If you clicked on the link to read this, I'll bet you did so because of the title. I'd also bet that you believe in Heaven as a real, tangible place. I used to be very certain of it, then decided it might be a figurative place; I just wasn't sure. Losing a loved one changes your perspective. Mine was altered without any doubt when Laura died, 10 years ago this morning.
If you were on the weekly email list during that time, you've heard some of these details, but I have an expanded group of readers from then, so let me tell you some of the things that happened in the final days when she was home. I promise that you won't regret it; it's meant to be the opposite of depressing.
We brought Laura home under hospice care about four days after she collapsed, paralyzed from the cancer eating through her spinal column and skull. But the person we brought home was hardly one I recognized. Yes, she was on a lot of pain medication, but to look at her, you would think she was in the greatest of health: her face was glowing like parchment lit by candles, the kind of glow I'd only seen on a few brides. There was none of the ruddy complexion that vexed her so much. In retrospect, I can only call the look she had as angelic in demeanor. She was so very beautiful, and lots of visitors remarked that she "lit up the room."
After a couple of days, when that hateful disease started to affect the language center in Laura's brain, she stopped communicating except with monosyllabic responses, smiles, or frowns. On the third day, she was unresponsive to any of us all day. Then, at about 4 o'clock, Julie Potts, our own hospice nurse-angel, arrived. When Laura saw Julie, it was like the sun coming through the clouds; she smiled so brilliantly and began speaking in full sentences. I recorded that conversation a few weeks after Laura's death so I would never forget it.
"Hi, Julie! How are you?"
"Well, I'm fine! How are you today?"
Laura's face glowed as she smiled and replied, "I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die."
"How do you feel about that, honey?" Julie asked in her gentle way.
Again the bright smile: "I'm OK! I'm OK."
Julie put down her things and stepped up next to the bed. At that point we had all gathered around her. "Honey, have you seen angels?"
"Yes!"---with the smile of a child full of joy.
"Have you seen Jesus?"
"Yes!"
"Are there angels here with us now?"
"Oh, yes! Lots."
"Are they pretty?"
"Yes. Shiny! Lots of colors."
"Do they want you to come with them?"
"Yes!!"
"Well, it's OK for you to go with them whenever you are ready. We love you but we want you to know that it's OK to go. Will you do that?"
"Yes." All of us around the bed were quietly weeping at that point. It was the most beautiful moment you can imagine.
We all spoke softly to her for a while. Julie asked Laura what her favorite hymn was, to which she replied "Amazing Grace." Julie got us all to sing it, and Laura sang along. That was, to my knowledge, the last time she put more than just a couple of words together at a time. Even as it was happening, I was aware of the magnitude of the gift she was giving us, the peace and hope she was leaving for us.
The next day, Laura was vocalizing all day, sometimes single notes, sometimes little trills. Her sister Peggy asked her if she was singing with the angels, and she answered with a clear, "Yes." At some point, Peggy asked her how she was doing, and Laura beamed, "I live!" We all knew that she meant forever, spiritually, she would live.
That evening, I laid my head on the bed next to her and spoke to her quietly about the things we'd always said: how lucky we were to have had such a friendship, since most people don't even know they can have a friendship as deep as ours; that I would always know she was watching over me, and I'd try to make her proud in every single thing I did; that I'd miss her every day for the rest of my life, but it was absolutely OK for her to go when she was ready; that I loved her with everything my heart could hold, full and running over. And then the last words she said to me, looking me right in the eyes: "Love you."
After that evening, Laura went into a coma, but her body continued to fight for five days. The cats bedded down with her, as they always did, and for the most part, they didn't go on their usual tears through the house. Figaro was still on the bed with Laura when she passed and refused to move until we picked her up.
For the last three days before Laura died, a pair of doves roosted on the deck outside the living room, in plain view of her and anyone else in the room. Though we had many birds at our house, none had ever done that, and they never did it again after she died.
That final morning, I took my usual fistful of vitamins and pills and then fixed a bowl of cereal. I took it to the chair next to the head of Laura's bed. Though she'd been unconscious for days, I still talked to her. I said, "OK, I took my pills and I'm eating some cereal to keep all of 'em down there." For years, she'd asked me about those two things every day, so I just told her like I normally would. I looked at her, took a bite, and looked down at a magazine in my lap. I picked up another bite. And then, for some reason, as I lifted my spoon toward my mouth, I looked over at her and put the spoon back down. I watched her for several seconds, and she didn't breathe again. It was such a smooth transition, so peaceful, that I could only be glad that she had gone with the angels, that she was able to do it in dignity and tranquility.
I will never know the joy of giving birth, but I know what it is to step to the precipice of death with a person you love beyond measure, and the two experiences are strangely similar. The prospect of death used to terrify me, but Laura showed me something different. You see, I never knew until she proved it that we don't so much go to Heaven; Heaven comes down for us. Heaven holds us in the light of all its candles and reassures those who go and those who are there when they go that everything will be fine. Heaven helps us sing together and sends doves and angels as signs. Heaven doesn't wait at the top of the stairs, tapping a foot impatiently. I never imagined the grace of death, until Laura died, and I saw Heaven come down for her, and for us all.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Everyone Needs Gay Rights
As the Supreme Court considers the legality of same-sex marriages and is expected to hand down a ruling any day, I keep occasionally giving myself a quick head-shaking to make sure I'm really hearing this right. This is 2013, right? Then how is it possible that I've known the right answer to this question for, oh, going on my entire adult life? I didn't even have any concept of gay couples or marriages until I went to college, and it seemed pretty clear to me then. But just when I work up a good head of steam about the meanness and cruelty of many people, I remember that a lot of those who call judgment on the LGBT community don't have any experience that will make the issue clear to them.
I do. I belong to one of the last groups that it is not only socially acceptable to be prejudiced against, but encouraged in many ways---even made a standard topic in the comedy industry. No, I'm not gay, though some people will believe I am no matter what I say. But that's not the argument for this piece. Here's how I know any kind of prejudice is wrong: I'm a fat woman. The whole sentence is important. Yes, Kevin Smith and Chris Christie have taken hits, but they're still seen as tolerable people. Fat women engender an entirely different attitude. Strangers on the street will crack jokes in your face (once, notably, a homeless-looking loser on a bicycle verbally insulted me and a friend). People who should treat you with respect will sneer just as you turn your back, but not quite wait long enough for you to miss it. And the discrimination in the professional world is well-documented; I hardly need to bore you with the details of the summer I applied for 37 teaching jobs before I was hired---by a good woman who actually read my resume and references and wanted me on her team, no matter what. God bless you, Vickie Earnhart, for saving my career.
