After the loss of her only child last November, Alyson Peel is reaching out to others by joining the Peace Corps to serve in Swaziland
Journeys of the heart
After the loss of her only child last November, Alyson Peel is reaching out to others by joining the Peace Corps
September 29, 2004
By LOIS PEARLMAN
FOR THE ARGUS-COURIER
"When your heart breaks, it breaks open," said Petaluma resident and former Buck Institute researcher Alyson Peel. "The trick is to keep it open."
Peel is not some new-age guru selling an instant formula for enlightenment. She is a mother who has lost her only child, and come out the other end with a deeper understanding of who she is and what she wants to do.
Last Monday she left for Swaziland and a two-year stint with the Peace Corps. Her decision to resign her well-paid position at Novato's renowned Buck Institute, and follow her heart to Africa, was born out of despair. Her son, Joel Cox, died of a sudden heart attack last November while he was in basic training for the U.S. Army reserves.
"When something like that happens, everything else falls away and you are left with 'what is meaningful in this life?' It would have been hard for me to continue on as if nothing had changed," she said.
Joel was only 19, and the kind of young man everybody loves and admires. Hundreds of young people and adults attended a memorial for him at the Phoenix Theater, organized by his many friends.
These friends, Peel said, were the glue that held her together in the months after her son died.
"Since Joel's death, these kids have literally stepped up and saved my life. I could not have put together a memorial. It (Joel's death) would have gone unmarked. Since he died, these kids have literally surrounded me. I can't go 10 minutes in this town without running into one of them. I don't even know if their parents know how extraordinary these kids are," she said.
Young people have been a recurring theme in Peel's life since she kicked an addiction to drugs and alcohol in her early 20s and began working with youngsters who were facing the same obstacles. Peel said she grew up in an alcoholic home, struggled with addiction as a teenager, and became clean and sober at the age of 22.
In her early months of recovery she volunteered with children in juvenile hall who were fighting to overcome their own addictions. Moving to Arizona from Seattle, she joined an organization called Vision Quest, a traveling wagon train treatment program for young people in recovery. She eventually became the treatment director.
"We went across the country, 15 miles a day, with everything we owned in a duffel bag," she recalled. "The last wagon train was 11-and-a-half months of traveling and sleeping in the dirt. There were 90 kids. It was an alternative (for the kids) to incarceration."
After the last trip, she settled down, married her childhood sweetheart, opened an ice cream shop with him and gave birth to Joel. The marriage did not work out, and the couple divorced.
She took a job at a treatment center run by the former medical director from the Vision Quest wagon train, then attended Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where she earned a degree in psychology. She traveled across the country again to the University of Florida in Gainesville, where she received a Ph.D. in neuroscience. During that time, Joel's father died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 36.
In 1998, one of her former professors, Dale Brederson, was organizing the Buck Institute, and he offered her a job. She had done graduate work with him in gene therapy, studying central nervous system brain disorders. She and Joel packed up once again and moved to Petaluma.
"We fell in love with it immediately," she said. "We moved into a cottage on Baker Street that immediately became a hangout for kids. They kind of took over from me. I felt I owed Joel that because I had dragged him all the way across the country."
When Joel died, she had already moved into a smaller apartment and was looking for a new job, interviewing for faculty positions at universities. She continued working at the Buck Institute, but was already moving toward a new life.
"All I was capable of for a while was waking up and showing up and doing what was next. I was leaving things to unfold," she said.
In December, she contacted the Peace Corps and began the application process. The organization is sending her to Swaziland, a small African country of approximately 1 million people, surrounded by South Africa and Mozambique.
"My decision was to serve. I said I'd go wherever they sent me," she said.
In Africa, her primary focus will be working with HIV/AIDS outreach programs. According to recent statistics, approximately 30 percent of the population of Swaziland is currently infected with HIV -- the world's highest rate of HIV. "Short of the need to approach global issues with less violence and aggression, I can think of no more challenging or important effort right now."
As a volunteer, she will receive a small stipend and food and lodging with a local family. "They want you to integrate with the community, so you may be living in conditions that you haven't thought of since you were a kid in the sandbox."
Now she is back to living minimally again, paring her worldly goods down to whatever she can fit into a duffel bag and a backpack. Earlier in the month her sister came to visit from Kansas City and took everything else back home when she left.
But in truth, Peel carries all of her valuables in her heart.
"When you're a single parent and you lose your only child, there's nothing left to lose," she said. "From that point on you can dust yourself off and have the conviction that there is nothing else life can throw at you that will come close to that. It's so liberating. I have nothing else to fear. I'm at that point where all things are possible. To take that and turn it into this is a real blessing. The alternative is to sit in a corner and eat Valium for five years."
She attributes her ability to survive and flourish to the skills she developed in recovery, and to her recognition that she is not the only parent who has suffered the ultimate loss of a child.
"My mantra has been, 'I am not the only mother to have lost a child this day.' There are places in the world where children are lost every day. It helps you knowing there are other mothers going through what you are going through. They'll get through it and you'll get through it," she said. "The thing that surprised me is, it's so profound. There are incredible moments of grace."
Peel doesn't believe people need to experience loss and suffering to devote at least a part of their lives to serving others. She thinks the world is ripe for volunteerism.
"These are really grave times," she said, "so if someone hears the call to serve, now is the time to do that. There's a whole generation of baby boomers out there with terrific health, great skills, and much to give."
(To follow Peel's adventures in Swaziland, visit her Web page, www.alysonpeel.net)
(Contact Lois Pearlman at argus@arguscourier.com)
Pullquote
"When you're a single parent and you lose your only child, there's nothing left to lose."
-- Alyson Peel
