mom

Reverse

Posted on by Christine

“Jack!”

It was early morning, and my bedroom was next to the kitchen. I’m not sure how the floor plan of the house was determined, but I was residing in what had been the nursery, and while the other five kids had to share rooms, I had my own space.

My two sisters were stuffed in a back room, and my three brothers were stacked military-style with bunk beds.

As each child arrived, there was shuffling that had to take place. Since I was the last, I landed and got to stay where I was. I had my own closet, dresser, and room for a desk. Compared to the rest of them, I was living the dream.

If I was upset or sick, I closed my doors and spent time alone. I wasn’t simulating dorm life, so right from the start, I was given a different perspective.

From the outside, it looked inviting, but at times I was a bit jealous that they had people to talk to. Being alone was isolating, and at night, when I had nightmares, which I did every time I fell asleep, I woke up in a dark room with no one to help me chase away the fear.

Not to mention the noise.

My mom was up every day to start breakfast at 5:30. On one side of me was the kitchen, and the other was the bathroom. Between the two, I was bound to wake up to a flushing toilet or the clatter of silverware. Usually, it wasn’t the sound of her screaming.

I heard him swear, and the back door flung open with such force it bounced off the wall, nearly off the hinges.

That did it for me. My self-perseveration skills kicked in. There was no way I would be a victim without trying to escape.

I got out of bed and ran into the kitchen, expecting to see her, but she had vanished. The heavy fragrance of coffee hung in the air. I wasn’t dreaming, and the evidence was in front of me. There were used juice glasses and cereal bowls on the table.

I heard a noise from the living room, so I moved on to find out what was happening at 6 a.m. I joined her at the picture window. It’s supposed to bring more natural sunlight into dark places.

We needed all the help we could get.

On this cold winter morning, my dad was in the middle of the street, trying to get his car under control. While I was tucked in my bed, trying to suck up all the peace I could before the onslaught of school began, my dad was in an episode of the Twilight Zone.

He had started his car to warm it up before the drive. Until I was in my first snowstorm behind the wheel, I never realized his seasonal plight of getting to and from work. I usually was asleep when he left.

To be sure it ran right, he had a routine. When the last bite of his cereal was gone, he would go out and raise the garage door by hand. The electric opener was available, but they liked the old-fashioned, difficult way to preserve their history of pilgrim times.

Back in the house, he would get his coat, secure his lunch bag and kiss my mom goodbye. Once in a while, I heard this when I rolled over into a deeper REM state.

“Goodbye, dear,” she would say. He would murmur something back, indicating his mind was still asleep.

I could not figure out what had disrupted their morning schedule that was as sure as a national holiday on the calendar.

I looked at her, watching him corraling the car. When her brows came together, it was an unspoken signal that something serious had happened.

Why was the car in the street? And why was he trying to open it, but it was locked?

Before I could ask, he dashed to the front door, which they always kept locked. His frantic knocking didn’t phase her.

She took her time opening it. One lock, then the other, and looked at him like he was there to sell her a vacuum cleaner.

“I need the extra set of keys!”

This was another clue. Commanding my mother was not how it went. Usually, she told him what to do, and he never questioned it. She didn’t do well with snappy communication unless he was in an emergency.

“Where are they?”

“Aren’t they in your purse?”

“I don’t know, John.”

His formal name. Another red flag the tension was high.

When in the middle of a problem, it always seemed like they had another issue surface that added another layer, like a jello salad.

She noticed he was gripping his hand.

“What is wrong?”

“Get the keys, Jean!”

The car was running on fumes, and he had one eye on her and the other on traffic. The road that ran in front of their house was always busy, so he had many concerns.

I still had no idea why they were in this mess.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Her attention was entirely on a potential injury, and she had left the nursing profession behind to be at home full-time.

“Jean! Get me the keys!”

“Are you bleeding?”

“I need the damn keys! Yes! I’m bleeding! Get me the keys!”

The change in her body language went from concerned to offended the minute he used foul language.

“Don’t speak to me like that!”

She was not making any effort to get what he was asking.

“I have to get the car out of the street! Please get me the extra set of keys! The car is locked!”

Now that his tone was more cordial to her liking, she hurried off to their bedroom.

I stayed out of the way. There was no way I was getting into the line of fire.

She put them in his hand forcefully, still showing irritation that he had spoken so coarsely. Her trip and back through the house had given her a few seconds to replay the scene. She didn’t like it when he sunk to a low level of speaking obscenities, especially around me.

She returned to the window as he unlocked it and got into the car.

When he pulled into the driveway, she said,

“Dad’s car drove itself out of the garage.”

Before I could ask why, he was back, hurrying to get what was needed.

“John, let me see your hand.”

“I have to go.”

“I need to take a look at your hand.”

“I’m fine. It’s not that bad. I cut it, trying to grab the door handle on the car.”

Another piece to the puzzle.

She said nothing else, but this was when the magic always happened. Against his will, he presented his wound so she could assess the damage.

“I have to go!” He said like an impatient toddler.

She turned it side to side, running her fingers along it to see if it needed a stitch or two.

It was hard to believe this man had served as a sergeant in the military, blowing up mortars to practice taking out an enemy, but she could turn him into a docile human being without saying one word.

He was the seventh child in the family. That’s awful to say about an adult, but it was how the roles were. She was contemplating if he needed a bandaid or not. She didn’t like to waste them if the skin wasn’t broken.

The cost of a box of bandages over a flesh-eating bacteria was at stake.

He had his limits, though.

“I’m leaving!” He got free of her and zoomed out.

No affection at the door.

She stood at the sink and watched him leave through the small window.

I heard him hit the gas and race away like a madman. He was trying to beat the clock.

“You can go back to bed, Chris.”

What?! Go back to bed! I was wide awake and had just watched two episodes of a soap opera take place in front of me.

“Why was the car in the street? What happened to dad’s hand?”

I wanted answers. I had given up my rest free of bad dreams to watch a display of marital dysfunction.

She started laughing so hard she couldn’t talk. As time went along with them, I realized that after the crisis had passed, she thought his poor luck was the best comedy she had ever seen.

I waited, more confused than ever. It was a school day, and I was out of my unconscious state, wasting precious time over something that made absolutely no sense.

“Your dad’s car slipped into reverse and backed down the driveway.”

Now that she heard herself say it, the hysteria took over. She hung on to the counter to keep herself from falling over.

I looked out the window at the neighbor’s driveway that had cars parked in it.

“He came over here to wash his hands after he ate, and he saw his car go by. He was worried it would crash into the ones parked across the street.”

In haste, he had chosen door number one instead of going out the front, which would have been the sensible thing. Going in the opposite direction of where the car was headed wasn’t to his advantage. With the motion, the door locks had activated.

His luck had run out.

He had been electrocuted and brought back to life, broke his back on a sled, and been shot at. His car was about to be the ruin of him. Would his insurance cover multiple car crashes without anyone driving?

With angels on his side, he had to stand by, unable to do anything. Miraculously, it took a slight turn and came to an abrupt halt.

The curb had saved the day.

My alarm went off.

“Get dressed for school, Chris,” she said, back to normal.

As everyone left the house to start their lives, I was suddenly the only one living with them. Now that there were fewer mouths to feed and options for me to inhabit, it was a matter of relocating me.

They converted my room into a formal dining room, and I was transferred to the basement where my three brothers had been living like inmates.

I didn’t mind the move because it gave me more privacy and my own bathroom. I didn’t have to share anymore, so I could come and go as I pleased. But, the limited shower rule was still in effect.

My dad didn’t want our hair clogging up the drain, so we could rinse off but had to use the stationary tub next to the washing machine. He feared we would all shed and clog up the drain, forcing him to fix it.

Liquid plumber products existed, but his theory was these would “hurt the pipes,” so none of us could risk it due to his apprehension.

It was unpleasant to come out of a hot shower shivering to get clean hair, so it was wise to do that first.

When I was little, I had to stand on a stool with my body bent over the sink while she sprayed water on my head. It was rare to be asked if the water temperature was too hot or cold. She decided, and usually, scorching was her setting.

Germs were her thing, and kids didn’t realize how to kill them.

I endured the hair washing ceremony, often freezing, while she scrubbed and pretended she was a beautician, using the cheapest shampoo and conditioners. It wasn’t about healthy hair but something that stripped out the natural oils and smelled like strawberries.

With my new room, I uncovered an unbelievable family secret.

I was in bed with the bifold doors open, barely awake. The flimsy doors would not have kept out any light or noise even if they had been shut. They were designed for a small closet, not an entry.

It was Saturday, so I didn’t have to rush out anywhere. It was dark, but I heard my dad go into the shower. A few minutes later, he stood by a heat vent near the furnace, drying his hair.

In my haze, I wondered how he had gotten his hair washed in the dark laundry room. I hadn’t heard the familiar loud squeak of the faucets. There was no way I would have slept through that.

The whispering started, so I turned over to see him better.

I thought he would notice me, but he was so far gone in his thoughts and self-talk, he was not in the present moment.

I could make out only a few words, but it was a rehashing of conversations he had from a different day as if he were going over his statements to be sure he had said them right. Then, it switched to what he would say if it happened again.

I made a slight noise, but he was so engrossed mentally with his stream of consciousness he didn’t hear me. It sounded like static from a tv caught between channels. He was working something out in his mind, exercising his mental capacities.

He told me he had read The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale and his other book, Stay Alive All Your Life. In both, the author heavily encourages his readers to visualize and rehearse scenes to help relieve anxiety. Maybe that’s what he was doing. This was way before I began to read self-help books.

I was trying to comprehend why someone would stand so long whisper talking.

Wait a minute! His hair was wet!

Suddenly I didn’t care about the conversation he was having with himself or a dead relative. He took a shower and washed his hair against the rule he had imposed on all of us. He was bypassing all those frigid hair-washing sessions to stay nice and warm.

I rapidly sat up, and he saw me.

Cut off mid-sentence, he cleared his throat and pretended to hum.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He was not getting off that easy.

“I’m drying my hair,” he said calmly to throw me.

“Oh.”

