A Novel Blog

To My Unborn

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Mon, 07 May 2012 03:56:00 +0000

I am the woman you might've called mother, mom, mama, mommy. I carry you inside me, the unmade memories of our life together, little traditions--decorating the Christmas tree together, baking cookies, teaching you to read and write, holding your hand. Your skin woven from the DNA of my skin, our fingers tangled like our bloodlines, like our lives might've been. I would brush your hair on humid summer nights after a cooling bath, braid the strands, or make them into pigtails. I picture you as my daughter. Perhaps you are my son. Your hair is black or maybe red, freckles on your pale cheeks, a dimple in your chin. I've stared into your dark brown eyes (or maybe blue or hazel) more lately than I ever did before.

When I was younger, I did not dream of you like some women do of their children. I was in no rush to bring you into this world.

Should I tell you? Once I left a doll out in the rain. I hated dolls unless they came with lightsabers or little plastic guns.

You'd be such a great mom, people tell me. You're cold, others have said to me when I confessed that children weren't a priority for me. All women are supposed to want to be mothers. I carry this around inside me, next to you, this expectation...

Should I have wanted to see you face to face? Am I less of a woman, less of a person because I chose to keep you safe inside, away from the burden of living, the weight that comes with choices? You are a part of me, even though I never gave birth to you. I've known you in each breath I take, in each time I watch clouds drift the sky or visit the cemeteries of your uncle, your great-grandparents, the people you probably know better than I ever could. Your soul never took flight from Heaven.

Being a mother changes you. Being a mother puts the world into perspective. Being a mother completes the cycle of life--you are born, you give birth. But, not being a mother changes you, too, in ways only those of us on this path can understand. People think I'm selfish. I am selfish. Too selfish to let you go, to push you into a fleshly cage of weaknesses and frailty. Ever since I was a teen, I preferred the idea of adoption. Someday, I might be a mother to another child, my own in spirit if not by blood, and you--the one to which I never gave birth either--will be the absent sibling, part of the love I will feel inside. I teach college, meet young people from different backgrounds, share what can with those I can.

Forgive me, but I will always be your mother and you will be my child, like the moon births the tides, the way the sun conjures seedlings from the soil, the way my heart understands that some are born to be mothers and others are mothers who are born for the sake of many children not their own.

The Year the World Ends

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 01:42:00 +0000

If I had known last winter would be the last one I'd see, I would've cupped the snow, patted and balled it, and stacked it in my freezer. I would open my freeze door from time to time and stand, awed by the whiteness of the snow, the last time I would see it outside of a dream.

Maybe I would've climbed into a snowsuit, mittens, and ski mask and crawled on my hands and knees through the snow like I did as a child, wanting to see the world as a dog saw it, soaked to the bone by the time I returned home.

I would've stuck out my tongue and tasted the cold of snowflakes. Maybe I would've knocked down an icicle or two, licked them like a popsicle, crunched off the tips, not caring one bit about bacteria, squirrel urine, or the things that plague my adult mind now...I used to taste icicles when I was a kid and never suffered. Why did I stop? Weird, dangerous, harmful---Nature and I loved more freely when I was young.

I wish I would've known that last winter was the last. I would've made a village of snowmen and snowwomen and snowchildren, complete with twigs for arms, carrots for noses, and buckeyes for eyes. I would've gone home more to Ohio, sat on the brick wall at my parents' old house and contemplated the snowflakes as they fell on my coat sleeve and melted.

Why didn't I realize last winter was my last, our last, the last one the world would know? Prophets, scientists, ancients, and politicians have told us for years that this year is our last, always our last.

Why did I take last winter for granted the way I just took yesterday for granted and last hour for granted, as if I would see hundreds more? If I'd know, I would've disconnected, gone out into the deepest woods, thrown my wristwatch far away, tossed my phone from my car window.

If I'd know what I've always known, then I should've stripped off my shirt, peeled down my jeans, and experienced Winter fully, goose bumps stinging with delicious pain. I would've laid down and waved my arms and legs and smiled at my naked snow angel. I would've celebrated the snow. I would've rejoiced in the darkness of night. I would've relished that I was human and alive and would not always be so.

I wish I would've known what I've always known.

Upon the Extinction of Silverfish

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 15:31:00 +0000

Upon the Extinction of Silverfish

...and the last tree used for paper crackles and thuds to the ground to become the last handwritten letter ever mailed in the last envelop ever made to be delivered by the last mailman to the last mailbox still in existence. The last mailman will put the letter in his beaten leather bag, specially press his uniform, and open the rusty mailbox dented and weathered from disuse. The elderly woman to whom the last letter is mailed will receive the last paper cut as her quaking fingers rip through the pasted flap, a smear of blood staining the stamp. She will not recognize the handwriting, unable to read the florid arcs of cursive. A last love letter will sit on her kitchen table to become stained with coffee rings and smudges of tomato sauce--the last words from her first love to eventually blur and wash over the edge of the page.

