Hope and Other Luxuries (80 page)

“That's great!” I said. “You know he's in love with you, right?”

“Mom, we're just really good friends.”

After the holiday, she called me up again: “How do you
know
these things?”

It's simple. I think of Elena, and I ask myself:
What bright young man wouldn't love her?
Answer:
Nobody!

That's how I know.

A year after this holiday, almost to the day, the two of them got married. I have never seen Elena looking happier than she looked on that day. She absolutely glowed with happiness.

In order to be with her new husband, Elena decided to put her nursing career on hold. His job requires constant travel, so she has settled down to keep house in a hotel suite. Elena, turning away from quantifiable perfection to nurture a loving relationship—that's an idea I like to run barefoot through every now and then.

Naturally, this transition wasn't without its tearful moments. Elena could have sold her finest fish for an excellent price, but she gave them away instead—all one hundred and thirty-six fish—on the condition that the least valuable ones would be treated as well as the best ones. She and her husband still have her little dog with them in the hotel. Her cat, Leela, came to Germany to live with Joe and me, so once again, a black cat snoozes nearby as I write.

I rewrote Elena's memoir,
Elena Vanishing
, three agonizing times. Each time I revised it, I reminded myself that once it was finished, I would never have to go back there again. But when Chronicle Books bought it, my agent called me up.

“They'd like another memoir,” she said. “A memoir from your point of view this time. They think it would help other parents.”

So I went back there. I wasn't sure I could, but I did.

“I'm looking forward to reading this one,” Valerie says on the phone. “I can relate, being a mom and all.” She and Clint now have a family of four: Gemma and her little brother.

Baby Gemma is already five years old. And she does look a lot like me.

Valerie and Elena stay in touch daily, and so do their husbands, who have become good friends. We share videos and photos back and forth, and the girls call the house almost every single day. When the phone rings, Joe and I drop everything to get to it. We talk about anything and everything going on in their lives, except for the quarrels they may be having with their husbands. For all I know, neither one of them has any quarrels. After all, both of my sons-in-law are amazing.

Each day, as I hang up the phone, I think once again about how lucky I am—except, there's no such thing as luck. My life is so much richer because of the way my girls share their days with me, and I don't take that kind of attention for granted. My daughters have families now—priorities that outrank me. They have full, happy, and demanding lives.

So I savor each call. I celebrate each moment they share with me as the precious gift it is. Because how much longer will these two busy women be able to fit me into their days? How much longer will Valerie and Elena be able to spend this kind of time with me?

Forever, I hope . . .

I hope.

This book is an accurate description of how I dealt with my daughter's eating disorder. No part of it is intended to be a guide for how others should live. Many of the things Elena chose to do were extremely dangerous, and some of the things my husband and I chose to do were also dangerous. The contract we made Elena sign, for instance, that tied her weight to a list of privileges, could easily have driven her to suicide instead of to treatment. If you or someone you know has an eating disorder, please do not take any part of this book as a suggestion for how to handle your own journey to recovery.

If you are dealing with an eating disorder, the one thing I will advise you to do is to seek professional help. Please, do not try to manage an eating disorder on your own. These are serious, life-threatening conditions. And please, do try to educate yourself with up-to-date information. Eating disorders are complicated, and the professionals who deal with them are trying out new approaches all the time. In the years since my daughter's eating disorder began, we have seen treatments and theories change radically.

If you are just starting this journey, I suggest you visit the websites run by the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) and the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD). Their websites will help you find the latest resources available, and the caring staff and volunteers who monitor their helpline and forum can help connect you to the information you need. They will tell you what I am telling you: Recovery is real. You don't have to lose hope.

Warmest, most heartfelt thanks go first to Elena Dunkle, my daughter and coauthor on her own memoir,
Elena Vanishing
, for the incredible courage she displayed in sharing the details of her illness with me. She turned the greatest burden of her life into a gift to the world.

Special thanks to my daughter Valerie, who comes across as a hero in this book because she is; to my patient, long-suffering husband, Joe, who had to watch me live through these awful events again and again as I wrote; to my dear sons-in-law, Clint and Matt, who have always been a part of this family, even when they didn't know it yet; and to my grandchildren: you are this family's greatest joy and brightest hope.

Daniel Ladinsky, the author of Elena's favorite recovery poem, “We Should Talk about This Problem,” which is quoted in this book, turned the chore of obtaining the reprint permission into a joyful, life-affirming communication. And Erin Murphy, literary agent extraordinaire, believed in me, and she believed in this memoir. She even made me believe in it, too, and that's the greatest gift an agent can give a client.

I had just sent a note to my editor to tell her that I couldn't write this book. Then I spent an amazing evening with fellow YA author Jennifer Ziegler, and she gave me the strength to try again. I don't know how she did it. Fairy dust may well have been involved. She and her equally amazing author-husband, Chris Barton, have been my cheerleaders throughout this process. Dear friends, this book exists because of you.

And to Ginee Seo, my unbelievable editor at Chronicle—what can I even say? You had the second sight necessary to see what this book could be, even when that wasn't what I was giving you. A lesser editor would have burdened me with demands and suggestions. You didn't. You found the words to release me. You freed me to find this book inside myself, and I wrote it down for you.

Magic exists. You people are magical. I love you all.

photo credit: JOE DUNKLE

CLARE B. DUNKLE
is an award-winning author of seven acclaimed fantasy and science fiction novels, including The Hollow Kingdom Trilogy, the first book of which was a winner of the 2004 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature. A Texan (and former Texas librarian), Clare now lives in Germany, but travels often to the United States to see her family, especially her two daughters, Valerie and Elena, and her grandchildren. Find out more about Clare at
www.claredunkle.com
.