The fireflies were fairies.
The mermaids ruled the bath.
Tea time was with the teddies.
Her voice tinkled when she laughed.
But now the room is silent.
She never stops to pour the tea.
Her imagination stolen,
by time, the master thief.
Image source: Patchworkmoose via Etsy
My American dream didn’t turn out quite the way society planned. I’m 28. Unmarried. No children. I live with my boyfriend, or as I like to say, domestic partner. Our partnership was made “official” by a notary at Bank of America, who after stamping and signing the form we gave her, handed it back with an arched eyebrow and these four cool words:
Good luck with that.
Now we’re getting a house. We’re getting it together, but the mortgage is only in my name. And don’t get me started on how much that confuses people. The mortgage guy, the inspection guy, the closing attorney. They all need a man to talk to, a man’s name to write down on their paperwork.
Then there’s the confusing notion that we’re buying a three bedroom home for our non-growing family. Despite the fact that he’s never met me, our roofer decided we needed to put up a fence in the backyard to protect the children we don’t have or want from wobbling helplessly into the retention pond. (Good point. I hadn’t thought of that.)
But none of that skepticism or confusion or presumption has made us any less excited about our first home.
She’s a blue two-story charmer in a suburbia section of Charleston. From curb to chimney, she holds so many corners of our revamped American dream.
Like having a mailbox of our very own. And a doorstep to receive packages when we’re not there. A kitchen table to sit down at for dinner—even if we never do. A backyard with a patio . . . and mosquitoes the size of your thumbnail. Enough space for our sweet pups to run around. And stairs they’ll undoubtedly use for racing. Room to store Christmas decorations. A place to put up a tree. An office where I’ll have a hammock chair. An informal living area. An even less formal den. Enough closet space that I can actually stock up on wrapping paper when it goes on sale. And enough space between us and the neighbors to allow for a good old-fashioned yelling match every once and awhile.
No, my dream is not quite cookie-cut from the same seersucker cloth as most southern belles, but it’s a dream just the same.
And I know there will be breakdowns. Mortgage payments scare the mess out of me. And I only have to make 360 of them before I really own anything. The HVAC will go out one day. The water heater too. (God bless us if those two things happen anytime near each other.) We’ll outgrow our extra 600 square feet before we even get moved in. And we’ll panic when something breaks and there’s no online portal to put in our maintenance request.
But from now until the closing date, it’s still my dream home, as perfect as I could have ever imagined it.
So we’ll take all the “good luck” we can get, even if it’s coming from judgmental notaries. And we’ll embark—with an embarrassing amount of optimism—on life’s next big adventure.
The only one that comes with hazard insurance and a termite bond.
I missed all the signs: apathy, coldness, secrecy, guilt. I shut my eyes tight, pretending it wasn’t true, clinging to us like a fool.
When I finally let go, I didn’t need a sign anymore.
But I did have one for you.
Image source: Zumlerr.com
I heard a woman say,
“The Holocaust makes you think
of two things:
concentration camps
and the number six million.
And nothing in between.
But the Holocaust
was everything in between.”
She was a survivor.
She survived the terror,
the horror,
the everything in between
that was in fact
so gruesome,
we simply cannot imagine it.
The unbearable darkness
that humankind can unleash
on its very own.
~
Now 70 years after that brutal war ended,
headlines brag
of an 89-year-old Nazi guard,
charged with 158 counts
of complicit murder–
one for every trainload of prisoners
that came under his care.
Appearing in court with a cane,
he’s held with dementia, but no bail,
and waits to suffer the consequences
of his teenage actions.
Of things he did or did not do.
Of people he killed,
or did not stop others from killing.
Of acts he committed out of terror,
and horror,
and survival.
~
We all applaud as he’s taken away in shackles
and a green jumpsuit.
Because if this man is guilty,
then maybe we are less so.
But little do we know
that sacrificing one guard
for six million souls
will do no more to even the score
than removing a teardrop of saltwater
will help to dry up the sea.
Perhaps if we focus our anger,
and sadness,
and remorse,
and regret,
on understanding
the beliefs,
and culture,
and values
of others,
perhaps then,
we are freed
from the prisons of our histories.
~
And we can all become survivors.
Mr. Unger had his back turned when a student’s physics book crashed to the floor.
Whipping around, he threw himself on the ground.
As he rose moments later with wet eyes, an onlooking wall poster offered a silent explanation:
“Freedom isn’t free.”
Did Faith tear you to pieces?
Did Hope sink your soul?
Did the Love you made room for
leave you broken or whole?
Did Life give you minutes
or moments or regrets?
Did Grace set you free
or did you already forget?
I used to go to church all the time. Sunday school. Sunday service. Luncheons. Wednesday night supper. Choir practice. Youth group. I drank holy water growing up the way I drink red wine today.
