It's a GIRL!

There's a first time for everything, or so they say. And being pregnant the first time seems to prove the rule.

So we married in June, 1968 and spent our honeymoon moving to Seattle. Two months later when my husband got drafted, we packed back up and headed out to Idaho, his home state, where his notice came from. His mother and I drove him to the train station in a small town miles and miles away, and then cried in the car all the way back to Geneva. 

I was going catch a plane back to Illinois the next day to stay with my family until we got word where he would be stationed, then we could make plans. But before that could happen, he showed up, having been rejected by the Army. When back injuries from a motorcycle accident that year turned out to be a blessing! So we packed the car back up and headed northwest again to find a new apartment in Seattle. 

From then on, every month he would be drafted again, rejected again. Only by this time his papers had been transferred to Washington, so we at least didn't have to keep navigating the highway. And his work held fake going away parties for him every month to celebrate, unlike the first actual party when we all thought he'd be shipping out. 

Rinse and repeat, the months went by. Such a joke! They laughed, he laughed, I laughed. 

So somehow we thought it would be an opportunity to start a family. What were we thinking? And six or seven months after the wedding, we did. 

Fortunately, I didn't have a problem with morning sickness. Life seemed good, normal.

However, reality check... the smell of the dry roasted peanuts he would buy was all of a sudden the most egregious of odors in the entire universe, and I would bolt out of the room if and when he opened the jar.  

Of course, it worked out that as soon as we found out we were going to be parents and actually have to grow up, yes, you can imagine. He left one March morning to report again as usual for the draft. We knew the drill. 

But he didn't come home that night. 

I locked myself in the bathroom for two days and nights and cried and screamed relentlessly. Stopped laughing. 

And I never heard a word from him for two long, unbearable weeks. Timing is everything, no? At long last I got the phone call and found out he was at Ft. Lewis in Tacoma, WA. And I would be able to visit him on Sunday afternoons for the next six weeks of basic training. 

I didn't even recognize him the first Sunday. Seriously! His hair had been shaved off and he wore dark rimmed glasses instead of contact lenses. Walked right by him.

It seemed more prison like. You had to sit at a table across from your husband in a big room with everyone else doing the same. But you had an hour to talk, so what could be better?

I quit my job and packed everything into our little car and moved myself down to a bad area by the railroad tracks in Tacoma. With $75 to my name, a room behind a dilapidated old one story building used as an insurance office had to do. And it did. Tacoma was the beacon for serial killers back in the day. At least it was pretty quiet. Except for the trains.

A lot went wrong there, so I couldn't really focus on being pregnant. Immediately got a job at Penney's in a Mall there, but after a month got fired when one of my coworkers told the manager I was pregnant. Against the rules back in the dark ages. 

It's ironic to be broke and unemployable when you're most needful, but good life lessons. If only in hindsight. Our cat, who was the only creature I knew within 1200 miles, and meant the world to me, went out one night and tragically was hit by a car on the highway. I picked up his body the next morning. Devastated.

Military wife, of a Private, E1... consequently not really anything the Army was obligated to deal with. The saying was, "If you were supposed to have a wife, the Army would have issued you one." Besides, most of the guys he was stationed with were 18 or 19 year old kids, he was 25, having had college and mission deferments. They all called him "Grandpa."

When he was assigned six weeks later to Ft. Ord by Monterrey, CA, I again packed up our little car with all we had, and moved myself down there. Actually we had so much that I had to drive with my left hip up on the driver's door armrest. Pure class.

Two days down the coast, and I made it to Seaside, CA on our first anniversary! Immediately found an apartment and went out to find my missing husband. No idea how I arranged that without cellphones, but I did manage to pick him up and kidnap him for a couple hours to celebrate. By then I was almost 6 months pregnant and finally beginning to show a little. 

In August, he was transferred to Ft. Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, IN. This time, I didn't have to move alone, he had a whole week off. Just before we left, I went to the small animal compound on base and adopted the runt of the litter, a small pup the size of a hamster who barely had a chance of survival. And "Oink" became the focus of our trip to another very temporary home in the Midwest. Good practice for infant care.

Having been to an OB/GYN probably in March to confirm pregnancy, I really never had the opportunity to go again for quite awhile. It was fortunate I did so well. Or maybe just didn't know better.

So I was dropped off in Illinois at my parents' home mid August and he went on to Indiana, coming to see us on the weekends. Or I would drive out there. For fun, I became hopelessly addicted to banana popsicles. It could have been worse, no?

Finally, I was able to get in with a civilian OB group six or seven weeks before my due date, the Army having to pay because I lived too far from an actual base to have to travel to Army Docs. 

By the end of September, I was pleading with the Dr. to have my baby induced. 

Because instead of getting orders to the East Coast, as I had dreamed of, he had just been given orders to Germany. He grinned like he had won the lottery. I wept. 

Naturally he was being shipped out on Oct. 10, my due date. Just no way to know at that time where precisely in Germany he would be stationed, so how to even let him know about the birth? I was not happy.

The Drs. had little sympathy, saying they had been notified about their own babies being born when they were overseas during the Korean War. But soon enough they acquiesced, and I was scheduled for induction at the local hospital in Elgin on the morning of Oct. 8th. 

It all went perfectly. (Only a local injection for the episiotomy.) Pain? Sure, but just when I became panic stricken and thought I was going to die because I could handle no more, the nurse directed me to look in her eyes, and unequivocally reassured me I could handle it. Me? Comforted by the voice of experience and her absolute confidence, I managed to ask her how many children she had. None, she said. 

I knew was going to die right then. 

But surprise! After four hours of intense labor, ta da... "IT'S A GIRL!" 

And I was handed the most beautiful baby you could ever imagine. A thick mop of black hair, blue eyes, delicate pink lips, porcelain skin, dainty fingers and toes... 6 1/2 pounds of exquisite perfection!

(So sad that Dads couldn't be in the delivery room at that time.) I was so overwhelmed with joy, I couldn't speak. Heaven was close, so close. Silently I was wondering when the Tabernacle Choir was coming into that sacred room to sing. Where were they?

