I looked with a critical eye at My First Valentine. He
seemed to have no sense of propriety. Did he not know that one simply did not
appear in public with a red or black upper lip and chin, depending on which
color crepe paper bow one had chewed that Sunday morning? And had he not heard
the choir director tell us kids in cherub choir to fasten the snaps at the
wrists of our little white angel robes?
What kind of mother does this kid have? Had I
appeared on the platform week after week with red or black dye all over my face,
and with my angel robe flapping at the wrists, my mother would have had plenty
to say!
Come to think of it, why didn’t the cherub
choir leader tell this little Johnnie Poole to stop chewing his crepe paper bow
and fasten his snaps? Must be God wanted me to do the job.
I was a strange little girl, painfully shy, but if I thought someone was doing
something wrong, shyness aside, I was on a righteous crusade!
I edged closer. “Johnnie Poole,” I said, in my most
authoritative preschool voice, “stop chewing that bow this minute and fasten
your snaps.”
That Johnnie Poole gave me a look I was to learn only
too well. With inscrutable, deep brown eyes he calmly stared directly at me,
then looked away and kept right on chewing. Oh, but this little boy was about
to learn I didn’t give up easily. Every week I gave him the same lecture. Every
week he gave me the same look and kept doing what he wanted to do. It was
infuriating.
I remember our first real argument, several years
later. Our dads were counting the offering after church.
“I can spell my name. Want to see?”
He wrote on a blackboard, “John.”
“That is totally wrong. Listen to me.” I pronounced
his name over and over. “Do you hear any ‘h’? I didn’t think so. Your name is
spelled J-O-N.”
He looked at me calmly, erased his name, and said, “I
guess I know how to spell my own name.” And he walked away.
See? Infuriating.
At some point we must have decided we liked each
other, but I don’t remember any conversation about it. I do remember we held
hands behind the pole in children’s church until Johnnie Poole decided it
wasn’t the right thing to do; his standards always were higher than mine.
Except when it came to chewing crepe paper.
A boy whose dad also counted money offered to marry
us. He said he knew how to do it because his older sister had just gotten
married. We were bored; the money-counting took a long time, so we agreed.
The boy finished the ceremony and said, “You may now
kiss your bride.”
“I’m not kissing no girl!”
“I’m not letting him kiss me!”
Our officiant was distressed. “But, then you can’t be
married.”
“Okay!”
Our divorce or annulment was quite painless. We paid
our officiant nothing, and without even thanking him, we ran off to play with
our friends.
After fourth grade our family moved and left that
church. I don’t remember saying goodbye to Johnnie Poole.
Dad’s job transferred him back to the area the summer before eighth grade.
One Sunday a boy I knew said, “Someone wants to sit
with you in church. He’s really handsome and nice, but he’s too shy to ask you
himself, so he sent me.”
“Who is it?” I wasn’t interested in any boys. Still, I
was curious about this handsome, shy stranger.
“Well, it’s Johnnie Poole.”
“Johnnie Poole!” I laughed. “I’ve known him all my
life. You tell him if he ever wants to sit with me in church, he better ask me
himself!”
Moving time came all too soon, and my parents were distressed. Moving was expensive and emotionally draining on the whole family.
“I can’t understand why God would move us back here
just for three months,” Dad said.
None of us could, but looking back, I can see why.
It was our last Sunday at church.
“Goodbye,” Johnnie said.
He left, circled around, and returned. “Well, I guess
this is goodbye.”
He repeated that several times. Finally, he asked, “Is
it okay if I write to you?”
“Sure!”
And that began a weekly correspondence of half-page
letters. His always started with, “How are you? I am fine,” They ended with,
“Your friend, Johnnie Poole.”
I grew older and began dating the way most girls did
in the 1960’s, but the weekly letters continued. I never thought of Johnnie
Poole as anything more than a friend and had no reason to think he felt any
thing but friendship for me. True, he did send Valentines, starting in 1963,
the “Thinking of You” kind, signed “Yours truly,” or, “Your friend.”
When I got my senior pictures, I enclosed a small one
in a letter to him, and he did the same for me. I gave my large picture to my
boyfriend at the time.
During my senior year, the choir from John’s Ithaca
High School went on tour, and one of their stops was my high school,
Maine-Endwell. Each choir member from my high school signed up to house a
student from Ithaca.
“I got some kid named John Poole,” my boyfriend told
me.
“Oh, you’ll like him. He’s nice. I’ve known him for as
long as I can remember.”
After the Ithaca choir left for their next stop, two things happened. First, my boyfriend told me, “That John Poole looked at me real funny when he saw your picture by my bed. He sounded kind of mad and asked, ‘Where’d you get that picture?’ I told him you were my girlfriend.”
The second thing was a very upset letter written on
hotel stationary where the Ithaca choir was staying next. I was shocked to find
out that for all those years Johnnie had considered me his girlfriend and felt
betrayed when he discovered I was dating someone else.
In my return letter I tried to reason with Johnnie and
explain I had no idea he thought of me as a girlfriend, and he couldn’t assume
a girl knew how a guy felt if he’d never told her. That went about as well as
our argument when I’d tried to tell him how to spell his name.
It was inevitable. Johnnie and I started dating in
college in 1966 and married in 1969.
It hasn’t all been hearts and flowers, moonlight and
roses for us. The first time he said, “I love you,” I responded, “But how does
a person really know something like that for sure?”
In our fifty years of marriage we’ve faced physical,
spiritual, emotional, and financial challenges. Sometimes we’ve been so busy
we’ve almost lost each other in life’s shuffle. The wisdom that came with age taught
us not to be so busy reaching out with both hands to help others that we forgot
each other. Now we try to hold hands and reach out to a needy world with one
free hand each. Still, we can get so busy we feel like we should introduce ourselves
at the end of the day before we kiss goodnight.
God has been good to give me all these years with My First Valentine. When I tell John what to do, he still looks at me calmly with those inscrutable brown eyes and does exactly what he wants, but I haven’t given up trying. I’ll probably be bossy to my last breath. I hope he’s with me when I take it, and I hope he knows how grateful I am for all his years of faithful love, even if he still doesn’t know how to spell his name.
I mean, say it out loud and listen to yourself. John.
John. Do you hear an “h”? I didn’t think so.
It was getting old, this standing, red-faced, in a new classroom in the middle of a school year, trying to help a teacher pronounce and spell my name. Why couldn’t I be Donna Smith instead of Donna Piarulli?
We moved often because Dad worked for an airline. I was in
eighth grade now, and I really hoped this would be our last move. I looked with
a critical eye at the little town of Maine, New York, population around 5,000,
and sighed. I’d loved the few years we’d lived near Taberg, New York, in the
foothills of the Adirondacks. If my parents asked me—they didn’t—this town had
about 4,950 too many people. I wanted my wild, isolated country back.
Once again, a truck backed our ten-foot by fifty-foot house
trailer into yet another spot in yet another trailer park.
I felt a little better about the move when I discovered the
nearby Nanticoke Creek. At least my sisters, Mary, Ginny, and I had somewhere
close to wade, swim, and ice skate. And
we had our bikes. Who knew what adventures awaited?
I didn’t relish the adventure of finding a church, but I
knew we had to do it. That’s one of the first things Mom and Dad did whenever
we moved. A new church was as bad as a new school, especially a church where
all the kids had known each other since they were born. When my parents chose
First Baptist, I had a feeling no one would even talk to us.
I was wrong. First Baptist, Maine, New York was easy to love. The church orchestra forgave Mary and me when we played our clarinets off key. They patiently explained we didn’t have to try so unsuccessfully to transpose our music because it was already written for B-flat instruments. They didn’t even laugh, at least not in front of us.
We were welcome in the Bunts’ home anytime. They had fifty-seven
children, or maybe it was only eleven. No one there cared if everything was
perfectly neat. They just shoved things aside and made room for us in their
hearts and home. I loved Mrs. Bunts, always smiling, never ruffled, never
saying her kids were going to give her a nervous breakdown. Not only that, but Mr.
