Prepared

Today I lugged two boxes, three clothing-gorged trash bags, and one over-the-door ironing board to Goodwill and handed them to the scraggly man who received them into the back of the warehouse where he would turn my trash into someone else's treasure. Last night, in my clutter purge I organized and straightened every shelf and drawer, searching for other things to add to my Goodwill cache. In the drawer beside my bed--the place where everything goes that doesn't have an assigned place--I found a few stray batteries, some stamps, crumpled memos from six months ago, three outdated housing manual, and an extra Hallmark card that said, "Thinking of you at this difficult time and wishing you peace." It's one of those .99 cent cards, an extra I picked up last time I was in the card aisle. I transferred it to another drawer newly dubbed my 'stationary drawer.' Wouldn't need the card anytime soon, surely, but I figured I'd keep it, 'cause eventually something sad will happen. I like being prepared. I finished my cleaning and went to bed in peace with the knowledge that everything was right in my world. Tonight, the card is lying beside me, opened, waiting to carry words of comfort to my coworker whose 15 month baby girl died last night in her sleep, silently, senselessly, peacefully. Not 3 months ago, I followed the little girl around the church nursery, coaxing her to give me the headband she'd pulled off her head; on Sunday I sat with her mother in church. This afternoon I gaped at the e-mail, announcing her death. Sometimes sadness sneaks in or strikes suddenly; it doesn't ask "ready or not" to warn us, and doesn't wait for you to stock up on sympathy cards. And inevitably, when it comes, I'm never truly prepared.

Confession

Even if I do say so myself, the visuals on my blog rock! The puddle wouldn't be nearly as cozy without the pictures. Here, at my gushing, seems the perfect place to present a confession. I’m an art thief. I’ll admit it--most of the pictures on my blog are not my own, but scavenged from dozens of other websites. I slink around on Google images until the perfect photo for my post pops up and then I—well I swipe it. I shamelessly copy and paste and repost, only dreaming of possessing the talent of these photographers. But here I wish to make it clear that though I covet their talent, I do not take credit for their work. This post is to celebrate the many photographers and artists who unknowingly supplied me with the aesthetic part of my blog. Thank you!! (Whew, now my conscience can breathe.)

Room

(I wrote this a few months ago. Levi finally got the hint and has found better ways to fill his void, with missions work and investing more time in his business. I'm proud of him. We rarely talk, but it's understood that we'll always be there for each other.)
Levi lives in South Carolina, 500 miles away from me. A few months ago, he nabbed my number from a friend and texted me, clearly scoping out a possible relationship. He’s twelve years my senior, and though from an upstanding family, carries more baggage than the cargo hold of a 757. Aware of his reputation, I hesitated to begin communication with him, but, as usual, curiosity overtook my judgment. Slowly, like the saturated bottom of a cardboard box, my resolve gave way. Now thousands of texts and countless hours of phone conversations later, he’s convinced that I’m the one for him, but I remain just as sure that he’s not. We’re at a stalemate as complicated friends. He insists I’m “perfect” because of my godly encouragement, and assumes that I’m “beautiful” if only because I’m kind, and assures me that I’m “awesome” because I’m not vain like the women from his past. But his profuse complements don’t convince me because I suspect they’re more wistful than anything; he’s just tired of living a lonely life.
Levi’s life intrigues me. He’s served jail time briefly, been sued, married, divorced, fathered an illegitimate child, fostered an extensive string of dysfunctional relationships, traveled a good portion of the world, speaks 3 languages, started a business, made millions, owns 3 Ferraris, and is presently building an elaborate house. In the future he plans to take weekend trips to New York for Broadway shows, and France for shopping, and Belgium for waffles, and he intends to visit every continent—
At least, he would if he had someone to join him. Though money can charter him a trip to any country, and lend him every luxury, Levi suffers from the drawback that afflicts many affluent people: his life is filled with emptiness. He can’t find someone who will truly love him beyond his bank account.
This is why I think Levi isn’t more excited about that magnificent house that he’s going to move into, why he encourages the builders and painters to take their time. Because, though full of furniture, appliances, and decorations, the house echoes with emptiness. I can always tell when he’s struggling with loneliness because he describes the house to me, room by room. Through his verbal depiction, he leads my imagination through the heavy front door into the entry way where we walk under the sparkling chandelier cascading from the ceiling. He shows off the expansive kitchen with glossy cabinets and black appliances. And he points out the sleek leather furniture in the living room and the calming dark earth tone of the walls. We climb the wide staircase that he longs to ascend with a wife in his arms. And upstairs, he pauses in the spacious master bedroom where the walk-in closet rivals the size of my entire apartment bedroom. In this room, he rehearses his plans to tuck his wife in with a kiss in the mornings before he leaves for work and surprise her with gifts on her pillow at night. He revels in describing the sliding glass doors leading out to the balcony where he’ll keep sunrise and sunset rendezvous. Here is where the tour stops, with Levi on that balcony, contemplating how his life feels so lonely, so empty.
Why, you may ask, have I not leapt at the offer to change the marital status of this seemingly eligible man? The answer is simple: a belief. The belief hardly acknowledged in our culture that marriage after divorce is unbiblical. Based on Christ’s instruction in Matthew 5 and Mark 10, marrying a man who is divorced would mean violating a blatant biblical mandate. Acquiescing to Levi would be settling for God’s second best for my life. For this reason, I’ve let Levi know that there is no reason to hope that my mind will change.
But despite my resolve to adhere to this command, there is one thing that makes it hard for me to resist entertaining the Levi's proposal. One detail causes me to second guess my stand. It’s not Levi’s cars, his bank account, his suavity, or his travel itinerary. And none of the rooms in his expansive house could entice me to concede to his persistent proposal of marriage.
None of the rooms except one—the upstairs office. Or what I could turn into my office, he promises. My office where I could write all day if we got married.
There, converging in those 144 square feet of room, are my dreams—to be a wife and a writer. Married to a man who could sponsor my passion to write without dividing my energies with a career—it’s enough to make me rethink my morals. Enough to tempt me to claim Christ’s forgiveness in advance and elope in Portugal or some other exotic backdrop.
Besides, I reason, I’m twenty-six. Maybe the Lord has forgotten my desires. What if the man meant for me was aborted, or what if he’s distracted by a busty blonde or what if Levi and I were supposed to marry, but he just made a mistake by getting married to the wrong one? On and on my rationalizing goes.
Sometimes, I think I could make it work, that I could make it right. But my rationalizing never screams louder than the resounding no in my heart.
Levi wonders at my resolve. “How can you be so sure that God will bring someone else along?” Some days I wonder along with him. After all, I have no promise that God will lead another man into my life if I hold to His command. I possess even less of a guarantee that He will bring another man whose income would allow me to write.
My unmet desires sometime ring through my empty heart like Levi’s loneliness through his house. But all that changes when my eyes stop focusing on the one thing I don’t have and turn to the only thing that matters: God’s presence. The presence available to accompany every individual at all the world’s tables for one. My desire to do what is right is stronger than my yearning to write. And I long for God’s company over the companionship of a spouse.
My unfulfilled desires have revealed His capacity to fill even the hollowest places with joy that no human companion can offer. His arms are the only arms capable of holding me tightly enough to feel absolutely loved. His words are the only words sweet and gentle enough to offer genuine comfort.
Only when we’re willing to abandon our most precious plans and seek His exceeding abundant dreams will we realize that our hearts aren’t truly empty—they’re just open with potential to be filled with peace and purpose, with hope and happiness, and perhaps, most importantly, with the desire to know the Lover of our souls if only we give Him room.