When the proud new Daddy went down the elevator to the Lobby to tell my Mom we just had a baby girl, she said his smile was beaming like nothing she'd ever seen before, it lit up the entire hospital. 

We brought Afton home the next day, before he had to leave, to share a precious few hours. 

And not even two months later, we joined Daddy in Bavaria, Germany. 

 

After All Is Said and Done

Whose Idea Was This??

With such an auspicious Hospital background, it's a wonder I didn't finish Medical School. Or even start. Didn't finish Nursing School either, although I did the first two years at University before going crazy and switching majors my Junior and Senior years. How does that go? The best laid plans....

I don't know, maybe there had been signs. Like when I flew home from Utah for Christmas vacation my Freshman year. The hospital actually hired me as a Nurse's Aide for those two weeks. I was so excited! Until I passed out at the bedside of my first patient and hit my head on the bed rails before starting an intimate relationship with the floor. 

This was following my first ever plane trip the day before, which was in a vintage WWII aircraft that the Pilot and his wife, the Stewardess, had bought to start their own private company. What a ride! Maybe I had a "planeover" the next day? We did actually make it, against all odds, obviously. Unfortunately, the enterprising couple perished in it a couple years later. Anyway, I digress.

So my friends there, the Staff, picked me up off the floor and put me in a private room and faithfully monitored me that day. How embarrassing! When they would leave my room, I would jump out of bed and put my uniform back on and start taking care of my assigned patients again. Till the Nurses would see me, and whisk me off my feet and right back to bed. Then they would leave, and I would quickly get dressed again, sneak out, and carry on. Rinse and repeat. Good intentions, but.... The next day was better. We all pretended I was normal.

It wasn't the end of the world, of course, but the next summer I decided to apply as a nursing intern at the Insane Asylum, Elgin State Hospital, instead of returning to St. Jo's. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

_________________________________________________________________________

If you're curious about that epilogue, you have to go back to 1/20/2011 for the first installment of those State Hospital days. (There's 5 days of memories about that starting there until I get around to getting more organized.)

Frank Pascente Jr.

Yes. That was his name. Frank Pascente. I think he may have been in room #327 when our paths crossed. I had been a teenybopper Candystriper at St. Joseph Hospital (Elgin) for 3 years by then.

How I had loved serving patients on the 3rd floor of the hospital, whether it was delivering meal trays, feeding those who were unable to feed themselves, filling water pitchers, changing sheets, sponge baths, giving gentle massages, emptying bedpans (ok, not so much, but sterilizing them wasn't bad), taking temps and blood pressures, running countless specimens upstairs to the Lab, other things I can't mention... whatever the nurses wanted me to do. 

But some patients were just more fun, more memorable than others. And my favorite of all time, and the only one whose name I can remember was Frank, the G.O.A.T. What the heck was this young guy doing in the hospital, for heaven's sake? The young were few and far between in those rooms. While I was used to interacting with patients and getting along well with everyone, this was the first time anyone paid so much attention to me, teasing me and basically being the big brother I had always wanted but never had. So yes, he was extra special in my book. I didn't really know why he was there week after week, but I looked forward to seeing him every day that I was there. 

Frank was really good looking, in an Italian kind of way, and really good natured, in an Italian kind of way! In his late 20's, dark hair, charismatic smile. He was married with two young daughters. Happy and fulfilled. Never complaining or upset. So I just assumed whatever he was there for was being handled and all was ok. He was such a bright, bright spot. I didn't ask questions. And so it went. Good times, I thought.

And then that winter weekend I showed up as usual and took the elevator to the 3rd floor, stopped in to #327 to check on Frank and see if he needed anything, before going to check in at the nurses' station. But he wasn't there. Did they move him to another room? Send him home? I went down to the nurses' station and saw the Head Nurse coming out and said, "Where's Frank?"

I knew her well and she knew me well too, and how close I was to him, and she just stopped in her tracks, not knowing what to do. 

"Oh, Muffi, I'm so sorry. We just lost Frank. You knew he had cancer, right? The cancer won."

WHAT?  WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?

I couldn't believe her. And I couldn't not believe her. I couldn't fall apart there in the hallway. And I couldn't not fall apart. The nurses and aides all came to comfort me. But I was out of control. Totally out of control!

I don't know how I found out later what funeral home he was taken too. I don't even know how I got home. I only knew I didn't get a chance to say goodbye. And that I wanted to. Somehow I got it in my head and heart that I should go there for the viewing. 

And so I did. 

When I got there, I froze and couldn't move from the back of the room. Just wasn't possible. So there I was, paralyzed and blending into the back wall. Only a few awkward moments passed, but it seemed like eternity. Then someone noticed me, left the group gathered around the front of the room where Frank now laid, grasped my hand and gently walked me up to the casket. Without saying a word. It was Pat, his widow, whom I had never met, who had no way of knowing me. And yet, somehow she did. 

Who does that? What kind of angel can emerge from the midst of her own grief to reach out to some obscure shy teenager without much of a right to be there, an uninvited distraction at best. I had wanted to melt into the floor until she reached me and gently helped me out of myself and gave me the borrowed strength to see my buddy one last time. 

Who does that? Maybe the kind of person who married the kind of person who earlier reached out to me, despite unimaginable pain and suffering, to make me feel like a mere run of the mill teenager mattered.

In all the millions of moments since that time, I have many times thought of Frank and Pat, and been so glad that these two had each other for the brief time that they did. And that they crossed my path, however briefly. I think they were both very rare humans and I'm so grateful for their example. It's given me the inspiration and courage to be mindful of others in the midst of unbidden trials, in the tsunami of grief, through the many, many decades since these special souls showed me who they were, and how to walk in those footsteps of the One who cares most of all for each and every one of us.

The Most Dangerous Day in Human History

Candystriper life. Seeing a lot of unexpected things working in a hospital environment maybe helped me grow up fast in some ways... or grow up weird. There's that. Because so much there was literally life and death, the culture at High School wasn't all that compelling to me. So during the school year, I was more committed to spending weekends at the hospital rather than at football games and parties. I felt strangely mature because I was treated that way there by patients and staff, and I seemed to handle emergencies and dire circumstances there well. Calmly.

