone close to them become directly personally affected by that issue.

There are countless stories, for example, of parents who were anti-gay homophobes until the moment their own children came out, at which point they begin to understand and change their views. And there are former supply-side “taxes are evil let me keep my own money I know what to do with it better than the government” types that suddenly understand and appreciate Social Security when they retire and have to rely solely on those monthly checks.

For whatever reason liberals seem to be able to better understand and feel for those less fortunate even if they themselves are doing fine. They don’t have to be personally affected, but rather whatever part of the human brain responsible for empathy is engaged and used to a much higher degree than their conservative counterparts it would seem.

It’s kind of odd, because there is one group of people with whom The Right are sort of empathetic: The Ultra Rich.

No matter how down-trodden they may be, no matter how much they’ve been left behind by society, no matter how badly the Ultra Rich and multinational corporations have treated them, they will still vote against their own best interests, ceding power and control to these affluent groups at their own expense. Why? Because many of them think that maybe one day they, too, will be rich. A sort of reverse empathy.

But are they empathetic to those worse off than themselves with whom they also share no personal connection? The answer, unfortunately, is usually no. They feel the opposite. They demonize those people and place 100% of the blame for their situation on the people themselves, and if children are caught in the crosshairs, children who clearly have no control of the situation, so be it.

Up until that moment when someone they love becomes personally affected by racism or homophobia or food insecurity or housing loss or health issues exasperated by our terrible health policy, of course. Only then do some become converts to decency and empathy and the good of a society as a whole.

I want to live in a country that can feel for others and care about them even if they have no personal connection to those people. I want to live in a country where we care at least as much about those less fortunate as ourselves as we do about those who own gold-plated toilets and make more in a month than most people will make in a thousand lifetimes.

I want my daughter’s children to grow up in such a country and world even if she and the countless Renee Good’s never had that chance.

Goodbye to 2025

 

Adri was with me every year from Christmas day until after the new year, where she’d head home the Sunday before the first day of school after the winter break, so I was lucky enough to spend every New Year’s Eve with her (with the exception of 1999 when her mother was afraid of Y2K and insisted that she come home before January 1st. That’s a story for another day.)

My dad and grandparents were usually still in town and we’d spend the evening at my mom’s, noshing on finger foods such as olives, shrimp cocktail, pickled herring, brie, cheddar cubes, marinated artichokes, smoked oysters, crackers and spread, etc.

For some reason it became a tradition to watch a couple of 1950s sci-fi films that were fun and a bit schlocky: The Blob and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. These were a bit scary but harmlessly so, especially The Blob, staring what seemed like a 45-year-old Steve McQueen playing a teenager just trying to warn his small-town community of a monster in their midst, all in glorious technicolor. It had a great kitschy opening musical theme as well.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a bit darker, both literally (shot in black and white) and figuratively. The protagonist had to stay awake and not succumb to sleep lest he become a pod person, and we could all relate to this as we’d sometimes struggle to keep our eyes open until midnight, bellies full of tinned meat and artisanal cheeses as the last moments of the current year slipped away forever.

Then, at midnight, Adri would yell “Happy New Year!!!” as loud as she could, and, weather permitting, would go in the backyard to yell it so all the neighbors could hear it as well. My grandfather would show off that he still had a lip from his clarinet days and blow through an old (apparently?) decorative brass horn that my mom used as a wall hanging, always succeeding in getting it to bellow out a loud if muffled plaintive note that signified the new year had arrived.

Adri would then take the horn and give it a go but never succeeded, but then she lacked the decades of brass and woodwind experience that my grandfather had as a former band and orchestra teacher prior to his later administrative career. It was fun to see her try, though, eyes bulging and cheeks extended in perfect Satchmo style.

Back then I was still a bit melancholy about the loss of another year, but that gave way to the excitement of what laid ahead for my daughter’s life, the anticipation of getting to see yet another milestone. I’d miss the little girl we’d leave behind in the past, but the young woman she was quickly becoming more than made up for that. For once in my life, time didn’t seem to be a series of static events locked in place in the past but rather an evolving continuum.

As it should be.

As I’ve already droned on about, this year, of course, would not be that way. I was cognizant the entire time since the end of May that time was quickly slipping away, that 2025 and the reality and life it once held was slowly, then quickly, drifting into the past, never to return. New Year’s Eve just amplified this.

I would look at the clock Wednesday night the 31^st with dread seeing the passage of hours as we quickly approached midnight. I think it was pushing me over the edge (admittedly not very long journey as of late,) so I asked Cindy if she would mind if we watched The Blob and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and of course she said yes, but she did worry that it might be too much for me.

At that point, however, I hoped that the familiarity of those two movies, getting lost in them and thus not thinking about the ticking of the clock, would outweigh whatever sadness they’d invoke with memories of all the many Eves spent watching them with my daughter.

