There is nothing that can prepare you for a third-world orphanage.
The flies. The listless eyes. The snotty noses and chins. The swollen, vacant bellies.
And that’s just the adults.
OK, not all of them. Miss Eveline, the director at Notre Dame Orphanage in Carrefour was tired but appeared healthy. But, for most of the women sitting in the filth holding infants in their arms, the heaviness of another day sat upon their shoulders like the slabs of crushing mortar pinning cars across Port au Prince. They are carrying the weight of grief and responsibility and illness and despair.
Their eyes only lit briefly when lollipops left over from my church’s Valentines activity were pulled from the bag. In hopes of securing at least one, a few of the desperate shoved babies toward me, gesturing that each drooping, feeble child would love nothing better than sugar’s kiss upon its malnourished lips.
It was only a small sack of surplus candy and random Happy Meal toys stuffed as an afterthought into a backpack and it caused a churning mass of humanity that literally brought me to my knees.
The rest of our team quickly surged in, scooping up a few of the 60+ children that live out each day in the dust on sheets and a spartan playground. Just a few weeks ago, I’m told there was a heap of more than 50 tiny bodies stacked in the same space after the earthquake broke their world.
Several of our men climbed atop the old iron merry go round, swirling a couple of tykes into broad smiles and laughter.
Beverly went right to work, holding babies and checking their tiny bodies for fever and dysfunction. At least one, she said, has pneumonia.
My husband tossed a donated football with a couple of the boys. Our team’s pastor sat on a tarp on the ground, his lap overrun by a couple of children. Dana had two more. Brad two. Mark same. Debbie. JP. John.
Even with every member of our team cradling several kids at a time, there was no way to grow enough arms and laps to touch them all.
The boys clamored for the matchbox cars in the bottom of my bag and one sad-eyed son scored an unopened bag of tiny green soldiers. His eyes widened in amazement at his good fortune, but I saw one of the older boys pursue him around the corner. The younger of the two was back in line, his eyes swollen with tears, minutes later.
Two sleeves of hair ties were in my bag and, to satisfy so many, I doled them out, one by one, to extended hands. Sometimes there were so many tiny fingers reaching toward my face that I couldn’t see what I was holding.
Red. White. Black. Blue. Pink. Navy. Green.
When the women saw there were elastic ties being given away, they discarded all pretense and stepped forward with hands outstretched.
The older kids were quick learners. When one child who was already clutching a toy gestured that he’d like to deliver a treasure to someone across the yard and I relented, savvy copycats queued up, pointing to phantom recipients. When I busted them with a knowing laugh and scolding, their eyes would sparkle and lips quiver into mischievous grins.
In the space where our team had planned to build a shelter, a French team had already come and gone, leaving behind a sturdy building to house the kids. In the area vacant just this morning when our advance team had visited, there was now a beautiful Shelterbox tent.
There is work that still needs to be done and food is scarce, but the greatest need seemed to be one of companionship.
Goodness is what they seek. Kindness. A caring touch.
Many of these children likely have no way to comprehend why it has not been their mother’s arms or father’s shoulders that have held them these past few weeks. Their loss is still raw and new.
Too soon, it was time to leave. The sky was darkening and much of our team would be crammed into the rear bed of a pickup truck to ride for 30 minutes through the traffic- and people-choked streets back to our camp. To minimize risk, we needed to hurry.
As the driver was backing the truck from the orphanage, one lone child came staggering toward us with outstretched arms, sobbing to see us leave.
His tears matched ours – but especially those of John, my tall, quiet-natured teammate who had to return him to his plight.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Hoping to Better Connect with You
This has been a bit of a beta site for me and now I'm moving everything over to my permanent site at www.CherylLewis.com. I hope you will continue to hang out with me there. (I haven't figured out how to add a Follower section there, yet, but you can subscribe by RSS feed if you like. Be sure to say Hi.)
In eight days, I will be leaving with a 10-member team to head to Haiti. Expect God to work in His customary amazing fashion!
In eight days, I will be leaving with a 10-member team to head to Haiti. Expect God to work in His customary amazing fashion!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
You Matter to Haiti
I feel overwhelmed and I’m not even there, yet.
Thanks to Twitter and the Internet, I can digest #Haiti news 24/7 and, because of my fierce interest and concern, that’s exactly what I’m doing.
