I was born in Kansas City in the mid 60s; those in the know will ask "Kansas or Missouri?" I'll just say "the Dotte" and leave it at that. Happiness in those days was easy to come by and consisted of games of Kick the Can and Midnight, Midnight with with my brother Ben and the neighborhood kids on late summer nights, snowball fights with the Debus brothers on snowy days, singing in the living room with my dad on guitar and my sister Kristin on flute after dinner, and spending too many hours laying on the grass, looking up at the blue midwestern sky at Wyandotte County Lake.
I lived in the same house until the day I left for college, meeting my future-husband Kelly at Kansas State University the first week of my freshman year; he, an architecture major in his seventh year. We married my Junior year of college. After graduating from the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, I started teaching elementary music at a local public school and continued there for a decade. After taking an eight year break from teaching, I began a career supporting parents and families in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), working in local hospitals and on the national non-profit level.
Kelly and I have raised two kids, Ian and Isabel. They, like me, lived in the same house until they left for college. They have known me as a teacher, as a stay-at-home mom, as a hospital worker and as a full-time traveling professional. I don't know which "mom" they preferred, but I know I've enjoyed each step along the way, learning and growing from each stage, cognizant of the fact that I couldn't have taken one step without the prior step before, and thankful for the many incredible people who have crossed my various paths.
It's true what they say: in the blink of an eye, everything can change. Entire lives can be turned on their heads, even lost forever, in just a matter of moments. I'm not unique; I know plenty of people who have suffered significant loss of loved ones in their lives. Should I share my loses to you? Do I reveal with you my personal pain? It's a debate that I bat back and forth with myself. No doubt in my mind, these events have shaped me, formed the person I've become; can I explain who I am without including these difficult details?
We all have our stories. My challenge is to live in the present and look toward the future. The thing that fascinates me is how people react to their life-changing events. I've had the intimate and very sacred experience of supporting families during their NICU experiences for many years. I've been a witness to other people's loss and watched them struggle through the early stages of their grief more times than I can count. I've interviewed dozens of parents, years after their child's NICU stay, who have shared some of their most painful stories with me, and still cry as if it happened yesterday.
And yet, almost without fail, strength of spirit and human will and determination shine through their teary stories. I am always inspired, amazed and in awe of their ability to not only endure, but to live a life in honor of those they loved. How did they regain their traction, their sanity? When did they start smiling again without feeling guilty because they were experiencing joy? What pushed them to reinvent themselves based on the new skills that were forced upon them against their will, rather than remaining stuck in a track too deep from which to emerge? Why were they willing to share their stories with me, a stranger?
Having this perspective of so many intimate stories, of so many families like my own, this sense of a much larger community, keeps me going, keeps me grounded, propelling me to live life, honoring those I've loved and miss so much.
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| Arles, France - 2011 |