And the last silverfish will eat the last bit of paper from the last book on the last shelf in the last library. He has no appetite for nooks or kindles or other pieces of hallow plastic. Synthetic fibers from clothes give him bellyaches. He climbs to the highest shelf in the darkened building that has long since been boarded and condemned. With a last sigh, he jumps. His silvery body a quick flash in the moonlight, no longer to stain pieces of paper or wiggle across the words of poets or long forgotten authors who wrote romantic tales about lonely souls seeking the wrenching death of love.

For the Love

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:19:00 +0000

The story I am about to confess has been my own personal shame for over thirty years. When I was three or four, my local public library showed children's movies for free in a special room on the second floor, just off the "children's section." The library was a magical place. The librarian was a woman with a salt and pepper beehive and enough extra curves to make her welcoming to a child.

Whenever we went to the library, my mother would let me pick out stacks of books which we would take home. I would sit in her lap, and she would read to me in a low, soothing voice full of expression and warmth.

Still, seeing a movie at the library was a treat. They were free and kids from the community would come and sit in the dark. I'm not sure where my mom waited, perhaps downstairs. I don't believe she ever left the building. All I know for sure was that she was not with me when I would watch the movies.

That day, we were watching the movie Benji. It is the story of a stray dog who wanders around from friendly stranger to friendly stranger for scraps, brushings, pets, and cuddles. This, of course, was in an era when setting out food for strays wasn't uncommon. We had several neighborhood cats that wandered from house to house. I still remember Whiskers, a long haired yellow cat owned by our neighbors across the street. He was a sweetheart who would lounge in the grass and tolerate the clumsy fingers of children. We even have a picture of Whiskers in one of our family photo albums.

Benji was a lovable mutt, mid-sized, long hair around the face. In this movie, the first of several, he befriends a white female dog who looks like a mix of Pomeranian and poodle. They meet, romp through tall grass, race each other in wide open fields, and share drinks together from a bird bath. I loved Benji. He was cute and plucky. I felt akin to this stray who seemed to make the most of his unleashed life. He seemed so street savvy, but his little white friend was more vulnerable.

In the movie, two of Benji's young friends are kidnapped, and he and his girlfriend must help them. I was caught up in the movie, absolutely transported onto the screen. Movies were still new thing in my life, and there is something mesmerizing about sitting in complete blackness and allowing yourself to enter that cinematic world.

Here comes the moment of my eternal shame:

At one point in the movie, one of the kidnappers kicks the little white dog. She squeals. I will never forget that image as long as I live. That was it for me. Tears, sobs, deep heaving sobs escaped...
Before long, one of the librarians was escorting me outside of the movie room into the harsh light.

My little shoulders still shook. My mother was waiting for me.

"We were worried about her," the librarian said. "She got so upset."

I did not finish the movie. I collapsed into my mother's arms and tried to believe that the white puppy would be okay, that she wasn't hurt and it was just a movie.

Animals lovers are a separate breed. The older I get, the more I become convinced of this.

I lost a good friend almost a month ago. Her name was Zoey. She was a big talker and could hardly stand to stand in one place for long. She loved to sit in sunlight. She was a beautiful calico cat with a big patch of red on the top of her head. There were few things she loved more than a good head massage and belly rub. Human attention made her day. Whenever she was allowed out in the backyard, she would roll around on the sidewalk, stalk birds in the garden and flowerbeds. She had such long, long legs.

The first night I met her. She brought me a present. Uncharacteristically, she had caught a baby bunny and placed it by the back door.

I cried when Zoey had to be put to sleep. Her kidneys had failed, and she had lost so much weight. She still clung to enough energy to ask for head pets and belly rubs, though.

Animals lovers have open hearts. They are unafraid to risk the hurt. We know that, in most cases, our furry friends will not live as long as we will. I have already lost a good dog named PJ, a good cat named George, and a dear guinea pig friend named Herbie. We embrace the full love of such creatures, trying to give them the best life we can all the while knowing that we will outlive our friends and might even have to make the heart-wrenching decision to end their suffering.

They always depend upon us. They will never grow up and demand to drive a car or attend a pricey college. They are perpetual innocents who only want a safe place to sleep, steady food and water, and toys to keep them busy on a boring afternoon.