My daughter says I’m obsessed.
Maybe she’s right. I just can’t seem to distance myself from the Haitians’ reality – even though it’s one I have not yet personally experienced. My husband and I leave in two weeks with our team of 10 from Eagle Pointe Church in Acworth, Georgia, and even the travel part sounds grueling:
Atlanta in the wee hours of Feb. 28 to Ft. Lauderdale through customs to Port-au-Prince (at least we don’t have to make our way into the Dominican Republic, as most earlier teams did, and wend our way through 10 hours of bad roads) to whatever part of that town we will call our home for six days in a tent. All I know is there’s an orphanage there - and lives that I desperately want to help change.
Preparing to go is already a flurry. They have so many, many needs and, before we can even get around to addressing them full time, we have to think about a few of our own.
Malaria tablets. Prevention against tuberculosis - it’s rampant in Haiti. Same with Hepatitis. I’m told there’s time to booster our systems against Hepatitis A, but B? Not so much. That’s the one where you don’t want spit or blood “contaminating” you. Tetanus. Even more potential illnesses that escape me at the moment. I keep hearing something about dengue fever. Sounds frightening.
And yet I feel selfish when I fret over the “what might happen’s” of trekking to Haiti to help.
Those people – by the hundreds of thousands (and I don’t just mean numbers – I mean BREATHING, ACHING INDIVIDUALS!) – are living in filth and facing the real fear that, in just a few weeks, a fierce storm season arrives and their pieced-together shelters will likely be swept away during flooding through debris-choked streets.
That is a big fear.
So the little things, like “Will one of those mosquitoes that is munching on my kids after dark - though I’m trying to huddle them beneath me under a sheet of government-issued plastic, if even that, for shelter - cause malaria or spread fatal disease?" just gets lost in their “How will we survive this night” despair. Never mind that some of them no longer have an arm or leg. Or husband or wife or mother or father or child or sister or brother or dearest friend.
And, no, that’s not even taking into account their incessant hunger.
Or their fear for safety. Women are being raped in the night and, with husbands and brothers no longer alive for protection, there are few who will risk intervening to help each other. Children, some too young to even identify the aunts and uncles and grandparents and neighbors who might rescue them, are being spirited away and sold for slavery and worse.
Yet God is there. Haitians are gathering by the sixty thousands to sing and praise and fiercely, desperately pray. They are thronging in the streets – it is their living room now.
God is the reason I’m willing to go. His plan is always better than my own and I trust Him.
But, yeah, I’m feeling a “little” overwhelmed. I’m not sleeping much.
Neither are they.
Because I know and they know that, no matter how many protein bars or toys or sacks of rice or even tents that I can distribute, it will be a drop in the bucket. There is no handy, “Delta is ready when you are” escape for those people and they couldn’t leave their country to grasp at a better life, even if they wanted to. There is no leaving – there is only coping, without a home and without protection and without food.
There is only one thing I can offer:
Now that I know about their need, they don’t have to do it without me.
It might not solve a country’s devastation but, in a mere 14 days, I will reach in my pocket and my fist will emerge with as many protein bars as I can hold and some mother who has had nothing for perhaps days will have something in her own hand to give to her starving child.
The baby formula you send with me will fill her baby’s yearning stomach.
The coloring books and crayons you contribute will put an afternoon’s glow back into a kid’s face.
The tent you provide will mean they get to watch the rain slide in sheets down around them, instead of through their clothes and belongings and into the mud pooling in their makeshift beds.
Can’t send one with me? Go to http://ahomeinhaiti.org. Forget giving a box of chocolates and ridiculous roses for Valentines Day. Show your family just how grateful you are for what and who you have by sharing with someone who may literally die without you! Trust me, love will fly at you from all corners!
I don’t know what you can give to me or others like me to send to Haiti and the people who are, yes, dying there – but, more importantly, fighting to LIVE there.
But I do know that, whatever it is, it matters.
Thanks to Twitter and the Internet, I can digest #Haiti news 24/7 and, because of my fierce interest and concern, that’s exactly what I’m doing.
My daughter says I’m obsessed.
