The Ghosts That Haunt Me

I heard a theory recently that offered a new twist on the belief in ghosts.  Just as supernatural, the claim was that the creaky floorboards, scuffling soles, and muffled voices that we hear in the darkness of night might actually belong to us--to another life, the life that might've been, an alternate universe no less real than our own.   

Our ghosts are ourselves haunting us, plaguing us with the sounds of choices not made in this time, this dimension.

I remember as a child being transfixed by the stark black and white of It's A Wonderful Life and the seriousness of George Bailey's plight.  This was no light Christmas cartoon or jolly romp with Santa.  This haunted like A Christmas Carol.   George Bailey becomes a desperate man who feels he has not lead the life he wanted.   His family lives in what was once an abandoned, broken down mansion.  He works a job he hates, that his father worked before him.  He lives in his hometown; his dreams of world travel crushed years before as he made sacrifice after sacrifice for the sake of others.  

Finally, through tears, he contemplates his life and decides suicide is his only option.  He believes the world would've been better had he not been born.  We know how the story progresses.  His wish is granted.  He sees what would've happened if he had never existed (the biggest flaw in the narrative being that his wife Mary didn't marry Sam Wainwright).  The alternate universe is dark, frightening, fraught with tragedy and horror.    

Much like A Christmas Carol, the movie delves into the psychological terror of our deepest curiosity and fear--the chance to see the world if we had never existed.

Sometimes, I have dreams where my brother is still alive.  A mistake happened at the cemetery, and they revived him.  Who is "they"?  I don't know.  How do they revive cremated ashes?  This is always something that bothers me whenever I see him.  Did they use super glue?  Rubber cement?  Everyone else is overjoyed, of course, but I am cautious. 


What effect will this resurrection have on my family, on our lives?  He never speaks much in the dreams. A zombied mute without any real defining features, other than his dark hair and rare charisma.

There are times at night when I listen to the sounds  of those other voices, other rooms.  What would our lives be like had my brother made the choice to live?  He was 24 when he opted to die, and it was sad, but his death set into motion so many things in my own life.  

Had he lived, I may not have gone to college.  I might still be a receptionist somewhere or a secretary, still living in my hometown, still dreaming of becoming a writer, casting glances at the Ivory Tower and wondering what happened in its classrooms.  I might've moved away, perhaps to New England, to Vermont.  That was an ambition once.  But, who knows what might've happened in the end?  My brother with the large personality and emotional ups and downs would probably still dominate every family gathering, maybe even still work a job at a five and dime--big dreams in a small town.  

His death was a wake-up call to me.  I felt like I could either roll over and go back to sleep, or I could get out of bed.  I chose to get out of bed.  Alerted to the preciousness of life, I knew that I had to stop waiting for life to come to me.  Perhaps his death simply hurried a process of inevitable events.  

   

Choices, different paths, the "other " lives we might've lived--they vibrate the walls with the moaning and wailing of "what-ifs."  Do I hear the laughter of my unborn children blending with the clock chimes?  Is that my muffled voice I hear in the hallway speaking to a spouse of fifteen years?  Are those my own footsteps behind me in the darkness?

Soon enough, I will wake, switch on the light, and those specters --already tangled with the early morning fog--will dissipate and fade.  This is the life I have ultimately chosen for myself, and it is truly wonderful.

What I Want For Christmas

When I was a child, the Christmas season hummed with the jingle of bells, the music of carols, the bustling excitement of anticipation. Weeks and weeks led up to that single magical morning when you would open gifts, things you hoped for, but never thought you would actually get.

Growing up in a lower middle class family, I was used to clothes that were cost effective, things that were well made but not flashy, nothing brand name, nothing more than what you needed.

Still, this was a privileged childhood.

For me, the joy of Christmas comes from one particularly special memory--it was the Christmas of 1980. As I said, we were used to hand-me-downs from neighbors, generic toys that were knock-offs from the ones in the commercials, stuffed animals and socks and underwear and essential things. But, that Christmas, when I crept downstairs and tore the paper off the boxes, I found things that I had ached to own. The world was abuzz with Star Wars. All of my friends had Star Wars figures, spaceships, t-shirts. And, there, in my hands, was the Millennium Falcon, one of the largest ships. Next, I found Princess Leia, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, C-3PO and R2D2, Obi-wan Kenobi--they were mine! I held the power of those films in my own small hands. I could create my own stories, these figures feeding my voracious imagination. Whenever I think of a childhood Christmas morning, this is the one that comes to mind. It was one of first times that I had wanted something so badly and actually received it.

