Haunting Memory

I remember Monday, September 10, 2001 very clearly.  I was working as a substitute teacher in the Beaverton School District outside of Portland, Oregon, and I worked as an aide's sub for a middle school special education class that day.  I remember the attractive concrete courtyard leading to the building's double doors.  I remember the office with its plethora of walkways zig-zagging between large desks and cubicles.  I remember accompanying my wheelchair-bound charge that day, a young boy, to his language arts class, and I remember the short conversation I had with the attractive male teacher of that class about the ups and downs of the teaching profession.

I don't remember many other sub days from that Fall with quite so much clarity, but I do remember that day.  I guess I remember it because it was the day that preceded 9/11, and like most everybody else in America, my world was rocked on Tuesday.  Somehow my mind filed September 10 away somewhere.  Maybe it is filed under the heading, "What Normal Days Were Like Before That Tuesday."

I was probably one of the last people in America to hear about the events of September 11, 2001.  I'm not exaggerating -- I was probably one of the very last people to hear about it.  The reason is multi-faceted:  I didn't have to work that day, neither at Starbucks nor as a substitute teacher, so I slept in a bit.  I also lived alone, and I didn't live in the same town as any family members.  I had a television, but I rarely watched the thing, and I didn't turn it on that morning.  I didn't have a computer then, and I don't think I even knew how to navigate the internet, anyway.  Finally, I didn't go anywhere that morning.  If memory serves, I think I just did some laundry, took a shower, ate, and read.

My phone rung at about one o'clock Pacific Time -- seven full hours after the first attack -- and my mom asked me if I had heard "what had happened."  She then proceeded to unfold the horrific news, and I remember the first thing I said:  "I hate Satan."

I understand if that sounds like superstitious nonsense to someone without a biblical worldview.  It probably would have sounded weird to me at one time, too.  But I vividly remember thinking, as my mother shared the details of the terrorist attacks, that everything about it was evil personified.  The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.  I still think that today.

Of course I know that there is a completely tangible element to those attacks, too.  There's the politics, the economics, the bare bones religious reasons.  But there is more to it than that, make no mistake about it.  Evil is real, and we saw its face that day. 

Once Jerry and I were talking about 9/11.  He commented on how the attacks weren't intended to be merely physical and political -- they were intended to be psychological, too.  He's right.  Thousands of people died that day, and there are others who survived the ordeal.  But what of the rest of us?  We watched in horror, and as we watched we seemed to know that our very minds and hearts were being violently invaded.  We still see images of clear blue skies polluted with smoke, of precious souls willingly jumping hundreds of feet to certain death, of commercial airliners turned into screaming missiles.  That day was intended to haunt our minds.  And it worked.

I was driving with my Peanut this morning, and as we passed the nearby bank I noticed the flag at half-staff.  It occurred to me how Lilia will never remember, like I do, what a normal day was like before September 11, 2001.  She will always be in a post 9/11 world.  Sure, we still have "normal days," and our country's collective soul heals and moves on.  But I think that every one of us who remember that day will carry it around somehow, deep inside of us, like a haunting memory.

When the "Bugs" Bite

There are lots of things that bug me.  Reality television, for example, drives me nuts.  I would prefer to be tied to the scooping end of a bulldozer digging up cow manure than to view most of the reality entertainment on television any given weekday evening.  Hominy is something else that I find repulsive.  I was forced to eat these sad, swampy, mustard-colored chunks as a child, and I only succeeded by remembering that the brussel sprouts the night before were exponentially worse.  It would also be no stretch to say that I am greatly annoyed by drivers who are texting.  Aside from the obvious fact that they are in the process of endangering my life, I just find that I have no patience for a subculture that cannot get off of social media for three minutes at a stretch.

But if there's anything that really, really grates me, it is this:  Women who claim to speak on behalf of the entire feminine population.  I often wonder why they didn't bother to consult me before sharing my apparent opinion with the entire civilized world.  

And so, in light of this admission, all I can say is this:  Thank you, featured women speakers at the Republican National Convention, for making me unashamed to be a woman for a change.

I don't normally "get political," but I find that every four years there are a number of featured women on news programs and other media outlets claiming to understand what I must "want from the government," simply because they share with me a particular set of reproductive organs.  I hate to break it to them, but I also have a brain.  And this may be a bit of a stunner, but I am fairly adept at using it.  In other words, I can think for myself.  It just so happens that when I do this thinking, I often find myself at odds with these women who would otherwise claim my concurrence. 

