Somewhere along the way of life

It was 1961. We'd been in Los Angeles for two weeks, with my brother and his sweet family. On our way back home to Birmingham. But Dad and Mom loved to travel, and there was time, and they wanted me to see as much of our Country as possible. And so we went north from L.A. to Yosemite. Spent a day driving through, but then on our way using the little traveled eastward route through Nevada. I thought it was wild there were no speed limits on the highway, but Dad found it less than great that there were so few service stations. And Mom found it abominable that we couldn't find a place to stay overnight and had to resort to sleeping in the car. Finally into Arizona and onto Route 66, headed for the Grand Canyon. Drove north from Flagstaff. The Canyon was amazing! I got dizzy from looking at how far down the river was from Bright Angel Point. Leaving there, headed east, Dad wanted to see the way the Canyon looked at its beginning and so followed a little dirt road that headed the right direction but proved a bit difficult to navigate. Suddenly, out of nowhere, two tiny Native American children jumped from beneath a tree and stood in the path of our vehicle. Holding a hand lettered sign that said "Take our picture for $1." Dad stopped to let them approach, handed them $5, and asked if they needed a drink of water. They just smiled and without a word ran off down a dirt trail and disappeared out of sight. Dad commented he hoped maybe he'd given them enough money that they could afford to stay home and out of the heat for the rest of the day.

It was 1999. Jim had suffered an allergy episode and we were at a Wilmington pharmacy at midnight. I went in to get his prescription, and was approached by a youngish gentleman who asked in a very quiet voice if I could spare $2. Seemed his child was sick, he needed to buy Nyquil, but he was short the price. I handed him two ones. He went to the register and paid and was on his way. When I stepped to the register, the clerk said to me, "I guess you know you just got suckered, he wanted his high for the night, no kids at his house, just him and his habit." I looked at the clerk and said, "Oh, well, it's only $2." The clerk shook his head in disgust at my naivete and rang up my purchase.

It was 2016. I was in a grocery store in Red Oak. The lady in front of me stood in contemplation, holding a birthday cake in one hand, and a quart of milk in the other. She said to the cashier, "I guess I need to put the cake back. It's my daughter's birthday but I can't afford both milk and cake, and milk is more important." I spoke up, how much do you need? The clerk looked at me and said, she's $5 short. I handed her $5. And the lady in front of me burst into tears. Thanks, and more thanks, and God bless yous from her and she was out the door with both cake and milk. The cashier commented what a nice thing I'd done. I just nodded, because I knew I'd done it for me and not the lady with the cake.

If you've never been in need this post probably has no meaning for you. But if you've ever laid awake at night and wondered how you were going to stretch the next paycheck to afford gas and rent and groceries, then perhaps you know why I never hesitate to share what I have. It may not be more than once a year, but when the need arises, I pray I notice and act.  It's the way I was raised. And the way I think it should be. But then, I'm selfish, and what I do isn't necessarily for someone else, it's for me. And the way I feel afterward. For a long time. Pressed down, shaken together, overflowing.

A 12-year-old Typhoid Mary

It was February. She was eleven years old and diagnosed with mononucleosis. Three months in bed - 24/7 including meals - allowed up only to attend to bodily functions. Each Friday her Teacher would take a week's worth of work to Dad, at his office, and he would bring it home. By Wednesday she would have finished it all. Friday morning Dad would take it to work and give it to Teacher in exchange for the next week's assignments. After the first month Dad suggested Teacher might consider adding work to the list, to help with Daughter's boredom, but instead of extra classwork, Teacher assigned books from the school library for Daughter to read and then write reports - 300 to 500 words. Three books added only an extra day of work, and the writing came naturally to her, so day four was taken care of, but Teacher soon decided her already crammed full schedule just didn't allow time for those reports, and so that little learning adventure ended at week three.

Enter to the scene the local Librarian. A woman who not only lived on their same street, but also was passionate about her job - she saw it as a calling! For the rest of Daughter's confinement, Librarian delivered a book a day, on her way home from work.