This doesn't even cover the pathology of growing up a fat girl. I don't have the bytes for that here. But it's where I learned what mean and cruel and judgmental meant.
One might wonder how all of that translates to gay marriage. It seems a simple connection to me, but I was there. It might strain credulity, but here goes: God has spoken in my ear only twice in my life, once as a child, and the other as an adult. I was 20 or 21, pulling up to the stop sign on 5th Street in Pryor, around the corner from my grandparents' house, going to visit my friends Robbie and James at Robbie's house across town. I wrote about James a few weeks back, my friend who helped me understand that black and white experiences were different, no matter how we wanted to deny it. I was thinking as I drove to that stop sign of some of the things his race had suffered, and my heart was rebelling against any kind of "humanity" that would call itself superior to another based on skin color. How could anyone dislike someone with the huge heart, sweet smile, and loving spirit that James had? I may have even said the words out loud: "Why?! It's so wrong." And just before I hit the brakes at that sign, I heard the commanding voice I recognized from childhood: "Then fight this. Fight this."
Still a kid and not accustomed to ignoring authority, I knew instantly that this was a moment I would never forget. I've done my best to honor that charge from God, even though I know there must have been times I've fallen short. God and I have our policy differences from time to time, but I don't think I've ever questioned this one. It was clear to me as time progressed that I had taken it to heart, because I never saw this as a charge to fight racial equality only. Every form of judgment that does not rest on a person's merits alone is an insult to me. It jumps up and slaps me in the face sometimes. For instance, I had always revered Thomas Jefferson as a genius and a superior statesmen, even though I am less concerned with states' rights than he was. It nearly broke my heart to learn that the Indian Removal Act leading to the Trail of Tears was not the brainchild of Andrew Jackson, but of Jefferson. I still teach Jefferson's writings, but I include that detail so that my mostly Native students have more of the story, too.
Is it so much of a leap, then, to wonder why I support gay marriage rights? BECAUSE GOD SAID TO! And that's not just to me. Those who decry it usually do so on the basis of Biblical statements from Leviticus and other Old Testament documents. Yet everything I have been taught states that the New Testament supersedes the Old. No one EVER seems to remember Jesus and his living, loving example, the parables and teachings such as "Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone," the overwhelming evidence that God is meant to pass judgment, not us.
Once we tear down the faulty constructs of the religious objections, there's not much left to argue. Legally, it can be defeated in one sentence: Citizens have no vote as to the rights of others. That's why they're called RIGHTS. Everybody gets them, or nobody gets them. Take your pick. Scientifically, there will be credible proof in the next few years proving that sexuality is determined not by choice, but by nature. I've seen that so many times I can't count, with students who came out to me literally YEARS after I knew they were gay. Socially, I guess those who want to can keep their personal world "untainted" by members of the LGBT community, but I've known some brilliant, talented, and fun people I would have missed out on if I'd worried about their orientation. And really, that's what it's all about. I find it more than a little weird that people even care. Do they demand proof from their hetero friends that they are "pure" enough for their company? See, that's just a little gross right there. I just don't need to know that information on either side of the coin.
If you still disagree with me, just go back in your mind to a time when someone hurt your feelings in the worst way. They picked on you because you had red hair, buck teeth, or big ears; they made fun of you behind your back because your parents were divorcing or you failed a class or your socks clashed or one of a million things that didn't DEFINE you. Remember that hurt, and remind yourself the promise you made that you would never, ever make someone feel as bad as you did. It's not hard to understand: Everyone Needs (Gay) Rights.
I do. I belong to one of the last groups that it is not only socially acceptable to be prejudiced against, but encouraged in many ways---even made a standard topic in the comedy industry. No, I'm not gay, though some people will believe I am no matter what I say. But that's not the argument for this piece. Here's how I know any kind of prejudice is wrong: I'm a fat woman. The whole sentence is important. Yes, Kevin Smith and Chris Christie have taken hits, but they're still seen as tolerable people. Fat women engender an entirely different attitude. Strangers on the street will crack jokes in your face (once, notably, a homeless-looking loser on a bicycle verbally insulted me and a friend). People who should treat you with respect will sneer just as you turn your back, but not quite wait long enough for you to miss it. And the discrimination in the professional world is well-documented; I hardly need to bore you with the details of the summer I applied for 37 teaching jobs before I was hired---by a good woman who actually read my resume and references and wanted me on her team, no matter what. God bless you, Vickie Earnhart, for saving my career.
This doesn't even cover the pathology of growing up a fat girl. I don't have the bytes for that here. But it's where I learned what mean and cruel and judgmental meant.
One might wonder how all of that translates to gay marriage. It seems a simple connection to me, but I was there. It might strain credulity, but here goes: God has spoken in my ear only twice in my life, once as a child, and the other as an adult. I was 20 or 21, pulling up to the stop sign on 5th Street in Pryor, around the corner from my grandparents' house, going to visit my friends Robbie and James at Robbie's house across town. I wrote about James a few weeks back, my friend who helped me understand that black and white experiences were different, no matter how we wanted to deny it. I was thinking as I drove to that stop sign of some of the things his race had suffered, and my heart was rebelling against any kind of "humanity" that would call itself superior to another based on skin color. How could anyone dislike someone with the huge heart, sweet smile, and loving spirit that James had? I may have even said the words out loud: "Why?! It's so wrong." And just before I hit the brakes at that sign, I heard the commanding voice I recognized from childhood: "Then fight this. Fight this."
Still a kid and not accustomed to ignoring authority, I knew instantly that this was a moment I would never forget. I've done my best to honor that charge from God, even though I know there must have been times I've fallen short. God and I have our policy differences from time to time, but I don't think I've ever questioned this one. It was clear to me as time progressed that I had taken it to heart, because I never saw this as a charge to fight racial equality only. Every form of judgment that does not rest on a person's merits alone is an insult to me. It jumps up and slaps me in the face sometimes. For instance, I had always revered Thomas Jefferson as a genius and a superior statesmen, even though I am less concerned with states' rights than he was. It nearly broke my heart to learn that the Indian Removal Act leading to the Trail of Tears was not the brainchild of Andrew Jackson, but of Jefferson. I still teach Jefferson's writings, but I include that detail so that my mostly Native students have more of the story, too.