Maybe she’s right. I just can’t seem to distance myself from the Haitians’ reality – even though it’s one I have not yet personally experienced. My husband and I leave in two weeks with our team of 10 from Eagle Pointe Church in Acworth, Georgia, and even the travel part sounds grueling:
Atlanta in the wee hours of Feb. 28 to Ft. Lauderdale through customs to Port-au-Prince (at least we don’t have to make our way into the Dominican Republic, as most earlier teams did, and wend our way through 10 hours of bad roads) to whatever part of that town we will call our home for six days in a tent. All I know is there’s an orphanage there - and lives that I desperately want to help change.
Preparing to go is already a flurry. They have so many, many needs and, before we can even get around to addressing them full time, we have to think about a few of our own.
Malaria tablets. Prevention against tuberculosis - it’s rampant in Haiti. Same with Hepatitis. I’m told there’s time to booster our systems against Hepatitis A, but B? Not so much. That’s the one where you don’t want spit or blood “contaminating” you. Tetanus. Even more potential illnesses that escape me at the moment. I keep hearing something about dengue fever. Sounds frightening.
And yet I feel selfish when I fret over the “what might happen’s” of trekking to Haiti to help.
Those people – by the hundreds of thousands (and I don’t just mean numbers – I mean BREATHING, ACHING INDIVIDUALS!) – are living in filth and facing the real fear that, in just a few weeks, a fierce storm season arrives and their pieced-together shelters will likely be swept away during flooding through debris-choked streets.
That is a big fear.
So the little things, like “Will one of those mosquitoes that is munching on my kids after dark - though I’m trying to huddle them beneath me under a sheet of government-issued plastic, if even that, for shelter - cause malaria or spread fatal disease?" just gets lost in their “How will we survive this night” despair. Never mind that some of them no longer have an arm or leg. Or husband or wife or mother or father or child or sister or brother or dearest friend.
And, no, that’s not even taking into account their incessant hunger.
Or their fear for safety. Women are being raped in the night and, with husbands and brothers no longer alive for protection, there are few who will risk intervening to help each other. Children, some too young to even identify the aunts and uncles and grandparents and neighbors who might rescue them, are being spirited away and sold for slavery and worse.
Yet God is there. Haitians are gathering by the sixty thousands to sing and praise and fiercely, desperately pray. They are thronging in the streets – it is their living room now.
God is the reason I’m willing to go. His plan is always better than my own and I trust Him.
But, yeah, I’m feeling a “little” overwhelmed. I’m not sleeping much.
Neither are they.
Because I know and they know that, no matter how many protein bars or toys or sacks of rice or even tents that I can distribute, it will be a drop in the bucket. There is no handy, “Delta is ready when you are” escape for those people and they couldn’t leave their country to grasp at a better life, even if they wanted to. There is no leaving – there is only coping, without a home and without protection and without food.
There is only one thing I can offer:
Now that I know about their need, they don’t have to do it without me.
It might not solve a country’s devastation but, in a mere 14 days, I will reach in my pocket and my fist will emerge with as many protein bars as I can hold and some mother who has had nothing for perhaps days will have something in her own hand to give to her starving child.
The baby formula you send with me will fill her baby’s yearning stomach.
The coloring books and crayons you contribute will put an afternoon’s glow back into a kid’s face.
The tent you provide will mean they get to watch the rain slide in sheets down around them, instead of through their clothes and belongings and into the mud pooling in their makeshift beds.
Can’t send one with me? Go to http://ahomeinhaiti.org. Forget giving a box of chocolates and ridiculous roses for Valentines Day. Show your family just how grateful you are for what and who you have by sharing with someone who may literally die without you! Trust me, love will fly at you from all corners!
I don’t know what you can give to me or others like me to send to Haiti and the people who are, yes, dying there – but, more importantly, fighting to LIVE there.
But I do know that, whatever it is, it matters.
Monday, February 8, 2010
No Fear!
It was the game of every parent’s dreams.
There are certain things that are clear only to those who’ve lived a lifetime and earned the wisdom of perspective, far beyond the rites of childhood. When you’re a kid, all that matters is the justice of the moment, the score on the board, the victory at hand. If the numbers don’t add up, the devastation is soulfelt and swift, the bitter tears stinging and consolation beyond reach.
But, oh, the pride of a parent who sees triumph in its true colors.
There is a game of which every parent dreams. It is elusive, magical, that full-moon, harmonic-convergence, remember-it-until-your-last-breath stuff of wish-it-could-happen-this-way. Last night was such a game.
