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Stop Feeding the Seagulls!

by Donna Poole

It was a chilly fall day at Lake Huron, rainy too. It wasn’t an ideal day to eat lunch on a balcony, but that’s what we were doing.

I hate wasting a second of watching the water when we’re on vacation. I mean, you can be warm and dry when you aren’t on a holiday, right? I coaxed a reluctant John into eating on the balcony with me.

We were enjoying baked pasta with amazing meatballs and a side of garlic bread. The seagulls on the sand three floors below us began congregating.

“They’re staring at us,” John said. “I think they’re used to people tossing food to them.”

“If they want this food, I’m pretty sure they’re Italian seagulls.” I laughed.

The helpful gulls had no intention of letting too almost elderly people eat more pasta than was good for them.

“Let’s help them,” the seagull leader called.

With answering squawks, screeches, and shrieks his tribe obeyed. They rose as one from the sand and circled our balcony. A few of the braver ones dive-bombed us, desperate for some good Italian food.

We retreated inside.

“Rats,” I complained to John. “I wish I’d gotten a photo. I’ll try to get one when we eat breakfast outside tomorrow.”

“We’re eating breakfast outside tomorrow?”

“Sure! Maybe it will be warmer. Maybe it will quit raining.”

It wasn’t and it didn’t. But we took our breakfast outside. There were as many gulls as the day before, but they showed no interest in our bread spread with peanut butter, not even when I held it over the side of the balcony.

“Told you they were Italian,” I said to John.”

I’ve been thinking about those gulls. I watched a video of aggressive gulls chasing a terrified child down a beach trying to get her chicken nugget. Poor kid. I didn’t blame her for being afraid. I’d been scared of them too when they’d dive-bombed us. I hadn’t feared their claws or talons, but I was seriously afraid they might poop on my food!

 Seagulls aren’t naturally aggressive. People make them that way by feeding them. I read an article titled, “For the Love of God, stop Feeding the Seagulls and Here’s Why”. The article basically said don’t feed them for two reasons:

  1. It’s bad for them; they wait for easy handouts of unhealthy food and no longer work to get fish and insects that are good for them.
  2. It’s bad for us. When we feed seagulls, they can become overly aggressive. Think Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, “The Birds.”

My dad enjoyed feeding birds. When my siblings and I were young he took us to Stewart Park in Ithaca, New York, where we fed ducks and swans. When Dad grew old and lived alone after Mom died, he fed crows.

We discovered his crow-feeding hobby by accident when we drove from Michigan to New York State to visit Dad. There, in his immaculate, weed-free yard, we saw a heap of spaghetti noodles. I looked twice to be sure that’s what it was.

I asked Dad if some garbage had spilled and told him we’d clean it up for him.

Dad chuckled. “That’s still there? They must not have been too hungry yesterday.”

My Italian dad ate pasta fazool and spaghetti quite often and shared the cooked, plain pasta with the crows.

He explained. “I go outside and call, ‘crows, crows,’ and they come. Then I toss the spaghetti up in the air. They dive for it and get some of it before it hits the ground!”

You can bet a buck or a billion of them Dad wouldn’t have been doing that if Mom had still been alive. Again, think Hitchcock and “The Birds”.

Seagulls and crows might look graceful flying in the distance, but I don’t want them dive-bombing me, screaming their raucous cries in my ear, or pooping in my hair.

Those birds remind me of worry. That’s what worry does—spoils a good Italian lunch eaten on a balcony with a beautiful view we can enjoy only for a limited time. Worry distracts us from fully experiencing a quiet walk on the beach.

And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a murder of crows following me down a meandering backroad and cawing for my next plate of pasta.

The solution is simple; for the love of peace stop feeding the birds. An old saying: “You can’t stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.”

So, what do you say we stop feeding worry. Let’s not give it even one more crumb of garlic bread. When worry starts its raucous cries overhead we can nudge that crow or seagull over God’s way. We can do it something like this: “God, this (insert worry) is troubling me. I don’t want to feed it by brooding about it. I know You’re a good God and good and what You do, so I’m leaving this with You. Show me what, if anything, You want me to do.”

Then watch the crows and seagulls fly away. They’ll go where someone else will feed them. Oh, they’ll be back, and we’ll have to nudge them God’s way again, but for now, bye bye, birdie, bye bye.  

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Hometown Heroes

by Donna Poole

It wasn’t my hometown.

It probably wasn’t your hometown.

It was everyone’s hometown.

 We all have them—hometown heroes. People who overcome adversity and make the world a brighter place.

We met hometown heroes on our last day of our long weekend getaway. It was cold, raining, and the wind was whipping off an angry looking Lake Huron. We had to park across the road from the restaurant, and I was shivering when we finally got inside.

The host, a slightly built man, noticed my slow gait. “I know what it is to have mobility issues,” he said, glancing at me sympathetically. He tapped his right leg. We could tell by the sound it was a prosthetic.  “I’m sitting you close to the buffet, so you won’t have far to walk.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“She has cancer,” John explained.

“I’m sorry!” He said it like he meant it. He understood. Suffering, of whatever kind, creates a bond of compassion.

Then he told us our server’s name and hustled off to seat other customers. And hustle is the correct verb. He walked fast with barely a limp.

John and I were grateful no one else was within sneezing distance. I’ve only recently been allowed back into the GP—general population. I try to obey my oncology team’s rules lest I get thrown back into solitary confinement, and I’ve had quite enough of that; thank you very much!

Some of my rules:

Always wear a mask.