Is it so much of a leap, then, to wonder why I support gay marriage rights? BECAUSE GOD SAID TO! And that's not just to me. Those who decry it usually do so on the basis of Biblical statements from Leviticus and other Old Testament documents. Yet everything I have been taught states that the New Testament supersedes the Old. No one EVER seems to remember Jesus and his living, loving example, the parables and teachings such as "Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone," the overwhelming evidence that God is meant to pass judgment, not us.
Once we tear down the faulty constructs of the religious objections, there's not much left to argue. Legally, it can be defeated in one sentence: Citizens have no vote as to the rights of others. That's why they're called RIGHTS. Everybody gets them, or nobody gets them. Take your pick. Scientifically, there will be credible proof in the next few years proving that sexuality is determined not by choice, but by nature. I've seen that so many times I can't count, with students who came out to me literally YEARS after I knew they were gay. Socially, I guess those who want to can keep their personal world "untainted" by members of the LGBT community, but I've known some brilliant, talented, and fun people I would have missed out on if I'd worried about their orientation. And really, that's what it's all about. I find it more than a little weird that people even care. Do they demand proof from their hetero friends that they are "pure" enough for their company? See, that's just a little gross right there. I just don't need to know that information on either side of the coin.
If you still disagree with me, just go back in your mind to a time when someone hurt your feelings in the worst way. They picked on you because you had red hair, buck teeth, or big ears; they made fun of you behind your back because your parents were divorcing or you failed a class or your socks clashed or one of a million things that didn't DEFINE you. Remember that hurt, and remind yourself the promise you made that you would never, ever make someone feel as bad as you did. It's not hard to understand: Everyone Needs (Gay) Rights.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Dear Katie:
Today, you've suddenly reached your ninth birthday, though it seems only a year or two ago that we were all at the hospital, waiting for you to arrive. When they brought you out to show you to us, and we learned you were a girl, I knew right then that I'd never be able to help myself; I knew I would always love you best.
Your three older brothers, blessings that they are, were charmers, but we all longed for a little girl to buy pretty dresses and dolls for. Thank goodness you loved them, too. None of us believe in teaching little girls that they are princesses, but we had a good time playing at it with you and seeing your tender heart moved by stories where the good, moral girl is the one who wins in the end.
From the first moment you were born, you had your daddy's perfectly round blue eyes and blond hair (much to your Grandma's delight, if you didn't know). But your brothers nearly made you absolutely rotten. Logan was your protector, a ten-year-old knight at your crib to pick you up if you whimpered or cried. You were Chris's girl; though he called you Trouble early on and for a lot of years, he was your devoted servant. Even Nolan, seemingly hard-hearted Nolan, knew everything about you and could recite what you would and could do, what you wouldn't and couldn't. I'll never forget the night your family got to Grandma and Papa's house the Christmas you were about 18 months old. You tried to climb up on the couch, and by golly, you were NOT going to take help. You threw your doll and her blankey in the floor to give you more room and hauled yourself up, turned and sat, and pointed to your things on the floor with a "Uhh!" Three boys literally DIVED toward them to get them for you. I laughed so hard I cried, and you were a little put out with me for it. I'm still smiling now as I write it.
Your sweet side developed as soon as you could talk and laugh. Your Aunt Sheri still loves the way you laugh; we talk about how you have the most infectious giggle there is. Once when Sheri and I were bringing you down from South Dakota to Oklahoma, we passed through some storms. Soon, Sheri pointed out a rainbow to you. Riding in your little carseat, you said, "Oh, it's booful." It was so cute we got you to say it over and over again, until you hit your limit and refused to say it again.
You've got your own opinions and nothing and no one will change them. I have to admire that; it's not an easy quality to stick with. Sometimes it's aggravating, but others it cracks me up. I remember one time when I was saying goodbye to you at the door of your house, coming back to Oklahoma. You were four, almost five. You hugged and kissed me and said bye. But you did NOT like the fellow I was with---you were not fond of most men back then---and when he said, "Bye, Katie," you positively looked daggers at him with those ice-blue eyes and slammed the door in his face. We laughed over that one, too. Now, of course, you have better manners, but I hope you'll always have the tenacious sense of self to stick by what you believe.
You're so smart that it's a little frightening sometimes. One day shortly after you finished kindergarten, you picked up a set of stickers I had on the table doing bills, and read "Happy Anniversary" out loud without so much as a stutter or stumble. Shocked, I asked you, "How do you know what that says?" A little defensive, you replied, "I just read it." Ever since then, I've made sure I get you at least one book for Christmas and have even been buying books ahead for you for the future. All of your brothers read, too, but I love the fact that you seem born to it.
I think what I love most about you is your exuberance. Few sights will ever bring me as much joy as the memory of you running to greet me, long hair and long legs flying, with your arms flung wide open. Then, too, there was your heartfelt, immediate acceptance of Emeri, your new cousin---in fact, you seemed to fall right in love with her, and the first Christmas when she had to leave before you, you cried so much I thought I would have to break down and cry with you. I had worried that your status as the only girl might make you sensitive to having an older girl come into the family, but I should have known that your wide-open heart would take her in. This spring, a few weeks ago, you were on the radio during a class trip, and the DJ asked what you were going to do this summer. "Ride bikes with my cousin Emeri," you said. No matter that Emeri lives in Texas, nearly a thousand miles from you. That's nothing to your traveling genes and your exuberant will. Even though you just spent a week here with us, I'm sure you'll get your bike-riding in somehow.
The day you were born, Papa called one of his friends on his cell phone to let them know you were here. I happened to be sitting close to him, and I heard him say, "We got us a girl! Yep. Everything's fine. She's a jewel." No one could miss the pride in his face and voice. I hope that you'll always, always remember that from that first day, you were the sparkling gem, the blue-eyed queen of our hearts.
I love you!
