It's A Bird! It's A Plane!

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

A page turns.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

The tea pot whistles.

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. The opening of a cabinet door. The clink of china on china.

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. The creak of a divan.

A pair of brown eyes look up from times font and watches the rim of a dainty china tea cup disappear behind lips stained with Instant Mocha. Amazingly enough, the way she curves her lips over the rim makes it impossible for any of the lip stick to come off.

The eyes return to the book and, while there are still 30 minutes left of reading time, reading is an absolute joy, and with over 1000 books in the house, there is something for everyone.

Tick, tock, tick, tock. Another page turns.

BANG!

The kitchen door busts open and in walks muscles and angled jaw line.

"Hey, kids! Watcha up to?" a voice hollers. All attention is centered on the broad shoulders plowing through the kitchen and into the living room where the divans hold two little girls, one mother, and one grandmother.

"I fixed the light switch in the garage and stopped at Mike's for some watermelon. I took your car to get the oil changed and got to talkin' to the preacher's wife. Did you know Mrs. (So-and-so) broke her hip? Geez is that gonna be difficult for her kids."

Swoosh! He sits down in the arm chair, his eyes snapping with energy. "What are y'all doing? What's going on tonight? Oh!" He pops back up. "I forgot to get y'all a new television. I'll be back."

The kitchen door slams.

My grandmother looks at my mother and raises an eyebrow. "I guess he didn't need any answers to his questions."

Eyes go back to books.

That was my uncle. My mother's baby brother. The bull in my grandmother's china cabinet. I don't think he would've appreciated reading time.

He took care of things. And of people. He calls. He would walk across a highway if he saw you on the other side just to ask how you did. I think Ben Franklin really used the blood in my uncle's veins to make electricity.

He was larger than life to me, always busy, always in the middle of it all, and he looked so much like Superman, or Clark Kent, or Christopher Reeve, whichever.

I'll call him Uncle Clark. So, one quick question -- What the heck is a divan? I always looked for them in Grandmother's living room. I still haven't found them.

Parent

Every once in awhile we are given rare opportunities to be angels on earth. It is in these moments we find out how selfless we are. It is a greater test than one of our physical stamina, though sometimes being selfless takes physical strength.

My mother has been tested to the limits of her endurance throughout her life. Why that is, I cannot tell you. God has his reasons for things and it is pointless to analyze, explain, or question. He does not make mistakes...

I haven't written about Bill and his medical condition for a few months. This is to mirror how it was for me as a child...done...over...a thing of the past.

That is a luxury we have as children. We don't have to pick up pieces, do damage control, smooth ruffled feathers, or dry tears. Our parents, on the other hand, have to see a problem through to its end.

There were lots of doctor visits, tests, sleepless nights, prayers, and medicine. I am sure she was on edge for 15 months, waiting for seizures, and praying they would stop.

Detecting a seizure in an infant is almost impossible. Often doctors miss them even while the child is in their care. I know my mother watched my brother like a hawk, noticing every twitch, every day dreamy expression, willing God to allow her to see within Bill and predict when and where it would happen.

I know this because I could feel it within her as a child. Often I prayed for her as much as I did Bill. I may not have liked church, but I used the direct line to God to exhaustion.

Whenever I think back on what my parents must have gone through, I am always awed. I used to wonder how they captured the strength to get through those years.

As a thirty-six-year-old I now know from where they drew their strength...

Love.

A phenomenal emotion. Powerful. Determined. Selfless and true.

Some of you might disagree with me and say it was God that gave them the strength, but you are forgetting what God is. He is love. God is love.

So, it was love that gave my mother the ability to lie on a gurney in Sunday dress, hose, and heels with Bill laying on her torso, not moving a muscle for three hours straight because it was the best and most peaceful sleep he'd had in awhile.

My mother...love weakened her and strengthened her...and she did great things.

"And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13

Choir Practice

Mom and Dad joined the choir at church. That left us at home with a baby sitter.

Poor baby sitter...she never knew what hit her.

I enjoyed many acrobatic feats while my parents were away and the baby sitter wanted me to like her, which I quickly figured out, so she let me do pretty much whatever I wanted...

Use the stair railing as a ladder, stand on the coffee table and pretend it was a stage, pretend the edge of the back of the couch was a balance beam, use the floor in the kitchen as a bowling alley...

But, the absolute best was the slide I created...

Our couch was so ugly. It was brown with some kind of harvest gold design on it. The pillows were detachable and it had one long, very long, cushion that stretched from arm to arm. This very long cushion came in quite handy.

My sisters and I would pull the cushion off, carry it up the stairs, set it down, climb on, wrap our legs around the person in front of us, and then...SWOOSH!

We pushed off and slid, and slid, and slid down the stairs! Over, and over, and over again! It was amazing and fast and fun!

The wind wisked through our hair, the room lit up with our giggles, our cheers, our cries of bravery! We were fearless and reckless!

And...don't worry...I always put myself in front so if someone got hurt, it was probably going to be me.

First Concert

Did I mention I can sing? And that I sing all the time and at the top of my lungs?

You'd think that would turn my music teacher off, but she seemed to appreciate me. Of course, she was pretty kooky herself. She was a child of the 60s and had Fawcett hair and a Mary Tyler Moore wardrobe.

