PER FEC T CH AOS .

Copyright © 2012 by Linea Johnson and Cinda

Johnson. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of
America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth
Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Design by Gretchen Achilles

ISBN 978- 0-312-58182- 4

First Edition: May 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 1. nostalgia

cinda I am one of those moms who worry. My job from

the moment I held each of my two precious baby girls in my
arms was to keep them safe. Whether from my own sense of
fragility in the world or some constant premonition of dan-
ger, keeping my children safe is a guiding light of my parent-
ing. From my earliest years I was a caretaker. My mother was
often ill while I was growing up and, as the oldest child, I
became watchful and learned that a girl needs to be on her
toes to assure safety. My skills as a caretaker and worrier con-
tinued when I had my own two daughters. I now had two
lives to protect, and I took to it with enthusiasm, often to the
annoyance of my girls. Although worrying about their safety
has given me many sleepless nights, it may have also given
me the strength and the stamina to face the most challeng-
ing days of parenting. Worry and my basic urge to protect kept
me moving forward when I wanted to quit.
I would guess that to the outside world looking in, my
family seems fairly typical. We are a family of four plus one
more. Curt and I have two daughters, Jordan and Linea. Cliff
became our son when he and Jordan were married. We live in

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and around Seattle, where it doesn’t rain nearly as often as

most people think. We are educated but not particularly
wealthy when compared to our tiny corner of the world in
which we live, but vastly wealthy compared to the world as a
whole. Both my husband and I chose fields of study and pro-
fessions where the dollars aren’t large but the work is reward-
ing. We are in “caring professions”— I am a professor in the
field of special education and Curt is a vocational rehabilita-
tion counselor working primarily with patients with spinal
cord injuries. He works at the University of Washington Med-
ical Center, providing support to some of the most severely
injured people from all over Washington, the Northwest, the
nation and, often, the world.
Sometimes I think I chose my profession to secure skills
and training that would further protect my family from
whatever dangers might be out there. (I do know that the
experiences in the forthcoming pages solidified my commit-
ment to my work.) I am a professor at Seattle University, six
miles across the city from Curt’s office. We both work in the
area of disability, disease, pain, and heartache; him on a daily
basis, me with a slim buffer of graduate students and profes-
sionals between my office and the field. His office is on the
same floor as patients who are new to catastrophic injuries
and illness or are fighting the long haul of chronic disability.
I teach graduate students in special education, school psy-
chology, and counseling, and conduct research in the field of
disability. In addition to my work with students and schools,

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 nostalgia

I often work directly with families and individuals with barri-

ers and challenges in their lives. I get phone calls, emails, and
visits from students and parents lost in the maze of disability,
trying to find their way out, in search of any help they can
find. I was really good at providing advice. I was “profes-
sional.” I knew the resources, the connections, and the steps
to take. I offered information, suggestions, and sympathy.
Looking back, I realize how little I knew from a personal per-
spective and how different it is to be lost in the maze of find-
ing help for my own child while overwhelmed with an intense
fear that I could lose her. I didn’t know nearly as much as I
thought I did.
As with most couples who have been together for many
years, the traits that first attract you to your mate are often
the very same characteristics that irritate you after a few
years of marriage and then eventually come front and center
again as a focus of love and appreciation. I was attracted to
Curt’s great strength, loyalty, and commitment. These qualities
can also present as stubbornness and tenacity, which have
made the females in our household angry with him at one
time or another. Yet his steadfastness is one of the reasons
we all love him: He is there for us, we can count on him. And
while he often tells me how strong I am, he is the strength in
our family. We couldn’t have made it through those difficult
years without him. His stubbornness and tenacity are what
held us all together.
Jordan Suzanne is our older daughter. She is seven and a