Stay a good distance away from other people.

Don’t go into auditoriums—church or school.

I can occasionally go into a restaurant or a store if I keep about two hundred feet between me and the next person and yell, “Unclean! Unclean!”

Don’t eat at buffets.

But I eyed this buffet. Nothing was out in the open. Everything was behind high Plexiglass, even the dishes. The servers, also behind Plexiglas, filled plates and handed them to the customers.

It looked perfectly safe to me, and no one else was in line. I made a mad dash. Okay, to be honest, I made a slow limp for the line.

The food was amazing, especially the fresh fruit.

While I ate, I kept noticing the host. He had a smile and a cheerful greeting for everyone. We heard him exclaim with joy when he discovered he and a customer had attended the same high school, years apart, and knew several of the same people. I heard him laugh. I never heard a sigh or saw a frown.

It was still pouring outside, but it was warm and sunny in that restaurant. I don’t think my oncology team needs to worry; the only thing contagious in that place was friendliness. (Or that’s what I’m telling myself.)

Our waiter, a young man with dreadlocks to his shoulders and a gorgeous smile stopped to chat with us. He lives in Utah but was visiting his uncle in Michigan and working to make money to continue his college education in financial analysis.

His face glowed as he talked about expectations for his future.

“You’ll be good at it,” I said. “You have a great personality.”

He asked where we lived, and we told him. “You have a long drive home.” He looked at us and smiled. “You two are beautiful!” he said.

I don’t suppose many young men in their early twenties can look past wrinkles and old age spots and see the beauty of lifetime love. But he could.

John asked him if we should leave a tip on the table or if it would be included in our bill.

He shook his head. “People leave tips on the table here, but I don’t want a tip from you. I’ll give you a tip instead. You two take care of each other, you hear?”

We told him we would. And we left at tip on the table.

We headed out, and John paid our bill. I noticed our host standing still for once. He looked at me and smiled.

“You mentioned your leg?” I asked.

He nodded. “07 in Afghanistan. I was a medic transporter. It was my job to get the wounded onto the helicopter. I’d just gotten off the helicopter when someone fired an RPG—you know—one of those big shoulder rockets. Took out about my whole right side.”

He lifted his shirt to show me a wide white band around his waist.

“Broke my back and my shoulder. Took my entire leg. But I’m okay! I’m fine!”

I thanked him.

“Anytime, sweetheart,” he said. “Anytime.”

Head down against the wind, John and I returned to our car. We drove and parked to say goodbye to the lake, the bridge, and our short vacation. We talked about the hometown hero and the great sacrifice he’d made.

“John,” I said, “that young man who waited on our table? He said his college is in Utah, right? And he’s going back home as soon as he gets enough money?”

John nodded.

“It’s the end of September. He’s missing this semester. He must not have made enough money over the summer.”

But we’d heard no “poor me” in his voice, only a hope for good things coming.

Our server and our host had something in common. Life wasn’t all about them. It was about others.

One was a hero in a big, dramatic way, overcoming adversity most of us can’t even begin to imagine. The other was a hero in a quiet way, overcoming adversity of an everyday variety.

Both made our day brighter.

Both made me want to be a hometown hero too.

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It’s 9:40 in the Morning

by Donna Poole

It’s 9:40 in the morning, and I’m sad. The world seems an emptier place just now, especially at this hour. I don’t know if anyone is praying for me. Before this, I always knew.

Maynard Belt was an important and well-known man. He did major things in his lifetime of eighty-one years, pastored four churches, served as the State Representative for the Michigan Association of Regular Baptist Churches, and did many other things. His last area of service was president of The Fellowship of Missions. I think that was his secret; he didn’t care a thing about positions or titles; he just wanted to serve.

To me, Maynard was something invaluable; he was a friend who prayed. A few years ago, he messaged me, “Donna, I have my watch alarm set for 9:40 a.m. every day to pray specifically for you.”

He didn’t pray just for me at 9:40; Maynard and his wife Ann prayed for John too.

He sent encouraging words, uplifting songs, Bible verses, and funny memes. One meme showed two clothes pins, one dressed as a bride, the other as a groom. They were kissing. The caption read, “They met online.”

With so many friends and responsibilities, I don’t know how he made time for us, but somehow, he did. Maynard kept tract of us, of my cancer treatments, of John’s heart catheterization.

When Maynard was reading R.C. Sproul’s biography he messaged,” I love biographies whether I agree with everything or not. One statement has stuck with me, ‘Right now counts forever!’ Many blessings your way and please let’s keep in touch.”

Maybe that’s how he made time to pray for so many people; he made his “right nows” count forever. As soon as possible after a difficult surgery he returned to teaching his Sunday school class, something he loved. In addition to everything else he did, Maynard wrote books. I don’t know how many. I know he wrote a book on affliction and books of poetry too.

In one of our last chats on Facebook messenger I thanked him for his prayers. I told him, “I wish for just a second we could see the heavenly network of prayers. You should write a poem about that!”

He replied, “Maybe after this conference.”

He was getting ready for the Fellowship of Missions Conference. Maynard, Ann, and one of their daughters flew there. The plan was for Maynard to retire after serving as twelve years as president.

But he didn’t retire. He got promoted instead.

Maynard developed breathing problems on the flight and a few days later, on a Sunday morning, he went to see the Lord he’d loved and served so many years. He never wrote the poem I suggested. He didn’t write the books he still planned to write. He didn’t get to enjoy retirement years with Ann.

