To The Bully

     You are now a guest in our home. You see, everything you do to my son, the name calling, the threats, all of it, follows him home every night from school.  It sits in our living room, it rides in our car, he wears it on his face, this venom that you see fit to spit at him because your have latched on to cruelty as your means of defense... or perhaps as your means of offense. Either way, you are hurting my child and that is not okay.
     Now, I know that you yourself are just a child. You are in my son's grade at school so I am assuming that you are 12 or 13. You are not old enough to wield the power that you hold. You are not old enough to understand that for the rest of his life, when he sees you on the street, when he thinks about you in the future, at class reunions, you are going to be the bully. You have pigeon-holed yourself. You will never be more than you are now to my son and to those of us who love him. What a foolish and childish thing to do. But then again, you are just a child. And for a child to say those very overtly "adult" things that you are saying to my son, I can only assume that there is little parental control in your home. Some might let that be the explanation and just shake their heads and let it be over. I won't.
     In case no one in the school system or your home environment has ever told you, I will make this very clear: It is wrong to call people names. It is wrong to tell people they should just go die. It is wrong to make people feel bad to try to make yourself feel better. It is wrong. I am sorry if it happens to you at home. I am sorry if it is happening to you at school. But I have told you that it is wrong. I am an authority figure. You should stop. You should have stopped a long time ago. Let me tell you why you should have stopped.
     Because sooner or later the flaws come out to play. My son's flaw is that he is fat and you think that makes him weak. Your flaw is perhaps hidden a bit better, but it is going to show up soon enough and when someone finds out that flaw and exploits it, you will be so shocked and shaken and lost. You won't be able to believe that you, the stronger, the alpha, the instigator, is being bullied. And you will be bullied, because everyone gets bullied. You, however, won't be able to deal with it because you have little to no compassion for others which means that you internalize everything and you will most certainly implode at some point.
     There is another, more important reason why you should stop bullying my son. That reason is this: he is a good kid. He is funny and smart. He loves to play video games and watch movies. He's a great cook and he's kind. He loves to do nice things for others. You are missing out because you have turned him into an enemy just because he doesn't fit into whatever narrow parameters you have for existing without the pressure of the torment that comes from your sad, uneducated mouth.
     I know all of these things because I was bullied when I was a kid. I would have been one of your victims. But now I understand that you are a coward. I understand that you have no coping mechanisms. I understand that you may suffer from a bad home environment. But mostly I understand that you are mean... that you enjoy being mean. You like laughing at my child when he doesn't know how to react to you. You like the power that comes with pushing other people around.
     That is why I am going to pray for you... for several reasons actually. I'm going to pray for you because I have watched my "fat" son knock an 80-pound heavy bag into a horizontal layout without gloves or wraps. I'm going to pray for you because any human being can only put up with so much and I sure hope you grow some compassion and back off of him before he has had enough. I am going to pray for you because I need to forgive you. I need to forgive you for ruining our evenings together as a family, for taking away his laughter, for making all of us hurt. I am going to pray that you will get a glimpse of how he sees you and that will scare into being at least humane.
     But mainly I am going to pray for you because the world is not tolerant or welcoming when it comes to self-important, cruel-hearted bullies. The world loves an underdog and hates an overlord. The world loves to watch the alpha become the omega, the meek inherit the earth and the stepped on climb to the top. I pray that you get over yourself before it is too late. I pray that you realize that everyone has value, including but not exclusive to you. I pray that you choose to learn the lesson before life says it's time. Because that never, ever turns out well.
     I don't want you to be friends with my child. I know that in time you will fade to the back and just be some shadow on his seventh grade year. That should make you sad, but it won't. Not yet. Not until everything evens out you see the light. It may be in the next year; it may be in the nursing home. I can't foresee the future, but I can foresee parts of your, there is the reason why the phrase "Oh how the mighty have fallen," exists. I just regret that you feel the need to elevate yourself to the category of mighty. Remember little one, there is only way to go when you are all the way up...

Being Broken

     When I was about six years old, I did something horrible. My mother had this beautiful lead crystal vase that she kept in the kitchen window. The vase caught the light no matter what time of day it was and cast a prismatic rainbow over the entire kitchen. I knew she loved it because she had given me the "don't touch it" speech. Long story short, I touched it. I touched it so much that I broke it. The bottom was still in tact, but there were four pieces of glass where one beautiful piece of perfection once was.

     I had no choice but to gather up the pieces and take them to Mom. She was upset... upset that the vase was broken, upset that I had touched it when she had explicitly told me NOT to touch it, but mostly upset that I had picked up the broken pieces and brought them to her. "You could have really hurt yourself by picking them up," she said to me as she gingerly took the pieces from my hands. "The edges are sharp." 

     I got grounded for touching the vase - totally deserved it. And I helped Mom glue it back together. It took hours, putting glue on one piece and holding it until it bonded with the piece that would stabilize it, then adding another piece and holding it until it bonded with the two other pieces and so on... Finally, it was back together. We set it in the window and sure enough, the light still caught it. But the brokenness of the vase, despite the fact that we had put it back together, had changed the way the light reflected. It was almost twice as bright with new patterns of light bouncing both inside and outside of the vase. Mom stood back and looked at it... a pattern of blue and yellow prisms on her face and she smiled. "The seams where it was broken, they are letting the light through into the glass." 

     I've thought about that incident a lot lately. Mainly because of my brokenness. I never realized, when it was happening, that my mother was teaching me about living in that moment. The brokenness is where the light comes in. I have embraced that and there is no freedom like the freedom that comes with realizing that you are going to get hurt, that it is inevitable. You are going to be broken... it is a certainty. But it is what you do with your brokenness that matters. Will you hide it from the light and make it a crack that just collects dust? Will you set it on the window and wait for the sun to rise so that it can help make the light dance? 

    I often think about brokenness in relation to the church. Churches, the body of Christ, even in this day and age, doesn't accept brokenness well. Television commercials show perfect little hipster families, websites are slick and modern, worship services are more like mini-concerts... and these are wonderful advancements. Unless you are broken. When you are broken, you don't want to see that. You want to see people who might understand you. You want to know that when you enter into a sanctuary you are going to be accepted for your brokenness, not gossiped about or held up as an example of what not to do. 

     When my mother passed away almost a year ago, I stopped going to church. I'm not sure why. My faith in God was at a new place in its growth, a place I had never considered. But I couldn't do church. Maybe it was because the fellowship I needed at that point wasn't with people but with the Lord... maybe I was subversively angry at God and just didn't realize it. I look back now and I think that I didn't go because I was so broken and I couldn't bear the idea of no one addressing my brokenness because I was wearing it, I was living it and I was speaking it but it made me difficult to be around. I needed some light to shine through the cracks... I needed someone to recognize my brokenness in a loving, caring, Christ-like manner. Not with self-righteous indignation. Not with judgement. But with love, unconditional and firm. 

     Then it occurred to me that there is no wonder that most people are put off by Christianity as it stands today. We want perfect. We want perfect people to come to the perfect service. We don't seem to want to upset the applecart of Christian. We are the city on the hill, the problem is that the hill is one that we have built by turning the church into a country club for part-time sinners, a social center where the only outreach we perform is reaching out for more money, building, adding on, etc. The only currency that we need as the situation grows more and more desperate is courage and acceptance. And honesty.... oh to be able to enter a building full of human beings to whom I could open my brokenness, share it, allow them to carry it for me and with me. That, more than anything, more than a building or gathering of people, is what the church should be. We should be seeking out the broken and helping them carry the pieces. They are sharp, those pieces of brokenness and as much as the breaking hurts, carrying the pieces is even more dangerous. We should be offering to carry them. And it seems that we are not. 

     So I will start. I am broken. But there is light inside of me. And the light, should it ever shine on me again, might bounce right off of one of my broken pieces and blind you into believing that it is the broken who need what we have to offer... the broken among us and the broken outside of us looking in, hoping to catch a glimpse of something that might offer them healing.

Other Peoples' Junk

     'Tis the season of the yard sale. Brightly colored signs on street corners beckoning the savvy bargain hunter to an address that promises The One Thing I've Always Needed are as prevalent during the summer in the Midwest as the buzzy, angry June bugs. I grew up in a microscopic town, so small that there were maybe two or three yard sales during the summer. Thank goodness for the Shop N' Save. 

     The Shop N' Save was a dank second-hand store that was in the bigger of the "Shelby" towns in Shelby County. It was right across from the library, right beside the sale barn in the town of Shelbina. The Shop N' Save was a mecca, an aromatic, mysterious and mesmerizing mecca of stuff that I didn't know I wanted or needed until I saw it. Grandma went there for books; Mom went there for these pieces of junk that she would take home and turn into these amazing pieces of furniture. I went there because they went. But I was soon sucked into the magic of the hunt. 

     "Junkin'" is what Mom called it, but it never occurred to me that it was junk. I didn't know where all of the items at the Shop N' Save came from but then again I didn't know where all of the items at the grocery store came from either. So when I talked Mom into buying me the Operation game missing the funny bone at the Shop N' Save for $1 as opposed to the one at Ben Franklin for $10, I asked her. 