We knew. We both knew I had caught him red-handed.

On my next trip into the shower, I suds up and never looked back. I made sure to wipe down the walls with my towels.

The next time my mom cleaned it, she found a strand of my long brown hair.

“Chris, did you wash your hair in here?”

Following the advice of Norman, I conjured up an image of my dad drying his illegal wet hair by the furnace.

“Yes, I did.”

There was a breach in the allegiance, and I wouldn’t let it get past me.

“Dad doesn’t want anyone doing that.”

I wondered if she believed this or if he lied to her. I took my chances and decided that honesty was my best option.

“Well, I saw dad drying his hair after he got out of the shower last Saturday. He was by the vent drying it and talking to himself.”

She took a minute. Which one should she address?

The next card she played was always a good one but slightly overused. When all was falling apart, she asked a question. A tactical move that served her well for years.

“He washed his hair in the shower?”

It wasn’t that she was telling a lie outright, but pretending to reflect what I had stated.

“Yes.”

She knew she had nowhere to go.

It wasn’t ever spoken about again, and I took that as a green light.

After his runaway car situation, there was a heightened sense of awareness when leaving it running unattended. Due to a bad experience, he didn’t fully trust it wouldn’t go rolling by starting the horror all over. Every time he washed his hands at the kitchen sink, he saw the image of it.

After some time passed, and it didn’t happen again, he didn’t give it another thought. He returned to his usual non-thinking mode in the morning before work.

As for the shower, his worries never materialized.

It’s good to look back to where you have been to see if you still have something operating in your present that is blocking your good from coming to you.

It can silently be at work below the surface, but it shows up through your behavior.

There are a lot of people who say, “The past is over! Forget it!”

I agree we shouldn’t dwell there, but sometimes you have to take a glance to figure out why your life is running the course it’s on.

To go forward healed and to promote excellent spiritual and mental health, sometimes you have to throw it in reverse.

Measure

Posted on by Christine

I was washing dishes the other day, and I looked down at a large spoon in the sink. An unpleasant memory floated in.

I heard the gagging coming from the bathroom. I was hidden away but not far enough.

My mom was in a hurry, trying to get a meal thrown together. This was the height of having teens with multiple schedules and carting them all over town. I waited until I was dragged to the car, trying not to be in the way.

My brother Bob was first at the table because he had a meeting to attend, so he ate ahead of the rest of us.

I have heard that she was a great cook, but by the time I entered the family, she was opening cans, heating TV dinners, and had gone the way of convenience because it was easier. Good nutrition had been tossed aside, but no one went hungry. We ate our fill of synthetic substances and washed it down with whole milk.

One of the worst meals I had to get through was creamed chicken. A slab of white bread toasted to near burnt was then covered over with a sloppy mess of cream of mushroom soup and canned chicken. This was one of the higher end offerings that cost under $1 per plate. On the side, she dished out canned beets, the ultimate in disgusting. I learned early not to fight the system. You had to navigate around it.

I would strategically chew what I could with my teeth barely coming together and then take a huge sip of milk. Gulp and swallow on repeat.

“Can I have more milk?” This was usually microseconds of sitting down. I would hand her my glass for a refill.

One evening, I asked, and much to my horror, she denied my request.

“No, Chris. You are drinking way too much milk.”

I looked at what I had to handle without any liquid. It was rough, and from then on, I took smaller sips and never asked for a second cup.

You would think that when pizza was on the menu, I would have been thrilled. They managed to ruin that too. Two tiny frozen discs were put in the oven to feed eight people. To add bulk, canned mushrooms, black olives, and onions were smothered on.

Instead of adding shredded mozzarella like normal people, cheese squares were slapped on after they were unwrapped from their plastic packages.

I opted for a sandwich on those special occasions and refused to eat pizza until I realized it wasn’t a garbage pile like they had created.

So to hear someone gagging in the bathroom wasn’t surprising. It was going to happen sooner or later with the atrocities coming out of that kitchen.

There was yelling too.

“Bob! Hold still! Let me do this!”

More choking. If she was killing him, I wanted to witness it. By then, he and I weren’t on the greatest of terms as brother and sister, so to see him go down was worth taking a peek.

I rounded the corner into the laundry room. Things get slightly fuzzy, but I recall a large kitchen spoon shoved down his throat.

“Gag me with a spoon” wasn’t said until the 80s, so my mom was ahead of her time in the 70s.

My presence must have been noticed because the door suddenly shut, so I only got the audio version.

It reminded me of a situation I had been in not long before. I had an outbreak of canker sores that took over every square inch of my mouth. No one considered this a physical manifestation of stress.

A prescription was ordered, and all of them ascended on me. Where I stood watching my brother being assaulted with a serving utensil was where they all held me down. My arms and legs were immobile as someone else put a vice grip on my head. Her job was to pry my mouth open and squirt a paste that tasted like tin onto my tongue and gums.

Once I knew I was trapped against my will, I screamed. This made it easier for her to spray the obnoxious cream that would heal me.

It cleared up the issue, but I was scarred. I recall being afraid after that because I couldn’t trust anyone. Who knew when they would all snap again and pin me down?

From my five-year-old perception, I was under attack, and no one explained the process. Afterward, they left with no comfort or reassurance while I continued screaming. Now, she had set her sites on my brother, who was not cooperating.

My brother Jim saw me there and tried to explain.

“He ate some spoiled food.”

All the commotion was over a can of vegetables that had gone bad, with the fear of botulism setting in. I found out later that my other brother, a Boy Scout on his way up the ladder to Eagle Scout, had gotten out his manual to mix up a remedy to induce vomiting. When someone is out in the woods ingesting tree bark and wild, unknown grasses, they must be ready to hurl it out of the body.

With his magic spell book in hand, he grabbed a raw egg, milk of magnesia, and a host of other ingredients to cook up something that would save his sibling’s life. I think he added a dash of black pepper to make it more palatable.

The poisoned victim drank it like Happy Hour, and no throwing up resulted. My mom took matters into her hands and decided to force the issue. She plucked the largest metal spoon from the drawer and hoped to use his gag reflex as leverage.

I was ushered away from the scene because I have no recollection of what happened, but he lived to see another day to torment me more.

What my mother feared happening was rare and unlikely. After he had devoured his food and left, she detected a foul odor from the vegetables in a pot. Retrieving the aluminum can, she saw it had a dent, which made her panic.

She had read about the unsafe canning practices at the time, and if one was not fully sealed, this could allow in deadly bacteria.

Not on her watch.

To ensure he lived to a ripe old age, she jammed a utensil into his esophagus. We had emergency rooms back then, but she was on a schedule. There were two other people to drive to their activities, so her method seemed the better option.

For her.

It was one of those landmark moments in our family where I often heard it said: do you remember when Bob ate that rotten can of beans?

No one wanted to think of it as she assembled our plates. Our life was in her hands.

Being in a large family on a tight budget, she controlled our portions. In other families I visited, the entire meal would be on the table and was passed around to each member to take what they desired. In some homes, everyone fended for themselves. Her dishing it up meant we had to conform to what she thought was best. And there better not be any complaints because she was exhausted from opening all those cans.

She put on a good front, not showing her worry regarding the lack of money. One time she said to me,

“Chris, I think it’s an adventure to see how God will provide.”

She seemed like a woman with great faith, but her actions said otherwise. She wasn’t a giver, and she viewed money as evil. Somewhere along the way, she saw it as an idol that could take God’s place, and her viewpoint caused great suffering for all of us.

She decided to play God by controlling every bite taken and all the details of the house. It was a false sense of reality we all had to abide by. After a while, that way of living starts to seem real.

Like the gigantic spoon, she shoved down my brother’s throat, she forced her will on our lives and blotted out God’s. There were better alternatives for her to take, but she decided what was best.

This mindset spilled over into many areas beyond providing food.

We were all told what to do and how to do it. There was no room for independent thinking even though many times she said to me,

“I have raised all of my children to be independent.”

I’m not sure what the badge of honor was, but when you examine the statement closer, you see the flaws in that thinking. While it’s important to be your true self, it’s also valuable to let others into your life that bring support and love.

She believed her actions were done in the best interests of all, but the outcome was fractured individuals who had no sense of security and unable to make decisions that were for their highest good.

Thrown on top of the control was perfectionism, which added to the constraint of having no freedom. While many kids were happy to be out of school and rest in the comfort of their homes, this was not the way it was. There was always some task to perform or rule to meet.

If you stayed in bed too long on the weekend, you were deemed lazy. If you stayed up too late at night, you “weren’t getting proper rest.” It wasn’t a situation you could ever win, and it wasn’t until many years later that I began to see how much her idea of life was flawed.

She never allowed anyone to be themselves. We were to be replicas of who she was. And when it came time to be on my own, I had trouble making decisions.

I was worried about making the wrong ones due to all the years of having to meet her lofty expectations. On the other hand, I was intelligent and considered myself competent. There was a constant war inside of me where I was trying to please others while sacrificing myself. This way of operating leaves no room for balance.

The dangerous part of living this way is you’re never at peace. If you do this for a long time, you become accustomed to the inner turmoil and don’t see you need to break it off yourself.

Until your world completely unravels, and you have no other choice but to ask yourself what is causing certain patterns to continue that revolve around your low self-esteem. Why are you masking the truth and faking it?

That’s when compassion shows up.

I see situations differently than I did before and this branches into more revelations. It’s not a suffocating confrontation that leaves no room to breathe. There might be regrets or unhappy feelings momentarily, but I know I will be a better person once I get past it.

It’s when you have taken in a spiritual toxin and are unaware God will move in and remove it, so you no longer are endangered. That’s how true love works. It doesn’t come at you threateningly, holding you down while you struggle, demanding its way.

A different approach is taken where grace is given in small doses, allowing you to heal and adjust to each measure.

She gave new meaning to being “spoon fed”

Plain

Posted on by Christine

We should have gone to bed, but for some reason, we were awake watching a home shopping channel. I find it fascinating how salespeople rope you in with their description of color. Tomato garden, stargazer blue, dandelion fields, and watermelon rind can be yours in a convenient pack of plastic containers with lids that get lost in a sea of mismatched covers. You will ask yourself later,

“Where did I put the peach margarita? I thought I saw it in here yesterday.” You shuffle pieces and parts around, looking for the orange one, but settle on another after profuse sweating.

