Sunday in Salem

I absolutely hate going to Salem when I don't have to -- like I did last November, when I went to a memorial service for a long-retired professor and took notes for a story for the magazine. That time I met Constance at a children's "discovery center" and she watched Rachel while I went to the service; then we all got sushi on the way home. I just remember thinking that I really disliked taking so much time out of my day to drive to a place that I see enough of during the week.

But today was different -- I had a memorial service to attend for a woman named Linda who worked practically next to me in the Dean's office. She was the Dean's executive secretary and I was struck by how elegant, confident and easy to talk to she was. Several times, after a particularly frustrating morning, I'd sink into a chair and unload, and she'd listen and offer good advice. I always left feeling that I was glad I'd stopped in.

She died of cancer last Sunday, a cancer she'd been fighting for two years, and so of course I'd go to the memorial service -- even if I had to hold Rachel on my lap the whole time and hush her if she got fussy. But a colleague of both of ours kindly arranged for babysitting at the law school during the service (which was in the campus chapel) and so I was able to experience it (and take notes for a just-under-the-wire magazine story I'll need to write Monday) in peace. There was a nice reception in the law school student lounge afterward, and while Rachel was happy to run up to me and give my legs a hug, she was just as content to stay with the other kids (mostly grandkids and relatives of Linda's) and eat goldfish crackers and play with Play-Doh and, of course, read books. Katie, the Willamette student watching the kids, said Rachel asked her to read FIVE books. Yah Rachel!

Right before the service we managed to squeeze in a half-hour at the same discovery center I had taken Rachel to in November. It has a play grocery store and you can imagine how Rachel loved it, since she loves going grocery shopping for real and loading the groceries on the conveyer belt. I was watching her load groceries for a second time when a woman I was sitting next to turned to me and said, "is that your daughter Rachel?" or some such, and I said yes, with some surprise, and the woman said, "she goes to the same daycare as my daughter, Annabel."

"In Portland?" I asked, startled and completely losing my bearings.
"No, at the Y," the woman said.

It turned out that her daughter, who just turned 2, is in toddlers with Rachel and, as the woman explained to me, talks about Rachel ALL THE TIME. "Rachel is a real leader," the mom said. I was stunned, but pleased. And I didn't have the heart to tell her that Rachel never mentions Annabel -- just the boys in her class: Silas, Alexander, Jaxon. The mom nodded sympathetically because apparently Annabel is the same way; probably because there are something like 10 boys and 3 girls in the class.

"That's why we were so happy when Annabel started talking about Rachel so much," the mom said.

I like the idea that other kids like my daughter. A bunch of them usually come up to us when I drop Rachel off and say, "Hi Rachel!" in bright friendly voices. Which leads Rachel to yelp and clutch my legs as if she doesn't want me to go. We go through this every morning, so it has stopped bothering me because I hear she recovers quickly after I'm gone.