And it worked. Both movies are short, about 80 minutes each, and for 160 minutes my brain was given a rest. By happenstance we’d timed the viewing so the last movie ended right after midnight.

But perhaps it worked too well. Before I knew it, I heard the next-door neighbors loudly counting down in unison from 10, and it was only then that I looked at the clock and my watch and noticed it was 10 seconds to midnight.

For better or worse, I did not get to savor the last few minutes but rather had the last 10 seconds of 2025, the last 10 seconds of the last year Adrianna was alive, slip away with no time to think about the ramifications.

But I know: that was probably a good thing, right?

Midnight arrived, 2025 was gone forever, and now here’s 2026. I broke down and cried more openly than I have in months as Cindy and I embraced in a long hug that got me from one year to the next.

Steve McQueen had again saved his town, and Kevin McCarthy had finally convinced everyone that the pod people were real. Some things are set in time and never change, at least. I just wish I could have lived a life where I got to say goodbye to one year and welcome the next knowing that the next would be inhabited by Adrianna.

New Year

The passage of time has always been difficult for me. I’ve been overly obsessed with hours and minutes and dates and months and years, overly cognizant of how they all just march on forward relentlessly leaving our past in the dust. This forward arrow of time always depresses me a bit, as I always feel that I am losing an old friend with every tick of the clock or turn of the calendar page.

Since my early childhood, lying in bed at night I’d stare at the clock on the nightstand and watch with a combination of fascination and dread as the minutes would roll by relentlessly.

Now it’s 1:15 am. Now, 1:16. It will never be 1:15am on October 17, 1977 ever again. Look, now it’s 1:30 am.

Time was like a living, breathing entity who’d bond with me for a moment before leaving and suddenly take up residence in the past, where there was really no difference between two hours ago and 30 years ago. Or a century ago. It was all forever over.

And this notion would literally make me sad, the permanent loss of a particular time.

(Now look: I’m well aware that to the extent that there’s a spectrum, this behavior and thought process places me somewhere along that developmental continuum. I’ve come to terms with that; the fact that I’m openly sharing these thoughts should make that evident. I know I’m odd.)

The worst time loss, however, was always the new year. A whole year, 365 days, would be suddenly lost on January 1st at midnight.

“It will never be 1981 again,” I’d say on New Years Eve of 1981, for example, and everyone would chuckle. But I was serious, even though I’d also laugh at the apparent absurdity of the statement. I mean, sure, it will never be xxxx year again, but what of it?

But to me, it was a big deal, a real loss.

When the old year gives way to the new, the old year and everything it contains is forever frozen in time: static, never changing, all the events and happenings of that year forever locked in a figurative time capsule. Each minute, each day, each month, and each year we experience afterward moves us further and further away from those moments. We may move forward, but some things do not. Some things will always be “back then,” forever stuck in that old time period. They become objects in our rearview mirror, quickly receding away from us.

Which brings me to the current “now.” 2025. We’re in the last days of 2025, and soon it will no longer be 2025. We will never see 2025 again. And this year, especially this year, it will be devastating to me.

Adrianna was alive in 2025. Then, almost mid-year, she was not. But she’s still a part of 2025, and soon, when 2025 recedes into the past and is no longer the now, it will feel to me as if she’s being left behind. As the minutes and days and months and years continue to move forward, she will be left further behind, back in 2025.

As long as it’s still 2025 it’s sort of like I’m still near her, that she’s still a part of everything. This is still her present; she’s not just a relic of the past.

But that is quickly coming to an end, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it. Trying to hold on to time has always been a losing proposition for me, but the stakes were never this high.

I don’t want Adrianna to be a relic of the past. I don’t want to let this year go away yet.

 

Talking to Her Sideways

There was a time period during the last four or so years when Adri started getting distant and I hardly ever saw her even though she lived just 15 minutes away. It was for a variety of reasons, and it broke my heart, and I did keep trying to fix that but kept getting shot down by her.

Nothing was working, so I eventually tried making some oblique posts, talking to her sideways, in an effort to try to get her to understand that what we were losing together could never be reclaimed, and that tomorrow was not guaranteed.

This was one such Facebook post from three years ago today, ostensibly about me wishing that I could spend just one more Christmas with my grandparents, and of trying to hold on and appreciate time spent together.  But of course I was really talking about her:

December 26, 2022

I miss gram and gramp every day, and especially at Christmas time. I wish I could spend one more Christmas with my grandparents.

You think those times will last forever, but they don't. You want to relive them all and hold on to them, wishing that you never wasted a single moment out of spite or miscommunication or stubbornness or inconvenience or ill-timing, but you can't.

All you can do is to try to appreciate the time you have in the now, and hope as was the case with my grandparents that you've created relationships and connections with others that are meaningful and important, knowing that time just moves forward, it does not wait around and allow do-overs.