Daughter raised her reading level four grades in three months. In May, she was allowed to go to school for half a day, but had to go to bed immediately upon returning home. School let out for the summer. She was allowed to sit on the sofa in the den for a half day, to read more books, and then for an hour each day Mama taught her fractions, so she would be ahead of things when she finally went back to school. But the rest of the time she was in bed.

After six months she was allowed to return to "normal" life. But there was no normal for her. Kids at school stayed away from her, having been warned about contagion, and nothing could convince them she was not a threat. You think being accused of having cooties is bad? Try being a 12-year-old Typhoid Mary!

She learned to live with the isolation. And books continued to be her world. The hero Librarian would keep back newly arrived books, reserved with her name on them, and wait for the now-regular-as-clockwork-weekly-appearance in the old shaded building on the north side of 1st Avenue.

The bout with mono, otherwise known as "kissing disease" had another, much darker effect on her life - and her family - as ugly rumors spread about how she had contracted the disease. As a result, the family left their home Church.She went along with the explanation that the family needed to find a church closer to their house, one that didn't require an hour's travel each way. It was 20 years before Dad told her the real reason - the well-intentioned-but-less-than-well-informed pastor at the old church had made some ugly comments to Dad, and rather than continue in a congregation where his reputation was questioned, they left not only the church but the denomination.

It's a good thing social services didn't exist back then - Daughter would have wound up either a foster kid or living at the Mercy Home.

Six months into her isolation, Dad brought home a little iron lion. He'd gotten it in trade from one of his insurance clients who couldn't pay their policy premium that month. It sat on her nightstand, and she would talk to it during her hours of isolation. It didn't talk back, but she had an active imagination and nothing but time on her hands, so there were endless conversations in her head - especially after sundown when there were no lights allowed on in her room.

She had been eleven years old when Sissy married. Sonny was already married, and Eddie was away at boarding school. Nobody put it together that her symptoms occurred within weeks of the wedding. At the very church that accused Dad of not being a good man. Sadness was a way of life for him, but he didn't let it get him down. God and Dad and Mom and Daughter knew the truth - nobody else mattered.

bullies come in all sizes

This last move has resulted in some unexpected/unintended consequences. One is a recent weight loss. And although trying to find jeans that fit has become an almost impossible task, I’m pretty happy about it. So why is it that some people think they have a right (or even a mandate) to comment on my size? I realize the one who said, “You’re too thin, are you ok?” had my best interest at heart; after being assured that my health is not an issue, said, “OK, as long as you’re happy.” Then there’s the four-foot-tall-size-zero-raven-haired-beauty who said, “Well it’s about time you lost some weight! But of course you’ll gain it all back before State Conference.” The smirk on her face let me know it was not said in jest.  (This person delights in finding ways to hurt people, rarely says anything nice about anyone other than members of her own family, and never says anything good about anything she wasn’t totally responsible for doing, as, of course, anyone else falls miserably short of her grandiose expectations of how things should be, and never loses an opportunity to make sure you know what an utter failure you are. Yes, we all know someone like that. So I just chalked it up to her being her and went on about my business.) And then there’s the person who asked, “Were you trying to lose weight, or are you just lucky?” I wasn’t sure how to respond to that so just smiled and walked away. But it makes me wonder about the folks who actually struggle with weight. For me it’s never been a real issue, even pregnancy did not cause much of a gain and I lost the pounds and inches within a few months. Later in life, if my jeans got a little too tight, and the muffin top a little too prominent, I knew that cutting back on bread and potatoes would mean dropping a few pounds. Not that I think I was ever overweight to begin with, staying only a few pounds over what I weighed at high school graduation. OK, that was 52 years ago, but still it was comfortable then for my height and my age and my body mass index was within range, and my health was good; so now I’m a few pounds under that same number, but it’s comfortable for my height and age and my body mass index is within normal range and my health is good. At this point I’m grateful that most people don’t pay attention to me at all, and for the most part, those who do, refrain from comment. But for those who think they are obligated to comment on my weight, or my height, or my hairstyle/clothes/shoes/jewelry/makeup, while I hear what you say, I do not listen. Go find someone else to bully. I will defend to the death your right to speak your mind, but your right stops at my nose. And my toes. And my size.

just a little thing

This is a story about two Mothers, mine and a lady named Mrs. Johnson. But there’s way more involved than just a tale of two women.