Exaggeration while presenting products to generate want and need is the key to a healthy flow of income. Announcing what we already know isn’t enticing. We have to throw a new name on it, usually with something that appeals to the senses, like a tropical island or a favorite food.

What would you rather buy: a plain red pair of underwear or a super slim bikini-ready panty?

Even though we all know it’s a tourist trap in your living room, we cannot find the strength to turn off the tv and leave. We must listen to the exasperated voices, the fantastic way a zipper functions, and the marvelous fringe hanging from a throwback jacket from the 70s.

We were subjected to a woman explaining her blue jean collection. She had them neatly on a rack so the camera could zoom in while she pulled them to the side to show off her handiwork done at a factory by machines. Yet, she took all the credit.

“We wanted to create a line, especially for the older female wanting to feel empowered and the fullness of their feminity.” This was the gateway to more. It started with the soft sell to work on emotions, and when the phones weren’t lighting up, they had to move it up a notch.

“How great,” the host said, in her whispery voice, sounding like this was the first pair of pants she had ever seen.

Then, the material had to be petted like a small animal with the softest fur.

“Now, ladies, can’t you see yourself on a night out rocking these jeans like a teenager all over again?”

I started to fade long before the word ‘rocking’ showed up. I can be visual, so when that word was used, I saw an older woman sitting in a chair, wearing sweatpants and knitting a shawl. When did a musical term become something someone does with clothing?

I was the demographic for this display, as they were advertised for the more mature. They saved the best part for last.

“These are embellished, ladies.”

“What?” said the presenter next to her, acting as if her last shot of whiskey had just kicked in.

For more minutes than humanly possible, they went on a tirade about how there had been a lot of care taken to put special steel inserts up and down the legs. These weren’t your typical choices with rivets adorning them.

That’s when the language took a turn.

“You will feel so sexy in these you won’t ever want to take them off to wash them!”

This caused me to recline back to the fullest extent in my chair and slap my hands over my eyes. The charade was in full swing. They were preying upon the late-night snackers who had insomnia. By the time they received their order, they would have to go up two sizes.

Even then, we kept looking on, waiting to see if there were any more surprises, like a trap door in the back of them. My daughter, unable to take another second of the lies, said,

“The only thing that is embellished is this lady’s speech!”

She wasn’t buying it, probably because she isn’t past thirty. Skinny jeans are normal to her, but to me, they conjure up not eating for at least a week. In my youth, skinny meant no extra fat anywhere, not even on your thumbs. So, for her to take issue with this, it wasn’t just me who saw the facade.

I became curious the other day and searched for the meaning of embellish. It’s a double-edged sword.

Here is the positive side: make (something) more attractive with the addition of decorative details or features.

That seemed to be what the sales professionals aimed for with their post-midnight attention grab.

Here’s the darker side: make (a statement or story) more interesting or entertaining by adding extra details, especially ones that are not true.

There is just the slightest difference between good and evil. My daughter was correct. Would wearing them bring in the height of satisfaction viewers were chasing after? I bet not.

I wanted to know what was said about the opposite of this word. Here is what I found: Disfigure. To spoil the appearance of.

While the items were meant to be a fashion statement that would increase self-esteem, this would not be a long term effect. Anything on the outside, and not from the spirit, is short lived. That’s why the clever, hypnotic subconscious tricks were stated so customers would be reeled in.

I saw how the positive and the negative were not opposites at all. Let’s say someone who dislikes themselves buys these, believing this is the answer to all of their self-hatred. They run for the credit card, place the order, and anticipate feeling better when they slip into them. After a while, the false high fades along with the jeans.

The original intent was to make a purchase to cover up feelings of inferiority, but it will only be healed if the root of the problem is dealt with. Instead of making one discover wholeness, it tears down and disfigures. Something that was to bring a beautiful gain ends up causing pain. The mirror shows the same body, housing the same mindset that holds the worn out thoughts that you are ugly and not of any value. When one looks at themselves, they see distortion, another form of disfigurement.

Isn’t it horrifying to think that when you dress something up to make it more pretty, it can backfire?

For years, I practiced the art of embellishment, and not with clothing items. I did it with my life, covering up the abuse I endured in my marriage. I didn’t tell anyone about the physical, psychological, or emotional turmoil I was living in.

I put on a smile and pretended that all was well. My family and friends may have seen through it; I am not sure, but I was a great actress, taught at a young age how to minimize circumstances and distort reality. I lied so often that I believed my twisting of the truth.

This was not done with malice but to protect my girls and me from more perceived harm. The damage of what I did was extraordinarily serious, causing my spiritual growth to stop as I was so caught up in trying to control the situation with the only tools I had been given in my childhood, modeled by my mom.

If I hurt myself and would go to her, she made me believe it wasn’t that bad. Our house had an unwritten rule that we had to tough it out no matter what, and anything to her dislike was made into something else. I recall having a vivid dream that I broke my leg, and when I showed her, she said,

“Oh, you just cut yourself. That’s not bad at all.”

Dreams tell us what we shove down to avoid. I woke up knowing that I had fractured a bone, but her dismissive attitude was trying to convince me otherwise. This is how I was conditioned to take adverse circumstances and make them disappear.

For years, I felt I could not tell anyone what was happening. I put up blocks, propped us up, and made excuses. I was good at it because it was about self-preservation, but I was stifling the growth in my house, keeping us trapped. I demonstrated to my daughters a worse version of what my mother had done to me.

I see it similar to when a person is building a snowman. You start with a small ball of snow and keep rolling it until you can no longer push it further. Something that once fit into the palm of your hand is now more massive than you, and you cannot move the weight of it anymore.

You start in control, but it gets increasingly out of your control.

It wasn’t until a divorce that I could have stepped into another place that would have set me free from this insidious darkness that had a choke hold on me. But, in the chaos and fear, I defaulted toward what was familiar.

I read a book not long ago that contained research on the brain. When a person deceives long enough, chemicals are released that change the makeup of the organ, causing it to be more challenging to undo the falsehoods. If this person takes a lie detector test, it often comes back as truth because they believe what they are saying, and the body supports it.

When you live in denial since childhood, you aren’t aware of what you are doing. You make decisions without thinking, and it has only been by revelation that I see the damage it has caused me. Living an existence parallel to an authentic life is not what God wants. The word that comes to mind is pretending.

Like characters in a play, we put on our disguises and act our part. Someone else is writing the script, and we are not in a place of authority as we were designed to be. And when you live in such a way, your external world reflects what you give it. Your relationships are fake, people will lie just as much as you are, and you become a shadow of yourself.

This is where you work with God to find your freedom. No matter how frightening it is, you decide to leave the past behind and become who you were put on earth to be, no matter how uncomfortable it gets. The voices of despair and panic scream through your mind that you will not make it, but you fight past it, wanting to create a new life you were always meant to have.

You become honest, and this is where you find yourself, the one that went missing as a child. You understand you can demand that the people around you respect you, disengage from toxic people, and build genuine deep, loving relationships. Anyone who mistreated you in the past is no longer in a close inner circle. You handle it like a drug addict who sets himself free and finds new people to associate with, even if it means moving from one location to another to fully get away from your past.

No one would have said I was a bad person. I went out of my way to be a people pleaser, putting myself last on the list because I disregarded myself and my true feelings. It was a vicious cycle of pretending to be okay when I was hemorrhaging everywhere spiritually.

In Psalm 147:3 it says,
He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. (NLT)

God longs for us to come out of our prisons and live in abundant peace. We can concoct our plans, but His ways are higher and better. Simplicity is what heaven offers. It doesn’t involve ducking and dodging out of the way of harm or making up one story after another to cover up the last one.

And those embellished jeans? They will always be for sale, hoping some unsuspecting buyer will come along and succumb to the slick sales pitch. The emotional manipulation draws in the weak, but the enlightened woman turns her back on what doesn’t honor her value.

Instead, you can cast all that away and put on God’s garment of truth, only seeking the attention of heaven, keeping your dignity intact, and being okay with wearing what some might consider plain.

They are what they are

Comedy

Posted on by Christine

He would swoop in out of nowhere, and the harassment would begin. I was allowed to ride my bike on one street my mother had deemed safe. It was close enough for her to walk to or yell out the back door when I was needed at home.

My friends and I would buzz along, minding our own business, and a police siren would send the alarm that we weren’t alone. My older brother was talented in sound effects, and he made it seem authentic.

I had learned to look over my back, so I could outrun him if I had the chance. He had caught on to my dodging technique and would keep silent until he was right up on me. Easily I should have been able to escape, but he had a partner who would get in front of me while he closed in from behind. Ultimately, I stopped to avoid running into the neighbor kid, his minion.

If he got me in the middle of the road, he would demand I pull over to the curb, like the city officially licensed him to be an officer. Once I complied, he would take out a pad of paper and a pencil to write my ticket. He would purposely stare at the sky, trying to come up with something. He should have flunked every class in school because of inattention, but when it came to this, he was perfect in his penmanship. 

“How fast were you going, do you think?”  He would say in this nasal tone that sounded nothing like him in our house that was two lawns over. 

I had no speedometer on my bike, but I had to go through the motions to get away from him faster.

“I don’t know! 20?”

“20 what? 20 miles per hour? I think that is low. I think you were going way faster than that.”

“50! I was going 50!”

“No. I think it was less than 50.”

It was like playing the higher or lower game on the Price is Right.

“40?!”

He would sigh, put the eraser on his chin, tilt his head and ponder the situation. Meanwhile, my friends were racing by laughing because they thought he was hilarious. 

“You might be right about that. 40 sounds about right,” he would state in slow motion. Like a record being played backward. 

Scribbling down a number, he would then proceed to inspect my vehicle. 

“That back end looks like it’s ready to fall off. When was the last time you had that checked?”

My young mind would go blank trying to answer questions that didn’t make sense. 

