Amanda van Scoyoc

I’m at home in DC for the day screen printing napkins for the wedding. It is taking forever, but they will be beautiful. And in thinking about the wedding and in being away from Eli, I remembered a short story that I heard when traveling to Pittsburgh for an interview the day before Valentines day. It is a perfect short story that should be shared widely.

Eli isn’t here, and I can listen to stories over and over again without him complaining. I don’t really feel stories until the 4th or 5th time and by then, just when I’m excited about the design and smoothness of a story, Eli starts feeling like I am truly trying to torture him. So this morning I will listen to this story, and when I am done, I will listen to this youtube video and then I will do the same again and again. I will think of all that there is to create and of the beauty of love flying far away into the universe to be decoded maybe, perhaps… one day. I will decide again (as I do always after the 5th time I hear a perfect story) that I must do something with my life that lets me feel this arch of emotions. And I will decide again (as I always do) that in my life I need to find a way to make others share in this feeling.

Having worked with adolescent parents, I am very interested in why mothers choose to have children at specific ages. Now that I’m getting ready to start my PhD, I am increasingly surrounded by women who have delayed motherhood into their 30s and even 40s.

It reminds me of back when I was working at Roca with teen parents, and I realized one day that some of the girls had deduced that I must be infertile. I was in my late twenties, living with a man, and had no child. It seemed the obvious conclusion.

As the economic gap in America widens, so has the reproductive gap. In a way it is just as bizarre for women to be pushing parenthood into their 30s and even 40s as it is for women in America to decide to become adolescent parents. As teen pregnancy rates increase, so does in-vitro fertilization. This summer I am hoping to interview women on the other side of the economic/education/reproductive divide.

Rebecca, age 31, and Noah, 10 weeks

Rebecca Stein-Kunder has just finished her MD/PhD at Duke. She is about to begin her residency at Stanford with her husband, Chris.

Amanda: Why did you plan to have a baby at this point in your life?

Rebecca: I knew that I was going to have about four or five months off after medical school, and I thought that probably never again in my life would I have so much time off. The other thing is that my mother had said that she would take at least a year off to take care of Noah. I checked with her to make sure that she basically signed on the dotted line before I got pregnant.

Amanda: How did your colleagues in medical school react when you told them?

Rebecca: Everyone was really happy, but I think that everyone was worried. They asked, “Are you sure that this is a good time?” I understood their concerns, and I assured them that I had a childcare plan.”

Amanda: How has it been so far with Noah?

Rebecca: Just seeing him is incredible. It is something that is just so bizarre and tender to think that this is your child. There are easy days and joyful times and there are hard days and rough times as well. I enjoy him more and more each day as he interacts more with the world and with me. When he was about six weeks old he started smiling, and that didn’t happen a day too soon. I think we’re figuring each other out.

Amanda: Is it similar to what you expected?

Rebecca: I didn’t have very clear expectations. I knew it would be difficult. I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping very much. I think I didn’t expect how much fun it would be to just play with him, even when he’s so little. As my sister-in-law says, he’s in his pot roast stage. But he can be fun to play with, and I appreciate that.

Amanda: How do you feel about the upcoming move?

Rebecca: It is comforting to have some things that will be the same. Chris and I and Noah and the dog and the two cats are all moving there together. Even though it is hard to relocate that group of people and animals three thousand miles away, it’s comforting that we’ll all be together out there too.

Amanda: How do you feel, knowing that in residency you will have much less time with Noah.

Rebecca: It’s hard for me to say, because I haven’t spent that much time away from him yet. But, when I do spend time away from him, I’m very excited when I come back and see him again. I think that at the end of the day I will be pretty happy to see him. Although, sometimes he is pretty fussy in the evenings, so I think it will be unfortunate if I spend all day looking forward to seeing him, and he’s a fussy baby.

Amanda: Do you ever have pains of regret that because of your career choice, you can’t spend more time with him?