You see, as a woman, I am bothered by the fact that our government has now acquired over sixteen trillion dollars of debt, and that the current administration seems to have great difficulty with remedial calculations.  That bugs me.  I am also bothered by the fact that I may not have control over my own health care and that the leaders of our country seem to think I need them to decide upon this for me.  That bugs me.  I am furthermore bothered by the fact that I am being offered complete and unimpeded access to the barbarous practice of abortion, and that this should be something that I find comforting and celebratory since I am, after all, a woman.  That bugs me (especially as the mother of an adopted child).  

So I was greatly relieved and proud to view women at the RNC speaking boldly, eloquently, and intelligently about these same things.  They were women, just like me, yet they were not claiming to speak for me.  These particular women -- of every race and background -- were speaking for themselves and sharing their desires for our nation.  And they were sharing these passions because they have thought long and hard about it, and they believe our country is on a road to disaster.  I happen to agree with them. 

I really do not mean any disrespect to the current administration of this country, who holds a position of due honor.  I am simply diametrically opposed, at heart, to everything he has done.  I also do not mean any disrespect to women who happen to support the current administration.  Again, I am simply diametrically opposed to their viewpoint.  But I have known many of them over the years, and some of them are exceedingly dear to my heart, women of honor.

I'm just so glad to finally, finally hear women in positions of leadership and authority, making me glad to stand with them.  It's an honor, truly.  And it's not like it's a dishonor to stand with the men.  That's an honor, too.

But they never dress as well. 

Poo in the Afternoon

There are some days when a parent looks back at life prior to child with a certain kind of bewildered, disbelieving wonder:  "What on earth made us smile or laugh before this adorable little bundle came along?" for example.  

Then there are days when a parent looks forward in life in a way that I suppose would be comparable to Caesar's sentiment when preparing to cross the Rubicon:  "The die has been cast."  In other words, there is no going back now.  We have passed the point of no return.  We are parents, with all of the messy battles that parenting can bring... whether we like it or not.

Yesterday we did not like it. 

We are in the midst of walking those frightful corridors that every parent of a toddler must tread:  Potty training.  I've heard horror stories, and I've heard more horror stories.  I've never heard anything flowery or fun in relation to this topic.  But nothing I'd heard prepared me for our little adventure with Lilia yesterday.

At around 2 o'clock, after a very busy morning, we put her down for nap.  Since we heard not so much as a peep from her room, we fully believed her to be engaged in a blissful, sound sleep.  

Oh, what fools we were.

At about 4 o'clock, Jerry went to awaken our darling little angel from her precious "slumber."  About five seconds later, in response to his frantic calls for help, I joined him.  

She was not asleep.  Not only was she not asleep, but it appeared that she had not slept at all.  Not only that, but her diaper was OFF.  We slowly began to realize that not only was her diaper OFF, but the messy contents of her diaper were scattered EVERYWHERE about her room.  Yes, that's right, my friends:  The poo was EVERYWHERE:  On the bed rails, on the blankets, on the window, on the carpet, on the stuffed animals, on the walls, on the books, on the furniture.  There was nary a spot in the room that the poo had not touched.  And it smelled.  Badly.  The smell of poo pervaded the nostrils in a most ferocious manner.

Oh yes, and did I mention that the poo was also all over our adorable little daughter?  How could I forget that little tidbit?  The poo was also covering our daughter.  She also smelled of poo.

It's very hard to convey the emotions that coursed through our bodies at that moment.  First, we were appalled.  Then, we were angry.  Then, we were sad.  Then, we were frustrated.  Finally, we realized that we needed to break free from our state of petrified disbelief and DO something! 

What did we do?  Oh, I'm so glad you asked.  As Jerry angrily bathed our filthy child, I collected an odd assortment of necessary implements:  Paper towels, rags, latex gloves, boiling water.  I felt a little bit like I was preparing to deliver someone's baby.   I began to slowly collect the fragments of poo and place them in plastic bags.  I collected each item with a copious amount of poo on it to be either disposed of immediately or placed into a boiling cauldron.  

I then began to scrape hardened poo off of the furniture, the walls, the bed rails.  I think it was at this point that I began to wish I had never been born.  Jerry then uttered a few minor profanities.  (Or that might have been me, I can't really remember.  It was all so traumatic).

After our child was cleaned and disinfected, Jerry joined me.  We worked together in true marital harmony, as one:  Scraping, wiping, disinfecting, cursing.  After one and one half hours of this arduous labor, we began to see the fruits of our efforts.  The room once again looked like the shining, safe abode of our little gift from above.  *grr!*

We laughed a little bit about it today.  Tomorrow we may laugh a bit more.  I fancy that twenty years from now we will be rolling with laughter as we share this information with Lilia's betrothed.  