Open House--er--Puddle

Three years ago, I started my blog unsure of what exactly I was getting into, what I would write, or who would read it. Given the uncertainties, I decided not to tell anyone until I was sure that it would work out. It soon became apparent that the Puddle could serve as that secret place I’ve always craved (see “The Secret Place.”) So I decided to keep it a secret. But usually my secret places can only remain clandestine for so long before I share them with a friend. So why am I still keeping my blog a secret?
It made people nervous when they found out that I had a secret blog. I imagine they wondered what I must be saying, what ornery laundry my passive aggressive personality had stitched and hung out to dry on my blog.
But they didn’t need to worry because I never meant for the Puddle to be a place to bash others or vent about my days—the internet is one big steam vent, releasing the angst and intolerance of society. I refuse to allow my blog to add so much as a molecule to that worthless steam. After all, writing is a confirmation of who we are, a reflection of our values. I for one don’t want a written record of my nastiness, anonymous or not.
Pure and simple, there’s only one real reason that I’ve kept my blog a secret: I’m terrified of disappointing people (see “One Person’s Treasure.”). I’m terrified that people will look at it and say, “Eh, I’ve seen better.” “That’s all she’s got?” Or “No wonder she kept THAT a secret.”
But maybe it’s time—-time to open the puddle for public splashing. To face the praise or ridicule. To bore or inspire what few readers I may acquire. To capture attention or to become just one more blog bone in the vast wasteland of the web. But just maybe it’s time to finally be heard.
I can’t promise there won’t be errors in the posts. I’ve considered going back and perfecting them all-—but then I wouldn’t be able to gauge how far I’ve come.
So here it is, still a little muddy, but a whole lot of fun.

Welcome to the Puddle, folks. Come on in and splash around.

Getting a Grip on Letting Go

(Written in 2010 upon the graduation of my first class of seniors.)

