In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing - Article

The following is an article by Lee Woodruff, author of In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing by Lee and Bob Woodruff.
Published by Random House February 2008;
$16.00US/$19.00CAN; 978-0-8129-7825-4

Handling a Crisis With Kids
By Lee Woodruff, author of In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing

“Tell the truth,” we always say to our kids when faced with their little transgressions, white lies or downright omissions of the facts.

Yet when a bomb in Iraq critically injured my husband, and my children needed some answers, I found myself in the difficult position of deciding just what they needed to know, what to withhold, and how to tell them.

Naturally, every parent is the best judge of their own child and knows intrinsically how to speak to them. But rocking a child’s world with bad news or fearful information was new to me. I have learned a great deal on my journey during the past two years about dealing with difficulty and I wanted to share some of my wisdom.

1) When speaking to your children about difficult or uncertain situations, hold hope and realism in equal measure. My husband was in a coma that lasted 36 days and during that time there were many question marks. I vowed I would never lie to the kids or fill them with false hope. But when they would ask me what Daddy would be like, or how he would recover, I said, “We don’t know exactly what Daddy will be like but I believe in my heart he will be OK.”

I found a phrase that held out some hope while sparing them the intricate details and some of the possible outcomes for their Dad. Most importantly, I wanted to protect my kids from all of the bumps and sharp turns I myself was going through with the roller coaster medical situation.

2) I frequently asked my children how they were doing and sometimes they asked questions. It was important for them to know that I was always ready to listen and patiently answer their questions, even if I was feeling like I didn’t have one ounce of energy left in my body to do so.

3) I offered my kids the chance to talk to a psychiatrist, minister, someone other than me. They never took me up on the offer but I wanted them to know there were other outlets if they felt they couldn’t express their pain or fear in front of me. There were well aware of how much I had on my plate. I never forced the issue and always followed their lead.

4) Hide your fears. My kids took every cue from me and I knew it would be harder for them if they saw me breaking down or railing at the world or worse yet, terrified. I knew my children needed to see me as strong and in control, especially with parent out of the picture indefinitely. It’s ok to cry in front of them—you are human, but histrionics are not going to have any positive
effect.

5) Keep as much to the daily routine as possible. I was separated from my children for 5 weeks, seeing them on weekends. It was extremely hard to be away from them, but what I realized was that bringing them down to Washington to be with me would be the worst thing I could do. They needed to stick to their routine, see their friends, keep their after school activities in place—all of that was “normal” to them.

6) When the going is rough—help your kids live hour by hour. That was some of the best advice I got from someone else. At certain critical points in a crisis, even day-to-day is too long. Keep their focus off their fear of the future. I tried to stay in the present and help my children focus on their day, their homework and their busy schedules.

7) Sometimes it does help to visualize the future. At bedtime, when they might be especially sad or tense, I would have my kids picture us all together as a family that coming summer, or imagine how great it would feel when we got Dad back at the dinner table. I tired to help them find small moments that didn’t over promise too much.

And lastly – love, love, love—shower them with love. You can err by smothering, hovering and over-indulging, but I don’t believe there is any such thing as too much unconditional love.

Author
Lee Woodruff is a public relations executive and freelance writer.
For more information, please visit http://www.bobwoodrufffamilyfund.org/ or join the nonfiction e-newsletter by visiting http://www.rh-newsletters.com/.

I Heart My In-Laws

A practical, laugh-out-loud guide to adopting your man's family -- from your first date to your firstborn

Girlfriends, fiancées, and wives, rejoice! Here, at last, is THE guidebook for practical advice about in-laws. A road map. A beacon of hope and light then, for the fiftieth time, you've told your in-laws what you do at your high-tech company and that your name is Christy, not Crispy.

Mirroring the natural progression of a relationship and incorporating interviews from women just like you, this hilarious, savvy guide will help you survive holidays, weddings, new babies, and the day your in-laws retire to the house next door because "it's a great real estate investment."

Discover a wide array of sanity-retention techniques and tips on scoring major points with each and every in-law. Learn how to sweet-talk his sister, mollify his mother, and defuse potentially explosive situations -- like when your pumpkin pie gives Nana a bad case of hives.

Offering handy translation charts with curse words in Irish and compliments in Portuguese, a list of gifts and how to interpret their hidden meanings, tips for reclaiming the holidays one Labor Day at a time, and your very own In-Law Vacation Playbook, I Heart My In-Laws embodies the old saying, "It's funny because it's true."

Author Dina Koutas Poch holds a B.A. from Brown University and an M.F.A. from Columbia University. She is a writer and filmmaker living in New York City with her husband. Her in-laws live in Connecticut.

For more information, please visit http://www.dinakoutaspoch.com/.

