plans
I was reminded this weekend that I haven't made a "public" statement as to what my immediate plans are.
So I guess this is that (last-minute though it may be).
These are my last couple of days in Boston.
I'm moving out of my place at the end of this lease (April 30).
Most of my stuff is going into storage, some is going to my parents' house in Rochester, what remains is coming in my little Celica with me.
I'll be spending a couple of weeks in Rochester, then it's setting out on the long drive to Santa Cruz, CA where I'll be spending the summer. Actually, I'll be splitting my time between Santa Cruz and Oakland.
In SC I'll be staying with my uncle, helping out with his film archive and working in some capacity with Shakespeare Santa Cruz. In Oakland I'll be helping out and spending time with my little cousins* (some of you know what happened last year, but for others I'm adding an article about my cousin Amy's widower, Greg).
So, that's the summer.
The plan after that is to return to Boston and find a place for the fall.
As of now, there is no fixed date for this.
The past 3 years have been tough for me, with the last one a half being one of the most difficult of my life. I've made some progress, but it's not as if those issue and problems are gone. So, instead of continuing to struggle in the same manner I'm taking a bit of a drastic step. I've lived in this apartment for six years, and in Somerville for 12. So this is most definitely a shake up.
But I really think that this is something that I need, something to help me change my patterns of thought and behavior, so that I can return and make a (pseudo) fresh start.
I'm sorry I haven't had to chance to say goodbye to many of you.
So let me take this chance to wish you a happy summer.
I'll try and be better about returning to LJ and keeping you informed of my goings-on.
*
(from the SF Chronicle)
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Life and the Single Dad/Greg McClain strives to model what a dedicated African American father might look like, making use of the village his wife, Amy, had built
Ron Kroichick
One August morning, at a government office in downtown Berkeley, Greg
McClain suddenly grasped how profoundly his life had changed.
His mother, Minnie, traveled from her home in Southern California to
shepherd him through a traumatic time. Amy Muckelroy - his vibrant,
charismatic wife and mother of their two young sons - had died on July 24,
2007, after a brief battle with a rare disease called amyloidosis. Now, a
few weeks later, Minnie McClain made the appointment and took Greg to file
paperwork even as he remained dazed, Amy's death certificate in his hands.
The counselor started with the standard questions. She reached the query
about marital status and Greg told her he was married. "I'm sorry," she
said gently, "but you're not married."
At that moment, it hit Greg with overpowering force: Amy really was gone.
He faced the daunting task of raising Charles and Ellis, those precocious
and energetic boys, without their mom. "When the counselor corrected him,
it was like someone throwing cold water in his face," Minnie McClain says.
"It was a reality check and it was painful. I could see it in his eyes."
Greg McClain had been thrust into a nightmare scenario he never imagined.
He is a widower and a single dad, coping with his grief while managing the
daily logistics of life with kids who are 6 and 4, rearranging his career
while juggling help from family and friends, and trying to guide both boys
through their own sadness.
But beyond the heartbreak rests a tale of resilience and hope, a village
of people propping up one man and helping him navigate an unfamiliar road.
They watch the kids, pick up groceries, cook dinner, listen when Greg
wants to talk. They care.
Amy's memory, in many ways, serves as the driving force. The dining room
of Greg's home includes a photo of her and Charles, beaming, on a camping
trip. Another shows her at a school walk-a-thon, strolling hand-in-hand
with Ellis. And there, in an unremarkable brown box atop an old dresser,
sit Amy's ashes. They offer Greg a measure of comfort as he moves on with
his life.
"I say hello every morning," he says, "and good night every night."
Amy Muckelroy was tall and athletic, with a sparkling smile. She rowed at
Berkeley High and Columbia University in New York, eventually returning to
the Bay Area to earn her master's degree in public policy at Cal. Later,
she would devote her considerable energy to not only raising her sons but
also working in early childhood education at Catholic Charities of the
East Bay.
Greg McClain always was tall and athletic, too, with his own easygoing
charisma. He grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena, and came to
the Bay Area after gaining acclaim as an All-America shortstop in high
school. He played baseball for three years at Cal, bounced around the
minor leagues for two seasons and eventually returned to Berkeley to
complete his sociology degree. Later, he earned a law degree at the
University of San Francisco.
Greg and Amy's paths crossed in the early 1990s at California Tomorrow, a
San Francisco nonprofit (now based in Oakland) that promotes diversity in
the state's schools. They were married at the Palace of Fine Arts on Oct.
29, 2000; Greg recalls surprising Amy with a limousine ride into the city
on the day of the wedding.
Their marriage settled into a comfortable routine at the duplex they
bought in 2000 in North Oakland, near the Emeryville border. Greg had
shifted careers in 1997, leaving the nonprofit world for the tantalizing
call of baseball. He began scouting, a sometimes nomadic existence that
was not always conducive to family life. This created challenges when
Charles arrived in 2001, followed by Ellis in 2003.
Amy held a full-time job at Catholic Charities, but she also handled most
of the duties around the house. Greg occasionally helped the kids get
dressed in the morning, but he also was a night owl, partly because his
job often required him to work evenings - especially when he began
scouting professional games six years ago. Amy was the one making
breakfast, packing the kids' lunches, cooking them dinner, staying up well
into the night to finish their Halloween costumes.