Aunt Cathy
Your three older brothers, blessings that they are, were charmers, but we all longed for a little girl to buy pretty dresses and dolls for. Thank goodness you loved them, too. None of us believe in teaching little girls that they are princesses, but we had a good time playing at it with you and seeing your tender heart moved by stories where the good, moral girl is the one who wins in the end.
From the first moment you were born, you had your daddy's perfectly round blue eyes and blond hair (much to your Grandma's delight, if you didn't know). But your brothers nearly made you absolutely rotten. Logan was your protector, a ten-year-old knight at your crib to pick you up if you whimpered or cried. You were Chris's girl; though he called you Trouble early on and for a lot of years, he was your devoted servant. Even Nolan, seemingly hard-hearted Nolan, knew everything about you and could recite what you would and could do, what you wouldn't and couldn't. I'll never forget the night your family got to Grandma and Papa's house the Christmas you were about 18 months old. You tried to climb up on the couch, and by golly, you were NOT going to take help. You threw your doll and her blankey in the floor to give you more room and hauled yourself up, turned and sat, and pointed to your things on the floor with a "Uhh!" Three boys literally DIVED toward them to get them for you. I laughed so hard I cried, and you were a little put out with me for it. I'm still smiling now as I write it.
Your sweet side developed as soon as you could talk and laugh. Your Aunt Sheri still loves the way you laugh; we talk about how you have the most infectious giggle there is. Once when Sheri and I were bringing you down from South Dakota to Oklahoma, we passed through some storms. Soon, Sheri pointed out a rainbow to you. Riding in your little carseat, you said, "Oh, it's booful." It was so cute we got you to say it over and over again, until you hit your limit and refused to say it again.
You've got your own opinions and nothing and no one will change them. I have to admire that; it's not an easy quality to stick with. Sometimes it's aggravating, but others it cracks me up. I remember one time when I was saying goodbye to you at the door of your house, coming back to Oklahoma. You were four, almost five. You hugged and kissed me and said bye. But you did NOT like the fellow I was with---you were not fond of most men back then---and when he said, "Bye, Katie," you positively looked daggers at him with those ice-blue eyes and slammed the door in his face. We laughed over that one, too. Now, of course, you have better manners, but I hope you'll always have the tenacious sense of self to stick by what you believe.
You're so smart that it's a little frightening sometimes. One day shortly after you finished kindergarten, you picked up a set of stickers I had on the table doing bills, and read "Happy Anniversary" out loud without so much as a stutter or stumble. Shocked, I asked you, "How do you know what that says?" A little defensive, you replied, "I just read it." Ever since then, I've made sure I get you at least one book for Christmas and have even been buying books ahead for you for the future. All of your brothers read, too, but I love the fact that you seem born to it.
I think what I love most about you is your exuberance. Few sights will ever bring me as much joy as the memory of you running to greet me, long hair and long legs flying, with your arms flung wide open. Then, too, there was your heartfelt, immediate acceptance of Emeri, your new cousin---in fact, you seemed to fall right in love with her, and the first Christmas when she had to leave before you, you cried so much I thought I would have to break down and cry with you. I had worried that your status as the only girl might make you sensitive to having an older girl come into the family, but I should have known that your wide-open heart would take her in. This spring, a few weeks ago, you were on the radio during a class trip, and the DJ asked what you were going to do this summer. "Ride bikes with my cousin Emeri," you said. No matter that Emeri lives in Texas, nearly a thousand miles from you. That's nothing to your traveling genes and your exuberant will. Even though you just spent a week here with us, I'm sure you'll get your bike-riding in somehow.
The day you were born, Papa called one of his friends on his cell phone to let them know you were here. I happened to be sitting close to him, and I heard him say, "We got us a girl! Yep. Everything's fine. She's a jewel." No one could miss the pride in his face and voice. I hope that you'll always, always remember that from that first day, you were the sparkling gem, the blue-eyed queen of our hearts.
I love you!
Aunt Cathy
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Dear Chris:
You were most special because you were the first: first child, first grandchild, first nephew. I couldn't help it; I've always loved you best.
You were such a longed-for baby in a family that loves children. I was so excited when I got the phone call that your mom was pregnant with you that I started yelling, "I'm going to be an AUNT!" in my apartment behind the front desk of the residence hall I was running at NSU, and the girl working the desk brought me a little congratulatory cake to celebrate the next day.
You looked so much like your dad when you were born, but it was obvious from the start that you were your own man. I remember a day when you were less than a year old, sitting on your dad's lap, your mom on the couch, and me in the floor, in the living room at the old house. You had just discovered the word "duck," and we were repeating it over and over. You belly-laughed every time one of us said, "Duck!" and we couldn't keep from laughing, too. I think this was around the same time that you liked to pop your tongue off the roof of your mouth and could entertain yourself for quite a while with that. One of the things I remember best about when you were just a toddler was how you'd say, "Train goes!" every time the vehicle went over railroad tracks. Even if you were asleep, when we hit those tracks, you'd lift your little head and mutter, "Train goes, Papa!"
You were a worker from the minute you could move a stack of blocks. I'd guess you plotted, planted, and harvested about a million square miles of carpet farmland before you could ever see over the dashboard of a tractor. If you wanted a square peg in a round hole, you would by golly work yourself ragged trying to make it happen. It made for some frustrating activities when you were trying to work with blocks and such, but it gave you an understanding that things don't always go as planned. I teased you a little too much in those days, and you let me know in no uncertain terms. I remember once when you were about 2 or 3 and I was at your house; either Dad or Papa asked if you wanted to go to the pasture to check the cows, and of course you were right on it. But before you could leave, you walked over where I was sitting, put your little hand on me knee, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, "Caffy, you not come." I laughed then and now because it was such a little adult expressing himself to me in that baby voice. But you kept your own counsel in most things, and I was a little too silly much of the time for your businesslike view of the world.
Unlike anyone else I could name, you spoke to me frankly and with smart, sweet questions about Laura after she died. You knew her because she was such a big part of my life, and you were here in Oklahoma when she died. I don't remember what we were up to, but you were with me in my car in Tulsa, and you asked me if I was OK, and did she hurt before she died, and if I was sad, and did she go to heaven. No 12-year-old boy that I've ever known was ever as expressive about death and loss as you were. It was a wonderful gift to me that I'll never forget. I was so very glad to be able to tell you that she didn't hurt anymore and that she was most definitely in heaven, where we'll all meet again.