Every dad fantasizes about a gridiron where the impossible obstacle is defied with strength and plucky determination and endurance and against-all-odds excellence.
Every mom dreams of a game where no child gets hurt, no feelings are injured, no angry words spilled.
Every fan knows that football is meant to be played with the chill of fall tugging at the face, that huddling should occur off the field as well as on, that the alluring heat of hot chocolate and coffee has never been so enticing as on the sidelines when the mist of merely breathing rivals that drifting upward from the Styrofoam cup.
Every kid just wants to win.
In the end, anyone who understands victory hopes for a night where every player approaches the opportunity inherent in each play with a sense that anything is possible and confidence and determination reign supreme. Fumbles don’t deter and touchdowns don’t inspire arrogance. The game ain’t over ‘til it’s over and every player gives his didn’t-even-know-he-had-it-in-him absolute all.
Last night wasn’t supposed to go so well. Our opponents, throughout the season, were beyond invincible. Only one team in the league had even scored against them and that had only happened once. With a full roster that gave them the luxury of a refreshed second string, there was little an exhausted team that never got to leave the field could hope to offer in the way of challenge.
But, oh, never underestimate the sheer intensity of dreams.
When I told my son that we would likely be trekking to Chicago over the coming weekend, he was offended. “Don’t make any plans that include next Saturday, Mom,” he cautioned me. “We have a championship game to play.”
This he said with certainty, despite every person with a good pair of eyes and bit of intellect knowing that we didn’t have a hope in the heavens of beating the Colts. I smiled knowingly but withdrew our plans. Who can argue with the faith of a 10 year old?
At game time, our boys surged en masse onto the sidelines, chanting in unison “No fear! No fear! No fear!”
The battle that followed defies my every perception of what should have been humanly possible for this little group of boys that night. Time and again, they moved the ball against boys brawnier and taller, players that had already whupped us once this season and – oh my heavens can it be so? – the first score on the board belonged to our sons!
Impossibly, our team of Eagles flew through the night, preserving their lead beyond the half and touching the final quarter. Then, with their opponents leading by less than a touchdown would cure, the game shrunk to mere seconds and inches from the goal line.
The final play and a judge’s eye left our opponents cheering and their parents breathing heartfelt sighs of relief, but everyone there that night knew the score had been settled with our team in the driver’s seat.
As my ex hugged our son and expressed how proud he was of him, his eyes lifted to mine and they were brimming with tears. It was then that I recalled the man I had known before he became our son’s father and I smiled with a pride of my own, for two boys who were men on the field that night.
It was the perfect victory and no trophy on earth could make it more absolute.
There are certain things that are clear only to those who’ve lived a lifetime and earned the wisdom of perspective, far beyond the rites of childhood. When you’re a kid, all that matters is the justice of the moment, the score on the board, the victory at hand. If the numbers don’t add up, the devastation is soulfelt and swift, the bitter tears stinging and consolation beyond reach.
But, oh, the pride of a parent who sees triumph in its true colors.
There is a game of which every parent dreams. It is elusive, magical, that full-moon, harmonic-convergence, remember-it-until-your-last-breath stuff of wish-it-could-happen-this-way. Last night was such a game.
Every dad fantasizes about a gridiron where the impossible obstacle is defied with strength and plucky determination and endurance and against-all-odds excellence.
Every mom dreams of a game where no child gets hurt, no feelings are injured, no angry words spilled.
Every fan knows that football is meant to be played with the chill of fall tugging at the face, that huddling should occur off the field as well as on, that the alluring heat of hot chocolate and coffee has never been so enticing as on the sidelines when the mist of merely breathing rivals that drifting upward from the Styrofoam cup.
Every kid just wants to win.
In the end, anyone who understands victory hopes for a night where every player approaches the opportunity inherent in each play with a sense that anything is possible and confidence and determination reign supreme. Fumbles don’t deter and touchdowns don’t inspire arrogance. The game ain’t over ‘til it’s over and every player gives his didn’t-even-know-he-had-it-in-him absolute all.
Last night wasn’t supposed to go so well. Our opponents, throughout the season, were beyond invincible. Only one team in the league had even scored against them and that had only happened once. With a full roster that gave them the luxury of a refreshed second string, there was little an exhausted team that never got to leave the field could hope to offer in the way of challenge.