She also kept the family's social life humming, a natural extension of her
gregarious personality. Amy long envisioned herself surrounded by a
bustling circle of family and friends, which helps explain why she
convinced Greg to move back to the Bay Area after two years in Arizona in
the late 1990s. That's also why they bought a home 10 to 15 minutes from
her mom, and why she persuaded her older sister, Holly, to buy a house
across the street, next door to their grandmother, Pearlena Saxton.
This community of family and friends covers a wide range of ethnicities
and backgrounds, something Greg traces to Amy's upbringing - she was the
result of a biracial marriage and grew up in famously inclusive Berkeley.
(Her mother, Wanda Nusted, is white, and her father, Charles Muckelroy,
who died in 1982, was African American.) Greg, who is African American,
relishes the diversity and the long-lasting impact he hopes it will have
on his sons.
He now leans on many of these friends and family members, a practical
benefit of the goodwill Amy fostered. She built the village and he's
tapping into it.
"I'm so glad that was Amy's nature," Greg says. "For her, it replaced
religion in a way - she wasn't a religious person in the way we think
about it today, but she had faith she could have her community of family
and friends around her to make her life experience very positive. It was a
positive environment for us and our kids."
Says Nathan Cheng, a close friend whose wife, Katherine, was one of Amy's
high-school rowing teammates: "Amy started the foundation for everything
being the way it is now. She had an ability to get people together even if
they didn't have a connection - she'd just call people up and you'd end up
hanging out all night."
Amy inspired several rituals that continue without her, including Sunday
brunch with Holly's family at a nearby restaurant and weekly dinners with
their grandmother. Look virtually everywhere in Greg's life today and
Amy's imprints are there, from the schools their boys attend (Amy did
extensive research) to the oversized calendar on one kitchen wall (she
always was the planner, though Greg is learning) to the arc of his career.
He moved from amateur scouting to the pro side in 2002 to help the
Cincinnati Reds evaluate professional players and potential trade
prospects. His responsibilities included West Coast major-league teams and
minor-league prospects in the region. He envisioned advancing with the
Reds - "I was thriving as a major-league scout," Greg says - but that
meant significant travel and frequent night games. The schedule was
possible because of Amy's role as primary caregiver.
Then, with little warning, everything changed.
Amy began to feel fatigued in the summer of 2006, though doctors at first
couldn't explain why. She endured a barrage of tests and fainting spells
before receiving a grim diagnosis in February 2007: amyloidosis, a group
of diseases in which one or more organs in the body accumulate deposits of
abnormal proteins. In Amy's case, the disease caused congestive heart
failure. She died at California Pacific Medical Center, with Greg at her
side. She was 39.
He wipes away tears as he describes Amy's grace and dignity while she
fought her illness. She lived only five months after the diagnosis, a
dizzying whirl of tests and online research and medical scrambling and ...
fear. Greg finally retreated into their backyard late one night, with Amy
and the boys asleep, and told himself over and over, "She could die. That
could really happen." He needed to accept the possibility, he says,
because he had to be prepared.
More than nine months after Amy's death, Greg, 45, still wears his silver
wedding band and he still loses it every now and then. He was miserable on
their anniversary and he cries every time he hears Eric Clapton's "Tears
in Heaven," one of her favorite songs. Any proud, joyous moment with the
kids - such as the time Ellis flawlessly belted out a song verse in his
Spanish-immersion class performance - brings a bittersweet feeling.
At the same time, Greg is learning how to survive as a single parent. The
Reds generously gave him most of last year to focus on his family, so he
had time to begin wrapping his arms around his new life.
"It's going from being a co-pilot to being a solo pilot," he says. "And
you're also the flight attendant and you have to pass out the drinks and
pretzels. I'm the entire airplane crew."
That analogy seems apt when picturing Greg, Charles and Ellis on their
trips to the grocery store. That was Amy's domain, but now it's an
all-male adventure. Charles likes to drive the cart, even if he sometimes
pushes his little brother into the apples. Greg often tells his sons they
can't get a particular item because it's not on the list. And then, when
he spots something unexpectedly worth buying? "Daddy, it's not on the
list," the boys quickly shout.
Still, there is order amid the occasional chaos. Greg and the kids don't
eat as much organic food as they once did, and they watch more sporting
events on television, but the spirit of mom's guidelines linger. Charles
and Ellis generally steer clear of TV except for Fridays, dubbed Show
Night. They eat fairly healthy food. And they enjoy plenty of support from
that ever-present community of family and friends.
On Sunday nights, Greg and his sons usually eat dinner at the house of his
cousin, George Tucker, in the Oakland hills. On Tuesdays or Thursdays,
they walk across the street for Family Night with Holly, her husband Rik
Robinson and their daughters, 3-year-old Reese and 1-year-old Ria (and
great-grandma Pearlena). One night each week, George comes over to cook
dinner and take care of the kids, giving Greg a welcome break. Charles and
Ellis regularly spend time after school with Amy's mom, Wanda, a retired
elementary-school teacher who lives in Berkeley. She also takes each of
the boys on a monthly day trip to San Francisco.