For most of my early life I remember Mom had at least 18 long-sleeved white shirts per week to wash, starch, refrigerate overnight in a plastic bag, sprinkle, and iron. Long before the days of permanent press, she sat at the ironing board every Tuesday from just after the rest of the family left for work or school until lunchtime, when she started cooking whatever it was we would have for dinner, and then it was back to her chair and the electric iron that did not have a steam function but did have a wicked heavy black and white cord. As she ironed the shirts for Dad and my two brothers during the afternoon, she watched soap operas. Back then, most of the soaps were on for just fifteen minutes, with only a couple lasting for thirty. During the summers when I was out of school, watching her favorite as she sweated away in the back room of the un-air-conditioned shotgun house we called home, I learned about heartbreak and joy with long-suffering Nancy Hughes, Grandpa, Bob (the hard-working-good son) and Lisa (the scheming-conniving-lying-pouty-lipped-low-neckline-peignoir-wearing-oh-lord-how-I- wanted-her-wardrobe slut), and the rest of those usually endearing just like us but sometimes dastardly folks in Oakdale, IL.

As Mom got older, she was less and less able to do the chores around the house. My sister and I did most of them, but for a short time the ironing was accomplished by outside help. A wonderful woman named Missus Johnson (and, no, I never knew her first name) came each Tuesday to spend the morning in the den at the ironing board. It always gave me great pleasure to sit on the sofa and watch her work and listen to her sing gospel songs. I went to her home once, located on the “other side” of Georgia Road, down a little unpaved rocky crooked trail occupied on both sides by what we politely called “shanties.” Visiting Mrs. Johnson was a one-time-only thing, and thinking back I’m sure it had to do with Mom’s battle with ovarian cancer. During that visit I met Mrs. Johnson’s daughter. I sat out of the way in a plastic chair at their red-topped-chrome-legged kitchen table and looked with amazement at the myriad braids protruding from the little girl’s head, each tied at the end with a scrap of red ribbon. Well, there’s only so much you can do with looking around at your surroundings without looking like you’re looking around, and so I asked Maybelle if we could play with her dolls. She shook her head and said, in a no nonsense matter of fact tone of voice, “Don’t got no dolly.” I was aghast. In my world, every little girl had a least one doll to play with, most had several, including the one definitely not for play that was dressed in bridal splendor and sat glassy eyed upon my bed during the day.

We went back to my house at the appointed hour, me holding tightly to Mrs. Johnson’s callused hand as we crossed the busy street. I remember it felt so good I didn’t want to let go. And so, to humor me, she did not insist. Together we skipped down 52^nd Way, swinging our arms, singing Jesus Loves Me.

A couple of days later, I said to Mom, “Why doesn’t Maybelle have a doll?” “Who’s Maybelle?” Mom asked. “Mrs. Johnson’s daughter,” I answered. “I didn’t know she had a daughter,” Mom replied. “Oh, yes,” I continued, “Mrs. Johnson has to leave her at home by herself while she works, because there’s no one to watch her, but she says Maybelle is a good girl and never gets into any trouble. But when I asked her if we could play with her dolls, she told me she didn’t got a dolly. Why do you think that is?”

Mom was silent, lips set firmly together in a look I knew promised only bad news if I pursued the subject, so I dropped the idea of further discussion.

That Saturday afternoon, after Dad came home from collecting insurance premiums, the three of us got in the ’53 Plymouth and drove to the Downtown Birmingham Sears and Roebuck (or, as Dad called it, Sears and Rareback) located in what I always thought of as the end of the world. (The store was between 1^st and 2^nd Avenue North and 15^th and 16^th Streets.) Mom hobbled into the store, holding onto Dad’s arm for support, while I trailed along behind. The store was the biggest I’d ever been in and there were so many things to look at that I quite forgot who I was with, and Dad had to come find me. We left with Dad carrying a large paper bag and me holding onto Mom’s belt so I wouldn’t get lost again. Daddy put the bag in the trunk, but I remember he didn’t take it out when we got home. No, I didn’t ask what was in the bag; if I was meant to know, they’d tell me.
On Tuesday afternoon, when I got home from school, Mom called me into the big bedroom at the front of the house, handed me “the bag” and told me to give it to Mrs. Johnson after she finished the ironing. I confess, I peeked. In the bag was a beautiful bride doll, wearing a dress very similar to the one my own doll wore, complete with a flower circlet and tiny veil, and a little string of pearls around the dark brown neck.