I've worked with enough teenage boys to know how hard those years are for both the teenager and his world, and you had a double dose of it. Always stubborn, you fought so hard to be your authentic self and to bow to no one. And nothing seemed to settle you but farming---or just being outside roaming your world, whether at home in South Dakota or here in Oklahoma. I watched as you went through those headstrong days, celebrating your strength and praying for your peace, because I know a little of that kind of struggle too. Your years in football, so unexpected in a family that puts more stock in work than play, were a surprise and a pleasure to me. I wish I'd been able to see you play, but I did see the beginnings of the quiet confidence of a man developing there. Your time in school was a torment to you, I know, but a necessary one, because it gave you the time---and the challenges---to grow into who you were meant to be.
Now I see you as a calmer, self-confident young man of 22, having passed that birthday this week on the 21st, and I can hardly believe all these years have gone by. I long for the earnest boy who could name every farm implement under the sun and how and why they were used. I want to capture and never lose the memory of your phone call as a three-year-old telling me proudly, "We going to have a baby," when your twin brothers were on the way. I miss the older brother who proudly bore his 13-years-young baby sister in his arms like a little princess, coming in the back door of Grandma and Papa's house for Christmas. But I love to see the man grown and coming into his own life. You were first, and I loved you first, but never forget that I loved you not for who you could be, but for who you are. May every day bring you more peace and contentment.
Love,
Cathy
You were such a longed-for baby in a family that loves children. I was so excited when I got the phone call that your mom was pregnant with you that I started yelling, "I'm going to be an AUNT!" in my apartment behind the front desk of the residence hall I was running at NSU, and the girl working the desk brought me a little congratulatory cake to celebrate the next day.
You looked so much like your dad when you were born, but it was obvious from the start that you were your own man. I remember a day when you were less than a year old, sitting on your dad's lap, your mom on the couch, and me in the floor, in the living room at the old house. You had just discovered the word "duck," and we were repeating it over and over. You belly-laughed every time one of us said, "Duck!" and we couldn't keep from laughing, too. I think this was around the same time that you liked to pop your tongue off the roof of your mouth and could entertain yourself for quite a while with that. One of the things I remember best about when you were just a toddler was how you'd say, "Train goes!" every time the vehicle went over railroad tracks. Even if you were asleep, when we hit those tracks, you'd lift your little head and mutter, "Train goes, Papa!"
You were a worker from the minute you could move a stack of blocks. I'd guess you plotted, planted, and harvested about a million square miles of carpet farmland before you could ever see over the dashboard of a tractor. If you wanted a square peg in a round hole, you would by golly work yourself ragged trying to make it happen. It made for some frustrating activities when you were trying to work with blocks and such, but it gave you an understanding that things don't always go as planned. I teased you a little too much in those days, and you let me know in no uncertain terms. I remember once when you were about 2 or 3 and I was at your house; either Dad or Papa asked if you wanted to go to the pasture to check the cows, and of course you were right on it. But before you could leave, you walked over where I was sitting, put your little hand on me knee, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, "Caffy, you not come." I laughed then and now because it was such a little adult expressing himself to me in that baby voice. But you kept your own counsel in most things, and I was a little too silly much of the time for your businesslike view of the world.
Unlike anyone else I could name, you spoke to me frankly and with smart, sweet questions about Laura after she died. You knew her because she was such a big part of my life, and you were here in Oklahoma when she died. I don't remember what we were up to, but you were with me in my car in Tulsa, and you asked me if I was OK, and did she hurt before she died, and if I was sad, and did she go to heaven. No 12-year-old boy that I've ever known was ever as expressive about death and loss as you were. It was a wonderful gift to me that I'll never forget. I was so very glad to be able to tell you that she didn't hurt anymore and that she was most definitely in heaven, where we'll all meet again.
I've worked with enough teenage boys to know how hard those years are for both the teenager and his world, and you had a double dose of it. Always stubborn, you fought so hard to be your authentic self and to bow to no one. And nothing seemed to settle you but farming---or just being outside roaming your world, whether at home in South Dakota or here in Oklahoma. I watched as you went through those headstrong days, celebrating your strength and praying for your peace, because I know a little of that kind of struggle too. Your years in football, so unexpected in a family that puts more stock in work than play, were a surprise and a pleasure to me. I wish I'd been able to see you play, but I did see the beginnings of the quiet confidence of a man developing there. Your time in school was a torment to you, I know, but a necessary one, because it gave you the time---and the challenges---to grow into who you were meant to be.
Now I see you as a calmer, self-confident young man of 22, having passed that birthday this week on the 21st, and I can hardly believe all these years have gone by. I long for the earnest boy who could name every farm implement under the sun and how and why they were used. I want to capture and never lose the memory of your phone call as a three-year-old telling me proudly, "We going to have a baby," when your twin brothers were on the way. I miss the older brother who proudly bore his 13-years-young baby sister in his arms like a little princess, coming in the back door of Grandma and Papa's house for Christmas. But I love to see the man grown and coming into his own life. You were first, and I loved you first, but never forget that I loved you not for who you could be, but for who you are. May every day bring you more peace and contentment.
Love,
Cathy
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Skin Deep
Usually,
we learn our life lessons the hard way. We might stumble and fall along the
way, but that's how we learn not to make that particular mistake again. But we can also learn what not to do by watching the people around us, as well as other ways, such as through reading books. Many years ago, when I was in graduate school, I learned a vivid lesson that hasn’t left my mind all these years later.
My last two years of undergraduate work at Northeastern, I had a good friend named James, who happened to be black. I met him when he was working at the front desk in our residence hall. We quickly became close friends, the kind that go everywhere together and talk about anything, but we were only friends. This was in the mid-80's but in Tahlequah there was enough attitude about interracial relationships that we took a lot of flak about it. People didn't care whether we were a couple or not; we heard negative things from black girls and white guys. Some of them were people we knew and some weren't. James and I didn't worry too much about it. We never felt threatened. But we spent a lot of time wondering why everyone was so upset about our friendship. In our view, we were all the same, the human condition was universal, and skin color was just a scientific crap shoot. We prided ourselves on not only being able to maintain a male/female relationship, but also in rising above people's petty ideas about race. Our friendship flourished for years into adulthood, until time and distance sent us our separate ways.