     "Shop N' Save is full of other peoples' junk, Honey," she told me one day as I was helping her put a second coat of paint on a dining chair she had acquired for a dollar. "It's a second-hand store." I didn't tell her that I didn't know what she meant by "second-hand." I figured it meant something like there were a bunch of people who had been born with one hand and were selling off all of their stuff to buy a second hand. So they sold their belongings in hopes of gaining enough cash to pay for the operation. Thank goodness I figured it out before I started a telethon or something...

     The other day I was in a second hand store and there was a woman in there who looked as if she was in a constant state of pre-sneeze. She was telling her friend that she didn't "do" yard sales or thrifting or second-hand. "If it's not new, I don't want it..." she probably didn't mean to sound like a snob, but she did... Her friend told her just that and then asked her what exactly she thought her antiques were. "They are expensive is what they are," she said. "They have value because they are special and unique and because someone loved them and kept them in good shape." Her friend saw me listening in on their conversation and smiled at me when I rolled my eyes. 

     I'm packing up my house to move. I'm moving into a second-hand house. It's not brand new. I didn't build it. But it's new to me. It's bigger than our current house... we will have my brother with us in this new/used house. Most of the furniture that is going in it is second-hand. I thought I would be really excited about picking out new furniture, but quickly discovered that I have acquired the pieces that I have through the combining of several households. As the women that came before me passed away, their prized belongings were passed on: bubble glass, Fiestaware, hutch cabinets, hardrock maple living room sets, and various "pretties" like a candy bowl that looked like a chicken... 

     I am of the school of thought that values the second-hand lifestyle. I like the dinged up wood on a cheap used coffee table where kids used to play with race cars or Play-Doh. I love that the leather side chair smells like a mixture of cedar and tobacco, deep and rich. It doesn't bother me at all that second-hand dining room chairs will be covered with an old tablecloth that my grandmother was going to throw out after Christmas my freshman year of college but I saved it, knowing that I would use it someday. 

     When my mother passed away I went through most of her things. I made snap decisions to keep or get rid of. I tried to be ruthless and it was going well until I stumbled upon the locket that was worth nothing...

     The locket bore the initials of my great, great grandmother on my grandmother's side. It was copper, but plated with gold and there were little marks all over it. I took it to a local appraiser to see if she knew what the marks on the locket were. "This is priceless!" She smiled down at the piece with tears in her eyes. My heart leapt into my throat. I had found a treasure! A REAL treasure. 

     "As far as money goes, it's not worth much," she explained. "But these little marks on the back, notice how some of them are darker than others?" I nodded. "Those are teeth marks... she wore this locket and babies would sit on her lap and teethe on it. There's at least three generations of teeth marks here. They get darker as they get older." Mom had never shown it to me; I wonder if she forgot it was there. It had been under the bottom board of the jewelry box along with a delicate, beautiful little bitty white gown wrapped first in plastic wrap and then in tissue paper. I knew the dress; she was photographed in it on her one month birthday. There was no tag in the dress and the stitches were hand stitches, crooked and determined. Grandma's mom had made the dress by hand. I figured that the last set of teethmarks on the locket, the newest set, were probably Mom's.

     I found a shadow box on sale at Hobby Lobby and bought it. I put the locket and the dress in the shadow box and hung it on the wall of my now-old house. I just packed it away the other day to hang in my newer-old house. A new piece of art from two old treasures.

     I couldn't help but think of the unhappy woman I experienced earlier in the week as I held the shadow box. I know that she is unhappy because she just doesn't get it. Maybe she has never lost someone she loves; maybe she doesn't know what it is like to want for fine things and know they are out of your reach so you make them instead. Maybe she is just shallow, it could be that simple to explain. I feel sorry for her. She is out of place in this world. There's no such thing as truly brand new. Even if you buy it and have it sent to you, someone else has tested it for you. So really everything that decorates our lives is other peoples' junk. Even we are other peoples' junk, products of their idea of usefulness when it comes to us and categorized by the value that they place on us. We are second-hand spirits, all of us shaped by what we have absorbed through our experiences with others, all of us dinged up or scratched by encounters that will never go away. I choose to accept that about myself. I choose to be grateful for my teethmarks, my scratches, my defects and the spots of me that are rubbed smooth from love and infinite care. It could be worse than being other peoples' junk. You could be other peoples' trash.

Daddy's Girl

   I was a rarity during my childhood. In fact, I'm pretty sure, that in the 70's and 80's in my small town, there might have been only one other child whose parents were divorced to the extreme. Let me explain: divorced to the extreme means that one parent is completely absent from the life of the child... at least that's how I viewed it. I was one of those children. 

   My dad pulled the disappearing act when he found out my mother was pregnant with me, but that's 44 years in the past. I want to talk about today... I want to talk about the phenomenon of the absent father. So this blog post goes out to all of the men, young and old, who are choosing not to participate in their children's lives... I say choosing because that's what it is, truly. A choice. 

   I am a daddy's girl. Not in the traditional sense. I didn't force my daddy to help me put diapers on my baby dolls. I didn't make him have tea with me. I didn't ask him to teach me to shoot a bow and arrow. He didn't make my prom date come in and meet him and shake his hand. I didn't look lovingly into his eyes when he saw me for the first time in my wedding dress... I didn't hesitate to let go of his hand at the end of the aisle. I never saw the tears in his eyes when he held his first grandchild. I wasn't with him as he passed into the next life. But I am a daddy's girl... all the way.

   My first instinct is to never trust anyone, especially men. My husband must be part saint to put up with me... I have NO idea how to relate to men. I have no idea how to let a man love me. I have no idea how I am supposed to be treated by a man... go through college with that in your suitcase, ladies, and you will rapidly learn that the daddy deficit in your life left you coming up short in so many ways. I am a daddy's girl. 

   I don't know how to honor a man. I'm bad with authority... really bad. It's not easy to hold down a job when you have a problem like that. It only took me forty years to learn how to deal. There was no father to tactfully and delicately show me that the job of a man is not to control and contain but to protect and encourage. I am a daddy's girl.

   I never went down this road completely, but there were plenty of times that I started down the road where all of the stops are leaving little pieces of yourself with any man that will have you because you think that physicality is love. It's the stray dog syndrome: If you feed me your leftovers, I will stay because I don't know what it is like to be fully loved with freedom and compassion and respect. I am a daddy's girl. 

   That's not what this post is about, though. It has taken me 44 years to get to a place where I can forgive and move on... where I can find other examples to follow. And I had an amazing father-in-law who taught me so much by his examples of compassion and quiet strength that I consider myself semi-recovered. This post is to all of those "baby daddies" out there, especially young men who are creating an entire generation of daddy's girls just like me. I want to tell you what you are doing to that little person that you created. 

   You are teaching her that men are the enemy. You are teaching her that she is not worth the time of the man who helped create her. You are teaching her that you don't have to love or respect a woman to father a child. You are teaching her to not trust anyone. You are teaching her that men serve no purpose but to hurt and leave. You are teaching her that there is no one she can rely on, that she will have to do it all by herself, that she is nothing special, that she is your living, breathing, walking mistake. 

   It takes two to tango... that's what my mother always said. She would never say a bad thing about my father, never. But it doesn't take long to learn who is there and who is not.... who is taking care of you and who is not... who is dependable and who is not. And young man, middle-aged man, old man... if you fall into anyone of these categories then you are taking the life of your little girl. Your blatant disrespect and disregard for her mother, not matter what the circumstances, is interpreted by your little girl that you don't care about her and if you, the man who is half of her, doesn't care about her, then no one will and why should they. You will ultimately be the reason for her failed relationships, for her fear of trusting, for her desperate reaches for love. And the chances of you becoming a grandfather sooner than you planned are greatly increased because of you. Because if she can't get the right kind of love from you, she will confuse the wrong kind of love as something that is better than nothing. And realize, in that statement, you are the nothing. 

   And as if that isn't enough, let me leave you with one last thought: You are the physical representation of how she views and relates to her heavenly Father. Whether she trusts Him, rebels against Him, has a relationship with Him basically comes down to you. That's a lot of pressure, isn't it? And none of that crossed your mind when you looked longingly into the eyes of the mother of your child, someone else's daughter, and made your choice. 

   It may sound like I am pointing blame. I am. Believe me when I tell you that this is temperate to what I would say to a young woman who won't be a mother to her child. So I will leave you with this: You have two options when it comes to being a father: Be the joy that she has now, train her and show her how to love herself or you can be the pain that scrapes her as she tries to squeeze through life later. You need to decide now and take responsibility now for what you are doing or have done. She is your daughter, she is your flesh and blood; don't blame her for your immaturity and selfishness. Don't make her pay for it with every relationship that she tries to have. Don't turn her into THAT daddy's girl. 