I did as I was told. Mrs. Johnson opened the bag and looked in. The look of astonishment on her face was something I wish I could have captured for posterity. Now, frankly, I don’t remember if Mrs. Johnson ever came back to our house after that, but I will always remember that one particular day. It was the first time I ever saw someone laugh and cry at the same time.

In the grand scheme of things it was nothing big, just a little thing. Nobody covered it on the news. There were no selfies involved. Just two mothers, two daughters, two dolls, and one small act of kindness.  But they are all joined for eternity and the memory of it has affected my life's choices for these 60+ years. I've never told this story before; today seems like the perfect time.

creaky knees and tiny trees

For years and years Mama had a tiny green ceramic tree, decorated with little glass tubular inserts (that always came loose and wound up rattling around in the box) and sat on a Styrofoam ring with a light bulb you could plug in and see a faintly discernible glow and watch closely to make sure nothing caught on fire. I asked her (only once) why we didn’t have a live tree and she said it was just too much trouble, always sweeping up drying needles, and then trying to figure out a way to dispose of it.

Fast forward 20 years, hubby is in the military and there were babies in my house. Our first Christmas back in Alabama, we went out to the farm at Locust Fork and chopped our own, dragged it down the hill to MawMaw’s house and then attached it to the top of the station wagon for the trip back to Maxwell AF Base. Unfortunately we didn’t think to cover it with a sheet or anything and it was a sorry bedraggled mess by the time we got to Montgomery, not really worth messing with, but he was proud and so we persevered. About the time we hung the last antique mercury glass ornament Midnight The Devil Cat jumped smack in the middle, sending it crashing to the floor, razor-sharp shards flying everywhere. So much for that.

For the next several years (as we PCS’d from State to State, base to base) I bought fake stick-together trees and decorated them with clip-on-wooden birds, crocheted yarn wreaths, plastic icicles, popcorn strings, and play-dough-baked ornaments the kids made in school. Even after kitty crossed the rainbow bridge, the shiny glass ornaments stayed packed away. Not quite as esthetically pleasing but the kids liked it and that was all that mattered. One year I wrapped empty matchboxes and jewelry boxes and set them under the tree, only to find the next morning that number-one-son had decided to find out what was in them and left them scattered among a nest of paper scraps and shredded bows.

The first year I spent by myself, I didn’t intend to have a tree at all. But one of the girls at work gave me a tiny fake one (guess she felt sorry for me) so I set it on a brass and glass table next to the patio doors at my beach condo and enjoyed watching the ocean roil as a backdrop.

Married again, celebrating the first Christmas together in the BIG HOUSE, it was a live tree for me, with all the pretty ornaments, but by then there was another cat in the house, and even though the tree was tied to the wall, it only gave him purchase and the freedom to climb at will; after several of the shiny lovely things died tragically on the concrete floor, I decided wooden ornaments were best.

The year hubby was in Iraq, I sent him a tabletop tree (which some youngster no doubt enjoyed after he rotated out) and bought another tiny one for myself, both decorated with red/white/blue ornaments.

The next year, when he was on the border, I took a tiny one for the 3-day weekend and brought it back home with me.

For the last five years we’ve had no tree in the house larger than 14 inches. Oh, there’s a six footer in the garage, wrapped in plastic and stored in its taped Garden Ridge box, but as I get older, I find it increasingly difficult to muster the will/strength to drag it out and fluff it up and hang the Battenberg lace angels and Lillian Vernon porcelain doves and then three weeks tear down and pack up and store in the attic. My creaky knees know tiny trees are best. And I have become my Mother.

vampires

Recently a friend and I were talking about alarm clocks. She says she keeps hers on the other side of the room, so when it sounds she has to get up to turn it off. And once she’s up, she just stays up. That made me think about the alarm clock in my bedroom. I can’t remember the last time it sounded off. I’ve become so used to the one on my cell phone, the one by the bed is simply redundant.

