You’re invited to celebrate my late husband’s life by being #dammkind to each other

From Saturday's Briefing:

My family and I are hosting a birthday party, and you’re all invited.

You don’t have to RSVP or even drive out to our house because you can celebrate wherever you are.

On Nov. 4, we will remember my late husband with 51 Acts of Kindness, marking what would have been Steve’s 51st birthday. You can join in by performing an act of kindness for a family member, friend, colleague or even a stranger. (Those are some of the most mischievous and fun acts of kindness.)

The tradition began in my attempt to make November more cheerful for my children. On the first birthday without Steve here on earth, about 100 friends and family members met at the neighborhood park to release balloons and notes in memory of Steve. It’s just what 8-year-old Cooper and 4-year-old Katie needed.

I didn’t plan the next birthday well. When Steve would have been 42, there was no gathering or celebration. Just the three of us, a chocolate cake and tears. I vowed then to make 43 better.

In 2011, Cooper, Katie and I hatched a plan to perform 43 acts of kindness, one for each year since Steve’s birth. But we were afraid we couldn’t accomplish that many on our own, so we used social media to ask for help. That year there were more than 400 acts of kindness performed in memory of Steve, and we’ve been celebrating that way ever since.

I offer cards online that folks print in case they want to leave behind an explanation of their act of kindness:

This gift is given in memory of Steve Damm, who would have been 51 on Nov. 4, 2019. His life was cut short by brain cancer, but his legacy continues. Steve loved art and baseball, his family and friends, goofiness and laughter. He loved kindness, and he loved life. I’m happy to share some of that life with you!

And then, because no party is complete without a hashtag — and because it’s a shame to waste a good last name — I add #dammkind for good measure.

For the first time, our little family is divided between Texas and Alabama, as Cooper will be knee-deep in calculus and computer programming on the big day. While Katie and I share kindness in Frisco, Cooper will introduce our tradition to Auburn University.

Most years we bake and deliver the goodies to friends and neighbors. We give small gift cards to teachers. We make donations to our favorite nonprofits. We leave an unexpectedly generous tip at dinner. We deliver flowers to senior centers, asking that they be given to a resident who needs a little sunshine.

Kindness doesn’t have to cost a penny, though. We’ve held doors open, picked up debris along the greenbelt and walked newspapers from the sidewalk to the front porch up and down our street. Some people choose to spend time with someone who’s lonely or ill. Others clean out closets and donate clothes and supplies to people in need.

There are thousands of people in Dallas who could use an extra dose of kindness this year, as they continue to recover from losses suffered in the Oct. 20 tornados. The North Texas Food Bank, the Salvation Army, the city of Dallas’ emergency assistance fund and the Dallas Foundation are all accepting donations to help with immediate needs or rebuilding. Many area churches and denominations are coordinating efforts, as well.

Strong communities rely on neighbors to share burdens as readily as they celebrate success. Steve’s birthday is my favorite day of the year, thanks to the hundreds of people who embrace the possibilities of kindness and who create joy for others. I would be honored if you choose to join us, too, wherever you may be.

Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. She can be reached at tyradamm@gmail.com.

How my high-schooler is dealing with dyslexia, a year-round, nonstop kind of life

From Saturday's Briefing:

It’s impossible to miss Breast Cancer Awareness Month and its frenzy of pink. We are, apparently, also in the middle of International Walk to School Month, National Dental Hygiene Month, National Stamp Collecting Month and about 100 other various special interest celebrations.

October is also Dyslexia Awareness Month, though as anyone who lives with dyslexia can attest, you don’t need 31 days set aside to remember. It’s a year-round, nonstop kind of life that affects an estimated 10% of the population — and there is no cure.

I don’t have dyslexia myself, but as a classroom teacher and mom to two children with the learning disability, I often feel like I’m in the trenches.

Both of my children were diagnosed in elementary school, Cooper in the middle of fourth grade and Katie in the middle of third. Neither showed what I thought were obvious symptoms. They seemed to not only understand texts but could ask insightful questions, make inferences and explain their new learning. Both enjoyed reading, and honestly, there wasn’t much of a choice in our home. We devoted hours each week to board books and picture books, poetry and novels. Stacks of books punctuate every room of our home.

Yet there were struggles at school and with homework. We’d spend a frustrating number of hours studying for spelling tests, only for those words to fall out of their heads the next day. Copying words from the board or a worksheet was a painful experience. Details such commas and capitalization often went unnoticed.

Even after two years of daily intervention at school and many more years of
developing coping skills and strategies, challenges remain — as expected.
One has more difficulty than the other with written expression. One needs
more time and repetition to process nonfiction.

