"Banana Bread" by Edith Gettes
– Hannah was going out.
I sank deeper into warring currents of fear, hope, doubt, pride, and trust.
Edith Gettes has worked as a professional violinist, teacher, and psychiatrist. Her most important and inspiring employment, however, has been raising four daughters. She has lectured about learning, trauma and motherhood at several international conferences, and her writing has appeared in both musical and medical journals. Edith currently lives, works, plays, and writes in Asheville, North Carolina, where she remains fascinated by our capacity for love and beauty in the face of profound challenges.
Author’s talk
Edith Gettes
Important transitions in a child’s life are important for parents, too. Graduation from kindergarten or high school, a Bat Mitzvah or Quinceanera are milestones in the parenting journey. We watch with wonder, pride, love and sometimes, trepidation, as our children clear hurdles that bring them closer to independence and what we hope will be a healthy, productive and healthy life.
Sometimes though, despite our attention, efforts and expertise, they veer off the path, straying away from health and safety towards risk and complication. We may be left, as Dr. Suess, so eloquently wrote “in the waiting place,” impotent as we watch, hope and yes, wait. I’m a psychiatrist, musician, and educator, who fancied herself a loving, competent and dedicated mother with resources, knowledge and support. But I found myself exactly there when our daughter, Hannah, began experimenting with older, unsupervised peers, drugs and alcohol during middle school. Her grades started to slide, and her distress increased, along with irritability and anger towards me. Therapy, doctor’s appointments, testing, tutoring, a psychiatrist, and a school switch ensued.
She generally seemed better, and despite some lingering irritability, academic struggles, and the occasional bong or alcohol we found in her room, which we told ourselves were “normal,” we thought Hannah was basically headed in a positive direction. Then, during her junior year of High School, on the eve of Trump’s 2016 election to the presidency, I found a bag of pills in her room. She swore she was just keeping them there for “a friend who really needs them for his anxiety and ADHD,” but whose parents didn’t believe in medication. She thought I would understand and support his need. Over the next year and a half, she wrecked two of our cars, miraculously without hurting anyone, and pushed me further away. We spent money, time, and energy in the most effective and creative ways we could fathom, trying to steer her toward success, wellness, college, and us.
We all celebrated the day Hannah received her early acceptance letter to Tulane University. Our sights were on her future, and it appeared brighter than it had looked in a long time. “Banana Bread” is the story of my attempt to nurture, steer, and love her during our preparation for the trip to New Orleans. Sooner or later, I’d get out of this waiting place.