Greg cooks, on average, three nights a week. His sons do not always voice
their approval - "This meat loaf would be better with more sauce, Daddy,"
they once offered - but he's adjusting. "It's really hard," says Carol
Dowell, who met Greg and Amy at California Tomorrow and later became their
tenant in the other half of their duplex. "We have a huge, beautiful
support network, but fundamentally it's still on him."
Says Wanda: "Greg has been challenged to do things he didn't have to do
when he had a partner, and he's absolutely measured up. What's great is he
can express himself about these things. He's been open to his emotions."
Greg is sitting outside a coffee shop in Emeryville, explaining the roots
of his previous stoicism - that was the nature of his dad, Lovett McClain,
and that's very much the nature of the sports culture Greg has long
inhabited. He wearily recites the laundry list of macho truisms: Be tough.
Don't show emotion. It's not OK to be vulnerable.
Now he has no problem crying in public, even if the sight of "a big black
guy" in tears, as he puts it, brings stares. He knows his emotions can
overwhelm him on any given day - and he has learned to allow himself those
moments - but he also refuses to let his sadness "leave him stuck."
"I have to keep moving, because I'm already behind the eight-ball," Greg
says. "There are lots of single parents in this country. It's been done. I
know men who are single parents, so I tell myself to stop feeling bad
about it. I realize I have unfortunate company."
Says his brother-in-law Rik: "Greg is one of the strongest people I've
ever met. There's no self-pity, just a lot of, 'I've gotta keep going.' I
never got the vibe that he had a moment of self-doubt."
It helps to have the community in his corner. That includes Carol, who
still lives upstairs and who organized the hospital visits when Amy was
ill, creating shifts to make sure one friend or another was with her every
day. Other friends, such as Nathan and Katherine Cheng, brought food to
the house, as did parents of some of the kids' classmates (Greg calls the
moms at Charles' school, "My Sisters"). Charles' teacher even stopped by
one night with dinner.
If Carol hears a tiny knock on her back door, she knows Ellis probably has
climbed the outside staircase seeking some playtime with her. Nathan
occasionally drives over from his home in El Cerrito, lets himself in the
house and hangs out with the kids or takes in a football game on
television with Greg.
His cousin George sometimes watches the boys or joins Greg during one of
his scouting assignments at a Cal game. George's son, Rashad, plays
baseball for Sonoma State, and Greg, George and the kids all piled into a
car one day in February and drove to Sonoma to see Rashad pitch.
Then there's Holly and Rik, consumed with their own active kids but also
quasi-surrogate parents to Charles and Ellis. It makes for a lively scene
on their Sunday morning visits to Doyle Street Café in Emeryville -
Charles boasting about how he's "really good" at soccer, Ellis flashing
his mischievous smile, Reese's eyes twinkling, little Ria shoveling food
in her mouth. At one point, Greg reminds the kids to use their "inside
voices." They seem like a normal, happy family.
Not all families regularly attend grief counseling, of course, but those
sessions have helped. Greg visits a therapist every other week (he went
weekly for several months), and he recently started taking Charles and
Ellis to Circle of Care, an Oakland group for families who have lost loved
ones. The adults and kids meet separately for most of the session and then
convene as one group near the end. Greg is optimistic the every-other-week
visits will help the kids because "they see other kids going through what
they're going through." Charles, ever observant, noticed one difference:
Seven of the nine families in their inaugural Circle of Care meeting lost
the dad. Only one other family, like the McClains, lost its mom.
The boys, for the most part, are coping well. They aggressively cling to
Greg, demanding more hugs. But other than one uncharacteristic incident
shortly after the holidays in which Charles struck one of his first-grade
classmates - on a day he was drawing a family portrait - neither he nor
Ellis have displayed the signs Greg was warned about (irritability, acting
out, sleeplessness). Charles, often reluctant to bring up Amy on his own,
did that while working on a puzzle one day with George Tucker. "Do you
know my mom had a 1,000-piece puzzle?" he blurted out with wonder.
Greg also went back to work as the baseball season swung into gear in
January and February. The Reds granted his request to return to amateur
scouting; he knows his sons' need for a reliable nighttime routine
outweighs his preference for pro scouting. Greg embraced the glamour of
doing his work in major-league stadiums and must "manufacture some desire"
as he sits in half-empty college and high-school bleachers, again trying
to project the potential of ballplayers barely old enough to shave.
It's not ideal, but the schedule is flexible and keeps his nights open. He
can write his reports after the kids are asleep, or while they're at
school. Greg is not entirely sure he will remain in baseball long-term,
because the itinerant nature of a scout's life does not always mesh with
the demands of a single dad. But he'll see how 2008 unfolds.
As Jeremy Adam Smith discovered while researching his forthcoming book,
"Twenty-First-Century Dad," it was not uncommon for a man to become a
widower in the 19th century, even stretching into the middle of the 20th
century. Life expectancy was shorter in general, and women more often died
in childbirth.