JFK Addresses Nation

Until that one day. October 27, 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The most dangerous day in human history. When Nuclear War was suddenly ominous and imminent. The world had spiraled out of control. President Kennedy was addressing the nation and all the patients' televisions were simultaneously pulsing with the bleak and terrifying reality. Never had we been closer to the annihilation we had been getting ready for since the air raid sirens sent us under our desks in elementary school and Jr. High. Immediately I accepted that I wouldn't be going home from the Hospital to tell my family I loved them and to face the end together with them that afternoon. Unbelievable. Overwhelming. And the only thing left to do was to keep helping people where I was. Calmly. Until we were wiped out.

It probably sounds bloody dramatic, but it actually was that close. Seriously. Life on planet earth was hanging by a thread. Blink, and what happens? 

Perhaps we all are closer at times to the final curtain than we realize. What would you do if you suddenly found yourself aware that the apocalyptic end was a only breath away? 

I don't know if you believe in miracles or not, but there's the story of the one man who truly saved the world at that critical moment.

https://www.gzcenter.org/the-man-who-saved-the-world-from-a-nuclear-war/.

And here's the years later declassified scoop:

https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2021/june/black-saturday-declassified

The Irony

St. Joseph Hospital, Elgin, IL

Does it make any sense to you at all that on many days, tiny me was "in charge" of our tiny ER? Me neither. But there I was in the diminutive (2 exam tables) room across from the hospital kitchen and next door to the Morgue. That was it! Dr. Andy Nowakowski was the official Elgin Police Department Physician, so accidents, crimes, DOA's, etc. were supposedly sent to (125 bed) St. Jo's instead of to the newer, bigger Sherman Hospital a few blocks away. Hmmm.  

At any rate, when I was there, always by myself, if someone came in (no advance notice back then (no cell phones, etc.) ambulance or walk in, there would just suddenly be people showing up at the door), well there I was! Just me. Can you imagine how reassuring it would be to rush into a hospital ER in sheer desperation, only to be met by a 13 year old volunteer who would get you on an examining table? Yep. So I would immediately call up to the 4th floor Surgery Department, and a Resident Dr. accompanied by a Surgical Nurse would jump on the somewhat rickety service elevator and appear a few minutes later to save the day. Or at least try to. 

To pass the time in between these pressing emergencies to deal with, I would assemble surgical trays for the sterilizer. Some days were slow. Some days anything but.

Somehow I never reacted emotionally. I got used to different situations and was always able to be calm regardless of the degree of injury. Until that one day. They brought a baby in from an auto accident. This was an age of no seat belts, no car seats, not much in the way of accident prevention; but according to my perception there was a heck of a lot less traffic, less idiots on the road, at least that's how I remember it. Your mileage may vary. 

So I had them put the baby on the exam table while we waited for the Dr. and Nurse to appear. And as soon as they did, I bolted from the room. The one and only time I ever did. That miniature little nose had been severed and was only attached by the tiniest of flaps, and it seemed unbearable to me that this vulnerable itty bitty human had to suffer like that. I couldn't take it. I had to leave.

I'm sure there were many people that came to that room in greater agony than that little soul, but for some reason, it just hit me harder than anything else had. Perhaps because most patients were adults. Ironically, 10 years later I would find myself, arms loaded with a laundry basket full of wet clothes to hang in the sunshine, swinging open the back door of my house, and knocking my own 18 month old baby boy off the porch, thus severing his nose. At the hospital in Denver, the Dr. who was stitching him up told my husband that he was way more concerned with me than the baby because I was so unhinged. Life is weird, no? So sorry, Adam.

After Life

The tiny ER, where I was sent to spend most of my time that year, was next to the tiny Morgue, which had a door with a window of frosted glass, so you couldn't see in clearly, no doubt a good idea. But you could see motion. Very quickly that summer I had become convinced that I was destined to be a Doctor who would save the world. So suddenly the ER and neighborly Morgue had great significance for me. 

One day early on that first summer, I came in from outside through the Ambulance Entrance, and stopped in front of the Morgue door because I could tell there was activity within, and I was intrigued and fascinated. Until. The loud buzz of a saw and cracking sounds shot out from that now gruesome-to-me-room, and I fled, running and crying out the Ambulance Entrance to escape the grim reality. I had never even imagined before there was such a thing as a cranial autopsy. And I was certain that even though I had been able to handle blood and guts and tears and screams, this was a bridge too far, never going to be something I could deal with. We all have our limits, right?

Ironically enough, I did end up going back into the Morgue itself several times that summer. Turned out that Felix, the Pathology Tech from Puerto Rico, took an interest in my MD aspirations, and encouraged me, or so I thought. He would take me upstairs into the Pathology Lab at times, and then downstairs into the Morgue, when no one else was around, to show me the ropes. I still vividly remember the first dead body I saw laying on the metal slab in the middle of the room, a young woman of 28, with very black hair and very yellow jaundiced skin. Just seeing her so young body, forever stilled, and thinking of what her family must be going through was a shock. There were other cadavers, of course, but isn't there always something about the first that you can't forget? I am so grateful to have never witnessed a young child there.

I don't know if those kind of places should be some kind of hallowed or not, but I do think the dead deserve respect. Apparently Felix felt otherwise, as I soon enough discovered. Come to find out, he was not actually interested in medical goals, or dead bodies, but in young girls and their live bodies. His wife was an aide I knew from the OB floor. I wonder if she knew what he was up to? I had no problem in bolting from that situation after what he tried with me, but soon enough I noticed the Morgue being used as a rendezvous spot for him and an older teenage girl who worked in the kitchen. Awkward! But my chilling time with the corpses was over.

Hospital Interlude

Candy Striper. What on earth? Could that be what you called someone who made fudge? Cotton candy? Random possibilities come to mind with that term, but actually it was the moniker for teenage girls who volunteered at hospitals in the USA back in the 60's. All because of the pink and white striped pinafore that was the ubiquitous uniform identifying such a strange creature. 

Well count me in!