In May of 2020 we were talking about wanting to hear God say, “Well done!” not “Nine-tenths well done.”

Maynard said, “9-10’s will not be sufficient. So we will go ALL the way for the Lord for He went ALL the way for us. Blessings!”

On September 11, 2022, Maynard Belt heard God say, “Well done!” because he was a man who knew how to make right now count forever. I’m happy for him, but sad for his family.

As I’m writing this his memorial service is just an hour away. I can’t be there, but I’ll watch on live stream.

When 9:40 a.m. comes around tomorrow, I don’t want that prayer slot to be empty. So, I’m going to try to remember to fill it with the neediest person God suggests to me. And the network of prayer will continue to grow until it fills the sky with an intricate pattern too lovely for poetry to describe.  

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What They Didn’t Tell the Kids

A Partly Fiction Story

by Donna Poole

Oh, they tell “the kids” a lot.

Too much, probably.

Though their offspring now range in age from fifty down to thirty-three, they will always be “the kids” to them.

“Sit down, kids; sit down.” And so, they tell the kids every dark, dismal, detail of each procedure and test, his heart and kidney problems, her cancer. Poor kids, they hear it all, over and over, ad nauseum, terms like EGFR, occluded circumflex, stent, chemotherapy, clinical trial, abnormal EKG, PET scan, CT.

***

A phone buzzes.

“It’s another text from Mom.”

“You look.”

“No, you look.”

“I can’t. I’m trying to have a good day.”

***

But they don’t tell the kids everything.

“Have we told the kids we’re having a contest to see which of us can scare them the most?” she asks.

“I think they know it.” He grins.

“So, what does the winner of the contest get?”

He looks apprehensive. “What did you have in mind?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A trip to the Bahamas would be nice.”

Then he laughs. “I was thinking more like a trip to Osseo.”

Osseo

Distance from home: Maybe six miles

Population: 3,063

Attraction: Post Office

“If all I get is a trip to Osseo than I’m going to quit trying to scare the kids.”

He hugs her. “I wish you would.”

“Honey,” she asks in a voice muffled by his shoulder, “do you think we tell the kids too much?”

“We don’t tell them everything.”

That was true. They didn’t tell them every time he got chest pains while he was preaching. They never shared she couldn’t remember all the grandkids’ names, especially the younger ones. They didn’t confess that when they answered, “How are you feeling” with “Okay,” the word “okay” could mean anything from contented lethargy to tears of pain.

There was that one time when okay meant “fantastic!” They’d never told the kids she felt wonderful that day when she’d taken his pills by mistake. Nor did they speak about the road trip they’d taken to New York and ended up in California. They’d always wanted to see the Pacific Ocean anyway.

There were things they wished they could say to the kids but didn’t know how.

Please, when we’re gone, don’t remember the old parents whose bodies held their own contest to see which part could fail fastest. Don’t recall the mom and dad whose minds might turn to mush before Jesus calls them Home. Remember the young parents who took you tent camping and managed a whole week of fun on just seven dollars. Think about the strong parents who carried you, who took you swimming and sledding and on picnics and on road trips to see grandparents.

It’s late. They’re lying in bed, talking.

“Do you think they know?” she asks him.

“Who knows what?” He’s trying to sleep.

“Our kids and in-law kids and grandkids. Do you think they know how much we love them?”

“I’m sure they do. Try to go to sleep, okay?”

“No, I have to call them. Just in case they don’t know, I want to tell them I might forget later.”

“It’s too late. Wait until morning.”

“It is morning! It’s one minute after midnight.”

And so, she calls, one after another, everyone who has a cell phone.

His face is buried in his pillow and he’s snoring when she finishes. She wakes him up.

“Honey, no one answered. All the calls went right to voice mail.”

“Of course they did. You do know you’re going to get worried call backs the minute they wake up?”

“No, I won’t get any calls. I used your phone.”

“You did WHAT?”

“Yeah, In case they were asleep, I didn’t want them to think I was the one bothering them for something silly in the middle of the night.”

He tries to frown, but he can’t do it.

And then the two of them fall asleep, laughing, and holding hands.

“Honey!” She pokes him. “Remind me to tell the kids getting old isn’t all bad. Sometimes it’s fun.”

He groans. “And sometimes it’s exhausting.”

Moonlight streams in the window. She sees his face, next to her on the pillow. She knows she’s blessed to have him. She prays for those who no longer have a loved one next to them.

Cherish the moments together, she thinks. I have to remember to tell the kids.

Us a Few Years Ago
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The Rainbow’s Promise

by Donna Poole

There were four babies.

None of them were early walkers.

But all of them were early talkers.

The four are ours.

Our youngest, Kimmee Joy, spoke in complete sentences at fifteen months of age, and lest you think I’m bragging, read on. The early talking was not always brag-worthy.  

Kimmee sat on the lap of a friend of mine she called ‘Grandma.”

“Grandma,” Kimmee said, stroking the woman’s face with her baby hands, “you have a very nice moustache.”

I was potty training Kimmee and had to take her into a bathroom in a store. The stall next to us was occupied.

Kimmee giggled. “That lady go fifty-two gallons!”

I gave her the look. “Shh!”

Trying to atone, she gave a sympathetic nod and said, “Maybe she have diarrhea or something!”

I hurried her outside to her dad and said, “Next time, John, you take her to the bathroom!”

“I can’t take her into the men’s room!”

“Oh yes you can!”