The following is an excerpt from I Heart My In-Laws
Falling in Love with His Family -- One Passive-Aggressive, Over-Indulgent, Grandkid-Craving,
Streisand-Loving, Bible-Thumping In-Law at a Time
By Dina Koutas Poch
Published by Henry Holt and Company, LLC
June 2007;$15.00US/$18.95CAN; 978-0-8050-8279-1
Copyright © 2007 Dina Koutas Poch

Regional Guide to In-Laws

There are seven territories of in-law personalities in this great country of ours. Each has its own unique flavor.

1. West Coast In-Laws

(California, Oregon, Washington)

Three words: Burning Man Festival. Your in-laws live where Manifest Destiny carried them. They come from a long line of gold hunters -- those in search of a truer, richer way of life. Every single Napa Valley wine they uncork, or Starbucks coffee they brew; or macrobiotic muffin they bake, they judge you for not living the way they do. "Oh, West Coast people are more laid back." Really? They're ultra-aggressive about lifestyle choices and the 40-hour workweek! How do you deal with your West Coast in-laws?

• Compliment their tan. Their sunglasses. Their shapely mountain-bike sculpted legs. They'll eat it up (those egotists!). And coo when they mention how they fly seaplanes to their island house, and how the orca whales and "pristine wilderness" are their backyard. Blah, blah, blah. Make sure to note how very fresh the air is, even if it's making your allergies act up.
• Read up on renewable energy resources: wind power, solar energy, and corn-powered cars. Tell them that you're already on the waiting list for one (a waiting list made of recycled paper, no less).

How to dress: In flannel and Tevas with thick socks.

What not to do: Smoke cigarettes. Joints, however, are cool.

2. Rocky Mountain In-Laws

(Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Utah)

Your rugged in-laws know a thing or two about machinery. They can plow. They can drive a tractor. They can dig a deep hole with a backhoe (and I'm talking about Aunt Trudy on dialysis here). They can also wrangle sheep on a mountain without the help of a gay lover (no matter what that movie said). How do you impress in-laws that live in winter for nine months a year and are known to wrestle bears for sport?

• If your weenie job as an economics professor hasn't prepared you for life with these in-laws, buying a picture book about tractors and trucks -- something a five-year-old boy would drool over -- will help. At least you'll know your trenchers from your dozers and your grapple log skidders from your pipe layers.
• Pick an alpine sport: ice climbing, fly-fishing, kayaking, mountain climbing, trekking, snowshoeing, skiing, or mountain biking, and excel at it. It doesn't matter if you live in Florida, you need to train so you can join your in-laws in death-defying "leisure sports" at high altitude (with no bleeping oxygen!).

How to dress: In jeans and a warm jacket, because you'll be outside shoveling hay.

What not to do: Mention how your gay brother in Boston just got married and a drag queen performed the ceremony.

3. Southwestern In-Laws

(New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada)

There are two kinds of ex-hippie in-laws in the Southwest: those with boatloads of money and those with a jar of pennies. Figure out which one your in-law is. The former has a perfect golf swing, and the latter reliably has peyote.

When your Southwest in-laws hug you, they practically blind -- the sun glints off their turquoise jewelry and belt buckles, sending signals miles into the sky. (Duh, that's how the aliens found Roswell.)

Your in-laws are into spirituality with a capital S. Every inch of wall space is covered with pottery depictions of Kokopelli and watercolor drawings of pueblos and adobe homes in rust and muted orange hues. They subsist on roasted green chilies and yerba mate. They also don't age. Is it the desert? The dry heat? Each time you see them, they're younger. In fact, they're twenty-five years old right now. It's terrifying.

How do you ingratiate yourself with southwestern in-laws?

• Go hot-air ballooning with your in-laws! Everyone in the Southwest does it. How else do
  you pass the time in l00-degree heat? Remember, hot-air balloons aren't just for Dorothy & Co. They're for you, your in-laws, and nineteenth-century explorers.
• Vegas, baby! Anyone? Slot machines? Showgirls? People-watching? Shark tank at Mandalay Bay? (These are rhetorical questions. You don't have to answer them.) But you may want to propose them to your in-laws, when they bust out the tarot cards -- again. Hey, why don't you use those tarot cards to predict some winning hands of blackjack? As they say in the movies, it's just crazy enough to work, boss.

How to dress: A brightly patterned sundress and a necklace made of the largest beads known to man.

What not to do: Say you prefer modern art.

4. Texan In-Laws

Your Texan in-laws are smug about one thing: being Texan. We know you were once a republic! And everything's bigger! Six flags, the Alamo, that 72-ounce steak, and especially the hats. Fine! Texas is big, "American," flashy, and the center of the world.

If your Texan in-laws aren't gorgeously well-manicured people from Houston or Dallas, or cultured Austinites, they're ranchers and they don't give a damn about you, "the en-vi-ro-mentalists," and "the gov'nment." After all, the rest of the world is just not Texas.