I just adopted a puppy. Even if he lives to be eighteen--a long life for a small Chihuahua--the odds are that I will outlive him. My cats are eight and six, respectively. If God smiles on me and favors me with a few more decades of life, I will have to see my dear friends age and endure the challenges of a long life. But, I want them to have a long life. As long as Time will allow.

I haven't watched the movie Benji since that day as a child. I rarely watch movies with animals as the protagonists. My heart cannot take it. But, I will love every animal I can. They depend upon us. They truly need us.

Zoey is buried in the flower bed where she used to sit on warm Spring days. She led such a good life. Her death was painful; all of the deaths of our furry friends cut us to the very core, but animals lovers take a deep breath and love again.

We are a rare breed. Our hearts are open and wide to love and to the hurt, but as we know, the hurt is only a measure of the happiness we gained while our friends were in our lives.

The Ghosts That Haunt Me

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:34:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 06:34:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:59:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:16:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Tue, 24 May 2011 23:02:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 02:00:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 06:07:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:39:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 19:19:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 03:29:00 +0000

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.

The Story I Never Planned to Tell

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 14:27:00 +0000

I lied to my grandmother on her deathbed.

She lie in a hospice bed, stricken by a stroke the doctors claimed would leave her paralyzed or unable to speak or comprehend. The smell of Vaseline and menthol, the aftertaste of my lie.

A week before, when my father made the decision to stop the feeding tubes, he acted on the recommendation of the doctors who told us that Dorothy White would never wake up again. She’s lost in a coma, they informed, her brain too damaged and swollen. The gash on her forehead where she had fallen taking in groceries wounded us. Her bruised eye reminded us of her frailties. Only when you tried to wet her tongue or spoke loudly into her face did her eyelids flutter open. Those blue eyes struggled to focus, then rolled back. She would never submit to living in a nursing home. She had openly declared so on more than one occasion.

We grieved her, even while we stood at her bedside and held her hand.

I remember the way her hand felt when you held it. My grandmother had distinctive fingers—knobby, shiny and unusually smooth, her fingernails squared and thick. Arthritis crooked them. They always seemed in perfect position to hover over a keyboard, click a mouse, or punch numbers into an adding machine. She worked in a bank for years. Never looked down at the keys when she tallied something up—neither in her office nor years later as a volunteer bookkeeper for the Hospital Gift Shop.

One of my strongest memories of my grandmother’s hands was in the 1980’s. She bought tickets for me and my brother to participate in “Hands Across America.” The event was meant to fight homelessness and hunger. People all across the country lined up and supposedly created a human chain from one coast to the other.

I was twelve, just having had my birthday the week before. We stood in the middle of our town’s Main Street and linked our fingers together. What I remember most was my grandma death-gripping my hand, her rings digging into my fingers, the strength of her clutch. I bit my lip to keep from crying out. I didn’t want my grandmother to think I was whiny or weak—traits she did not admire. We raised our hands up and sang the special anthem “Hands Across America.”

I still feel the press of her fingers. I can still hear the quivery soprano of her voice. I still remember shifting my weight and counting down the minutes in the song until we could finally let go.

I didn’t want to let her go. I stood in that hospice room, watching her sleep, listening to my parents and uncle tell me about her condition and how she seemed confused whenever she woke up. They spoke about “the process” and referenced some blue book about the stages of death and celestial seas. I hadn’t seen her in a week, not since I kissed her good-bye for what I thought was the last time in the hospital. I had worked all week, preoccupied by thoughts of my dying grandmother. I flinched every time my cell phone rang.

As soon as I was able, I drove to the hospice from Indiana—three hours—after a late class, lost an hour heading East. I had only an hour or so to speak with my parents to know what had happened during the week.

The scene was not what the doctors had predicted.

She had signed a “do not resuscitate” years before and spoke with disdain about nursing homes or assisted living facilities. It was impossible to know for sure what damage the stroke had done. She spoke well for having suffered a massive stroke. But, she had not eaten for days. Was it the starvation that suddenly energized her brain? The little blue book claimed so. This was part of the journey they bulleted for family members to help them cope.

I couldn’t cope—with the fact that she seemed alert and strong considering the week her body had endured. I sat in the chair by her bed and clutched her hand.

My grandmother and I had a unique relationship. She’d called me “hard to get to know” once when I was younger. By all accounts, I had grown into the woman she might’ve been had she not married and had children. In the 1940’s, she moved from a small farm in Ohio to Arizona—an independent spirit that her World War II era eventually broke. She would marry my grandfather three months after their first date, a blind date. She would give birth to two sons. She would play the wife and mother for years, even though she worked full-time and refused to be stay-at-home mom.