My Grandpa White made Christmas other-worldly. To me, part of the holiday was just listening to his "radio announcer" voice tell tales of Santa and the North Pole--his eyes twinkling. I never really "believed" in Santa Claus per se. My parents never perpetuated the myth. We attended church, sang the hymns, and ours was a small house. I had a grate in my floor where I could peek down into the living room. I had seen my father in his briefs setting out presents once. Mostly, I humored by Grandpa White because he seemed to believe in Santa and reindeer with such a childlike wonder. You couldn't help but be swept up, too. Grandma and Grandpa White's house gonged with the chimes of dozens of clocks. Burl Ives, Andy Williams, Ed Ames, and all of the classic Christmas songs spun on their large record-player that was the size of a hope chest. The house smelled like ham, potatoes, apple pie. Grandma would fill up a huge crystal bowl with Hawaiian Punch and Sprite. We used ladles and fancy glass cups. We munched on peanuts, crackers and cheese. They would have their fireplace blazing. Much of the magic of my childhood Christmases comes from these memories.

But, the reverence for Christmas and the sacredness of its celebration comes from quieter moments. For several years, my family--the cold wintry winds blowing outside--sat in our darkened living room, illuminated only by the glow of the Christmas tree and the flickering candle on our coffee table. We knelt by the table and read the Gospel of Luke and the account of Jesus' birth. These words were poetic, simple--the humble human birth of a god whose love for his creation was so intense that he shared our skin, our appetites, our desires, and our weaknesses. Maybe my dad read it, or Mom, or Matt. I don't remember, but few moments have felt as holy because it was so entirely authentic. Not the empty commercialism. We were Christians worshipping our savior in the stillness of our living room.

What do you want for Christmas?

I have been blessed with the financial ability to buy the things I need, or want. Material things don't mean much to me. These days, the gifts I truly want are not presents at all.

This is why I have started telling people to give the money they would've spent to a charity of their choice. Give it in my name, your name, in the name for a cherished friend or family member who has been lost. Give that money to a shelter, a hospice, a hospital, whatever cause is most meaningful to your heart.

What I want for Christmas is for people who did not have the privileges of my childhood to have full bellies, arms wrapped around them in love, shoes, the excitement of a desired toy, to feel the warmth of someone who cares. What I want for Christmas is what I want all year long--to share the joy, magic, and reverence of this celebration with those who need it most.

Late Fall Post

Recently, I had a short story accepted for publication in Brink Magazine.  The title comes from an actual location in Northwest Ohio, a park where I would go and sit and contemplate the future direction of my life.  A person can feel the history vibrating in almost every blade of grass that sways in the sudden gusts of wind.  I found the place calming and grounding, a reminder that human beings and all of our overwhelming troubles will pass away all too quickly.  And so, the land waits.  It has endured generations of war, hatred, disease, love, greed--and it sits as if to out wait us all.  There are no words in such places, only feelings.  This story translates the things I felt whenever I stood by the statue and looked out at the trees, the river, and the grey autumn sky.

Here is a link to Brink Magazine:

http://www.brinklit.com/fiction/fallen-timbers-by-s-e-white

The House Where I Grew Up

I know the place where I will die. I think I've known it since I first smelled the lilac bushes in the backyard, skinned my knee on the brick wall out front, grass stained my elbows in a delicious summer morning dew.

The day I will die is a Saturday in the early 1980's.

I am standing in the kitchen of my childhood home, the house my parents lived in for 43 years. The kitchen light switched off, adding coolness to the sunny afternoon. We rarely had the kitchen light off, mostly because my mother spent so much time baking or cooking here. Or, else it was my father who sat in the kitchen after supper, somber, a far-away stare in his eyes. He would sip tea in deep thought--anxiety, depression, a mind too restless for the life he's chosen for himself.

When I think of my childhood, this day always come to the fore.

The kitchen smells a bit like fruit, bananas, watermelon, apples--with a hint of lilacs from the bush outside our back door. The screen door is rusty and needs painted, screeches and smacks whenever it opens or shuts.