As an undergrad, I always wondered how my teachers did it—how they said goodbye to us semester after semester without shedding a tear. How they could change into shorts after convocation and head to the beach without even a backward glance at the students who had just disappeared out of their lives. Weren’t they sad that we were leaving, or afraid that others would come and make them forget us? Or did they actually want to forget us?
Now that I’m on the other side of the desk as a teacher, I’ve embraced this essential truth: for both students and teachers, college is a place where goodbyes are drafted the moment you say hello.
During my first year of teaching, I instructed mostly freshmen and sophomores, students who weren’t going anywhere soon. But when I began teaching upper level writing classes, I forged significant relationships with the students, especially my seven seniors. Though I wasn’t much older than they were, those few years provided enough distance for me to regard them with maternal care, affectionately dubbing them ‘my kids.’
By the spring semester, I had grown so close to my kids that even thinking of them leaving made my heart feel hollow. For no apparent reason, the Wednesday before midterms acutely reminded me of graduation’s proximity—acutely enough to propel me into a melancholic stupor.
Refusing to wallow pathetically in my office, I walked to my car, deciding to wallow pathetically somewhere else. Clearly, my sullen soul needed a drink, more specifically a bottle of green apple Jones soda—no, make that two; it was, undoubtedly, a two bottle day.
Just outside the front gate, the wad of emotion in the back of my throat began to slowly unfold, choking me. Typically, with the distraction of the radio or of people in the surrounding cars, I can redirect my emotions away from my tear ducts. That day, I didn’t even want to try.
Seventy days from graduation, I indulged in a full blown pity party, thinking of them, my regalia-clad kids, walking across the stage and out of my life. Already, I missed seeing their faces peek into my office window, watching their heads droop in shame as I collected everyone else’s manuscript, hearing them call my name across campus, listening to their quirky muses, and proudly claiming them as mine when others might look cockeyed at their eccentric antics.
Is this what it feels like, I sniffled, for parents to put a Barbie lunchbox in their little girl’s hand or a Superman backpack on their son’s back and wave goodbye through a bus window? Is this what parents suffer when they stare dolefully at the back window of a car stuffed with dorm accessories or filled with wedding balloons?
One and a half bottles later, I sought relief from a real Source of comfort—God, the Expert at letting go of people He loves. He responded to my plea for consolation by first making me accept that in two months these students would leave and, what’s more, that others would come and others would go. I already knew, of course, that whether or not I wanted to let them go, my kids were going to drive out that gate after convocation—I just hadn’t accepted it.
Once this literal struggle had been addressed, He gently pointed out the deeper one, reminding me, I never entrusted them into your care for you to keep them, only to guide them—and, all along, that guidance was meant to direct them out the front gate.
“But away from me!” I whimpered, dramatically soaking another tissue, taking another swig.
Yes. But if they were to stay here with you, they could never find out how I want to use them.
At this, my tears hiccupped to a stop. He was right. Holding them here would mean withholding them from adventure, from His provision, from trials and triumphs—from life. Life, after all, was what they needed to discover. Only through living life to its fullest would they find the inspiration to become the writers He's called them to be.
He assured me, You know that if you let them go, they’re going to be in good Hands.
Draining the bottle of its sour green liquid, I released the grip in my heart. “Okay, God. I’ll let them go.” I drew a deep breath before committing to the next part—the hardest part. “I won’t even want to hold them here.”
As I drove back onto campus, peace filled me, emanating from the comfort that God had created out of my emotional chaos. But, as if that peace weren’t enough, He offered a second solace—to match my second bottle of soda.
Just because you have to free them doesn’t mean you have to forget them.
As the simplicity of His comfort shamed my newly calmed soul, I shook my head. Why hadn’t I noticed this obvious consolation earlier—before giving myself a glucose-induced headache with that second bottle of Jones?
Walking back into my office to prepare for the final classes of the day, I thanked God that I wasn’t required to clean out my heart along with my office at the end of the semester; that I wouldn’t have to dispose of my memories along with the drafts of their compositions; that He’d understand if I burst into tears on the beach following convocation, or sniffled in a silent classroom as my kids drove out the front gate.
After four years of saying goodbye to students, I’m finally getting a grip on letting go, but I’m always thankful for that place in my heart where I can hold onto my kids forever.