Years later, my grandmother and I would enjoy some adventures. I would drive her down from Bowling Green, Ohio to her hometown of Nevada to see her brothers and sisters. We would drive all over Ohio, our own version of Thelma and Louise. I was easy-going and laid back and never minded her telling me where to turn or how to drive. She could tell me things that she had done—like mow her own lawn—and I never chastized her. My father and my cousin were more parental in their concern for her. My cousin was the closest thing my grandmother had had to a daughter, and they would bicker and battle, so like each other in itchier, feistier ways.

My grandma and I, on the other hand, were kindreds in our indomitable independence, though neither of us ever put that into words.

And, so, when I held her hand at her hospice bedside, I had no words for the question she asked me. My parents had left. My uncle had left. I had wanted a few more minutes with her before I left for the night.

Suddenly, she seemed especially lucid, her blue eyes focused onto my brown ones, and she asked me the question that haunts me almost a year to the day later.

“When will I be released?” she asked, her eyes wide and childlike.

My knees shook, nausea tingled in my stomach, and I held her hand even tighter.

“I don’t know,” I said, my breathing hard. “I think in a couple of days.”

I thought my lie might help her sleep that night; I would not sleep at all.

She would come to accept that she was in hospice care, and I would be able to tell her that I loved her and how much she meant to me.

But, the lie lingers, even now--one of those moments in life that change you—for good and for bad.

The Poet

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 02:56:00 +0000

His voice lilted, his tongue floundered to find the music that had already been shaken from the words—a cantor, a priest—without a homily. The music that rose from his throat to the air was only the atonal clunk of syllables and sounds...

Surrounding him were scenes of Christ’s death and Crucifixion. Each sliver of red and black paint pierced the silence like a hot nail through bone. The poet had no music anymore. He stood in the midst of an art museum—the scenes around him were miraculous and grave. He praised the remains—no spirit left to worship.

He crunched on bone, each black shard crackling between his molars. He recited lyrics with no melody. I sat and listened—a parishioner without baptism, a sinner without a prayer to wash over me. All I had, he had, we had were the words, each like a bone disjointed from its socket, the ligaments left in decay.

He mouthed each letter like it was as a songbird of its own. He released the flock from the prison of the page, but his efforts only made them mortal, not ethereal. They smashed to the podium, their plumes the poet’s attempt at alliteration.

The poet stood at the podium, his hands gripping the sides, confessing feelings and moods that only similes and metaphors can taste. I sat in the back—a painting of Jesus’ birth behind me—and strained to hear what I never would.

The poet cannot sing anymore.

He has no music.

We have only the staccato of his canines snapping through hollow bones. We breathe the dust of his meal and nod and applaud.

We are a tribe who can no longer hear our shaman.

To Dance With The Devil

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 06:26:00 +0000

I wrote this as part of a short story contest on redroom.com:

During a power outage in our apartment building, my neighbor Crane confesses that she’d once been exorcised.

“I was a little girl,” she says. “Not quite ten.”

We sit in her apartment—because it’s cleaner than mine—the flicker of candles shadows our faces. We drink Grey Goose martinis and wait for the power to return.

I ask her what it felt like.

“What?” she slurs.

Her eyelids hover over those deep brown eyes. She moved from Argentina fifteen years ago. We live next to each other.

I am the only reliable person to watch her dog Pepe whenever she has to go fight fires. She is a local firefighter, and, sometimes, she has to work strange hours, but she raised Pepe from a pup and can’t get rid of him.

I never go out or go anywhere besides work, the grocery store, and the library. I teach English at a local community college and spend my evenings grading and reading. I’m thankful for the opportunity to socialize.

Pepe is a Chihuahua mix with only one eye—a rescue dog. He likes French Fries and ice cream. He and I get along well.

Crane’s long, black hair shines in the candlelight. She wears a black boy-beater and has three hoop earrings in each ear. A small stud twinkles atop her left nostril.

“So?” I ask.

She blinks.

“How did it feel to be possessed?” I sip more of Crane’s special martini she made. She drinks nothing but the finest. I usually drink chai and can already feel the swirl of dizziness after three sips. It feels exciting and a little dangerous.

She sets down her glass and sighs. I’m not sure if my question is rude or not.

Just as I start to form an apology, she touches a finger to my lips, the blood red nail captivating.

“I’ll tell you,” she says.

She pauses, allows her finger to drop from my lips down to my neck to caress my silver Tiffany’s cross. I was raised Catholic, too.

I feel a hot blush at her intimacy with me. I don’t date. Nobody has ever seemed interested in me, a bookworm. I’m the quintessential English professor—even as an adjunct. I dye my hair copper red, wear green rimmed glasses and buy my clothes from the local thrift store. Yes, I wear plaids and stripes together. I feel it represents my resistance to pattern and conformity. I am 34, not married, no children, and prefer Chaucer to the noise of any television show. When people ask me who I’m dating, I tell them that my relationship with Mr. Darcy is rocking 22 years and ain’t slowing down. I despise such questions.

