Love the Way You Live: What I Learned from the Life of Dalton Collins

We miss our old house.

Actually, it’s really the cul-de-sac that we tend to get nostalgic about.

Sometimes, after school, we will take a ride and do a little circle; pointing out all the things we used to do.

It’s where Margot learned to ride her bike. It’s where Livi would skin her knee; always the SAME knee. We would watch the Collins boys’ fire off their 4^th of July fireworks, check out Milt shooting hoops with the kids and say hi to Judy before she would walk Abbey and tell us stories about when she was just a young girl.

It was family.

We left that precious cul-de-sac a year and a half ago after ten years of the good stuff.

I used to be able to tell what time it was- in the old house. 

I knew it was time to get up when I heard Woody’s truck fire up the morning.  I knew it was time to take a break and visit for a while when Judy would drop by for a chat with the girls and an invitation to swim.  It was comforting to see a whole lot of hustle and bustle going on in that circle; pick-up games, car washes, golf cart rides, skateboards, deflated basketballs, bikes, animals and lively conversations with neighbors.

I also knew everything was safe and sound in the world when I would hear Woody and Donna’s sweet smiling son, Dalton’s corvette come easing into the garage after a day of school, soccer and fun with his family and friends. And still walk the dog.

Today would have been Dalton’s 19^th birthday. 

It still is. Always will be.

And this is his story:

William Dalton Collins arrives into this world March 19^th, 1995 at 6:06 AM.  He is already over 9 lbs and as his mother, Donna, tells us, “ready for a bacon cheeseburger and a Dairy Queen Blizzard.”

Dad Woody can’t help but smile as he calls everyone- their parents, Donna’s sister- and then bends down beaning with an unlit, ceremonial cigar in his mouth telling Dalton of his big brother Cody and their dog Jake who are all at home. They can’t wait to meet him.

Dalton loved life from the start. He also loved SpongeBob, who could question that….they both had that same wonderfully happy, optimistic view on life and all of its possibilities.

Donna says when she looks back on all of those early years, she sees such JOY in Dalton’s eyes and in his smile.  It was infectious.

Even at an early age he was the peacemaker; the first one to give up window seat in the car so no one fought; he was wise beyond his years; a kid who knew how to make everyone feel better.

It mattered to him.

Dalton was also kind.  He loved animals. He would even leave little, sweet notes around the house in his neat handwriting.

Dear Mom,

Thank you for always driving me around and taking me places.

Love,

Dalton Collins

Dalton was also a seasoned traveler from a very early age. In an essay he wrote for in the 5^th grade at OPES and read at the Veteran’s Day assembly he explains, “What America means to me can’t be said in words, but by the beat of my heart.” To say he didn’t love a good road trip or the adventure of an airplane ride would be an understatement. He saw more of America in his short 18 years than most us will in a lifetime.

Dalton surfed in Hawaii, snowboarded on Mount Hood in Oregon and tasted his first caramel apple at the Fish Market in Seattle before visiting the Space Needle.

He road tripped through Las Vegas, San Diego, San Antonio, Gettysburg and Maine.

He visited the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, fished the oceans of the Atlantic, scuba dived in the waters of Florida and flew all by himself at the young age of 12 to Houston to visit his best friend Keith.

When Dalton was 11, he received his black belt in Karate.  The four and a half years of dedication this took sums up a lot about Dalton.  So do the words his mother wrote in his scrapbook next to a picture of him smiling wide in his new belt: knowledge, leadership, self-discipline, perseverance, team work.

Those words he lived he also applied to the two loves of his life; family and, of course, soccer.

Dalton was a star soccer player loved by his team and his coaches.  His love for the game even guided him into becoming a role model for younger boys when he started working for the Golden Isles Soccer Association at 12 years of age.  Ten dollars a game to referee.  And he took his job very seriously.  Wise beyond his years, Dalton even knew how to calm an upset soccer parent who would question his call without incident.

He bought his first car at 16 all by himself, his beloved Corvette, and named her Sheila.  Dalton would spend any free time taking care of her and if you ever needed a ride, all you’d have to do was ask.

I was lucky to know him.

