Chapter 1 Even as a young girl, I knew that my mother''s beeper signaled something incredibly important. She wore the beeper when it was her turn to be one of the pediatricians on call for the Cincinnati Children''s Hospital. My sister, brother, and I might be watching The Muppet Show while my mom made her wonderful spaghetti sauce, the enticing smell filling the house. She liked to sing as she cooked, adding a cheery background to dinnertime. Suddenly the shrill alarm of the beeper would shatter the pleasant calm. Mom would turn the beeper off and call the hospital using the wall phone in the kitchen. She''d stretch the spiraled phone cord to move as far from us as possible and hear the person on the other end clearly. Even so, Dad would say, "Turn it down.
Mom''s got a beep. She''s on the phone!" We went quiet in an instant. We knew it was serious business. She would hang up and, many times, head out to the hospital. In my young mind I envisioned her rushing to the bedside of a sick child suffering a dire medical emergency. Dad would take over cooking, and we would go back to watching TV. Still, it would linger, the same thought every time: "Wow, my mom is important. She''s going to go save a life right now.
" It was my earliest brush with how service to others translated to action. My mother was a healer, had chosen to be a doctor. People--children--counted on her. She took that obligation to heart. She was my strongest influence and most powerful role model. Mom, the oldest of eight kids, had been struck with polio when she was ten years old. She survived, but the disease left her with a leg that was largely useless. She drag-limped it as she walked.
Regardless, she refused to let it stop her or even slow her down. She exemplified the determination of pure will. At a point in history when few women even went to college, my mom went to medical school and became a pediatrician. I''m sure there were days when she would have loved to let that call go, to ignore the beeper. Times when she was tired from a long day of seeing patients, checking homework, and reining in three kids. There must have been evenings when all she wanted was to sit down on the sofa, take a breath, and stare out the window. That is surely true, but I never once heard my mom complain. Not about the beeper, her work, or her leg.
She had important things to do, and those things required sacrifices. She had made the choice to serve, and as far as she was concerned, there was no other option. You put your head down, and you got on with it. That dedication was coupled with a keen mind. She has always been one of the smartest, most thoughtful people I''ve ever known. She taught her children to constantly question the world around them. We were raised to always be respectful but never take anything at face value. She showed me that the only true limitations are the ones we impose on ourselves.
Safe to say I would never have so tenaciously pursued my dream of being a fighter pilot had she not been such an example of possibility realized. Her immense inner strength, quick mind, faith, and love of family were deep values she shared with my father. They were both compassionate, strong people of durable religious belief, faithful but forever intellectually curious. My mom was short and huggable, with a beautiful smile. Dad was a sturdy man whom people knew they could lean on for support. He, too, had immense inner strength matched by a physical heartiness. He was built thick and strong, with a laborer''s beefy hands. He had brown curly, almost frizzy hair and an unruly beard and mustache that framed a quick and infectious smile.
He loved a good practical joke. He once parked our station wagon down the street while we were asleep and replaced it in the garage with a look-alike toy car. He told my five-year-old brother, Matt, that the car had shrunk and tried to contain his laughter as Matt''s eyes grew wide. It was his lighter side, and his eyes often danced behind the Coke-bottle lenses of his glasses as he looked for an opportunity to have some fun at our expense. He loved people and enjoyed life. He was also one of the most gregarious people you might ever meet. Visitors to our home would barely get their coats off before they had a beer in their hand and my father was coaxing a story out of them. That didn''t mean he lacked a serious side.
Like my mom, he was a person of service and faith. He was particularly passionate about knowledge--increasing his own and helping others learn. He taught English for forty years at Roger Bacon High School in Cincinnati. He carefully balanced the striking contradictions in his life, the rigorous pursuit of empirical wisdom and the leap of faith involved in his Catholic beliefs. He had once been a seminarian and an aspiring priest. Though he''d given up that path, it didn''t temper the flame of religious devotion that burned inside him. He embraced it with a New Testament joy and compassion. I never heard him proselytize, and he rarely talked about Catholic doctrine at all.
