Spambot Saturday

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Wear Your Diamond Dearings Every day

Why? Because the worst thing that could happen is not that you lose them. The worst thing that could happen is you save them for a special occasion and then lose them.  Or that you don't wear them for fear they'll be lost and they grow dusty.  You lost out on all the days before they were lost when you could be wearing them and drawing pleasure from beauty.  You put the light under a bushel basket to protect it, and wind up living as if you did not have own those diamonds at all. 

Last night I learned how poorly I take a compliment. My daughter caught me doing what I almost always do when given praise.  I criticize it by pushing up against it my own less complimentary opinion of myself or my work, or I counter it by offering a return compliment to put whoever gave the kind words on a higher plane than me. Mock humility in practice to the point of becoming reflexive.

Shocked to have this moment of clarity illuminated by my 17 year old, I asked her, "How would you suggest I respond?"  She then role played to explain I should simply say "Thank you." and all that inner critic that I wanted to just let out in the moment, should be sent packing.  To not simply take the praise was to insult the giver, to refuse the gift, was to be rude.  She went on to explain that to deny what someone else said as being true for the sake of oddly enough, not allowing myself to think I looked bad, made the other person feel bad for trying to praise me. 

I looked in the mirror this morning and realized, this was all true. It wasn't all the truth of me, but there was a nut of it, stemming from never quite believing I was worthy of compliments let alone friends.  It also explained my near compulsive desire to launch into what my children refer to as my stand up routine whenever brought into contact with strangers. 

Suffice it to say, I got skewered.  New People! Time to make them laugh, appear confident, smile, laugh too loudly, it's show time folks! Impress. Dazzle.  Leave feeling high from the interaction, certain I've made a friend for life even if I never see them again.  Wonder why no one calls or emails five minutes later. They've seen this enough times to know it is not intimate, it is a mock sharing. It is shared, but it is rather like a blog, for public consumption.  

Then I sat there mad...like do we ever get over our own hang ups...does it really take to the age of 46 to even recognize a hang up?  and then...why now?  Friends are like diamond earrings and compliments.  They should be given/enjoyed daily or they will grow dusty and be lost when it comes time for a special occasion, diamond dearings to be shown and known and enjoyed.

So when  a friend called to talk about the reunion, she didn't realize she'd touched on a newly exposed vulnerability.  We both felt like the coming event seemed a little flat. That I had only a few friends coming to the college for this 25th year anniversary was the fruit of not having spent time with them since, not being present then or now, save when it fit my schedule.

Being present always means the same thing, being there for the other, and I'd spent much of college not being present at my own school. To those to whom I was close, they remain, but two are deceased.  Since then, while I form friends quickly --like creating lots of shallow roots, many of those friendships were built on shallow soil.  Others have died from a lack of tending.  Still others are there still hoping to be breathed on at some point, and then I asked. 

You'd think by now, I'd know to ask and ask often and shoot, spend the whole day asking because God never tires.  Friends. Despite ten children and a wonderful husband, great parents and in-laws, sister and brothers, sister and brother in laws, despite everything and everyone I knew, I felt lonely.  Friends God. I want friends.

My heart asked before my head understood what I was asking but I did ask. 

And God always answers.  He knows how I work too, which is good, because He can pour through that junk that I use to keep things shallow or at least, incidental. He also knows I have little patience so the phone rang almost immediately.

I wanted desperately to be the one to be there for the other for everyone else...yes that sounds very selfish and yes...it is.  Yes it was.   One of the ones I had been there for, even when it was hard, even though it might have been born of my own selfishness, was the first to call in response to my prayer.   And she set me straight.   Getting off the phone with her, I felt both exhausted and exhilarated.  


Then I called three women I like, who I would like to have as closer friends.  I have to start being the friend to the people I hope to name as such and that means, time. I sat afterwards marveling at how stupid it is that I spend so much time not recognizing the gifts put in front of me, pushing them aside like compliments.  Refusing to fully take on the gifts and the givers.  Keeping the earrings in a box.  And I'm carrying around a gong in my head, so that when the stand up lady shows up, I can bang her off the stage.  The one not putting on the show is much more interesting and it's time she stopped pretending, she didn't want to be seen. 