His mother wrote a letter to her son when he was 9 years old.  She wrote one for all three of their sons to celebrate every year she had with them.  I want to share a part of this one from 2004 with you now:

Dalton,

You are such a gift from God to us.  I have always joked that it will be a sad day in my life when your real family comes to claim you. We are truly in awe of you.  You don’t have a mean bone in your body.  What I admire most about you is you always have a smile on your face.  You can only see the good and the bad just seems to melt away.  You have a calming effect on those around you.

I worry least about you because you seem content at whatever you are doing.  You have a lot of confidence, you know the value of $$$ and you don’t seem to mind working hard. You have a great work ethic and with your positive attitude and your willing smile, you will go a long way in life.  Not once have you complained about homework, karate or soccer, or doing chores around the house.  Your only motive is pleasing your family.

Your real family must miss you terribly.

My wish for you is to continue to be the person you are today.  You really have wonderful qualities for such a young man.  You stand confident and walk proud and never give up.  I’m very proud of you.

When Dalton was a freshman, he wrote a short essay on quality of life.  One sentence stands out to me now:

A good quality of life means that you like the way you have lived.

There is no doubt that Dalton had a great quality of life.  He made it that way. And he loved it.

This world will never be the same without Dalton in it. But I know without a shadow of a doubt he is still here in spirit- I feel it- and lucky for all of us, his character-his beautiful light-still shines brightly through in all of those who had the privilege to know him. 

So, today on his birthday, let us celebrate the life of an amazing boy who lived an amazing life. As Woody wrote to his friends, “Do not be afraid to speak Dalton’s name to Donna and me.  It is music to our ears and keeps the memories of the white boy with the dread locks in a black corvette alive forever.  I am proud to call Dalton my son.”

So Happy Birthday, sweet Dalton.  I will always think of you as that long-legged, gangly kid with the awesome smile and the wild hair walking his dog around the cul-de-sac on a skateboard in flannel PJ bottoms and a t-shirt, waving hello. Until we all meet up again on God’s journey home..….

But in the meantime, thank you. 

Thank you for showing me what a life looks like well lived.

 

Through the Glass

 

 

I'll tell you a secret. 

 

Actually, it's not really a secret.  It's just something personal only those close to me know.....or more correctly, understand.

 

Why tell 18,000 of you then, you're probably wondering…or much like the Mad

Hatter asked Alice in the Wonderland, "Have I gone mad?"

 

See, that's the thing.  I am totally bonkers.

 

I suffer from a really bad case of Obsessive Compulsive Order or OCD.  I have done so for the first half of my life and will continue to deal with the diagnosis for the rest of it.  It's curious though, how most people don't really understand it.  I bet you are imagining my clothes neatly lined and color-coded in my closet; that there isn't one dust bunny on any of my floors; that my hands are cracked from washing and my day planner is lined with detailed notes and dates and times. 

 

Not at all, because let’s just say I’m the furthest thing from Type A.  My closet looks like the aftermath of a buy one/ get one free tag sale; walking on my hardwoods feels like you have on a pair of cat fur slippers; and my nail beds are cracked from obsessive nervous picking and I haven't seen my day planner since 2005.

 

Who has time to remember to load the dryer from the washer when you're constantly worried something very bad can happen at any minute?  You know, like the world could end.

 

For me, my memories of feeling off - not quite right- go back to when I was 9 or

10 years old.  It was the early 80s and though we were in the midst of an economic recovery, the Cold War loomed large and with it- the ever present threat of nuclear devastation.  I remember watching a commercial or was it a TV series- I can't remember.  All I do remember was a group of families playing on a playground. Next thing, a plum of atomic particles incinerates everyone in a big wave and all that is left is a swing still swinging- back and forth- empty.  Everyone is gone. I guess it was right then and there that I realized we are quite simply lucky to be alive and that life as we know it could be gone-poof- at any moment.

 

Now, most kids would have been scared witless but would soon shrug it off and head out the door to play kick the can down the street. Me, I locked myself in my room and hid under my bed worrying any minute I could lose everyone I loved. Was life really that fragile that it can be obliterated in mere seconds?  Well- yes, it was…it still is.  But it didn't seem fair.  Weren't we supposed to have some, or at least a little tiny bit of control over it?