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half years older than Linea, and so growing up, Linea often
had one and a half mothers. Jordan has always been intensely
protective of her little sister. Jordan was a fierce girl and grew
into a fierce woman whose beauty is a cover for her strength.
She might look fragile, but she is not. She buries her fears
deeply. She uses her superpowers when necessary and her wits
and guile the rest of the time.
Jordan does not particularly like the display of strong
emotions, particularly if tears are involved (even though she
spent the two hours before and during her wedding crying
from happiness). Jordan holds her feelings inside while she
projects her very competent self to the world. She is strongly
caring, loving, and kind, though she’d prefer that you didn’t
know it. But she has never been able to fool me or anyone
else who knows her.
Art and music have always been part of our lives together.
Jordan earned a degree in fine arts and has her own business.
A gifted artist with creativity that springs from a vivid imagi-
nation, she paints, creates murals, and teaches art.
My daughters have always been close as sisters, sharing a
wild sense of humor, passion for the arts, and deep love and
adoration for each other. It is my greatest joy to be part of the
girl trio of Jordan, Linea, and myself. We have spent hours
dancing, singing, playing, and laughing. We are very enter-
taining, at least to ourselves.
Jordan married a man I would have chosen as my own
son if I had been given the opportunity. Cliff is confident,

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kind, loyal, funny, smart, and handsome. He has a wicked

sense of humor that he wields deftly. He fits comfortably into
our family and provides Curt the space and male camarade-
rie in a house of women.
Linea is a musician. She plays any instrument she can get
her hands on and showed a special attraction to the piano as
soon as she was tall enough to reach the keyboard. I taught
her to play a few songs before she started school, and from
there she moved quickly to formal piano lessons. She prac-
ticed and practiced . . . and practiced some more. We never
had to bribe, threaten, or even ask her. From an early age, she
learned to play the viola, the guitar, and any other instru-
ments with strings. She began music lessons in grade school,
played in orchestras in middle and high school, and attended
orchestra camps during the summer, where she experimented
with more instruments. Music is a passion and sheer joy
for her.
Linea also has the voice of an angel. In grade school she
was known for her singing; she forced her friends into pro-
ductions of Phantom of the Opera, Cats, The Wizard of Oz, and
any other musical that caught her ear. She carried around a
shoe box containing recordings and programs of the selected
musical-of-the-month, which she produced on the playground
during recess.
When Linea was ten years old and still going by her nick-
name of “Mia,” we moved from a school district with only
four hundred students total in kindergarten through twelfth

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 perfect chaos

grade to Western Washington. Her new middle school had

more than six hundred students in the sixth to eighth grades,
but the move didn’t slow Linea down at all. In the first year
of middle school, Linea walked onto the stage and introduced
herself to an audience larger than her entire previous grade
school. Holding a cordless mike, she said, “Hi, I’m Linea,”
and sang a hauntingly beautiful solo. Sitting in the audience,
my hands were sweating with anxiety. I would never have
had the nerve to do that!
Afterward, Linea said to me, “I told you I wanted to be a
singer. Now can I take voice lessons?” Soon she added voice,
viola, and guitar lessons to the piano lessons she began in
elementary school. As she got older, she concentrated more
and more on piano and voice.
In addition to her music, Linea played softball and basket-
ball from an early age and continued into high school. She
was headstrong, persistent, and competitive in music, sports,
and school. But she was kind and very sensitive to her friends
and their needs. Her sensitivity was acute and she was easily
hurt by injustice, both real and perceived, to her friends and
even strangers.
My description of young Linea may sound completely un-
realistic, too good to be true, and you might be asking if as her
mother I am exaggerating. But my description is accurate—
Linea was preternaturally talented and hardworking; she was
kind, loving, and a joy to be around. Later I wondered if her
tenacity and ambition in music and sports may have been a

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detriment, as she pushed herself to extremes so as to do

everything the best. I also wondered if her unwillingness to
give up may have saved her as she later fought to live. In a
million years we could not have guessed what was in store
for her.
Things were more difficult when Linea started high school.
Competition was fierce, as in all large high schools. There
were competitive spots for sports and for music, and tryouts
for both were nerve-racking. Everyone was working on appli-
cations for college and counting the number of star positions
they held. Even the hours of community ser vice were com-
petitive and seemed to be more for résumé padding than for
actual ser vice. Her freshman year was successful and she ap-
peared able to do it all. She was consistently on the honor roll
with her grades, and she sang in honor choirs and ensembles,
performed in shows and musicals, and played softball.
As a sophomore, she hit a wall—it became impossible for
her to continue with all of her activities. She was pitching for
the varsity fast-pitch softball team and simultaneously adding
more commitments in musical performances, ensembles, and
music lessons. There were simply not enough hours in the day
to participate in both sports and music to the degree to which
she wanted. The stress was taking its toll. She wasn’t sleeping
well, and she had times when she couldn’t stop crying. I now
know these were anxiety attacks, but at the time, I was amazed
at how well she managed everything most of the time.
We spent hours talking about how to simplify her life,