I was given a bike used by every kid in the family that my dad had repainted, put on a banana seat, and had multi-colored plastic spoke covers. 

“I don’t know if those are street legal. We might have to take them off.”

On and on he went walking around jotting down infractions that should have warranted my removal from society. 

“Let me go!”I would say after giving him plenty of time to annoy me.

“Are you talking back to a police officer, Chris? I will have to add that. That’s not good.” 

When I thought it would never end, he would tear the sheet off with a grand flair and hand it to me.

“I don’t ever want to see you do that again,” he would say, walking away. I had no idea what he meant. Then, he would focus his attention on my friends.

After witnessing my humiliation, you would think they would want nothing to do with it. It was just the opposite. They could hardly wait their turn because they thought he was humorous. 

From their standpoint, I would have too, but I had to live with him, and it was non-stop entertainment before streaming services were available. Once he set his attention on me, I knew I had to figure out a way to get out of it. Sometimes, it was so bizarre I sat transfixed, trying to comprehend what his brain was doing; he knew this tactic worked to keep me involved longer. 

“Do you see this container?” he said, coming into the living room. 

I was reading a book, nowhere near his domain. I had conditioned myself to ignore his inquiries because this was the starting point of the marathon that was about to take place. 

I made the mistake of looking up. He was holding a plastic margarine tub. Our mom was a survivor of the Great Depression, so anything toxic like that was used for leftovers or a spare set of keys. Whatever she could think of to put in one, it was never thrown away.

I saw him swallow and blink a few times as he said,

“This is all some people will get for Christmas this year.” He cupped it in his hands like it was valuable.

“What?” I said, breaking my code of silence. That is all it took to get the party started. 

“Some people, Chris, will only get this under their tree.”

That’s when I saw the tears form in his eyes. I blame him for my forehead wrinkles that began in my pre-teens. 

“Isn’t it so…” he cleared his throat and let the drips fall. “Isn’t it awful? Someone will get this as a gift this year, and that’s going to be it.”  He broke into a complete bawling session worthy of a funeral. The Academy Awards had missed their opportunity for best actor. 

His skills didn’t stop with sorrow. 

“Let’s fight in slow motion,” he suggested one time.

“What is that?”

“We throw punches at each other, but you don’t really hit the other person. You go slow, so no one gets hurt.” 

That sounded like a fantastic idea to me. I could take swings and get out my frustration without injuring either of us. 

In the basement, far from where my mom could see, we began to go around in a circle, with fists raised and jabbing toward one another. It was all going along as planned until I moved in the direction of one his fists striking me right on my nose. I dropped my arms and looked into his frightened eyes. The blood began to pour out of a nostril. 

I didn’t realize he was capable of moving so fast. He did everything at half the pace of the rest of the world. 

“Get into my room!” he demanded as I saw the bright red blood on my palm, signaling the wail he knew was about to erupt. 

He pushed me onto his bunk bed and ran into the bathroom to get a tissue. I got up to find my mom, a registered nurse, but he blocked me before I could. 

“Sit down! Put this up your nose!”  He was whisper yelling. “Shh! Be quiet!”

Had I known the punishment he would have received, I would have screamed at the top of my lungs, but he looked so scared that I followed his orders. 

“See? You’re fine. It’s stopping.” 

I sniffed a few times and tasted the blood go down the back of my throat.

“Pinch your nose. That will help.”  He had suddenly gotten his medical license. He ran back into the bathroom and brought another wad of toilet paper. Moving quickly wasn’t usual, so I knew he was terrified. I heard him flush the evidence on one of his trips there and back.

Eventually, the bleeding stopped, and he was out of the woods. 

It was one of only a handful of times that he and I started laughing about how stupid we looked. 

His most outstanding performance came in the summer.

A group of girls were at our house, fangirling over him. He was born with the ability to drum, and like Ringo from the Beatles, the same peers who thought he was amazing as a police officer ranked him highly as an international musician. 

“Do you want to try?” he asked one of them, handing over his sticks. Barely able to keep her knees from buckling, she walked up to him, and he gave her tips on how to play. One by one, they were warmly welcomed to his set.

I knew what was coming as I observed.

“Chris should play,” one of them said.

“I am out of time for today, but maybe next time.”

He shot me a shark teeth grin because he never let me near his drumset. It was covered with a cloth when he wasn’t playing, and if he ever caught me near it, I knew I would be in trouble. Whatever that meant, I didn’t want to find out.

After the drum lesson, he decided it would be fun to scare all of us. 

For some reason, his performance in horror was also one of his strong points. I would be watching tv, and he would enter the room and stand in front of me to block my view, giving a long-winded speech about nonsense. In the middle of his talk, he would stop, appear to see something over my head that was terrifying, and begin to play the role.

“Chris! It’s coming! I can’t stop it!” He would lower his voice as if to warn me not to move and upset the unseen monster approaching. 

The first time this happened, I fell for it and whipped my head around, jumping up to protect myself. He walked away, throwing his head back, laughing.   The next time, I steeled myself mentally, trying to ignore his expressions of panic because what if this time he wasn’t faking? What if there was a hideous creature sneaking up to devour me? I reasoned that he wouldn’t care, so why bother moving? 

I caught him off guard once and did it back to him. He never did it again. 

“I am going to build a haunted house,” he announced that day after enthralling them with his drumming. In their eyes, he was the perfect brother. 

He went into a back room where my parents kept a giant freezer. He shut the door while we waited outside, listening to him bang objects around. He taped a note to the door:

Knock Before Entering

A brave girl tapped lightly on the door, and it swung open with a creaking sound accompanying it. He had shut off all the lights. I remember her turning and looking at me for advice. I had been in that room a million times, but with it dark, it appeared to be a new addition. 

She mustered up the courage and went in while the door automatically shut behind her. That sent a wave of fear through the entire group. His engineering skills were better than I thought.

Each took their turn, and as usual, I was last. I followed the instructions, and I was allowed to enter. The sound of a drum reverberated off the walls. The space was small so that I could feel it in my chest. Tucked away underneath the stairs, he was seated, banging on a brown plastic wastebasket. To add to his costume, he had taken a towel off the clotheslines where my mom hung the wash to dry. Wrapped around his head, looking like a swami, he pretended to be a mind reader.

From where I stood, it was low budget with a single light bulb burning.

“Enter,” he said. I was pretty much in.

He made moaning sounds like he was summoning the dead while he struck the wastebasket. Mr. Amazing had not thought about a hot light source melting the plastic container he was beating on, causing it to smoke. Jumping up, he tried to put it out before it became an inferno. His future was looking bleak.

I assumed my role as the runner.

“Mom!” I yelled up the stairs with all my friends watching. “Bob is setting the house on fire!”

I heard the stomping of feet in the kitchen above. I moved away before she ran me over. 

Running into the dark, she was unaware of the ropes he had used to make the door open and shut. Her neck got caught, so she began to claw her way to freedom. The smell of smoke drifted out to where I was with the rest of the audience. 

“Bob! What are you doing?” she screeched, somewhat constricted. Alfred Hitchcock had never directed or produced such a work. It was as if a snake had wrapped itself around her throat.

Unsure how he fixed the problem, it was rare to see him subjected to her wrath, but it was her favorite trash bin with a gaping hole in the bottom. Between coughing from the smoke and the choking of the ropes, she let him have it.

While dealing with him and all of his antics, he taught me that fear is temporary. Just throw a switch, and it can be transformed into laughter. What appeared to be so scary ended up backfiring and became a comedy.

Lessons

Posted on by Christine

When my girls were young, I paid close attention to their interests. With home education, you spend a lot of time in the same space and pick up on where your kid’s curiosity lies. In my experience of going through the public school system, there was little room for free thinking. We were given our work and sat at a desk, slugging our way through material we had little interest in. It was a requirement to get somewhere in life. 

How many apples are in the basket? That one was to help with grocery shopping because we all go to the store with wicker baskets over our arms.   

Count the chickens because we all had them in our backyards roaming free range against city ordinances. 

Circle the letter F. That had nothing to do with curse words. It was simply learning the alphabet so one could identify a fudgesicle from a frankfurter which we always said hot dog, anyway, so what was the point?  

“Class, pass your paper to your neighbor so they can grade it.”

Words of dread because I always sat by someone who seemed to have it in for me. With their fat crayon wedged between their fingers, poised and ready to strike, I kept one eye on my work and one on the sheet in front of me. When I had to mark something wrong, I always felt a wave of guilt.

I see now how this took the pressure off the instructor. They didn’t have to be the bad bearer of news. It was peer against peer, which may be why the aggression at recess happened later. Some child was subjected to a thrashing on their spelling sheet, which built up anger all day. 

Like caged animals, we were given a few short gulps of fresh air, and for somebody who had been wronged, this was the perfect time to act and release those hostile feelings in a way the teacher might not notice. 

I have often wondered why Mary bit me in the arm that day. We were sitting under some trees talking when suddenly, she sunk her teeth into my right bicep. I don’t recall if I checked over her work and she was carrying a grudge, but when I got home and told my mom, she immediately disinfected my entire body, even though it had happened right after lunch, and it was now late afternoon.

Not to speak badly, but her teeth were dirty and some a bit ragged like fangs. My mom knew that the family often struggled with keeping up appearances, like combed hair and a drop of Crest now and again. So her response was to protect her young one from having a medical malady. 

If rabies had settled in, I was past the point of no return by the time she got her hands on me. However, she relished having an emergency on hand that she could stop.  

I made it without a single sniffle or infection, enough so that I had to, unfortunately, return to the classroom the next day. 

I bypassed the public school system’s way of educating and opted to home school before it was popular. I was met with many questions about the well being of my children.

“So she won’t get to ride on the bus?”

This was one of many inquiries I had to answer as if that were a significant milestone. I harkened back mentally to when I had to ride the bus to high school. It wasn’t like a limo picked me up by the end of the driveway. I had to walk three blocks through ice and snow and sometimes run to ensure I got on in time or face the wrath of a mom who didn’t want to drive me.  