My father rummages in the back porch for towels. He's washing our car in the backyard. This is how I know it's a weekend. Dad is home and fussing with "fix-it" projects. Music plays on a radio atop the freezer, loud enough for him to hear but not upset our neighbors.

The song is Flight of the Bumblebee--the disco version--or, else it's B.J. Thomas. Perhaps it's Karen Carpenter asking why birds suddenly appear, or Crystal Gale wondering if it makes her brown eyes blue. I remember that same radio played the disco version of the Cantina song from Star Wars. Whatever the music that day, it was something easy and mellow.

A bag of Cain's potato chips crinkles on the kitchen table. Lunch was a meal of burgers, hot dogs, chips, and watermelon. A special meal. Grilling out meant that we would eat something we only ate on relaxed days. No school. No church. No other obligation than to enjoy the day.

I stand in the darkened kitchen and look into the sunny backyard, the Impala gleaming. The grass so green, towels drapped over the clothes line--I can already taste the cherry or grape popsicle that I come to seek.

How old am I in this memory? Four? Six? I can't be sure.

Why is this memory so powerful, reoccurring in dreams, in moments when I think of home? Nothing happened that day--no trauma, no exciting surprise--it was just a day.

I can still feel the breeze through the kitchen window and screen door.

The moment is suspended, hanging unattached, a few minutes loosened from context--a captured precious string of heartbeats of my simply being alive.

I will die on this day--as the moments of my life flash before me--I will finally be home when I stop at this memory. We are not temporal beings. Our fleshly casing snares us within the confines of time, but inside, in the secret places where we exist, Life is a mobius strip that twists back on itself, unbound, today can be yesterday.

This is the yesterday I cherish and relive. I don't even know if the moment is real or something I dreamt. Does such a thing matter in the end, I wonder?

My parents recently moved into a new house. The house where I grew up sits empty. When you climb the creaky stairs, the bedrooms where my brother and I spent so many moments listening to records and tapes, dancing in front of mirrors, debating, lost in the silence of depression and mental illness echoes each footstep, barren, except for the cracks and lines in the walls.

A week ago, I stood in each room and felt gigantic without the reference of furniture. No one who lives here now will know that a young man struggled each night with life and death. No one will know that a young girl would sit on the floor and scribble poetry, would sleep in her bed on summer nights, lulled by the hum of the fan in the window. No one will know that a middle-aged woman still sleeps in that room, in memories, in the dreams that fade as soon as I blink my eyes awake each morning.

We are the ghosts of this house. We are the presence the new owners will feel whenever they hear a floorboard snap in the night. We are the people who have never truly left.

I know the moment that will pass before my eyes when I die, and I know where I will be. The day will be sunny and bright. The smell will be of lilacs and cut grass. The last thing I will hear will be a song, the music inside me, the beat of my own heart that began on a Spring night one day in May.

At the End of Time

She gave me a birthday card with some money three months before my birthday.

"This is in case I forget," she said with a wistful smile.

I held the card with the tulips embossed on the front and stared at the crinkly bills. This was too much. She'd never given me this much money for my birthday. Usually, I would get a five dollar bill or a ten. At most, a birthday might yield fifteen.

I held $80 in my hand. I couldn't accept it.

Love Always, Grandma Moor had been penned at the bottom of the card--right below the words: "To A Special Granddaughter." Her penmanship was tight, each letter exquisite in the precision of its loops and curves.

"It's for all the birthdays I won't remember," she said, her smile fixed.

She tried to seem strong, her dark brown eyes a little glazed, but she fought to be in the moment and aware. In one of her last precious moments of clarity, she wanted me to know how much she loved me and thought of me--even thought we both knew she would eventually forget me.

Henrietta Moor, my grandmother, suffered from dementia during the last few years of her life. She forgot how to do basic functions like balance a checkbook, bathe, tell time. More and more, she wanted to go home, to her childhood home, back to her father. She wanted away from the ever-confusing world of jumbled words and frustrating visits from people she knew she should know.

People used to say that I looked like Grandma Moor. We both had the same raven hair and coal black eyes, pale skin and ample noses. I'm not sure how else I resemble her. She passed away when I was in my mid-twenties. I was old enough to feel that loss, but I grieve her absence more now than I ever could've then. I know that she was a seamstress, loved to play games, had a wicked sense of humor, a way of smiling that put people at ease, and animals--from parakeets to cats--could be tamed by her gentle strokes and whispers.