In the interest of full disclosure, Kimmee, now thirty-three, must deal with me. Brain surgery and subsequent seizures did a bit of damage to my right frontal lobe. Have you heard of a filter, that part of your brain that says, “Don’t say that?” Yeah. Mine’s broken. Or dead. To be determined. Now, on occasion, I inadvertently embarrass Kimmee.

The other day I was talking to someone on the phone and didn’t realize I’d said something I shouldn’t have until Kimmee groaned. “Mom!”

Do you wonder what I said? Sorry. My interest in full disclosure doesn’t extend that far.

Because Kimmee talked when she was so young, we soon became aware that compassion was one of her strongest traits.

She and I were waiting in the car while John was in the post office. An elderly gentleman struggled up the steps, one hand gripping the rail, the other clinging to his cane.

Kimmee pulled her pacifier out of her mouth. “Mommy, go help that man.” Her baby face crumpled in compassion.

“Honey, there’s nothing I can do to help him. And he doesn’t even know who I am.”

“Yes, he does know you! You are Donna Poole! Now you go help him!”

I didn’t go. I don’t remember how long it took her to forgive me.

Kimmee’s compassion extended to all God’s creatures, great and small. Except for giant spiders. When she was a little girl, she loved on neighborhood barn cats who came and went by the dozens, and she did shed “fifty-two gallons” of tears with each one who died.

Two dogs and countless cats have burial spots on our property some marked with crosses.

She never outgrew her compassion for animals.

Kimmee, and her husband Drew, live with us. They’ve adopted four stray cats who live inside, three more who live on the porch, and other assorted outside creatures. There was a coon for a while.

Just this summer Kimmee rescued a baby bird, a fledgling, from her cats. It lay almost lifeless in her hand; she brought it inside to show me. After awhile it revived, and she set it free. It hopped off into the weeds. She also saved a few baby bunnies this summer. and a cicada.

Kimmee posted this on her Facebook page early yesterday morning. “Anyone else up at 2:30 a.m. attempting to rescue a wayward katydid who came through a window air conditioner and invaded your bedroom? Just me? Cool, cool, cool.

“Also, I say ‘attempting to rescue’ because I’m only about 50% sure it actually went out the door. It kept flying back in, but I tried.”

That “trying” took more effort than most people would have given a katydid in the middle of the night; she had to carry it down a flight of stairs to open the door and set it free.

I imagine God smiles when Kimmee and her kind care for His creation.

God cares deeply about His creatures. The Bible says God feeds the birds; He notices every tiny sparrow that falls to the ground., and He labels as righteous a man who cares for the life of his beast.

William Cowper wrote,

“I would not enter on my list of friends

(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,

Yet wanting sensibility) the man

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. …

Ye, therefore, who love mercy,

Teach your sons

To love it too.”

You probably know when God put the rainbow in the sky after the Great Flood He did so as a promise to mankind that He would never again destroy the world with water. But did you know God made that covenant with all the living creatures too? You can read it in Genesis 9:10.  

Yes, God made a promise to the animals that day, and He talks to them with every rainbow He puts in the sky. I like to think someday when we talk to the animals, they’ll use words to answer us. I’m only guessing at that, but if Eve wasn’t surprised when the serpent spoke to her in the garden, and Balaam wasn’t shocked out of his sandals when his donkey scolded him; perhaps there was a day when conversation between animals and people was common. And maybe that day will come again.

I know we can learn a lot from God’s creatures even now. Ants teach us not to be lazy—Proverbs 6:6—8. Birds teach us to trust God—Luke 12:24. A crane showed John and me patience as he stood motionless for a long time in the water waiting for a fish.

I’m not preaching vegetarianism, though if that’s your thing, fine. I like a good steak as much as the next guy; I’ll take mine medium well, not the way Mom cooked it to please Dad, charcoal black.

But I’m thinking I’d better enjoy my steaks now, because a wonderful day is coming when I don’t suppose I’ll be eating them anymore. I love these verses from Isaiah 11 about the Kingdom, when Jesus comes to rule on earth:

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.

“They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”

No hurt? No destruction? Only peace? I’ll give up my steak for that! The same God who made His rainbow promise to us and to the animals gave us the promise of peace too. Kimmee won’t have any more animals to rescue then, but neither will she have to cry fifty-two gallons of tears.

Kimmee’s compassion extends to me. Even though she knows only God can do it, she’s been doing her best to rescue me from the claws of cancer as fiercely as she takes a baby bunny from her cats.

I may get well and strong again here on earth. But I surely will be well and strong enough to dance with joy on that holy mountain! Everyone will be kind there; no one will needlessly step on a worm, and perhaps the animals will talk. And in my imagination a perfect rainbow circles that mountain, a reminder that God always keeps His promises.

I suppose we’ll all know what not to say there, and “Grandma” will no longer have her moustache.

Photo Credit” Kimmee Kiefer
Photo Credit: Kimmee Kiefer
Photo Credit: Kimmee Kiefer
Photo Credit: Kimmee Kiefer
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Too Much Interference

by Donna Poole

I thought I’d probably be dead by now.

I imagined any self-respecting woman with refractory cancer, one who’d flunked chemotherapy twice and radiation once, would give a resigned nod, gather her flowing robes regally about her cancerous self, and make a dignified exit. Off I’d go, gently, into that good night. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

See, right there, that’s my first problem. I wear comfy sweatpants these days and have no flowing robes. And I’ve never managed a dignified anything in my life. If someone told me to do a stately exit stage right, I’d trip, fall, laugh, and exit stage left.