I started out on a rather humble level at thirteen. Maybe I'd read a book where cute interns fell all over themselves drooling over starry eyed, fresh faced, teeny bopper volunteers in such beguiling outfits. Must have been way into fiction back then. Anyway I signed up, and the matronly Supervisor of Volunteers soon had me sitting around a table with other girls, all of us sewing dolls of some kind for little patients. Did I mention I don't sew? And I didn't want to learn, seeing as a sewing circle in a back room didn't seem like a handy way to meet interns, after all.  

So call it an inconvenient reprieve. They signed me up as a "victim" for the emergency crisis practice drill. On a blistering hot summer day, we were on cots in the hostile sun out on the hospital lawn, waiting to be triaged by the (hopefully handsome) firefighters/paramedics. I was really into it, having passed junior high drama class and even making drama club, but by the time they got around to me, it had kind of gone to my head, and I couldn't even remember my own phone number by then, much less what bones were supposed to be broken, wounds festering, etc. Or I feigned it. Go figure, there were a few puzzled hospital personnel who were not at all impressed with my performance of a scatterbrained fake casualty. And surprisingly, no hot date with a first responder either (never mind that I'd never had a date of any kind at all yet).  

It must have been obvious that I wasn't just a one trick pony because the next thing I knew, I was assigned to sit at the front desk so I could greet and shepherd visitors to the right rooms. Even though I have absolutely no sense of direction, I could do this, as the elevator was right behind me, so I could look up a patient name, give a room number, and nod knowingly to the elevator over my shoulder. One Saturday a middle aged wiseguy came up to me and asked me what exactly I was doing there. "Oh," I smiled, "I tell people where to go." He started laughing and said, "You do? Well hey, that's everybody's dream job!"

I did all this with such utter finesse, that I was promoted to the medical floor pretty quickly! Soon I was running countless samples up to the Lab on the 4th floor and refilling ice water for patients at St. Joseph Hospital. Somehow I graduated quickly to feeding the helpless, emptying bedpans for the bed-bound, changing bed sheets, taking vitals, running to the rooms when the light when on to call the nurse, and giving back massages in the evenings to relax weary muscles and bones and souls into merciful, if constantly interrupted, sleep.  

I felt useful, needed, appreciated. I could make a difference, albeit small. Finally I had a purpose. So basically I decided to live there. Well almost. My Mom said the car automatically would just drive to the Hospital. And I received pins for volunteering hundreds and hundreds of hours every year.

And although there was recognition and honors along the way as well, it was just icing on the cake. Making a difference, however small, was the intrinsic reward.

But often these random functions were punctuated by the very grim reality of people in pain, people on the edge, people with needs far beyond what I had ever imagined. And I remembered the first day on the floor when I came face to face with reality. 

At the far end of the 3rd floor was the Ward, with beds for men who were indigent, or at least without sufficient insurance. On my first day making myself useful by going up and down the hall with a cart full of ice water, I finally found myself in The Ward, going from patient to patient, refilling their metal pitchers, helping some to get a drink, when suddenly a hand of bones shot up from a bed and grabbed mine. Startled, I looked down into the bed where a wisp of what once had been a man lay, and as his eyes penetrated mine, he almost loudly gasped, "Help me! Help me! They're taking my body away from me!" I was paralyzed by what this literal skeleton had just uttered. Or was it by the sheer inexplicable strength of the grip he momentarily held me in? But just as suddenly he turned away, releasing me as his strength and voice both faded into eternity. I never knew his name, but never will I forget his anguished face.

One Failed Nun

In my early teens I had dreams of becoming a nun and going to the Congo to work with Dr. Albert Schweitzer and saving lives. Guess I was a hopeless romantic, and I was enamored of Mother Teresa. I actually wanted to be her. Only in Africa. 

"See the face of Jesus in everyone," she admonished.  

Well, I didn't become a nun, haven't been to Africa, and Schweitzer finished out his life without even knowing I ever existed. And so I was left with the task of finding the face of Jesus in random people throughout the ensuing decades, with varying degrees of success.  

Ok, I could have tried harder. 

There surely have been more than a few times when I've been certain I have encountered angels on earth, and seen them touch the lives of others as well. Then there have been those few tender times when I've been given the sweet honor and privilege to serve as the hands of the Divine. And I have had abundant opportunities to gaze into the eyes of souls around the world, many, many aglow with love and goodwill, if not unmitigated joy.    

Yet seeing in some, the searing unspoken pleadings deep within, and in some, a glint of malevolence, in still others, only hollow emptiness. For some, I have surprised them with unasked for help, and from some I have received welcomed kindness. From some I have turned away. Not a spotless track record. But I have never thought of them as sharing any literal DNA from the One who walked the shores of Galilee in the long ago, despite Mother T's injunction and Christ himself reassuring us that, "Even as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

However, time is growing short for me to grasp that principle and more broadly apply it. I do have faith though that the world has been set up by default to supply us endless second chances. But I wasn't even looking for opportunities when I went for a walk on a beautiful morning this week. Downtown San Diego, 2021, and it was perfect. Absolutely perfect! My eyes were drinking in the lush verdant landscape following a full day and evening of rain. My favorite color is trees and favorite fragrance is after the rain fresh, so it was mesmerizing as I meandered up and down some hills that housed now closed campuses, generously endowed with breathtaking landscape. Heaven! And so of course, there He was. Jesus. Where else would He be?  

I didn't recognize Him. At all. 

But He immediately recognized me and made a beeline towards me. Not knowing who He was, this sudden pursuit startled me, interrupting my intense bonding moment with nature, kicking in that fight or flight response. Which made me pretty uncomfortable, so I instinctively started zigzagging across the grass, abandoning all paths, until hitting the city sidewalks. While I sped up, hanging out on the streets there has evidently kept Him in better shape, so after half a dozen blocks, He caught up to me. Small in stature, unkempt, with long gray hair and beard, He more reminded me of someone I intensely disliked, so it was pretty jarring, hard to recognize Him and make an immediate Jesus connection, even though He now was only inches away.  