The Eye of the Beholder

   I just looked at three pictures of myself taken in the last week. In each pic I'm wearing a dress and each one of the dresses are too big... like WAY too big. And yet when I bought them I tried them on, a couple of them just a couple of weeks ago, I was convinced they fit perfectly. I maybe have lost a couple of pound of winter weight since I bought them, but not THAT much weight. I just realized that I default to the biggest size I can find because all of my life I have been convinced that I am the biggest person in the universe... or possibly that I am as big AS the universe.
   I am always my worst critic. While other female friends will pop the leg, put the hand on the hip, turn to the side and do the goose-neck in order to take the most flattering picture they possibly can, I just flop into the picture because I know for certain that I will look fat and that I am not attractive. After the picture has been taken, I am seldom if ever anxious to see myself. It's not that I don't care; I just don't want to be reminded.
   I don't have low self-esteem. I really don't and I know that I really don't anymore because I used to. One time, in college, I convinced myself that if I could just lose a few pounds I could make someone fall in love with me. Here's a progress report on that: it didn't work. I was once told that I would be so pretty if I would just lose a few pounds. My reply was this: Are you sure of that? Because what if the chub is holding up the best of my physical qualities? What if I lose weight and I'm ugly? Or according to them, ugly-ER... How much would that suck?
   I have diabetes, which is under control. I have high blood pressure as a result of my pregnancy. I have fat that is never going to go away because I have PCOS. But I am strong and I am active. I am relatively healthy and despite the fact that I am surrounded by beautiful, young ladies all the time, I manage to keep myself from flaking out about every little flaw I find without and within. That's healthy, right? I'm in a good place.
   Then I found myself doing something very, very, very questionable. More questionable than that 3D fingernail art phase... I googled the following question: Can fat people be pretty?
   I had no idea that I was so controversial because EVERYBODY and every BODY, including, oddly enough, the late Leonard Nimoy, had an opinion. Obesity is an epidemic, fat is where it's at, skinny guys love the chubs, Zaftig fetish, get in shape, your body is shameful, looking for fat chicks who party... But the one that really got me was Leonard Nimoy who evidently did a whole series of photographs of large naked women... dancing... naked. Beam ME up, Scotty... what the hell was up with Spock? I mean, he was like a twig, am I right? All angles and bones and hard corners. And he surrounded himself with all of that flesh. That blatant, in-your-face, cankles and rolls FLESH. Such an odd contrast.
   And so now I am absolutely flummoxed... I just spent $16 on a lipstick from MAC. Did I do it because I felt like I deserved it or because I felt like I needed it? And I have all of my dresses planned out for all of the graduation stuff coming up, but now I feel like I should try them on in front of someone who isn't me because even though they go over my head, arms, waist and hips, that evidently doesn't mean that they FIT?
   Have I tricked myself into a false sense of self-esteem all of these years? Do I really not like myself at all? Have I spent thousands of dollars over the past 20 years on someone who should have just bought clearance rack MuuMuu's and stuck with the clunky FloJo sandals I had in college? When I think of all of the money I've spent on trends and fashion and shoes and make-up and haircuts and hair dye and jewelry and all of that other junk and weigh it (no pun intended) against what I got out of it, was it all worth it? I don't get called "beautiful." I'm never "the pretty one" when I'm with a group of friends. The only reason I turn heads is tripping or thinking I'm whispering when I'm not... Was. It. All. For. Naught?
   This crisis of self-assurance lasted for about 30 seconds. It was not all for naught. I never did any of those things to get attention or approval because, quite frankly, I have never needed either but have been cursed and often avoided by one and/or both. Figure that one out... I buy what I like, evidently no matter how big it is. That is easily remedied... I'l just stop buying the stuff that feels like pajamas. And it also dawned on me that the reason that I don't like having my picture taken is because I don't like having my picture taken. I have resting sad face and, conversely, a really goofy smile where if I smile without showing my teeth, my eyes disappear and if I smile and show my teeth I looked like a deranged gila monster... And just so we are square, I am absolutely 100% aware that I am built like a potato on toothpicks. It used to bother me but my solution hasn't worked: gaining weight in your legs is hard, almost as hard as losing it in the rest of your body.
   So what is the point of this little self-induced Come To Jesus? I know there are many, many, many people out there who are displeased with the way that they look. I know girls who won't have their picture taken unless they are standing in the very back at a 30 degree angle while the sun is at a waning position and the wind is blowing from the south only. Stop that crap. It's really annoying. Remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so behold yourself every once in a while. Oh, and live long and prosper. You rock, Spock.

The Glory...

     Tonight I will take hold of the greatest blessing I may ever know in my life. At 11:59 p.m. I will close my eyes, squeeze them as tightly as I can and count to 60 and when I open them, this year will be over. I will no longer be living in the year of loss... the clock will have provided me with a new start.
    I have never been one to celebrate the end of a year and the beginning of another. I have never understood the point in celebrating the inevitable like it was something rare. There's really never been a point in celebrating something just because it was over. This is what I always secretly thought as I've dressed to the nines and held the champagne glass high or fallen into the arms of friends who pat me on the back for making it through one year and to the precipice of another. I did nothing incredible this past year and the chances of doing something incredible in the year to come, something that warrants celebration anyway, are slim to none.
    I've circled around it a thousand different times and I don't know where to put this year. Do I celebrate the year because I had it? Do I celebrate the year because it's over? Do I celebrate it because for three quarters of it I had my best friend, biggest inspiration and best person that I know with me? Do I celebrate it because I know that this year took the one thing I was certain I couldn't live without and I proved it wrong? Do I celebrate it at all?
    I know how to mourn it, but I don't know if I should... The last fourth of July with Mom, the last trip to Columbia with Mom, the last time I heard her voice, touched her hand, saw her smile. Those are all things that I could mourn. They are things that will forever remain locked in 2014. Those are the things we don't think about when it comes to death. Time stops and when it does, it grabs a hold of everything, freezes it and puts it in a glass box on display right next to the confusion and despair you are already staring down. You can't mourn that. You can mourn what you lose and you can mourn what you miss and you can mourn what you may or may not allow it to turn you into, but you cannot mourn the stop.
   So instead of mourning, I will wait for the glory. That's the thing about God that I understand least. I understand the compassion of God and I understand His mercies. I understand the hand of providence and I understand His plan. But I don't understand His glory. I don't understand glory in and of itself, quite frankly.
    Maybe I get it in the sense of human beings. When someone steals your "glory" they steal the praise that should have come your way. They steal the spotlight that could be shining on you, should be shining on you. Glory is victory. Glory is basking. So what is the glory of God and where is His glory for 2014? How will it manifest? How will it shine through? And, most worrisome to me, if I know nothing about the glory of God, then how will I recognize the glory that was meant to roll off, roll out, roll like thunder from the loss of my sweet, sweet mother?
   I know the lives that she touched as she lived and as she lived through the process of dying. I know the strength that I have seen in my brother, in my uncles, in my family through this process of loss. Is that it, is that the glory? Because I think, as immature and selfish as it sounds, in order to understand it all, I need to see the glory.
    And therein lies the uselessness of celebrating the cycle of ending and beginning... I need to see the glory to understand but I don't understand what glory is so have I missed it already? Tonight as I quickly and most joyfully bid farewell to 2014, the last year of my life as I had known it since birth I will turn my eyes to 2015 and pray for the reverse of what I've prayed for most of my life: I will pray for eyes that understand and a heart that can see and recognize the glory when it is fulfilled.