Bunts worked for a dairy, and we could drink all the milk we wanted.
Bonnie Ward was only a year or so older than I was, but she was
a serene, comforting mother hen. I still remember her tiny bedroom with its lavender
flowered wallpaper. It was beautiful, just like she was.
I had so much fun at Jim and Judy Cole’s house. They taught
me to play pinochle. I didn’t tell my parents. Playing cards was on their
rather long list of sins.
Half the girls in the church had a crush on one of the older
boys, Donnie and Jack Olson and Rodney Post. Many years later, my sister, Mary,
married Rodney’s younger brother, Steve.
And then there was Ronnie Lewis. I thought he was cute; he never knew I
existed. I remember getting an awesome fleece
hat with a long tail and a big pom-pom. I wore it when we church kids went
Christmas caroling. Maybe, I thought, Ronnie will notice my hat and
say he likes it. He didn’t.
Time passed with youth group parties and outings, water
skiing, bowling, and roller skating. We had struggles at home about many of the
church activities. Water skiing happened on Sunday afternoons; that was the
Lord’s Day. Bowling was another issue because they sold beer in the basement of
the bowling alley. And roller skating? That was an awful lot like dancing. Mom
and Dad finally did let us do most activities with the other church kids. One
thing they refused to budge on was letting us dance in gym class. The Piarulli
girls sat on the bleachers and watched while some of the other church kids had
fun learning dance steps. I wondered if anyone from church who did let their
kids dance wanted to adopt me.
Some kids dread going to church, but I loved it. Looking
back, I don’t remember a single sermon. I just remember how the pastor and people
made me feel: warm, wanted, and loved. If more churches made kids feel that way
today, they might lose fewer of them.
By the time we were high schoolers our church youth group
had our own room for prayer meeting. We met upstairs with no adult supervision.
Pastor Barackman said he knew he could trust us. We had wonderful times in that
room. We talked, laughed, prayed, and mostly behaved. Until that Halloween
night.
Someone said, “Hey, where’s Ronnie?”
“I don’t know. I think the Lewis’s had to go out of town.”
“Really?”
The pastor’s son just happened to have a dozen or so bars of
tiny soap, the kind you get at motels. Someone suggested we go soap Ronnie’s
window. I don’t know if anyone objected; I’m pretty sure we all went.
We had all heard the warning. Soaping windows was strictly
prohibited. If anyone was caught, the offender would get arrested and must wash
all the soaped windows in the town of Maine. But we didn’t intend to get
caught.
We snuck down the creaky stairs and passed the open doors of
the auditorium where the adults were praying. Had anyone heard us? Nope.
Giggling with relief
we hurried the few blocks to Ronnie’s house, getting more nervous the closer we
got. It was a dark night, and we had no flashlights; it felt spooky. We didn’t
see anyone else.
When we got to the
house, the conversation started. “I don’t think we should do this. I’m scared
we’ll get caught.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Well, someone
should do it. The rest of us could keep look out.”
“I’ll do it,” I
said. “Which window is Ronnie’s?”
I was terrified,
but I wasn’t going to admit it. Through the dark, shadowy yard I crept, finally
arriving at the window. I gave it a good soaping. Then, feeling as triumphant
as Caesar on a victory march home, I ran back toward my friends, laughing. I
was high on adrenaline; nothing had ever been this much fun, not even the
amusement park at Harvey’s Lake.
“You guys! I did
it! I. . . .”
That’s when I
noticed my friends were strangely quiet. No one said anything. Not only that,
but two tall men were standing with them. I squinted into the darkness. It
couldn’t be…but it was. Cops. Two of them. They turned on a flashlight and
shined it in my face.
“What were you doing?” One policeman demanded.
“Ummm, I was
soaping our friend’s window,” I said.
“Whadda ya know,”
he said, sarcastically, looking at his partner. “We got an honest one. The rest
of you who told us you were just out for a walk? Do you think we’re idiots?”
Fortunately, none
of the kids answered that question.
The policeman pointed
his flashlight at the ground. There was a big pile of soap the kids had ditched
when they had seen the men coming.
Those policemen
scolded us until our stomachs churned. Then they marched us back to church and
into the auditorium where the adults were still praying, heads bowed
reverently, murmuring in hushed tones.
“Who’s in charge
here?” One of the policemen shouted.
Prayer stopped.
Parents looked at us in horrified disbelief. Pastor Barackman looked at us,
hurt on his gentle face. “I guess you could say I am,” he said.
Then the policeman
scolded our pastor. “If you can’t be responsible enough to keep your church
kids under control. . ..” he said. I can’t remember the rest of it. I just
remember how betrayed Pastor looked when he glanced at us.
I don’t remember
what Mom and Dad did to us; I’m sure it wasn’t fun. I do remember that was the
end of our youth group having our own prayer room. The adults said we couldn’t
be trusted.
I can still see our
pastor standing there, taking that tongue lashing from the policeman, and it
was our fault. It was my fault. The adrenaline rush long gone, all I felt was
regret, not for what might happen to me, but for what was happening to him. And
there was nothing I could do about it.
That was the day I
learned it doesn’t pay to sin against love.
Isn’t that what
every infraction does though, sins against love? Inexplicable love sent Jesus
to the cross to take the sins of the world into his heart, to suffer the guilt,
to feel the shame, to pay the price so that we lost sinners, every last one of
us, could be offered His gift of eternal life.
Well, so many of
those people who looked at us in shocked disbelief that night are in heaven now,
Mom and Dad, Pastor Barackman, and even Ronnie Lewis. With their glorified
sense of humor, perhaps they will forgive me if I still get a trace of a grin
when I remember flying through the shadows, soap in hand, a triumphant night
warrior.
Thanks to the many friends who helped me obtain these pictures! Special thanks to Joyce Young, Rita McGregor Stanley McKeon, and especially to Phil Child for taking time to find and send me photos from his files along with some interesting history.
I couldn’t stop watching. The tiny window at the top
of the stairs was the perfect spot to see Mama Robin begin building her nest on
the windowsill. I wondered if this was her first nest; I doubted it, because
that same windowsill had been home to previous nests.
How old was she? I
had no idea, but I knew some robins live twelve years and build twenty or
thirty nests.
Mama Robin worked almost a week on her nest, diligently
gathering grass and twigs, intricately weaving them, and gluing them to each
other and the windowsill with beakfuls of mud. She made hundreds, thousands of
trips. I loved seeing her fly into the nest, flap her wings, and wiggle around
to shape a perfect cradle for her babies. The nest grew large enough to hold a
baseball. When it was almost finished, she lined it with soft grass. Research
told me her completed nest weighed 7.23 ounces, almost half a pound.
I hoped, over the next five weeks, to see her lay her
eggs and watch the baby robins grow. I knew it was unlikely I’d be there to
observe their solo flight, but maybe it would happen.
Mama Robin didn’t lay her eggs right away, but one day a pale blue egg appeared, and a few days later another. Finally, she had four beautiful eggs and began sitting on her nest. She only left for short times. One day I noticed an egg was missing. I checked the ground for fragments of blue shell to see if the egg had fallen but found nothing. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one watching the eggs. Squirrels, blue jays, and crows all steal and eat eggs. Snakes will swallow the eggs whole, and coons love robin eggs as a tasty treat. I never saw the thief, but one by one, all the eggs disappeared
Then Mama Robin broke my heart. Instead of flying away
she sat on a nearby tree branch hours at a time and stared at her empty nest.
She did this for days. Is she an old robin? Is this her last chance to lay
eggs and raise babies? Is that why she’s staying here so long? I knew she
was mourning. Robins don’t cry, but my eyes were wet enough for both of us.
Finally, Mama Robin left, but through summer storms,
fall winds, and winter snows, the nest has stayed. She built it well. I see it
every time I go up or downstairs, and it makes me wonder about wasted things.