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 perfect chaos

and I offered her all the help that I could. I wanted her to be
kinder to herself. I encouraged her to let some things go and
wanted her to know that all she had to do was just “be.” I
wanted her to know that she didn’t need to have an exact goal
for her future, and that her activities could be just for fun and
not to assure a scholarship to a prestigious music program. I
compared her anxieties to those of Jordan’s at the same age
and wondered and worried if I should do more . . . but more
what? I questioned whether we had pushed her into overex-
celling with our pride in her successes. As parents we think
we are supposed to give praise for things well done. Had we
given her the message that she had to achieve all of this for
us to be proud of her? Did I somehow help her define “per-
fect”? I worried and tried to reassure myself that this was a
normal progression through adolescence. My worries would
escalate and then suddenly she would feel better for a while—
or at least I thought she did.
I knew she was struggling with too many commitments
and too much pressure. It was difficult for her to decide what
activities to leave behind. The professionals in her life didn’t
make it any easier. When she decided to quit sports, her coach
pulled her aside and tried to talk Linea into continuing. The
same pressure came from her music teachers, who pushed her
to hang on to everything she was doing. She had the talent to
excel in many areas but simply not enough time. When Linea
finally made the hard decision to let sports go, she quickly

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 nostalgia

filled every hour with music. She seemed unable to leave any
empty space in her schedule.
While she was trying to figure out what to do with her own
young life, her friends were also struggling. Her sleepless nights
were often full of worry for her them and the things they had
confided in her and she had sworn to secrecy. She tried des-
perately to fix their problems, problems of which parents were
not likely aware. One of her biggest fears was about her best
friend, Chrisy.

linea Sophomore year— I am lying on the grass in the

backyard, on an old cotton blanket big enough to hold me, ten
books, two journals, two pillows, sunscreen, and some home-
work. I’m in my swimsuit even though I know that sunbathing
doesn’t always do well with my fair skin. I need this lake of soft
green grass. This big blue sky. This cocoon of evergreens. I need
them because I feel happier this way. At least a tiny bit.
Two days ago, I told my favorite schoolteacher about Chrisy’s
problem. I told her because I thought she would understand,
because I was sure she would never jeopardize my relationship
with my best friend by letting her know I was the one who told.
But somehow I was the one waiting in the office when Chrisy
was pulled from class in the middle of the day. I was the one
blamed for the humiliation she felt when she was forced to ex-
pose the obvious scars on her arms, for having to leave the

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 perfect chaos

school counseling office crying in front of our classmates, when

I was forced to take her to her car to get her Swiss Army knife,
when I was told to take her, crying, into her classroom to gather
her things. It was my fault that everyone knew. It was my fault
that the unprofessional high school counselor called Chrisy’s
mother at work and told her that her daughter had been cut-
ting. And it was my fault that Chrisy was never going to talk to
me again.
I had to tell. I had watched through the weeks as the scars
crawled farther down her arm and deeper into her wrist. I watched
as she shut the door to the bathroom in front of me and told me
to walk away. She told me not to worry about it. She told me it
was only a phase. I watched when she told me she wasn’t going
to commit suicide because, well, you had to cut this way and not
that way. (That will never leave my mind. I will forever know how
to slit my wrists.) I had to tell.
So I sit here in my backyard, bobbing my feet to some stupid
radio hit. My hair in a high tight ponytail, my red polka- dot bi-
kini barely hanging on. I sit here and wonder. What is happening
to Chrisy at this exact moment? What did her parents say? What
does she do behind shut doors? Who does she talk to for sup-
port now that I no longer exist in her life?

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