She ran concerts for every grade level. In first grade, we had some kind of square dance thing. And I had a solo.

I don't remember the song, but I felt pretty important standing up there singing and I wasn't embarrassed, or nervous. When one is already loud, boisterous, and constantly excited, one gets used to being watched.

Though, this time, the stares and glances were not ones of shock, discomfiture, or fright.

I was a good singer. It was my talent and no one was going to tell me how to do it, or what to sing.

So, if you're keeping score...I can sing and I read more than just Dr. Suess. I am paving the way to feeling united with Little Orphan Annie and Anne of Green Gables.

Do you find it odd that both are orphaned, named Anne, and are red-headed?

It's A Hard-Knock Life

Saturday mornings were almost as bad as Sunday mornings in our house.

On Sunday, you were forced to get up and stuff yourself into tights and a dress, not a twirly one, and sit on a hard, sharp, pointy church pew for an hour, listening to someone spout words so foreign in meaning it made your head hurt if you tried to make sense of them.

Saturday mornings were almost as bad.

While I was up at the crack of dawn and did get in some playing time before Mom got up, she usually appeared before I had a chance to accomplish everything I had planned for the day.

She would emerge from her boudoir in her maroon, or pink, satin pajamas, robe, and slippers and say, “Girls! It’s time for a family meeting!”

Those words pained me. They wrenched at my gut and made me want to stomp my feet and scream at the top of my lungs.

We never hopped to right away and she would have to summon us a second time. Someone would shout, “Coming!”, and she would say in her best teacher voice, “Coming is in the process of.”

Wendy, Maria, and I would trudge into the living room and sit down on the poop brown couch with frustrated moans. It was like going to our deaths.

Then Mom started talking. No, ordering.

“Kara, you will pick up the living and dining room. Dust the surfaces, to include the window sills and blinds.”

“Maria, you will pick up the girls’ bedroom and bathroom, to include taking the towels to the laundry room.”

“Wendy, you will pick up Bill’s room, to include putting away the folded laundry in the basket on his floor.”

She would look at each one of us as she spoke, her words succinct and deliberate. Her black eyebrows would raise over her blue eyes and we knew she would remember exactly what she told us to do.

“Do we all understand?” she would ask.

Nods and sighs and groans were her answer.

“Good,” she would say. “Now get started.”

Maybe Saturday mornings were worse than Sundays. At least I could say I didn’t understand what the man in robes was saying so I didn’t have to pay attention.

Ugh…

Shining Star

I have a star on my hand. It has been drawn with blue marker, only my skin has turned it to sort of a bluish-green.

My teacher put it there.

I know she drew it on my hand because I had a good day and this was her way of communicating that to my mother.

I wasn’t that impressed with the prize, especially when I had no idea what I had done to deserve it.

I suppose I hadn’t yelled at anyone that day. I distinctly remember one instance when I told a group of girls, “You think you’re just so smart because you’re in Ms. Otto’s class!”.

They looked at me like I’d grown two heads. But, what ELSE do you say to girls who flock together and don’t let anyone else into their group?

Mean girls…

Cute hair, cute ribbons, cute clothes, cute dimples…

I did not fit in.

I didn’t really want to, though. I didn’t have any desire to play dolls, or house at recess, which is what they did. I preferred to play with the boys. Dodge ball, kickball, tag, etc.

Much better.

Though the boys never excluded me, I knew I was doing the "wrong" thing. Boys weren't going to invite me to slumber parties, or skating parties, or ask me to sit with them at lunch.

I understood that I didn't really fit in most places. My teacher had issues with me, the girls avoided me, the boys tolerated me...I knew this.

Then, one day, I got an admirer all my own...

In my wranglers and button down shirt, I walked up to the librarian and said in a very proper tone because he was the librarian, “Excuse me, but would you have any books by Rudyard Kipling?”.

After he survived his heart attack at hearing that come out of the mouth of a first grader, I became the twinkle in his eye. He didn't need me to be a boy, or wear ribbons, or listen.

I was fine just as I was.

Fashion Nonsense

I have absolutely no fashion sense. I know what I like and I usually wear what I like despite fashion, sex appeal, or Labor Day rules.

I am a Wrangler girl. Or, a Levi Strauss girl. Both brands were bought from Wiener’s Department store.

Jeans were my choice of apparel because more could be done in jeans. It didn’t matter if you were running, or jumping, or climbing, or hanging upside down because nothing “unmentionable” could be seen and denim was allowed to be dirty, or ripped.

I didn’t particularly care for dresses.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I loved dresses that twirled. If they were “plain jane” what was the point in wearing them? I didn’t turn any more heads in those dresses than I did in my Wranglers or Levi’s.

There was one more plus to wearing jeans…

I could wear my favorite shirt. It was pink.

I know, shocking! My favorite shirt was pink!

But, I didn’t care about the color since the quote written on the shirt summed up my whole attitude, reason for living, and belief system.

People would see me coming and know EXACTLY what I was about. It gave me leave to prove it as well, which I did regularly.

So, exactly what was the quote on my shirt you ask?

“ANYTHING BOYS CAN DO, GIRLS CAN DO BETTER!”

Score for me, for girls everywhere, and for my mother who had the sense to buy it for me.