Oh.  And I put on my diamond earrings. 

It is Always Too Soon

My favorite professor from college, Jeanne Rodes, died last night in her sleep.  She'd fallen the day before.  I've written about her husband, who died November 25, 2014. His story tells a lot of hers, as all good real romances do.

I miss her.  It's that simple.  It makes it hard to think, let alone open a vein.

She was someone who lit a fire in me though I didn't know it.

When I met her, I did think, "I want to be like her!"  Then I thought, "What a crazy idea!" However, with her seven children, her infectious zeal for literature, her command of a quick thought and an obvious warm heart, I fell in love.  It was irresistible. I saw her speaking before us, talking to students and being both clear headed and unfailingly kind and I wanted that.  It was a luminous witness and the beginnings of a friendship that spanned 28 years.

One of our most memorable moments was a fight.

I went to see her during my 10 year college reunion. I'd brought my youngest of then three children (6 month old) with me. Fresh from two years of school working toward a doctorate, my head full of smug gobbledygook, I espoused what I thought was important jargon about epistimology and paradigm shifts and she looked at me and said, "KNOCK IT OFF!"

I felt hurt. I thought I'd joined the academic club. I thought I sounded smart, sophisticated, nuanced. I tried again.  She told me to stop it.  "Just stop." It hadn't, but the air in the restaurant felt chilly in that moment.

Sitting down at Haggar College Center's cafe at Saint Mary's, she shook her head.

"That doesn't sound like you.  That sounds like a bad warped version of you that I wouldn't want to eat lunch with." She ordered an ice tea and either an egg or tuna sandwich, I don't remember.  "The real you is much more interesting."  I ordered  a diet coke and hot dog,  and juggled my daughter who played with the silverware.  Impulsively, I gave my baby girl a kiss on the head.  

"That's the real you."   Jeanne pointed at me holding my daughter.
She saw me pull back. I didn't want that to be the real me.  I didn't want to be just a mom.  It felt smaller.  The reality was, it wasn't the role, but the me who hadn't yet grown up into the role yet.  I'd been hiding from the role via graduate school. Hiding from the stretch marks of motherhood.

Jeanne knew it.

Getting me to hear that reality took the rest of lunch, which wasn't as much fun as I wanted it to be, but was what real friends do.  They tell you when you're missing the mark.  They guide you to the better you.  The doctoral program was a way of holding something for me.  Jeanne didn't convince me not to go to graduate school.  She didn't lecture or dismiss my dreams or criticize my parenting or even my life decisions. She just didn't let me pretend there wasn't a cost, and made me think about the costs, the now costs and future costs.

Jeanne didn't let me stay comfortable in a bubble of pride and self oriented feeling of somehow deserving this cocoon from my own life's reality, without knowing  the price would be not seeing my own children grow up.

It was a discernment luncheon.  She knew the process of dying to the self I'd yet to fully allow myself to do.  She also knew the better outcome possible and sat with me and we ate and talked and talked, even ordering dessert so as to not have to leave.

We sat in the parlor and laughed well past the lunch hour. I cannot remember anything of what was said, except to say at some point, whatever it was I held onto, fell off.    Graduate school would fall that autumn.

My real memory of the rest of that day was the echoes of our laughter bouncing off the walls of the student center to the ceiling. Before we went our separate ways, she took some time to talk to my baby girl.  She said she hoped one day she would go to Saint Mary's.  This fall, my daughter, that daughter, is.

We've had other visits, other luncheons since then, and the hallmark of all of them, is the whole conversation, the entire visit is like dessert.  Each memory holds the echo of laughing; laughing until we cry; crying because the joy and the laughter can't quite capture or cover everything we've talked about, or how much we're trying to cram into a few hour visit or phone call.