Here’s my second problem. Even though at the time I looked like a half-starved Sphynx cat, hairless, bony, and needing to double knot my suddenly too large sweatpants, I wasn’t ready to quit fighting, and neither was my oncology team. They let me becone a guinea pig for a drug trial. The manufacturers of said drug pay for my many tests hoping they’ll show I’m the miracle patient who will propel their medication to market. Thanks to them, I think I’ve had a baker’s dozen PET scans and twice that many CTs all with contrast.

Think of the radiation! You know how they say some people light up a room? I really do! You may hear a buzzing noise like a high-powered wire if you sit too close to me, but God is using Epcoritamab. It’s keeping me alive.

There are other reasons I’m still on this side of the dirt. It’s true that laughter is good medicine. Very. Good. Medicine.

My crazy, funny family makes me laugh. My husband, John, is the worst of the bunch. The other day a receptionist was trying to set up an infusion for me for something unrelated to cancer and struggling to find a time to work me in.

“We’re short on nurses that day,” she explained.

“That’s okay,” John said. “We’ll take a tall one.”

That receptionist is well acquainted with John, so it wasn’t the first time she’d heard his puns. She asked me if he takes his stand-up comedy routine on the road.

John is a pastor, and yes, puns sometimes accompany his preaching. But he’s in good company.

Charles Spurgeon was a famous English preacher and author in the 1800s. A woman once rebuked him for too much levity from the pulpit; humorous preaching wasn’t all that common in the Victorian era.

“Ma’am,” he replied, “if you only knew how much I keep in, you would commend me!”

Our church family helps keep me cheerful. I wish you could meet them. They are the best people anywhere. They love me and show it in every way. And they make me laugh. I can’t go inside church because my oncology team keeps me isolated, so I listen from the parking lot. John brings me home verbal messages, cards, notes, and jokes.

Sunday John said, “This is to Donna from Dave.

“Eve got upset because Adam kept coming home late.

“‘Adam, is there another woman?’

“Eve! You know you’re the only woman!’

“That night Adam was almost asleep when he felt Eve poking him.

“Eve, what are you doing?’

“‘I’m counting your ribs!’”

And my church family, those dear people who travel down the gravel roads to meet at the white frame church on the corner—they pray for me. The ones who’ve moved away and only drive down the dirt roads now in their memories—they still pray for me.

And let me tell you more about our family! There are twenty-four of us now. Most of them will perform super-human exploits to rearrange schedules to get together whenever possible, and that does me more good than chemo ever could. A daughter has opened her large home for family gatherings.

A son and daughter-in-law have hosted family fun more times than I can count. I sit outside listening to a crackling bonfire as the first stars decorate the night sky and look around at the sweet faces of the family I love. How can I not hope, try, and pray to get well?

Then there’s the daughter who lives with us cooks delicious meals and coaxes me to eat. I hate to think what this house would look like if she hadn’t been cleaning it for the last two years. She does it all because she loves me.

Do you believe love can help keep someone alive? I do. Like laughter, it’s another medicine God uses until it’s His time to call someone Home. Love, and prayer.

All our grandchildren old enough to talk pray for me; it would be ungrateful of me to give up on life without a fight.

I know I owe much to the prayers of family, church family, and friends. We have one friend I haven’t seen for over two years, but I remember well how he prays. He begins with a long pause. After he says one quiet word, “Father,” he usually pauses again. I’m always tempted to open my eyes at that point, because I can feel God’s presence with us, and I want to see Him. But I don’t look.   

People I’ve never met from all over the world pray for me, including some of you. I’m grateful. And I’m glad I’m still here to pray for people who need me.

Whenever I’m tempted to give up, and yes, sometimes I feel like it, I think of all the people loving and praying. How can I die with so much interference?

My day will come though; it does for all of us, and I’m okay with that. It’s been a good life; if I could go back and start over, I’d choose the same one. I know where I’m going, and I like to think about heaven and everyone waiting for me there.  

“How are you, Donna?”

I get that question a lot. The answer is long and complicated.

Let’s just say I’m still on this side of the dirt. And I’m glad to be here.  

John laughing
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Pass the Pasta

by Donna Poole

Pass me a plate of pasta and I’m a kid again, smelling Mom’s homemade sauce simmering on the back of the stove where it’s been getting thicker and more delicious by the hour. On rare occasions—Dad’s birthday was one—Mom made handmade pasta to go with the sauce. She covered the backs of chairs with cotton dish towels and draped the long, floury noodles over them to dry. We kids could hardly wait until supper time.

Some things were abundant at our house; discipline was one, but food was not. We were still hungry after we finished some meals, especially if meat was involved. Buying enough meat to feed that many people was a challenge not even my resourceful Mom could surmount. Sometimes she would apologize.

“I’m sorry I only have enough pork chops for each of you kids to have one.”

“That’s okay, Mom. Really!”

We always assured her we didn’t want more than one piece of meat anyway, and we weren’t just being polite. Mom was an excellent cook except when it came to meat. Dad insisted all meat be cooked until the only taste left was charcoal briquette. No matter how thoroughly we chewed it, sometimes it scratched our throats all the way down when we swallowed. It’s a wonder we didn’t all become vegetarians. My sisters still aren’t big carnivores!

It didn’t matter if we left the supper table a bit hungry; we always had a bowl of ice cream before bed. If I remember right Mom was able to buy a half gallon of chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, Neapolitan, or maple walnut for fifty-nine cents.