My brother, six and a half years older than me, would often follow me in his car and sing obnoxious songs while I tried to ignore him. He never offered to give me a ride but practiced his opera skills, much to my horror. 

At the start of my day, I was subjected to humanity that had no manners, no volume control on their voices, and some forgot all about the personal hygiene habits we learned in health class.

She was missing out on nothing. 

The only drawback about teaching them at home was that I saw every activity as a school experience. I had to learn early on that making a tray of ice cubes didn’t have to turn into a science experiment. It was just ice cubes. 

One day, while I was out in a garden I used to have in the backyard, and both of them were with me, I had a moment of clarity. Most caretakers only get to spend so much time with their kids. It struck me as a blessing while digging around in the dirt and depositing seeds into the soil. My oldest daughter and I discussed a subject from her school work like it was a regular conversation.  

How many times had I crossed the threshold of my parent’s home to be asked:

What did you learn today?  

I wanted to reply, how to hate school, that is what I learned. How to avoid detention, how to sleep with your eyes open, and how not to lash out at the child next to you who was clicking their pen repeatedly. Valuable life skills to be applied if a person was incarcerated at any time. 

But, in my home, speaking about what was being learned was a natural part of our days, and it also gave me insight into what the two of them might want to participate in. I discovered early that the older one preferred something other than contact sports.  

She tried her hand at soccer at one of the home school events. She had the ball all to herself and could have easily taken it down the field for a shot at the goal. But then, out of nowhere, a boy came along to challenge her. She stopped dead in her tracks, looked at him, and said,

“You can have it.”

Competition was not her speed. She took up ice skating and was fantastic. 

The other one I was not so sure. She approached life a little differently, and when I asked, she would always say she didn’t know. 

One day, as I walked through the kitchen, I saw her dancing, similar to a cartoon character she and her sister watched.

I asked her if she liked to dance, and that is when I enrolled her in the first dance studio. She had a natural talent for it, just like her sister did for skating. After her first year, I moved her to a different location that offered more of a modest approach to music and movement.

Because she was coming in a little bit behind the class for her age, she had to dance for the instructor alone. We showed up early one day so she could do so. The woman teaching her was kind and patient as she ran through various moves to see where her strengths and weaknesses were.  

“It’s all about muscle memory,” she said at the end of the session. “You are very good at what I asked you to do, but the connection has to be made between your brain and your body. As you practice each week, you will get better and better.”

By the time the recital came in the spring, she had made so much progress that she moved on to the next level. The teacher’s words proved to be true. The repetition had created a neural pathway between her mind and the physical part of her. She now did a technique that had been uncertain and awkward with precision and ease as if it had never been a challenge.  

When the report cards came out at the end of her second year, she was asked to repeat where she had been so she could improve. It was stated clearly that it was normal for students to take the same level two years in a row, so most girls stayed together throughout the program.  

The other day, she pointed out that I had kept one of her performance skill sheets. I had folded it and put it in a kitchen cupboard. I don’t know why other than it was the year I got divorced, and I kept it as a reminder that I did my best to make things as normal as possible for both of them. 

Because money wasn’t as abundant during that time, I offered to clean the studios on the weekends to help offset her tuition so she could keep dancing as usual.

When I looked at the sheet, I realized how gentle the explanations were where she needed improvement.

She was praised as a good dancer, and pointers were given in specific areas needing improvement. It wasn’t meant to rip her down but to have her aspire to a higher point where she could perform more confidently and pay less attention to each step.

This type of report and how it is worded can either contribute to a person’s life or cause damage, especially to a child.  

Proverbs 18:21 says,

Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose. (Message)

As I read over what was written, I felt a difference in the approach of it versus what I had been subjected to in my youth. I could feel the love radiating from the paper, like the person who filled it out wanted my daughter to succeed and not get stuck thinking that she wasn’t meant to dance. Her carefully chosen words were meant to be received not as harsh criticism but as a mentor offering encouragement. 

That is who God is; as we learn new things, we are given signs and positive thoughts that keep us going. We see the highlights of what we have grasped spiritually and where we have the potential to go. 

I read long ago that God doesn’t need to test us. It’s similar to how I viewed parenting my girls. They didn’t have to prove themselves to me. And, often in our homeschool days, when we did school work, I didn’t make tests the end of the world.  

I wanted them to learn and retain information, not memorize, to pass an exam. A test can take an hour, but real education is acquiring knowledge that can last for the rest of an individual’s life. The goal was to take away valuable skills they could apply daily.

One subject where we often went against nonconventional schooling was math. If a problem was complex and needed to be solved readily, I would get out my teacher’s manual, and we would look at the solution.

That is cheating. No, that is learning.  

If we had the answer, we could go step by step without the pressure and find what we needed by working it out on paper. 

Who said there had to be a rough path to finding the answer? More often than not, when we did it this way, the information was retained so that they could recall how to get the correct answer by the time they got to a test. 

Timed tests, pressure, and a strict approach did not bring about good results, so I taught them in a way that helped them succeed. A relaxed state was the key to outstanding achievement. 

It’s too bad that more of what we are subjected to isn’t fashioned this way because it’s the nature of God that many of us miss. After all, we have been conditioned to perform the world’s way, which is about competition and test taking.

God wants us to use the gifts we have been given to benefit those around us and doesn’t push us toward an invisible finish line where we mentally and physically drain ourselves and others to get there.

When I folded up the paper and put it back in the cupboard where it had been for 15 years, I heard this:

Dancers don’t take tests. They take lessons.

We all could use a little more ‘energy’, couldn’t we?

Super

Posted on by Christine

When my girls were young, I wanted to take them to a resort about four hours from home. We had been there before with people who owned a timeshare, so it was paid for, but I discovered that we could rent a cabin on the property and use the pools scattered throughout. Instead of being cramped in a tiny hotel room for days, this was a nice option to try for. And, near to it, there are various waterparks and activities that the girls loved to do.

The only obstacle standing in my way was my ex-husband, who told me he didn’t want to spend the money on it. We had plenty of money to do this, but he decided he didn’t want to go. In an attempt to throw me off, he said,

“If you somehow come up with the money and rent it, we can go.”

If this was a poker competition, his money was on himself, thinking I was an at-home mom homeschooling two young kids. In other words, I wasn’t smart enough to come up with the funds because I was not employed, and he held onto the purse strings.

I knew God wanted this for my kids, so I decided to have a garage sale.

The night before, while marking everything, he walked through the garage shaking his head like I was the dumbest person he had ever met. I had included another mom who also was interested in making the trip with us. We kept our items separate.

The sale netted us enough money to pay for the needed cabins and everything else the kids wanted to do. So much for being dumb.

The resort had listed all of its amenities on the website, including an indoor pool and hot tubs in case there was inclement weather.

When we got to the location, the “friend” who had done the sale with me walked into the registration building. When we got to the counter, we were informed that the indoor pool was being repaired. An electrical storm had somehow wiped out its functioning, so they had to close it.

“We are giving everyone passes to go to the Howard Johnson’s up the street so you can swim in their indoor pool. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

I didn’t think anything of it because many outdoor pools throughout the property were set around a golf course. The forecast predicted nice weather, so the need for an indoor pool was not heavy on my mind.

But, this woman who I was coming to find out was not the nicest, said,

“You advertised an indoor pool here. And, now you are telling me you don’t have one?”

“Yes. We are sorry, but we had a bad storm that left the electrical part of the pool unsafe, so we are in the process of fixing it. You and your family are welcome to use the Howard Johnson’s pool. This has the code on it so you can access that area.”

He pushed a piece of paper toward her with a number on it. She shoved it back at him.

I was filling out a form regarding our car with our license plate identification on it. I had just glanced out the window and was headed back to the desk when I saw this exchange begin.

“That is not good enough!” she snapped.

Her husband was out in the car, hiding, I assumed. Why I thought it was a good idea to bring her along, I do not know. My people-pleasing habits have taken a while to die.

It had gotten to the point where if I called their home, he would answer the phone with a whisper and go into a hall closet to speak to me because she didn’t want him talking and laughing with me on the phone as friends. Her control freak nature was rearing its ugly head more and more. She wanted me all to herself.

Often, he would speak to me and quickly say he would get her. There was no way he would want to deal with her Godzilla attitude at the front desk.

The employee swallowed down his fear and said,

“I don’t know how else to solve this problem for you.”

“I paid to have an indoor pool!”

The guy’s eyes caught mine, and I was hoping he didn’t think I was like her just because we walked in the door together.

“I know. And, we are really sorry about that…this is why we are sending people to Howard Johnson’s to try and accommodate everyone.”

“I am not a Howard Johnson’s type of person!” she said with a snarl. Ugly comes in many forms, not just in appearance but in attitude.

What? She had told me she had hardly ever been on vacation, so I was confused about where this entitled attitude was coming from.

Out of nowhere came another employee who was not as discreet as the man trying to help.

“He has explained to you our situation. Howard Johnson’s is it, or nothing.”

“That is not good enough!”

“What do you want me to do? Build you a pool, lady?” said the fresh helper.

My traveling companion then went to nuclear.

“I will contact the management here and let them know you did not go out of your way to compensate me for not having an indoor pool!”

With that, she swiped her papers off the counter and stormed out.

Both employees looked at me. Great.

“I apologize for her behavior,” I said. “I do not share her viewpoint.”

I could not say it enough. My two daughters had watched the entire exchange along with the lady’s two kids.

When I went to say goodnight to my two that night, I whispered,

“I am setting my alarm, and we are going to the indoor pool.” I did not say a word to anyone else.

The following day, while the two men went golfing, I quickly got my two in their suits, and we drove to the Howard Johnson’s. They had a great time swimming and using the hot tub. This was before cell phones, so no one could get a hold of us. And no one knew where we were.

I faced the firing squad when I returned.

“We were looking for you! Where did you go?” she asked the minute I stepped out of the car.

“Howard Johnson’s to swim,” I said without blinking. I wanted to see what reaction I would get.

“Oh,” she said. “Why didn’t you ask us to go?”

“Because you made it quite clear yesterday that you were not a Howard Johnson’s type person. You said that to everyone at the front desk.”