It was impossible for me to understand what He was saying because of His whisper, so He repeated himself three times. Thank goodness, Jesus assured me He actually didn't want a sexual tryst with me. Temptation much? I mean, that would be a sin after all, did He think I didn't know Christian basics? And anyway, my husband would be upset if he found out I was capable of such shenanigans, when it's all I can do nowadays to keep up with the dishes. I could hurt myself. So what a relief! However, He made it emphatically clear that He did want to smoke crystal meth with me. Seeing as I have yet to even try coffee, I told Him no, had never tried that and never will. You don't think He meant that as a commandment, do you? 

Maybe. Anyway, I took off again and He kept chasing me. I called my husband, who's not religious in the least, and didn't care who the heck it was, and he told me to duck into a restaurant or something. So finally I ran into a little food market at a corner gas station and explained my predicament to the cashier. He said they often call the cops on this guy and a couple others but they won't pick them up because putting the homeless in jail if they possibly have covid is an issue. Perhaps if the Police won't handle it, the Pharisees will. Remains to be seen. I hung out in between shelves for 15 minutes and then walked, shaking confidently, to the apartment building.  

Just as I was about to turn the corner to the entrance, lo and behold, I saw Him coming my way! Was this like the Second Coming or what? I mean, this year has been pretty Apocalyptic, right? Anyway, it's beyond my pay grade to decide, so I jumped into the little coffee shop there on the corner and hid beyond a pillar so He couldn't see me from all those floor to ceiling windows. He was angry and no longer whispering at all. Maybe like when He got fed up with those money changers at the Temple back in the day? He marched up and down the block a couple times, so I had to keep ducking and slithering back and forth around the pillar so as to stay hidden from every angle. 

Finally it was quiet outside. He was gone. Then I realized the way I had been acting in the coffee shop made me look way more suspicious than He ever did, and I would likely be the one getting arrested. Awkward! So I fled the scene.  

Well so much for nature walks and close encounters.

So just to be clear, I generally am not at all afraid of homeless people. I go out of my way to interact (unless there's a group), give food or money or whatever I can whenever I can, because no one should have to suffer such an uphill battle just to survive when there's more than enough abundance around. Obviously. So I don't need to see the face of Jesus in everyone (though I really do love Christ more and more every day). Their very own faces pierce my heart. Usually.  

Still, not a good idea to chase me down. Just a word of caution. 

 

So if you believe there is an afterlife, and if it has sufficient room for most of us, what do you think the chances are Mother Teresa will ever speak to me?  

Silence of The Lamb

Shy? Timid? It's not that I didn't have a voice. I just couldn't use it. 

Of course I could chime in at Grandma's, at home, with a few friends. But certainly not at school. So I pretty much limped my way through grade school without ever raising my hand. Oral book reports were sheer agony. I wouldn't even play my flute-a-phone along with the other kids in fourth grade during our class music lessons. What if someone heard me hit a wrong note? Oh, the horror!

 

And then came Abbott Junior High! Maybe bullying was a big problem back then too. Maybe not. But I never bullied anyone, and I never was bullied by anyone. Well, except Harvey. Harvey Eisner. My 7th grade English and Social Studies teacher. Mr. Eisner was young, short, cocky.... What he lacked in height, he made up for in volume. Arrogance personified. There was nothing much humble about him. Maybe he had something to prove?

So one day he decided to prove how absolutely worthless a shy, timid girl could be. He was inspired to call on me to answer a question. Trembling, I barely whispered. And apparently he took that as a personal insult. He immediately instructed the class to move their desks into a circle, surrounding me in the middle.

"Now," he boomed, "pretend you're in the middle of the ocean, and you're drowning. You need to call for help. "YELL FOR HELP!"  

"Help," I sputtered, in a totally inaudible murmur.

"YOU'RE DROWNING!" he bellered, "YELL FOR HELP! NOW! YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT! DO IT!"

"Help," I repeated, moving my lips, and finding my breath heavy, but soundless. I was petrified. Further, I withered.

From there, it only escalated, with him becoming more and more agitated and belligerent, and me more and more terrified, more and more humiliated, silent and shivering, fully willing myself to drown and disappear forever.

Does fear make you scream out in terror? Or does the scream die in your throat?

Finally, Mr. Eisner sneered in utter contempt and with total disgust. 

"YOU DESERVE TO DIE! GO ON, JUST DROWN!"  

His words seemed to hang there, resonating within that room. I was completely paralyzed. The kids who encircled me were in absolute shock. The deafening silence filled the time and space. What had just happened? Ironically, those words seemed to be echoing as the classroom slowly, robotically returned to normal as the kids moved their desks back into the customary rows. My group therapy session was over.

All I remember after that is leaving the classroom and running home. When I got there I told my mom I was sick. And everyday after that when I got a block away from the school, I would get sick to my stomach and turn to walk back home. For three weeks I was absent. I never told anyone what happened and how scared and humiliated I was. I can no longer remember how I got the nerve to return to school one day, with shame as my constant shadow. 

I never liked or respected him after that. I just wanted to keep as far away from him as possible. We had to face each other every day for the rest of the year. But I don't think I sought revenge and ever wished he would die. Just that he would leave me alone. And he did.

As an adult, I now think maybe he was trying to do me a favor even, to help me get bolder, to grow. But I didn't see that then. And later on I did find my voice. Although I hope that he didn't repeat that performance for the good of any other students after that, I am grateful for the experience that year of feeling such disdain, such painful ridicule, so that I could feel empathy for all those who have been, and are being, bullied to one degree or another. I know my experience is a mere fraction of what others go through, and my heart is broken for them. 

Ironically, many, many years later I read that he had a grown daughter that was assaulted and murdered in her own apartment. I expect her father raised her to be bold, to not go quietly into the night. I wonder if she yelled for help, or was too paralyzed with fear? And my heart is broken for Mr. Eisner.

Getting High (Jr. edition)

Abbott Jr. High School, Elgin, IL

Ever gone out of your comfort zone and deliberately entered into enemy territory? As a mild mannered 11 year old entering the adult world of Junior High School?