"And if a widowed man had children, it was assumed he wasn't capable of
taking care of them by himself," says Smith, senior editor of Greater Good
magazine in Berkeley. "In every case, the kids would be given to a female
family member or the man would remarry quickly. Today, more and more you
see widowed or divorced men continue to be the primary caregiver."
The numbers bear this out. Among minor children in the United States, 4.7
percent lived in a single-father home in 2006, according to the U.S.
Census Bureau and the National Fatherhood Initiative. That percentage has
more than quadrupled since 1970, when only 1.1 percent of children lived
in a single-father home. It's still far more common for kids to live with
single moms - 23.3 percent in 2006, up from 10.8 percent in 1970.
Dr. Kyle Pruett, a clinical professor of psychiatry and nursing at the
Yale School of Medicine, knows the abundant challenges facing single
parents. Pruett says an Air Force Academy study in the late 1990s found
that single dads often have trouble with loneliness, lack of adult
support, discipline, sleeping and balancing their work and personal lives
(all familiar issues to single moms). Single fathers also are less likely
to provide their children with health insurance and regular medical
check-ups, according to a study published last year by the journal Health
Services Research.
Pruett estimated he has worked with about 100 single dads in his 30 years
of private practice, including a handful of widowed dads. One enduring
lesson he has learned: The community makes a big difference. He referred
to the Japanese proverb suggesting, "A single arrow is easily broken, but
not 10 in a bundle."
"The men who have done the best are the ones who can keep a social network
functioning around them," Pruett says, "and also keep their full range of
emotions at hand."
On these fronts, Greg seems well equipped to handle the challenges lurking
in the years ahead. His social network remains intact and engaged, and
he's clearly comfortable showing his emotions. He also wants to provide a
strong example for Charles and Ellis, especially given the public focus on
absentee fathers in general and, more specifically, absentee African
American fathers.
Greg's father, Lovett, set his own strong example while he and Minnie
raised their four kids. Lovett, who earned a Purple Heart in the Korean
War, included a military man's touch in his parenting - he marched the
kids outside every weekend, as Greg recalls, and made sure they completed
chores in the yard. But he also mellowed over time and became heavily
involved in his children's lives. Lovett and Minnie were married for 36
years until his death in 1990.
"He was, in many ways, my role model for how I think it should be done,"
Greg says. "I got to see a father who was involved in a different way than
a lot of men of his generation."
Similarly, Charles and Ellis will grow up with several male role models,
including not only Greg but also Rik, their uncle; George, Greg's cousin;
Nathan Cheng, who also has two young sons; Rik's cousin, Joseph Robinson,
who lives in Oakland; and Craig Orange, a friend of Greg's since third
grade who still lives in Southern California. That all of these men but
Nathan are black strikes Greg as relevant (he affectionately calls Nathan
"an honorary brother").
"You hear a lot about black men and kids not making a connection, but I
believe that's misrepresented," Greg says. "I think there are compelling
numbers out there, and I feel a responsibility in that sense because I'm
one who is doing it. I want to do it well to bring attention to the fact
that it is being done well, not just by me but by other black men."
Still, he's not oblivious to the hazards his sons might confront because
they are African American. Greg recalls small displays of racism he has
encountered, such as the time he and two white friends took a vacation to
visit several major-league ballparks. One front-desk hotel clerk cashed
the friends' traveler's checks, no questions asked, and promptly hassled
Greg when he requested the same transaction. Later on in the trip, Greg
had trouble hailing a taxi - but one arrived quickly when his friends took
over.
On a deeper level, Greg sees the headlines about ever-increasing violence
in Oakland, the city in which he's raising Charles and Ellis. He knows
this will add a layer of complexity to the already-complicated effort to
usher his sons toward adulthood.
"It adds to the level of responsibility I feel," Greg says. "I see young
black men today in a state of crisis. The violence just scares the s- out
of me. At some point, my boys will be out there in the world unsupervised,
and the thought they could get caught up in some of the craziness because
of the color of their skin ... I'm just going to be as involved as I can
in their lives."
He finds hope not only in the presence of several strong role models, but
also in the color-blind environment he and Amy created for the kids. What
better example than a biracial mom who welcomed friends of all ethnicities
into her home? Or the balance of having one white grandmother and one
black grandmother? Greg once told Wanda his joy at her presence in the
family, to help expand his children's experience and add a "wonderful
perspective" to their lives.
Now, as Wanda contemplates the long-term impact of Amy's death, she speaks
of her daughter's strength and "I can do it" view of life. Amy always was
assertive, tumbling into the world as a 10-pound, 11-ounce baby, chatting
up adults as a preschooler and seldom backing down from her older sister.
Wanda talks of an obligation to these memories, saying, "To lose yourself
in years and years of grief, you can't do that to Amy. The boys are her
legacy, and you have to be there for them and yourself. ... We have to
take Amy's death as a responsibility. If we don't take it that way, we
would not be giving her death the importance it deserves."
That's the mission for Greg McClain - and his village of family and
friends.
A scholarship fund has been established for Charles and Ellis McClain in
the name of Archway School, 250 41st Street, Oakland, CA 94611. For more
information on amyloidosis, go to www. amyloidosis.org. For more
information on the National Fatherhood Initiative, go to
www.fatherhood.org.