But my experience begins just after those first two years there. James went on toEdmond Arkansas
I looked down at the arm holding the book, and my skin had never looked so white. It was shockingly, sickeningly white to me for a moment. I realized in that instant that there were things I knew, things I had experienced, that James never would, because of the color of our skin. He, too, had experienced things I could not know or feel. In a way, we had been right: we were all the same...but we were the same in that everyone was different. No one could know exactly what it meant to be another person, to live in their skin and feel what they felt. Rarely have I had such a moment of blinding clarity regarding my own small ideas and narrow views.
I wish that lesson were always as vivid to me as it was that day. And, too, I wish I could convey the same experience to any number of prejudiced people I’ve known. We only learn from our own revelations, though. Keeping this one close to the surface will, I hope, always be a priority, to remind myself: We are all alike, because we are all different.
way, but that's how we learn not to make that particular mistake again. But we can also learn what not to do by watching the people around us, as well as other ways, such as through reading books. Many years ago, when I was in graduate school, I learned a vivid lesson that hasn’t left my mind all these years later.
My last two years of undergraduate work at Northeastern, I had a good friend named James, who happened to be black. I met him when he was working at the front desk in our residence hall. We quickly became close friends, the kind that go everywhere together and talk about anything, but we were only friends. This was in the mid-80's but in Tahlequah there was enough attitude about interracial relationships that we took a lot of flak about it. People didn't care whether we were a couple or not; we heard negative things from black girls and white guys. Some of them were people we knew and some weren't. James and I didn't worry too much about it. We never felt threatened. But we spent a lot of time wondering why everyone was so upset about our friendship. In our view, we were all the same, the human condition was universal, and skin color was just a scientific crap shoot. We prided ourselves on not only being able to maintain a male/female relationship, but also in rising above people's petty ideas about race. Our friendship flourished for years into adulthood, until time and distance sent us our separate ways.
But my experience begins just after those first two years there. James went on to
I looked down at the arm holding the book, and my skin had never looked so white. It was shockingly, sickeningly white to me for a moment. I realized in that instant that there were things I knew, things I had experienced, that James never would, because of the color of our skin. He, too, had experienced things I could not know or feel. In a way, we had been right: we were all the same...but we were the same in that everyone was different. No one could know exactly what it meant to be another person, to live in their skin and feel what they felt. Rarely have I had such a moment of blinding clarity regarding my own small ideas and narrow views.
I wish that lesson were always as vivid to me as it was that day. And, too, I wish I could convey the same experience to any number of prejudiced people I’ve known. We only learn from our own revelations, though. Keeping this one close to the surface will, I hope, always be a priority, to remind myself: We are all alike, because we are all different.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Manifesto
For the last three and a half years, and particularly since last fall, when I entered the Healthchoice trial program with Bailey Bariatrics, I had a lot of time to contemplate doing something I had always thought I would never do: irreversibly change the workings of my body to control my weight. I had come to terms with who I was, but my health was in a ridiculous state. Even with exercise, better diet, and good A1C numbers, my neuropathy was worsening. Something had to be done, and this was the best next step. But I wondered: Who will I be after this? How would I avoid the traps that many fall into after a change that all doctors, literature, and meetings warned us was as dramatic as a marriage, a baby, a major move? If I'm honest, I have to admit that it didn't worry me all that much. At 49, one has a certain understanding of oneself that seems unshakable.
But then two things happened this week. One: a wise good friend reminded me not to get inside my head too much---that this process certainly could do it to you, and I think she knows I have a tendency to do that anyway. And then Thursday, Mrittanie in first hour remarked, "You're so much nicer now, Ms. Welker. I mean, you're happy all the time since you had surgery." This amused me (three days back and I'm happy all the time!), but it also gave me pause. What was in my head that might change my attitude about myself? Did I have a good lock on who I am, so I don't get lost in some reverie of being someone new? Because that is the very. last. thing. I. want.
I had a flashback to when I first started teaching Freshman Comp II, around 25 years ago. One of the ways I tried to ease my reticent students into the poetry we studied was to have them write their own poetic manifesto, the legend to the map of their lives. That seems like the best way to handle the ideas passing through my mind the last few days. You'll get no poetry here tonight, but I'm going to be playing a number of songs while I write to grease the wheels. That's what you have to do when you don't drink or smoke yourself silly anymore. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Who am I---indeed, who have I always been, or been heading toward?
I am my father's daughter. I know the wail of Hank Williams and the gravelly bass of Johnny Cash like I know the sound of my own name. I love a few crime shows---rooted in my dad's love of shows we used to watch, like Mannix, The Rockford Files, The FBI---though mine run toward the more modern and somewhat gruesome. Like him, I'll make a complete jackass of myself to make a kid laugh...but don't laugh if I'm mad. Just don't. I am tall, I love sweets, I have his fair skin and reddish hair, his long fingers and lack of patience, his craving for the road and a sentimental love of what family is to one another. I am his great worry and his first pride---even though I didn't get his math gene.
I am my mother's girl. I am a reader who loves the smell of libraries, the older the better; she raised me on weekly library books. I am not the cook she is, but I can bake. I am common sense and practicality, no tears and violent protests to be found. I am her family memory, the keeper of her grandmother's spirit and her mother's heart when she wants to revisit them. I am her only pupil of sewing, which she is a master of and I will never be. I am her oldest; while I cut my teeth, she bloomed from a girl to a mother.
I am a Welker---smart, funny, hardworking, proud. I am a Brown---serious, shy, kind, quiet.
I am a sunrise woman and a sunset girl; otherwise, the daytime sky holds little interest for me, unless a storm is brewing. I am at home in the night, in the quiet, a lone hoot owl calling from the trees. I love the moon and look to it for answers, like the tea leaves in a cup. I am sure that our spirits can connect with one another through space; it's happened too many times to me for me ever to forget it.
I am a open-heart farm girl of the Plains, where a car on your dirt road in the summer evening will leave the air full of gold dust till the sun goes down. I am moved nearly to tears by the ripple of ripe wheat; much worse, the cut stubble breaks my heart. I'm filled with contentment watching cattle move across a hill of soft, full green grass. Big round bales look like happy confetti dotting prairie hayfields and alfalfa pastures. My family home is so beautiful to me that I want not to be buried when I die, but to have my ashes scattered in the pasture behind---so sure am I that heaven will open over it.