I did not hear one more tirade from this woman for the rest of the time we were there. I wasn’t as predictable as she thought I was.

Did she and I remain friends? No.

Her controlling nature became so severe that even my best people-pleasing nature couldn’t cut it anymore. The more I bowed down to her demands, the worse she became to the point where she was verbally abusive toward me. When I refused to continue being her friend, she tried to turn everyone against me. I preserved, and she is long gone in my rearview mirror.

I had convinced myself that God would not be happy with me if I let her go, so I kept myself attached to her. It got to the point, however, where I was either going to please her, lose myself or break free and be genuine. Sometimes you have to be not liked. And unpopular. It’s just the way it goes.

Proverbs 22:24-25 says, Don’t hang out with angry people; don’t keep company with hotheads.
Bad temper is contagious—don’t get infected. (Message)

That’s the risk you take. You can morph into what you consistently keep company with, so choose those who are God’s best.

As a side note, the ex-spouse was rewarded for not generously giving me the money for the vacation. Shortly after we got home, he cleaned his closet. He made a pile of clothes that no longer fit him as he had ‘grown’. This was intended for the garbage. The other, he was going to keep.

As I walked through the living room, he watched the garbage truck pick up and dump the contents of the can with all the sludge.

“I put all the clothes I wanted to keep in the wrong pile! He just dumped everything into the truck! I have no clothes to wear now except for what I have on! I have to go buy all new ones!”

I wanted to say..why don’t you have a garage sale? But I was too afraid back then to say anything like that. I just kept on walking. Silence is golden, and you let the situation speak for itself, like swimming at Howard Johnson’s on your own.

Galatians 6:7 spells it out pretty plainly:

Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. (Message)

There’s another verse in James 4:6 that says:

It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”(Message)

When you walk in humility and do your best to follow God’s way, it may not always be easy, but I have found that you won’t regret how you treat others. You can end each day knowing that you are doing it right, being led through a life that is spiritually super.

(These usually don’t have a pool, just saying..)

Two Realms

Posted on by Christine

“God, show me what is happening,” I said in the stillness of her hospital room.

Everyone had gone home for the day. I had watched her breathe while she slept with little to no movement. It was a miracle that I was even there after a year and a half of separation between myself and them. My parents insisted on remaining in their house when it had long passed being safe.

My tears and words of pleading with them to move into a safer location had been met with cold dismissal. They had made up their minds not to leave, and they didn’t care how this affected the rest of the family.

I had just helped my dad off the ground outside after falling, and that was only one of many times. The stress of it all had caught up with me, so as I begged them to make a change, I was ignored, and when I left, he went back outside to resume what he had been doing on the icy walkway.

When he had to take a driving test, he promised me they would move if he lost his license. After he failed, he continued to drive and refused to keep his word. He swore up and down he wasn’t driving, but after my daughter planted a tracker in his car and it revealed he was out and about, I decided to let go.

I spent a year and a half living five minutes away, wondering when I would get the news that they were in a horrific accident, killing others or themselves. I saw him driving during rush hour on busy roads while he told others he only “took the back roads.” Lie after lie.

I had the unwelcome advice that I needed to mend the fence and go back to being there for them. After all, what kind of person abandons their elderly parents?

Meanwhile, I heard God telling me to stay away.

“I will use you when the time is right.”

I decided to go with God and shut off the push from someone who didn’t get it. These are the moments when you must follow what your spirit tells you, no matter how it may appear to others.

I was working in my yard, removing weeds when I heard the siren. I looked in the direction of their house as I had for the last 18 months. Later, I found out she had been taken back to the hospital.

The week before, she had been admitted but had recovered. I hadn’t felt the pull to end my absence from their lives, but I knew I had to see her this time.

I waited until 11 pm to be sure I could assess the situation without interference from my dad. As my daughter and I entered her room, she moved slightly. She lifted her right hand and moved it across her forehead, mumbling in her sleep like she was trying to tell me what had happened. Then she became quiet again.

I saw my grandma, who had passed on to heaven, standing at the head of her bed. Then an image of my mom was next to her. The only way I can try to describe this is I see images like holograms. Someone entering the room would have only seen me, my daughter, and my mother’s sleeping form.

I began to move my hands in a circular motion. Unknown to me, my daughter began to do the same thing behind me, but I couldn’t see her. I didn’t know why I was doing this, but later I read that when a person does this, it draws in healing power to be passed on to another.

Right as I was going to put my hands on her arm, a nurse walked in.

I dropped my hands down to my sides.

“Has she been sleeping like this since she got here?” I asked.

“Yes.” The reply was sharp and snappy.

I explained why I had arrived so late, not wanting to face my dad quite yet. The response lacked all compassion.

“It’s late. Come back tomorrow.”

I was being told to leave, so we did.

Once in the car, I sat in the parking lot, trying to figure out how I had not been able to pray for her healing. Then it hit me.

She wanted to leave.

“Do you think she doesn’t want to be here anymore?” I asked my daughter, who was just as perplexed by our unplanned quick exit.

“Yes.”

“Did she not want me to pray for her to get better? Is that what just happened?”

“Yes,” she said as we both started crying.

I drove home, knowing this wouldn’t end in a miraculous recovery.

The following day I returned, and I tried to convince myself she would be sitting in bed, back to normal. But she wasn’t.

Instead, my dad sat next to her, wondering what was happening.

I chose not to bring up my departure from their lives.

“If she doesn’t come out of this, are you ready for that?”

“I don’t know why she wouldn’t.”

I listened to a lot of denials.

Tests were run and care administered, but no answers were given as to why she was in this condition.

“An MRI has been ordered, but we have a long list of people needing one, so the results probably won’t be back until later tonight.”

As the hours dragged on and the visitors went home, my daughter and I stayed to hear the result.

She remained asleep, looking as if she were somewhere else. I wondered where. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and mentally said the prayer that would forever change my outlook on everything.

“God, show me what is happening.” It was nearly midnight.

I was standing off to the side of a bridge. I could see my mom facing forward with her mom, my grandma next to her.

“She’s still looking, Chrissy,” my grandma said. “She won’t turn around to look at me.”

I remained silent, watching, knowing that this was the beginning of her walk into heaven.

I opened my eyes as a nurse entered.

“You are still here?” She asked.

“I’m waiting for the results of the MRI.”

“I will send the physician down here before he leaves.”

Moments later, I was in the hallway meeting him.

“We didn’t see anything abnormal. We don’t have an explanation for her condition, and there’s no more we can do to get an explanation.”

The image of her facing the world with eternity behind her flashed through my mind.

By the end of the week, it was determined she would receive hospice care at home. I had written everything down as I would see it and hear it. I would close my eyes to check in, and on day four, the night before she went home to begin hospice, I saw her and my grandma standing in the middle of the bridge, still appearing to look at what I had come to know as the world. They were facing a giant movie screen with the wind blowing through their hair. This is what I wrote:

“The view up here is beautiful. I can see my whole life. I see scenes of myself, both good and bad. My father never loved me, Chris. But my mom, oh, she did. (She and my grandma laugh. I can see her standing behind my mom, hugging her as they watch. I am asked to join them in the middle of the bridge)

“See? Look at that. This is the day you were born. (I could see her in a scene holding an infant) And you had something. You had it in your eyes. You were the last one. I was proud to be a mother of six, even though I wasn’t good at it at times, I tried. I know you will have scenes of pain in your life because of me, but I loved you even if I never said it or showed it. I am sorry for not hugging or kissing you more.”

“It doesn’t matter now, mom.”

“But I see it now. I see it. And I can’t undo it. I can’t go back and change it. I’m not crying, but I see it. I can’t cry here.”

I wrote down each detail and knew she had been shown all 87 years of her life in a movie, like a highlight reel.

Back now to reality, I sat by her hospital bed. She stirred, woke up slightly, and said to my dad,

“Thank you for everything you have ever done for me in this life.”

This confirmed what I had just witnessed in a world not seen by human vision.

Every day I would shut my eyes and see her progress closer and closer to heaven. She had turned her back to the world after her life review and walked holding onto the hand of her mother.

When I returned to the bridge, I was allowed to be in the middle, but an angel stood next to me. He was tall, illuminated by a white light, and as they walked further away, he held up an old-fashioned pair of one-handled binoculars to my eyes.

I knew he was there to hold me back from going with her. I was at a point where I wished I could have. I could have left it all behind to follow her. But I was told:

“Chris, I see your future. It’s great. That angel is making sure you stay put. You are far from this for a while. And when you accomplish your mission for God, you will meet us on this bridge. You already know what it looks like. It will be familiar.”

As hospice went on and her body went through the process of shutting down, I continued to see and hear everything she did. And the day came when I went to the familiar place and only was greeted by the angel.

The water under the bridge was calm, but the brightness was gone. I knew she had completed her walk.

In Jeremiah 33:3 it says:

Call to me, and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. (ESV)

When I asked to be shown, I was brought to a place outside of the existence I usually live in. And since that day when I requested to see what was unseen, I have continued to be able to communicate with those who are leaving and those who have left. The ability has expanded and proven itself to be genuine.

I have met strangers in stores that I deliver messages to from loved ones who have passed. They always end up in tears from the words that seem to tumble out of my mouth beyond my control. I don’t advertise it; it just shows up to comfort and bless those I cross paths with.

After three years, I’m over the critics who would label me as a witch or a fortune teller. I don’t generally have a message for them because they can’t fathom it nor receive it. Some didn’t see Jesus for what he was either, so I’m in good company.

It’s been an adjustment, giving up what I thought I knew when I knew nothing, and it’s been worth it to live in between two realms.

Vision

Posted on by Christine

My parents smoked many cigarettes when the surgeon general wasn’t involved with warning labels.

“We were told it was only dangerous in that it would stunt a person’s growth,” my mom said.

Then the world should be full of short people.

Obviously, this was a myth that kept many citizens puffing away, all the while making their lungs turn black.

“Once we found out that it could cause more health issues, we quit.”

Well, sort of.

My dad traded the death sticks over to smoking a pipe. I remember seeing it hanging out of his mouth while he was sawing something in half, driving a nail into a board, or in the stands watching me play softball.