An Open Letter to Brittany Maynard

Dear Brittany,
      It is November 1. Today was supposed to be your death day. I read that you have opted to postpone it. I think that is a wise decision. I have some insight to share with you so I hope that you will bear with me...
     I have faced death only once, during the birth of my child who was three months premature. They took my now-12-year-old son in an attempt to save one of us. They told me, as they wheeled me back to the operating room that the likelihood of both of us surviving was 10 percent at best. We both lived. We are both still living. My conference with death is nothing compared to what you are facing and I know that. But as I said, bear with me.
     On October 9 of this year I read your story. On October 12 of this year I called to speak with my 70-year-old mother. She couldn't get out of bed. I told her to call the ambulance. She was admitted to the hospital that day because they couldn't give her enough morphine to ease her pain without admitting her. Three days later we were told that she had stage four terminal bone cancer in 95% of her skeletal system, her spine had been destroyed by it, her liver was 100% engaged and they couldn't find the origin. They were absolutely certain that the cancer had metastasized at least three times. There was tumor the size of a tennis ball on her shoulder that you could see through her skin; she couldn't move without screaming out in pain.
     She was alive. But she was dying. But she was alive. There was life to be had out of what living was left to do. In those 10 days in the hospital, she faded away from me and faded back to me several times. She was dying. But she was alive. And every single moment with her was precious, Brittany. Even when she was laying there, fighting for every single breath, I was learning, she was teaching. There was a purpose of every single moment of it. There was horror and there was beauty and I loved all of it, because it was mine to love. There was nothing else to do with it, I chose to love it.
     She died on October 22 at 2 a.m. I wasn't with her when she passed away. And even though she didn't take a pill, I believe to the very core of who I am that she died with dignity, on her terms and in God's time.
     I'm grateful for that, Brittany. She was dying, but she was alive. She was living through her dying. She was ministering to every nurse and doctor, every person that walked in that room was blessed by the peace and strength that rolled off of her. She was dying, but she was alive.
     I don't know if anyone has ever told you this, but I know that you will understand it when I say that there is beauty in everything. You have traveled and seen the majesty and secret glory of this earth and you know what beauty is. There is beauty in everything. There is beauty in believing in the timeline given to each of us, there is beauty in allowing our own suffering to be used to change the minds and hearts of others and there is beauty in trusting in an all-knowing God. Sometimes the beauty is covered in rust, or dirt or blood or pain, but it is there. Because she was dying, but she was alive.
    You labeled yourself, Brittany. You introduced yourself to the world as someone who is "dying." You affected many lives when you did that... the scope of your reach went far beyond what you expected, I am sure. And I am sure that you felt you were doing the right thing. But you were not doing the right thing, and you did not do the right thing.
     I am rejoicing that you are still alive. I am so glad that you are still finding joy in life. But here's the thing, Brittany, joy isn't something to be FOUND, it is something to be chosen. You have to choose joy, not just when you are faced with sadness, loss, death or fear... it's a choice to made everyday. That was what my mother's death taught me. That's what it taught everyone who was near her. Her death was nothing but dignified and though I miss her physical presence, I am proud to be her daughter and I am rejoicing for her victory. It was a fight well-fought. I believe she won in the end.
     And so now, Brittany, that you know the story of my mother you need to understand that what you did, your choice to tell your story with such conviction and certainty and allow it to be held up as bravery and courage when in fact it was cowardice and fear, was wrong. And you need to apologize. You need to apologize to every young person who saw your story and now believes that suicide is just a choice to exit this life because you suffer from cancer and they suffer from depression. You need to apologize to every person who has ever fought for every single breath because they wanted their children to understand that they did everything in their power to stay with them as long as possible. You need to apologize to every single loved one who has sat beside the bed, thanked God every time the chest rose and fell, praised God for every moment with them and in the same breath begged God to take them to end their suffering. Yes, you have a choice, still. And I for one am glad that those pills are still in that little purse. But you took your choice and you made it a platform based on your convictions and now those convictions are changing, after the fact. So please, please, please explain to those who felt you were a hero, who felt you were brave, that perhaps, you spoke out of turn, perhaps you made a mistake not by choosing to end your life the way you want, but by making it such a piece of public propaganda.
     You talked about a peaceful death. There is no such thing. While it may be a foggy happening for you, slipping into the great unknown, it will still be violent for your family members. Because in the words of the poet Emily Dickinson, death is "all we know of heaven and all we need of hell." I want you to know that I pray for you, for strength for you and your family, for understanding and for peace and for the beauty to be revealed every single day. I pray that you will let them love you as they want to love you. And I pray for grace, because that is the only way to die with dignity.

Death, Be Not Proud

     I knew it was going to happen just as soon as I saw the story on my newsfeed. Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman had moved from California to Oregon in order to end her life. Granted, she is facing the possibility of a painful death after being diagnosed with an inoperable terminal brain tumor and so she went to a doctor who told her she met the criteria for the prescription of the "death pill." She is planning on taking them on November 1... a few weeks from now... after celebrating her husband's birthday.
     I knew that I would address it with my students. At first I thought I would simply make it a writing prompt, but then they started asking questions. Some of them had never heard of Maynard. I showed them the video of her interview and watched them watch her and it occurred to me that something was very wrong.
     Growing up in the 1980's and 1990's, it was a rite of passage to write a research paper, at some point, about euthanasia and Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Dr. Death, they called him, and despite having been thrown in jail three times, tried three times and acquitted three times, Dr. Kevorkian was determined that people should have the option of dying with dignity.
     Dr. Jack Kevorkian, old, blunt in speech and possessing eyes that seemed almost black was the face of "death with dignity" to me. Brittany Maynard, young, well-spoken and articulate and possessing a spirit for adventure was the face of "death with dignity" to the generation of students I taught... She was appealing and what she said seemed to make so much sense...
     Except for the student who was back at school for the first time after watching her aunt die from cancer. The death had lasted a week. There was no magic pill... and according to my student, there shouldn't be. "I am so grateful for every single minute I had with her," she tearfully explained to the class. "I am inspired by having watched her fight so hard."
     That was when things changed. The "what if's?" began circling overhead. What if she has more time than they think? What if they discover a treatment that works? What if she takes the pill and then changes her mind? What if the pill doesn't work like it's supposed to? What if the doctors are wrong? What if, her entire reason for being alive, the entire purpose of her life, is buried in what she perceives as something so insufferable and horrifying that she won't even give living a chance?
      There are so many layers to this happening. First, she speaks very passionately in the interview, which is actually a PSA for death with dignity (a phrase that I'm pretty sure is supposed to replace 'euthanasia'). She speaks about "seizing the day" and living each day with small goals in mind for "the time she has left." Yet she has already received the pills. Already decided on the day. Already asked her mother to meet her "spirit" on top of Machu Picchu. She is choosing to end her life and she explicitly says in an interview with People magazine that she does not want to die and does not have a suicidal cell in her body. She is merely choosing to pass on instead of suffering the consequences of a disease. Such a contradiction, and kind of a slap in the face to those who have lost a loved one to suicide due to depression. Does that make their grieving wrong? Does that make the choice that their loved one made suddenly acceptable and brave? Does it lessen the pain? No, and it never will.
     It will not be popular to speak out against Brittany. She is being perceived as brave, as a warrior, and as far as I am concerned she is, as is ANYONE who is ever diagnosed with any type of cancer. It's a horrible disease. I watched my brother nearly lose his life from stage 4 rectal cancer.  Last year, I sat with my father-in-law for weeks as he slowly moved past this world. To suggest that either one of them lacked dignity at any point in their fight for survival, whether it be lost or won, is ludicrous. They lacked neither dignity or bravery. And I treasured every moment of the last moments that my father-in-law was here.
     I have faced death. The birth of my son was a last ditch effort to save one of us; I was sick enough that they were certain I was going to either die or end up killing him simply by keeping him in my womb. I was ready to die for my son. I told the doctors if they had to choose one to save, save him. That doesn't make me better or braver than Brittany Maynard; that just makes me grateful that I had something worth fighting for.
     I told my students today that I didn't know what the right answer was. I explained to them that when I was their age, Dr. Kevorkian was considered a devil and euthanasia was not an even considered option, ever. I asked if they thought this was going to set a dangerous precedent, because what about people who are caretakers of others? Do they have the right to request the pill for their loved ones? I asked them if they understand that this was a very slick way for the media to make this a more palatable idea, to put a pretty face on an ugly idea? I asked them if they understood that this was a slippery slope and that a dangerous precedent could be set?
     Then I told them the God's honest truth. There is beauty to be found in everything. Sometimes you have to look; sometimes you have to wait; always you have to have faith. But there is beauty. And that is why I will mourn the death of Brittany Maynard because by doing this thing, she just may be missing out on the greatest beauty she would have ever known.

Present Perfect

     Times have changed, and not for the better. I live with photographical evidence of that fact in my classroom everyday. At any given time, I can pick a year and step back in time. I can lose myself in the crinolines and taffeta of the pristine prom of the 1950's or the committed and passionate protests of the '60's and '70's. That's the wonder of being the yearbook adviser. It's like every year has been cryogenically frozen and preserved and when this world is unpleasant I can simply slip into another year and get lost, absorbed in innocence, freedom from technology and what was pictured as a society and culture that raised generation after generation of citizens who cared about their country, their school and themselves.
   Today was one of those rare days where I didn't wander anywhere near the shelves holding those books, those portals that would sweep me into a "better" time. Today, in my little corner of the world, it was present perfect.
   It was student involvement day and my classroom was buzzing with a variety of students, seniors through sophomores who were slowly preparing to sell an idea they had themselves bought into: school spirit. I'm talking about old school school spirit - the kind that makes you hum along to "Be True To Your School," makes you want to own a letterman's sweater, makes you want to be somebody's "best girl" or "guy." See, a group of students had decided that they wanted to leave their mark on the school in a way that didn't involve the negativity that is plunked all over the media, that is touted as the "apathy of the millenials." They decided they wanted to breathe life back into the ghost of School Pride.
   Some of you may not understand why this is a big deal. Some of you won't care why this IS in fact a big deal. For those of you who haven't been in a modern high school, things have changed. Some might say they haven't changed for the better. Most would agree. I used to be one that would agree but Mexico High School has changed my mind.
   In so many ways, it must be understood that a school is like a church. You can build a building and call it a church. You can build a building and call it a school. But neither of them are truly the essence of their own meaning until they are inhabited. And let me tell you something about Mexico High School: it is being inhabited.
   We've seen glimpses in the past few years. Those students who grab hold of an idea and turn it into something living and breathing. We've seen the excitement for events and most importantly, the willingness to support those who are different. But this is something more, this is deeper, this is something that is going to resonate as you watch the sophomore student become enthusiastic about it because a senior student has invited them to become involved and passionate. This is... wait for it... epic.
   There were just a few at first, at the end of last year, who came to me and expressed that they thought the Dawg Pound, the unofficial student pep club, needed to become official and organized. It seemed like a good idea at the time... which is also the unofficial story of my life, so I said I would sponsor them. Hundreds of spirit bracelets, posters, tweets and QR codes later, we offered our idea up to the student body today at student involvement day. The students, they came... but it didn't have anything to do with the bracelets or the tweeting. It started way before we did...
   The feeling of our school has changed. Something about it has become more genuine, more caring, more student-friendly. You find it odd that a school wasn't student-friendly? If you want to know the main problem with education today, it is that most schools are not student-friendly. But what is happening at Mexico High School isn't just the students catching on to the school spirit idea.
   The teachers are trying new things, getting brave, going out on a limb to engage students. The teachers are smiling at each other, fellowshipping with one another and creating an atmosphere that speaks to students of acceptance and respect. And those students will mirror what they will see. The administrators are supporting the teachers and the students. It didn't happen over night and in all truth it could end tomorrow. But I don't think it will...
   Not when you have a football team that arranges a fundraiser for their opponent's coach's wife who has cancer; or when you have an organization that is forming with the purpose of making sure there is a network of support among community members, school officials and local businesses who can meet the need of a student or family with immediacy. It won't end, not when you have teachers working so hard to find ways to help make their students succeed not only now but in the future, and parents who are so supportive and involved that they can walk down the halls and speak to every kid they meet by name.
   See, those are signs of a great school, the kind of idyllic school pictured in those old yearbooks with the perfectly coiffed young ladies and the handsome, smiling young men who look like they took the time to iron their clothes every single school day. We'll never be able to go back to that; we know way too much to go back to that. But what really mattered to me today as I cut out little strips of paper to staple to bracelets and stapled the football coach's face to a paint stick was that I really didn't want to be anywhere or any when but right then and right there. It seems that after so many years, we are finally reaching the edge of present perfect.

