Gun Play

I live in a community. I live in a townhouse surrounded by families with small children. These small children, grade school age see me every morning, day and night. Since I work from home, I am everywhere all the time. I am the middle aged woman who keeps watch over the extended yard that reaches so many doors in our community. I am the one who is sitting out in the evening watching the children play. I am the one they look to for guidance about rules of fair play and decorum. I am there. I feel their need, their want to be seen, and their desire to entertain and keep my attention. I feel these little ones to my bone. They have worked hard to earn my trust and respect. They address me as Miss Kellie. They have a million questions about school, friends, families, children, adults, and life in general and more often than that, the very specific. These children are my little friends; actually, they are my littlest of friends. I call them friends because they talk to me without judgment, or condemnation, or indifference, which I think is often much worse. In the evening when they have grown tired of playing they come to me and sit or stand near my tiny outdoor table and talk. Not one of them looks anything like me, but we don’t notice, except to ask about each other in fascination. They are careful to be respectful at all times. They try and watch their grammar, which I occasionally correct, but as a method of teaching and not to condescend. I think they are gorgeous. I hear them and what they have to say and I am riveted to their mind set, their opinions are articulated in a way that captures my heart. They know I adore them. It is in the way I look at them, full in their tiny faces, eyes held in interest and kindness. We have had a couple of odd happenings here at townhouse land, but nothing as violent as what happened last night. There are apartments across the very busy street we live on. These apartments are known to carry certain elements of danger. We are all advised to stay from them, and we do. Last evening my young ones were once again gathered at my table regaling me tales with the horrors of dodge ball. One by one they got called in by their parents in order to get ready for bed. The sun had fallen far behind the trees and the sky was dark. My favorite little friend is a writer and a good one at that. She is expressive and artful with her words. I see that we are kindred spirits and our souls connect. She offers up her writings to me to critique, but I can’t say anything bad about any of them. I love the way she writes, and see her one day becoming prolific and important. I gathered my coffee cup and headed in for the night. The yard, the area that borders our doors grew quiet as the families began tucking in the little ones. Peace had descended over our little community. Christy, my oldest child, and I were watching television. Mike had gone to bed, exhausted from work. Our patio door remained open to allow the breeze to waft into our living room and cool the air. Christy had gone upstairs for moment and I was sitting there when I heard something outside. I muted the television as I do every time I think I hear something and there it was the sound I knew and feared. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, POP! A man yelled, “Call an ambulance!” Gunfire had found our little community. I hurriedly called 911 and reported what I had heard, but I saw nothing. The sounds came from up on the hill in the parking lot, a place I could not see from my windows. Mike came downstairs and closed and locked the patio door. I had walked outside to see what was going on. Mike called to me in a loud whisper, “Baby, get back in the house.” My neighbor, a young mother of two was coming home from work. Me, standing in my pajama pants, she asked, “Did I scare you?” I look at her and said, “No, there were gun shots. The police are on their way.” She and I stood for moment when a man screamed, “Get back in the house! Get back in the house!” My neighbor and I scurried into our doors. People closed doors and locked them, pulled blinds, we hid away, waiting for the trauma to exit. I went upstairs to investigate from the window on the second floor. Christy chided me for being so “nosy” and laughed, “You are not Angela Lansbury, you are not going to solve this.” For a moment we forgot about the danger of the situation and just laughed. I looked out my window to the windows of my small friends. Their lights were out and I prayed they didn’t hear what we had heard. I prayed they got to keep their innocence a little longer. I found out today a man was shot 3 times. He had been found at the other end of the community and had survived. I don’t know anything else about the shooting that occurred so close to my front door. I really don’t want to know the details right now. I am leaning away from knowing too much and having the fear grow inside me. This evening my little friends were back out playing. They seem to be called in earlier tonight. They were playing soccer, running around each other, laughing and horsing around. All their small children noises were echoing where gun shots had just ringed out hours earlier. I wondered if they knew about the incident. I wondered if they knew and were frightened. I’m frightened. I scared for friends who still lead with their tiny hearts, who think why not instead of asking why. My hope for tonight for them was that innocence won out today. We live in extraordinary times, and not all of this is a good thing. The world has grown dark and violent for many. I see on the news nightly the body count due to the many, many murders in our area. The weapons of choice are guns, lots and lots of guns. Today I posted the need for responsible gun owners to stand up and speak out on gun violence. It’s time for the NRA and its members to talk, and keep talking about how we are going to fix this mess. They have the large looming lobby, worth millions of dollars and several members of Congress. They need to come up with information on how to help. As experts in the area of this kind of weaponry it is their obligation. I literally have to say do it for the children, for my children that I adore so much, having spent so much time. This needs a solution before another stray bullet ends the life of a child or a middle aged story teller.