Elisabeth Elliot wrote of wasted things. When she was
a young, single missionary, she lived with the Colorado Indians in San Miguel,
Ecuador. They had no written language, and Elisabeth determined to learn their
language and write it so they could have the Bible in their own language. She
worked for almost a year, tediously reducing sounds to an alphabet. At the end
of nine months she packed the only copy of all her handwritten work into a suitcase
and gave it to another missionary so translation could begin. Someone stole the
suitcase from that missionary.
At first Elisabeth expected a miracle. How would the
suitcase be found? In what way would God have it suddenly reappear? It never
did. It was a hard lesson of loss, nine months of difficult labor gone in an
instant.
Was Elisabeth’s work wasted? The loss taught her to
trust God with the inexplicable. The hard work sharpened her mind, and if you,
like me, are a fan of her writing, you appreciate that deeply spiritual and
awesomely creative mind. That early loss also made Elisabeth stronger to face
deeper losses to come. So, no, it wasn’t wasted.
Elisabeth lost her first husband, Jim Elliot, to the
spears of the Auca Indians in Ecuador, and her second husband, Addison Leithch,
to an agonizing cancer. When she was seventy-eight, Elisabeth began a ten-year
battle against dementia. She lost her beautiful mind to that disease.
What a waste! That might be our first response.
When Elisabeth found out she had dementia she
determined to accept it from God’s hand and for His glory just as she had
everything else in her life. And now, as my own memory begins a downward slide,
she is my teacher. How can such beautiful teaching be a waste?
Throughout our forty-five year ministry at our country church I’ve often thought of Elisabeth Elliot’s suitcase when people we’ve loved and poured our lives into have turned from us, or worse, from God, when misunderstandings happened and people refused reconciliation, when years of labor seemed to produce so few results.
Is our poured-out love wasted? My mind might cry “wasted” in its gloomy moments, but my heart knows better.
Even through tears my heart sings. Why? Because, in
God’s economy, He wastes nothing. Love is never wasted.
Mama Robin, if you’re still alive, if you fly back to Michigan for another spring and see your empty nest, don’t feel like it was wasted. I wish you’d been able to have four beautiful babies, but maybe that will happen this summer. You built well, and you loved well, and love always means something.
Maddie dropped her bucket, bait, ice-auger, and
homemade fishing pole. She groaned and put both hands on her back as she tried
to straighten. “Degenerative disc disease isn’t going to stop me,” she
muttered. “At least I don’t have
dementia, in spite of what my family and the townspeople think.”
She’s heard the whispers. “What’s a woman her age
doing on that ice every day? She’s a brick shy of a full load.”
What choice did she have?
Maddie shivered, wrapped her worn coat tighter, and pulled
the old scarf up over her mouth. That north wind off the mountains had teeth in
its bite today. As soon as she got a bit farther out she’d sit on her bucket
and turn her back to Old Man North. That would help some.
She’d been trying to keep the wind at her back for well
over seventy years, but wind is slippery and sneaky. Before you can say zip-a-dee-doo-dah,
it zero-turns from a warm breeze to a blizzard that smacks you in the face and
rips your heart apart.
Old Man North had torn Maddie’s heart more than once.
The most recent blow had been Walter’s death. They’d had fifty years, more than
most. She and Walter had laughed and cried together, raised three great kids, and
built “The Water’s Edge” from a shack into an elegant restaurant, famous for
its freshwater fish caught right here in Georgetown Lake.
“Don’t cry over what’s gone forever,” Maddie chided
herself. “Tears will freeze your cheeks in this Montana wind chill.”
Walking on clear ice always felt satisfyingly surreal.
This ice was just right at about six inches. It would easily support her
weight. The cold though, the cold. . . . But really, what choice did she have?
If the fishing was good today she might catch Salmon,
Rainbow, or even a Brook Trout. She’d sell a few to The Water’s Edge. They were
always willing to buy her fish. She hoped they didn’t pay extra because they
felt sorry for her.
Maddie was short of breath after drilling a six-inch
hole. With her back to the wind, she pulled up the scarf that had slipped and
sat down. She expertly baited two maggots on a glow hook, dropped the line, and
twitched the bait slightly up and down. Trout sure would taste good. She
noticed how loosely her coat hung. She needed to eat better.
It was a good day. Within minutes she had two Rainbows
and a Brook Trout.
That’s when she noticed the two little boys on the
shore, shouting and waving their arms. Had someone broken through the ice? Were
the boys crying? No, it sounded more like laughing.
Maddie stood and squinted to see. Was that. . .?
“Grandma!” Their voices carried. “Hurry! We’ve come to
see you!”
Her family had driven ninety miles from Missoula to Anaconda
without telling her they were coming? Why?
The little boys ran out on the ice to help. Kaleb
carried the bucket with its fifteen pounds of fish.
“Kaleb, that’s too heavy for you.”
“I’m almost eight, Grandma. I have more muscles than
you.”
She laughed. It was probably true. Well, she wouldn’t
be selling fish to The Water’s Edge today. They’d need all the fish for supper.
Kaleb and Reece laughed and talked all the way to
shore, but her son and daughter-in-law met her with tight lipped frowns. She
knew a lecture was coming, but maybe they’d wait until they got home. That was
always an issue too. They didn’t like her living conditions either.
After a lovely fish dinner prepared by Maddie’s cook,
they sat in the luxurious living room in front of a roaring fire. The boys
romped with Blackie the old lab and Sunny the golden retriever. The six cats
curled up on laps and wound around feet.
Max pushed a cat away. He wanted Maddie to get rid of
the menagerie.
“Mom.” Max sighed. “Why do you keep ice fishing every
day? It’s not safe.”
“I have to.”
He raised his eyebrows, waiting.
“The menagerie likes fresh fish.” It was lame; she
knew it.
“And with all your money, you could afford an entire
fish store.”
“You don’t understand. I have no choice. It’s how I keep
Old Man North at my back.”
She thought he’d be angry. Suddenly, he roared with
laughter. “Everyone has to get old sometime, Mom, even you! Will you at least
buy a warmer coat?”
“I always wore that coat when I fished with your dad.”
He waited.
“Okay! I’ll buy a new coat.”
“And you’ll call every time before you go out on the
ice and when you get back?”
“I will, but the day I don’t call, don’t think Old Man
North won. He never will, because I’m going where Dad already is, and they
don’t allow any north wind there.”
“No,” Max said, “I’m pretty sure Old Man North loses
the game there.”
Maddie stood in the curved driveway and waved goodbye to her family before she walked back inside. The cook was gone now, but it didn’t feel lonely. Old Man North howled around the chimney, but she was safe and warm; he couldn’t get in here yet. Maybe not for a long time.
Thank you to my friend, Lonie Hutchison, for helping me locate this picture of Georgetown Lake, and to her friend, Pam Burgess Morfitt for the beautiful photography!
“Our exciting lives,” Gloria muttered. “Grocery shopping and church.”
“What’s
that you say?” Bud asked loudly enough to be heard four aisles away.
Gloria
shook her head and sighed. Where had that
man learned to whisper? In the woods surrounded by chain saws?
All
the years of farming on equipment without cabs hadn’t helped Bud’s hearing, and
he refused to get tested for hearing aids.
“I
hear everything I want to hear,” Bud said.
She’d
reminded him of the time at church when the pastor had said, “Don’t think I’m
preaching at you. I’m as big a sinner as any of you!”
Bud
had thought the pastor had said he was preaching to the big sinners and had let
out a loud and hearty “Amen!”
Gloria
had felt the warmth creeping up her neck into her face when she’d heard smothered
giggles. Even the pastor had grinned.
“See?”
Gloria had said to Bud when she’d told him after church what had happened. “You
do need hearing aids.”
Bud had just shrugged. He wasn’t easily embarrassed. He hadn’t gotten hearing aids, and he hadn’t quit being a big part of the amen corner either, something the young people at church found amusing. She had to admit people at church loved Bud. He and his warm laughter were the center of many after-church conversations.