All Hail the Dead End

My classroom, at times, becomes more a crossroad than a classroom. Students wander in and out to work on various projects; teachers wander in and out to make copies when they don't want to make the Odyssey-esque journey to the teachers' work room. I love it because it affords the opportunity for teachers and students to interact in a very real way: conversation. The topics are wide and varied from the philosophical to the debatable to the good old-fashioned belly laugh that comes with being somewhere that you feel safe and accepted.
   It was one of these conversations that lead me to an oddly dark place a couple of days ago. One of my students, very intelligent and well-spoken became absolutely appalled when I and another teacher expressed that, at some point in time you learn to cling to the following beliefs:
          1) It is what it is.
          2) Whatever happens, happens.
   Her eyes flew open almost as quickly as her mouth in the shock that two people could allow themselves to become so desolate of hope. "That's terrible!" she cried as she made her case against the two mantras. "That's just giving up... it's so passive and so lacking of hope." She was sincerely shocked.
   I didn't bring it up again, but her shock had shaken me a bit. Had I lost hope? At age 42 had I become so stained and tainted by the world and the people in it that I no longer felt the need to fight? Was I no longer raging against the dying of the light? Was I going gently? Had I become (gulp) a doubter?
   I could turn only to one place... the past. And so I dug out my old journals and began to read the words of a former me, in many ways, a lesser me. My world was so small, I couldn't help thinking as I read and re-read poetry and the pining and whining of an unrequited lover, the girl who was left behind and the one that was never understood. All the way back to college when I first started writing "seriously" I traveled in those journals, all the while asking if I, bright-eyed/bushy-tailed optimist, first-to-arrive/last-to-leave party-goer and eternally-bubbly and good-natured good-time gal, had allowed life to turn me into (gulp, gulp) a doubter.
   In the pages I found an odd destination to end my journey. I found the dead end. I didn't find it in my college journals or in the journals of my early 20's. I found it in the journals of my late 20's when my heart was absolutely and beyond mending broken. I mean broken in a way that could never be smiled away, that time would allow to scar but never heal. The kind of pain that scratches at your brain in your sleep and makes you feel as if you are being followed - that was the kind of pain that was my first dead end. Something was gone that was never coming back and there was absolutely nothing in the world, nothing at all within my powers that I could do to change it.
   You either die at the dead end or climb over whatever wall is there and leave it behind... because it is what it is. The dead end is finite. The dead end is "no." And the dead end will never be revived, it will never come chasing after you, it will never whip you around and plant a passionate kiss on your mouth and whisper apologies in your ear. The dead end is just that: dead and it leaves a part of you dead as well.
   And it occurred to me that, at the tender age of 18, she hadn't come to a dead end and I prayed a quick and quiet prayer that she never would. But that is not a reality. I was jealous of her for just a moment, the belief that you can change anything out of sheer will and determination. I believed that once too... until I dead ended. And then I had to adjust.
   I have seen enough dead ends since my first to know that I am a climber. I may throw myself against the wall for a bit, kneel in a tearful prayer and ask that there be a secret passage through the dead end, but eventually I will accept the dead end for what it is... because, as much as I hate to say it again, it is what it is. And so I climb over it, sometimes in a few days, sometimes months, and there are still a few that I am struggling to get that last leg over... but once I am over them I then have the power to turn and look back at it, from wherever I am on my path at that time and move away from it with a bit more hope in my step because that dead end is a dead end - it is what it is. And whatever is waiting ahead for me is there. It may be a dead end, it may be an infinite loop that forces me to forge a path not yet created. But I am prepared for it because I know that whatever happens, happens.
   So you see, young person, I am not a doubter nor am I a curmudgeon or a hopeless cynic. I'm a climber and I am stronger than I ever have been because I have left the dead ends behind knowing that I can deal with whatever the future brings. That is the great difference between me at 18, me at 25 and me right here and now. You fear that I am hopeless but in truth I have nothing but hope and for that I owe a debt of gratitude to the dead end that taught me you don't always defeat every foe but there is always a victory to be found if you are willing to claim it; I've claimed a million and I'm sure there are a million more coming.
   There you go. That is why it is what it is. That is why whatever happens, happens. That is why you can truly only carpe so much of the diem and that is why YOLO is really stupid when you think about it: if you're doing it right, you live a million lives in your lifetime. THAT is what it is... truly.

Outline

     My dad died last night. I didn't know him, not the way that a daughter should know a father. I had been in contact with him for about six years, speaking with him over the phone on a regular basis. That was a huge step considering I may or may not have spoken to him during the first 36 years of my life... I find it horrifying that I don't remember. What I do remember are years of indifference. When I was growing up I didn't know until around the first grade that not every family was unlike mine. I had a mom, a brother, two uncles, a great-grandma, a grandpa and a "hey you." The "hey you" was grandma... I didn't figure out until about second grade that you could have two grandma's. I am pretty sure I thought it was illegal for the first seven years of my life so I just referred to my gran as "hey you" as my great-grandma was Grandma Mac. I thought this scattered smattering of relatives was what went on inside everyone's house.
     Back to the indifference... there was a picture of my mother in a beautiful white dress and a handsome, dark-haired man standing beside her smiling through the thick black horn rims of some pretty dapper hipster glasses. That man, I was told, was my dad. My family answered my questions when I asked. Questions as to his location, his name, his current situation and whether or not he could ride a bike were the main questions that I asked. They were always answered, never with anger or snarkiness; they were just answered. I asked if he was going to come back, I asked if I had made him mad, I asked if he left because my brother hummed all the time and it was really annoying, I asked and I asked and I asked and they always answered. Finally I stopped asking because answers get boring after awhile and in all reality we don't ask because we want to know; most of the time we ask because we want something fixed. Nothing was getting fixed.
     After I stopped asking questions, I started getting angry because nothing was getting fixed. There was no "Dad." I wanted to know why. I stopped wanting to know why and settled for angry. And angry, when you get used to it, stops being angry and starts being bitter and that's what I was for about 20 years. During those 20 years, the "bitter" years, I was selfish and stupid. I put myself before anyone. If I didn't get what I wanted the right way, I found a way to get what I wanted. I was a liar, a manipulator and I was cruel. I was in it for myself. Because I had a "right." I had been abandoned, I had been left behind. I had suffered at the hands of another and I deserved better than what I had been handed. I had my crutch and I hobbled around on it when I didn't want to meet the expectations of life. I used it as a weapon, as a wall, as a means to an end. Anger     It was only after I had my own child that this stopped. Slowly but surely God revealed myself to me: a liar, a chameleon, a manipulator who had duped so many, hurt so many. And once this was revealed... Let me just tell you, once God reveals your true nature to you it will never stop uppercutting your blatant ignorance. TRY to ignore it. Impossible. So you start backtracking... I started backtracking. And as I went back to the last place where I had left some semblance of a decent human being I came across that bitterness and then the anger. The difference was that I was walking with someone while I backtracked... You know that cheesy footprints in the sand poster? Let's just say that while there was one set of footprints in the sand, right beside it was a deep, wavy crevice where God had dragged me kicking and screaming... not nearly as poetic but relatively accurate. At the end of this journey, I found my sister, Hallie, and after some time, I heard the voice of my dad for the first time in my life.
     Our conversations on the phone were all of the things they should have been: enlightening, revealing, frightening, full of laughter, full of tears and, at times, brutal. I wanted to know him and I wanted him to know me so I held nothing back from him. I'm sure I scared the hell out of him a couple of times. He was honest with me, revealing little bits and pieces of himself here and there. I grabbed onto them and tried to piece together the man that was on the phone. Slowly but surely he began to take shape, but that is where it ended with us. He was an outline.
     He is gone now and the irony does not escape me. All of the comments I see on my sister's social media about what a great man he was and how he touched so many lives, they fill him in for me a bit, but only with gray where there should have been color. I wanted the color. I have only an outline.
     But I have a sister and another brother and a step-mother. I have cousins and a wonderful "adopted" sister. I think I have an aunt somewhere as well? I hope I do. And I hope against all hope that they will help me fill in the outline...