So I guess this is that (last-minute though it may be).
These are my last couple of days in Boston.
I'm moving out of my place at the end of this lease (April 30).
Most of my stuff is going into storage, some is going to my parents' house in Rochester, what remains is coming in my little Celica with me.
I'll be spending a couple of weeks in Rochester, then it's setting out on the long drive to Santa Cruz, CA where I'll be spending the summer. Actually, I'll be splitting my time between Santa Cruz and Oakland.
In SC I'll be staying with my uncle, helping out with his film archive and working in some capacity with Shakespeare Santa Cruz. In Oakland I'll be helping out and spending time with my little cousins* (some of you know what happened last year, but for others I'm adding an article about my cousin Amy's widower, Greg).
So, that's the summer.
The plan after that is to return to Boston and find a place for the fall.
As of now, there is no fixed date for this.
The past 3 years have been tough for me, with the last one a half being one of the most difficult of my life. I've made some progress, but it's not as if those issue and problems are gone. So, instead of continuing to struggle in the same manner I'm taking a bit of a drastic step. I've lived in this apartment for six years, and in Somerville for 12. So this is most definitely a shake up.
But I really think that this is something that I need, something to help me change my patterns of thought and behavior, so that I can return and make a (pseudo) fresh start.
I'm sorry I haven't had to chance to say goodbye to many of you.
So let me take this chance to wish you a happy summer.
I'll try and be better about returning to LJ and keeping you informed of my goings-on.
*
(from the SF Chronicle)
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Life and the Single Dad/Greg McClain strives to model what a dedicated African American father might look like, making use of the village his wife, Amy, had built
Ron Kroichick
One August morning, at a government office in downtown Berkeley, Greg
McClain suddenly grasped how profoundly his life had changed.
His mother, Minnie, traveled from her home in Southern California to
shepherd him through a traumatic time. Amy Muckelroy - his vibrant,
charismatic wife and mother of their two young sons - had died on July 24,
2007, after a brief battle with a rare disease called amyloidosis. Now, a
few weeks later, Minnie McClain made the appointment and took Greg to file
paperwork even as he remained dazed, Amy's death certificate in his hands.
The counselor started with the standard questions. She reached the query
about marital status and Greg told her he was married. "I'm sorry," she
said gently, "but you're not married."
At that moment, it hit Greg with overpowering force: Amy really was gone.
He faced the daunting task of raising Charles and Ellis, those precocious
and energetic boys, without their mom. "When the counselor corrected him,
it was like someone throwing cold water in his face," Minnie McClain says.
"It was a reality check and it was painful. I could see it in his eyes."
Greg McClain had been thrust into a nightmare scenario he never imagined.
He is a widower and a single dad, coping with his grief while managing the
daily logistics of life with kids who are 6 and 4, rearranging his career
while juggling help from family and friends, and trying to guide both boys
through their own sadness.
But beyond the heartbreak rests a tale of resilience and hope, a village
of people propping up one man and helping him navigate an unfamiliar road.
They watch the kids, pick up groceries, cook dinner, listen when Greg
wants to talk. They care.
Amy's memory, in many ways, serves as the driving force. The dining room
of Greg's home includes a photo of her and Charles, beaming, on a camping
trip. Another shows her at a school walk-a-thon, strolling hand-in-hand
with Ellis. And there, in an unremarkable brown box atop an old dresser,
sit Amy's ashes. They offer Greg a measure of comfort as he moves on with
his life.
"I say hello every morning," he says, "and good night every night."
Amy Muckelroy was tall and athletic, with a sparkling smile. She rowed at
Berkeley High and Columbia University in New York, eventually returning to
the Bay Area to earn her master's degree in public policy at Cal. Later,
she would devote her considerable energy to not only raising her sons but
also working in early childhood education at Catholic Charities of the
East Bay.
Greg McClain always was tall and athletic, too, with his own easygoing
charisma. He grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena, and came to
the Bay Area after gaining acclaim as an All-America shortstop in high
school. He played baseball for three years at Cal, bounced around the
minor leagues for two seasons and eventually returned to Berkeley to
complete his sociology degree. Later, he earned a law degree at the
University of San Francisco.
Greg and Amy's paths crossed in the early 1990s at California Tomorrow, a
San Francisco nonprofit (now based in Oakland) that promotes diversity in
the state's schools. They were married at the Palace of Fine Arts on Oct.
29, 2000; Greg recalls surprising Amy with a limousine ride into the city
on the day of the wedding.
Their marriage settled into a comfortable routine at the duplex they
bought in 2000 in North Oakland, near the Emeryville border. Greg had
shifted careers in 1997, leaving the nonprofit world for the tantalizing
call of baseball. He began scouting, a sometimes nomadic existence that
was not always conducive to family life. This created challenges when
Charles arrived in 2001, followed by Ellis in 2003.
Amy held a full-time job at Catholic Charities, but she also handled most
of the duties around the house. Greg occasionally helped the kids get
dressed in the morning, but he also was a night owl, partly because his
job often required him to work evenings - especially when he began
scouting professional games six years ago. Amy was the one making
breakfast, packing the kids' lunches, cooking them dinner, staying up well
into the night to finish their Halloween costumes.