It is always too soon to say good bye, but I do know, when we get to see each other again, there won't be a need to cram everything in because the feast will go on forever.   So for her life, for her friendship, for the luncheons, for the talks, for all she's given, for all she still gives, for all I miss and all I remember and all I don't,  I thank God for her.

Thank you my friend.  I miss you.

Facebook Charcoal Fire

Don't bite on it.  Click ignore.  Read something else.  Check your email. Go blog. Go tweet!  Do something, anything, but don't go back and respond to that post.

We've all been there.  You log onto Facebook and there is a post, advocating something that you cannot possibly stomach, and worse, it is posted from a friend.  You make a comment maybe, or click, "I don't want to see this." but the posts keep coming.  You unfollow for a time, but still, the links and the posts keep coming.  It starts to feel like a constant drill into the head.  There are the subsequent "subtle" shares of links and posts that dispute the issue at hand, but eventually, one has to either swear off entirely or address the issue.

It's at this point, I so get Saint Peter.  Because I feel very cowardly at the charcoal fire put before me on Facebook.   How many times can you read something you absolutely disagree with on every level before you either brand yourself a coward, or speak up?

And the stupid cost.  The cost. The cost. The cost.  This is a friend.  They would never talk about this sort of thing with me face to face in this manner.  Even if we did bring up something difficult and found we disagreed, the conversation would be reasonable, it would be charitable, we'd have laughs and talk about everything we have in common rather than what divides us.

Neither Facebook nor the internet allow for that sort of dialogue easily.  The venue is best for hit and run, drive by stake out your position and dare someone to disagree type memes.  Click like and move on.  Will I lose them?  Should I be holding their friendship so dear?  Is their friendship that dear, am I valuing it too much or not enough?

Is it a call to evangelize, or a time to be prudent?  I know which one I will pick, and draft as best I can, a private message.  Underlying every word is a beg.  Please don't dismiss me, please don't throw me away, please don't hate me.  I'd make a lousy apostle, I don't do dislike well.   It's humiliating to know, even at forty-nine, I'm still so damn needy.  Still full of doubts, still worried when I have to stand up, I will be alone.

But I profess to be Pro-life, I always have been.  Being a two pound eleven ounce baby myself, I have a fire in the heart for the smallest of all.  Science informs me that a human is human from conception to natural death, regardless of capacity, past, present or future.  

So when the discussion of defunding Planned Parenthood came up, I signed petitions, I prayed, and thought back to when I first learned the reality of this organization.  

Back in 1992, when I first discovered myself expecting, I went to the general doctor office near my apartment.  The doctor heard my medical history and immediately said, "Abort."  When I said no, he told me in order to treat me, I'd have to have some lab work and sent me to Planned Parenthood with an appointment for a pregnancy test.   At the time, I admittedly didn't know of Planned Parenthood as a brand, and agreed to the appointment.

Inside the clinic, I sat while the man drew my blood.  I noticed the place was dirtier than what I expected.  I saw what looked like a little lump of flesh on the floor, and bits of bloody guts, they reminded me of when I gutted freshly caught fish before I've cleaned up.   I told myself I was imagining things.

The lab technician told me I was pregnant, and immediately asked me if I wanted an abortion.  When I said, "No!  Are you serious? (though I think I said crazy),  I'm keeping the baby!" He said, "Then I can't help you."  and I left. I felt an urgency to flee. No other services were offered but abortion.  I felt an urge as I saw the other women in the clinic sitting and waiting for whatever they were waiting for, to tell them, "Run." I hope some of them did, and found themselves with now twenty-two year old sons and daughters they love beyond all measure.

But I can still see that young man in the lab coat, I remember his face.  I also can't forget the fleshy bit I didn't imagine on the floor.

So when I read what former directors and doctors of Planned Parenthood say about abortion, about what goes on inside those walls, I believe them, and think, as soon to be named a Saint, Blessed Mother Teresa said, "If abortion is not evil, then nothing is evil."  And as is said in my favorite Star Trek Series, Deep Space Nine, "Evil must be opposed."  