 

So that's where I began to try and manage the terrifying world around me with rituals and obsessive thoughts.  My lucky number was three, so everything had to follow in that pattern; turning the door knob three times; closing the kitchen cabinet; saying my nightly prayers. Three times.  And if I walked into a room one way, I had to walk out the exact same way.  Crazy, right?

 

Yes.  And I knew it.  But it didn't matter how irrational the behavior because I was convinced if I didn't follow my rituals, my patterns, to the “T” something terrible would happen to me or someone I loved.  Talk about pressure.

 

This carried on into my adult life- only rituals- my behavior- became more compulsive, more obsessive.

 

If my leg muscle twitched, I had Lou Gehrig’s. I would shove my toothbrush down my throat before bed- 3 TIMES- because the first sign is losing your gag reflex.  My foot would fall asleep. Well, I had multiple sclerosis.   I would then spend my evening poking my toes- 3 TIMES- just to convince myself I could feel them so I could sleep at night.  I spent hours after hours on Wed MD and found out I was pregnant, not from my ob/gyn, but my internist who had to convince me, THREE times, the peanut on my ultrasound was not a tumor but in fact our daughter.

 

It got worse after I had both my babies.  I hated being around groups of people.  Surely, they would figure me out.  The gig would be up.  They would know just by the sight of me….I was a seriously flawed human being.

 

And then there were days I didn't want to get out of bed because I was sick- not physically- but mentally and emotionally I was sick- so sick and tired of the daily battle I picked with my brain.  I would laugh it off.  I would tell myself you're a rational, irrational.  I mean only really crazy people don't know something is wrong with them. Right? So I thought… and I blew it off.

 

Until one day eight years ago, I didn't want to any longer.  I remember calling my mom, crying telling her I can’t take it anymore.  She said what she always says.  It's in my head. Think happy thoughts.  You have two healthy, happy children and a husband who adores you.  Let it go.  You're fine.  You are more than fine.  You’re terrific.

 

But I wasn't.

 

I described to her how I knew I had a so-called perfect, beautiful, blessed life.  I could see it. Clearly.  Bright as day.  It was all right there right in front of me.  Mine for the taking.  But I felt on the outside looking in, as if there was a piece of glass separating me from it.  I could place my hands on the glass, knock furiously, cry and beat on it, but it wouldn't give.  I just didn't want to be on the outside looking through anymore.

 

I wanted in.

 

Thank goodness for my husband, Charlie.

 

When you finally go see someone and they tell you what's wrong with you, it’s liberating.  Like, that's it.  You get it.  That's ME.  You are describing ME.  You figure out slowly but then with increasing speed and comforting sincerity that you’re not really crazy or different, after all.  If you have high blood pressure, you see a doctor.  If your brain is a little wonky or wobbles a bit off balance more times than not.  Well okay, you go see a doctor, too.

 

I have been on medication for OCD for 8 years now.  It still surprises me to this day how I can go weeks and even months without one, single obsessive/compulsive thought.  I honestly never thought that would be possible.  My life is so much more focused on the “living life to the fullest” parts than the “bury your head in the sand and try to pretend nothing bad will ever happen” gig I used to subscribe to.  I am lucky too- for my incredible support system- like my best friend Alicia- who can tell within 5 minutes flat if I haven’t been taking my meds and won’t let up until I prove otherwise.  (She’s even given me my own “nut case”- a silver acorn that’s attached to my key chain which holds a few of my pills.  This way I can never use the excuse that I forgot to take them with me and then get the evil eye and the “I told you so.”  Gotta love her.)

 

 

See, I have come to learn that my OCD is just part of me like my hair color and my cracked heels and creaky knees.  I look at it like I’m missing a bridge in my brain that processes information.  Most people have a thought, ponder it, then file it away.  I don't have a direct route to my filing system. Without my meds, it’s like a rush hour traffic jam- my thoughts just ping back and forth in the front part of my brain, never moving far, never really going anywhere.  It’s a 20- car pile-up without 24-7 towing or an easy re-route off a major highway.  It’s exhausting.

 

 

 

I still go back sometimes and think of myself as that little girl....hiding under her bed, counting over and over and over again.  I think of myself like our Alice, a girl who is growing up but feels uncomfortable in her own skin….who gets frustrated when she finds out that nothing really makes sense in life.   And probably never will.