Once, a few years ago now, I was teaching a class and stared up at the face of the clock. Everything inside me chilled. I could not tell what time it was. I squinted at the hands and kept confusing the second hand and big hand. I tried to blink this sudden confusion away and shake my head. My heart beat faster and my throat felt so dry. I have never forgotten how frightening it was to forget such an ordinary thing. How many years earlier did my grandmother's own deterioration begin? Did she first notice it in her thirties? Was she as paralyzed by the horror of it as I was?

I will always remember the morning of the Mother/Daughter Banquet at my church, possibly the last I attended, easily fifteen years ago now.

I will never forget seeing my grandmother leaning against the glass back doors of the church, staring out at the parking lot, or the field beyond. I wasn't sure. She was lost in her own mind.

She was waiting for me to come and pick her up. She was two hours early for the yearly brunch. She knew it was that morning and didn't want to miss it. The three of us had been attending it all of my life. She loved us so much that she would not even let her own mind stop her from being there.

We should've told her that we would pick her up, on our own way, but it hadn't crossed our minds. I don't recall what made my mother stop and wonder if Grandma was already at church. Maybe she called and received no answer--just a dial tone. I told Mom that I would go get Grandma while she finished getting ready, showering and baking her casserole.

My grandma's face lit up when she saw me get out of the car. She smiled and waved. I hurried through the raindrops of that dreary morning.

"Grandma, come on back to the house," I said, ignoring the weight of the sadness inside. I would cry many times later. The sight of her standing alone inside those doors, so eager to be there, feels too much to bear, a memory I cannot forget but hardly wish to remember.

I opened my umbrella and guided her to the car.

"I thought it started now," Grandma said with a chuckle. "I wondered why nobody was here yet. I thought maybe I had the wrong day."

She was trying to cover her own hurt and fear. I see that now, but I was too young to recognize it then.

"Well," I said. "It's easy to get confused now and then."

I wanted to put her at ease, to help her, to comfort her.

It was not long after that when the decision was made to admit Grandma to a nursing home, a place where she didn't have to worry what time it was anymore.

More and more, I stop and try to hear the sound of her voice in my memories. Pictures retain the features but not the expressions and mannerisms, those special movements that could only belong to her.

I forget.

Is this what she felt when she woke and tried to remember that my Aunt Pat was her daughter? Was this fading away of memories what she experienced when she smiled at me with a vague recognition in her eyes? Did she know that one day I would struggle to remember her as much as she struggled to remember me?

I forget.

What were the stories she told me about my older relatives? What was her favorite color? What did it feel like to hold her hand?

I don't want to ever forget.

The Secrets of Ghosts

For years, in the middle of the night, I have heard the shrill groan of train whistles and caught my breath.

I don’t believe in ghosts.  Yet, I am haunted.

When I was no more than ten-years-old, my brother told me a chilling tale about train whistles that I have not forgotten.

It was probably a Sunday afternoon, likely autumn, in those yawning middle hours between church in the morning and church at night.  My family attended church three times a week in those days—Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. 

If there wasn’t a Western playing on our television, then my father snoozed or mowed and my mother read or crocheted.  Sunday afternoons lazed with a boredom so thick you could taste it.  I remember the day as overcast and rainy, all the more reason that Matt and I were upstairs in his room, arguing the day away.

Matt was four years older than me in school, five years older in age.  He had above average intelligence, and he loved to use it—on his little sister.

He was always trying to convince me of the craziest things.  He had told me once that scientists had developed a third sex, that the US had devised a method for putting trash on the moon, that there was evidence of alien fossils in Utah, that he was an demon, and the list goes on.  Usually, he threw out some wild theory, and I tried to catch him in a logical fallacy. 

I have never thought of myself as particularly bright, but with an older brother like Matt, you had to develop some wits and learn how to verbally defend your skepticism.  If nothing else, I understood quickly that “that’s not true/yes, it is” was not productive and would never lead to a “win.”

But, of all of the things he told me, there is one I cannot forget.

He sat on the edge of his bed, while I slouched in one of the orange plastic chairs our grandparents gave us.