We do not want a society that thinks those not convenient, should be ignored, swept under the rug, destroyed or hidden.  I know what that means, caring for the homeless, the disabled, those in prisons, those dislocated by war, those here in great need, the just and the unjust, all of them, matter.  It isn't an easy thing to advocate, because the political parties do not lend themselves to all, but only to some.  Often the argument in favor of caring for all gets derailed by the imperfect nature of proposed solutions.  But the absence of a solution that fits all, does not eliminate the need to stand for something which is good, and will to work out the details as we go.

Pope Francis came to this country. He fed the homeless, he visited those in prisons, he counseled the ignorant, (Congress), he prayed with the suffering, he counseled us to harbour the harbourless, he prayed for the living and the dead, he lay hands on the sick, he sent a letter to try and ransom the captive (woman on death row who was not pardoned).  He encouraged the faithful to have hope, counseling the doubtful.  In short, he did as many acts (spiritual and corporeal) of mercy as he could in the six days he was here.  He tried to embody the truth, the good, the beauty of the Catholic faith, to all who encountered him.

If the Church is right about feeding the hungry, being stewards of the Earth and all her peoples, caring for the sick, welcoming the lost, lonely, scared and the stranger, then isn't it possible, we're right about needing to care for these unborn too?   To those who say, what about the mother? I say, they must be cared for, that is part of the necessary act of a Catholic, to care for the woman with an unplanned pregnancy, for the mother, for the child, for the father, for the family whether it is bound legally or not.  (See, I agree, it isn't an easy solution, it will require work).   What is good, is good, and what is evil is evil, even if the law ignores the reality or pretends it is neutral.

So I hope my friend reads my words and hears the heart behind them and knows I'm still a friend, and maybe can see why this issue reflects the same value necessary for all the other classes of people in need of a pro-life society.

Why These Moments Matter

It has taken forty-eight years to grasp the reality of how good things happen, they are an act of the will on the part of someone.   As a child, Mom made dinners happen and took us from point a to point b and Dad would orchestrate game nights and visits with cousins and aunts and uncles, but as kids, we drifted from big event to big event. So to us, as kids, it felt organic, natural, ordinary. This was simply what you did.  

As an adult, I began to see the effort involved in reunions, especially in deliberately gathering for non event events.  Parties became tied to reasons for parties, like weddings, baptisms, birthdays and sadly, funerals.  The ordinariness of getting together with family became less ordinary as we all grew older, moved, and began establishing lives that focused on lesser things like jobs, homes, and school.  It wasn't a lack of love for anyone, but there was a lack of will to practice that love, a form of familial sloth that crept into relationships, rendering them a collection of fond memories, rather than an ongoing experience of each other.  

Going to a wedding, one of the last weddings of the generation of cousins, everyone began to feel the hard march of time, and how the hardening of familial arteries could cause ongoing damage if left unchecked.  We would have to will ourselves out of that funk, to will ourselves beyond our comfort zone if we were going to have connections not dominated only by whenever someone had a wedding, baptism or funeral.  We'd have to have moments of ordinary time, and to have those, someone would have to "Will it."  

So we made a start, an invitation to do things, which is again, like anything else, a beginning, hopefully of a greater experience, of all of us growing closer together.   What I hope, is everyone will make that brave start, issue beginnings, so that we turn what is a momentary inspiration born of recognizing we want to have relationships that are more than in name only, into a willful habit of fellowship, and tie us as family beyond the cumulative memories of past events.   

Fellowship, Facebook and the Holy Spirit

The original caustic title was "What is Wrong with You People?" which became "What is Wrong with Us" which became something far less accusatory. But being a Catholic blog junkie and a Catholic writer want-a-be, I've watched several firestorms erupt within the Catholic blogosphere that resemble the fellowship exhibited within the confines of the Senate between political parties.

I am for Simcha!  I am for Greydamus! 

The tenor, which began as a discussion, often became a poor witness of what we say and believe and know we are to be. 

