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(originally published April 19, 2006 and reposted in remembrance of Princess Diana, who died ten years ago this Friday. She was only 36 years old.)
I have been sorting through the boxes of memorabilia my parents gleefully drove 250 miles and gleefully carried into my house, where they gleefully said adios to my junk a little too gleefully. They no longer wanted to store my yearbooks, dried corsages, stuffed animals, blue ribbons from cow-pie throwing contests, paperback novels, or my paper dolls. I left their home long ago, but my copy of Are You There, God, It’s Me, Margaret was hesitant to fly the coop. We’ve been reunited. Oh, Margaret, getting your period really isn’t as much fun as you thought it would be.
Aidan watched with great interest as I went through several of the boxes. She really liked the shoebox full of late 1970s to early 80s paper dolls and their fashions. We laughed as we read the paper dolls’ names and ages, which I had written on the back of each—Steve, age 23. Patricia, age 19. Karen, age 16. The oldest paper doll was 27. I probably played with her as though she were the grandmother. We laughed at the clothes and I pointed out my old favorites, evidenced by the tattered tabs. I labelled the clothes too. There was a “disco” outfit, a “restaurant with boyfriend” ensemble, and gowns worthy of being worn in competition for Miss Teen Paperdoll USA.
As we neared the bottom of the box, we found Diana. The Princess of Wales. 
Who is she? Aidan asked.
“She was a real-life princess,” I said, my voice catching a little and surprising me.
Like many young girls, she was delighted to hear about a real-life princess. I thought about how much detail to give her at the age of eight-and-a-half. Did she need to know about Diana’s profound sadness and loneliness, her eating disorders, her loveless marriage, her life in the glare of the limelight, her tragic and too-early death?
Aidan was born in July of 1997. Diana died August of 1997. Our daughter was a squalling and furious newborn the night we strapped her into her carseat for a calming car ride. My husband and I had been watching a video. We turned off the VCR and noticed Tom Brokow was beginning a special report.. It was late at night so we knew something big must have happened. Brokow related what was known at the moment—Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi, had been in an accident while fleeing paparazzi in Paris. There was no word on their conditions. We decided to watch for a few minutes before heading out to track down the sandman.
She fell asleep in her carseat after a few minutes. For hours we flipped through each network’s coverage until the official news conference confirmed the deaths of three individuals, including a real-life princess.
I held the paper Diana as I thought about that night. I thought about watching the royal wedding as a ten-year-old. We were on a family vacation and in a hotel room in Omaha, Nebraska when Charles and Diana wed. It was spectacular and dreamy—the carriages, horses, guards, flowers, smiles. Diana’s poufy dress, diamonds, her Prince. They waved from a balcony as thousands cheered. It never occured to me anything bad would happen to the Prince and Princess. Only happily ever after made sense then.
Only happily ever after makes sense to my young daughter right now. I could have shattered that for her and told her of Diana’s tears and fiery death, but I knew she would hear the whole story eventually. We all hear it, as we grow up—the whole story.
Diana was a real-life princess. She died, when you were a newborn baby. She was beautiful and generous.
And it wasn’t enough.
I pray my daughter will find her value as God’s child, as a talented and special girl who will grow into a woman someday with none of the problems of a real-life princess.
I was never the child with fingers splayed, the tips topped with ten black olives borrowed from a Thanksgiving relish tray. The idea of putting olives on my fingers nauseated me. I left it to my siblings and cousins to play with the cursed fruit as appetizer turned holiday-doldrum diversion. Bacon-flavored cheese squeezed out of a tube and onto a cracker eaten in front of the TV? More my style.
I don’t like olives. They are horribly bitter little tongue-thrashers. The smell of nail polish remover is how an olive tastes to me.
I’ve wondered if my automatic recoil at the taste is a protective mechanism. Maybe I have an allergy or a senstivity. I don’t plan to find out.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about bitterness and how easy it takes root when dreams die or we are thwarted. Sometimes I feel it circling me, regarding me, wondering about me. Should bitterness bother?
Today, I had my post-op follow up appointment with my doctor. I didn’t want to go, so for the past three weeks I kept forgetting to make my appointment. Oops, another day gone. Oops, another. Oops, the weekend. Oops. Yesterday, I realized I needed to put it behind me, so I called. I was hoping the receptionist would tell me I’d have to wait a few weeks. But there was an opening this afternoon, would I like it? I guess. I hung up the phone. I didn’t want to go. I was full of dread. But I didn’t know why.
Then I remembered. There would be olives.
I found my first olive when I saw the building. I put it on my left pinky finger.
I saw my second olive when I stepped out onto the fourth floor. I put it on my right pinky.
My next olive was the ridiculously long hallway, past the kids’ dentist, down, down, down. Last door on the right, add an olive.
I signed in, so now my ring finger on my left hand had a little black cap.
When I looked around the waiting room, I noticed I was by myself. I realized I could take an olive off, so I did with much relief.
