Grandma had asked her, “Why do you still hang out with that riff-raff, Macy?”

She answered, “They’re the only ones who accept me for who I am.” Read More...

Tags: Macy's Story

Macy was glad to be meeting her grandparents on Saturday.  It had been a rough week, and she looked forward to their company.  There was something therapeutic about gardening with Grandma Sue.  Macy could talk about anything over the tomato and cucumber plants, no matter how bad it was.  It was a safe place.  Grandma's world was so totally different from the wild world she had been a part of for too long, a world she was trying to escape from with her grandma’s support.  As they worked together on growing a garden, Macy hoped she could also grow through the trials.
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Tags: Macy's Story

Mimi snapped out of a dream in a sweat.  Nursing an achy tooth for several days, she had begun to dream at night about her childhood dentist.  Needless to say it was more nightmare than reverie.

When asked why she would not go to the dentist, Mimi often quipped, “Why go to the dentist?  They only find something wrong with you.”  The truth was that she was terrified.  Being a good mother, she had taken her own children to the dentist twice a year like clock-work, hoping they wouldn’t harbor the same fears that she did.  Her children all had good teeth and a good relationship with their dentist, and likewise her grandchildren were being taught the same.  Despite knowing what was right and feeling like the world’s biggest hypocrite, Mimi could not bring herself to go to the dentist. Read More...

Tags: Mimi

One dark night, Vicki and I went out on a quest in the woods to find a Yozhik.  She had heard they lived in the forests in Ukraine and she wanted to see one.  I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I was always game for an adventure.  A young Ukrainian man named Sergei accompanied us, presumably to keep us from getting lost in the woods or  else being eaten by wild yozhiks.  I asked Vicki again what it was we were looking for.  She told me the name of the animal and I practiced it a few times.  Then, just because I felt like being silly, I started calling it like I would call a kitty, “Here yozhik, yozhik, yozhik!” 
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Tags: Ukraine

In our Ukrainian dental clinic, we did countless fillings and extractions for the children, making friends with them along the way.  My new Grandpa, Anton became one of four lucky adult patients to get treatment, too.  He trusted me to remove six root tips that had been left for years.  He was so thoughtful, staying up past his bedtime so I could work on him after the children had gone to bed.  He didn’t want to take up a child’s opportunity to get treated.  I wished so badly that I could whisk Grandpa Anton back with me to Bakersfield to make him a set of dentures!  But he was the handsomest of men to me regardless, with or without teeth.
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Tags: Ukraine

I grew up speaking some Spanish.  I don’t really consider myself fluent unless I’m talking to a child who matches my grammatical level.  One of the hardest things for me to do is switch mental gears from English to Spanish without getting warmed up.  It’s like warming up the engine of an old car.  If you take it out of the garage too soon, it chokes and sputters and doesn’t accelerate no matter how much you push on the gas pedal.
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Tags: Ukraine