Gloria
thought about church as she and Bud walked up and down every aisle doing the weekly
grocery shopping she hated. Maybe it was time, after fifty years, to look for a
new church. She’d felt vaguely dissatisfied for quite some time, and she wasn’t
sure why. It wasn’t the people; her life-time friends attended the little
country church. It wasn’t the young preacher. His sermons were good. Just last
week he’d preached on “a wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it
down with her hands.”
Maybe it’s me, Gloria thought.
It’s a new year; maybe I need a change. I
wonder what Bud would say trying out one of those bigger churches in town. Or,
quitting church altogether. She sighed. She knew what Bud would say. She
always knew what he would say about everything, and she was tired of that too.
Bud
steered the cart down the mustard aisle, and something in Gloria snapped when Bud
reached up, as he always did, for the same yellow plastic bottle of mustard he
bought every single week. How much mustard had the man bought in the last fifty
years of their marriage?
Just
last week Gloria and Bud had celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. The
kids had wanted to give them a big party, and Gloria had loved that idea. But not
Bud. He’d finally agreed to renew their vows in front of the church and have
cake after, but he’d been uncomfortable doing even that. Gloria had hoped he’d
kiss her after they’d renewed their vows, but she’d known better.
“Did
you feel bad when Dad didn’t kiss you?” their daughter had asked. Gloria had
shrugged. Her daughter had smiled, stooped, and kissed her cheek. “You know he
adores you, Mom. He reminds me of a joke I heard once. An old lady asked her
husband why he never said he loved her. He answered, ‘Told you I loved you when
I married you. If I ever change my mind, I’ll let you know.’”
Gloria
had managed a weak chuckle. That was Bud alright. She’d loved him unwaveringly
through fifty years of five children, little money, and cows and crops coming
first. She’d always hoped their retirement years would be different, but
nothing had changed. He still never said he loved her. And he still bought
mustard. Every. Single. Week.
“Think
I’ll get two this week,” Bud said in his normal shouting level voice.
Gloria,
who hadn’t raised her voice in fifty years, out-shouted him. “You put that
mustard back on the shelf! This is ridiculous! No one buys the same thing every
week when he already has it at home!”
Bud
stared at Gloria like he’d never seen her before. Then he threw his head back
and laughed. People in the aisle laughed too; Bud’s laugh always had been
contagious. Gloria wished she could evaporate like steam from her tea kettle.
“Hey
ladies!” Bud’s voice boomed. “I’m taking a survey. What do you buy here even
though you have it at home? Speak up, now, please; I’m deaf!”
An
amused crowd grew around him. Bud put the mustard in the cart, whipped out his
old fountain pen, and started writing down the answers people shouted out.
“My
little boy begs me to buy ketchup in case we run out of it. He’d eat it
straight out of the bottle if I’d let him. “
Bud’s
list grew as did the laughter and the camaraderie in the mustard aisle. Cheese,
milk, ginger, eggs, coffee, spring water, chicken broth, Oreos, popsicles,
crackers, sour cream, fruit, tortillas.
When
someone hollered, “chocolate!” people cheered.
“You
people are all foodies.” A woman laughed, steering her cart around the group.
“What about toilet paper?”
Finally
people drifted away, smiling. Gloria glared at Bud.
“I
was just trying to show you I’m not the only one who buys something they
already have. When I was a little boy we could never afford mustard.”
“You
might not be the only one who buys what you don’t need, but you’re the only one
I have to live with!”
Bud’s
smile faded. He put the two mustards back on the shelf. Quietly the two of them
walked to the check-out. The line was long. Gloria looked wistfully at the
self-check-out. It was empty, but she knew better than suggest it. Bud liked
real people to check him out, not a computer who wouldn’t repeat things when he
couldn’t hear.
Chatter
at the front quieted. Gloria saw ambulance lights outside of the window. An elderly
man lay on a stretcher, and paramedics were carrying him from the store.
Even
Bud was quiet for once. Without saying anything to him, Gloria left and
returned with two mustards. She put them in the cart and looked straight ahead.
Tomorrow
was Sunday. Pastor was going to preach part two of his sermon on how a wise
woman builds her house. Perhaps it was never too late to build—or to rebuild.
Maybe she’d made a start with two yellow plastic bottles of mustard.
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Thanks to my good-natured husband for being my model. He has always been supportive of my writing. Once he measured a grasshopper for me, no easy task. In case you wonder, the only thing he has in common with Bud in my story is a love of mustard and of old fountain pens.
The only sounds in the room were logs breaking apart in the fireplace and Grandpa Bob turning the pages of his book. He looked up at a loud snap, saw sparks shoot up the chimney, and smiled. He liked nothing better than spending a snowy morning next to the fire with a good book, and he loved the new mystery he’d gotten for Christmas. It was a perfect, lazy-day Saturday. He pushed aside the thought that he had too many lazy days. He might be too old to work, but he was too young to do nothing day after day.
Bob looked over at Bella. She was wrapped in her new
blanket, cuddling her Christmas teddy bear, and sucking her thumb. The picture of four-year-old contentment,
he thought.
Alice stuck her head in the family room door.
“Bella! Act your age! Quit sucking that thumb! Even your preschool teacher
complains about that.”
And
about other things too, Alice thought as she headed to the
kitchen. Maybe they shouldn’t have put Bella in the expensive preschool that
promised to have students working at a first-grade level by age five. Bella had
tested ready for the accelerated curriculum, but lately her teacher had been
suggesting they place her in an easier program.
Bella’s thumb made a popping sound as she pulled it
from her mouth. Her face crumpled as she thought about preschool. She didn’t
like preschool. The other kids could read a few sight words; she couldn’t even print
the alphabet. The others could add and subtract small numbers, but she couldn’t.
She was the only one who could count to one-hundred though.
Bob hoped his face didn’t express his thoughts. Alice, can’t you just let Bella be a kid? And I wish you and Andy would reconsider my offer of letting me homeschool her until she starts first grade. I miss teaching, and I know how to help Bella. She needs manipulatives for math and phonics for reading. I was an expert in both, even published papers in educational journals. A slower pace would help her too. Does it really matter if she learns to read when she’s four?
But Bob didn’t say a word. He’d learned not to
interfere with Alice and Andy’s parenting. He appreciated living with them, but
in many ways, it wasn’t easy.
Bob heard Alice rattling pans in the kitchen. He
hoped she’d be in a better mood by lunch. He heard Bella sniff. One tear ran down
her cheek, and Teddy was on the floor.
“Hey! What do you say we teach Teddy how to do somersaults?
Prop him up on the couch there so he can watch us.”
“Are you going to do somersaults, Grandpa Bob?”
“Sure! Why not?”
Bella giggled and put Teddy on the couch, giving him
a good view of the floor. Bob struggled a bit getting out of the recliner. His
right knee snapped, and he winced. He intended to put that knee replacement off
as long as possible.
Bob tossed a sofa pillow on the floor, gingerly put
his head on it, and rolled over with a crash. Bella roared with laughter, and
Andy came running.
‘Bob! What in the world are you doing?”
“We’re teaching Teddy how to do somersaults!” Bella
said, still laughing.
Andy wasn’t laughing. He helped his father-in-law
off the floor. “It’s a miracle you didn’t break something. Act your age! Seventy-year-old
men don’t do somersaults.”
“Obviously, some do,” Bob said dryly. Everything
hurt, especially his knee, but it was worth it to see Bella laughing instead of
crying.
Andy looked at Bob and Bella grinning at each other.
In spite of himself, he laughed. “You’re
two of a kind!” He left to help Alice in the kitchen.
Bob could just imagine the kitchen conversation.
Would he end up in a nursing home next?
“Grandpa Bob, why do Mommy and Daddy keep saying to
act our age?”
He hugged her. “Oh, honey, they want the best for
us, and they don’t always know how to make that happen. Hey, speaking of age, do
you know how many years older I am than you are?”
Bella shook her head. “I know you’re seventy and I’m
four, but I can’t do numbers. I heard teacher tell the parapro I’m not smart.”
That
teacher is looking to get fired. Bob swallowed his
anger. “Get me your scissors and some paper, please.”