But there, on the table, was a “Pregnancy” magazine. The background was a vibrant shade of purple and the blooming, glowing model was wearing off-white. She was happy. Normally, I would have picked it up. The olive, back on. Pre-stretched to fit.
By the time my appointment was over, nearly all my fingers were covered. Except one.
On the elevator ride on the way down, I rode with a pregnant woman. She looked like she was about 7 months. Black shirt. My set was suddenly complete.
It’s hard to type with these olives on my fingers.
I have been writing for nearly three years. Longtime readers (hi, Mom!) may remember this post from September 2005. It’s one of my favorites. I am calling it “The rest of the story” because of the new addition at the end. From time-to-time, I am going to resurrect favorite old posts and update what has happened since, a la Paul Harvey explaining what happened to the dejected pie-enthusiast at the lunchcounter/the girl saving bottlecaps to pay for her trip to Hollywood/the boy who rode a donkey to Kansas City to buy his mom a birthday present.
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“Bikes”
A woman in my college dorm at CU did not know how to ride a bike. I thought it was highly bizarre and almost scandalous she never learned. I believed her parents failed her on some very deep level. They provided food, clothing, and shelter…but not the training to balance on a banana seat and two wheels with Hoyle playing cards stuck in the spokes.
She never knew the joy of loading a plastic basket slung over the handlebar with dandelions and an alarmed toad from the neighborhood duck pond. She never careened around a corner at the bottom of a heart-poundingly steep hill and felt her tires slip out from under her because of the algae in the gutter. Oh, the places she didn’t go, the shoelaces she didn’t wind in the gears, the lifetime scars from spectacular wipe-outs she can’t use as a conversational piece.
But, for the grace of God, will go my children.
Our former neighborhood was not bicycle friendly. The street was busy and there were always a lot of cars parked along the sidewalks. The idea of teaching wobbly young children to dodge cars both moving and parked genuinely scared hubby and I, so when the question of “when can we learn to ride our bikes?” came up, we always told them someday, when we moved.
We moved and now live in a much safer neighborhood to learn the art of bicycle riding. Unfortunately, our delay meant poor Aidan and Ryley have now passed the point of learning balance easily. There seems to be a window of opportunity between too young and too old and they are right on the border of being on the crotchety side. Plus they have enough life experience to know Crashing + Street + Elbows + Knees = Very Very Bad.
On Labor Day, the seven of us walked down to our neighborhood park, armed with knowledge culled from an article I found online, entitled How To Learn to Ride a Bike in 15 Minutes. Aidan, Ryley, and Sam walked with their helmets strapped on. They pushed their bikes. Everyone was ridiculously excited, including hubby and I. We were fulfilling an important part of our parental obligation, finally, and it felt good that within 15 or 20 minutes my kids would join the ranks of good balancers and circus dogs.
We got to the park and the hill especially picked out for the occasion. We helped the kids poise themselves on the top of the hill and gave them instructions. “GO!” we shouted. Tommy and Joel clapped their encouragement.
Nobody moved. All three of them looked down the hill, looked at each other, and looked at us. Hubby and I looked at each other. “Who’s going first?” I prodded, weakly.
It was too scary. We moved to a less frightening slope and tried again. This time, Sam was determined to go first. I ran alongside him down the hill and was impressed with his balance. Aidan and Ryley followed with hubby and I trotting alongside, but they had a much harder time balancing and were more fearful.
“15 minutes to Biking Fun” decayed into “90 minutes to Screaming, Crying, Frustration, Grass Stains, and Skid Marks”.
They were sincerely surprised they couldn’t simply sit on their bikes, pedal, and find themselves in Paris wearing a yellow jersey.
Despite comical bike riding demonstrations from hubby and I and pep talks that seemed lofty at the time but futile in retrospect, the point came when we realized they were too dejected to keep trying. We walked the bikes home. None of the kids have mentioned going out again. Their bikes are hanging by hooks in the garage like metallic and rubber catches of the day and I am starting to detect the iffy smell of regret.
We will try again, perhaps this weekend.
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The rest of the story:
We did try again. That next weekend, and the next. Then winter came and the bikes languised in the brittle garage until last summer, when I was hugely pregnant and cranky and didn’t want to trot behind anything but the ice cream truck. Another winter came, more languishing for the bikes. It was brutally cold and snow covered the ground well into spring. Once it melted, the bikes were retrieved. The kids would learn, we didn’t care how many boxes of bandaids it would take.
By the 4th of July, Aidan was an expert. Soon after, Ryley joined her. A few mishaps occured, but we are glad and gratified to see them zipping around the nearby lake, careening down the street, and enjoying a part of childhood I adored—the freedom to explore the neighborhood on two wheels. Sam is this () close, but his bike is a touch too big for him. Tommy and Joel are the proud owners of two darling little bikes. Beatrix has a shaded, padded luxury recliner, mounted on four wheels—her stroller. She enjoys the neighborhood jaunts asleep, usually.
I don’t envy her.
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