7th grade held no auspicious beginnings for me. Unceremoniously dumped by my lifelong (so far) best friend. All because my Mom wouldn’t agree to letting me host a “surprise” birthday party for Pam that she was determined to have, I headed out solo on the first day of school. Later, Mom confessed she watched me amble down the street all alone in my new fiaco black and white striped pencil skirt Grandma had sewn for me, and with my trendy ducktail haircut, courtesy of the local Barber. First day at Abbott Jr. High. A lonely vision of sophistication ready to burst onto the scene. She wept.

Apparently I would be in need of a new best friend right off the bat as Pam continued to ignore me even after summer vacation ended and school began. Indeed, for the rest of my life. Hell hath no fury like a former friend who can't manipulate you. So I figured I needed a fresh start and a good way to make new friends with so many unfamiliar faces would be to join after school clubs and get involved in shared activities. What choice did I have?

Plan A- Try out for the popular super duper Choral Club. Of course! But only logical if you can at least carry a tune, and I was under no illusion that I could. However, knowing my limitations and being extremely shy, (I actually had invented lip syncing long before it was discovered in the real world* - you're welcome), I fearfully mustered up the courage to go wait outside the room on the appointed afternoon for auditions. When my turn came, I hesitated; then in an out-of-body moment, gingerly stepped in front of the music teacher and the student officers of The Club.  

What was I thinking? It suddenly dawned on me that I was going to have a difficult time lip syncing when I was told to sing a certain number acapella, as it were. Glancing quickly at the floor, I saw no gaping hole to fall into. I paused, waiting for a miracle. Where was God when you truly needed him? I had no choice but to open my mouth and see what could possibly emerge from it. 

Yep, you can only imagine. It wasn’t pretty. Understatement. Even though I dared not look at them, somehow I saw their astonished faces. I think they were too stunned to laugh. Or cry. Yeah, no call back, go figure. No becoming one of the elite. Unbelievably, I was allowed to remain in school and no one harassed me. At least, not to my face. Maybe they couldn’t believe their ears? Fortunately most of the student body had missed the audition, and the entire incident failed being mentioned in the school paper, so I wasn’t treated like the pariah I knew myself to be.

Plan B- Give it a rest. Wait. Till next year. Try again. Of course nothing musical. Actually the Speech Club (Drama Club) was THE most prestigious, most vaunted club to be a part of at Abbott Jr. High, they put on all the plays, so why not? Some people never learn. Last year had to sing. This year had to speak. And I was no better at that than singing. 

Club Advisor Marge Zarndt had been a teacher even way back in ancient times. When my parents were in High School. A relic. A  4’10” veritable relic. With badly dyed blond hair, strident voice, obnoxious personality, miles on her wheels. What she lacked in height, she made up for in charm. Ha! She was a pistol. What did I expect? A resounding no? Good, then at least I wasn’t disappointed.

So it was with the greatest unexpected pleasure several weeks later that I was able to grant her fondest request when she came to me on bended knee (well not literally or I wouldn’t have been able to see her) and begged me to join her Speech Club. Yes, it’s true!  

Want to hear the rest of the story? For an assignment in Mrs. Zarndt’s Speech class a few weeks following my greatly failed attempt, we each were assigned to come up with a monologue to perform. Are you kidding? Me? (My folks nixed the sudden trip to Alaska.)

Against all odds, I came up with a monologue. I transformed myself into another girl, another time. Props to my props. A gypsy costume with full skirts and scarves and a fake finger I’d sewn out of flesh colored panty hose that was the climax of “my” story as I suddenly tossed it into the middle of the room. The art of disguise can release a magic all its own. The class was mesmerized, the teacher, spellbound. I had no idea what had happened, or how. All I knew was that later that day Mrs. Zarndt trekked through the school to find me, and in her best rendition of a humble human, begged me to join THE CLUB. What else could I do? I gave in.  

*Truth-

Yes, I absolutely did invent lip syncing back in the day! In order to coax me out of my shell in 5th grade, my parents signed me up for both private singing lessons and private elocution lessons. Guess they were desperate. Violet Brady Stewart, a powerhouse of a woman at Grace Methodist (my church at the time) was my singing teacher, a VERY big, older woman with an even bigger, overwhelmingly powerful voice. She would play the piano and sing along with me whatever musical piece she chose for me to sing.

At the end of the year just before the recital, my Dad came to my lesson with me to see how it was all shaping up. He was totally deaf in one ear, and even with his hearing aid for the other, not the best at hearing, so he was a bit apologetic when remarking to her after my private performance that he couldn't hear me at all. "Well, yes," Mrs. Brady Stewart responded,  "I've never actually heard her voice either."  

I was excused from the recital.

Magic Sheets?

The Rolling Stones got all the credit. All the money. But they owe me. Long before “Paint It Black”
rocked the music world, a strange little girl in Miss Matson’s kindergarten class at Gifford Elementary
would only color in black. No bold magenta, no chartreuse, no cerulean, not so much as a bland umber. 
Black crayon every single time. Only.

Evidently this must have been cause for alarm and I was hustled at some point in 1951 to an office to
meet with what must have been one of the world’s earliest school psychologists. At least in Elgin. I
was made to play with little dolls in front of her. I can only imagine the dolls must have lost their voices,
much as I had at school, being shy in the extreme.

And so, to the horror of my mother, this hussy of a woman came unbidden to our home for an
assessment. Nobody ever came to our home. We could play outside all we wanted with the
neighborhood kids, but no one came in. Ever. Mom was fastidious, and I just think she wanted to
keep her world in order, up to her standards. So I never learned what take away the school had from
that. But I expect I was marked. Were I to be able to see those long ago records, I might hesitate.
Dum, dum, dum da dum dum!       

But if that’s ominous, there’s more to the dark side lurking in my distant past. Maybe, just maybe,

I could have been oversensitive a bit to my Mother’s rebukes for whatever havoc I must have caused
here and there. I would be guilted and terrified by “The Look” as her stormy face and flashing eyes
signaled the fast approaching end of days.