 

But it also brought to mind how much electricity we use unnecessarily. They’re called vampires, power-sippers, electricity drains, or several other less affectionate terms. What it amounts to is that electronic devices with a light to show they’re “on” are using electricity. If you want to use less, unplug.

Why do I care? Because I want to reduce our footprint. We don’t plug in the coffee maker until it’s time to make coffee. And we don’t depend on a timer to make the coffee for us before we get up in the morning. Frankly, I don’t care if the clock on the Mr. Coffee shows the correct time or not, after all, there’s the digital one on the microwave and the digital one on the stove, and neither of those can be unplugged. All they’re really good for is making me aware of how many devices in the house must be reset after one of our all-too-often spring and fall power outages.

There are clocks in both spare bedrooms; no one (besides myself) ever goes in there. So why have a clock running if no one ever looks at it? If we have guests, it’s a small matter to plug in and reset. So, they stay unplugged until needed.

Now, the downside of this is that if the device has to be re-programmed each time it loses power (such as with some older model televisions) you might not find it worth the small amount of savings you'll get from going "unplugged." But if you're into saving the planet, it's worth thinking about.

the most powerful thing

Mowed the "back 40" again today. Spring has brought wild roses and honeysuckle and hibiscus to full bloom, blackberry vines everywhere, orange day lilies line the road to the mailbox, and strange little yellow flowers peep up among the wind-blew-them-in grasses. Good thing there are no neighbors close-by to see me out there in the still cool morning hours, manicuring around the larkspur and thrift I didn't plant but enjoy so much. They'd think me nuts. Guess I am a little. All this time living alone. Twenty years of penance. Father Behan says I'm harder on myself than God ever would be.

Discovered alcohol was neither the problem nor the solution. And just for today suicide is not a viable alternative. But I'm convinced the scars on my body healed a lot quicker than the scars on my heart. I guess it had a lot to do with living alone and learning to like it.

I never told the children how much I hated it when they left to do their own thing, one taking an apartment, the other joining the Army. I know, they couldn't live with me all their lives, but I felt so abandoned. Everybody I'd ever loved had left me, one way or another, and I didn't like it one bit. I hated living alone. My self-pity grew by leaps and bounds. That's when the drinking really started kicking in. The only comfort I had was with cable TV and a bottle at the end of each working day. I didn't go to bed at night, just passed out in the papa-san chair in the living room, coming to in time to brush my teeth and dress and get to work next morning.

So what do you do when you can’t figure out what else to do? You give it over. Sitting in the bathtub one night, water grown so cold I no longer felt it, I cried out for God to please do something, anything, just please take me out of the pain. And what a change God wrought! With that one sentence, my entire life changed!

I learned to love my life, understanding that I couldn't really love anybody else if I couldn't love myself. Mom had said, in one of our weekly calls, that she didn't see how I could live alone, why didn’t I get married again, yada yada yada. Enjoyed solitude was totally beyond her ken. Rather than embrace hers, she hated it, knowing only that years of living alone had not been her choice. Although she had no one to answer to, she never recognized the joy of doing what you want when you want.

Today, for me, it's all about choices. If I want to eat asparagus cold from the can for dinner, that's my choice. If I want to sit in the sun with a cup of hours-old coffee, that's my choice. If I want to play computer games or write in my cyber-journal, that's my choice. And if I want to be alone, that, too, is my choice. If I don't want to dress, well, then, okay, that's that. Some days I look like something the cats dragged up and the dogs won't eat, but there's nobody here to say it should be otherwise. I bought a sapphire and diamond wedding band a couple of years ago, and wear it proudly. I told Barbara, "I want to be married to myself, find out who I am, without catering to somebody else's whims." I was determined that neither Mom nor anyone else would railroad me into another marriage. Once was quite enough, thank you very much. Alone is not necessarily lonely. Sometimes it’s a blessing. The most powerful thing on earth for me, today, is not rockets, or tornados, or even love - - it’s the right to choose.