I was engaged to be married before leaving for Air Force bootcamp when I found out I was pregnant. The recruiter told me “good luck, I can’t talk to you anymore” and hung up on me. I left my fiance a week before the wedding (you can read about that when you read about me). I was living with him in San Francisco, and working a manual labor job. So suddenly, here I was, single, pregnant, homeless, and unable to work because there was no “light duty”.
When I met Harry in 2006, my entire world came into focus. I never wanted to be a mom. But in that moment, I knew that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Harry’s story starts just a little before that – about 6 hours to be exact.
When Harry was born, I was pretty out of it – exhausted and disoriented. All I knew was they weren’t letting me see him. And they seemed… focused. Too focused. Apparently, he wasn’t getting enough oxygen and wouldn’t pink up. So they rushed him off to the NICU before I even saw his face. I yelled at my mom to go – and not let him out of her sight. And she did. Ken stayed with me. Lily (Harry’s godmother) was in the waiting room, nervously pacing and telling the bio-donor (that’s what I call Harry’s biological father) how expensive diapers are.
One of the nurses came back shortly after they had whisked my baby away, and brought me a Polaroid of him. He knew that I was frantic with not having seen his face, and they couldn’t let me into the NICU until I was able to walk unassisted. I made myself get up and move around as soon as they let me, and eventually got to go see him. They needed to monitor him for a day or two to make sure he was truly okay.
My entire life changed that day. Harry became my whole world. We went everywhere together – trips to the grocery store, mornings at the coffee shop, afternoons in the park. I worked nights and Ken worked days, so we didn’t need to put him in daycare, which was good because we really couldn’t afford to. But Harry was my little buddy.
When he was four, he told me he wanted to be a chef when he grew up. Cute! I thought for sure that in a couple weeks, he’d want to be a doctor or a policeman or something. But he didn’t. When he was 5 or 6, he brought home an art project – a paper gingerbread man he made at school. That looked like Guy Fieri. With spiky hair and backward sunglasses and everything. And I knew. He was serious about this “chef” thing. So I started teaching him how to cook. We cooked a couple of normal meals together to test the waters – nothing fancy – just pan-fried chicken with Rice-a-Roni and sauteed asparagus. And when I realized he was still serious, I told him “ok, but if you’re going to do this, you’re going to do it right. Nothing out of a box. Nothing in the microwave. Everything has to be fresh ingredients, cooked right.” And that’s what started the journey.
We got him cooking classes whenever we could afford it (which wasn’t often). We taught him everything we knew in the kitchen. We watched endless hours of Food Network. And when we ran out of things to teach him, we gave him mystery baskets (Chopped-style) to get creative with. Those started when he was 8. EIGHT YEARS OLD and I couldn’t teach him anything he didn’t already know. When we moved to Washington, we could FINALLY afford to get him some cooking classes! So we signed him up for a summer cooking camp. I was so excited when I picked him up that first day. And he said “it was cool, but mom… I already know all that stuff”. He was too young for classes that could challenge him.
And I found the Puget Sound Skills Center. This amazing program that 4 different districts feed into. A program that kids could participate in while in high school – and earn high school credits to learn a REAL skill. One of the programs they offered was a culinary program. These kids run a restaurant that is open to the public. They cook, they clean, they serve. It was perfect. So when Ken and I bought our house, one of the things that drew us to this specific one was that the school district participated with PSSC. And that meant that when he got to high school, he could do culinary school – real deal culinary school.
Fast forward to 2020. The pandemic.
This poor kid. The single most foundational part of adolescence – the transition from middle school to high school – happened in lockdown. We had just started giving him more independence and freedom… and now we had to take it all away. It probably felt like whiplash. I’m a firm believer that the two groups that got the worst of the pandemic are the ones who started high school in lockdown, and the ones who ended it in lockdown. The two most important points in a teenager’s life. And Harry did not respond well.
He railed against school. It was boring. It was stupid. It was pointless. And he was probably mostly right, given the sudden shift to online learning that no district was truly ready for. But that didn’t change that he needed to do it.
The first two years of high school were not eligible for participation in PSSC – they can’t do the program until their junior year. But they could do a mini-session over the summer to see if they liked it. And he did. He loved it. So he did PSSC for the remaining two years. He graduated with a certification from the American Culinary Federation.
He once told me that he can almost taste what’s going to happen before he cooks it, and it was so beautiful to witness what happens when a person truly experiences what they were meant to do.
He moved out and rented an apartment with a friend a couple hours away from home for about a year. Then he moved back home to figure it out. We had some rough years through high school, but we’re getting back to a healthy relationship now. And I couldn’t be happier. I am so proud of this kid, and it damn near killed me when we were not good.
But he’s the one who first gave me the name “mom”. He carries half my heart with him everywhere he goes.
If you’re reading this, Harry, know that I love you. I am proud of you. And everything you’ve accomplished. Even if you don’t think you’ve accomplished anything, I know better. And I know the world has no idea what is coming when you figure out what you want to do with your talents.
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