But, oh, never underestimate the sheer intensity of dreams.
When I told my son that we would likely be trekking to Chicago over the coming weekend, he was offended. “Don’t make any plans that include next Saturday, Mom,” he cautioned me. “We have a championship game to play.”
This he said with certainty, despite every person with a good pair of eyes and bit of intellect knowing that we didn’t have a hope in the heavens of beating the Colts. I smiled knowingly but withdrew our plans. Who can argue with the faith of a 10 year old?
At game time, our boys surged en masse onto the sidelines, chanting in unison “No fear! No fear! No fear!”
The battle that followed defies my every perception of what should have been humanly possible for this little group of boys that night. Time and again, they moved the ball against boys brawnier and taller, players that had already whupped us once this season and – oh my heavens can it be so? – the first score on the board belonged to our sons!
Impossibly, our team of Eagles flew through the night, preserving their lead beyond the half and touching the final quarter. Then, with their opponents leading by less than a touchdown would cure, the game shrunk to mere seconds and inches from the goal line.
The final play and a judge’s eye left our opponents cheering and their parents breathing heartfelt sighs of relief, but everyone there that night knew the score had been settled with our team in the driver’s seat.
As my ex hugged our son and expressed how proud he was of him, his eyes lifted to mine and they were brimming with tears. It was then that I recalled the man I had known before he became our son’s father and I smiled with a pride of my own, for two boys who were men on the field that night.
It was the perfect victory and no trophy on earth could make it more absolute.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Hungering to be Hungry
Last night, my kids laughed at me.
They were derisive, really.
“Don’t tell me Mom wants to go to Haiti
I was stunned.
I mean, I know they’re teens and their natural state is cynical, but really? Do they not know that I would drop what I’m doing in an instant and fling my things into a bag to go help someone in need?
“It’s not like you’re a doctor or anything, Mom,” said Thing One and Thing Two. “What do you think you’d be doing there? They don’t need people like you.”
I was silent. But my head was spinning.
In my core, I considered the answers. I’m no nurse, but doctors need someone to corral the kids while their parents are treated, don’t they? Volunteer medics are operating in destroyed parking lots, for crying out loud. Patients are milling around – or strewn around – with little method to the madness.
I’ve seen the videos and they haunt me.
Surely having someone there to soothe the distressed and steer the frantic would help!
It’s true that I don’t even know if I can find someone who will send me.
I just feel that I should.
Yes, even “people like me.”
Yesterday, I sat in my favorite cushy chair in my tastefully decorated living room in my upper-middle-class, suburban neighborhood.
Most of the day.
Oh, I Twittered, I Facebook’d, I played online Scrabble (only two plays; it generally takes Marta a day or two to get back around to noticing there’s a game still going on); I watched the iPad debut. Oh yeah, and I worked, on occasion.
I’m embarrassed to confess it was a typical day.
But somewhere in the world, not actually so very far away, there is no such thing as a "typical" day, anymore. What might have been a room with a sofa is likely now a pile of debris and never-salvaged, decaying bodies. Many who barely survived are facing amputations – by hacksaw.
There is destruction and chaos and panic and despair.
Do I really want to go?
I know it will stink. Gut-wrenchingly. Decomposition is just that way.
It will be hot. It will be chaotic. It will be exhausting. It was be heart wrenching. It will be risky.
Sounds like exactly the place where I will work alongside Jesus. And, perhaps, those people will only see Him through my love when I draw near them.
But why should my kids expect me to be amongst those who would board a plane destined for the unknown to face God knows what in a demolished land? They seemingly have missed the essence of who I believe myself to be in my depths, but what do they see from me each day of the week?
Am I volunteering in the local shelter? Am I down and dirty with anyone in the streets of Atlanta
I want to set an example to my family by being among the first to volunteer when tragedy strikes a hurting people-nation in a far-off land.
But my kids’ reactions last night struck me full force in the heart – and head. If I have any hope of demonstrating to them the kind of person I hope they will become, it can only start in our own stretch of grass.
I’ve known that. Sure, on paper, it sounds logical.
But, somehow, that does not inspire the same urgency in me. There are no cameras to shine a light into those local holes. No fund-raising campaign has people digging through their wallets for even the slightest of change to help. I know of no easy route to identify where to assist first.