Yesterday, we did not laugh.  We only cried and postulated various theories about what strange creature had temporarily taken over the body of our adorable little baby girl.  

And just in case you are wondering:  Boiling water removes poo from walls very quickly and effectively.  Hydrogen peroxide is a must for poo embedded in carpet.
 

A Tale of Two Daddies

In the school calendar year 1982-83, I was a long-haired, acrobatically-inclined, sweater-vest-wearing second grader in Miss Glaze's second and third grade split class.  Among other academic exercises, Miss Glaze once assigned us a writing project whereby we were to describe, in two to three short paragraphs, a "missing person" -- without ever naming the individual.  Looking back, I can only guess that the intent of such an assignment was a mastery of adjectives and adverbs, but at the time I simply saw it as a cool thing to do on specially prepared, pre-lined, ten-by-fourteen-inch paper.

The title of the piece was, in fact, "Missing Person," and this was boldly proclaimed at the top of the page, above a roughly four-by-four-inch box where the student could exercise his or her artistic gifts by providing the reader with a sketch or portrait of said "missing person."  I vividly remember sitting there at my east-facing desk, pencil poised thoughtfully in mid air as my second grade brain began to wax literary.  Apparently I had no conception of the link between quality of work and quantity of time invested, for I zealously finished the thing off in about 8 or 9 minutes (including the skimpy, hastily-done pencil sketch) and, if memory serves, probably spent the next 20 minutes of allotted time reading the Boxcar Children while sipping chocolate milk from my red Star Wars thermos.

All of that said, I somehow received a fine mark.  Not only that, but the literary endeavor has received near legendary status in my childhood home, where it hangs framed in my parents' bedroom between pictures of grandparents and certificates of honor.  For the sake of nostalgia, this is how it reads:

This person wears almost the same clothes every day.  Sometimes he goes to the store.  When he reads, he needs glasses.  He has black hair.  And he is the person I mostly sit by on the couch.  Sometimes he takes me to the park on sunny days.

He has yellow teeth.  He is 6 ft. 4 inches.  He has brown eyes and black eyebrows.  He is 47 years old.  But he's the person I'm glad to live with.

This narrative par excellence attempted to describe someone very dear to my second-grade heart:  Daddy.  It contains a certain amount of creative license (my dad was actually 5 foot 10).  I can imagine my forty-something parents immersed in teary-eyed fits of laughter after reading the thing when I proudly presented it.  Only a small child would have the audacity to forever commemorate her father by telling the world he "has yellow teeth" and "wears almost the same clothes every day." 

My Dad was, in fact, a strikingly handsome man.  He did not have yellow teeth.  And he was hygenic and sensible enough to not wear the same clothes every day (although his clothes all looked the same to me).

But I guess my parents framed the thing because they were able -- and I'll use an actual literary phrase here -- "to read between the lines."  Sure, they laughed feverishly when they first got hold of it.  But I imagine that afterward they probably cried a few sincere tears of endearment.  It was, after all, a genuine attempt by a sentimentally awkward second grader to describe her hero.  My parents understood this.  And despite the funny idiosyncrasies, the sweeter side of things are woven into the piece as well:  Images of Daddy taking me to the park, sitting side by side on the couch in the evening, and the expression of simple contentment to have Daddy at home.

Things have come full circle now.  My Daddy has since passed away, and I have a daughter of my own who adores her Daddy.  I think the Lord has given me, in a sense, a way of seeing myself as a little girl with my own Daddy, as I watch Jerry and Lilia.  She waits for him by the front window when she knows he will be home soon.  She reaches into his front shirt pocket, searching for "treats," when he holds her in his arms.  Her contagious laughter echoes through the house when he carries her on his back, running from room to room.  And he is the person she mostly sits by on the couch.

The other night Jerry told me that he had been reading Lilia a story earlier that evening while she sat in his lap.  In this particular story, all of the main characters are bears.  At one point, the Daddy bear arrives home from work, greeting his family.  Upon turning to that page my daughter pointed to Jerry and said, beaming and full of two-year-old pride, "You're my Daddy."

It's enough to melt the stoniest of hearts, and my husband's heart is not stony.  As he related this sweet story to me, his face literally beamed.  It was hard for him to keep from crying.  I could see then what that simple little statement from a pint-sized Peanut meant to him.  Reading between the lines, if you will, it meant this:  "I love my Daddy."

That's what I had meant, too, as I sat there in Miss Glaze's class endeavoring to describe the missing person. The prose was in no way elegant or poetic, but in essence I was saying the same thing that Lilia said to Jerry over the story of a bear family:

"This is my Daddy.  I love him a lot."