Bob cut seventy squares and laid them on the coffee
table. “That’s seventy squares, one for each of my years. You take away how
many years you are.”
Bella picked up four squares.
“Sit on those.”
Bella laughed and sat on the four squares.
“Now count how many squares you have left. That’s a
way to subtract your four years from my seventy years without using paper.”
Bella knew she could count to one-hundred, and there
weren’t that many squares. This was going to be easy.
With their heads close together, neither Bob nor
Bella noticed the noise from the kitchen had stopped. They didn’t see Alice and
Andy standing in the doorway, watching them.
Bella yelled, “Sixty-six! You are sixty-six more
than me! I subtracted from a bigger number than they do at preschool! I did it!
I’m not stupid!”
About half an hour later Andy called, “Get your
coats. We’re going out to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?” Bob asked. “I thought I heard
Alice fixing lunch. Why aren’t we eating here?”
“We’re celebrating New Year’s a little early,” Andy
said. “Do you want to come or not?”
“I’m always good for a meal out.”
Bob looked around the upscale restaurant. It had
been a long time since he’d enjoyed a nice steak dinner out, and this was
Bella’s first time.
Alice looked up from cutting Bella’s steak into tiny
pieces. “Happy New Year, Dad,” she said. “Here’s to new beginnings. How would
you like to homeschool Bella until she starts first grade? Andy and I’ve
decided you’ll do a much better job than the teacher she has now.”
“Really?” Bella squealed with delight.
Bob sat silently, unable to say anything.
“Dad, don’t you have anything to say?”
Bob swallowed the lump in his throat. “Can we hold
hands and pray? I suddenly feel about ten years younger and very thankful.”
Andy sighed. “Make it snappy; I don’t want my steak
to get cold. And about that ten years younger thing? You have to promise, no
more somersaults!”
Bob nodded. It was a small price to pay. Anyway, his
knee didn’t seem to appreciate somersaults as much as he did.
“I don’t think so, not this year.” Annetta shook her
head. If it weren’t for the white curls and deep lines in her face, she’d look
just like a stubborn child.
Kate and Bob looked at each other. “Mom, come on!
The candlelight service has always been your favorite! You know Bob will help
you get into the church.”
After repeated refusals, Annetta’s family left. “Maybe
she’ll change her mind before Sunday,” Bob said, but Kate cried.
As Bob pulled out onto the gravel road, Kate looked
back at the old farmhouse thinking of Christmases past when Dad had been alive
and the aroma of fresh cut pine and an impossible amount of baked goods had
filled the home. Now the house smelled old and musty. It had been years since
Mom had been able to host family Christmas. They couldn’t even let her walk to
the end of the driveway to get her mail anymore; her balance was that bad. Mom couldn’t
stay alone much longer, and that was going to be a battle Kate dreaded. After
the holidays, they’d give her a choice, live with them or go to assisted
living. She sighed; neither option was optimal. Kate felt sure Mom had no idea
what they were thinking. Let her enjoy one last Christmas at home.
Annetta sat in her rocker; she too was thinking of
Christmases past. How could she tell her family she didn’t want to go to the
candlelight service because she was tired to the bone of having nothing left to
share? Once she’d had so much to give her family and her church family. For
many years the congregation had sat in awed silence at the candlelight service as
she’d offered Christ and them her soprano solo of “O Holy Night.”
When her cracked and aging voice had stopped her
from singing, Annetta had started writing short stories she’d read to the
church children at the candlelight service. The adults had liked them as much
as the kids. But then the cloud in her mind had ended the stories.
“It’s the beginning of dementia, hardening of the arteries,”
the doctor called it.
“It’s hardening of the ought-eries,” Anetta murmured
to herself. She couldn’t seem to remember what she ought to do, and when she
did remember, she couldn’t find ambition to do it.
Annetta picked up her worn Bible, shivered, and
pulled a quilt around her knees. Why is
it always so cold?
“Lord, Lord,” she murmured, as a tear traced its way
down a deep wrinkle in her cheek, “I can live with my body being so cold, but I
can’t live with this empty, cold heart. I’ve nothing left to give.”
Everything was gone, even joy. Christmas would be at
Kate’s again this year. Bless her heart; Kate tried, but she was busy. She
worked full time, as did all of her siblings. No one cut a real tree anymore.
No one had time to make crescent rolls or beautiful, layered Jell-O. And no one
had read Luke chapter two on Christmas Day since her beloved Jacob had died.
What she wouldn’t give to hear his strong voice read that once more.
Annetta sighed and opened her Bible. As she read
about the wise men giving the Christ-child expensive gifts of gold, frankincense,
and myrrh, more tears followed. She longed to give the Lord Jesus something
special this Christmas as she had so many years in the past, something of
herself, but she was broken, body, soul, and spirit.
Blessed.
Broken. Given. The words stirred a memory in Annetta’s
foggy brain. Hadn’t Jesus used those words? He’d accepted a little boy’s meager
lunch, blessed it, broken it, and given it to the hungry crowd and had miraculously
fed a multitude.
Before He’d died on the cross for the sin of the
world Jesus had taken bread, blessed it, broken it, and given it to His
disciples. “This is my body, given for you,” He’d said.
Annetta remembered that after Christ’s resurrection
His followers had recognized Him when He’d blessed, broken, and given them
bread.
It
must have been a habit of His, this blessing, breaking, and giving, if His
friends recognized Him because of it, Annetta thought. But what does it mean? What does it have to
do with me?
“I’ve been greatly blessed,” Annetta murmured, “and
now I’m broken. Can I be given? What’s left of me to give?”
Annetta chuckled, remembering the year the pastor
had preached, “Just give what you have to Jesus.” The next Sunday, Annetta had
been shocked to see five-year-old Kate drop her favorite doll in the offering
plate.
After church, the treasurer had come to Annetta,
holding the grubby doll that was missing both an arm and a leg. “What exactly
am I supposed to do with this?”
Annetta had laughed. “You’re the treasurer; you
think of something. It’s Kate’s favorite doll, and she sleeps with it every
night. I don’t know how she’ll get to sleep without it tonight, but she wanted
to give it to Jesus.”
“What do you want, Lord?” Annetta whispered. “Do you
want this mind, getting worse with dementia every year? Do you want this body,
crippled with arthritis? Do you want this empty soul? It’s all less than
worthless, but I give it to you.”
There. Her broken gift lay next to Kate’s grubby doll
offering. Of the two, Annetta thought her present looked worse by far, but a
quiet peace filled her soul.
Annetta went to the candlelight service. Bob helped
her struggle to her feet, and in a halting voice, stumbling over words and
missing several, she read Luke chapter two. There wasn’t a dry eye in the
congregation.
On the way home, Annetta said to Kate and Bob, “I
have a Christmas gift for you.”
Kate frowned. “Mom, we agreed, no gifts this year.
No one needs anything.”
“Oh, you need this,” Annetta said mysteriously.
“What is it?”
“You have to wait until tomorrow.”
Christmas at Kate’s was nice. The catered ham dinner
wasn’t too bad, and Annetta didn’t mention the dry rolls.
After they ate, Annetta handed Kate and Bob a small
box. They opened it and pulled out a piece of paper. On it Annetta had written,
“I’ve decided to go into assisted living at Maple Lawn after the first of the
year. I love you, Mom.”
As Kate cried and hugged her, Annetta thought, blessed, broken, and given. It felt good
to still have something to give. And to
receive. The thought came suddenly. Adventure.
It had been decades since she’d thought of that word in connection with
herself, but who knew? Was she actually looking forward to a new life at Maple
Lawn? Maybe. Maybe she was.
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Photo credit: Drones Over Broome: used by permission
The bottle of Dom Perignon was half-empty, but Jer
hadn’t touched the Champagne. He wasn’t interested tonight in the pricey, popular
Treasure Chest of drinks. Its dry ice drifted in a lazy fog over their table of
four. He yawned and looked at the yellow-gold Rolex Lisa had given him.