“Do you know what it means when you hear a train whistle?” His voice was serious, his grey-blue eyes wide.  His pale cheeks seemed paler against his black, black hair.

I smirked.  I was on guard.

“What?” I sighed.

He shifted his stare right, then left.

“It means a ghost is near,” he whispered.

I tried to laugh.

“That’s not true.”

He sat grave and quiet, letting a train scream into the distance.

Our parents probably weren’t home.  I would swear to it now.  If they were, I would’ve raced downstairs seeking verification.  As it was, I was left to absorb this haunting piece of information alone.

I never gave it much thought for years—until Matt’s depression and disease overwhelmed him and he ended his own life nine years later.

Living near train tracks has been my lot in life, a symptom of the Midwest.  As children, we used to place pennies on the tracks, only to collect their smooth, flattened copper after the train had rattled by.  We would teeter along the tracks with a certain thrill and danger.  What if an ankle overturned and our foot became wedged?  The local Diary Queen faced a train crossing, and my family would eat our cones in the parking lot, mesmerized by the graffiti on the rusted coal cars.  The appearance of the caboose seemed to bring a special delight.

When I lived in Iowa, the first time, my apartment nearly sat on a set of tracks.  Trains would thunder by, making pictures rattle against walls, and my own bones vibrate from the force.

These days, whenever I hear a train whistle, I think of Matt and that Sunday afternoon so many years ago.  His voice whispers the words, and for a split second, he lives and walks.

Sometimes, I wonder if he told me that because he knew what he planned to do someday, that telling me about the train whistles would somehow ensure that I would always remember him whenever I heard them.  Knowing him, I wouldn’t doubt it.

And now, I write this, a memorial, and anyone who happens to read it may be haunted by his words, too—his ghost lingering in the hall of mirrors that is storytelling.  His story becomes my story which is a story someone else might someday tell.  All of us holding our collective breaths until the trains pass.

This is why I want to tell you more secrets, the secrets of ghosts.  Whenever you see grass blades quiver in a summer breeze, I am there.  A songbird’s morning call beckons my memory.  Whenever you drenched your toes in morning dew, think of my tears.  I whisper into wind chimes.  I am in each ray of sun.  Remember me whenever you hear the soft thump of your own heart.

Do you hear the moan of a passing train?

We can live forever in the echo of its wail.

What My Hands Forget

In a farmhouse, years ago, with living room curtains billowing, a couple flies dancing their nuisances’ waltz, I sat on a piano bench and experienced three of the greatest minutes of my life.

I don’t remember if I responded to an invitation to play or if the impulse simply struck me. I could not have been more than fourteen-years-old. At that point, I still attended my weekly piano lessons, and there was only one song that I enjoyed playing—Edelweiss, a famous song with a score easy enough for young fingers to perform.

On that day, one of my friends hosted a small dinner party consisting of a few of us girls from our church. We had all grown up together. I knew her family as well as most people know aunts or cousins.

I had never been to her house before that day, but I saw her family every week on Sunday, sometimes more often. Hers was a family of three girls and a boy. The family was famed in the area for their beef farm and butcher shop in town.

Starting in 1987, I took piano lessons for about a year. The idea to take the lessons had been my older brother’s. For the first couple of months, we attended each session together. One of our first lessons was how to find Middle C—the centering point. Whenever I got lost, I reoriented myself by finding Middle C.

My young life was turbulent at this time. My brother had tried to kill himself before the start of the new school year, and so, I continued the lessons by myself. In a way, piano lessons became my own refuge, my own therapy while he was hospitalized for months and my family struggled with the aftermath of his failed attempt.

Locating Middle C became a comfort. I “wrote” music—mostly lyrics. I wanted to be a singer/songwriter at that age more than anything. I scribbled poems on scrap paper, toyed with tunes on the piano and a slack string guitar, and lip-synched my favorite pop songs in front of my bedroom mirror. Music offered a respite from arguing parents and the emptiness of my brother’s room.

But, in that farmhouse, after spending dinner with a family full of bickering siblings, I found my way to the piano. My friend’s mother Nancy sat down in her chair with a satisfied sigh—the meal, a success; the dishes cleaned and ready for another day. Theirs was a musical family. The father and my friend would sing specials at church. My friend’s uncle and aunt also possessed musical talents and performed at our church and elsewhere.

But, I don’t remember Nancy ever singing special music. I had never heard her sing.