And yet I must have felt all the dreaded spankings at the end of those “Wait till your Father gets home”
sort of days didn’t quite atone for my egregious transgressions. I became convinced that I needed to
fully bury myself under the sheets at night, so that the hit men my parents had hired and had hidden in
the bedroom walls to kill me in retribution would have a hard time hitting their target in the dark. After all,
we lived only an hour or so from Chicago, it was inevitable. But those jokers must have been a particular
kind of inept to have to show up night after night only to be foiled yet again by my magic sheets. So it
worked out for me, and I survived and learned in my ever so early years how to cope with the mob and
claustrophobia… and triumph. Take that, all you Al Capone wannabes!

And then there was the FACT that I was literally the daughter of the Devil himself. (Longggg before I
had any idea what that literally meant.) Certain that the entire world was aware of this inconvenient truth
as well, I led a semi-solitary existence, escaping only to watch Saturday morning cartoons or play all
day with half a dozen neighbor kids. These “normals” never let on that they were aware of my vile
identity, playing their roles seamlessly, no doubt secretly frightened/repulsed- have to give them credit. 

The only person I figured who was able to lovingly deal with me despite my being this appalling entity was
my Grandma Lucy. She was also the only religious person I knew, so that she could be gracious to the
spawn of Satan was quite remarkable. And don't think I didn't appreciate it!

I don’t remember at what point my pedigree changed and I was no longer the sole progeny of Evil, Inc.,

but it did, eventually. I guess that’s what Genealogy is for. 

So yes, in all modesty, I invented Paranoia. But the important take is, do you think there’s a market for
magic sheets?

Evolution

                                              (Adam Voorhes)

First day of kindergarten. My Mom drops me off at Gifford Elementary and leaves. I cry. A river. And slither out the door. Escape artist fail. Mortifying call for Mom, but fortunately she was born with the amazing sense to call Dad to come home from work to handle this emergency. Well she had no car, and toddlers at home, so guess he had the default position?

For two weeks, on and off, we do this dance. Either he has to stay with me for a while at school after getting me there, or come home and take me back to school.  And stay with me awhile anyway. I get good at tears. I get good at school. Well not so much, but good enough to not run home anymore. 

For the next seven years, I walk/run to school and back home for lunch. Campbell's Tomato Soup often, and grilled cheese! Then walk back to school for the afternoon session and back home afterwards. Raw potato slices usually, and salt. Eventually I learned to steal candy out of the drawer when no one is around to look. Becomes one of my hidden talents, and sugar addiction serves/curses me most of my lifetime. 

Even though Jr. High is a couple blocks closer, they don’t make any allowances for going home for lunch. I hate cereal, any breakfast food, so I always refuse to eat in the mornings, a rebel without a full tummy. I'm teeny tiny, but Mom packs lunches with the mindset that I might be joining the football team as quarterback or tight end. Always one and a half sandwiches. Roast beef (leftovers from Sunday) on Mondays, then rotating bologna, tunafish, pbj, idk. But who does a sandwich and a half? And I don’t dare not partake, because I'm convinced that woman has eyes in the back of her head, and probably spies at school. She tells me she has to ask others what’s going on all the time, because I never tell her anything. Heck, I never tell anyone anything. 

High School is much farther away, hence a little more privacy one would dare to think. But I know my Mom and her superpowers. So I still eat the blasted sandwiches and twinkies and fruit/veggies every single day. And become the star quarterback! With a tight end! 

It wasn’t till I escape to college 1500 miles away that I'm independent enough, at 17, to drop the routine. I'm also too broke to eat lunch so my boyfriend generously shared his cafeteria options with me. He would have the main course options and for me, the salad. I always choose cucumbers and tomatoes. Still my favorite.  

Luck is on my side and I grow up anyway, and along the way, say 50 years in, I decide to become vegetarian. This ironically after being virtually a carnivore since my first teeth came in. My sister used to sit next to me at the kitchen table, and seeing as Mom was often distracted taking care of the food and cleaning up while we ate, Jan would covertly slip whatever meat was on her plate under the table to me. And I would reciprocate and stealth bomb her my potatoes or whatever starchy offering I could clear from mine.  

And so it went. Nevertheless in 1996, I'm given a book, Diet for a New America by John Robbins, that changes my thinking, my life. Thank you, Linda Vazquez! Having been oblivious to the horrendous ways that animals were raised and abused in order to fill our voracious appetites for dead flesh, my eyes open, my heart shatters.  

Robbins deserves a lot of credit for not just exposing these practices, but for not doing so in a sensational manner to get the point across. It was how he presented what he saw and found, and lets the reader make up his own mind. And this reader does. I live on sauteed mushrooms and frozen strawberries for a year. And rice, lots of rice. Not concerned about my health, I change it up for the sake of the animals. 

Five years later when my husband's diagnosed with stage IV cancer, veganism for his health becomes urgent, paramount, and I embrace it on both levels. I have no doubt that such radical change gave him 12 extra months on earth with some especially priceless highlights for him to enjoy.  

Twenty five years later, I am so grateful for the epiphany I had to be able to make this change. But regrets? I've had a few I'd like to mention. Fifty years of eating animal cadavers is a ton of regret! Beyond sad. If only we could go back in time for some hefty do overs. However, better late than never. For the sake of the animals, and for the sake of my own health, this indelible choice has been the most tender of mercies.

"Have a Nice Day"

"HAVE A NICE DAY!"

Yeah, in all modesty, I weaponized that.

So back in the day during the absurdity that was covid, my daughter, Willow, flipped out after being told to put her mask up over her nose in a store. Her reaction to that command was not pretty. Later that night she was shocked and chagrined when her sister, Treesje told her that she was now Mom! What? Wait a second. Who me, a sweet tempered, mild mannered, paragon of virtue? 

Apparently the story about Mom going ballistic on a homeless man in the long ago has become the stuff of legends. Until a video to the contrary surfaces, take my word for it that Mommy Dearest was merely a victim here, like everyone else nowadays. I was just ahead of the curve.

So here's the background, we had spent a week delivering telephone books to homes in LaJolla/San Diego. It was summertime warm, Wayne was just a baby, and the older two kids had other jobs or plans, but every day five of the middles and Wayne and I got in the van and spent the days driving from house to house. Jared had his arm in a cast or sling, but it was as if he and Willow were in a sports competition so they would run down the road delivering these heavy phone books, and the other kids tried their best to keep up. It was far from a walk in the park. After a week, I figured we had finally earned enough funds to spend a day at the Zoo.