But oh when spaghetti night rolled around once a week! Not only was it delicious; it didn’t scratch your throat, and you could eat until you were full! And eating was fun! Some people cut pasta, but real Italians twirl it on a fork, sometimes with the aid of a spoon. An Italian kid, however, knows the best way to enjoy spaghetti. Put a tiny piece in your mouth and slurp the rest of the long noodle in!

My sister Mary and I especially enjoyed the slurping method. Surprisingly, Mom, the disciplinarian in the family, didn’t correct us, but our way of eating pasta accompanied by our laughter bothered Dad.

“Girls,” he warned, “the first time sauce from your spaghetti splashes on me you’re both finished eating.”

We didn’t take him seriously. Dad never disciplined us. Even when Mom, in desperation called into the living room after supper, “Dominic! Do something with those kids!” his reaction was to give his newspaper a quick shake and raise it an inch higher.

Dad? Send us away from the table when we were still hungry on spaghetti night? Not likely.

We kept laughing and slurping. I don’t know who did it. I’ll blame Mary since she’s in New York and I’m in Michigan and she won’t know about it until she reads this. Mary’s slurped spaghetti sent sauce sailing across the table and slapped Dad right in the face.

“That’s it! Donna and Mary Lou, you’re done eating. Leave the table.”

He doesn’t mean it.

But he did. And I remember that punishment with more sorrow than I do any of the hundreds of disciplinary actions that Mom gave us. Still, I’m not sorry. Given the chance, I’d sit at that table again with my sister, slurp, and laugh.

I wish you could have seen Mary then, a perfectly heart-shaped face, long dark brown braids, and eyes almost black and dancing with fun. She was my partner in crime, but usually the innocent partner. If I were a betting woman, I’d bet the house it was me and not she who slurped the sauce and incurred the rare wrath of Dad.

I still love spaghetti. Last Sunday Kimmee, our daughter, and Drew, our son-in-law, spent hours making me homemade pasta for my birthday. It was delicious. It was comfort food. It tasted like home and heaven.

I like thinking about heaven. I realize some of my views are less than traditional, but the Bible doesn’t tell us enough about heaven for any theologian with advanced degrees up to wazoo to contradict me. I hope.

I know heaven will be Home in the best sense of the word where brothers and sisters will no longer have anything but love for each other left in their hearts, and I long for that. I know heaven will be ultimate comfort because God promises to wipe away all tears. I like to imagine a big table that goes on for miles. When supper time comes, we’ll eat spaghetti with homemade pasta. I’ll sit next to my three sisters, and all four of us will slurp, even though Eve, the oldest and already in heaven, is the one who taught me how to twirl my noodles. Yes, Eve, Mary, Ginny, and I will slurp and laugh, and if anyone doesn’t want to get splashed—Dad—you better sit at the far end of the table.

Just one question remains. How do we get to heaven? When I was a spaghetti slurping little girl, I saw the answer to that written in calligraphy across the front of the auditorium at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Ithaca, New York. Every time I sat in those pews, happy, sleepy, and comfortable, hearing the voices of young and old around me singing the familiar hymns, I saw the words.

“Christ died for our sins…and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.”

All that was left for me to do was believe and I did. I hope you will too, because when I look down that long, long table at Home, I can’t imagine not seeing you there. I can hardly wait until supper time.

Photo Credit: Kimmee Kiefer
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A Dream Within a Dream

Fiction for a Midsummer’s Day

by Donna Poole

I had the strangest dream.

In my dream I was sitting in the front passenger seat of a 1948 red and white Stinson plane.

Maybe I dreamt that because Dad once had a 1948 Stinson. The plane would start only when someone spun the propellor. Dad took us up in it once, and my husband John felt a bit uneasy. He asked Dad what would happen if the plane stalled in the air; how would Dad start it again?

“That’s what a son-in-law is for,” Dad said. “You’ll get out and spin the prop.”

Then Dad laughed his crazy laugh I remember so well. Heh heh heh.

Dad loved flying his plane, but early one spring he discovered a robin had built a nest in the propellor. He didn’t fly until she had laid all her eggs and the babies had grown big enough to fly away on their own.

Dad wasn’t the pilot in my dream. A strange man was steering the plane.

“Who are you and where are you taking me?” I asked.

And then I woke up.

When I woke up, I was still in the plane. The strange man was still flying. I felt like I’d stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone, and I wanted out.

I glanced down; the airport was directly below us, and my panic started to subside a bit. Until the pilot banked, circled, and kept flying.

“What are you doing?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you land? That’s my life down there, and I’d like to get back to it. Now. If you don’t mind.”

The pilot smiled at me. He didn’t look threatening; he looked kind, even, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve seen kidnappers on the news who looked like altar boys.

“I asked what you’re doing!”

“Holding pattern.”

Two brief words; they made me uneasy, but not nearly as disturbed as what he said next.

“Don’t worry; you’re in good hands. Your dad thought I was the best pilot he ever knew. And he says to tell you hello.”

I’m trapped in a plane with a deranged pilot.

I tried not to upset him. “Umm, I don’t think my dad knew you when you were a pilot. He’s been in heaven for nineteen years, and you look barely thirty, so unless you got your license before you were even a teenager….”

He didn’t argue, just smiled. “That was just like your dad, wasn’t it, not flying his plane because he didn’t want to hurt the baby robins? He and I have that in common. I care about baby birds too.”

My mind froze. I couldn’t deal with this. I didn’t know how he knew that about my dad. Had it been in the newspapers? I couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter. Right now mattered! Why was he keeping me captive in this plane?