Crane focuses her wide pupils into mine. I look away.

“How did it feel to be possessed?” She smiles and stands. She extends a hand to where I sit on the couch. “It felt a little like dancing.”

Her white teeth glow in the dim light. There is no music playing because our electricity is still out.

“I’ll show you,” she says.

I laugh—it’s a nervous laugh. Crane is gorgeous, like a model. Everyone thinks so, especially all of the (mostly) women who come and go from this apartment at all hours of the day and night.

I’m slow to stand. Crane has always made me uncomfortable, sweaty. It’s so hard to look her in the eyes sometimes. I’ve never been able to figure out why exactly.

“You know,” Crane says, her hand tempting me to accept. “My mother died shortly before my exorcism. I was told she suffered a brain hemorrhage a week after she simply vanished. My father said nothing.” She clears her throat. “I never said good-bye to her.”

This makes me accept her open hand more readily.

“I sat around after she died. In a stupor, mostly.” Crane wraps an arm around my waist, our shoulders rub, breasts gently bump.

“So,” I say, my voice faltering. “Were you ever really possessed?”

Our fingers intertwine. My breath comes harder. I try to steady it, which only makes the halting sound more noticeable.

She holds me closely, our bodies pressed so tightly I feel our hearts beating against each other. I smell the smoke from the fires she fought last night in her hair as the strands tickle my nose. The heat from her and the heat from me make the candle flame feel like a blaze. My skin burns against her skin.

“Did the exorcism hurt?” my voice crackles. I’m unsure my voice even sounded.

She leans into me. “I never got to say good-bye,” she says.

And, with that, I am consumed.

The First In Years

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 03:34:00 +0000

I haven't tried my hand at poetry in many years--close to a decade I would imagine. I have had many classes on poetry, and I've taught it before, but my education has been focused primarily on fiction.

I don't know what motivated these emotions to emerge as a poem. This is a rough draft, still so raw. It was the first death in years for my family. It was also my first poem in years.

My grandmother died in hospice care almost a year ago now. I wrote this not long after:

Vaseline, thick and glistening,

Smears a shine on pallid

Cheeks and lips, too

Frail to kiss.

Blue reigns now,

Veins thinning from a lack

Of hydration and nutrients,

Tinting the lips violet,

Filming eyes, open

Less each hour. We

Feel blue like the celestial sea

She crosses, and we

Wade and wait

to cross.

Death wears blue, not

Black like folklore claims; He

creeps into a room, a burglar

we left a key for. Not a Reaper.

No scythe. This thievery is invited.

My Letter to a Young Suicide

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 03:18:00 +0000

Your final suicide note is kept in a dusty box under the Christmas ornaments nobody ever uses—a Rudolph with a broken hoof, a Nativity missing Jesus, a snowman with no corn cob pipe.

It’s in the back corner of the attic with the sympathy cards and newspaper articles announcing your death. I don’t know the last time anybody opened up your letter—the one I’m sure you agonized over for several nights in order to get perfect. You managed to misspell some words. But, it’s too late to correct that, isn’t it? As long as our family exists and any knowledge of you gets passed down, you will always be the suicidal bad speller.

I know I haven’t read your note in a decade or more. I already memorized the way you expressed your pain in ten clichés or less. You hit all of the usual topics—indescribable pain, insomnia, the way nobody understands or ever will understand, and how you see no other alternative but to end your life. Blah, blah, blah—I’m sorry. Do I seem glib?

You’re so young. Not quite to your mid-twenties. Why do you feel so unique? I’ve known so many people in their mid-twenties who feel restless, uncertain, confused as to their identity, but you have to feel special, don’t you? Or, your suicide wouldn’t be romantic enough. Guess what? Thousands of people live through your pain and somehow survive to their late twenties.

People claim that suicide is narcissistic and selfish. You always said that it took guts. From this angle, it seems pathetic. Were you hoping you could watch us all cry and wail and mourn you? The ultimate in self-gratification? How did that work out for you? Can you see me now?

Not long after you killed yourself, the world changed. If you were alive now, I’ll bet you would feel less alone. Why were you in such a rush to leave a world that was adapting and changing and becoming more welcoming to you? You would never know about the Internet. You wouldn’t understand chatrooms or online dating sites or Google.

You typed your suicide note on an Apple IIc Plus.

Someone asked me once why I would want to prevent suicide. It’s a personal choice after all.