Pigotry

I had read the three little pigs to my children a million times when they were young. For me the story of the three little pigs represented the best analogy of why hard work was important. Earning one’s way in life, was a value I continue to teach my now grown children. After my medical arrest, I found myself not being able to read and write for a period of time. I had gotten home from the hospital with the new, very fragile baby, wanting to continue to try and have some kind “normalcy”. When bedtime came, the older kids pulled books for me to read. Determined, I open the pages and began to stammer and struggle my way through it. My memory was toast, but I could remember some of the stories by heart, so instead of actually reading the written words, I would tell the story, prompted by the pictures, as my anxious audience sat at the foot of the bed. One of the first nights I was home from the hospital, I was tucking my wee ones into bed. One of the boys pulled the story about the three little pigs from the pile of books in the corner of the room. I could remember the basics of the story, but the words in front of me seemed blurred, unrecognizable. I wanted to break down and cry. I wanted to curl into a ball and fall spectacularly apart, but my wee ones, so dependent on me, sat there in anticipation of having the mama they had known read to them. There is no way to explain that the mama they had known didn’t exist anymore, and might not ever come back. I had been altered. My brain didn’t work the way it used to. My thoughts at that time were a jumbled mess, and my memory had become an escape artist, leaving and reappearing on a whim. I sat holding the book in my hands. Looking at the first page trying desperately to find any word I knew. My oldest child, Christy, a girl with striking blond hair and eyes so big and blue they held the sky, was watching me. I continued to struggle to start the story. I could not find the words in my mind or on the pages. I began to tremble, fearful that I would never recover, and that my days of reading to my children were over. Christy came up to me on her knees, and gently laid her hands on mine. “Mama, I have been practicing reading. Can I read the story tonight? I know all the words.” I looked at my child, her face so sincere, so wanting to help me out my perplexing situation. Her face offered no judgment; just some much needed and appreciated help. “Sure”, I said and handed my little girl the book. She took my seat on the bed and I proceeded to kneel on the floor at her feet. The boys and I sat as she opened the book and began to read. Christy told us the story of the three little pigs that night and when she finished, I hugged her so tight, she needed to break for air. She looked deep into my face, holding my cheeks in her tiny hands. “It’s going to be O.K., Mama. You are just tired. I can help.” I nodded and walked her to her room and tucked her in. As I kissed her, I realized how lucky I was to just be there, in the flesh, putting her to bed. I had not felt so lucky earlier. I had felt frustrated and angry at my inability to be the person I once was. I had no way of knowing when I conceived my last child things were going to be so hard. Birthing a child had seemed like the least of my worries, right up until I got my diagnosis that nearly ended my life. Years later when their father was diagnosed with cancer, there was no way of knowing that, either. We had started out as a nice middle class family, building a life, having children, creating home together. As a single mother I continued to live like the little pig with the brick house, working as many jobs as my body could stand, making what I could not buy, building what we needed, trying as hard as I could to do as much as I could for the wee ones I loved so very much. I had pushed myself to the brink, just so we could survive. My children had encountered people who judged them severely for being poor, for not having a father around, for being heartbroken and grieving. They had seen what I like to refer to as the fourth little pig, Pigotry. Pigotry is the pig who selfishly condescends to those who are in need. Pigotry demands the best of everything, and insults anything less. Pigotry is judgmental, mean spirited, and entirely selfish. Pigotry is the person who thinks because they have never encountered such hardships that those who have, deserve to be treated badly. Pigotry is evil. I had never wanted my children to see those Pigotry people so early in their lives. Parents try their level best to keep that dirty little secret to themselves until their children are older, but I had no choice but make the introduction, so my children didn’t think what Pigotry did was acceptable behavior. Pigotry could appear in the form of someone once considered safe. Pigotry showed up in the shape of a mom who refused to enter my house because we were poor, and then went about telling others how we lived. Pigotry came to a soccer meet in the form a dad, who bullied my son, until I stepped in. I could see in his eyes, the pure contempt for me and my son. Pigotry came to open houses at school, children parties, charity events for the school, and even church, sitting right next to us in the pew. Pigotry seemed to crop up when we felt most exposed. Recently, my oldest girl, the one who continues to have her flowing blond hair and deep blue eyes, encountered Pigotry again. While debating politics someone wrote that people, who could not afford to have four children, shouldn’t have them. It made her so angry. I saw the fury in face; I saw her wheels turn, as her mind searched for how she would respond. Believe me, I am not fighting her battle for her. She can handle herself quite well, thank you very much. There is no need for me to step in for my children anymore. They are wicked smart, and if you underestimate them, well, God help you, because the rest of us will be stepping away for our own safety. My children have seen the best and worst in people. They now fight for those who need help and have no voice. They are caring, compassionate, empathetic people who lead with their heart. Pigotry, taught them how to treat people with kindness. That was the take away from the horrible experiences of meeting Pigotry early in life that it never has to be that way. Pigotry took a big hit yesterday from my oldest child. About once a week a child calls home to tell the story of battling Pigotry in the name of creating a better world. While I will always hold the original three little pigs close to my heart, the fourth pig, Pigotry, would be better served as a ham sandwich.