Not Even a Scar

“Look. Will’s got another new girlfriend,” Mom called to me from where she inspected a Facebook picture on the computer screen.
As I reluctantly glanced over her shoulder, my gaze met the familiar grin and brown eyes of Will, my ex-boyfriend, standing next to a gorgeous brunette with a Crest Whitestrip smile. Immediately, I braced for the pain typically aroused by confronting that part of my past. But the sharp pangs of guilt and regret didn’t rip across my heart as I had expected. In fact, after slowly probing my heart for remaining tender areas, I realized that the old wounds were strangely painless, leaving only the faintest memories of my years as the girl with a blade.
Some people hurt themselves to create a distraction from life’s problems. Trying to forget the pain someone caused them or attempting to punish themselves for mistakes or shortcomings, a growing percent of Americans resort to violent scratching, pulling out hair, cutting, or burning to release emotion that otherwise would drive them insane. The thought of people intentionally harming themselves makes me shudder, but I don’t know why—after all, I cut myself nearly every day for years. Though I never harmed my flesh, I mutilated my heart. Rather than knives or razors, my blades were the memories of past mistakes. Somehow, slashing my soul with painful recollections was easier than forgiving myself for hurting Will.
During our early teen years, Will and I were best friends despite my being three years older. In time, our relationship morphed into more than friendship as Will grew to adore me. While I cared deeply for him, most days I struggled to know whether to treat him like a little brother, a friend, or a boyfriend. But by my eighteenth birthday, with college in the near future, I wondered if a better fit waited for me. Tying myself down to a relationship meant possibly missing my true soul mate later on.
Through my indecision, Will’s passion sustained our relationship. But even his consistent love did nothing to compel me to fully commit to him—or to fully separate from him. For two years my affections fluctuated, abusing his unwavering devotion until finally, one evening right before I returned to college for the spring semester, he called. His voice was low, almost expressionless, as if he had expended his passion or anger in planning this confession. “I could never see myself without you, but I can’t see myself with you because you’re so selfish.”
Year by year, he chronicled our unbalanced relationship, recounting the times I refused to say “I love you;” the evenings I recoiled at his touch; and the moments I instigated his affection, knowing full well my unwillingness to reciprocate it. He punctuated the inventory of my offenses by stating, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m done.”
As I lay in bed that night, his list of my mistakes replayed in my mind. He was right—I had been excessively selfish and blind to the extent that my vacillating affections had injured his emotions. Recalling all the love that Will had granted me in spite of my unwillingness to return it, I decided that ‘sorry’ would never be enough to rectify his pain—‘sorry’ was too easy. I needed to suffer too. That night, the cutting began.
The past became my weapon to disfigure my present. Selecting a memory of a time I hurt Will, I would run it across my heart, feeling the serrated blade of guilt and remorse tearing into my soul. Along with the memories, I tucked away the pink ribbon that Will used to bundle my letters when he handed them back to me. I pointedly referred to him as “my ex” rather than “an old friend” when mentioning him in conversation, hoping that someone would ask me to retell the story of our break-up. Sometimes I called him, just to check up, and I even added him as a friend on Facebook. Readily I collected any method to inflict on myself an equal amount of damage that my actions had inflicted on Will. As the years passed, my heart spread into a gaping
wound, expanding each time my offences came to mind.
A time of grief or pain is natural after a break up, but usually people are able to move on with their lives. So why, for years, did I keep hurting myself as punishment for the pain I caused Will? Maybe for the same reasons that many people hurt themselves physically on a regular basis. Although it’s not a simple answer, Susan Bowman, licensed counselor and author of See My Pain: Creative Strategies and Activities for Helping Young People Who Self-Injure, suggests, “When [people] cut themselves, . . . it becomes a control issue.” This certainly described me. I was willing to inflict on myself what humans naturally avoid—pain. Because pain, unlike the mistakes of my past, was something that I could control.
Almost four years after our breakup, my destructive habit climaxed when I called to check up on him. The conversation was going well—until he mentioned Blair, his most recent girlfriend. I’d seen pictures of her on Facebook. Posed in her booty shorts, low-cut tops, bronze tan, and straightened platinum hair, she epitomized all that I was not.
Hearing Will rave about her angered me. Before calculating the consequences of my words, I blurted out, “She looks like a slut, Will.”
In the silence, I sensed his struggle to contain the white hot rage burning inside him. “Don’t you ever say that again.”
“Well, it’s true.” I shot back. “All you have to do is look at her pictures—”
“You’re just jealous.”
I had no defense and no way to reverse the direction the conversation had taken.
“She loves me,” he yelled, “which is a lot more than you ever did.”
As the memories weighted the silence hanging between us, my heart raced from the confrontation and proximity of the past.
Finally, his voice softened. “You’ll never know how much you hurt me.” I knew he wasn’t referring to the comment I had just made.
The conversation provided enough blades to slash myself with for the next two days. Eating seemed irrelevant; sleep eluded me; even at work, I wielded the memories until my soul had no more surface to be abused.
Jill Pertler, in her article “Cutting: A Teen Trend on the Rise,” says that “self-injury is a cry for help. [People] engaging in these behaviors desperately need [people] to provide understanding and a willingness to listen.”
While a self-mutilator of any kind needs to talk about his issues, the healing process extends one step further than just finding someone to listen. People who hurt themselves by cutting their emotions or their body don’t need to be merely consoled or understood, but to be told that wounds can heal, on the skin or the heart, if left to mend without being ripped open repeatedly like a scab.
In the lowest point of my self-destruction, I slowly began to abandon my destructive tendencies by realizing that healing would come only by releasing my past, forgiving myself, and moving on. No one could pry the blades from me, especially since they always hung just a remembrance away. I would have to choose, each day, to cut or carry on, to bleed or bind up, to hurt or heal.
Forgiveness became my recovery room and time my physician as, eventually, I chose to carry on by removing Will from my Facebook page; decided to bind up my wounds by throwing away his letters; and resolved to heal by erasing his number from my phone. When enough time had passed, I sent Will a letter, apologizing for my selfishness in those years, and settled for “sorry” to correct my mistakes.
After seeing the picture of Will with his newest girlfriend on the computer screen, I marveled at my painless response. Yet in the next thought I wondered what Will was up to, wondered if he was really happy going through girlfriend after girlfriend. Perhaps my distant offenses had ruined his trust in women. Maybe my indecision had caused—
Suddenly realizing what was happening, I jerked the guilt away from my heart and hurried out of the room, away from the picture and the memories, choosing, once again, to leave behind the past, and heal.
The pain and memory of the wounds grow fainter every day. With time and right choices, I doubt they’ll even leave a scar—no matter how deep they once were.