She also kept the family's social life humming, a natural extension of her
gregarious personality. Amy long envisioned herself surrounded by a
bustling circle of family and friends, which helps explain why she
convinced Greg to move back to the Bay Area after two years in Arizona in
the late 1990s. That's also why they bought a home 10 to 15 minutes from
her mom, and why she persuaded her older sister, Holly, to buy a house
across the street, next door to their grandmother, Pearlena Saxton.
This community of family and friends covers a wide range of ethnicities
and backgrounds, something Greg traces to Amy's upbringing - she was the
result of a biracial marriage and grew up in famously inclusive Berkeley.
(Her mother, Wanda Nusted, is white, and her father, Charles Muckelroy,
who died in 1982, was African American.) Greg, who is African American,
relishes the diversity and the long-lasting impact he hopes it will have
on his sons.
He now leans on many of these friends and family members, a practical
benefit of the goodwill Amy fostered. She built the village and he's
tapping into it.
"I'm so glad that was Amy's nature," Greg says. "For her, it replaced
religion in a way - she wasn't a religious person in the way we think
about it today, but she had faith she could have her community of family
and friends around her to make her life experience very positive. It was a
positive environment for us and our kids."
Says Nathan Cheng, a close friend whose wife, Katherine, was one of Amy's
high-school rowing teammates: "Amy started the foundation for everything
being the way it is now. She had an ability to get people together even if
they didn't have a connection - she'd just call people up and you'd end up
hanging out all night."
Amy inspired several rituals that continue without her, including Sunday
brunch with Holly's family at a nearby restaurant and weekly dinners with
their grandmother. Look virtually everywhere in Greg's life today and
Amy's imprints are there, from the schools their boys attend (Amy did
extensive research) to the oversized calendar on one kitchen wall (she
always was the planner, though Greg is learning) to the arc of his career.
He moved from amateur scouting to the pro side in 2002 to help the
Cincinnati Reds evaluate professional players and potential trade
prospects. His responsibilities included West Coast major-league teams and
minor-league prospects in the region. He envisioned advancing with the
Reds - "I was thriving as a major-league scout," Greg says - but that
meant significant travel and frequent night games. The schedule was
possible because of Amy's role as primary caregiver.
Then, with little warning, everything changed.
Amy began to feel fatigued in the summer of 2006, though doctors at first
couldn't explain why. She endured a barrage of tests and fainting spells
before receiving a grim diagnosis in February 2007: amyloidosis, a group
of diseases in which one or more organs in the body accumulate deposits of
abnormal proteins. In Amy's case, the disease caused congestive heart
failure. She died at California Pacific Medical Center, with Greg at her
side. She was 39.
He wipes away tears as he describes Amy's grace and dignity while she
fought her illness. She lived only five months after the diagnosis, a
dizzying whirl of tests and online research and medical scrambling and ...
fear. Greg finally retreated into their backyard late one night, with Amy
and the boys asleep, and told himself over and over, "She could die. That
could really happen." He needed to accept the possibility, he says,
because he had to be prepared.
More than nine months after Amy's death, Greg, 45, still wears his silver
wedding band and he still loses it every now and then. He was miserable on
their anniversary and he cries every time he hears Eric Clapton's "Tears
in Heaven," one of her favorite songs. Any proud, joyous moment with the
kids - such as the time Ellis flawlessly belted out a song verse in his
Spanish-immersion class performance - brings a bittersweet feeling.
At the same time, Greg is learning how to survive as a single parent. The
Reds generously gave him most of last year to focus on his family, so he
had time to begin wrapping his arms around his new life.
"It's going from being a co-pilot to being a solo pilot," he says. "And
you're also the flight attendant and you have to pass out the drinks and
pretzels. I'm the entire airplane crew."
That analogy seems apt when picturing Greg, Charles and Ellis on their
trips to the grocery store. That was Amy's domain, but now it's an
all-male adventure. Charles likes to drive the cart, even if he sometimes
pushes his little brother into the apples. Greg often tells his sons they
can't get a particular item because it's not on the list. And then, when
he spots something unexpectedly worth buying? "Daddy, it's not on the
list," the boys quickly shout.
Still, there is order amid the occasional chaos. Greg and the kids don't
eat as much organic food as they once did, and they watch more sporting
events on television, but the spirit of mom's guidelines linger. Charles
and Ellis generally steer clear of TV except for Fridays, dubbed Show
Night. They eat fairly healthy food. And they enjoy plenty of support from
that ever-present community of family and friends.
On Sunday nights, Greg and his sons usually eat dinner at the house of his
cousin, George Tucker, in the Oakland hills. On Tuesdays or Thursdays,
they walk across the street for Family Night with Holly, her husband Rik
Robinson and their daughters, 3-year-old Reese and 1-year-old Ria (and
great-grandma Pearlena). One night each week, George comes over to cook
dinner and take care of the kids, giving Greg a welcome break. Charles and
Ellis regularly spend time after school with Amy's mom, Wanda, a retired
elementary-school teacher who lives in Berkeley. She also takes each of
the boys on a monthly day trip to San Francisco.