Yet Cooper has incredible spatial awareness and the ability to construct and innovate.
Katie thinks and speaks, writes and empathizes with the heart of a poet.

They both have to work harder than most of their peers, and despite extra hours of
reading, thinking and studying, they rarely earn grades that reflect that additional
effort.

They’re developing layers and layers of resiliency.

The transition this year for Katie from middle school to high school has
been understandably tough for all the reasons that incoming ninth-graders toil. New
building, different expectations and increasingly difficult classes. She learned quickly
that her old study habits wouldn’t support her new coursework, and I was reminded
that she needed extra help at home.

After some trial and error, she’s found a method that’s working for memorizing new
vocabulary. She creates flashcards early in the unit and relies on repetition — reading
the words and definitions to herself, reading them aloud, answering my questions
at breakfast and dinner. Last-minute cramming isn’t an option.

Katie studied for hours for a single human geography vocabulary test. Demographic
transition models, migration patterns, pro-natalist policies — she’s got them covered
(and I’m not so bad at them myself). I wept and cheered when I received her text
reporting her test score: 96.

I remind my children — my two Damm kids plus the 73 seventh-graders I teach this
year — that everyone is carrying some kind of burden. Some challenges are obvious —
complete with T-shirts, bumper stickers and rubber bracelets — but many are hidden.
Our community is a better place when we offer grace and compassion to
everyone, allowing room for named and unnamed struggles.

There’s nothing wrong with a month of awareness to teach the world about a hobby,
condition or disease. Yet there is power in living each day with awareness and
compassion for everyone and whatever weighs them down.

Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. She can be reached 
at tyradamm@gmail.com.

Hard-working Katie

While my son is off forging his own adventures at Auburn, we have a lot to celebrate here in Texas

From Saturday's Briefing:

Daily life is quieter at the Damm house. As the wise philosopher and meerkat Timon sings in The Lion King, "Our trio's down to two."

Cooper left for Auburn University in early August, and while he is adjusting to sharing a dorm room, doing his own laundry, rustling up some grub, navigating college coursework, making new friends — basically launching a new life — little sister Katie and I are adjusting to life without him.

That means fewer loads of laundry and fewer groceries to buy. There are fewer moments that I need to knock on his door and holler, "It's time to get up!" followed 10 minutes later by, "Seriously. Get up now!"

His absence means that we're solely responsible for taking out the trash and remembering to place the bins at the end of the driveway on Tuesday nights for early Wednesday morning pickup. We're down to one driver in the house — and one adult who can pick up the dry cleaning or make a late-night run for emergency ice cream.

I do get unsolicited text messages ("What's the Amazon code?" and "Thanks for sending the snacks!" and "Can my khaki pants go in the washing machine?"). We talk on the phone at least once a week.

But we're missing his daily running commentary on classes, peer antics, current events and music. I miss Saturday morning cross country meets. I miss his "Love you," said every single time I left the house or he left the house or one of us went to bed.

I find solace in the joy I hear in his voice when discussing engaging classes, stories from his civil rights book club and his project work with Engineers Without Borders. He's made friends. He attends home football games and socials. He works out at the rec center. He has plans for an Appalachian Trail hiking and camping adventure.

He says that his tough high school coursework prepared him for freshman year (a relief, especially now that Katie is in the throes of that work now). He seems to be — as far as I know — going to class, studying and turning in projects.

He has found his home at Auburn.

As Katie and I adjust to our new normal (and count the days until Thanksgiving break), I'm reminded that her time here at home is fleeting. When Cooper comes home for Christmas break, she'll be halfway through ninth grade. Experience tells me her high school years will fly by.

The passage of time isn't lost on my 14-year-old, either. To celebrate the first day of autumn, she created a fall 2019 bucket list, with an ambitious number of activities — 29 to be exact — to complete before winter dawns.

Her illustrated list includes reading books on a rainy day, volunteering at our church pumpkin patch, eating candy corn, taking a hayride, enjoying a Harry Potter movie marathon and walking through a haunted house. (I'm hoping to outsource that last item. Or maybe just sit in the car.)

Katie's list symbolizes more than an affinity for fall. It's a reminder that while Cooper is off forging his own adventures, we've got a lot to celebrate here in Texas. We can exist in the dichotomy of missing him and creating our own memories at the same time.

So while Cooper is cheering for the Tigers and shouting "War Eagle!" at Jordan-Hare Stadium, Katie and I will be looking for a corn maze, sipping apple cider and burning fall candles. And I'll be counting the days until his plane lands in Dallas.

Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. She can be reached at tyradamm@gmail.com.

Katie's fall 2019 list