Rebecca: Well, he’s ten weeks old now, and knowing that if I had been in residency, I would have only had six weeks at home, that makes me definitely not want to have a kid during residency. It has been important for me to have this time. I don’t know how long optimally I would stay home with him. I think that at some point, I would go back to work, even if I didn’t have to. But, I think it will be difficult as he gets older and I’m missing out on things because I’m at work.

Amanda: How has having Noah changed your relationship with Chris?

Rebecca: I thought that having Noah would be much more stressful on our relationship, but the most stressful thing on our relationship right now is the move across the country.  Noah is something that we definitely enjoy together. I enjoy watching Chris with Noah. It has been good for us in that way.

Painting of Darius Poteat

I started this painting of Darius a month after he was gone. I painted it mainly for Eli, but also because I thought that staring at his face while placing paint on a canvas might be healing. It also just seemed like Darius deserved a portrait, and he deserved to be surrounded by blue skies, leaves, and those weird orange spikey flowers that bloom in July and August in North Carolina.

Sometimes, while painting, I would think about how strange it is that this is as old as Darius will ever be. When I paint Eli or me, I imagine being old, looking back on the painting, and exclaiming to Eli, “look how young we were.” But with Darius, this is how old he will be forever. The painting is the same as the memory.

We have known this for a while, but I have not wanted to write about it here. It only feels real now, over a month since we made the decision. Back in December I circled April 15th on my calendar and wrote in big letters “YOU NOW KNOW YOUR FUTURE.” I looked forward to that day, knowing it was the deadline for deciding on a graduate program and believing that making that decision would bring peace. Instead on that day, I knew I was going to Oregon, I had just made the decision, but I didn’t really believe it. I wasn’t willing to write it down here or in any journal. It was a decision left to sink in.

Deciding which grad school offer to accept was one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made. It was not just deciding on a place to live, but a person to become, an education to pursue. If I had gone to Michigan, I would have been an anthropologist. If I had gone to UNC, I would have been a social work researcher. Now I am going to be a clinical psychologist designing and evaluating interventions for foster care youth, and hopefully incorporating anthropology and social work into my PhD. Is that right for me? I hope so.

I remember early on thinking that this decision was like watching the Kentucky Derby. There were five schools in the running. Each one had its moment in the spotlight. I left Eli little notes on the table in the morning letting him know how the schools compared at that very moment. I was so conflicted that it was just too difficult to have the grad school conversation every day. In the end, it was Oregon that came galloping in from the back. It pushed through the others and took the lead. I’ve watched the Kentucky derby where Mind that Bird wins over and over. That’s Oregon. Where did that come from? Oregon was the school I applied to on a whim because I just couldn’t help but like the PI, Phil Fisher. And in the last moments, in a short half hour conversation with him in a coffee shop, I was sold.

So, we are moving to Oregon. School starts September 16th. We need to figure out where to live out there, move our stuff west, make new friends, and find peace living on the other side of this continent.

Before we go, we’re getting married. This is where we met, 3.5 years ago. This is where I always thought I would buy my first house and go to graduate school. I wanted to stay near my sister and convince my parents to retire in sunny North Carolina. That is all gone, for now. But one more life event will take place here. On August 21st, on a goat farm, in the oppressive Carolina heat, Eli and I will commit to each other for life.

A couple of days after that, we will get in my car (Eli’s will be sold by then) and drive across the country to a city that I have seen once for three days. I will take statistics, psychopathology, clinical ethics and methodology my first semester. If it’s the right program for me, then 6 years down the line I will have my PhD and be a seasoned Oregonian.

It has been a couple of crazy weeks, but I’m into graduate schools and now I just need to decide what I am going to study and where I am going to spend the next 5-8 years of my life. I have 5 weeks left to make this decision. All day every day I ask myself if I am meant to be a clinical psychologist, social work researcher, or anthropologist. I have options, lots of options, more options than my brain can handle thinking about. Indecisiveness and a broad range of interests has brought me to this point.

These past three weeks I have been to Pittsburgh, DC, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and North Carolina. I am about to head up to DC, then to Philadelphia, then to Michigan, then back to DC, then North Carolina, then on to Oregon. It is a busy life that I will be glad to give up once the decision is made.