But until this past Monday–Memorial Day–I hadn’t been to church since my Mother’s funeral in December. Not for Christmas. Not for Easter. Not for Ash Wednesday. Or Good Friday. Or Bad Fridays. Or any damn Sunday in between.
But on Monday, at 2:30 in the afternoon, I found myself on a wooden pew of the Circular Congregational Church in downtown Charleston.
I was there for a free concert, part of an annual performing arts festival. The Festival Singers, an a Capella group from Georgia, were scheduled to perform.
The sanctuary filled quickly with locals and tourists and family members and friends. The pews groaned beneath our weight. Bearing all the burdens we didn’t even know we carried.
Arriving early to ensure I could find a seat, I waited. Filled my lungs with deep, tense breaths. I steadied my trembling hands by clutching the purse in my lap. I told myself I could make it.
I held it together through the powerful opening number. Through the Funeral Ikos, devastating as the words were. Through the Polish folk songs from the Holocaust. Through the African spirituals. I held it together through the standing ovation. I heaved a relieved sigh, undetected among the thunderous applause; I was going to make it.
Then the music director turned to the audience. It is tradition, he explained, to end the show with Amazing Grace.
And that’s when I felt my chest swell. Like a raging river was rising up inside of me. And the beat of my heart matched the pace of those waters crashing against my rib cage. A dull, familiar throb pounded at my breastbone, just beneath my collar.
Because that’s where I carry my grief, my guilt, my pain.
A tall, slender soprano stepped forward to lead with a solo. Her voice cut through the humid Lowcountry air with piercing clarity and precision and ease.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
My river found its way to the surface. Slipping down my cheeks in quick, sloppy tears. I struggled not let out an audible cry. Not to visibly shake.
But I did nothing to stop those tears from coming.
I cried for my love-hate relationship with religion. For needing it now more than ever, while feeling it slip further and further away.
I cried for my own wretch of a soul. Wading blindly through the waters of doubt and grief. No grace in sight to save me.
And though it should have been a day when I cried for those who gave their lives for this country, I cried instead for the woman who gave life to me.
As that unwavering soprano voice soared along the arches in that sacred space, I let the words wash over me.
Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come.
‘Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.
I let the tears take with them even the smallest salty portion of my sorrow.
That moment of release was all the grace I needed.
Photo Credit: “Circular Congregational Church Charleston SC” by Steven Hyatt, available for purchase at The Churches of the World
I pet sat for my dad last week while he was in Alaska. He has three dogs: a decrepit beagle, a mutt that suffers from OCD, and a bulldog puppy.
During the day, I made every attempt to work remotely in between cleaning up messes the oldest one let slip and retrieving lost tennis balls for the OCD one and removing the world’s friendliest bulldog from my lap.
Each moment was truly an adventure.
One day about halfway through my stay, during the middle of a conference call, the pack began barking in deafening unison. I exited the house into the backyard, apologizing the whole way to my colleagues on the other end of the line, who had all stopped mid-discussion from the shrill disturbance.
Once outside, I began pacing the cold, wet patio as we wrapped up the call. At one point, I approached the patio’s edge and saw what at first looked like a dog toy discarded on the ground.
It was not a toy.
It was a chipmunk.
And it was not in good shape.
And by not in good shape, I mean it was dead.
Being the skittish young woman I am–the kind who would rather drown a roach in aerosol hairspray than attempt to hit it with a shoe–I screamed. I waited until I hung up the phone, of course. And then let out a rapid series of staccato yelps.
At this point, the bulldog, who had followed me outside, also discovered the chipmunk. And I knew I couldn’t just leave it there.
I grabbed two nearby buckets, normally kept for poop scooping, and proceeded to try to collect the lifeless body into one of them using the other one as a makeshift sort of shovel, letting out more of my quick-fire screams every time I made any sort of progress, and apologizing out loud to little Alvin or Simon or whoever it was the whole time.
Eventually I managed to get it into a bucket. Thinking that was going to be the hardest part of the ordeal, I began searching for the best place along the fence to throw it over. (My dad’s house is next to an undeveloped swampy area on one side, in case you’re wondering if I was going to throw the corpse into a neighbor’s yard.)
Holding the bucket as far away from me as my arms would allow, and at shoulder height so I could not accidentally glance inside, I proceeded to walk down the yard’s typically innocuous incline toward the fence. It had been raining all week and with the bucket distracting me from the ground below, I never saw the thick pile of wet dog shit waiting for my foot’s impending arrival.
I stepped in it. And I mean I stepped aaaaallllll in it.
My feet immediately slipped out from under me. And in what had to have been the longest tenth of a second in my life, I fell on my ass, sending the poor deceased chipmunk sailing through the air.