I tapped Middle C and firmed my wrists. I loved Edelweiss from The Sound of Music just for the beauty of its melody.

My fingertips sank the appropriate keys, and so began what would be the pinnacle of my musical career.

Mrs. Belleville tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and softly began to sing along—the lyrics louder as I hushed my playing and allowed her voice to gain strength.

I had never accompanied anyone before. Suddenly, nothing else seemed to exist but the music. My fingers did not halt or falter. My hands hopped from key to key, note to note, and for the first time, when I played, I did not use my fingers. They would’ve only gotten in my way. I let go, closed my own eyes and let the raw energy of this impromptu moment fill us both. I have never heard anyone sing more beautifully, and if I have, I would not recognize it. Someone sang a song she loved, that I also loved, and the magic of that mutual appreciation felt connective. Together, in tandem, our memories overlapped, intersected, and resonated and struck each chord deep inside that piano box.

I had known her my entire life, but never until that Sunday afternoon did I see Mrs. Belleville from church so open and moved. Nancy was a good woman, a hearty Midwestern woman from strong stock, who definitely could scold when needed, but in that living room was a softer side. She would pass away some years later, yet another young life lost to cancer. And, I will never forget her or that day.

I’ve lost many things over the years—people I love, people I don’t, friends, trinkets—but one thing I continually lament is that I lost the ability to play the piano. I stopped lessons not long after that day, focused my attention on other things, writing mostly, and soon Edelweiss withered inside me, my fingers no longer able to find the notes.  What my hands forget, though, my heart remembers.

I can still locate Middle C. That much I have kept, along with the memory of playing a tune in a farmhouse on the outskirts of a small Midwestern town. Not Carnegie Hall or Broadway or somewhere with my name in lights. No applause—just a lull of silence after that last note—a heart beat, or two—before we looked at each other and smiled.

Dreams do come true, not as large or grand as my childish imagination might’ve hoped, but, twenty years later, on a snowy afternoon in February, I remember this moment and realize that it was enough for me.

The Child Returns

She prayed beneath my mailbox that humid day in Northwest Ohio—her great hands folded in a gesture that was both humble and deadly. Who can hear the prayers the mantis prays? I had never seen a praying mantis before. I could not have been much older than eight. Some cultures believe that the praying mantis can lead a lost child home. But, I stood on the porch steps of my childhood house, and she was the one who seemed lost: praying, prophesying, testifying in the mystical language of beings without words.

A deep fear of insects had paralyzed me by that age but not just any insects, flying insects. Previous to a scarring event in first grade, I had little fear of bees or wasps or bumble bees. I found bumble bees happy companions whenever I went out to smell the blossoms on our lilac bush. Our next door neighbors had an apple tree, and in the fall, the apples fell and the bees would swarm the rotting fruit. We would cover the apples and the bees with a glass and watch their frenzied tempest. They would drop, then, one by one from the suffocation. Air seemed a curious thing for a bug to need—or so, my childish mind would muse. I had not been stung, not even while participating in such godlike play with the life and death of smaller creatures.

But, a hot, hot day in first grade rendered me mortal and reduced me to the vulnerable child I was. We did not have screens on our windows and the idea of air conditioning in such an old building in 1980 was like thinking we would one day carry telephones in our pockets. So, the windows were each propped open—since it was such an old building—and nothing barred that one little bee from her desire to wander into a classroom full of children learning math. I don’t know if we were learning math, but I’m going to believe it was math. Perhaps, this stray little bee prevented me from understanding some foundational mathematical concept and that is why I prefer English to this day.

She landed on my chest. I remember I was wearing a red checkered, button down short sleeve shirt and probably solid red slacks to match. My mother always called pants slacks, so I’m sure I was wearing red slacks that she had made. That bee seemed pleased with the print or my scent or both. She did not feel the need to fly off. Instead, she crawled, ever so slowly, over each of my red buttons.

I focused on nothing else but her—that yellow body with the bands of black. I barely breathed. Hot tears formed in my eyes at the helplessness of this threat so casually strolling up my body. I feared that if I moved, I would be stung. I had not been stung, but I’d seen others after they’d been stung: screams, tears, sobs, pain, swollenness, like a shot from the doctor. I knew the sting of needles all too well. So, I stayed breathless, motionless, my heart rocking inside. Finally, satisfied at the scope of her terrain, the bee zipped off. Tears fell from relief.