The Words I Meant to Say

December 30, 2009
After following the winding cemetery road for what seemed like half an hour, I parked the Trailblazer and stepped out, hoping to remember the location of the grave. On the day of the funeral, my only depth perception had been the six feet of endless hole five inches from my toes. Now, almost a year later, despite my lack of orientation, I seemed to remember the plot being close to the oak tree about ten feet away. My boots made the first tracks in the two inch carpet of snow as I approached a marker decorated with a small Christmas tree. Taking a chance, I knelt and, with both hands, erased enough snow to reveal the name on the marker. This was it—Pappy’s grave.
Embraced by the dull cold and hovering stillness of the cemetery, I stared at the chiseled name. A towering concrete statue of Christ stood not far behind me, peering over my shoulder, as if ready to grant comfort. But I needed no closure, harbored no lingering questions, stifled no hot tears of anger. I had come to tell Pappy the words I meant to say nearly a year earlier.
February 9, 2009 around 9 p.m.
I opened the Valentine’s Day card from Mamaw and Pappy, guiltily tucking the enclosed ten dollar bill in my purse. I hadn’t called my grandparents in months. But with Mamaw’s tendency to ramble juxtaposed against my overflowing stacks of papers to grade, I once again attempted to reason my way out of dialing the number my fingers had tapped out like a cadence since I was six years old.
But no matter how I tried to concentrate on my to-do list, that night the call wouldn’t be postponed. More demanding than duty or propriety or even guilt, the insistent prodding felt much like one of the imperceptible yet compelling intuitions we obey regularly without understanding why, intuitions such as “wait another minute before walking out of the room,” “take another route to your destination,” “rethink that sentence before you say it.” In this case it prompted, “call your grandparents and thank them for the Valentine’s Day card.”
Obediently, I dialed the number and waited to hear Mamaw’s familiar greeting. Instead the voice that answered surprised me. “Hello.”
“Hey, Pappy.” I smiled, remembering the last time I saw him in August, when he had come back to life after being dead for years.
A stroke had changed Pappy in 2003 from a vigorous 64 year old owner of a construction company, to a lethargic senior, dwindling under depression, forced to delegate his work responsibilities to my uncles. Blaming the stroke for his despondency, the doctors offered explanations of imbalanced chemicals and damaged nerve endings. But I secretly suspected that the stroke merely activated the side-effects of many other disorders that had afflicted Pappy most all his life: pride, bitterness toward hypocritical fellow church goers, and perhaps, worst of all, mistakes from his youth that he had been making restitution for over forty years later. The physical restrictions of the stroke had severed his vivacity and halted his constant activity, forcing him to confront those darker corners of his mind. For six years the ghosts he wrestled with in the darkness had pulled Pappy down, nearly to the grave.
Then, just months before my grandparent’s fiftieth wedding anniversary in 2008, something happened. Whether by medicine or miracle, Pappy broke free of despondency’s grasp. I saw it for myself during my visit for the anniversary party. The spicy smell of his aftershave stung my nose, and his piercing whistle laced its way through my heart, summonsing happy memories of before his stroke. We shared a box of Hostess cakes at midnight, laughing together well after the bedtime he’d kept only months before. His break-of-dawn energy enlivened the house as he hurried out to his carpentry shop only to return a few hours later speckled with sawdust and toting a new piece of furniture for Mamaw. Throughout the house he had wound his collection of antique clocks, offsetting them to chime one after another each hour. With the clocks, it seemed, he had rewound his life.
At the restaurant where we held the anniversary party, Pappy walked from table to table, greeting guests and radiating the fervor of a man who’d finally accepted forgiveness from God and himself. After we finished eating, he burst into a speech, loud and shameless, telling us of the perils he’d faced in his journey through the darkness. “So many times I laid awake at night making plans to end my life. But thinking of you all, I just couldn’t do it. I love you so much.” He punctuated the entire display with a noisy kiss on my grandmother’s cheek.
It was a resurrection worth celebrating. But my family, as if suspicious of his recovery, only edged their chairs back or rearranged the leftover scallops on their plates to avoid embracing the sentimental moment. As an emotionally retentive family, most of us were embarrassed by Pappy’s display of elation, acting as if resurrections happened every day and we could afford to ignore his and wait to appreciate the next.
Seemingly unaware of our discomfort, Pappy went about, scooping up the youngest of his fifteen grandchildren, tickling them, loving them. “I’m ready,” he proclaimed, “for the next fifty years of my life.”
So only six months later on that February night, my heart fell to hear not his lively voice on the phone, but the all too familiar tone of despair. I knew he’d been dragged back into the darkness by the draining effects of his stroke and a lack of support from his family. We chatted half-heartedly for a minute, neither of us exerting the energy to hide our emotions, me my disappointment and him his despair. When his voice grew raspy, he said, “Here’s your grandmother,” and handed over the phone.
My fear of Mamaw’s rambling didn’t come true; her heavy tone revealed the gravity of Pappy’s returned condition. As our brief conversation ended she asked, “Do you want to talk to your grandfather again?”
The unexpected question made me grip the phone tighter as the same quiet urgency that insisted I call in the first place again prodded, Tell him that you love him. Shaken by his returned depression and scared of an awkward situation, I considered my answer for five seconds. Finally, I decided, “No, I don’t guess so. Good night.”
The phone in my hand felt as heavy as the regret in my heart. In the darkness of my bedroom, the clock glared 10:00—too late to call back. Next time, I promised myself, I’ll tell him. Pressing my face into the pillow, I sobbed, fighting against the dread of what I somehow knew, beyond a doubt, would happen.
At noon the next day, my cell phone vibrated. For the second time in two days the voice on the other end surprised me as I stiffened to hear my father’s troubled tone. “Sweetie, I want you to sit down.”
With the previous night’s feeling of premonition fresh on my heart, I ignored Dad’s gentle command and remained on my feet. What I already knew couldn’t shock me. “It’s Pappy, isn’t it? How did he do it?”
Surprised at my confident assumption, he paused before replying, “Shot himself. They found him in his workshop.”
As we discussed the details of my travel arrangements to the funeral, my mind filled with questions; “why,” however, was not among them. Of all people, I felt most prepared for the tragedy since I had neglected one of the final opportunities to prevent it.
At my grandmother’s house, preparing for the funeral, I found a stack of pictures in Pappy’s office, dated just weeks before his death. In the glossy prints, it was evident that the darkness had already consumed most of him. Staring directly into the camera, he appeared spent, as if the effort to produce the weak smile on his lips had drained his energy. His eyes gazed blankly, as if he were too depleted to continue fighting, too weary to plead for light or hope. But even if he had mustered the strength to fight or plead, I wondered if any of us would have come to his rescue. My thoughts went immediately to memories of that last time I saw Pappy alive, when my family had disregarded his unbridled exuberance for life.
At the restaurant the night of the anniversary party, our family had pushed past one another without the common decency of strangers. Armed with pickaxes of petty differences, they silently began gouging away at a sliver-sized dispute that would later break into a chasm, splitting our family down the middle. Pappy’s rousing display of love and restoration, rather than bolstering a move toward repair, only seemed to accelerate the family’s excavation. We sat there fostering our pride and vendettas, ignoring the chance to rejoice with Pappy.
Consumed with ourselves, which one of us had absorbed the love he poured out with his recovery and had watered his soul with it when the dry times returned? Which of us did anything more than whisper our fear and suspicions behind his back or wring our hands, worrying over the inevitable? Which of us reached out to help him when the darkness started closing back in?
For nearly a year after his death, I waited, each day expecting to finally feel the crushing guilt for my own part in watching Pappy slip away without reaching to pull him back toward the light.
But in the cemetery that December morning, tracing his name on the stone marker, I whispered, “I love you, Pappy.”
The wind snatched the words from my mouth like an eager messenger, carrying the white wisps away from the frozen marker, up toward the waiting azure sky.