Of course, you'll meet a second cousin-in-law that uses her panty hose to strain motor oil, but the rest of the family isn't too proud of her. So how do you deal with the Texan in-laws?

• Accept that a lot of people you'll meet in the Lone Star State will have nicknames like Joe-Bob, Billy-Bob, Jim-Bob, Little John, Big John, etc. You'll be expected to know about their souped-up truck and new gun rack in intimate detail.
• Respect the laws of the Barcalounger. Your Texan in-laws don't have normal chairs; they need something with a footrest. Succumb to the relaxation factor of holding conversations while horizontal.

How to dress: A "Don't Mess with Texas" T-shirt with a Stetson hat, only because your in-laws gave them to you upon your arrival.

What not to do: Forget to send good wishes to your in-laws on Texan holidays like Texas Independence Day, the start of Deer Hunting Season, the Opening Day of high school football practice, and the day the new model year of Ford F-150s hits the market.

5. Southern In-Laws

(Arkansas, Louisiana to Florida, and up to Kentucky and Virginia)

Your in-laws love NASCAR. If they don't, their neighbors do. Your southern in-laws are either "refined city folk" or "simple country folk," and they'll want you to know the difference.

Your southern in-laws are suspicious of you. It's not just you -- it's anyone outside their state. Your in-laws have never been "North," and by that, they mean Delaware. It's not that they don't want to go, just why would they? People have been in their town for generations. It's home, which is why you should move there. When you're south of the Mason-Dixon Line, do as those who live south of the Mason-Dixon Line . . .

• Learn the key players in "the Confederacy." How many times have you met a southerner named Jefferson Davis? Billions? Every street, building, and public school is named after these folks: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, Alexander Stephens, P. T. Beauregard, or Nathan Bedford Forrest. But please never, ever mention the Destroyer-of-the-South, Yankee General Sherman. He's still on their "list," 150 years later.
• Talk the talk. Know southern sport rivalries and which side you're on with the Tar Heels vs. Blue Devils, LSU vs. Ole Miss, and Tennessee Volunteers vs. Kentucky Wildcats.

How to dress: Something bright and feminine from your mother's closet.

What not to do: Don't call it the "Civil War." It's the "War of Northern Aggression."

6. Northeast Corridor In-Laws

(Ohio, Pennsylvania, and up through Maine)

If you or anyone you're related to went to a fancy school, now's the time to mention it. New Englanders love to think "they know better" and that "they are smarter" and that they "vote correctly." They can push up their dark-framed glasses and snub you with their "Plymouth
Rock" crap.

The crowded cities and suburbs of Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, New York, and Boston mean one thing -- your in-laws are the diversity in America. They smother you with affection because a hundred other relatives live down the street.

• Join the rat race. You must keep up with the Joneses -- the family that you can see from the bay window in your in-laws' kitchen. Last week, the competition was about the house gutters. They won. This week it's about you. Who has the sweetest daughter-in-law?
• Your northern in-laws have summer homes in non-warm places like Nantucket. What's the point?
  

How to dress: Like you just fell out of the J. Crew catalog.

What not to do: Mention that you didn't vote in the last election.

7. Midwest In-Laws

(Indiana to Missouri, up to North Dakota and Michigan)

If a giant, two-headed reptilian monster was heading toward your in-laws' subdivision, they would smile and wave. Your in-laws are that friendly and nice. Sometimes it's creepy. Like the time they offered a teenager a ride back to his college campus -- it looked an awful lot like kidnapping.

Between the ice fishing, apple-pie baking, and dining at Perkins Restaurant and Bakery (which they nicknamed Pukins), your big-boned in-laws spend a lot of time driving (8 hours is short haul), using terms like "who gives a flying fig," and asking "how ya doing?" followed by "okey,
dokey!" So how do you get ahead with them?

• Dig into dishes that involve massive amounts of melted cheese. Your in-laws will prepare cheesy potatoes, cheesy broccoli, cheesy asparagus, and fried cheese curds -- which sounds awful, but c'mon, let's admit it, a little melted cheese makes everything better.
• "Live simply, so that others can simply live." If your in-laws aren't city dwellers, they're farmers and they know how to birth a cow, mend a horse, or feed a pig. If you know zilch about farms, don't fret. Praise the good bugs -- ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies, and honeybees -- and chastise the potentially bad bugs -- flea hoppers, lygus bugs, aphids, and mealy bugs. Impress your in-laws by differentiating good stinkbugs (they're green) from bad ones (they're brown).

How to dress: Something with an elastic waistband.

What not to do: Take shortcuts. Using life's conveniences (leaf blower vs. rake, microwave vs. Crock-Pot, etc.) only means you're not working hard enough!

Copyright © 2007 Dina Koutas Poch