“What’s the matter, Sarah?” my teacher asked, concerned by my tears.

I don’t know why I didn’t say, too modified to suddenly be the center of attention, I suppose.

Ever since, I have feared the glaring abdomen of honey bees, carpenter bees, cicada killers, wasps—the vibration of their buzz shoots hot jolts through my body, heats my skin where they fly near.

This said, as far as I know, I have never seen a praying mantis in flight.

On that humid summer day in Northwest Ohio, I did not know that a mantis means humans no harm, that she is a helper who preys on the pests who plagued my summer play with their potential stings and swirling flight patterns.

Her only sin was her size. I could not open the mailbox without my young hand brushing the top of her head, which she turned in my direction with ease.

The decision was made after I showed my neighborhood friends the mantis. I don’t know how we arrived at the idea to kill her, but children can be capricious in their bouts of cruelty. The young boy from down the street ultimately did it. He used a Star Wars Landspeeder—the tan plastic toy just large enough to swipe away the mantis where she prayed.

For days, the stain of our deed marred the wood beneath the mailbox. The next blustery thunderstorm eventually washed away the evidence, but for the first time, I felt as though I had participated in killing something innocent.

She did not buzz like bees. She was peaceful, a beautiful saint in grass green robes. I misunderstood her, and my childish rush to judgment was a greater threat to her than she ever was to me.

Even now on this quiet evening, miles from my childhood home, she leads me back to that moment in my memories, that moment when maturity taught innocence to be more merciful. Whenever I remember the mantis, which has been at random times over the years, the child I was bows her head and whisper words of penance.

Only One of Millions

Snowflakes float in silence—not like the torrents of a thunderstorm. No lightning. No thunder. Only the soft glow of millions of ice flakes tumbling out of the darkened sky.

When I was a child, snowflakes falling on a cold afternoon always made decorating the Christmas tree that much cozier. We would have cocoa and dig all of the dusty boxes out of the back of the attic. In each box, like so many other boxes from similar attics around the world, were the ornaments my brother and I crafted from macaroni and glitter, pipe cleaners and cotton balls, construction paper and yarn. Each, my brother and I proudly hung from the branches of our live tree—the smell of pine tingling in my nose, the prickle of the needles stinging my young fingers.

Each year, I claimed setting up the Nativity as my special task. It was Zen. I had to feel inspired as to where to place the shepherds and sheep and cows. As I contemplated the shepherds’ path to the stable, I examined each contour of the figurines’ robes and beards, and in my mind, I miniaturized myself and climbed into that scene with them.

The living room would darken and dim until it was a night of a thousand stars, and I smelled the sweetness of hay. I stood beside these shepherds, and with my own eyes, beheld the miracle of God born as flesh and blood, just a fragile infant not wanting more than the simplicity of a warm place to sleep. The baby’s dark eyes would meet my own, and I would see that he was human, one of the millions of us born throughout the history of the world. He would cry, smile, bleed, eat, shit, breathe, sleep. His humanness would draw me to him more—an infinite deity who weakened himself to prove the depth of his love for me. His sacrifice made his connection to me feel more authentic.

In the larger narrative of the Bible, one word always looms large (and often seems overlooked)--choice. From beginning to end, the notion of choice is woven throughout each book. Each person has a choice whether or not to accept that infant born thousands of years ago was God incarnate or that a man named Jesus was crucified and resurrected. If a person accepts the Bible as the Word of God, then, apparently, God does not want it any other way.

Personally, I love the simple beauty in the concept of choice. How much more valuable do we feel when someone chooses to love us? Choice can never be coerced or forced. Love feels even more powerful when it is on purpose. Our bonds with lovers, friends, even family are held together because we choose to accept each other into our lives and care about each other.

During this time of the Solstice, a season pulsating with our attention to the heavens, the world celebrates miracles, generosity, renewal, and our love for each other in a variety of festivals, holidays, and ceremonies. If only we could all choose to live in peace and respect the choices that each of us make in life.

In my living room as a child, my imagination would return me to normal size, and I would take a sip of lukewarm cocoa, satisfied with the placement of each figure in the Nativity. The furnace vents would rattle; Christmas records spun on the turntable. The feeling of anticipation hung in the air like the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg. I was too young to understand how privileged I was to be nestled securely in a house on such a day.