“I love the smell of that,” many of my friends would say.

While some were impressed by his habit, my mom was not. Usually, she summed it up in one word:

“Ick.”

Part of the reason for her dislike of this was that he would leave pipes all over the house. The basement, outside, or anywhere he felt he was going to need to smoke, he would leave one for later. His dresser was always a mess with a few of them there.

I would often hear him say to her,

“Have you seen my pipe?”

“Which one? You have a million of them.”

He would start looking, unhappily wasting his time when he could be outside doing something else. She would leave for a few seconds, unable to deal with his mumbling during the rescue mission.

“Here. I found one,” she would say, handing him what he had been trying to find.

It took me a while to catch on, but I figured out that she would, in an attempt to keep the clutter down, move all of them into one central location that he wasn’t aware of.

While he would happily leave with it in his possession, thinking she was the best locator of missing items, she knew exactly where they were all along.

Their relationship had small, built-in devices like that, where she got her way without him realizing it.

“When we were first married, he wanted to go sit at a bar with his friends and leave me at home. He did this before we were together, but I wasn’t in favor of that once we got married, and I told him. He refused to listen to me. So one Friday night, I got dressed up and told him I was going out without him.”

I knew he had been extremely protective of her. He had never gotten over witnessing her dance with another guy after he had said no while they were dating. Having her about to leave him in her dust to go off to a shady place on a Friday night set him off into panic mode.

She had been raised in a small town, which made him consider her naive and unable to handle herself in the “real” world. He would always say to me,

“I met her right after she fell off the turnip truck.” Or, “She is a country bumpkin that just fell out of a wagon.”

Then he would laugh while she shook her head. He had no idea how much she actually used all that to her advantage. He believed she was not up to his speed while quietly she got him to do her bidding, believing that it was his own idea. So, who was the turnip?

Seeing her about to leave him brought on a meltdown.

“He would not let me leave. He stood in front of the door, refusing to move. I had made the whole thing up to see what he would do. I never told him I didn’t have plans, but he got so upset by it, he said he wouldn’t leave me sitting at home alone ever again.”

There was a reason why she had done this.

“His friends were wild and not married yet, so I didn’t want him out there acting like them and coming home drunk. I felt this would eventually ruin everything, so that’s why I did it. He would not listen to me, so I thought to myself..I will show you. It worked. He knew what men were like at bars back then, and he couldn’t bear the idea of me being on display. We came to an agreement that we would go places together to guard our marriage at the beginning.”

Her tactic was to get him to see her point of view without saying a word as she was about to walk out the door with no place to go.

She became a full-time mom when all the kids started showing up. This didn’t stop her from educating herself regarding the latest health problems and their causes.

Because I ended up being with her the most as the others grew up and moved out, I was often involved in her findings of what was considered cutting-edge information.

“It says here that steak can harm your arteries.”

She was like a sponge when she read the newspaper, learning as she had extra time with fewer children to deal with.

For some reason, I had no idea that she had discovered that smoking a pipe had been linked to lip, tongue, and cheek cancer. This bothered her so much that she demanded he quit. She couldn’t use her usual technique of getting him to see things her way with a bait and switch approach. He just needed to believe her on this one.

Now we know it to be accurate, but at the time, it wasn’t prevalent knowledge, so it could be easily dismissed as “it won’t ever happen to me.”

One night from work, I came home and parked my car in the garage.

He kept his vehicle outside and gave me his spot—another perk of being born last, way after everyone else.

While my siblings had to leave their cars in the driveway in the heat of summer or blizzards of winter, he moved out so I could move in. I had grandparents at that point.

On that particular night that I pulled in, I heard a loud crunching sound near my front wheel on the driver’s side. I immediately stopped, jumped out, and saw a plastic bag sticking out from my tire.

I backed up with more crunching.

I got out, picked up the bag, and saw that I had crushed his pipes. I had no idea where they had come from. These were on their way to the graveyard with no way to save them. The back and forth over them had murdered them.

I thought nothing of it. I didn’t do it on purpose, and I knew he had more somewhere. I parked and took the bag inside. It was summer with the air running at top speed, and the house was closed up, so she hadn’t heard me come home.

She was in the living room reading. She looked up and said,

“What do you have in your hand?”

I held up the bag.

“I think I ran over some of dad’s pipes.”

Her mouth popped open. I got worried for a minute, thinking she was mad at me. I knew that familiar look where her eyebrows met in the middle, and her eyes looked like they could kill.

“He told me he quit!”

Oh. So I wasn’t in trouble, then? But, there was another storm ready to blow up.

She flew by me, snatched the bag, and stomped out the door.

“John! Where are you?”

Just run! I wanted to send him a message telepathically.

She was taking this outside where the neighbors might hear? She was seeing red.

I walked over to the window and saw him trying to develop some sort of explanation. She was an infuriated country bumpkin.

I opened the window slightly to hear what stellar excuse he was going to give.

“How many more of these do you have?” She said, shaking the pieces in the bag.

I knew she was coming at him for a good reason, but I felt a little guilty, like I had just walked him to the executioner.

“That’s all I had left. I put them in the garage so I could still have some without you knowing.”

Cringe. Not good.

“This is it?”

“Yes. I had them hidden, and I must have left them out. When she pulled in, they fell under her tire.”

A coincidence? I don’t think so.

I watched her walk over to the garbage and throw them away.

“I promise that’s it. I don’t have anymore.”

She noticed that I felt responsible for their argument when she came back in.

“God used you, Chris. Don’t feel bad about that. It was supposed to happen.”

I didn’t fully get it.

He stuck to his word, even though it was difficult at times getting past the craving for it, but his marriage was higher up on the priority list. And in the end, her urgency to get him to stop freed him from suffering consequences that would have been terrible.

Sometimes you can sense the detrimental while the other person can’t.

That is how God works. Everything is seen from a viewpoint that we might not always understand. Throw in our free will, then we can ignore that still small voice and go on our way, thinking we know it all.

God will place people in your life to be seers. They may come in different shapes and styles, but they are there for your good, prompting you to come up higher and dodging around hazards you may not think are harmful because it’s a habit. Or you are just plain ignorant. Yes, I said it.

The Holy Spirit is described this way in John 16:13:

But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won’t draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen. (Message)

If you aren’t making yourself available to hear God’s message to you, someone will be sent, motivated by heaven, to try to wake you up to what you need to know. This is not punishment or condemnation, but to illuminate something you are not seeing or paying attention to.

From my experience, I don’t walk away feeling dejected or scolded but instead empowered to deal with an issue that was dragging me down spiritually, like fear or worry. A person looking out for your highest well-being is often a messenger, and you might not understand that at first.

In Isaiah 55:9, there is a reason why we might not get it right away:

For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours, and my thoughts than yours. (TLB)

Just like it was believed that smoking cigarettes would hinder a person’s height, not heeding what God is gently trying to tell you will slow down your walk to an elevated place, moving in the direction you are supposed to go. When we cling to what is familiar and not useful, refusing to embrace the truth and shutting the door, God will come through another way.

That is how much heaven wants you to achieve your life purpose and protect you from harm.

When you are blind, it is a promise that a helper will come to get your attention and give you the needed direction and vision.

Purity

Posted on by Christine

“Everything in moderation, Chris. That’s the best way.”

She always said this when she saw that I was conflicted over a decision. It can be applied to anything, really. Food, sleep, and binge watching a show on a streaming platform. How much is too much? It depends if the snow is piled up to the doorknob and your eyelashes freeze when you go get the mail. That’s at least an entire season justified for being planted, immobile, without it being extreme.

Two seasons of a show warrants more scrutiny, but by episode seven of anything, you have established characters and are emotionally invested. Sometimes there is no coming back.

Along the lines of practicing discipline, I was taught how to drink at home at an early age, around twelve. We weren’t doing shots on a daily basis, but every once in a while, she would give me a small portion of wine or a cocktail to have me taste it. This comes as such a shock to many people, but my mom had a method to her madness. She was not promoting alcoholism but teaching me how to respect it.

The first time I tried it, I could not believe that people enjoyed swallowing such awful tasting stuff, and to the point of getting drunk? That seemed so crazy to me.

“I want you to learn how to handle it so I can trust you not to abuse it later in life.”

While other kids my age were breaking into their parent’s liquor cabinets, she said “cheers” to me.

“I don’t want you to be out somewhere and suddenly have too much beyond what you can deal with. I want you to be able to feel the effects of it where you are safe, so if you are ever offered this, you will be smart about it.”

I never felt like I had to sneak it behind their back when it was something that was presented as a non-rebellious issue.

I think she did this partly because she observed and became more educated as a parent while raising the older ones.

When I was about six years old, my parents invited the entire block to party in their basement. We had the smallest rambler, so why they did this, I do not know. My oldest sister had gone out for the night. And I was being held hostage upstairs with my three brothers and another sister.

I was barricaded into my parent’s bedroom with my brothers while my sister was in the next room. They had turned the tv up to its highest volume so that they could hear above the sounds of the nightclub going on downstairs. The noise was making the floor vibrate.

My mom had told them all to keep an eye on me, and none of us were to leave the upstairs unless it was an emergency.

As it got close to my bedtime, the plan was to have me sleep on the floor in between my sister’s twin beds. I remember laying there hearing the muffled talk and loud laughter through the floorboards. The genius who came up with putting me on the floor did not think this through.

My bedroom, though, was being used for all the neighbor’s coats. My bed was piled high with them. I didn’t dare venture in there because I was told I would be in trouble if I did. It was like my mom was trying to hide us like the Von Trapp kids in the Sound of Music.

We had to stay out of sight or be subjected to punishment, and the threat of the unknown was always worse than the actual reprimand. I guess she wanted to pretend she didn’t have six kids and enjoy herself for once.

I somehow fell asleep but woke up to whispering. One of my brothers said something to my sister, trying not to wake me up. I had my eyes open, but they thought I was out. That is when they tried to get my other sister to her bed stealthily.

The room was pitch dark.