Your note is what makes me want to prevent it. You said that you didn’t really want to do it. You just felt you had no choice. You felt sick and dark and alone. Could anyone have stopped you? It’s hard to say. You did seem to have a date with Death that you were determined to keep.

Have you noticed how many times we’ve mentioned “you” here? I haven’t talked about me or our parents or my own personal pain I carry each day since you killed yourself and decide to leave a clichéd note behind. Do you see how you got your wish in the end?

No, I guess you don’t, do you? Death isn’t what you thought it would be. It’s dark and lonely like the pain you thought you were leaving.

Too bad you didn’t speak to us sooner when we asked you how you were.

But, thank God you left us your note—the one we keep in the back of the attic in a dusty box under the Christmas ornaments nobody uses anymore.

The Last Time I Knew You

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:24:00 +0000

These days, she wears a watch on each wrist. Almost all of her fingers have rings. She wears two necklaces.

My aunt always loved jewelry.

Some things do not fade the way that memory can.

When I was a young girl, my Aunt Pat was formidable. She had a deep booming voice, broad shoulders, the frame of a Scottish warrior-woman. Her hair was the color of dark rust—parted in the middle and swept away from her wide forehead. Her eyes stared with the intensity of an Old Testament prophet.

She worshipped at a Pentecostal church, attended tent revivals, claimed to have been healed more than once (sometimes, for the same ailment). She quoted Scripture in conversation and commonly proclaimed, “God bless you” or “Praise Jesus!” She spoke in tongues. She could be overbearing. Even to my family—Fundamental Baptists—her zeal could be wearying. She doubted the salvation of others and did not mind telling them so.

My aunt never slipped quietly into a room. She charged into the room. One Christmas at my grandparents’ house, years and years ago, she thundered from the front room all the way to the kitchen to kiss one of my cousins who had found himself under the mistletoe. The house erupted in laughter.

My aunt never hesitated to make her nieces and nephews feel loved. You never doubted that Aunt Patty cared about you. She attended weddings, graduations, funerals, reunions, piano recitals, nothing was too small. She was tireless in her travels to make each of us feel special. If there was a family function, my aunt was there with a large smile on her face and her commanding presence. You couldn’t miss that red hair in crowd.

She loved to paint. In fact, I own a couple of her paintings. She had such a smart eye for detail and color. She started the hobby late in life—probably too late as it turns out.

I don’t think she has picked up a brush in several years. If she did, I do not think she would know how to use it.

My older brother had a lot of emotional problems growing up. After he attempted suicide in 1987 and he returned from the mental hospital, a slovenly smoker whose medications dulled him into a paunchy zombie, my aunt would visit him at the house. My brother could be a charmer, especially when he was in one of his friendly, manic periods. I think my aunt adored him. He was her little sister’s first born, intelligent, talented, so full of potential.

She came over to the house one afternoon and spent several hours talking with him. She wanted to sketch him. So, there they both sat in our living room discussing religion and death and life. My brother owned the sketch until seven years later when he finally finished the job he started in 1987. I do not know where my mother keeps the sketch now. I have the feeling it might be lost among some boxes in the attic.

In 1994, when my mother called my aunt to tell her Matt had killed himself, I could hear Patty’s mournful howls through the phone. She just kept crying, “No, no, no, no, no.”

I’ve never witnessed such a display of raw pain and grief.

I always loved and appreciated my aunt, but her stark religiosity did not jive with what I read in my own Bible. I only engaged her on the topic of Christianity a few times. But, she was right—no matter what the discussion. I honestly believe she thought she was a prophetess capable of knowing more than anyone else. As long as we kept conversations to lighter topics, my Aunt Pat was a lot of fun.

I have not lived in Ohio for several years. Even the last time I did live in Ohio, I was not close to my family for a number of reasons, and I kept a careful self-imposed exile.

But, from time to time, I would hear about my Aunt Pat and her “forgetfulness.”

“Oh, Patty’s not doing so well,” my mother would sigh. “She can’t seem to find words or finish sentences.”

“Sounds like Grandma,” I would respond.

My Grandma Moor suffered from dementia in her later years, and it was not kind. Her daughters have lived in fear of who might “end up like Mom.”

I would not truly spend time with my Aunt Pat until my Grandma White’s funeral (my father’s mother) last fall. Patty smiled and hugged me, but she did not know me. My uncle introduced me, but my aunt just smiled and nodded. It was sad, but there was even sadder business that day—the mourning of my last remaining grandparent.

We had a family reunion a few weeks ago. For once, I was able to attend. I was excited by the prospect of seeing cousins I had not seen in at least a decade or more. Among the family faces were the unmistakable red hair, high forehead, and beaming smile of my Aunt Pat.