“Look, if you’re trying to kidnap me, I should warn you most people in my family make barely enough money to stay above the national poverty level, and I don’t have any rich friends!”

The pilot threw back his head and shouted with laughter. “I’m not sure ‘kidnap’ is the correct term for someone who turned seventy-four years old yesterday. And you do have a rich friend. You have me.”

How does he know so much? He knows about Dad not flying until the baby robins grew up. He knows my birthday! Not only is he crazy; he must be some kind of psychic. I’ve got to somehow get out of this plane!

“I don’t know if you’re rich, but you aren’t my friend! I’ve never seen you before in my life!”

He looked at me with a peculiar expression. “Haven’t you now?”

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. Something about him did look familiar. But his vague answers both scared and irritated me.

“Do you always talk in riddles?”

“Sometimes.”

“Look!” My voice sounded loud in the tiny cockpit. “I want a real answer from you.  How long have we been in this holding pattern?”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Two years, three months, eight days.”

“That’s not even funny!”

This time he looked at me with compassion. “I’m not joking.”

“That’s impossible! If I’ve been in this holding pattern that long, then I’ve missed….”

“Weddings and funerals of people you love. Church. Birthday parties, Your granddaughter’s college graduation. Visits with friends. Many sporting events and school programs, even seeing three grandchildren baptized. You’ve missed….”

I quit listening and tried to unfasten my harness, but it wouldn’t budge. I squirmed in desperation.

“You have to take me back! My family must be frantic with worry, wondering where I am!”

“They know exactly where you are.” His words were soft but so certain I almost believed him.

“Well, I don’t know where I am! Where am I?”

“I told you. In a holding pattern.”

“By whose orders?”

He tipped his head back and nodded up at the clouds.

You know how people talk about feeling an icy finger of fear crawl up their spines? I felt it. This man was delusional. I doubted I could talk him down, but I had to try.

“Surely you don’t think God told you to keep me in this holding pattern.”

He nodded. “God the Father. Yes. We’re keeping you safe up here. And here you’ll stay until you get better or worse.”

I tried a voice that had worked in the past on an out-of-control grandchild having a temper tantrum. Soft. But firm. Reasonable. But slightly patronizing.

“Sir. Please try to think straight and be sensible. We couldn’t possibly have been in a holding pattern for…how long did you say…two years? We would have run out of fuel.”

Again, he laughed. “Two years, three months, eight days. And yes, you have run out of fuel more than once, but this plane never has. Never will.”

I ran out of words. I sat there, tears running down my face, wanting to get back to my normal life but fearing I never would. Once again, I could see the airport just below me, right outside my window, but worlds away.

The pilot put a hand on my shoulder. “You could use this time to get to know me better. You’ve said for years you wanted to do that.”

I could barely speak through sobs. “I never said that. I don’t even know who you are.”

He took his hand from my shoulder, and turned it palm up. “I think you know me better than you think. This holding pattern can be beautiful if you’ll just ride along with me.”

I stared at the nail print in His hand. He nodded and showed me His other hand. It had a matching nail print.

“Am I still dreaming?” I asked.

A faint laugh, sounding farther and farther away. “Maybe. Will you just ride along with me?”

Just ride along with me. John knows I hate that sentence. He’s used it for years, whenever he thinks I’m questioning his driving decisions.

Just Ride along with me…ride along with me…ride along with me…

I shook John’s shoulder and interrupted his snoring.

“Honey, wake up. How long has it been since the doctors suspected I had cancer? How long have they restricted me from attending public events?”

“You want to know right now at two o’clock in the morning?”

“It’s important!”

Well, you found out near the end of May in 2020, and now it’s August 6, 2022, so I guess maybe it’s been…

He yawned.

I asked, “Could it be two years, three months, eight days?”

But he was snoring again.

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The Thin Man

by Donna Poole

“Ask them; maybe they know,” John said.

I rolled down my window and asked the young couple getting in the car next to us. “Can you help a couple of old grandparents? How do we put money in those…things?”

I pointed at the parking meter in front of us in downtown Lansing, Michigan.

The young man smiled. “You have to download an app.”

“Download an app?”

“Uh huh. Or I think maybe there’s something on the other side that tells you how to pay. I’m not sure; I’ve always used the app.”

I thanked him; he got in his car, and John and I looked at each other. John pulled out his cell, not to download a who-knows-how-to-do-it-parking-meter-app, but to see if there was another Firehouse Subs we could go to that wasn’t in downtown Lansing.

The young man got back out of his car and came to my window.

“You know what?” he said. “Don’t worry about paying. It’s after five on Friday, and you don’t have to pay for parking on weekends!”

I thanked him with more enthusiasm this time, and he and his girl smiled at each other and drove off.

I expect you’ll raise your eyebrows about our choice of food when I tell you why we were in Lansing.

We’d just left John’s cardiologist office. A recent stress test had showed a small area in the front lower part of his heart that doesn’t get enough oxygen when he exercises.

Earlier that same morning, John’s beloved family doctor, Doctor Kimball, had asked him, “And I take it you’re eating a healthy diet?”

Well, Dr. Kimball, that would be a “sometimes.”

John’s instructions from the cardiologist’s office that afternoon didn’t mention diet (they’ve said that before), but they did tell him to double his Ranexa medication, not to go outside when there’s an excessive heat warning, and never to work until the point of exhaustion. They think his blockage is in a small vessel, probably too small for a stent and better treated with medication but warned him that even small vessel blockages can cause a heart attack if the person pushes too hard. He has another appointment in two weeks, and if he has any more symptoms on the double medication, they’ll schedule another hearth cath.