The Glory of the Valley

     It hasn't been an easy week. Truthfully, the last few months have been something of a huge light display of disappointment strung together with all of these little flickers of disappointment, like Christmas lights, but not nearly as festive or twinkly. And like every other person, when I hit the low point, get scared, lose my sight point, I ask for prayer. Because when you sink to the bottom, sometimes you need something a bit stronger than gravity to pull you back up... for me that's the prayer and encouragement of others.
   I came across this quote earlier today in a book I was pretending to read when I was pretending to ignore what I didn't want to be paying attention to because it made me sad: "Only if you have ever been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain." Richard Nixon said that... I figure he probably knows what with the whole impeachment thing. But that started me thinking about the whole "valley" concept and how we use it to describe being at a low point. I think it all started with God, not to place blame, but when He whispered those words of inspiration that we call the Psalms to David, little did He know that he was pulling a Mean Girl on valleys for the rest of eternity. "The valley of the shadow of death..." it doesn't get much worse than that, right? How do you come back from that?
   Pity the valley... No one wants to be in the valley when there's a mountain top nearby. Those mountains, we love that metaphor don't we? As Christians we associate the mountain top with good things: the 10 commandments, man's covenant with God and don't ever forget the fact that if you are on a mountain top, you are basically on God's front porch because we associate the geographical location of heaven with "up there." Maybe there is some kind of truth to that, in an existentially profound kind of way that I would pretend to understand, but really wouldn't. I can only understand my current situation in relationship to previous experience and that has brought me to this revelation:
   I have spent most of my life grazing in the valley.
   Don't misinterpret that as feeling sorry for myself, because I don't. In fact, I have spent most of the day thinking about that whole metaphor and where I fit into it. I'm not much of a mountain climber and in all honesty, I don't think the majority of human beings are. We SURVIVE our difficulties and we do what we have to do to make the best of them. But rarely if ever have I seen one of my own kind jump up and down with excitement at the fact that they are facing the equivalent of a herd of woolly mammoths sporting anger control issues in their day to day lives. The mountain metaphor, to me, has run its course and I think it's time to be honest about the valley.
   In the valley, there is almost always vegetation because things grow there. The perfect blend of sun and shade creates a fertile climate for growing and changing. In the valley you can almost count on a steady stream of water, an opportunity to wash yourself clean, to take at look at a reflection that you will never see again as that water will never stop moving. In the valley, there is a chance to quench the kind of thirst that is easily forgotten in the celebration on the mountain top...
   And let's not forget the most important thing about the valley: when you reach the valley, you have stopped tumbling. There's only one way down from a mountain and this is to go DOWN from the top.
   Most of you will disagree with me, and that is fine. Most of you will take those mountaintop moments and never think about the valley... until you end up there again and your tears will be so monumental that you will use them to literally pour salt in the wounds of your fall. But when you stop and dust what's left of the mountain off, when you realize that God is not a geographical landmark and that He is just as close to you in the valley as you are to Him on the mountaintop... that makes a huge difference. For it is never about WHERE you are when it comes to God, it's about what you are doing while you are there.
   So I'm content to camp out in the valley and watch the others roll by; watch the others turn and curse their last mountaintop and shield their eyes from the sun that I am soaking in to try to find the nearest and next one. And if you seek some company while you are in the valley, I won't be the only who is willing to allow you to draw near...

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/valley.html#2SLwuvM8W0RRsuD4.99

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/valley.html#LSTVeDk4C00GlLHh.99

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/valley.html#LSTVeDk4C00GlLHh.99

Losing my Atticus

     I was forced by my grandmother to read "To Kill A Mockingbird" when I was only six years old. It was a punishment for an attempt to flush potatoes down the toilet to test the sucking power of whatever mechanism made everything go down the toilet. It backfired, both forcing me to read the book that would become my favorite book of all time (I've read it 42 times to date) and the toilet as one of the little bitty potatoes made it through the initial sucking mechanism and met with a horrifying fate in the sewer. I know the fate was horrifying because the sewer had to be dug out...
     Within the pages of that book, I met some of my best childhood friends. At six years of age, I didn't really understand the implications of the major themes, such as race and definition of class and relationships between men and women and coming of age. But I totally understood Scout and her inability to filter herself and I understood Dill and the lack of the father figure and I understood the small-town vibe. As I grew, the book became even more important to me, but one figure always remained elusive and unrealistic: Atticus Finch.
     Atticus Finch, the gentle warrior who allowed his children to call him by his first name with the understanding that there was no loss of respect on either part, was the father that I crave. Strong, silent, with secrets to uncover and talents that were never for show but for necessity. He was the ultimate work of fiction to me for surely there could never exist someone like that man, a man of dignity with a penchant for hard work and fairness.
    Until I married my husband and his father became my father-in-law. That was when I got my Atticus. Sometimes blessings come upon us with no warning. That is, in fact, the definition of a blessing... something we don't deserve that we can't imagine that brings us a renewed hope for something we didn't even know we were missing. But the human race tends to forget that by making blessings something tangible. A new car, more money, getting out of debt - those are our blessings. But to get my very own Atticus Finch - that was something else altogether.
     He didn't say much, but he didn't have to, really. He would share a look with me and suddenly I could breathe when I felt like all of the air had been squashed out of my lungs. When I was sick and in the hospital he didn't have to say one word. He could just stand there, in the doorway and I could see his tall, lanky outline and suddenly my head didn't hurt anymore and sleep could stop swirling around me and finally settle itself. He was my Atticus and he would not allow me to be treated unjustly nor would he allow me to allow myself to be treated unjustly.
     Quiet and reserved but when he spoke, rooms would still to hear what he was saying because to hear the edgy bass of his voice would be to hear what needed to be heard by someone who knew how to say it. Fair and just, impartial and always prepared to defend the weakest one, even if the weakness was offensive to all. And I loved him for it. I loved him for so many reasons. I love him for so many reasons. But the one reason that I love him most is because he is my Atticus. I finally found him.
     And now I'm going to lose him. I'm going to lose my Atticus. And instead of being sad for me, I am sad for him, because I cannot tell him that he is my Atticus because he wouldn't understand. His wisdom doesn't come from stupid things like books and the warped kind of machinations that come from reading and manifesting such things. His wisdom comes from life. And life stands at the lectern now ready to teach us all the great lesson: that we are not immortal, that we are not written to last forever, that there are things like cancer that make us completely disposable.
     But there are some things that live outside of that mortality. There is sadness, the deepest, darkest sadness that marks a person like an anniversary. There is this infinite lump in my throat that will not go away nor allow itself to dissolve into tears.  There is the steadfast knowledge that crying won't make it go away, won't clean up the cancer, won't end this loss that just continues to loop from my head to my heart. And I wonder what it would have been like to not know this; to still have the dream of someone who would be Atticus to me. Would it be better? I cannot imagine so. Losing my Atticus is heart-wrenching because the physical representation, the strength, the voice and smile will melt away. But like the character that was penned so many decades ago, he will remain immortal and forever written upon my heart, my mind and my memory.