 

So why?  Why am I telling you all of this now?  There is a lot of dialogue out there about medicating our children, even ourselves.  As if it’s just commonplace.  The whole idea out there is that if we have a problem. We don’t solve it.  We medicate it.  And it’s wrong…it’s a cope out. Leave well enough alone-it’s just part of growing up.

 

I don't buy into this.  I am not a mental health practitioner but I can talk from experience.  A lot of moms have asked me about this very subject and it's a legit and necessary problem that needs honest discourse.  But let's face it; there is a stigma to it.  Just as there are no easy answers. 

 

But there are young people out there – ones you know- who are cutters, bulimics, anorexics, drug abusers because they-like me- have to find some way, any way, to get rid of the pain they feel in being part of a world they don’t understand….and conversely, feels doesn’t fully understand them.

 

The National Mental Health Association reports that:

 

1 in 5 adolescents suffer anxiety disorders.

2/3rds don’t receive the help they need.

1 out of 33 young people (and some reports site 1-8) are clinically depressed. 

Suicide is the 3^rd leading cause of death in the US for young people between the ages of 15-24.

An estimated 118,700- 186,600 youths in the juvenile justice system have mental health issues.

 

 So I think we do them all a disservice to tell them over and over again:

 

 “You’re fine.”

 

“You’ll grow out of it.”  

 

“We all have our own problems.”

“Suck it up.”

“Get over it & move on.”

“Life is tough.”

So instead, think about Alice in her dream Wonderland and how frustrated she was getting small, then bigger, her body changing all the time.  And just remember how our kid’s cognitive skills, along with puberty, do the very same thing.  They are stretched and challenged and expected to do things at an early age (college prep courses, SATS, sports, workloads) that their brains might not be truly ready for yet.  Some can handle it seamlessly, some cannot.

Alice asked herself this very question: “Who in the world am I?  Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”

We might not be able to figure out the puzzle for everyone.

But we can listen to the clues.

And maybe help shatter, or make the smallest of cracks, in the glass.

Misery: An Open Letter to Stephen King

     It finally happened.

And just as I was on the brink of losing my ever lovin’ mind…..or deciding to pack up a house full of junk, dogs, kids and unmatched socks and move north.  (Actually, I believe these two things are mutually exclusive.)

Thankfully, my brain delivered a cease and desist order to the rest of my cranky and irritated self when I stepped out onto the porch this morning and didn’t break out into an all over body sweat.

My hair didn’t suddenly turn damp even though I had just blown it dry.  Beads of salty perspiration did not form down my back, nose, or thighs the minute I locked the door behind me.  I didn’t have to inhale a burst of hot, humid air right after inhaling my Cream of Wheat.

I glanced at the ladybug thermometer by the front door.  Twice.  I couldn’t believe my own eyes.  Sure enough, the little red line miraculously and quite frankly, just in the nick of time, finally dipped down past 90.  I cried out in joy.  I was going to make it.

I had seen a sign early in the week but dismissed it as a hallucination due to dehydration seeing as it was noon and I was sweeping the driveway and had lost two gallons of water weight when I saw them.  See, I had read somewhere that when you spot butterflies flapping around, it means fall is here.  But at the time I was too busy muttering like a crazy person, mopping the sweat off my brow, and telling two yellow monarchs to get a room, when I saw them shamelessly flirting and fluttering on the hood of my car.

Obviously they can’t stand the South Georgia heat either and are happy to be foot loose and fancy free.  Just like us sub-tropical living humans who have long ago given up on getting to wear the latest fall fashions of skinny jeans tucked into riding boots under chunky cable sweaters and have settled for just being able to step our flip flopped feet outside and not pour buckets after a long and sweltering summer.

A lot of people come down here to escape the harsh winters and the very real diagnosis called Seasonal Disorder.  Evidently not having a view from your window because snow is covering it up does crazy things to people. 

My friend Jennifer, from Jasper, Alabama spent one winter in upstate New York and high tailed it back down here to the island as soon as the ground thawed and she could pack her car without losing her fingers.  Her bulldog, Bogart, however, is now in psychotherapy and on a strict diet of Prozac and exercise.  I am happy to report he’s been here a year and a half is finally getting better.