He simply lived his faith. He studied his Bible and went to church--with the family in tow--every Sunday without fail and on holy days throughout the year. It was no coincidence that the people who most showered me with love were also faithful churchgoers and devout believers. They embraced their religion in a deeply thoughtful way. It grounded me in my own. The role models for faith didn''t stop at my mother and father. My parents were friends with a couple named Ron and Kathy Eckerle. My mom mentioned to Ron that she was looking at day-care options.
Ron told her, "Well, my mom is looking for work and she loves kids. She''s a housekeeper as well." That simple interaction was how I came to know one of the most influential people in my early life. As young as my brother, sister, and I were, we couldn''t pronounce "Eckerle," so she became and always would be "Mrs. Eck." She was my nanny when I was three and four and picked me up after classes once I started attending the local Montessori school. She showed me boundless patience and affection. My early role models all gave me the space and guidance to learn, think, and come to grips with my own beliefs.
I was never going to be a worshipper who blindly followed church doctrine or literal interpretations of the Bible. The support I had helped me question everything without ever losing my faith. Something is there, I''m sure of it. Sometimes the light burns bright, and sometimes it barely flickers. Mrs. Eck gave me one more example of living to the brightness. It was my father, though, who most nurtured my spiritual beliefs. He created a living, breathing Catholicism that made faith seem accessible and relevant.
Some of my fondest memories are of sitting in the front pew at St. Mary''s Cathedral in Covington, watching Dad read a passage from the scripture. He served as a reader, a layperson who read scriptures to the congregation prior to the sermon proper. He projected his deep, strong voice, reaching those at the very back of that cavernous cathedral. We lead best when we lead by example, and my father showed me how faith translates into action. Every Good Friday, I would join him in quietly "climbing the steps at Mount Adams," an honored tradition local to the Cincinnati area. We would stop at each step to silently recite a Hail Mary or Our Father. It would take an honest hour to reach the top step and then enter the church for more prayers.
There was a joy in my father as we made that pilgrimage every year. It was solemn but uplifting. That, and so many occasions like it, taught me that faith could be a verb. Both my parents instructed me, clearly, that I shouldn''t think of Catholicism as the "right way" or the "only way," but that it was "our way." They were accepting of other religions as different but equal, not lesser. It would open me to the world, and one of my best friends at Mercy Montessori was Jewish. Her family invited me to their Hanukkah ceremony, and I was excited to go. It was fascinating to me to watch a family just as devout as mine pray in Hebrew.
That early framework would stick with me and open me to other cultures when I encountered them overseas as a Marine. Of course, for a young, energetic girl, life is not all prayers and devotion. From a young age I loved to move. I relished the feel of my body responding to my commands. I wanted to climb trees and run like the wind. I was also competitive, and I welcomed the physical challenge of sports, especially against tough opponents. Seeing my mother struggle with her disability made me forever appreciate the fact that I had two good legs, and two good arms, that I could do without thinking things she could never hope to do. I was lucky to have good health and was going to use my body to its full advantage.
That made me an unapologetic tomboy. Fortunately, I lived in a town and grew up with parents who didn''t judge or force me to be something I wasn''t. I''m sure that Edgewood, Kentucky, had its share of small minds; every place does. But the people who mattered most to me were fine with me being exactly who I was--a budding athlete, an independent-minded competitor who gave no quarter on any field. My older sister, Janie, had a mean backstroke in the pool, wrote beautiful poetry and engaging, entertaining stories, and loved playing with Barbies. That wasn''t for me. Those activities didn''t speak to me the way they enchanted her. I enjoyed the swing of a bat, kicking a goal, or sledding at breakneck speeds down the steep hill of our long backyard.
That''s how I became my brother Matt''s smaller shadow and his athletic protégée. It never failed that Matt would be one of the captains for.