The Princess Epidemic

   I love Pinterest; I spend a strong majority of my "down" time alternating between food, home decor, fashion and inspiring quotes; if I were to be completely honest, a good plenty of the time I spend on there shouldn't be downtime... but I am looking at educational things so I like to call it Passive Professional Development...
   I've noticed, of late, a very scary trend filtering through the glittering craft projects and funky nail-paintings. More and more, I notice these quotes and statements and pieces of word art insisting that men are required to treat a woman like a princess... buy me things, take me exotic places, answer the phone as soon as I call, text me back immediately, indulge me, INDULGE ME AND OBEY ME. The saddest part is, it's not just teenage girls who are pinning these pinings. It's women my age as well.
   Let me start off by saying that I don't believe that anyone should be mistreated in a relationship, or even out of a relationship. I don't think people should be used, which I have, or use others, also this have I done. I don't think people should be lied to, lied about or lie. I don't think men should be domineering cavemen who drag women around by their hair. Whoops! Stereotype, right?
   Lightbulb: WHAT DO YOU THINK A PRINCESS IS?
   Let's examine the princess stereotype: spoiled, indulged, locked away, protected, beautiful but vapid, delicate, naive and innately bad with towers in general. Let's examine how that looks in real life: relationship after relationship ending because women EXPECT to be treated like princesses BUT HAVE YET to figure out how to make someone the king of their heart.
   Ladies, you are selling yourself short by stamping your high-heeled, pedicured foot and demanding that someone buy you this or that, or let you use his face as a trampoline. Hopefully, and I am beginning to wonder in all honesty, you know you are worth more than that.
    I'm going to be honest, brutally so, but what would be new, right? My husband doesn't treat me like a princess. He doesn't think it's cute or endearing when I whine or try to boss him around. He doesn't find me petulent or pert when I bull my way through and try to do something on my own after we have discussed waiting. He treats me like something much more than a child who needs a daddy; he treats me like a QUEEN. He treats me like his equal, which is what marriage made us: equal partners. But he also treats me as if he is the KING... and because of that he has won my heart over and over again.
   What is the difference? First of all, he is the king, and I'm fine with that. It has taken me a looooonnnngggg time to learn how to let him be the king because I grew up in a queendom that was such out of necessity. When we met, I had princess mentality and I will never forget the day he looked at me when I was whining about our relationship and not getting my way and he flat out said this: "You have no idea what a marriage is supposed to be like because you didn't spend your childhood in a family that had one."
   Inner Princess told me to do the lip quiver, allow a single tear to fall and to ask for some new shoes. Inner Queen knew he was balls-on accurate. Have I wanted to call it quits? What do you think? Killing a princess is not easy... But it was all for the better, and I say for the better because we haven't hit best yet and that is exciting to me. We have something to work toward TOGETHER. Like a king and a queen would... with equal interest and importance and each knowing that the strengths of the other will most definitely make up for the shortcomings of the one.
   I dare to say, to you Princesses out there, that you don't have that and you never will until you take off the tiara and put on the crown. You don't deserve better than anyone else gets. You really don't. You deserve what you work for and let's face it, ladies, some of you are living on grace. Some of you should have been booted out of the castle long, long ago. And I feel the wave a-comin'... "But I'm so unhappy..." "He ignores me..." "The spark is gone..." Let me tell you some harsh, harsh truths, your royal highnesses: the only one responsible for your happiness is YOU; he ignores you because you are annoying and only talk about and care about the things that matter to YOU; and the spark is gone because you can't flint off of an iceberg. Queens know these things and they know how to deal with them and how to fix them.
   That being said, everyone must make their own decisions. If he cheats on you, then leave him. If you cheat on him, leave him - it's only fair. See, women spent years trying to become equal to men and as soon as we did, we turned right around and subjugated them in a completely different manner. There will never be equality across the board because the women who need to read this stopped reading after the first couple of paragraphs and decided that I am a bitch who doesn't know what I'm talking about. But there can be respect and there can be dignity and there can be love... real, true, hardwork love that makes you smile when you think about it, when you decide that when it comes to relationships, both boys AND girls rule.

Shedding

   I am full of hatred. I put on a good show, though, don't you think? But the truth is that I am so full of animosity that sometimes I can't even function to full capacity. I am sometimes so completely overwhelmed by my distaste for this person that I have to ignore them completely to simply go through the motions. But the hatred is always there, a burning, seething, writhing cobra that is coiled in my gut. Who is it, you ask? Myself. I hate me.
   I need to clarify, I suppose. I don't hate ALL of me. For the most part, I have a pretty healthy relationship with myself. I don't lie to myself about my abilities, I'm not particularly conceited too much, I have a healthy dose of self-deprecation which I use to temper any thoughts that I may be superior to another person. But I do hate myself... my outer self. I hate the way I look. I loathe it. I could write volumes on the fact that my upper arms keep waving even after I have stopped, the fact that I can use my own earlobes as earplugs, my lower stomach which is full of scar tissue and is never, ever going to be flat and if you want to occupy approximately eight hours of spare time, let me talk to you about this weird underarm/backfat thing I have going on now... Hideous.
   I've NEVER worn a sleeveless dress or shirt in public. It's safe to say there are three people in the entire world who have ever seen my upper arms: one of them is my husband, the other is the lady that fits my undergarments and the other is my son, in the swimming pool. There may be a couple of other people, but I'm sure they have blocked out that trauma in order to move on with their lives and be able to eat pork again...
   All of the things that should make a woman feel beautiful just make me feel weird. I've never had a massage because I'm terrified that if the masseuse is small, she may actually get lost in my back fat requiring the jaws of life and heat-seeking radar to save her poor little life. Pedicures freak me out because I have a franken-foot. After a car accident I had to have three surgeries to correct the damage and there are scars all over my feet and ankles... and my pinky toe is just a big dollop of skin with a bit of nail... I shudder to think about it.
   Currently, my pores are so large and distended that I could smuggle refugees into the United States in  them, although they do come in handy for loose change... My legs are ok, except for the terrifying scars from all of my adventures as a child, from getting caught in a barbed wire fence to sliding halfway down a gravel road on my knees after an unfortunate bicycle accident.
   I don't like looking at pictures of myself because I don't want to know. It's a very, very, very unhealthy relationship that I have with my body, or how I view my body and I know that each and everyone of you probably spent the last five minutes inventorying all of your flaws. How sad is that?
   But there's a new development. One that puts all the other "This is sooooo wrong with me" laments to shame. Here it is: I am losing my hair. It's been slowly falling out since about a year after I had Kyser. I was on so many medications when he was born because we were both sick that my OBGYN told me I could possibly lose my teeth or my hair, possibly both. For years, I have held my breath... terrified that it would be my teeth... there's no way I could afford to replace them. But now that my hair is going, and it's going fast and in clumps, I'm not so sure I am willing to part with it, pardon the pun...
   But I don't have a choice. It's going... fast. I had almost grown it out to shoulder length for the first time in my life about six months ago and over Christmas break, it came out in handfuls. I called my doctor, he said to cut it short. I cut it short, it looked thicker, but I had to start using fiber enhancer on it so that you couldn't see through the bald parts of it. That stopped working so well about six weeks ago so I went and got it trimmed even shorter. I colored it red because the lady said red would make it absorb light and look fuller. We put highlights in, it didn't work. The fiber wasn't working anymore. I went to hair makeup, this stuff that you can brush directly onto your scalp to help cover bald spots. It worked for awhile. It's not working anymore.
   I spoke with a dermatologist. She said there is nothing that can be done. I spoke with another dermatologist. He said there were a couple of things we could try. I tried them. They didn't work. He referred me to a specialized dermatologist. The specialized dermatologist said to stop shampooing so frequently to slow it down. He said it might not work. It didn't. He apologized. I cried.
   I thought about everything that I hated about myself. All those wasted years. And then I got to thinking about why I hated myself. Truth be told, I didn't hate myself at all. I hated the way I looked. I hate the fact that no diet or amount of exercise was ever going to get rid of the huge span of scar tissue around my middle. I hate my Italian grandmother arms that, if they ever get out of control could possibly injure a small child. I hate my stupid long, weird earlobes. But not as much as I hate losing my hair.
   There's only one thing to do: learn the lesson and share it. I'm not sure who told me I was ugly. I'm not sure anyone ever did. In truth, it was something that I inferred. I've never looked in the mirror and smiled back at myself. I don't ever look at pictures of myself. I'm so scarred by my own perceptions of myself that I have never heard myself sing because I am afraid that if I ever heard myself I would hate that part of me as well and I don't want to hate it because I LOVE to do it.
   So here is what a lifetime of hating myself for the way I look has taught me:
   That's right, absolutely nothing. It's a regret, but it's one that I will have to live with. I didn't learn one damn thing from being so cruel and hateful to myself. I didn't learn one damn thing from agreeing with people who felt that way about me. I didn't learn anything from it. In fact, I allowed it to steal from me and it has stolen time, energy and worry and concern that should have been spent on others. I wish I could blame magazines or society, but I can't in good conscience. I bought magazine after magazine and poured over them so in a sense I did it to myself.
   And so, in honor of my last summer with hair, there's an excellent chance that I will be tear-assing around in sleeveless shirts - all I ask is that you protect your young. I'm going to go get my first massage and ask for the biggest, stoutest masseuse in the place. I'm going to get a sassy little pedicure and not feel self-conscious at all. And finally...I'm going to forgo the hats and go straight to wigs. Short wigs, long wigs, curly wigs... you name it. I'm going to find out if blondes do have more fun, but I doubt that it will have much to do with being blonde. It will have more to do with finally, along with shedding my hair, shedding the inhibitions and self-judgements that have haunted me since I was a teenager.
   Today, Ms. Williams... tomorrow: LADY GAGA!

The Pope is Dope....