Eventually, it becomes too late; moments lost can never be reclaimed.

I'm thankful for all the moments with my grandparents that help make me who I am today.

I thought it was too on the nose and obvious, I thought it would irritate her, but she didn't seem to realize that I wasn't really talking about my grandparents (her great grandparents), but rather that I was really talking about her, us, our time lost. She replies about missing gram, too, but doesn't seem to understand who my real intended audience was.

We never did spend an actual Christmas Eve or Day together again after covid, but at least the following year (2023) and last year I was able to bring them presents and watch her and the boys open them at her apartment, even if it wasn't on the actual day.

I'd unfortunately given up trying to make that happen.

Since her hospitalization in early 2024 I did see them more often; it was becoming more regular, finally, and I believe that this Christmas, if she'd survived, she would have come over on Eve and Day like the great Christmases of the past.

In the end, of course, that was not to be, but I did get to spend Eve and Day with the boys, together with cookies and carols and family.

Just not my daughter.

I wish I could have gotten through to her, here. I wish I could have tried harder and longer these last four years. Especially since it turned out to be our last four years together, I wish I could have made that time special and normal and comfortable and peaceful.

I know that I couldn't make that happen alone, that she had some responsibility, too, but I wish I could have taken it all on for her. And me. And us.

Peephole

 

I am still struggling daily, hourly, with coming to terms with the reality that my daughter is no longer here and never will be. It’s the unthinkable and unacceptable true reality that forces itself into my brain uninvited multiple times per day, hour. It’s feels like a kind of torture. I imagine it’s akin to how they sleep-deprive prisoners with loud music and bright lights, but sadistically make it worse by letting them drift off to sleep for a second or two before then waking them up again with a slap to the face or dousing them with cold water.

This on-again, off-again state sprinkled with small moments of teasingly tantalizing sleep that is then yanked away again and again is worse than just totally depriving them of sleep and letting them become used to that state. Not allowing them to adapt to their situation but rather remind them of what they’re missing is multiple times worse on their psyche.

That’s what it feels like to me. My brain will allow myself to forget or at least not think about this reality for small swaths of time only to then have that temporary respite brought to a shattering end with a flood of thoughts, images, and memories that smack me down like a bucket of cold water or slap to the face, loudly proclaiming that Adrianna is gone forever, seeming to punish me for forgetting for a moment.

When I “remember” I often try to soften the blow a bit by imagining she’s still here, in the space that I currently occupy in this house. I can see her in the kitchen, on the stairway, in the entryway, in what was her room. I can hear her clearly as well, always talking to the boys the way she did.

Sometimes in the middle of the night when it’s bad I will go downstairs to the entryway where I can usually sense and feel her presence the strongest. I sit on the stairs and watch and listen to her talking to her boys, looking at me with her big bright eyes and smiling. It breaks my heart but is almost real.

Whenever they’d come over for a visit I’d start to get impatient waiting for their arrival and would park myself in front of the door in the entryway, peering out through the peephole full of anticipation for her car to pull up. When it finally did it would take all my self-control to not open the door immediately. Instead I’d wait for what seemed an eternity for them to get out of the car and start towards our door. The boys usually running with Adri watching them and smiling.

I’ve found myself these last couple of days going to the door and staring out that same peephole, hoping and waiting for Adrianna to arrive, allowing myself this little fiction, letting myself pretend that, any minute now, the car will pull up and the doors finally open and she’ll start walking up the cobblestone path to my door.

This time I won’t wait. I’ll open the door as soon as she pulls up and I’ll run out to her and hug her and never let her go. 

Adrianna's Memorial Book

 

Here's a page-by-page video of the book I made for Adri's memorial for those who didn't get to see it.

Adri and Ashley and Brandy

I got lucky when I moved into an apartment in the early 90s and shared an entryway with Nicole and Brenda. Brenda had two daughters, Ashley and Brandy who were about Adri's age, and for years afterwards, through several moves, they remained friends.

It was great for me. I was her dad, and she was definitely a daddy's girl when she was with me, but I always worried that she'd feel isolated when she was with me. These girls made sure that wasn't the case.

They swam and did each other's hair and nails. Played video games, rode bikes and just hung out. It made it easier for me, took some of the worry away that I wasn't giving her everything she needed.

I mean, I did try to do her hair and such, but there are some skills that other little girls are just better at.

Last week I learned that Ashley and Brandy's mother passed away, and though I had been thinking about them a lot these last six months, I made a concerted effort this time to find them and thank them for all they did for my daughter, as well as give them my condolences.

Both girls are of course now full-gown women with children of their own. I'm extremely sorry for the loss of their mother and hope they and their families get through this as well as they possibly can.

And I want to thank them again for being such an important part of my daughter's early life. You guys made her life just a little brighter.