I sat across from her at a picnic table. She looked blankly and smiled. A few people told her that I was “Sarah, Marsha’s daughter” to which she would nod or just keep smiling.

I caught up with my cousin, while my aunt sat silently, from time to time being preoccupied by some water droplets left behind by a water bottle. I looked her and thought she seemed bored.

“I like your watch,” I said, tapping the face of the blue one on her right wrist. The other one had a tarnished silver face.

She lit up. “Yes, it’s pretty. You see, look, you can do things that make, I know that I like…but…” She ran her fingers over the band and kept speaking in her unfinished rambling way.

“I like your necklace, too.”

“I got that, the roses sparkle, and what’s good is that you can make it your own…”

Suddenly, in the midst of her confused soliloquy, she looked up at me, knitted her eyebrows, and said, “Because I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

All this time, I had stifled the heart break inside at seeing her this way. I think she can sense how much pain her condition brings to those around her.

I reached out and took her hand in mine.

“Of course not,” I said. “I know you don’t.”

Briefly, after all of these years and experiences and miles apart, I touched Patty in a deeper way than I ever had as a child or young adult. She was not my aunt anymore. She was another human being in need of someone to simply hold her hand and tell her that everything was going to be okay.

And, then, just as quickly, her eyes went blank, and she smiled.

“Oh, God bless you,” she said.

I nodded and gave her hand a firm shake.

“And God bless you, too,” I replied.

I would cry when I got into my car and drove onto the highway. I cried because it was hard to see my aunt that way. I cried because she wore two watches—like a sweet child who liked the “neatness” of the faces. I cried because neither watch had the right time, and I knew that such thing did not matter anymore.

The Disappearance of Charles Clark Moor

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:26:00 +0000

My great-great-grandfather has been missing for over a hundred years…

Last week, watching wave roll into wave onto the shores of Lake Michigan, I held his face in my hands.

I touched the singing sands of the beach—glistening with quartz—and heard a distance whisper in my blood.

There are two stories of what happened to Charles Moor:

The one that I remember being told was that he had abandoned his young wife Missouri Ann and infant son Herbert and started a new life. I heard about other people with the last name Moor in the Chicago area—the unique spelling a possible clue that Charles, irresponsibly and selfishly, packed up and vanished, craving the freedom of fresh start. The family believed that the spelling of Moor was so unique that it would be rare to find others close to where our own relatives settled. But, the spelling is not so uncommon, and Charles’ reputation suffered as a result.

The other story is that Charles died in a shipping accident on Lake Michigan—that formidable old lake with fathoms full of the bones of thousands of ships and crews. The lore is rich with gales smashing ships ashore or encrusting them with ice. The “Lake Michigan Triangle” described as wilder and more voracious than the famed Bermuda Triangle itself. Carved from a glacier millennia ago, this breathing fossil takes primordial glee in digesting modern man and his marvels.

My great grandfather Herbert Clark Moor was born in Chicago, eventually to be raised by his uncle. So little is known of Missouri Ann Durst Moor, his mother. Born in 1853 in Xenia, Ohio of Prussian parents, how did she end up in Chicago, only to return to Ohio a few years later? The death of her husband? Did she lie to her family about a “shipping accident,” ashamed and scandalized by a philandering Charles?

Back then, who could verify such a thing? Shipping accidents on Lake Michigan were common enough to absolve a young woman of the taint of a husband who no longer wanted her. Missouri Ann would remarry. This is all I know of my great-great grandmother.

Herbert Clark Moor, her son, would go to father thirteen children and enjoy a long marriage to Bertha Gertrude Spoores. Eleven years his junior, Bertha would outlive him by 26 years. She died the year before I was born. Herbert was a handsome man who would father handsome sons and daughters—only one daughter remains now, the last of many siblings, the lone keeper of her family’s undocumented history.

There are no pictures of Charles. I do not know his birthdate or deathdate. I doubt I would care much about him, if I hadn’t moved to Michigan City, Indiana…

Here, Lake Michigan nearly subsumes the city, flooding almost every aspect of the culture. We are awash in beach references, dune motifs, and a skyline that boasts the very lighthouse my great-great grandfather might’ve failed to see on his final voyage across the lake.

A shipping accident.

I sat on the beach and watched Lake Michigan rush the shore. The grains of sand in my hands felt moist and warm like flesh. I poked my finger into the mud and fashioned a face—foreign, yet recognizable.

I am the unknowing prodigal.

What drew me to this place? If my life was a narrative, the reasons would be obvious. Of all places, how is it that I came to live near Chicago, the birthplace of my great-grandfather, the deathplace of my great-great grandfather, a place infused with the watery grave that sucked away his life, washing away his memory, his own story?