Greg cooks, on average, three nights a week. His sons do not always voice
their approval - "This meat loaf would be better with more sauce, Daddy,"
they once offered - but he's adjusting. "It's really hard," says Carol
Dowell, who met Greg and Amy at California Tomorrow and later became their
tenant in the other half of their duplex. "We have a huge, beautiful
support network, but fundamentally it's still on him."
Says Wanda: "Greg has been challenged to do things he didn't have to do
when he had a partner, and he's absolutely measured up. What's great is he
can express himself about these things. He's been open to his emotions."
Greg is sitting outside a coffee shop in Emeryville, explaining the roots
of his previous stoicism - that was the nature of his dad, Lovett McClain,
and that's very much the nature of the sports culture Greg has long
inhabited. He wearily recites the laundry list of macho truisms: Be tough.
Don't show emotion. It's not OK to be vulnerable.
Now he has no problem crying in public, even if the sight of "a big black
guy" in tears, as he puts it, brings stares. He knows his emotions can
overwhelm him on any given day - and he has learned to allow himself those
moments - but he also refuses to let his sadness "leave him stuck."
"I have to keep moving, because I'm already behind the eight-ball," Greg
says. "There are lots of single parents in this country. It's been done. I
know men who are single parents, so I tell myself to stop feeling bad
about it. I realize I have unfortunate company."
Says his brother-in-law Rik: "Greg is one of the strongest people I've
ever met. There's no self-pity, just a lot of, 'I've gotta keep going.' I
never got the vibe that he had a moment of self-doubt."
It helps to have the community in his corner. That includes Carol, who
still lives upstairs and who organized the hospital visits when Amy was
ill, creating shifts to make sure one friend or another was with her every
day. Other friends, such as Nathan and Katherine Cheng, brought food to
the house, as did parents of some of the kids' classmates (Greg calls the
moms at Charles' school, "My Sisters"). Charles' teacher even stopped by
one night with dinner.
If Carol hears a tiny knock on her back door, she knows Ellis probably has
climbed the outside staircase seeking some playtime with her. Nathan
occasionally drives over from his home in El Cerrito, lets himself in the
house and hangs out with the kids or takes in a football game on
television with Greg.
His cousin George sometimes watches the boys or joins Greg during one of
his scouting assignments at a Cal game. George's son, Rashad, plays
baseball for Sonoma State, and Greg, George and the kids all piled into a
car one day in February and drove to Sonoma to see Rashad pitch.
Then there's Holly and Rik, consumed with their own active kids but also
quasi-surrogate parents to Charles and Ellis. It makes for a lively scene
on their Sunday morning visits to Doyle Street Café in Emeryville -
Charles boasting about how he's "really good" at soccer, Ellis flashing
his mischievous smile, Reese's eyes twinkling, little Ria shoveling food
in her mouth. At one point, Greg reminds the kids to use their "inside
voices." They seem like a normal, happy family.
Not all families regularly attend grief counseling, of course, but those
sessions have helped. Greg visits a therapist every other week (he went
weekly for several months), and he recently started taking Charles and
Ellis to Circle of Care, an Oakland group for families who have lost loved
ones. The adults and kids meet separately for most of the session and then
convene as one group near the end. Greg is optimistic the every-other-week
visits will help the kids because "they see other kids going through what
they're going through." Charles, ever observant, noticed one difference:
Seven of the nine families in their inaugural Circle of Care meeting lost
the dad. Only one other family, like the McClains, lost its mom.
The boys, for the most part, are coping well. They aggressively cling to
Greg, demanding more hugs. But other than one uncharacteristic incident
shortly after the holidays in which Charles struck one of his first-grade
classmates - on a day he was drawing a family portrait - neither he nor
Ellis have displayed the signs Greg was warned about (irritability, acting
out, sleeplessness). Charles, often reluctant to bring up Amy on his own,
did that while working on a puzzle one day with George Tucker. "Do you
know my mom had a 1,000-piece puzzle?" he blurted out with wonder.
Greg also went back to work as the baseball season swung into gear in
January and February. The Reds granted his request to return to amateur
scouting; he knows his sons' need for a reliable nighttime routine
outweighs his preference for pro scouting. Greg embraced the glamour of
doing his work in major-league stadiums and must "manufacture some desire"
as he sits in half-empty college and high-school bleachers, again trying
to project the potential of ballplayers barely old enough to shave.
It's not ideal, but the schedule is flexible and keeps his nights open. He
can write his reports after the kids are asleep, or while they're at
school. Greg is not entirely sure he will remain in baseball long-term,
because the itinerant nature of a scout's life does not always mesh with
the demands of a single dad. But he'll see how 2008 unfolds.
As Jeremy Adam Smith discovered while researching his forthcoming book,
"Twenty-First-Century Dad," it was not uncommon for a man to become a
widower in the 19th century, even stretching into the middle of the 20th
century. Life expectancy was shorter in general, and women more often died
in childbirth.