Applying and deciding has been an emotional journey. I have enjoyed lots of small moments amid interview preparation and performance. I have talked to many brilliant researchers who have listened to me. I have looked at myself in the mirror suited up and spiffy and hardly recognized myself. I’ve listened to myself speak on interviews and been surprised by how eager I am to move forward into graduate school. I’ve gotten so excited over graduate school that I can’t sleep and so nervous that I can’t get out of bed in the morning. I have this lingering feeling that maybe they made a mistake admitting me. They read the essay wrong, didn’t realize how little I really know.

But in the midst of all of this, I feel incredibly grounded. Going to college I was alone. Now there are two of us making this decision, and we will start another home together. Eli will help with the dinners when I’m too tired. He’ll be there to be more important than anything and everything else. Amid the stress of decision-making I have gone with my mom to see my grandmother’s cousin to hear all of her stories of life during the depression. I have spent hours driving Eli nuts with all of my indecisiveness. I have caught up with my mom’s childhood friend and heard that, “Oh, everyone in school knew of Stu Van Scoyoc.” And I have floated around a butterfly house with Erin, Annabel, Hanna, and Isaac. I can’t complain.

Gearing up for my final clinical psychology interview.

My mom interviewing Mary Etna (my grandmother's cousin who is 96 and lovely.)

Mary Etna after I opened the window blinds.

My mom and her childhood friend, Michelle.

Hanna, Erin, Annabel, and a beautiful butterfly at the Museum of Life and Science.

Annabel and some mating butterflies. (Rusty, this one is for you.)

At my parent’s house in Northern Virginia and this is the most snow that I’ve ever seen. Ana and I went sledding yesterday evening and she commented that it looks like Narnia, and it does. We were the only people out of the house on our road. We waded thigh high through the snow and used sleds to protect ourselves from falling snow blobs. The strangest thing we saw was a squirrel jump down from a tree to the ground and immediately sink. It then swam-hopped to a nearby tree looking quite surprised and upset with the world.

I am supposed to drive tomorrow morning to Pittsburgh for an interview. I’ll try to make it, but damn it still looks like Narnia out there.

road outside of my parent's house

It’s a new year, a new decade, and it is six months since Darius died. It is a day when we are supposed to look forward, make resolutions, and instead I find myself looking backwards. Six months since, and I feel that I am living a different life than I was before.

Darius, your death was life affirming. It is important that you know this. I believe that you would want to know that we are not wallowing in our loss, but are cherishing all that is left for us in this life. I believe your death is why Eli and I ended up getting engaged much earlier than I expected we would. After your death, there was a sense of emergency and desperation. Much of life became unimportant. I was consumed knowing that people could pass immediately and be gone. Every time Eli annoyed me, I heard the replay of his voice shaking on the phone in the moment he told me. Instead of frustration, I would hear those words “Amanda, Darius killed himself,” and then hold onto him and breathe him in. Eli kept your picture on his phone so he would see you every time he checked the time or picked up a phone call. We didn’t talk about you all that much, but you were everywhere.

You changed the way we live our lives. I am no longer willing to live a life unexamined. I want to be sure that every year, month, and day of my life, that I am taking in all that is good. Since your death, so much has happened. We made this apartment slowly into our home, got engaged, I gained a niece, and Eli became an uncle for the first time, I changed my employment, and started spending more time with my family. I applied to graduate school programs with the goal of making changes in the lives of impoverished youth. I’ve seen too much to not need to make changes now, immediately, with a sudden sense of urgency.

The other day, I noticed that Eli changed the picture on his phone to a photograph of me from our engagement photo shoot. When I asked him about it, he said that it was time and it would be what you wanted. We made it through making breakfast and running errands today before voicing that we were both thinking about this six month mark. We had lots of wine with dinner tonight.

Thinking forward to this next decade, I just hope that we continue to both live with the urgency and meaning you brought to life. I want to make changes, forge ahead, love harder, and take time to appreciate the beauty in every day.

A few photographs from Isaac’s first birthday party last week.