I am Laura's best friend, and I always will be. I am completely confident of being reunited with her on the other side of this world and this little life. I am still the girl I was when we met: young, immature, ready to fly. If I am brave, strong, consistent, it's because she showed me I was; she was the first---perhaps the only---person outside of my family who loved and believed in me 100%. I am able, just weeks short of 10 years since she left us, to call up her beloved voice, her laugh, her wisdom and clarity in so many situations. I am part of her memory here on earth, the one I hope she would love most. I am so sad that I don't get to see her again here, but I know I can wait.
I am mine alone; no other soul can lay claim to my spirit. I am not without a heart, but I have truly loved only one man, one so unworthy that I thought I would die of it, wished, hoped,willed myself to die from it. I am here for other reasons, some clear to me, some not so much. I'm rarely lonely; being a lone wolf suits me.
Yet I'm still the Tahlequah girl with the wild red curls, the long cigarettes, the big mouth, the know-it-all college student who loved to dance and go out with friends. I'm the '77 long-nosed Monte Carlo I drove for 9 years, high school through grad school, slipping through time like diving into creek water. I'm the Patsy Cline wannabe who found my stage in a classroom and my music in a lit text. I'm a thousand days and nights on a campus where I learned who I was apart from my home.
I wade Oklahoma rivers, swim in mountain snowmelt, ride ocean waves. I've walked the crowded streets of NYC, wandered the Alaskan wilderness, stumbled through the Malibu surf, and frolicked through Disneyworld. I know the endless open sky of Canadian provinces my students have never even heard of. I read maps like books and pore over pictures like casting runes. I dream of a day when I could traverse Europe with no agenda other than my own education and pleasure.
I am a proud Okie, though my state doesn't always make me proud. I'm rooted here beyond any moving, though it was tried once. The Texas ground didn't suit.
Now as my years advance, I find myself learning new things. I know now that, contrary to my belief for many years, I AM a vain person. I was vain about my curly hair, my long legs, my good complexion, and my elegant hands. One by one those have gone by the wayside, and I am learning to deal with growing old. I'm not bitter, but I am whiny at times.
I am ice cream and poetry, fast cars and grammar. I'm a rock-n-roll song thumping away on the stereo, driving through the dark, the yellow passing lines click-click-clicking by. I'm Miss Cheeseburger in Paradise, preferring the down-home to the more elegant. I'm Tchaikovsky and B.B. King, Rhianna and Emmylou Harris. I'm NPR and KVOO, KMOD and a Barry Manilow 8-track. I'm a homemade dress and an apricot silk suit and a green turtleneck sweater. I'm a believer that goodness, purity, and light will conquer evil and darkness. I'm basketball games and wienie roasts, theater movies and late-night television. I'm the one he won't ever forget. I am blood and bone, but I'm music in every cell of my being, Emily Dickinson engraving my soul. I somehow know what it would feel like to be able to fly, but I'm terrified of heights. Great conversation is better than any meal to me; the way to my heart is through my brain. I'm your sister/daughter/mother/friend, your teacher/counselor/neighbor/lost love. I'm my own worst enemy and my greatest champion, determined to be more tomorrow than I am now. I'm tired and worn down, but like water dripping for a thousand years, the process made me smoother, wearing down the jagged edges.
And so I find....I am more than I can write if I had the entire web to do it. You are too, dear reader.
This is who I am. May I ever be true and faithful to it.
But then two things happened this week. One: a wise good friend reminded me not to get inside my head too much---that this process certainly could do it to you, and I think she knows I have a tendency to do that anyway. And then Thursday, Mrittanie in first hour remarked, "You're so much nicer now, Ms. Welker. I mean, you're happy all the time since you had surgery." This amused me (three days back and I'm happy all the time!), but it also gave me pause. What was in my head that might change my attitude about myself? Did I have a good lock on who I am, so I don't get lost in some reverie of being someone new? Because that is the very. last. thing. I. want.
I had a flashback to when I first started teaching Freshman Comp II, around 25 years ago. One of the ways I tried to ease my reticent students into the poetry we studied was to have them write their own poetic manifesto, the legend to the map of their lives. That seems like the best way to handle the ideas passing through my mind the last few days. You'll get no poetry here tonight, but I'm going to be playing a number of songs while I write to grease the wheels. That's what you have to do when you don't drink or smoke yourself silly anymore. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Who am I---indeed, who have I always been, or been heading toward?
I am my father's daughter. I know the wail of Hank Williams and the gravelly bass of Johnny Cash like I know the sound of my own name. I love a few crime shows---rooted in my dad's love of shows we used to watch, like Mannix, The Rockford Files, The FBI---though mine run toward the more modern and somewhat gruesome. Like him, I'll make a complete jackass of myself to make a kid laugh...but don't laugh if I'm mad. Just don't. I am tall, I love sweets, I have his fair skin and reddish hair, his long fingers and lack of patience, his craving for the road and a sentimental love of what family is to one another. I am his great worry and his first pride---even though I didn't get his math gene.
I am my mother's girl. I am a reader who loves the smell of libraries, the older the better; she raised me on weekly library books. I am not the cook she is, but I can bake. I am common sense and practicality, no tears and violent protests to be found. I am her family memory, the keeper of her grandmother's spirit and her mother's heart when she wants to revisit them. I am her only pupil of sewing, which she is a master of and I will never be. I am her oldest; while I cut my teeth, she bloomed from a girl to a mother.
I am a Welker---smart, funny, hardworking, proud. I am a Brown---serious, shy, kind, quiet.
I am a sunrise woman and a sunset girl; otherwise, the daytime sky holds little interest for me, unless a storm is brewing. I am at home in the night, in the quiet, a lone hoot owl calling from the trees. I love the moon and look to it for answers, like the tea leaves in a cup. I am sure that our spirits can connect with one another through space; it's happened too many times to me for me ever to forget it.
I am a open-heart farm girl of the Plains, where a car on your dirt road in the summer evening will leave the air full of gold dust till the sun goes down. I am moved nearly to tears by the ripple of ripe wheat; much worse, the cut stubble breaks my heart. I'm filled with contentment watching cattle move across a hill of soft, full green grass. Big round bales look like happy confetti dotting prairie hayfields and alfalfa pastures. My family home is so beautiful to me that I want not to be buried when I die, but to have my ashes scattered in the pasture behind---so sure am I that heaven will open over it.
