Pah-Tah-Kah

This is an archived post that was originally published at beyond-terminal.com

Six years ago Dan and I learned that our daughter Kate scored low on the articulation test that toddlers take at their two-year-old wellness check-up. We ended up taking Kate to see an audiologist and ENT, at which time we learned that she wasn’t hearing unless a nerve behind her ear was stimulated by an electrode.

It turned out that Kate had a lot of uninfected fluid in her ears that was inhibiting her ability to hear. We got her scheduled for surgery to insert tubes soon after and then she began what would end up being close to two years of speech therapy. The speech therapist recommended that I attend the sessions with Kate so that I could reinforce what Kate was learning. I was happy to do so – and it was jarring as it took me right back to my childhood.

As you’ll see below, I attended speech therapy when I was sick as a child. I definitely had a sense of déjà vu as I sat in the room with Kate and the speech therapist.

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This passage follows the last excerpt and is from a reformatted chapter titled “The Start of School.” It’s my first year of teaching.

Those first couple of months of school teaching were wonderful and exhausting. There was no doubt that I was out to prove myself, but wasn’t that always the case? 

When I arrived home at the end of the school day, I usually was too tired to exercise. So, I gradually let go of running, one of my most important lifelines, something that I had fought so hard to regain all those years ago. Something I thought I would never give up again.

Things were going well though, at least in terms of how people viewed my teaching aptitude. People thought I was good at what I did. I was a first-rate teacher, even as a first-year teacher. This made me feel good.

But when I started preparing for conferences, I could feel my confidence sliding.

I knew I could trick kids into thinking I had never been sick, but parents? Parents were another story. They couldn’t be tricked as easily. I carried this fear that somehow the stain of my illness still could be detected by those who were discerning. And I feared that those parents who noticed this stain wouldn’t want me to be their kids’ teacher anymore.

A big part of me knew this way of thinking was irrational, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that my illness had left me tainted, somehow “less than.”

The night before conferences, these worries of mine amplified so much that I knew I needed to do something to relieve the restless energy that had hitched itself inside my chest. But what could I do? What did I need to do to convince myself that I wasn’t going to look stupid in front of these parents?

A suggestion entered my mind, and I shook my head in response, as though I was dueling with my inner self. But the suggestion couldn’t be swept away. It begged to be listened to, heeded.

I let out an audible sigh, disgusted that this was the solution.

Yet I went to the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror, my eyes glinting with scorn as I looked at my image. And I said it. I said the dumb phrase that I learned in speech therapy over 20 years ago.

“Pah-tah-kah, pah-tah-kah, pah-tah-kah.” I said it so many times I lost count.

And then, against my wishes, I traveled back in time and re-lived a memory I hoped I had removed from my consciousness.

“All right,” Pat, my speech therapist, says, “the last thing I’m going to do today is teach you a phrase that should help you work on different sounds. Okay? It goes like this: Pah-tah-kah, pah-tah-kah. Now you say it.”

“Pah.” I take a breath and then add, “tah-kah” slowly.

“Good. Now try to say it all together.” Pat’s gold cross necklace grazes against the table as she leans forward to hear me better. I look around the room and wonder where God is in all of this before I redirect my attention.

“Pah-tah.” I pause. “Kah.” It’s a lot to try to coordinate.

“Okay. Now I’d like you to place your hand over my mouth so you can feel the air coming out.” Pat guides my hand so that it’s a couple of inches away from her mouth. She makes the same sounds, but draws them out this time, holding onto the “a” sound in each syllable for three seconds. I feel the warmth of her breath on my hand.

“Now you try, just like that. Put your hand over your mouth and feel your own breath.”

This is so embarrassing, but I do it. I want to get better. I desperately do. So I place my hand two inches away from my mouth and say, “Paaah. Taaah. Kaaah.” I lower my head when I’m done.

The pressure inside of my chest had subsided by now, but I couldn’t escape the heaviness that had overtaken me and left me feeling an inch shorter. This was what I needed to do to convince myself that I was fine, just fine?

I was angry that this little girl kept demanding attention. I thought I had made it abundantly clear that I had wanted to make a clean cut from her.
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In upcoming posts, you’ll see that I’m eventually diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. There’s nothing pretty about PTSD. My one saving grace is that I processed the majority of this post-trauma prior to having children.

I believe that a big reason I wasn’t re-triggered when I took Kate to speech therapy is because I finally was at a point where I recognized the importance of giving voice to my experiences and fears. I knew that, as scary as it was to talk about this stuff, it was better than stuffing it down and having it come out sideways.