“Here,” she’d kissed him lightly and laughed. “If
you’re going to be appearing on billboards all over Chicago with my Dad,
advertised as his brilliant, young, new law partner, you need to look the part.”
He hadn’t wanted to accept the watch; he and Lisa really
weren’t at that point in their relationship. He didn’t know if he ever wanted
to be, but things were complicated. He’d never have moved up so quickly in the
law firm without Lisa’s dad, so he felt obligated to take the watch, obligated
to keep being with Lisa, and he didn’t like the feeling. Jer sighed. He was
tired and suddenly homesick for a place he hadn’t been in years, the hills of
Tennessee.
“Hey!” Bud laughed. “What’s up, Jer? It isn’t like
you to look bored at Three Dots and a Dash! This is our third club of the night,
and you’ve only had one drink. Something wrong?”
Jer pushed aside his memories of a small church in
the Tennessee hills where it snowed every Christmas, all roads led home, and
grown men still called their fathers “Daddy.” His Daddy was the pastor at that
church. Right now they were having the Christmas Eve candlelight service, and
he knew light from inside was shining through the stained glass windows and
reflecting on the snow. When Jer had been a boy, Daddy had always left the
church lights on all night Christmas Eve, and as Jer’s family had left the
snowy parking lot and headed home to the farm, he’d loved looking back at that
reflection. It had seemed magical.
“Jer? You still with us?”
Jer looked at Bud, shrugged, and glanced at his
watch. In a half-hour it would be Christmas. “I’m tired. Let’s go.”
“And leave the rest of the Treasure Chest? Well,
it’s your buck! It you want to spend $400.00 for drinks plus your usual big tip
and then not finish drinking, okay. The rest of us have probably had enough
anyway.”
Enough
and too much, Jer thought as he helped his friends
out the door and waved for a cab.
Bud laughed again. “What’s that drunk doing here?
He’s a long way from the mission!”
Jer hesitated, then walked over to the man lying on the sidewalk. What was a drunk, homeless-looking man doing in front of this trendy, expensive bar? Even in the dim light Jer could see the deep yellow of the man’s skin. If he wasn’t dead already from liver damage, he soon would be.
The man started shivering violently. Obviously not dead yet, Jer thought. But he’s soon going to freeze to death. They
don’t call this the Windy City for nothing.
“Give
him you coat, son.” Jer’s father’s voice sounded so clear,
he looked around, startled.
Why
not? It’s not like I can’t afford another one. I can afford to buy anything I
want or need.
“Are
you sure you don’t need something money can’t buy?”
Again, Jer looked around started. Why did he keep thinking he heard his father’s voice? He wasn’t drunk, not on one drink. Was he losing his mind? He took off his coat and bent to cover the man on the sidewalk.
Jer’s friends laughed. “Hope you never want to wear
that coat again; it’s covered with lice and fleas now. Come on, Jer, cab’s waiting.
Leave that guy. He’s just going to die anyway.”
“Not on my watch, he isn’t,” Jer said abruptly. “You
guys go on. I’ll catch you later.”
Jer ignored his friends’ laughter and sarcastic
comments as he dialed 9-1-1. He did hear Bud jeeringly call him a Good-Samarian
Jeremiah. Bud knew he hated the name Jeremiah and all its biblical
connotations. Jer was definitely not
a Jeremiah, and he hadn’t been one, not for a long, long time.
Jer felt a hand grab his ankle. “Afraid,” a hoarse
voice moaned.
Jer squatted next to the man. “What’s your name? And
what are you doing here?”
“Samuel. Walked from the mission. Wanted to see
Three Dots and a Dash one more time. Used to come here with my buddies.”
Jer’s thoughts raced. Wait. Three Dots and a Dash had only opened in 2013. This man looked
like he’d lived on the streets at least forty years. When had he been sober and
wealthy enough to have come here? And how had he walked from the mission?
Jer had volunteered at the mission when he’d first
come to the city, before he’d left his faith behind, so he knew its location.
It was a brisk forty minute walk away for a healthy man. It must have taken
this man at least two hours to stumble here in his condition.
“Rum? Got rum?” Samuel’s voice was so low Jer could
barely hear it.
Jer shook his head, and tears stung his eyes. It had
been a long time since anything had made him cry.
“Don’t leave me. Don’t want to die alone.”
“I won’t leave, and you aren’t going to die, not on
my watch!” Jer peered through the crowd of bodies that had gathered to gawk. Where was that ambulance? Finally.
The paramedics rolled Samuel onto a stretcher. He
grabbed Jer’s hand.
“May I ride with him? I promised not to leave him.”
“You a relative? You can only ride in the back if
you’re family.”
Jer shook his head, but Samuel muttered, “He’s my
brother.”
“Get in.” A paramedic chuckled and motioned to
Jer.
Samuel kept a grip on Jer’s hand. Jer had never seen
such grime on a human body.
Again Samuel said, “Don’t want to die alone.”
“Hey! I told you. You aren’t going to die! Not on my
watch.”
The paramedic caught Jer’s eye and shook his head
slightly.
“Afraid, afraid!” Samuel moaned.
Jer was surprised to hear himself say, “For God so
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
“John 3:16,” Samuel whispered. “I believe. So sorry.
Almost forgot Jesus. Not alone. He’ll walk me Home.”
A few minutes later Samuel relaxed his grip. Jer
didn’t need the paramedic to tell him Samuel was gone. Jesus had come and walked
him the rest of the way Home.
“What happens to guys like him if they die without
insurance or families?”
The paramedic shrugged. “DHS might help with
cremation.”
“You look like an honest guy. “ Jer slipped off his
watch. “Will you sell this, pay for a funeral for Samuel, and give the rest to
the mission? I’d do it myself, but I need to catch the first flight to
Tennessee.”
The ambulance pulled up to the hospital
The paramedic’s eyes widened as he looked at the yellow-gold Rolex in his hand. “Isn’t this thing worth like forty-grand? Sure, I’ll take care of it for you. It just so happens my grandpa is one of the chaplains at the mission. Who should I say the gift is from?”
Jer jumped down from the ambulance and turned to shake the paramedic’s hand. “Tell them Jeremiah gave it to you,” he said, “Jeremiah from Tennessee.” Then he sprinted off to find a cab.
Photo Credit: Drones Over Broome. Please visit their Facebook page for more breathtaking photos.
Which is true?
You can’t go home again, or the greatest adventure of our lives is finding our
way back home?
One hour
and fifty-nine minutes. That’s how long it took to fly from Boston to Detroit.
“Under two hours to fly to a different planet,” Darla muttered, “and wouldn’t
you know, Mom and Dad would be late picking me up.”
Holiday
music filled the crowded airport lobby. Travelers rushed to get to their
destinations this Christmas Eve morning.
“I’ll be home for Christmas,” the old song
crooned. Darla wished she had earplugs. Detroit was only the beginning of what
was sure to be an almost unendurable week. The ride to the family home south of
Jackson, Michigan, would take thirty minutes longer than the flight from Boston
to Detroit had. From experience Darla knew the trip would be filled with Mom’s
irritating, optimistic chatter. And the questions! Mom’s questions never ended,
but Darla dreaded most the one question she knew Dad would ask.
Who was
it who said, “You can’t go home again?” Maybe they should have said, “Only a
fool tries to go home again.”
Darla
retrieved her bags, found a seat, and sighed. This wasn’t where she’d wanted to
spend the holidays. She and her friends had planned to party through Christmas
and then go to Times Square in New York to celebrate New Year’s Eve in style.
Darla
almost wished she’d refused when Mom had called asking her to come home for
Christmas and to stay for Grandma’s memorial service on December 31.
Grandma.
In spite of her black mood Darla smiled, visualizing her short, white-haired,
grandmother. Darla could almost smell Grandma’s Christmas cookies. Every
Christmas of Darla’s childhood had been spent at Grandma’s house, and at
Corners Church.
Finally.