There is no chance I will get swept into the flurry of activity that will ensure I actually get off my duff and show up for duty.
Still, I’m guessing there is a child – or a dozen - who feels alone. (He or she may even live in my own house.) There is hunger. Thirst. The need for a bed. A caring presence.
So I have a new challenge. Yes, I’ll still agonize when I see the international images in blogs and television and Internet, and yearn for a route to go and be a voice of comfort in the bedlam. If I find someone who will give me a chance to put my life out there for those people who have lost everything, I will go in an instant.
But, until then, it’s time for me to tug on my service shoes and head next door.
Someone needs me. And someone needs the compassionate adults that my children can become.
There are people and souls who want to be fed and I ache to be there for them but, unless I lead the way, the most for which my children ever hunger may be the latest Apple.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Life as Lexus
It was a bit battered, but you couldn’t really tell.
On the outside, my ’92 Lexus was spiffy. Its shiny red coat would still gloss to a gleaming sheen. Its body was sleek. Each time I’d near a traffic light in it, we’d draw appreciative stares.
If you glanced through the window, you’d see a movie glowing on the DVD’s retractable screen, its characters lively, animated and cheerful.
Yep, on the outside we were purty.
But, mercy me, the interior told a different story. The carpet was better than halfway through its second decade and it showed. Every McDonald’s Happy Meal, Pop Tart, QT Big Gulp and Starbuck’s caramel macchiato had pitched in its 229 cents’ worth and left a morsel or smudge behind like graffiti in a worn-out church camp cabin.
The seat had long since lost its threading and the leather splayed open like a tennis shoe that never got tied. A simple cloth seat covering, like spandex slathered across a fat girl at a disco, was stretched to its limits.
The tires were a tad low; the oil light was on; the back window didn’t work.
For any appointment of import, it was necessary for me to pull into a neighboring parking lot before arriving to tug off my sweaty tank shirt and replace it with a nice blouse, since my air conditioning was shot, too.
Still, it got me where I needed to go.
I suppose, without my realizing it, that weathered but colorful car reminded me of myself.
To the world, I looked fine. My hair was tidy and clothes clean. I smiled when the time was right and few knew of my woes.
But, oh, the cacophony inside.
It’s tough to choose what was more traumatic that season. Was it the tumult that ended my last marriage? Or the early, gnawing financial worry that grew as the calendar advanced through that same year in which I lost my job?
That phone call was a tough one. Being told it’s no longer necessary to come in, when your children are depending on you, is harrowing. Stunned, I walked in a daze that day. As no job offer replaced it in the months to come, the stupor progressed to numb disbelief.
Still, the pounding at the door at 3 a.m. was enough to shatter the calm. I thought only ne’er do wells had repo guys show up in the wee hours of the night. As I crouched behind furniture and left the lights off, I wondered in a panic what on earth I was going to do when they finally caught me home.
And then there were the fleas.
My daughter had adopted an adorable, teeny black kitten and, it turned out, it had adopted zillions of not-so-adorable, teeny black fleas. Within days, our home became infested. It was impossible to sit down on the sofa without leaving, newly adorned to the ankles with socks knit not from fiber, but squirming, hopping insects.
Sure, you cringe. Imagine the reality.
My son, who welts from the most meager mosquito, had to sleep at his dad’s to escape the fun as we fumigated.
Because they were not content to invade my home, the miniature beasts rode, literally, on our coattails to the Lexus. No space was sacred. The exterminator said it was a bad year for fleas. I felt like it was just a bad year for me.
My prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears.
But, oh, we kept ticking. Though our family’s engine was sputtering, we plodded forward, clinging to our faith and the many assurances we found there.
When the refrigerator decided to stop cooling on the same week that the spare fridge died in the garage, we tugged out the mini-fridge from my son’s room and downsized the perishables. With no money for groceries, reduction was no problem.
When the gas was turned off, we heated pots of water on the stove and filled our baths, one slosh at a time, with inviting warmth. At least we still had electricity.
When the pantry grew grim, we got creative. We anointed Fridge Friday, where our entire meal had to come from within the mini-fridge. Macaroni Monday was a hit, as we’d make a massive bowl of macaroni and cheese and then have a floor party. Just like a huge sundae with four spoons, we’d dive into the bowl with four forks as we re-watched old home movies. Sometimes, for fun, we’d curl up in the Lexus, still parked in the garage with motor off, and watch DVDs there with a bowl of popcorn.