She had returned home from being out with friends and was a little tipsy. Fearing the wrath of my dad coming down on her, my brother was trying to get her out of harm’s way. I heard a lot of stumbling and a slight giggle that got shushed.

All was going well until they forgot I was in the middle of the room, right in her path. Unintentionally, she stepped full force on my stomach, which produced a blood-curdling scream from me. I think my brother shoved her in the direction of her bed and ran.

Because at that moment, the people who had come over were starting to leave, and my mom was coming up to usher out guests and say goodbye.

I recall hearing my sister trying not to laugh in her inebriated state, while the other one was stone silent. I couldn’t take the madness anymore.

I sat up and started crying so loud that every single person heard me. Not just a tiny whimper but a top of the lungs, no breath taken, long wailing exhale. Life had just taken a scary turn for me, and I knew this would bring back “normal”.

The bedroom door flew open with the woman who had abandoned her offspring for a night standing there looking annoyed. What would the neighbors think if one of us was out of control like that?

“Chris! What is wrong with you? Did you have a bad dream?”

Sure, let’s just go with that.

No one had just tried to dislocate my rib.

I was too upset to answer, so she assumed that this was the problem.

“Just go back to sleep. You are with your sisters. You aren’t alone.”

I heard her trail off and told people I was having a nightmare. She had no idea.

It was my first and not last experience with someone who had taken in a little too much liquor.

In addition to that type of self-control, handwashing was an absolute must with her, and I sat through many speeches about this non-negotiable part of life. With her training as a nurse, during a time we would consider the dark age, hot water, soap, and scrubbing like you were about to go into surgery were expected. You didn’t dare come into her presence with dirt anywhere on you.

It was ingrained in me to remove my shoes at the door and wash my hands.

“What is this?”

It was an interrogation if she found a dark fingerprint or handprint on the wall. Everything but the spotlight shining on me was missing.

I learned to think quickly.

“I was on my way to the bathroom to wash my hands, and I must have touched that.”

All she heard was that I was being compliant. Jail time was avoided, and my record was expunged.

Not everyone in the world was put through sanitation school like I was.

It was astounding for me to witness a woman’s conduct while in a line for a self-checkout at a grocery store. I saw a domed container standing nearby with pieces of muffins in it. Instead of placing them in individual cups for people to take, they had thrown all of it in there in a jumbled up mess.

Someone must have had too much to drink in the bakery.

The whole thing was crammed with parts from a morning gone awry while in the kitchen. None of it was burnt, so still consumable, just not in a pretty muffin shape.

Both my youngest daughter and I saw an elderly woman open up the lid, reach in with her hands and start shoving crumbs into her mouth. She was breaking all my unwritten rules. There was no cleanliness and no regard for the amount being consumed.

I usually am a professional at hiding my disdain for such displays, but I must have dropped my guard and voiced my disgust too loudly. I looked away, unable to take one more second of the scarf monster next to me.

Back in the car, my daughter said as she took a sip of her coffee,

“Thank you for teaching me right from wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

I had already forgotten about the unsightly inhaling job by the senior citizen.

“I’m glad you taught me about washing my hands. Not grabbing things in public like that. Just everything. Not everyone is given that. You just took really good care of us when we were little, so we know all these things now.”

“I can’t take full credit. My mom made sure I knew this, so then I passed it down to you and your sister.”

“That lady scowled at you.”

“She did?”

“Yes, like you were the wrong one. That’s why I said I was grateful you taught us the right way.”

I wonder how she feels about stuffing food in her mouth with filthy hands now? This happened before 2020. Covid 19, anyone?

If you wait out life long enough, you sometimes get justified in what you believe.

There are simple truths that seem to prove themselves while you stand there and do what you know is correct even if no one else does.

In 1 Corinthians 15:58, it says,

With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort. (Message)

That friend that thinks you are an absolute lunatic for praying and asking God for help will be calling you tomorrow in the middle of a crisis. Suddenly, your faith will be her anchor.

In a world that can be confusing with conflicting messages, God can use you as an example to bring others peace through your steadfast purity.

(Even though this contains 68% alcohol, I would not recommend drinking it)

Combination

Posted on by Christine

She opened the refrigerator, and a plastic container flew out and hit the floor with a loud smack. The force of the impact made the lid disengage. The contents then were free to splash upward toward the poor unfortunate soul who was standing nearby with clean clothes on.

His pants were immediately covered in some sort of leftover that I am sure he would have instead had presented to him on a plate. We all stood in shock as he had both of his hands outstretched, looking down in horror at the red meat sauce that was rapidly seeping inward past the outer layer into deeper regions.

She sprang into action to attend to the spill, totally focused on that, not really coming to his aid. He had just been involved in an unwanted food fight and now stood immobile, not wanting to traipse the problem through the living room carpet to get a change of clothes.

While she was absorbed in trying to reign in the mess that had splattered the walls, cupboards, and doors, his annoyance was on the rise at her lack of attention toward him.

“Wipe me! Wipe me!” He suddenly yelled.

My brother, ever the quick-witted comedian, passed by and said,

“I would never want to do that!” Clearly with a different scenario in his mind. He dropped that comment and darted away.

This made my mom burst out laughing to the point of not being able to get up off the kitchen floor.

“Jean! Get up right now!” He ordered.

She laughed louder. She loved physical comedy, and once something struck her as humorous, it would be a while.

As she became more caught up in laughing, he kept on hollering, trying to snap her back to reality. While he swore through the entire process, she could not control what had overtaken her. Finally, she just threw the wet rag in her hand at him and let him start on disengaging himself from the problem.

It must have been contagious because suddenly, he started laughing with her. It was one of many odd things I saw happen between the two of them. I stood there, not knowing if I was witnessing anger or joy.

On another occasion, she came out of the laundry room hysterically laughing, trying to tell me something.

“Your dad…he..he…” she tried so hard to say what was going on, and she couldn’t. Taking a deep breath, she said,

“He was outside staining wood.”

“Okay.”

She had to pause between each sentence to get it out.

“He took this big lid off and set it aside.”

Another round of bent over laughing.

“He sat on the lid!”

“What?”

After many minutes of questions, I pieced together the facts that he had forgotten he had set a lid on a chair and then sat down for a second. When he felt wetness soaking in, he jumped up and raced for the house for her help.

“He has a huge brown target on his butt! You have to come to see this!”

I only got up to help her in case she was not capable. It was almost identical to the sauce incident with him standing there helpless and her not functioning.

“Is it bad?” He asked me with his back to me.

“I think those are going to have to go in the garbage,” I said while she hung on to my shoulder, doubled over in a silent giggle.

“Jean! You have to help me get these off!”

The minute I heard that I was out. Like, bye.

From the other room, I heard her say,

“You actually have stained your skin! Like a big tattoo!”

She never understood the art of telling someone terrible news slowly. She just blurted it out like that, which caused him to go into orbit.

“I have to go in for my physical exam! What will the doctor think?”

“Maybe if I scrub it with cold water. That might help!”

This is when I cut off my visualization skills. There are just some things you don’t even want to see in your mind’s eye. In moments such as this, I didn’t want to possess the ability to have insight. I hit the pause button mentally.

“That is freezing cold!” I heard him screech.

“It’s not coming off!” She said, delivering more bad news.

Cue the cuss words. And more laughing. The blending of these two individuals never ceased to amaze me.

It wasn’t always him having bad luck either. Sometimes it was caused by his own doing.

“I hit him right between the eyes with a spoon one time.”

“Why?”

“I was eating cereal, and he said something that I didn’t like. I was pregnant.”

That would do it, simple as that.

Other times, he did fall prey to unexpected circumstances inflicted upon him by her hand.

One time, he had just sat down to eat this massive plate of food. This man would take his time doing this. Seasoning things. Moving slowly like he was getting it ready for a magazine shoot.

She tripped on her way past him with a bottle of wine in her hand. She fell directly on him, pouring the entire contents on his plate. He was so taken by surprise that he still had his fork in his hand above her head while my brother quickly whisked his plate away, saying,

“You’re done!”

He had not taken one bite.

“What. The. Hell,” was all he said as she laid there laughing, crumpled upon him.

This went on for years.

“John, do you want a cookie?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, you don’t want one, or yes, you want one?”

By now, she had lost him as he was in the middle of watching something.

“John!”

“What?”

“Is that yes or no?”

“For what?”

“A cookie! Do you want one?”

“I already said no.”

“I thought you changed your mind.”

He was gone again.

“Are you sure?”

“About what?”

Feeling that she wasn’t getting through to him, she placed herself and the container of cookies in front of him.

“I can’t see around you!”

“Are you sure you don’t want a cookie?”

Right as he was about to answer again, the entire thing fell out of her hands, and every single cookie landed on his lap.

“Leave me be, woman!” He shouted like he was casting a demonic entity out of his presence.

As she scrambled to pick them up, the laughter and the swearing again.

The other day I was talking to him about heaven. I have seen it and was giving him details.

“Mom is there, right?”

“Yes.”

And you would think with their history, he might not want to spend eternity with her. Life on earth just might have been enough.

“That’s good. I miss her.”

For all the times they were in conflict or nearly at their wit’s end with one another, there always was and still is this invisible chord that kept them together. Not once since her transition has he wanted anyone else in his life. Some would say that he finally has peace and quiet.

But he was very adamant with me when she first went on to heaven.

“I will not ever be married to anyone ever again. She was it.”

So all I can do is make him remember the funny moments that maybe weren’t so humorous to him then. But now, he sees it for what it really was.

One of the morning routines that they adhered to was that she would get up early, ahead of him, but she didn’t let him rely on his alarm to wake him up.

She would always say,

“John, it’s time.” And raise the shade to blind him with light first thing.

“I hated that so much!” He told me once. But she did it every day.

I have a feeling that when God calls him up, he will hear that familiar voice saying,

“John. It’s time.”

Some things you look at and think, who decided that this would be good? Like waffles and syrup. Who conjured that up? I think a lot of people are glad it exists.

And while I didn’t always understand them, and I still really don’t, I am grateful that God decided to put them together into a weird, sometimes ugly, but purposeful combination.