Noah is a stupid film with rock monsters! 
Noah is a serious if imperfect film!
See it! 
Don't See it!
How about, there is no mortal peril to laughing at Noah or to going to see Noah? It's not an occasion of mortal sin except to the extent we forget that ours is not the defining opinion. 

This also happened with The Catholic Stand and a fight over the issue of romanticism and marriage, where advice given freely became fodder for personal attacks because others were protective of their friend who voiced her understanding in a piece, but with more force than experience or doctrine warranted.   Truth in Charity we are called to give, but we often forget one or the other, and the public nature of the internet can make discussion easily turn from instruction to entertainment, to something less noble.  We're supposed to be known by "look at how they love each other" and the witness of fights over Facebook, does not reveal anything but camps, camps of friendship, camps of loyalty, camps of intellectual agreement, but not Catholicism, which is "universal." It bothered me, but I also feared losing friends on both sides. It is my always great fear, losing friends. 

Then I hopped over to Creative Minority Report and saw the continuation of what has been a long discussion over weeks, that doom is upon us, that the end time is near.  These are also friends,  but at least one of the writers is indulging the notion of despair, that the enemy is warming up the Lions, and our long Lent shall continue even when the season ends.   Now I know all the fights he speaks of, lurking, growing, growling on the horizon, they're legion. I see the coming moral storms and ongoing ones we have to navigate.  None of us are under any illusions, much will be demanded of us if we are to call ourselves Catholic, but to quote from a movie I watched last night:

"Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."


There is not an age, not a country, not a person in any of the world who embraced Catholicism, who did not at some point feel the weight of the cross they were called to carry and tremble, wish it were taken away, wish the person chosen were anyone else but them, wish the world were lighter, wish the work were less. Some brave souls do this every day. Folks in these great stories that are told every day, didn't know how it would end. 

Sam: It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy?

How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?

But in the end it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer.

Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why.

But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.

 It is the dark night of the soul, when the only thing one can do, is pray and carry on.

The desert we travel in, is not our time or our nation, but our hearts.   We need to stop looking outward and despairing, that is judgment; we need to look inward and beg for mercy, that is Lent.   Then, we need to put on our best, to wear our hope and trust in God's mercy, and our friendship with his son Jesus on our faces.  Then, we will be lights to others in places where all other lights go out.  Scared? Sure, that's why we need courage, courage for our friends.  We need to ride out and meet them for there is always hope.     "Anyone who wishes to follow me, must pick up their cross,"... "for the yoke is easy, and the burden light."  I love the constant truth of both and that is our faith.

And it is hard, and yet not.

This week, I fretted.  A friend constantly posted things that I found offensive, that I found hurtful, and they were because that friend sincerely believes his political side is on the side of angels.  Admittedly, I understand the blind allegiance, I've been there.  It's easy, it requires no thinking, it justifies one's own opinion and makes one feel righteous in all things.  I worried how to illustrate my disagreement, i.e, how to "turn the other cheek," so I did not agree and did not run away, and did not lose the friend who has been a bright light for me.  How could I approach this delicate topic of believing all children are infinitely valuable, even in their preborn and even pre-implanted state? 

I didn't want to fail to speak.  But I'd written a response earlier to a prior similar post, one where I used reason and logic, and received no answer.  So clearly, stating a position, even defending a position, telling my position wasn't the answer.  This person knew my faith and that wasn't a compelling witness or argument. 

That day, my brother  posted a picture of his unborn child. And I was reminded of the writing adage, "Show, don't tell." 

Then he posted a picture of my dad holding the picture, two days before he died. 

And there was the continuum, right there, on Facebook.  All life is precious and equally infinitely loved, from conception to death.   I couldn't miss it.  It is right there alive in that picture.  And I remembered the words from Luke, 12:11, "When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say; 12for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say."

Just in case I was slow on the uptake, and the Holy Spirit knows I need overkill to get the point,  there was this piece on my Facebook feed at Word on Fire!

And the final smack across the heart, a piece by a fellow member of the Catholic writer's guild about his newborn daughter's diagnosis of Down Syndrome, Stage Six: Joy.