I am Laura's best friend, and I always will be. I am completely confident of being reunited with her on the other side of this world and this little life. I am still the girl I was when we met: young, immature, ready to fly. If I am brave, strong, consistent, it's because she showed me I was; she was the first---perhaps the only---person outside of my family who loved and believed in me 100%. I am able, just weeks short of 10 years since she left us, to call up her beloved voice, her laugh, her wisdom and clarity in so many situations. I am part of her memory here on earth, the one I hope she would love most. I am so sad that I don't get to see her again here, but I know I can wait.
I am mine alone; no other soul can lay claim to my spirit. I am not without a heart, but I have truly loved only one man, one so unworthy that I thought I would die of it, wished, hoped,willed myself to die from it. I am here for other reasons, some clear to me, some not so much. I'm rarely lonely; being a lone wolf suits me.
Yet I'm still the Tahlequah girl with the wild red curls, the long cigarettes, the big mouth, the know-it-all college student who loved to dance and go out with friends. I'm the '77 long-nosed Monte Carlo I drove for 9 years, high school through grad school, slipping through time like diving into creek water. I'm the Patsy Cline wannabe who found my stage in a classroom and my music in a lit text. I'm a thousand days and nights on a campus where I learned who I was apart from my home.
I wade Oklahoma rivers, swim in mountain snowmelt, ride ocean waves. I've walked the crowded streets of NYC, wandered the Alaskan wilderness, stumbled through the Malibu surf, and frolicked through Disneyworld. I know the endless open sky of Canadian provinces my students have never even heard of. I read maps like books and pore over pictures like casting runes. I dream of a day when I could traverse Europe with no agenda other than my own education and pleasure.
I am a proud Okie, though my state doesn't always make me proud. I'm rooted here beyond any moving, though it was tried once. The Texas ground didn't suit.
Now as my years advance, I find myself learning new things. I know now that, contrary to my belief for many years, I AM a vain person. I was vain about my curly hair, my long legs, my good complexion, and my elegant hands. One by one those have gone by the wayside, and I am learning to deal with growing old. I'm not bitter, but I am whiny at times.
I am ice cream and poetry, fast cars and grammar. I'm a rock-n-roll song thumping away on the stereo, driving through the dark, the yellow passing lines click-click-clicking by. I'm Miss Cheeseburger in Paradise, preferring the down-home to the more elegant. I'm Tchaikovsky and B.B. King, Rhianna and Emmylou Harris. I'm NPR and KVOO, KMOD and a Barry Manilow 8-track. I'm a homemade dress and an apricot silk suit and a green turtleneck sweater. I'm a believer that goodness, purity, and light will conquer evil and darkness. I'm basketball games and wienie roasts, theater movies and late-night television. I'm the one he won't ever forget. I am blood and bone, but I'm music in every cell of my being, Emily Dickinson engraving my soul. I somehow know what it would feel like to be able to fly, but I'm terrified of heights. Great conversation is better than any meal to me; the way to my heart is through my brain. I'm your sister/daughter/mother/friend, your teacher/counselor/neighbor/lost love. I'm my own worst enemy and my greatest champion, determined to be more tomorrow than I am now. I'm tired and worn down, but like water dripping for a thousand years, the process made me smoother, wearing down the jagged edges.
And so I find....I am more than I can write if I had the entire web to do it. You are too, dear reader.
This is who I am. May I ever be true and faithful to it.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Too Many Irons
It's another weekend when I will be away from a computer and can't post on Saturday night. This seems like the sort of thing that shouldn't happen in this day and age. My resistence to mobile media doesn't help. I don't WANT a Smartphone; I don't want ANY MORE technology that is smarter than I am---most of it already is.
Still, I know it's on my mind. Last night I dreamed---since I had surgery last week, I've been having the *w-e-i-r-d-e-s-t* dreams, even without pain meds---Last night I dreamed that I had some kind of tablet device in my pants pocket, and I jumped in a lake with it there. What does that mean, exactly? I think I was with some college friends in this dream. Or maybe it was students? I just don't know. But within a couple of seconds of hitting the water, I realized what I had done and leaped back out of the water. The rest of the dream seemed to be of me sitting in an office that belonged to Boo Roberts and waiting to see if he could rescue it, or at least save the data and media files. And Boo, in case you're reading this, do you by chance have an office with a poster of that KATT car that was in, I think, the 70's show "Greatest American Hero"? Because you did last night.
Maybe the message is just to get with the times so I don't have to post these pitiful, rambling apologies in exchange for a genuine blog. However, I do have once consolation this time: I did post two blogs last weekend, so I'm going to claim one for this Saturday. I'll think of you this weekend when I nibble the tiniest bit of wedding cake and toast the two coolest 30-somethings I know.
Aren't you glad I didn't write something lame about the sleet/snow event in May? Yep, I just had to mention it.
See you next week, kids.
Still, I know it's on my mind. Last night I dreamed---since I had surgery last week, I've been having the *w-e-i-r-d-e-s-t* dreams, even without pain meds---Last night I dreamed that I had some kind of tablet device in my pants pocket, and I jumped in a lake with it there. What does that mean, exactly? I think I was with some college friends in this dream. Or maybe it was students? I just don't know. But within a couple of seconds of hitting the water, I realized what I had done and leaped back out of the water. The rest of the dream seemed to be of me sitting in an office that belonged to Boo Roberts and waiting to see if he could rescue it, or at least save the data and media files. And Boo, in case you're reading this, do you by chance have an office with a poster of that KATT car that was in, I think, the 70's show "Greatest American Hero"? Because you did last night.
Maybe the message is just to get with the times so I don't have to post these pitiful, rambling apologies in exchange for a genuine blog. However, I do have once consolation this time: I did post two blogs last weekend, so I'm going to claim one for this Saturday. I'll think of you this weekend when I nibble the tiniest bit of wedding cake and toast the two coolest 30-somethings I know.
Aren't you glad I didn't write something lame about the sleet/snow event in May? Yep, I just had to mention it.
See you next week, kids.
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