SuperClub Sundays were the kids’ favorite. After church, we perused the sample offerings at the local Costco and filled up on miniature slices of pizza, crackers heavy laden with lobster dip and the occasional hot wing.
Even signing on the dotted bankruptcy line - though I did it with a heavy note of shame - didn’t seal our doom. We were, after all, being given a second chance. Yes, our credit was shot and would be for a long, long time but, hey, at least we could see beyond the credit card mess I’d created as I struggled to keep afloat.
Perhaps you’re wondering why I don’t have the good grace to keep such humiliations secret. But that Lexus taught me something.
If the exterior gives no hint as to the interior’s decay, how are we ever supposed to reach out to each other for life-sustaining encouragement?
When it seemed nothing else could go wrong, the Lexus died. Parked in my driveway, its hood lifted in white-flag defeat for all to see, it seemed the final monument to my failure.
That afternoon, my phone rang. It was a neighbor – one who had never spoken to me in the five years we’d lived across from each other – asking if I needed help. Their daughter’s car, they said, frequently broke down, and they’d learned a few things about engines.
Their simple gesture left me feeling awed.
Sometimes God listens and listens and listens. But He’s also watching and watching. Perhaps what He’s waiting for is a sign that we’re willing to be vulnerable with others and honest with ourselves.
Rolling down the tinted windows of our lives and letting others peer in may not be such a bad thing, after all.
A scratch in the paint of perfection, it seems, goes a long way.
On the outside, my ’92 Lexus was spiffy. Its shiny red coat would still gloss to a gleaming sheen. Its body was sleek. Each time I’d near a traffic light in it, we’d draw appreciative stares.
If you glanced through the window, you’d see a movie glowing on the DVD’s retractable screen, its characters lively, animated and cheerful.
Yep, on the outside we were purty.
But, mercy me, the interior told a different story. The carpet was better than halfway through its second decade and it showed. Every McDonald’s Happy Meal, Pop Tart, QT Big Gulp and Starbuck’s caramel macchiato had pitched in its 229 cents’ worth and left a morsel or smudge behind like graffiti in a worn-out church camp cabin.
The seat had long since lost its threading and the leather splayed open like a tennis shoe that never got tied. A simple cloth seat covering, like spandex slathered across a fat girl at a disco, was stretched to its limits.
The tires were a tad low; the oil light was on; the back window didn’t work.
For any appointment of import, it was necessary for me to pull into a neighboring parking lot before arriving to tug off my sweaty tank shirt and replace it with a nice blouse, since my air conditioning was shot, too.
Still, it got me where I needed to go.
I suppose, without my realizing it, that weathered but colorful car reminded me of myself.
To the world, I looked fine. My hair was tidy and clothes clean. I smiled when the time was right and few knew of my woes.
But, oh, the cacophony inside.
It’s tough to choose what was more traumatic that season. Was it the tumult that ended my last marriage? Or the early, gnawing financial worry that grew as the calendar advanced through that same year in which I lost my job?
That phone call was a tough one. Being told it’s no longer necessary to come in, when your children are depending on you, is harrowing. Stunned, I walked in a daze that day. As no job offer replaced it in the months to come, the stupor progressed to numb disbelief.
Still, the pounding at the door at 3 a.m. was enough to shatter the calm. I thought only ne’er do wells had repo guys show up in the wee hours of the night. As I crouched behind furniture and left the lights off, I wondered in a panic what on earth I was going to do when they finally caught me home.
And then there were the fleas.
My daughter had adopted an adorable, teeny black kitten and, it turned out, it had adopted zillions of not-so-adorable, teeny black fleas. Within days, our home became infested. It was impossible to sit down on the sofa without leaving, newly adorned to the ankles with socks knit not from fiber, but squirming, hopping insects.
Sure, you cringe. Imagine the reality.
My son, who welts from the most meager mosquito, had to sleep at his dad’s to escape the fun as we fumigated.
Because they were not content to invade my home, the miniature beasts rode, literally, on our coattails to the Lexus. No space was sacred. The exterminator said it was a bad year for fleas. I felt like it was just a bad year for me.
My prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears.
But, oh, we kept ticking. Though our family’s engine was sputtering, we plodded forward, clinging to our faith and the many assurances we found there.
When the refrigerator decided to stop cooling on the same week that the spare fridge died in the garage, we tugged out the mini-fridge from my son’s room and downsized the perishables. With no money for groceries, reduction was no problem.
When the gas was turned off, we heated pots of water on the stove and filled our baths, one slosh at a time, with inviting warmth. At least we still had electricity.
When the pantry grew grim, we got creative. We anointed Fridge Friday, where our entire meal had to come from within the mini-fridge. Macaroni Monday was a hit, as we’d make a massive bowl of macaroni and cheese and then have a floor party. Just like a huge sundae with four spoons, we’d dive into the bowl with four forks as we re-watched old home movies. Sometimes, for fun, we’d curl up in the Lexus, still parked in the garage with motor off, and watch DVDs there with a bowl of popcorn.
SuperClub Sundays were the kids’ favorite. After church, we perused the sample offerings at the local Costco and filled up on miniature slices of pizza, crackers heavy laden with lobster dip and the occasional hot wing.
Even signing on the dotted bankruptcy line - though I did it with a heavy note of shame - didn’t seal our doom. We were, after all, being given a second chance. Yes, our credit was shot and would be for a long, long time but, hey, at least we could see beyond the credit card mess I’d created as I struggled to keep afloat.
Perhaps you’re wondering why I don’t have the good grace to keep such humiliations secret. But that Lexus taught me something.
If the exterior gives no hint as to the interior’s decay, how are we ever supposed to reach out to each other for life-sustaining encouragement?
When it seemed nothing else could go wrong, the Lexus died. Parked in my driveway, its hood lifted in white-flag defeat for all to see, it seemed the final monument to my failure.
That afternoon, my phone rang. It was a neighbor – one who had never spoken to me in the five years we’d lived across from each other – asking if I needed help. Their daughter’s car, they said, frequently broke down, and they’d learned a few things about engines.
Their simple gesture left me feeling awed.
Sometimes God listens and listens and listens. But He’s also watching and watching. Perhaps what He’s waiting for is a sign that we’re willing to be vulnerable with others and honest with ourselves.
Rolling down the tinted windows of our lives and letting others peer in may not be such a bad thing, after all.
A scratch in the paint of perfection, it seems, goes a long way.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Spewing on the First Day of Class
Remember your first day in kindergarten? I do. I threw up on the pavement before I stepped onto the bus.
Maybe I was sick. Likely I was scared. Definitely, I was painfully shy.
Part of that stemmed from my certainty that, if I ever stepped out of line, something bad would happen. Very bad.
And so I flew under the radar as best I could, drawing my letters ever so neatly, arcing where they were supposed to arc, slicing when I was told they should slice.
My papers all held A’s. And smiley faces.
So did I.
That early sensory reward for doing exactly as I was told has held itself within my psyche as being Appealing for many, is-it-still-possible-to-count-how-mannnny years.
And so I sit here, a bit frozen in place, questions surrounding how to create a Blog That Is Easy For My Friends And Their Friends To Read rampaging through my head. But, until I know I’m doing it Right, I don’t. seem. able. to move.
You have the answers.
I need them.
But most of you don’t even know me.
Yet.
Sigh.
::raising my hand, like the good little girl that I used to be::
Mind helping that little kindergartner in me out? Because here I am, again, eying the pavement with ever-escalating worry, as I look through your blogs and see features that make sense.
*How the heck do you add that Twitter link to your blog?
*How do I see how many “unique visitors” I have had? (Trust me, if I’ve been to your site, you have had at least one!)
*How do I make it easy for the people who visit me to find YOU?
*And why, despite adding it five times, won’t my supplemental picture show up beside my title? (Does it make a difference that I use Firefox instead of Windows?)
*What are your favorite features? Did you have to hire a designer to achieve them?
*What are your favorite features? Did you have to hire a designer to achieve them?
Meanwhile, an old favorite John Denver tune is scrolling through my head:
“Follow me where I go, who I am and what I know. Make it part of you to be a part of me. Follow me, up and down, all the way and all around. Take my hand and I will follow you...”
Can you help a classmate out?
I’m wearing new shoes today and I’d really rather keep them shiny.
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