 

Which brings us back to how we are to be in the face of everything, joyful, even as we scour our own souls, even as we know there is a tremendous amount of labor to do.  Even the smallest act of kindness is a rebuke of the seemingly endless waves of chaos, pain, suffering and evil, both in the virtual and actual world.  

 

The hardest thing for us to do, is love someone we cannot see, either because we do not know them, we seek not to see them, or we want to pretend they do not exist because to acknowledge such existence would demand something of us. The internet provides us with a constant challenge, to see the person on the other side of the keyboard, regardless of their politics, positions, opinions, power or reach, as people of infinite worth, pearls of great price, people we hope to keep and call friends. 

 

Hold true, hold fast, hold. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forever Singing

A weekly task in this household involves a trip to the dry cleaner.  Because this chore falls to me and has for over a decade, I've come to know the people who work at the store if not on a first time basis, enough to be able to joke around.  One woman however, began sharing with me the story of her life.  She asked me to pray when her brother died.  Later, again as her father passed on and she wasn't able to attend, given that there was a whole ocean and islands between her and her family, she begged me to pray.

We know each has a lively faith though we've never talked specifics.  She always gives me a big smile.  I'm always a bit sad when my friend isn't there.  It is a touch of lightness in the midst of doing the dutiful and mundane.  She knows my name. I regret, I've yet to really wrap my brain around hers, though I've asked and sought to remember.  

Recently, she stopped me to ask if a tracheostomy hurts.  Long forgotten scars on my neck from early childhood sometimes bring up these sorts of conversations.  It turned out her mother had fallen down stairs and had one.  Given the woman's age and the extent of her injuries, the doctors urged my friend to "let her mother go."  Her eyes grew fiery recalling the words.  "But I cannot let my mother go.  I believe in God and I am praying for a miracle."  I asked for her mom's name and said I would too.  Leaving, I went about my day, folding her mom and her family into the daily rosary but not overly focusing any more than usual.  I have long known the reality, if you cannot be unreasonable with God, who can you be unreasonable with? She asked for the unreasonable.

Yesterday, I went to pick up suits for my husband.  She called me over. "Do you want to see?" she asked.  "Do you want to see my mom?" and she told me, she's sitting up some, she tries to talk even though we can't quite understand it.  She is coming home from the hospital soon, and my friend will quit her job to care for her.  "But we get together every week to eat and to pray." She put out her white i-phone.  "My mom loves to sing prayers.  This was taken two days before her fall."  She presses the button on the phone and a video of her mother plays.   Her mother has perfect makeup, she is in a white clean kitchen and she is singing.  Her face reveals a smile that parallels her daughter's, it is wide and bright, the word luminous floats through my head.  This is a heaven's choir member here on earth practicing, warming up.  "She wouldn't stop singing." my friend explained. "We'd all stopped but she just wanted to keep on singing."

A prayer in another language, recorded before it would not be heard anymore here on this Earth, so that her daughter could show what she said next.  "God is real. God is good.  God loves us. I know that.  I know that." she pointed at the phone of her mother still singing.  Five minutes of video of pure praise, pure song.

Reduced to tears and in absolute awe, I looked at my friend, she'd lost her brother and father this year and now, her mother lay in a hospital bed requiring she surrender her job and here she was, rejoicing, Job like.  I left the dry cleaner's trying to comprehend the enormity of mercy and the miraculous, of faith and faithfulness revealed all while merely going about the ordinary.  This was a faith the size of a mountain, alive and active.

We often ask why when our lives are struck by tragedy or problems, even just inconvenience, and it is always an opportunity to fold ourselves into the cross, to reveal to the world the luminous nature of our faith, the miraculous somehow beyond this Earth joy of knowing and loving a God who suffers with us, a God who loves us despite our white hot messes, despite our foolishness, despite knowing every single sin.  To fold into the cross is to let God love us, to stop trying to hold onto everything ourselves, to stop thinking that it depends upon us, to let go and let God pour into all the broken cracked empty spaces.  All required of us, is to ask to be folded in, to participate. My friend had done this, with her brother, with her father, and now her mom.  Filled, she could not help smiling, just as her mother, could not stop singing.    