Those Italian subs from Firehouse Subs were delicious! We’d heard of them but had never eaten them before. We ate without guilt; lunch had been a heart-healthy salad, and besides, we had lettuce on our subs, so that helped, right?

We devoured our food, happy to be together, happy to still have each other.

Suddenly he appeared on the sidewalk right in front of us. The Thin Man. He was Black and wearing a worn, shiny black suit and a bright pink shirt. In that miserable heat. When he smiled I noticed missing teeth. I squinted to read the penciled printing on his cardboard sign.

“What does it say?” I asked John.

“I can’t read it.”

The man came up to John’s window. We didn’t feel at all threatened.

“I had to use a pencil,” he said. “It’s hard to read.”

In crooked, faint letters the sign said, “Anything you can do. God bless.”

Contrary to what you might think, we weren’t born yesterday. We know the rules; never give cash, offer to take them somewhere and buy food, don’t enable an addiction. We know cons harvest the streets and probably make more money than we do.

But there was something about him.

“I just want to get home and get a bath,” he said.

And I remembered C.S. Lewis had written something about he’d rather be taken advantage of a hundred times than get to heaven and find out he’d refused to help one honest person who’d really needed it.

I touched John’s arm. “Honey,” I whispered, “can we help him?”

John opened his wallet and put cash in the man’s hand.

And then the Thin Man gave a speech. It was obviously memorized and had been used many times before. The first line made me grin.

“May you always be as healthy and happy as you obviously are now.”

Happy? Yes! Healthy? If you read this blog often you know better. I did manage to wipe the grin off my face and listen to the rest of his canned speech delivered in a child-like sing-song fashion. I wish I could remember the words exactly, but it went something like this.

“This is my blessing for you. May health and happiness and money return to you twenty-four-fold. God bless.”

He said more. It was a long speech.

Meth Head? Maybe? He was so very thin, and missing teeth….

Still, he’d miscalculated us as healthy; who were we to misjudge him as an addict?

He wasn’t just concerned about the money. He went back onto the sidewalk and kept looking back at us, smiling, and waving with the money in his hand. And then he blew us a kiss.

And I blew one back.

His face lit up with glad surprise.

Meth Head or angel; I don’t know.

Right or wrong to give him the money? I don’t know, but I know what our kids will think when they read this. We’ll probably be grounded until we’re eighty years old, but hey, that’s not that far away!

All I know for certain is that for one second in the millennia of time I blew a kiss and a lonely man looked as happy as a child with a birthday cake.

We drove home, John and I, marveling at the beauty of the formation of the clouds in the sky. They were unusually lovely, and perhaps because of the Thin Man, we had clearer eyes to see them.

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Not Yet

by Donna Poole

When life revolves around waiting rooms, infusions, clinical trials, tests, procedures, and doctor visits, you make your own fun.

I do it every time a medical person asks me the question they always ask. Said medical person has my records and has already been introduced to Morticia, my lung tumor.

“Do you smoke, Mrs. Poole?” They ask this elderly woman with cancer.

“Not yet.”

I wish I had photos of the shocked expressions. Then I laugh, they laugh, everyone laughs. Except John. My husband has heard it a few too many times, and he didn’t think it was funny the first time. I, however, find it more hilarious every time I say it.

Not yet!

I don’t always use that phrase in a humorous way.

“Do you want a wheelchair, honey?”

John looked at me with concern and motioned to the row of wheelchairs ready and waiting outside of the Rogel Cancer Center at University of Michigan Hospital. I was already short of breath and leaning hard on his arm, and we’d only walked from the parking lot to the entrance. We still had a long way to go to get to Star Ship Enterprise where I’d have my high-resolution chest CT scan.

I looked at the maize and blue wheelchairs and hesitated, tempted. Then I shook my head.

“Not yet.”

I didn’t have to say more; John knew what I meant. This “not yet” wasn’t joking.

I want to walk when I can as long as I can.

As usual, I regretted my decision half-way there, and there was no Scotty to beam me up. My legs felt like cooked elbow macaroni, and my vision blurred. I’m not sure why I’m so stubborn about the wheelchair, but I cling hard to the things I can still do.  

With unspoken gratitude to the person who’d invented handrails along hospital corridors, I finally arrived at my destination and collapsed into a chair.

How many times had I been to this room?

I was losing count.

In two years, I’d had twenty-six CT scans and twelve PET scans, but this would be my first high resolution CT. I fell in love with high resolution the moment I found out I didn’t have to drink the wonderful Kool-Aid—AKA barium. Not only that, but I didn’t even need a needle poke for contrast dye. This wonderful machine, in about three minutes, did a Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy worthy examination on my lungs. It saw things in minute detail a regular CT can only dream about.

The examination completed; we began making our way back to the parking lot. Stopping to catch my breath, I leaned against a handrail. A tall man with dark curly hair hesitated behind us. He was pushing a shiny metal cart with some boxes on it. He paused and looked at us with concern.

“You can go around us.” John laughed. “We’re slow.”

He nodded and steered his cart by us. When he got even with us, he stopped. Above the hospital required mask, the man’s blue eyes locked with mine.

“I hope everything will be okay,” he said.

His voice carried so much compassion. I looked at him, startled.

Are you an angel?

He was everyman. He was every good man and good woman who stops to show compassion to a stranger. Just six words, but tears stung my eyes, and still do when I remember him.

I’m not ready to give up on people. Not yet.