One of my favorite authors, Robert Goolrick, was actually inspired by stories he found published around the early 1900’s in a small Wisconsin town paper and wrote A Reliable Wife based on his findings.  Apparently, during vicious months-long, white-out, lake effect snow storms, a whole lot of people tended to act abnormally.  You know, like severing their own limbs and taking out their entire family with an axe over an argument about what’s for dinner. You can’t tell me crazy doesn’t make for some really good fiction.   

Just imagine the scary genius of Stephen King and would it exist if he lived in a sunny bungalow in L.A. instead of the blistering windy winters of Bangkok, Maine.  Which reminds me, I was excited to find out Stephen King is writing a sequel to The Shining, out next year.  Cannot wait, let me tell you. 

But after reading that this novel, like 90% of all his other ones, would once again be set in a snowy New England town, I felt like he should know it doesn’t have to be winter and it doesn’t have to be up North for someone to lock themselves in their house for months, stop shaving, and start having conversations with imaginary people or, at the very least, the weather reporters on the TV.  It happens at here at my house every summer. 

Here’s my letter:

Dear Mr. King,

First off, let me tell you I am a HUGE fan.  But not the stalker kind you are used too, I’m sure, so please don’t stop reading and send the cops to the return address.  It’s just thanks to you I am deathly afraid of clowns, identical little twin girls, walk-in freezers, and anyone who closely resembles Kathy Bates or shares her last name.  This is most certainly not a bad thing since I enjoyed every sleepless night and terror induced dream.

I also enjoy the detailed descriptions of your snowy New England: the howls of the relentless wind against the glass-paned windows of a creaky old Victorian, the snow banked steepness that surrounds a dark and dangerous remote mountain road, the candle-lit silence in strange rooms rendered dark by downed power lines and frozen limbs off trees.  I feel closed in just by simply reading what’s written between your pages, suffocated by the frosty isolation you pull us into like a secret trap door that opens in the vast whiteness that protects your world, then shuts, leaving us secluded and alone teetering on the brink of a quiet sort of madness.

But, see Stephen, even though it’s been 35 years since Jack’s been a very bad boy and went on to become that great, big alcoholic care taker in the sky, or at least for eternity at the Overlook Hotel, doesn’t mean you can’t take his tricycle riding, scarred for life, psychic son, Danny out of your freezing New Hampshire and place him down here for a summer.  There really it’s much of difference.  Trust me.  They’re both a different kind of hell.

See, Steve, down here people are driven to their own kind of slow boiling insanity that sneaks up on them around May like a swarm of sand gnats starved since early spring. It starts as a simmer, this unyielding heat, a tease, a tickle that gets you going outside in the morning, but then causes you around noon to make a hasty retreat back inside where you then never leave.  Down here in coastal South Georgia, the extreme heat, much like your freezing winters in Maine, brings out the crazy, if you know what I mean. 

I have seen normal, sweet-loving children’s heads spin with their teeth bared and finger nails clawed in.  I have watched conscientious mothers take their bed, doors locked; pints of ice cream the only things they let in.  I have witnessed yards over-grown, beer bottles strewn, and grown men sitting in baby pools to avoid the wife, the crushing heat, and the terrors they helped spawn without caring who sees. 

   There’s the creak of the ceiling fan that taunts you overnight while you try and sleep on top of the sheet.  There are the bugs, the lizards, and the marsh crabs that let themselves in without knocking first to escape the scalding sun, scaring you half to death.  There’s the lifeless, flat, hot air that rushes through the holes in your screens and under your doors, leaving a $600 dollar electricity bill that makes you want to let out a blood curdling scream.  

See, scary stuff really does happen down here in the South, Steve, when the heat’s 110 degrees.

Just a thought.

Anyway, thanks for your time and good luck on the new book.  If you need any help, you know where to find me.  Actually, I will finally be outside now that my driveway isn’t giving off steam and the heels of my feet won’t burned off walking to out get the mail…(not looking for your responding correspondence, of course.  Remember, I’m not that crazy.)   

Talk to you soon,

Laura 

 

I’ll let y’all know if I hear back from him.  I’m not holding my breath, but at least the blustery gasp of ocean air has cooled a bit and I can safely say I have survived another hot and humid summer.  Looks like fall on the island has saved my sanity once again.  Bring it on.