There were the parents, hurrying toward her. She stood to accept Mom’s
hug. People always smiled at the
contrast between her and her mother. Mom said Darla, at five-eleven, looked
like Beauty in Beauty and the Beast,
and that she looked like Mrs. Potts—the little talking tea pot.
As a little girl, Darla had sung, “Mommy’s a little tea pot, short and stout,” until Dad had made her stop. He’d feared she’d hurt Mom’s feelings. Darla still referred to Mom as “The Tea Pot” when she talked about her to her Boston friends.
As
always, Darla felt half-amused and half-embarrassed by Mom’s looks. The way Mom
dressed did nothing to enhance her five-foot frame. Even on tip toe she
couldn’t quite reach Darla’s cheek.
Darla bent for Mom’s kiss. Then she felt the crush of Dad’s arms. They didn’t feel as strong as she remembered. She was surprised at the amount of gray in Dad’s hair and at the many wrinkles that lined Mom’s face. She glanced again at Mom’s cheeks. The pink cheeks she remembered were gone. Mom’s face looked pale and fragile.
The ride
home was emotionally exhausting. Darla bit her lip more than once to stop from
snapping.
“No,
Mom, Devon and I have no plans to get married.”
“Yes,
Mom, I know The Boston Globe is New
England’s largest newspaper. I’ve worked for them for two years.”
“Yes,
Mother, I keep my doors locked when I’m driving around the city.”
“No Mom, I don’t eat three healthy meals a
day. You have no idea how demanding my schedule is.”
Finally! Blessed quietness. Mom slept, her head leaned against the window. Darla noticed how the sunlight made Mom’s hair look even grayer than it had in the terminal.
Dad
cleared his throat. Oh no, here it came. “The Question.” Might as well get it over with.
“I’m
retiring the first of the year,” Dad said unexpectedly.
“What?”
Darla bolted up in her seat. “You told Mom not to talk to you about retiring
until you were seventy-five! Dad, why retire? You love your job!”
“Guess this is as good a time as any to tell you. Mom needs too much help now. I’m retiring to spend what time she has left with her.”
“What do you mean ‘what time she has left?’ Does anyone in this family ever tell me anything?”
Dad’s
voice was quiet “I wanted to wait and tell you in person. Mom has lymphoma.
Stage four.”
The size
of the lump in Darla’s throat surprised her. She hadn’t felt close to her
parents for years. Truthfully, she seldom thought of them except when she
skimmed their too long weekly letters. Darla hadn’t been home for five years,
and Mom and Dad had never visited Boston.
Darla was just as happy they didn’t come. The parents meeting her Boston
friends?
Darla
didn’t know what to say to Dad. The car was silent except for Mom’s soft
snores. Darla texted Devon the news of the lymphoma.
“So The
Tea Pot’s going to whistle her last tune?” he texted back. It was exactly the
kind of sarcastic, dark humor that had drawn Darla to Devon, but now it made
her inexplicably angry. She turned her cell phone off and shoved it into the
pocket of her jacket.
The trip
took an eternity. Ann Arbor. Chelsea. Jackson. Spring Arbor. As Darla well
remembered from her college days, there were still thirty minutes of car travel
left before they reached her parents’ farm at the end of a dirt road.
Dad slowed as they passed the college. It
looked even smaller and quainter than Darla remembered. She’d tried to forget
her years there. If anyone asked where she got her education, she always said
NYU, where she’d done her graduate work in journalism.
“Do you
want me to stop at your old Alma Mater?” Dad asked.
“Don’t
bother.” Darla sighed. “Let’s just get home and get this week over with.”
Dad
glanced at her in the rear view mirror. His eyes looked sad. That was another
thing Darla hated about coming home. It seemed she always said or did something
to hurt Mom and Dad.
“Here,” Dad reached back over the seat and handed Darla an ad ripped from the paper. “I thought you might want to see this for what it’s worth.”
Darla
couldn’t help it. She laughingly read out loud: “Wanted. Experienced journalist
for the Hudson Daily Reporter. Salary
based on experience. Benefits.” She remembered as a kid snickering at a story
the paper had carried on its front page, “Calamity Cow Causes Car Crash.”
So the
“Daily Blues,” as some called it, wanted to hire a reporter? Darla was
surprised the paper hadn’t gone belly up years ago. When even Newsweek couldn’t survive the upheaval
in print journalism, how had that little newspaper survived?
Hudson
was only about ten miles from her parents’ home. Did her dad really think she’d
return home and work for that nothing newspaper? Ludicrous! She crumpled the ad
and put it in her jacket pocket. Her fingers touched her phone. Should she text
Devon so they could mock her Dad’s idea together? Somehow, she just didn’t feel
like it.
Darla
carried one suitcase into the house, and Dad carried the other. Mom held his
free arm. Darla knew she should say something to Mom about the cancer, but
what? They’d never communicated well, not even when Darla had been a child. Mom
was all the things Darla secretly despised, a stay-at-home Mom, with no higher
education, and church as her only social life.
Darla felt she’d walked back in time when she stepped into the farmhouse. The tree was in the same corner. As usual, the top was crooked, and the tree topper had the same crack she remembered. The scent of pine filled the air. Darla sneezed. She’d forgotten about her allergy to pine.
Looking
around, Darla sighed. Every nook was filled with something red and green. Her
eyes widened at the array of home baked goods that filled the kitchen counter.
She hoped her parents didn’t expect her to eat those. It took strict discipline
to stay in her size six clothes. Dad saw Darla’s glance and smiled proudly.
“You think
that’s something?” Dad said. “Wait until you taste the turkey, the ham, and the
pork roast Mom has in the fridge.”
“I’m a
vegan!” Darla hadn’t meant to sound so angry.
“What’s
a vegan?” Dad asked.
How
could anyone not know the definition of vegan? Darla tried to be patient. “I
don’t eat anything that causes an animal to suffer. I don’t eat meat, eggs or
dairy.”
“What do
you eat?” Mom sounded stupefied.
“Veggies.
Lots of veggies. And no baked goods.”
Mom took
a long look at the counter. Tears came to her blue eyes. “I think I’m going to
go take a nap,” she said softly.
Dad
helped Mom into the bedroom and returned to Darla. “Sit, young lady!” he
thundered. Darla almost laughed, but she sat. “Your Mom has been cooking for days
for your visit. She has so little energy, and she used every bit of it to
prepare for you to come home for the holidays.”
“OK,
well I’m sorry.” Darla almost winced at the weak sound of her own voice. She
spoke louder, “I’m a vegan by conviction. I’m not going to change just because
Mom cooked!”
Dad’s
face reddened. “By conviction!” he thundered. “Since when do you have any
convictions about anything? You don’t even bother attending church. And do you
think Mom and I are stupid? We know you and Devon are living together. And that
last article you wrote for the paper on abortion? That made Mom cry. We prayed
none of our friends would see it.”
Darla
could feel her heart pounding in her head. One of her migraines was starting.
“This isn’t going to work,” Darla said. “Home for Christmas? What a joke! This
place isn’t home. I shouldn’t have come here. We live in two different worlds,
and there’s nowhere left for us to meet. I’m flying back to Boston.”
“Maybe
that would be best.” Dad sighed. “We’ll take you back to the airport in the
morning. Perhaps you’ll stop thinking of yourself long enough to go to the
Christmas Eve program at church with us tonight?”
Selfish?
Dad thought she was selfish? She almost told him how much she’d donated to
Planned Parenthood last year but realized just in time Dad wouldn’t consider
that a point in her favor.
“Speaking
of church,” Dad began.
Darla
interrupted hastily. She already regretted her bitter words and didn’t want to
argue anymore with Dad. “I’m going to do like Mom and take a little nap if I
have to go to church tonight.”
Lying on
the twin bed in her old room, Darla tried to sleep in spite of the pounding
headache. Had she ever been that girl who loved pink gingham? Everything in the
room looked like cotton candy. Pink was now her least favorite color.