These days, I try not to take such things for granted and to remember that I am only one of millions—a life, like so many others, eventually to be forgotten, buried beneath the struggles and triumphs of each new generation, swirling for a time in this great blizzard of humanity. Once there was life that made a difference, and it is my choice to celebrate that through kindness, acceptance, and giving to those who only want the simplicity of a warm place to sleep.

Five Things I Would Teach My Younger Self

I had not stepped foot on the Bowling Green State University campus since the day I walked off it dressed in my graduation robes and tassel.

Twelve years later, I finally returned.

University Hall—where I’d had so many classes—was dimly lit, shadowy, the floorboards creaking and footsteps thudding just like they had all of those years ago.

It was a Saturday, and the hallways yawned wide with their weekend abandonment.

I located one of my old classrooms, and as I neared that familiar doorway, I half-expected to see one of my professors standing at the front of the room. I could almost hear my fellow classmates sitting there, flapping notebooks, shuffling papers, discussing homework and exams.

The desks looked the same. I touched my fingertips to the cold tops. The musty smell of the room made my visions palpable.

I had back to back classes in this room one semester. Craft of Fiction blended into Shakespeare. I sat in the first row when you came in the door, the third seat back.

Time travel exists—our memories so forcefully move us, jar us, suspend us between the now and the back then.


I slipped into my old desk and felt space and time collapse. The English teacher I am became the English student I was.

In my mind, I stood at the front of the room and pictured my young self sitting at that desk.

What would this teacher say to that student?

Here are five things I would share with her:

1. Love isn’t what you think it is. You’re going to lose precious years of your life to what you felt was love. You’re going to move from state to state and sacrifice your own ambitions. You’re going to regret it, deeply. Actions always speak louder than words. Two people do not always feel the same way for each other—Love’s hardest lesson. Two people can have genuine care and trust—Love’s greatest joy. You’re worth someone’s time and affection. Most importantly of all, you are worth someone’s respect.

2. Never take Time for granted. Each minute is a valuable gift. Don’t squander them. Clocks are a ghastly invention. Each tick is a silent death. Your grave chases you like the second hand of a clock. It is all too easy to kill time. There are no reset buttons. If you want to do something, do it now. Enjoy the journey; the stopping point will arrive far too soon.

3. Be content with your life. You will never be anyone other than who you are. You are the sum of your experiences, the result of your choices. You will become what you never wanted to be and enjoy it more than you could have believed. Revel in waking up and finding yourself in your own skin again, even as it ages. Stop waiting for your life to begin. Never want to be anywhere else. Never want to be someone prettier, richer, or smarter. Never ignore the simple pleasure of searching across a crowded room to find a familiar pair of eyes searching only for you.

4. Your faith will waver. You will doubt the certainties of your childhood. You will doubt that God exists. You will doubt your prayers are heard. You will spend months barely able to eat, crying yourself to sleep, betrayed by your own body, doubting you can ever reconcile who are you with what you believe in your soul. Was there a Jesus? Did he die on the cross? Is there a Heaven? If you accept earthly happiness, will you even be allowed entrance into Heaven? If your faith didn’t waver, it wouldn’t be worthy enough to believe. The questioning and the struggles provide insight into day to day existence, offer a rare sense of compassion, and grant the ability to accept others in a spirit of peace. Without the wavering, faith can harden into piety. Doubts are the necessary bridge between spirituality and true humility.

5. Not everyone is going to like you. No matter what you do, no matter how kind you try to be, no matter how much effort you expend—there are people who will simply not like you. You will have moments when you will have to be unlikeable, and that’s okay. Do not purposely offend or harm. Be as good as anyone can be, and wish everyone well. Try to smile and tip a hat to everyone. You cannot constantly walk on eggshells. This will be one of your hardest lesson.

As I finished my lecture to my younger self, I felt satisfied at the wisdom I had imparted. But, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a silhouette on the periphery. Another teacher. Her hair grayer, face creased from laughter and sadness. She nodded to me and beckoned me towards her.

I know another lesson awaits me from a wiser teacher. Already, I know in another twelve years, she will teach me that everything I just taught my younger self is foolhardy and the years ahead will render it all a lie.