It was then, while sitting on the ground covered in shit from my knees to my bum, and next to the corpse of that dead chipmunk, that I had a moment of gratitude.
For me, finding a dead chipmunk is a bad day. Finding a dead chipmunk and then having to dispose of it is a very bad day.
Finding a dead chipmunk and having to dispose of it and then sliding to the ground in a pile of wet dog shit while simultaneously launching the chipmunk through the air? Now that’s just funny.
So I l picked up my pooper-scooper-turned-chipmunk-hearse and laughed that little critter all the way to the other side of the fence.
I guess on some bad days, what you really need is a little more shit.
“Lousy, good-for-nothing scarecrow. Blasted crows peckin’ every damn tomato the frost didn’t nab.”
“Ain’t no point in fussin’ if you cain’t do nothin’ ‘bout it.”
“Betcha I can scare ‘em off.”
“Howd’ja figger?”
“I’ll make that there scarecrow look more like you.”
Photo credit: WildnisPhotography via Etsy
Gargleblaster #160: Answer the question “Why do birds suddenly appear?” in exactly 42 words.
My mother died this past December. I say “died” because “passed away” is too gentle. Too sweet. She was snatched out of life; she was ripped from us; she was stolen. There was nothing passive about it.
Since then, I’ve had my first Christmas without her. My first New Year’s without her. Her 57th birthday. Without her. And I’ve managed to survive each one.
But May . . . May may just be what does me in.
I open my email each morning and every subject line is “Tell Mom You Love Her,” “Perfect Gifts for Mother’s Day,” “Don’t Forget about Your Mom.” The in-store signs are equally dangerous. And the greeting card aisle? I’d rather be back in the hospital with her than trying to walk down it right now. I can’t even peruse the latest issue of Real Simple because mom is everywhere.
Everywhere, except here.
Needless to say, this Mother’s Day is going to be different for me. And so I’ve decided to do exactly what my mother would want: to stop grieving, stop aching, stop breaking, and to celebrate the many forms of mother.
Like my sweet sister, who strives to find mom-like things to say. Who let’s me call her when I’m hysterical and patiently calms me down. Who talks to me on my drive home so I don’t get lonely. Who buys me plane tickets to visit her and my own bottle of Design perfume. Who draws “Corkscrew.” Who tells me to write more poetry.
Like Grandmom, my mom’s mom, who asks how I’m doing and really means it. Who calls and emails and Facebooks–whatever it takes to touch base. Who offers love like only the mother of my mother could know how to do.
Like my best friend Amy, who knows everything I need before I ever say it. And would do anything for me without ever thinking twice. And makes me believe I’m the best person in the whole world.
Like my dad’s wife Rana, who made a point to send extra flowers to the funeral because she knew there could never be too many flowers. And offered to buy us even more Christmas presents. And hung my mom’s paintings in her home.
Like David’s mom, who welcomes me into her family unquestioningly. Who offers empathy without ever becoming overbearing. Who, even though David and I are 27 years old, sent an Easter card with money. Just like my mom would.
Like my friends from childhood and adolescence and college, Robyn, Tiffany, Leiko, Taylor, Brittany, who held my hand before the funeral, sent me the best care package I’ve ever received, kept me company on New Years Day, and made sure I knew they will always be there when I need them.
Like my Charleston friends, Madeline, Sarah, Joni, Kimberly, Stephanie, Amy who were waiting with hugs when I came back. Who are always ready to listen when I’m ready to talk. Who surprise me with capes and scarves and mustard blouses and good advice. Who buy me brunch with more biscuits than is humanly possible to eat.
Like my supervisors at work, Heather and Amy, who could not have been more human when I missed so much time. Who sent text messages full of hope and strength every day I was away. Who provide such a sense of comfort just by being the incredible women they are.
Like my aunts, Sandra, Sarah, Susan, who made the worst week of my life a little better by being extensions of mom. Who held me when I needed it, made sure I had something to eat and somewhere to sleep, and did all the things that mothers always do.
Like my extended family, Melanie, Gayle, Phyllis, Candace, Celeste, who remind me how lucky I am to be a McCollough-Shelnutt. And always know what to say to lift my spirits.
These women are proof that there are many forms of mother. And my mother would be the first to say so.
So to all the email blasts and commercials and radio spots and banner ads reminding me not to forget about mom, let me be clear: there will never be a Mother’s Day for the rest of my life that I forget about my mom.
But this year, this May, this Mother’s Day, I want to celebrate these women.
And say thanks.
Thank you for being a new form of mother in my life. Thank you for filling a gap in my heart. Thank you for weaving the seamless network of love and support and kindness that has kept me afloat for five tough months.
You are precious to me. Happy Mother’s Day.
writeamuck 