The Curse

My family's curse came to mind while I was working in the nursery last Sunday morning. Each Sunday, all of us workers, draped in our ridiculously large purple smocks, eagerly accept babies from their parents before the morning service at our church. I’m not sure how, but whenever the assignments are given out for which baby each of us workers will care for, I can always pick mine out before I’m told. The one with the greenish plugs of slime in each nostril, the loner who stares and drools, the one with spit up curdles on her chin—these are always mine. They rarely assign me the sweet smelling, soft curled sweethearts. Sometimes this predictable arrangement bothers me.
Sunday I got the one with tummy problems. She kept hurling slimy streams of throw-up tinted purple from her grape juice. All morning I followed her with a fistful of paper towels and a pump bottle of hand sanitizer, frequently applying the gel to my own hands. My lips cracked from breathing through my mouth to avoid smelling that acrid stench of vomit. I lived for 45 minutes on high alert for her hurling, worried that the other babies might crawl through her soggy spots.
As I soaked up yet another gooey mound of vomit, my dad’s words came back to me: it’s the family curse. If something bad or random could happen, it will happen to us. I brooded, If there's a kid in the nursery who is gonna produce purple puke she would be given to ME. Around the nursery sat half a dozen perfect angels, smelling of Downy fabric softener and placidly pointing at pages of books or serenly cuddling on the lap of one of the other workers who gazed on me with pity as I monitored hyperactive slime monster. Shrugging as if my assignment didn't bother me, inside I contemplated self-pity.
I'm tempted to embrace the curse as an explanation for the bad things that happen in my life. It does seem that the catastrophic, inconvenient, unfortunate or merely quirky seems to prey on my family frequently enough. If I didn’t know better, I would swear that Lemony Snicket grew up in my family and chronicled our misfortunes.
But just as I wanted to tear off the smock and walk out of the nursery leaving the sour smelling child to contaminate someone else, I realized that this isn’t how I want to view the less than beautiful parts of my life.
As a little girl, I was amused by nothing greater than to be handed a pair of child safety scissors, the JC Penney catalogue, pieces of construction paper and a bottle of Elmer’s glue. I’d cut out pictures of food and ducks and tables and flowers then drizzle the backs of them in the milky white adhesive and slap them haphazardly onto a fresh piece of construction paper. I’d paste until no parts of the construction paper showed. Only an amateur or careless collager would leave holes in the picture.
I guess in some ways I'm still a collager. Life, after all, is a collage of experiences, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant. If you remove the bad parts there are holes, the picture of life isn’t complete and not nearly as interesting. The bad parts are only a curse if we let them be.
Snapping me out of my reverie, the little hurler roll over on top of my feet and giggle up at me, reaching out her slobbery fingers. I grimaced at first, but finally grinned back and reached down to scoop her up. After all, I’d hate to have a hole in my picture.

The Wonderful Parts: Part 3

Christmas Season 2011: Once again I popped in what has come to be my favorite movie of all times--It's a Wonderful Life. I watched it in 5 installments, usually while eating supper or filling out Christmas cards or fixing my hair. Each year the Capra classic teaches me something about my life (see "The Wonderful Parts I and II"). This year's lesson was a bit more subtle than those of the years before. I found it in that part where George leaves Harry's homecoming. Right before he goes to Mary's house, Ma Bailey is talking to George about how much Mary is in love with him. He resists the idea, and when wise old Ma pushes him in Mary's direction, he turns around and heads back toward the glit and glamour of downtown Bedford Falls, such as it is.
There he meets up with the person who has always been the exotic element in his life-- the capricious Violet Bick. When she sees him standing in the median, Violet prances up to George, as brazen and needy as when she sat on that stool in Gower's drugstore as a little girl and asked to be helped down. When she presents herself to George, he, in a fit of wanting what HE wanted, tries to share his dreams with her, tries to take her with him on an unpredictable trip up to the falls for the 'perfect scam.'
But she refuses. She doesn't want the unpredictable; no, flamboyant Violet wanted who she thought George was--stable and reliable. And as a crowd gathers around laughing at Violet's shrieking fit, George hurries off, telling her to "forget the whole thing." Only after he's disappointed by what he thought would bring him relief from the soul-coring effect of discontentment, does he 'happen' by Mary's house.
There Mary is waiting with the memories of George's spontaneity on that night after the dance, years ago, when they sang "Buffalo Gals" in bathrobes, and he lassoed the moon, and they threw wishes at windows, and he left her stranded in the hydrangea bushes.
It was the woman he thought was simple and plain, who reminded him of who he really was and helped him to indulge those wonderful traits about himself.
Once again, the movie reminded me that what we want is so frequently not what we need. It reminded me that God has given each of us our passions, our desires, our traits. There will always be people who reject us or discourage us from enjoying or fulfilling those passions. My lesson this year: surround myself with people who won't let me forget about the wonderful parts of myself.