Just Check the Box

I was filling out another job application, when my frustration grew to a boiling point. It seems every time I am required to fill out an application I have trouble trying to decipher how to input my information. Either there is not enough room, since I am now a woman of a certain age and experience, I need a looser, roomier platform, and these applications never have enough, yet, want me to describe in detail my life, for the last fifty years. Oh, sure, it sounds easy enough, just fill out the application. Just fill in the box. Michael never wants to be in the same room with me when I fill out these brain teasing, exasperating, mind traps. He runs, sometimes literally calling out that he just wants to go for a short jog. I won’t see him again until dinner. I don’t blame him. Each designated day I have for job searching, I make it cuss day. My cuss days are a little more often these days, but it is my purposeful, designated day to let my mouth fly. I try to watch my “P”s and “Q”s, but on application day, I don’t have the restraint. I am hunched over my keyboard, screaming at the page that just changed before I could finish typing, or grabbing my screen with both hands shaking it, trying to get the appropriate box to tumble down as if it were an Etch a Sketch. I miss paper. I miss the days when I was viewed as an adult and my cover letter, resume and recommendation letters were enough information for me to get an interview. I often feel these applications suffer from ageism. I am being set up to fail. A few years ago I was sitting at a kiosk in Walmart trying to apply for a job. The screens came up and if I had been 16 years old without any education or job experience, it may have been a bit easier, although my grown kids have assured me they had trouble with it also, but as an older person who has a long list of educational institutions, licenses, multiple career changes, yeah, I wanted to do myself and that machine harm. I nearly broke down into tears right there in the layaway department. The only other time checking boxes was tough for me was back right after Danny, my first husband died. I was filling out forms when I got stumped. Technically, I knew the answer they wanted, but emotionally, I felt it diminished where I was in my life. The boxes were: Single, Married, Divorced, Widowed. Here is why I got stuck, I was single in that I was alone. Danny had died and the kids and I were struggling to find a way to live without him. I could not have felt more single at that time. We were isolated, and very much alone, so I felt justified if I checked single. The married box was next and I stared at it. Danny and I were no longer married, but we had four children together and a sticky relationship that kept throwing each of us back at each other. Neither of us had really ever let go, so married, was how I had felt, even when we lived apart. Divorced, came next in the line of boxes. Yep, I was divorced. It was a word I hated, an act I despised, and yet there I was, divorced all the way to the bone. Divorce for me meant failure, it meant weakness, and shame. I still wince when people refer to my divorce. I had not filed for it, I did not witness the finality of it, and I carried all the shame of my failed marriage. Divorced is the box I had checked for a couple of years and I hated it more every time I checked it. The last box was Widowed. I sat shaking when I got to that box, holding on to the form, disfiguring it in my hands, as tears fell. With Danny gone and now residing in a fresh grave for me to visit weekly as self punishment, and I was really good at punishing myself for every misstep he or I had, I was now widowed. Since we weren’t legally married anymore, I knew I could never check that box, but I felt as though I deserved it. My partner in parenting was gone. The guy I shared my family with was no longer in my life or in my children’s lives. There was no more hoping that somehow he and I could work things out. He was dead, I was alone, and our kids’ hearts were completely shattered. I deserved a box specific for me. My family in that time was not a one size fits all. I know in my heart, every family has something about them that should allow them a special box. I need a special box right now. I need a box that shows I am flexible, intelligent and experienced. I need a box that disregards age and holds time in a state of reverence. I need a box that indicates I am loyal, hard working and affable. I need a “Hey, listen, I know I am from out of town, and I may not have the college education that you so desire, but I am willing to learn anything” box. I need that box. With all the forms, applications and sundry paperwork I have had to fill out since I moved, one would think there would be some kind of universal method for providing information to all who require it. I believe it was called a resume, but don’t quote me on that. When I worked as a nurse we used to fill out information longhand. We had to, because no one patient was exactly the same. Medicine had that part right. They allowed for all the idiosyncratic things about being human. My applications often make me feel so much less than human. The way I have to reduce myself down to a two dimensional, no less than two pages, but no more than three, description of justifying my life, makes me feel despondent. I know I am in a large company of folks out there who are in much worse situations than I am. Nearly daily, I type my most basic information into the boxes and then wait to hear anything back. Most jobs never respond. It is as if I had tossed all my personal information into a black hole in the universe where my chances of even being seen are a lightning strike. I haven’t given up. I didn’t the last time I was in this situation and I won’t now. My Michael and friends love and support me by saying, “They just don’t know what they missing out on.” I nod my head in agreement, but wonder if the storm I am in will produce a one in a million lightning strike, I think I need. I believe in “All things for a reason”. I think I believe that because if my history has taught me anything, it is to wait for all the crazy to shake out. My daughter, a sage and wise soul said, “Mom, you know how it is for us, things always get really bad, right before they get really good.” She’s right, and I know where her understanding comes from, although, I admit when my kids use my own words back at me, I cringe. It is how things have always gone; they get really bad, right before they get really good. Darkest before the dawn is a theory that is right on the money. My hope for now is to not lose my sense of humor, my sense of adventure and my common sense where I know if I can just hold on, things will really work out for the better.