    I'm not Catholic and I'm never going to be Catholic. I've sung at Catholic weddings... in all honesty just so that I can go to the Catholic wedding receptions. I've been to a couple of masses and I always sat when I should have stood and vice-versa. Truth be told, I once counted it as my cardio for the day. Pathetic.
   I don't understand them, at all. I taught trumpet at a Catholic seminary in college and I was always a little spooked by how quiet the halls were, a little intimidated by the reverence paid to everything, a little freaked out by all of the statues and paintings and the whole "Dead Poet's Society" vibe. And I never really got the Pope thing. Oh, I understand the history and politics behind it, but in a day and age where royalty is granted to pop singers and moody movie stars, I guess I just kind of found it antiquated... Until today.
   There was no tweeting from the conclave. Social media had nothing to do with it. Neither did popular vote, polling or pontificating pundits. In fact, the Catholic church communicated using smoke signals... literally. There was no campaigning, no persuasion, no money changing hands and no empty promises. There was smoke, but it was not being blown to block out the truth; it was being blown to notify the world that there was a new pope.
   And he didn't step out to meet the people, meet the world after a fanfare. He wasn't garbed in gold or draped in finery. He spoke his first words, and that's truly when I started watching this man who seemed to be draped instead in humility. I knew that I was seeing something incredible when he asked for people to pray for him before he offered his first blessing. My breath caught in my throat... I was stunned... his smile was welcoming and genuine as he did something that people don't do anymore: admitted his weakness.
   Everything about him spoke of being a servant. I realized a very important thing watching him. There is an epic difference between being a servant and acting servile. This man is a servant in a world full of masters. Yet he seems to have more power than any of us, a man who could stand in front of the whole world and smile a lazy, gentle smile without a hint of egoism or self-involvement. I like him and I like what I perceive that he stands for, something that we don't talk about or teach our children about anymore: he is the epitome of humility.
   He is the embodiment of giving the benefit of the doubt, holding your tongue, using restraint. He is the portrait of being willing to sacrifice your wants and needs and desires for another person. He is not concerned with what he gets, how he looks, how people feel about him or how others perceive him. We don't value those things anymore. I know that we don't... because I teach our children and there are very few of them who know how to do any of those things; there are even fewer who do it.  I'm guilty of it... but I am going to try to stop.
   Because how many of us could greet a world that loves us before they know us without allowing our hearts and heads to swell a little bit? Had that been me standing on the balcony at Vatican City, I would have totally done a crowd surf. But he is a man who, when he became bishop of Argentina refused to live in the mansion, refused the limo drivers, rode the bus to work and found a small apartment. Who does that?
   I'll tell you who does that; someone who GETS it. Someone who understands that the actions of one affect the happiness of many. Someone who understands that talent is a gift not to the one who possesses it, but to the world. Someone who doesn't need an entourage to confirm their every menial decision because they would rather speak quietly to a heavenly father. Someone who doesn't need flames and pyrotechnics and legions of dancers to impress people but need only speak from their heart and jaws and pretensions drop. Pope Francis seems to be that kind of man. Listening to his voice is like listening to music; his eyes are kind and warm. He seems to be open and at the same time he is firm about his beliefs and feelings.
   But it all comes back to his humility, his humbleness. What a precious treasure he will be to his faith and to the world. If only we can ever, ever look past ourselves and see him...

It Should Have Always Been Like This...

     You can write them off if you want to... sometimes they make it incredibly easy. Teenagers of today pose an interesting challenge to those of us who are called upon to spend a good deal of time with them. We get to see, first hand, the handiwork of our generation: we have spoiled them, coddled them, made them feel that they are entitled... they are supremely easy to complain about.
     But then there was the incident at the beginning of February. I watched approximately 700 of these young people heartily and sincerely cheer on the athletic endeavors of two very special athletes... two Special Olympic athletes that attend Mexico High School. The students gathered in the gym, busted out signs praising the two athletes, cheered them on and the whole time I swallowed back these huge, painful tears.
     Today, as I hovered and hid backstage watching our students perform a play called The Jellybean Conspiracy, I couldn't hold back the tears... they came. The members of the readers theatre, along with some of our Special Education students performed the piece at district competition. The entire Student Council, probably 30 students, surprised them by showing up to support them. They all wore jellybean conspiracy t-shirts; they high-fived them and fist-pounded them all as they entered the backstage door to take the floor to compete.
    I snuck in after the students had taken their places on the stage and watched from the side as they read the raw, forceful, painful and touching truth: words hurt, some actions are never forgotten, the things we say to hurt others only show our ignorance. I listened to their reading, some slow and pained, some clear as a bell and I wept because I couldn't think of any way to explain to those kids what it meant that they would perform something like that. Most people my age grew up in a very different time.
   Back then, it wasn't about acceptance. It wasn't about understanding. There were very few people who understood or accepted, or even tried for that matter. I know because I witnessed it first hand. My brother was a different-colored jellybean... I remember my mother spending an entire summer worrying before he went to junior high, her strained sobs from the bedroom when she thought we were out of earshot. I knew what she was crying for; she was scared. And while my brother's junior high and high school years were not as bad as some, they were difficult. He was fortunate enough to have a handful of amazing young men and women who were jellybeans ahead of their time, so to speak.
   But for me, it was hard to hear all of that acceptance that came way too late for my brother, to be reminded that I needed to forgive.
   I went back to my classroom and floated through the next hour, thinking on the words I had heard as I hid behind that curtain. When my fourth hour class came in, they were chattering about how good the readers had done, how it had affected them. And so I started crying... and through my blubbering I explained it to them.
   "I want you guys to know how much it means to me that you are so accepting of those who are different. My brother is autistic and mentally retarded. He should have been able to be surrounded by people like you. It should have always been like this. And I want you to know how much I admire and appreciate each and everyone of you for treating them with the same dignity and respect that you would anyone else. And I hope you never have to be put in a position to understand how much it means to be able to say that to a group of people who have been on the planet a third of the years that you have."
   To the cast, the differently-abled but equally stellar cast of The Jellybean Conspiracy, thank you for reminding me that the most beautiful thing about people is their capacity for growth and change. Thank you for your voices, thank you for your dedication, thank you for finally giving me not only the permission, but the ability to move past anger and confusion and bitterness that has been wrapped around my heart like so much barbed wire. Thank you for letting me be a jellybean; thank you for letting me be a silent, changed player in your conspiracy of acceptance. You changed me today. I am in awe of you always.

Being True to More

     Yesterday I was going through an old box of memories. It was late and I couldn't sleep. There was no distraction blinking or bright enough to hypnotize my mind and trick it into sleep. I remembered the box with the books in it. It didn't take long to find the familiar, faded green fabric cover of the book that I used all through college to write down pieces of brilliance that I would come across. I found them in plays I was reading for theatre work, in books I was reading for my literature classes, in the Bible, things my friends would say that were particularly shiny.
    I thumbed through it, inhaling the smell of age that lands on pages after years of sitting next to other pages in books that sit cover to cover in boxes that wait to be reopened and resuscitated after years of well-deserved rest. I landed on a page that I supposed I needed to see. A quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, an homage to the professor who taught me how to love the language that seems so far above me with its misplaced adverbs and adjectives and antique formality, had been scribbled at the bottom of a page filled haphazardly with U2 lyrics. "To thine own self be true..." spoken by Polonious to Laertes, I can see my professor's eyes light up, his hand rise up in point to the heavens as if he had just been inspired to teach us this ancient piece of literature, as excited as if it was his own. I remember the way that he looked at us. It wasn't a creed, it wasn't prose or poetry, it was a challenge. I abandoned my book and wandered back to bed, drifting off to sleep
     It was the first thing I thought about this morning when I woke up. I looked in the mirror at the self that I owned and I realized something. I wasn't particularly interested in being true to myself. And if it wouldn't have been so weird I would have called my professor to let him know that twenty years give or take later, I get it. The impossible selfishness of being true to thine own self.
     Shakespeare wrote it, so it must be brilliant... and the preponderance of the idea that being true to yourself is the way to make it through life looks great painted on barnwood and plastered on Pinterest. We YOLO and Carpe Diem ourselves into thinking that living and seizing the day is living full of truth. I don't know that I believe that anymore.
     I want to hold myself to a higher standard than myself, quite frankly. Knowing what I am capable of, it would probably be a good idea. You're looking at a girl who has hot glued the hem of her pants out of laziness and has become so unphased by dirty laundry that she will give any piece of clothing in the house the "sniff" test. I no longer need a spoon to eat a pudding cup and the five-second rule has been extended due a back injury to the 10 to 15-second rule. Being true to myself, I am afraid, would be diving headfirst into the pool of mediocrity wearing lead panties. I want to be true to more.
     I want to be true to the outdated ideas of manners and common courtesy. I want to be true to the things that my mother taught me were important, barring the whole "dusting the top of the refrigerator every other day" idea... I want to be true to the expectations of my profession, notice I did not say "my job." I believe that the profession of teaching is steeped in dignity and respect, in knowledge and in curiosity; I believe that the "job" of teaching has become political and frightening. But in that same vein, I want to be true to the expectations that my students and their parents have for me. I want to be wise, I want to be seasoned, I want to be without error. Unfortunately, I am precluded from being all of those things because I am human. I was born of missteps and miscalculations, I came from another human being. But still, I owe it to myself to be true to more than myself.
    Being true to thine own self makes for a selfish nature. It makes you believe that you are free from error, not responsible for the way you make others feel, not responsible for your own actions, not responsible period. Being true to thine own self means making excuses for your selfishness and worse than that, believing your own excuses, buying into them, and allowing them to make you reckless. Don't get me wrong. I believe in a certain amount of reckless and wild; but being reckless and extravagant with other people's hearts and feelings under the guise of "exploring" or "learning" is selfish, it's cruel, it's happened to me and I'm sure it has happened to you. And when it happens, when you are on the other end of the YOLO-yelling free spirit who holds your heart in their caution-free hands, when you are the one that gets thrown to the end, you realize that being true to your own self means disregard for others.
    So, Shakespeare, I'm calling you out. I say that you have influenced generation after generation to be true themselves without bothering to know who they really are. I say that while your words were beautiful and while your talent goes without saying, you were, at the base of your very self, a selfish person who was true to your self at the cost of the hearts of others. I say that I want to be better than Shakespeare; true to more than myself. I want to be true.