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Christmas Cards

Every year I give my students Christmas cards with handwritten personalized messages highlighting special semester memories. Few teachers exert the kindness to hand out customized cards—so I guess that makes me kind of special. In fact, I’m inclined to feel downright big-headed about my benevolence.
Before you become persuaded of my goodness, you should know that I typically give dollar store cards—the kind that smell like cardboard and wilt at a strong sneeze. Mine is the cheap Christmas cheer, the flimsy fa-la-la. I’m a Scrooge in Santa clothing. After all, the slacking ingrates have fallen asleep during lecture, failed to turn in papers, and forgotten to do their homework. So since they don’t deserve my generosity, I reason, the students should be grateful even for something so cheap.
I’m glad that God didn’t adopt my stingy view of seasonal sentiments. We didn’t deserve His message of hope. We deserved a postcard of reproof delivered by Arnie his gimpiest angel. After all, we’ve fallen asleep in our service, failed to fulfill His plan, and forgotten to follow His word. But still He sent tidings of great joy on His personal letterhead—His Son.
This Christmas in the middle of envelope licking, and stamp peeling, hand cramping, and address labeling, remember how much we ingrates didn’t deserve His ‘card’ on that first Christmas. Or, for that matter, any of the love letters He sends our way, not just at Christmas, but on every other day of the year.

Rescue

In Population 485, the author Michael Perry, who is also a rural EMT, described his attempt to rescue the victim of a car accident. He explained the pain a victim experiences when a breathing tube is inserted down the victim's nose. Further in the chapter, Perry graphically delineated the trauma of being shocked with defib paddles.
After reading the chapter, I set the book aside, momentarily appalled at the straightforward portrayal of anguish at the hand of rescue. In my mind, paramedics and doctors swoop in as the soothers of suffering—-not the inflictors of it. It had never occurred to me that to save my life one day, a medical professional might have to inflict pain, be it setting a broken bone, stripping the skin from a burn, or shooting electricity through my chest. To comfort myself, I rationalized, “In that moment I doubt I’ll mind how much they hurt me. I’ll be grateful for their efforts no matter how excruciating.”
Just before I continued reading the book, a deeper parallel jolted me.
In our age of anesthesia and epidurals, Advil and Lidocaine, we forget that hurting is sometimes necessary for healing and that life sometimes can’t be numbed. Being rescued is uncomfortable such as when a friend inserts the tube of truth into my collapsed mind, suffocating from self-centeredness. Or when God decides to reset my attitude or shock my heart back to beating when it’s grown dead toward Him and others. Or when He strips away layers of my soul, scorched from the sin of the world and myself.
I pray that in those moments, no matter how excruciating, I’ll realize how close to death I truly am and embrace the pain of the rescue.

Five minute friend

He straightened the rack of magazines, putting a Woman’s Day back in its place from where a careless customer had misplaced it on the Vogue stack. It was only a small airport newsstand, but he intended to keep it neat. After all, his stand was the last stop before gates 21 and 22 Delta in the Boston Logan International Airport.
The morning had been quiet so far, but a movement at the front of the store alerted him into action. Since working there over the past 5 weeks, he had trained himself to watch for the sticky fingers of travelers walking by.
The movement turned out to be a young woman inspecting one of the novels he had carefully arranged on a display table just outside the store. She looked to be about 16, but when she turned a bit more in his direction, her full figure told him otherwise. He could tell she was experienced at taking care of herself by the way she watched him from the corner of her eye intermittently and squeezed the straps of her black shoulder bag closed with her free hand. Seeing her smile at the writing on the dust jacket, he suddenly wished that his English weren’t broken, that he had read all the books on the table so that he could talk to her about them.
When she put the book down carefully on the top of the stack, she made her way inside.
“Hey, there.” She grinned at him before inspecting the selection of drinks in the freezer.
“Hello,” he spoke the word carefully, shifting on his feet.
She selected a bottle of Disani and turned to the counter.
“Where you are destined to?" His accent wrapping around every word, choking what little clarity he had.
She raised her eyebrows in question and leaned forward. “Where am I flying to?” she attempted to interpret.
He nodded, swallowing hard with embarrassment and straightening a box of book lights on his counter, as if her answer weren't important.
She laughed digging one hand absently through her bag. “Atlanta. Can't wait to get home.” As she turned her full attention to digging for her wallet, he stifled a laugh, imagining her tiny body falling into the depths of the bag that was nearly as big as she. He looked away when she came up with the wallet in hand.
“How much?” she asked
“$1.70.”
She turned around and eyed the snacks on the wall, and grabbed a bag of chocolate covered pretzels.
He took a deep breath. “You could buy 2 pack at price of $6.00.”
She cocked her head “How much is one?”
“3.57.” He grinned, proud to have remembered. He had memorized the price of every item in the store.
She shook her head, pushed the bag of pretzels and bottle of water toward him, and pulled out her debit card. “These airports’ll rob you blind.”
Unsure of how to reply to that comment, he swiped her card and waited for the receipt to print. “There you are.” He laid the receipt on the counter and handed her a pen.
“Thank you.”
He watched her name appearing on the line under the pen.
She passed the receipt back to him and smiled one last time. “Keep up the good work.”
It was her wink that made him want to keep her there, to talk to her. Instead he watched her grab the snack, hike the bag on her shoulder, and sashay out into the flow of people.
He walked out from behind the counter and pretended to straighten the books on the display table, but he watched her walking away to board a plane bound for the place that she had acquired her accent. When he looked down, he saw that he was still clutching her receipt. Jessi, he read.
For some reason he couldn’t wait to get home and call his mother to tell her—-tell her what? There was nothing to tell. Just someone who didn’t stare or frown at the coffee color of his skin, his dark hair, and dark eyes. Someone who didn’t refuse his smile, but mirrored it. Finally, someone who didn’t treat him as if his very proximity to a plane might instigate disaster. Someone who seemed as if she would have been excited to hear about the new life he was making for himself here in the land of equal opportunity.