From
downstairs Darla could hear Christmas music playing and Mom and Dad talking
softly. Her angry words with Dad must have prevented Mom’s nap. Was that noise
Mom crying? Darla buried her head under a pillow. She would get through church.
She would spend the night. She would fly back to her world in the morning and
bury this one in the past where it belonged. Home for the holidays was just an
outdated phrase; it had nothing to do with her.
Surprised
that she’d slept so long, Darla woke. Downstairs Mom and Dad were waiting
supper for her. No meats or treats were in sight. Two large trays of veggies
and fruits sat on th counter.
“Are
fruits okay?” Mom sounded timid.
“Oh
Mom!” Darla reached down, hugged her, and realized Mom’s clothes no longer
covered a plump frame. Mom was so tiny Darla could feel her bones. Darla pulled
away, shocked.
“You didn’t tell me about the lymphoma.”
“I
didn’t know what to say,” Mom said simply.
Darla
nodded. She understood that, the not knowing what to say.
The
three of them walked together through the snowy parking lot and into Corners
Church. This part of Michigan enjoyed a white Christmas only fifty percent of
the time. For some illogical reason, Darla was glad that it was snowing this
year. She liked hearing the snow crunch under her feet.
The
white frame church was even smaller than Darla remembered. Just like every year
of her childhood, there was candlelight, laughter, and music. The children in
the play forgot their lines, just like they always did. Grandpas dozed and
Grandmas looked proud. Babies fussed and were comforted. The same wreaths hung
in the same windows. The same ridiculous Charlie Brown Christmas tree stood in
the same corner. Its only ornaments were construction paper handprints. Must be
the children were still tracing their hands to make Christmas ornaments.
Could it
be? Darla leaned forward and peered at the tree. There it was—the handprint
she’d made so long ago. It was the only one with a big yellow smiley face on
it. At age seven, Darla had decorated everything with that silly smiley face.
Mom
leaned close and whispered, “Do you remember the year you had to be Joseph in
the Christmas play because there were no boys? You hated that. You wanted so badly
to be Mary.”
From
somewhere deep inside laughter bubbled. Mom started chuckling too.
“Shh,”
Dad whispered, but he was grinning broadly.
A little
boy, reading, stumbled over the words in the old King James Bible, “And she
brought forth her first born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and
laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”
I still believe those words, Darla thought, as a little girl placed a blanketed doll in a crude manger. That’s one thing Mom and Dad and I have in common.
Suddenly
she no longer felt angry. Darla knew she couldn’t leave before Grandma’s
memorial service. She leaned over and whispered to Dad, “I’m going to stay
through the holidays.”
Dad poked Mom, winked, and grinned. Had he
known all along she wouldn’t leave?
I’ll answer Dad’s unasked question before I go
to bed, Darla thought. It will make him happy. “Yes, Dad, I’ll look
for a church when I get back to Boston. It’s not going to be anything like
Corners Church, but I’ll start going back to church.”
She knew
what her Dad would say. “Well, that’s a start.”
She
wasn’t going to argue with him or Mom again, not about religion, or politics,
or vegans. She was just going to enjoy being home, home for the holidays,
perhaps for the last time.
Or . . . perhaps not for the last time. Darla reached into her jacket pocket and fished out the crumpled ad. It wouldn’t hurt to stop at the paper and just talk to them for a minute…. Had Dad just winked at Mom again? She watched him a minute, but he and Mom were staring straight ahead, holding hands, and smiling at the little angels with crooked tinsel halos who were singing quite off key, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men.”
Photo Credit goes to Drones Over Broome who captures beautiful views in the area of New York where I spent many of my growing up years. Please visit the Drones Over Broome’s Facebook page for many more lovely scenes.
Quiet mystery hung over the restless night that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. Sometimes lazy snowflakes drifted down; other times the moon peeked out from behind dark clouds. Two snow people yawned on a front lawn facing a white house that smiled welcome with its green shutters. A Christmas wreath with silver bells hung on its red front door.
“You’re so tall and handsome,” the
short snow person said to the other. “I like your black hat, your shiny
straight buttons, and your glasses. What’s your name?”
“You may call me Professor. What is your name, little snow girl?”
“I. . .don’t know. I don’t think I have a name.”
“Silly child! Everyone has a name.”
The professor studied her. She was a
chubby little snow girl with crooked buttons. Her red knit hat sat sideways on
her head, and she had only one mitten. Her carrot nose looked ready to fall
into the snow. The professor frowned. He disliked untidiness. Still, there was
something charming about the little snow girl’s lopsided smile.
“I shall call you Scruffy,” he said.
“Scruffy? What does that mean?”
In his best lecture voice Professor
said, “It means untidy, messy, shambolic, or disorganized.”
“Oh dear,” Scruffy said. “Am I all
those things?”
“Yes, but it’s not your fault,”
Professor said. “Things like this just happen.”
“So someone made me messy?”
“Silly child! Don’t you know
anything? No one made us. We evolved.”
“What does ‘evolved’ mean?”
Professor frowned. How could he explain such a complex science to a simple-minded snow girl? “I’ll give you the easy version. First you were a snowflake. After a million years, you became a snowball. After a million more years you divided into three snowballs. By a process even I don’t fully understand the three snowballs stacked one on top of the other and. . .ta-da! You became you.”
“But who made the first snowflake?
Who made my face?” Scruffy persisted. “Who gave me my hat and my mitten?”
The exhausted professor sighed. “Oh, do go to sleep, Scruffy. No more questions tonight. And look at that.” He sounded disgusted. “Your nose has fallen into the snow.”
Soon the professor was snoring
softly, but Scruffy felt sad about her nose, and she had too many questions to
sleep. So no one had made anything? That didn’t seem right. The snowflakes and
the moon were so beautiful; she thought someone beautiful must have made them.
Lights came on in the house. Scruffy
saw a tall man with a pipe and a messy little girl laughing together. The
little girl pointed out the window and tugged the man’s hand. He nodded.
Silver bells rang as the red door
with the Christmas wreath opened. The little girl and the man came outside. The
little girl wore a red coat and red mittens, and the man had a long black coat.
They walked right up to Professor and Scruffy.
The little girl bent down and picked
up the carrot nose. “I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t put your nose on very well.
I’ll fix it.” She put the carrot back on Scruffy’s face and straightened
Scruffy’s hat. “Look at that!” She laughed. “I forgot to give you your other
mitten.” She pulled one off her own hand and put it on Scruffy. Scruffy felt
happy and loved.
“Daddy,” the little girl said, “your
snowman looks almost perfect. He looks like a professor, just like you. He’s
just missing one thing. You should give him your pipe. You promised Mommy you
would quit smoking. It could be your Christmas gift to her!”
The tall man shook his head and
laughed. “You and your mom, always asking me to give up my pipe. It’s not even
lit half the time, but if it will make you two happy, I guess I can live
without it.” He carefully put his pipe just so in the snowman’s mouth. “Now
let’s have some hot chocolate before bed. You’re already up too late; it’s
Christmas Eve!”
The little girl tucked her hand in
her dad’s hand. She smiled and waved at Scruffy.
As soon as the red door closed, Scruffy called, “Professor! Professor! Wake up! You missed it! We didn’t evolve from snowflakes. A man made you, and a little girl made me! Look! The little girl fixed my nose and gave me another mitten. The man gave you a pipe! Look in that window, and you’ll see them.”
Professor looked in the window. He
saw no one. “Silly child! Next thing you’ll be telling me someone made the moon
and the snowflakes. You must have been dreaming. Go back to sleep.”
Scruffy went to sleep, and she
dreamed about a kind little girl.
Professor couldn’t sleep. Something puzzled him. Where had the mitten and pipe come from? How had Scruffy’s nose gotten back on her face? He thought evolution took millions of years. Surely his nap hadn’t lasted millions of years. Suddenly he saw something in the window. A tall man was carrying a small child in rumpled pajamas. Could it be? No! It went against everything he’d learned in all his years of study. Still. . . what if? He looked at the moon and the beautiful snowflakes. He looked, and he wondered for a long, long time.