And so we spent a day at the Zoo! It was all fun and games. Until the end of the day. As we exited the gate and headed for the parking lot, I saw a man begging for money. It was an era when you couldn't come out of the grocery store or anywhere else without being confronted by this ubiquitous army with donation jars, usually these men and women dressed in white uniforms, white shoes, white hats. (But the plot thickens, there had been an exposé where one of the leaders of the group had bought a small yacht, so all may not have been as it seems. Who knows?) Regardless, it was something you couldn't escape. 

Anyway, we had spent every penny we had previously earned in delivery mode, and I felt both guilty and resentful to have to face this man with my pockets empty. So I was immediately inspired to give to him what I was always given after donating to the hands out brigade. Awesome! As I smiled brightly at him, I cheerfully said, "Have a nice day!" He immediately realized that meant no money, and retaliated, "No, you have a nice day!" It felt like a slap in the face, so I stopped and again insisted, "You have a nice day!" You didn't think he'd take that sitting down, did you? So you can probably guess where that went for a few minutes. My kids quickly snuck off trying to avoid the embarrassing shouting match. Oh well!

And here we are, just a few decades later, with people ending hostile social media arguments with "Have a nice day" without even giving me the credit I so thoroughly deserve. Well, you're welcome! Now go ahead, have a nice day! I dare you!

Overflow

"They've had loss and been broken more than we will ever know, but it's the tenderhearted who let life overflow."   

-Sara Watkins


So I got lost driving home after meeting my husband for our early Monday night dinner date. I knew I was going in the right direction, but a turn here, a turn there. And then where are you? A dash of serendipity. Listening to the stories on NPR as I meandered. Let the good times roll.

And there he was. Tall and slender. Hunched over as if he were hiding in plain sight. A wool beanie pulled down past his eyebrows, sheltered there under the hood of his winter jacket. In the 108 degree of Las Vegas this balmy August day.

Something compelling in his gait as he pulled his overflowing shopping cart along the sidewalk of the expansive modern shopping center I had just accidentally encountered as I tried to sashay my way home. He wasn't asking for anything as he slowly ambled along. I wasn't sure if he could see where he was going, with his face cast so downward. Maybe he was watching his feet. Maybe he was in another world, not paying much attention to this one.

I drove past him and into the next parking lot entrance so I could have a minute to get out of the car and make it to the sidewalk in time to intercept him. After finding cash to pay for pizza a half hour prior, I was aware I had a roll of at least 10 ones in my purse that I figured might now serve a higher purpose. Perhaps I had been directed here? The Universe, God, Whoever you may think... is often curiously full of detours, surprises. There are times when I look to help a homeless person, I end up chasing one down instead of just reaching out to someone on the corner with a God Bless You sign. Not every time, but sometimes.

When I got to the spot where he could hear me, I chilled a little, hesitating. Help is not always welcome, and I remembered being attacked by a little old white haired lady wearing a babushka, pushing a shopping cart a couple years ago on one of my Out to Save the World Missions, so I hesitated. Daunted, I called out, "Sir, I hope you won't be offended, but I just found this and thought perhaps you could use this more than I could tonight." He turned and let me approach. I held out my paltry wad, which he accepted. I noticed he had one dollar in his other hand, a sweatshirt sandwiched between his coat and T-shirt. We began to talk. I wanted to unnotice how filthy his tan winter coat was, but I had to check it out repeatedly just to make sure it was as disgusting as I first thought. It was. I have an unnatural love affair with washing machines, holding them in almost sacred respect--- years ago having spent hours washing dirty cloth diapers in the bathtub with water heated on the kitchen stove. But no one and nothing is invincible, and I knew that no washing machine had the superpower required to deal with this coat. How to wash away the grime and muck of the world from someone's soul if you can't even do a decent job with fabric? I despaired.

What could I do? I asked if I could give him a hug, and we embraced. He told me of his hopes to get a home with other homeless wanderers, but that it was hard because so many were drugged out or otherwise "occupied" and yet he cheerfully shared that he always dwelt on the positive because that just might make something good come about eventually. I told him of states where there was progress to the point of having no more chronically homeless, and that it was not simply charitable, but economically sound. He couldn't believe that. I mentioned Utah pioneering that effort, and he thought Utah was an extremely cold climate, and was pretty incredulous when I told him that just a hundred miles away was St. George, with a climate comparable to that of Las Vegas.

So we talked of things for half an hour. Of this and that. Of Discovery Channel (he advised me to get TV), of his Grandma and what different interpretations age old adages might have. His name was Darius. He really was intelligent. He was gentle. His smile was sweet and his eyes were kind. But they had  familiar look to them that I recognized. I knew not why at the time.

24 hours later, it came to me. In my late teens I had worked those summers in between college in a State Hospital for the "insane." So many there were people I would never forget. Etched into memory was one young woman who was brought there in restraints, her wrists and ankles tied to the bed posts in the middle of the Ward. Of course, whatever remnants of her spirit remained, immediately held hostage to the ubiquitous drugs of such a place.

I was so taken with her irrepressibly cheerful demeanor, surreal and out of place as it was. She would burst into song when anyone approached, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray...."  Her eyes were bright and clouded at the same time, exactly like those of the man I had just now encountered all these decades later. Her story shattered instantly my idyllic world bubble. She had finally broken after enduring a few years of her husband selling voyeuristic privileges to dudes who watched as he forced her and her baby daughters to perform sex acts with random strangers. So beyond my feeble imagination. My idea of Hell at the time was of burning fires to be delivered at a date yet to be announced. Never dreaming such a blazing scenario might actually be preferable to Hell-in-the-Raw-in-the-Here-and-Now.

And so I wondered what searing or smouldering Hell had led this mild man to fill a shopping cart with plastic bags and spend his days cloaked against the cold in the midst of the relentless heat. And my soul ached for his, for my songbird of long ago, and for all of us who are lost. So, so lost. But soon my tears too will be swallowed by the desert heat. And what will become of Darius?

                                                      * http://www.notesontheway.com/