As If

Lee remembered me yesterday—-or at least he put on a very good show that he did. But I wasn’t surprised because since our very first encounter I haven’t forgotten him either.
Three years ago, I went to open a bank account in my new state. When he greeted me, his handshake was firm and his smile genuine. While we waited for my info to process, we traded dreams of travelling and writing about our travels, and commiserated over our inability to pull up enough stakes to make those dreams come true.
Even though that feels like ages ago, every time I go in I look for him from the corner of my eye, or in a peek over the shoulder. Sometimes he sees me, and we acknowledge one another, but we never talk.
Today, sunk in a deep tapestry-covered chair across the lobby from his desk, I observed him as he conducted business with an elderly lady who was sporting white pants and pinkish hair. Intermittently, I watched the other banker, Antonio who has assisted me more than once and had snapped the presentable little ID picture that graces the front of my debit card. Antonio sat at his desk across the lobby helping two Indian gentlemen. Mine was the problem next in line for either Antonio or Lee to address, and I sat there calculating the details to determine which one would finish his business first.
Sometimes I can feel in my gut when something will go my way. Today, I wasn’t so sure. Antonio might just as easily have finished first to assist me. He was leaning forward in his seat, staring at the screen with the earnestness of a man watching hourglasses turn. The race could have gone either way. After all, hourglasses sometimes surprise us by holding scanty measures of sand, and little old ladies tend to ramble. But within two minutes, the pink-haired lady walked shakily toward the exit door, and Lee was walking toward me.
Recognition immediately lit his eyes. Not the way that a businessman recognizes a familiar loyal customer, and definitely not the way that a man softens his gaze when looking at a women with whom he has trusted his heart. But perhaps with the gaze of a man who had once recognized a soul like his own and remembered feeling comfortable with it. He escorted me to the desk, pulled out my chair, and then asked how he could help me.
The process took 2 minutes, no more, no less. When he slid my card back across the glossy desk top to me, he smiled as if glad the business part was over so that we could talk 'us.' His words were soft, as if we had a history. “I haven’t seen you in here in a while.” As if he’d been looking.
I resisted the urge to say, “Silly man. Don’t you know I’m invisible?” But he was looking at me concerned, as if he was ready to absorb my explanation. So I answered the question vaguely, all the while searching his eyes for traces of what might-have-been. I found none. Neither did I find the office eyes of a man hiding from home. Just a friendly gaze as if he knew how to remember people and value them.
When we wrapped up our conversation, he walked me to the door, said goodbye as if my visit had affected his day.
I got in my car and sighed at the thought of his kindness. It’s not as if he meant anything--surely not with that ring on his finger. It’s not as if those moments were significant.
So I pulled away to grocery shop for another dinner alone, and smiled, and carried on with my life as if I wasn't scared that there are no kind, single men out there. As if I’m sure that someday I’ll find a heart in which to safely rest mine. As if I don’t worry sometimes that I’ll always be alone.
As if.

Ten

The day before Dr. Bowman left for summer vacation, we found ourselves commiserating over our delight in reading at a table alone while we ate lunch. We both shared the trials of being absorbed in our book until someone comes over to take ‘pity’ on us and sit down.
He sighed: “But, people are more important than ideas. So I close the book and enjoy the company.”
People are more important than ideas. The thought resonated in my heart.
It’s true—there is nothing more important than people. When I lift my fingers to count my blessings, nine out of ten of those blessings will be people in my life; the tenth would be my writing. This ratio is revealing because, like I said, nothing is more important than people. So why do I sometimes put number 10 ahead of the other 9?

Days

Slip by
So aimless.
Eternity
Creeps one day closer.
Time—relentless master
Of life, yet friend whose whip compels
Our plea, “Lord, teach us to number our
Days.”

(I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about eternity. I knew I wanted to write a poem, so I chose this meter--a nonet. It starts at one syllable and increases to 9.
The title is the first line, 1 beat. The second line is 2 beats and so on and so forth until you come full circle with the last line which is 1 beat.)