"And if a widowed man had children, it was assumed he wasn't capable of
taking care of them by himself," says Smith, senior editor of Greater Good
magazine in Berkeley. "In every case, the kids would be given to a female
family member or the man would remarry quickly. Today, more and more you
see widowed or divorced men continue to be the primary caregiver."
The numbers bear this out. Among minor children in the United States, 4.7
percent lived in a single-father home in 2006, according to the U.S.
Census Bureau and the National Fatherhood Initiative. That percentage has
more than quadrupled since 1970, when only 1.1 percent of children lived
in a single-father home. It's still far more common for kids to live with
single moms - 23.3 percent in 2006, up from 10.8 percent in 1970.
Dr. Kyle Pruett, a clinical professor of psychiatry and nursing at the
Yale School of Medicine, knows the abundant challenges facing single
parents. Pruett says an Air Force Academy study in the late 1990s found
that single dads often have trouble with loneliness, lack of adult
support, discipline, sleeping and balancing their work and personal lives
(all familiar issues to single moms). Single fathers also are less likely
to provide their children with health insurance and regular medical
check-ups, according to a study published last year by the journal Health
Services Research.
Pruett estimated he has worked with about 100 single dads in his 30 years
of private practice, including a handful of widowed dads. One enduring
lesson he has learned: The community makes a big difference. He referred
to the Japanese proverb suggesting, "A single arrow is easily broken, but
not 10 in a bundle."
"The men who have done the best are the ones who can keep a social network
functioning around them," Pruett says, "and also keep their full range of
emotions at hand."
On these fronts, Greg seems well equipped to handle the challenges lurking
in the years ahead. His social network remains intact and engaged, and
he's clearly comfortable showing his emotions. He also wants to provide a
strong example for Charles and Ellis, especially given the public focus on
absentee fathers in general and, more specifically, absentee African
American fathers.
Greg's father, Lovett, set his own strong example while he and Minnie
raised their four kids. Lovett, who earned a Purple Heart in the Korean
War, included a military man's touch in his parenting - he marched the
kids outside every weekend, as Greg recalls, and made sure they completed
chores in the yard. But he also mellowed over time and became heavily
involved in his children's lives. Lovett and Minnie were married for 36
years until his death in 1990.
"He was, in many ways, my role model for how I think it should be done,"
Greg says. "I got to see a father who was involved in a different way than
a lot of men of his generation."
Similarly, Charles and Ellis will grow up with several male role models,
including not only Greg but also Rik, their uncle; George, Greg's cousin;
Nathan Cheng, who also has two young sons; Rik's cousin, Joseph Robinson,
who lives in Oakland; and Craig Orange, a friend of Greg's since third
grade who still lives in Southern California. That all of these men but
Nathan are black strikes Greg as relevant (he affectionately calls Nathan
"an honorary brother").
"You hear a lot about black men and kids not making a connection, but I
believe that's misrepresented," Greg says. "I think there are compelling
numbers out there, and I feel a responsibility in that sense because I'm
one who is doing it. I want to do it well to bring attention to the fact
that it is being done well, not just by me but by other black men."
Still, he's not oblivious to the hazards his sons might confront because
they are African American. Greg recalls small displays of racism he has
encountered, such as the time he and two white friends took a vacation to
visit several major-league ballparks. One front-desk hotel clerk cashed
the friends' traveler's checks, no questions asked, and promptly hassled
Greg when he requested the same transaction. Later on in the trip, Greg
had trouble hailing a taxi - but one arrived quickly when his friends took
over.
On a deeper level, Greg sees the headlines about ever-increasing violence
in Oakland, the city in which he's raising Charles and Ellis. He knows
this will add a layer of complexity to the already-complicated effort to
usher his sons toward adulthood.
"It adds to the level of responsibility I feel," Greg says. "I see young
black men today in a state of crisis. The violence just scares the s- out
of me. At some point, my boys will be out there in the world unsupervised,
and the thought they could get caught up in some of the craziness because
of the color of their skin ... I'm just going to be as involved as I can
in their lives."
He finds hope not only in the presence of several strong role models, but
also in the color-blind environment he and Amy created for the kids. What
better example than a biracial mom who welcomed friends of all ethnicities
into her home? Or the balance of having one white grandmother and one
black grandmother? Greg once told Wanda his joy at her presence in the
family, to help expand his children's experience and add a "wonderful
perspective" to their lives.
Now, as Wanda contemplates the long-term impact of Amy's death, she speaks
of her daughter's strength and "I can do it" view of life. Amy always was
assertive, tumbling into the world as a 10-pound, 11-ounce baby, chatting
up adults as a preschooler and seldom backing down from her older sister.
Wanda talks of an obligation to these memories, saying, "To lose yourself
in years and years of grief, you can't do that to Amy. The boys are her
legacy, and you have to be there for them and yourself. ... We have to
take Amy's death as a responsibility. If we don't take it that way, we
would not be giving her death the importance it deserves."
That's the mission for Greg McClain - and his village of family and
friends.
A scholarship fund has been established for Charles and Ellis McClain in
the name of Archway School, 250 41st Street, Oakland, CA 94611. For more
information on amyloidosis, go to www. amyloidosis.org. For more
information on the National Fatherhood Initiative, go to
www.fatherhood.org.