P.S. Today I'm going to drop off stuff at the cleaners, and memorize her name.

Confessions of a Scaredy Cat*

My name is Sherry, and I am a scaredy cat.

When I was 5, Mom took us shopping for Halloween. I picked out a “scary black cat” but when I put it on at home, I couldn’t stop screaming. Terrified by the angry feline face staring back at me in the mirror, Mom dutifully took the costume back. I was a Cinderella princess instead. Thus began my love hate relationship with all things frightening.

The next summer, a fireman came by the neighborhood to campaign for all homes to purchase smoke detectors. (We did). He talked about fire safety and showed a film of a home burning to the ground. Shaking my hand when I answered “Stop, drop and roll.” He awarded me an Inflatable Smokey the bear. That evening, nightmares of my home, my parents, even my brothers burning plagued me. I begged Mom the next day to call the fireman and return Smokey.

That Halloween, there was a carnival at the community college. Many of the volunteers were friends of my parents. Some had been at our home and even babysat. Going into the spook house, I saw the three witches at the cauldron and froze. Mom and Dad’s friends were upset to see me so frightened. They immediately took off their masks but I wouldn’t stop sobbing until Dad carried me out.

My latent cowardice was concealed for a few years by avoidance of all things creepy. By banning spooky costumes, movies, and haunted houses, I pretended to forget that I was indeed, a chicken. I didn’t even watch Scooby Doo.

Somewhere in adolescence I began a crash course of attempted self correction of this character flaw. I read “Jaws” at the beach and couldn’t swim that week. I watched Dracula films in October, with the lights on, clutching a bible and the rosary. I also went to the bathroom frequently during these films. Playing dungeons and dragons and slaughtering the undead mercilessly, I told myself I was growing out of it.

Every fall, the state fair came to our town. My brother and I were now old enough to venture forth on our own for an hour or so while Mom took our other brother and cousins to the baby rides. My brother was 2 ½ years younger than me, we had that unhealthy standing sibling rivalry perfected. We loved beating each other, academically, physically, morally. Most anything from grades to getting in the car first could easily become a sudden death contest.

When Mom turned us loose, I was ready. “Let’s see who can be the bravest.” I dared.
“You’re on!” Joe grinned, he had been plotting too.

Joe started strong. He went into the room with the man who became a Gorrilla. He was the last to run out of the room. I was first.

I went on the Super Buggy Roller Coaster, the second biggest at the fair, in the front seat. He sat in the last. Joe ate a hot dog and went on the Zipper while I watched.

I had an ice cream and went on the Gravitron, but he went with me. We both felt a bit green afterwards. He threw up first so I won that round.

Pre-lims were over. Now, it was serious.

Joe touched the python in the creepy creatures tent. Now how could I top that? I tried to wrestle the greased pig and failed. Then we went to the freak show and Joe was grossed out by the leering advances of the bearded fat lady. Victory was slipping so he went on the SuperLoop by himself. I had never done that ride, not even with Dad.

Working my nerve up, we both went on the Yo-Yo swings and then I spied it from the air. I would go through the Spook House alone. Joe looked doubtful but impressed. That clinched it.

Sitting in the little cart as it rattled towards the dark entrance, I began to get cold feet. “If I bolt, I lose.” I thought. Fear was making me seriously consider quitting. I glanced at Joe who looked both awed and a bit worried and I set my teeth. I would do it. The door opened. It was pitch black. I couldn’t see.

“That’s it!” my brain exclaimed, “I’ll keep my eyes shut, and Joe will never know! GENIUS!” I grinned, “two minutes and I win!”

I could see light through my lids so I covered my eyes with my hands. Then I heard screams and laughter and moans and the clicking and whirring of motors and track and chains pulling the cart along, so I plugged my ears. My cart rolled and stopped and turned and dropped, but I wasn’t nervous. Nearing the end, the cart had slowed down.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I ignored it.

Someone tapped me again. I brushed it off, still not looking.

A third time, the very real hand stayed on my shoulder.

I turned around, opened my eyes and found myself face to face with a live monster. I screamed and punched it right in the nose with all the force I could muster.

He jumped off the cart cursing and ripping off his mask, howling and swearing “GIRL!” and hopping away quickly as I looked back in shock.

The ride exit opened into sunshine. I came out laughing. Joe couldn’t believe I had done it and survived. I didn’t tell him what happened. We met at the exit line and ran towards the livestock exhibits to meet Mom. I bought Joe a caramel apple and got to bask in the fake glory of being both brave and a good sport.

That Halloween, I was a ninja zombie slayer and Joe was a vampire. We stayed up watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I had nightmares galore, but didn’t tell anyone. I still get creeped out easily by things but every once in a while, I watch or read them anyway, because now I know I know, my left hook is killer.

*Originally printed in Beaumont Enterprise Halloween 2006

In Honor of My Sibling’s birthday.

Date: October 25, 1977.

The baby was coming two months ahead of schedule. Ignorant of how scary this might be, (after all, I was two months early too and here I was, a sixth grader and just fine), I felt happy to know I would find out soon; brother or sister.

My brothers and I got farmed out to our best friends’ homes respectively for the duration. Huzzah! Unrestricted time with peers is every adolescent’s dream; except this one came with a parent that was on a health kick.

Being a good friend, she tried to warn me, but it wasn’t like I had any choice. My parents were hi-tailing it two hours to the big hospital. I came psyched with my pj’s, tooth brush and clothes for the next three days.

Then we were served snack.

Raisins.

Raisins were something you stuck in oatmeal. Raisins were in cookies you ate only after all other options had been exhausted. Raisins were grapes gone bad.

“Can I have a drink?”

Her mom poured us each some water... without ice... from the tap.

As green and as healthy and as ecologically and economically friendly as this may have been, I was an unenlightened seventies sixth grader. This was Not a snack.

My friend meekly drank her luke warm tap water and gave me a “You know how They are” look. We ran to her room to listen to the Doobie Brothers, read Dynamite! and talk about Star Wars. For the next two hours, if one didn’t count the hunger pains, it was pure bliss. My best friend explained that her mother was trying to purge their family of impurities and warned that dinner might not be fun. I promised to be a gracious guest, being her best friend and all, we could tough it out.

Dinner was served.

I don’t think anyone has ever licked their lips in joy and anticipation at a meal like this, or if they have, common sense has prevailed enough that they haven’t gone public. I stared at the plate. The following is 100% unembellished unvarnished, ungarnished truth. Warning! Not for the squeamish or slightly queasy.

Liver: enemy of every respectable child without a gallon of ketchup at their side.
Pickled beets: I have family that eat these so I won’t insult their taste buds. That being said, I wasn’t happy.
Lima beans: My husband loves them. He serves them. I still won’t eat them.
Water. *Still from tap. Single feeble melting cube.

We sat down for grace before meals.

I admit, my prayer was silent and heart felt. “Please please God. Deliver me from this food.”

The phone rang as soon as we said “Amen.”

It was my Dad. I had a sister. Mary Jennifer. I was pumped to even up the score with my brothers. Then inspiration struck. I whooped to her family and gushed, “I have a sister! Oh, I’m too excited I can’t eat!” and ran up the stairs. My best friend saw opportunity and took it. “ME TOO!” she shouted and bolted after me.

I heard her brother and sister try the same stunt to no effect. We played cards until we were sure dinner had been put away. We laughed and snuck down around ten o’clock to feast on vanilla ice cream and Coca-cola.

“To Mary Jennifer!”
“To your sister!”

And the bubbly soda shot through our noses. Truly, it was a great celebration to be alive.

Happy Birthday Sis and many more! Pass the ice cream and soda please.