Yes, I wanted to leave Iowa, the reasons buried deep in the pockets of my own personal history and mystery. Yes, it was close to my family in Ohio. As the only living child of my parents, I felt the need to life closer, a day’s drive.

Did Herbert ever wonder about his father? Did he wonder about the people whose name is spelled like ours living so near his birthplace? What would he tell me about his father, if he’d even speak of him at all?

All I know is whenever I look out at the frothing tides of Lake Michigan, I think of Charles Clark Moor and the stories of I’ve read about the thousands of shipwrecks. Was it the Atalanta? The Joe Barber? What about the Challenge? I search the databases and wonder about my great-great grandfather and his fate. Which ship is the one I should memorize and study?

I cannot swim.

Water is a fascination to me. I love to float and bob. Even though I never learned to swim, I have always wanted to own a swimming pool. The water’s embrace brings comfort.

Perhaps I returned to the shores of Lake Michigan because of a need in my blood, a song sung in the overlapping weave of my DNA. The gulls cry, and I turn to beckon a friend.

Charles Clark Moor has been gone for decades. His story mostly lost to family lore. Yet, here I stand, on the shores where he once walked, listening to the quiet stories of the very lake that claimed his life. Someday, perhaps, I will recognize his footprints in the sand and know that I have touched a piece of home.

If I'd Known You When We Were Children

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:26:00 +0000

...we would meet by the brick wall in front of my house on sweaty summer nights, hop on our Schwinns, and ride around the block looking for dead things to poke with sticks, stray cats to pet and name, evidence of a life only found in our untamed imaginations. We wouldn’t speak much. We wouldn’t have to. Our mutual escape into a world of monsters, swords, and adventure would say more than any of the words in our childish vocabularies. We would find connection in our play.

After our mothers would call our names, we would go inside our houses and eat supper, only to return as soon as the last dish was dried. We would help each other climb trees. I would give you a boost, so that you could wrap your legs around the trunk of the sturdy young Maple in front of my house. You could reach the lowest branches then and shinny your way up to thicker branches where we would perch and pretend we were birds or super heroes or angels.

Or, maybe we would meet on my front porch and play with our Barbies, all the while giggling about breasts, kissing, and whatever else our older brothers and sisters had taught us. We would peek beneath Ken’s swim trunks at his rounded plastic mound and shift our eyes back to forth to make sure no adults were watching. We would share conspiratorial secrets about our impossible crushes on movie stars and musicians. Barbie and Ken would always somehow end up naked together on the ledge of my porch. More giggles.

I would always pick you for my Capture-the-Flag team, even if you never found the flag or ran the fastest. If you were captured and sent to the other team’s “jail,” then I would risk getting caught in order to engineer your escape and probably end up sitting next to you in “jail” where we would talk about the giant black ants scurrying across the sidewalk or the neighbors across the street in the rental house with the Husky named Pete.

We would call each other “best friends.” We would tell each other the things we wouldn’t tell anyone else, and then, we would race through the sprinkler with shrieks and laughter. I would help you rake your yard and you would help me rake mine, doing each other's chores side by side, feeling the bite of blisters together.

If I’d known you when we were children, our love would be the simplest kind. Our play would be easy. We would be capable of spending an entire afternoon melting things with a magnifying glass or standing in awe of a picked scab or playing kickball until the ball would get stuck on a garage roof.

We would discover constellations at night, point out the Big and Little Dippers and Mars and Venus, lie in the wet grass and contemplate the craters of the moon.

I wish I’d known you when we were children.

Upon Closer Inspection

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:23:00 +0000

Years from now, they will find her bones covered in the dust of forgotten years. The archeological find will be headlines around the world—the fossil of a woman from the 21 century.

Maybe they’ll give her a name like Lucy or Sue or Jane. Something catchy enough to sell souvenirs.

This will humanize the bones and allow scientists to personify them and use phrases like “Jane’s skeleton speaks to us about the past” and “Jane whispers her secrets with each sweep of brush bristle on bone.”

Jane will be touted as a specimen of ordinary life in the 21st century. They will construct computer images of what she would’ve looked like. She was no leader, no queen. She was no one of importance due to her modest burial—remnants of an oak casket and brass rails.

They will determine her clothing was synthetic and something worn for the ceremony of burial, most likely a dress. Their artists will do their best to recreate the primitive gown, so foreign to their own modern fashions.

Her teeth will reveal some dental work, a crown or two. The wear and composition will help determine the types of food the “typical 21st century woman might’ve eaten. Exotic words like pizza, French fries, and chocolate will be discussed as a common diet for Jane.

Tests will be conducted on each femur, rib, cranial cavity. Marrow will be scrapped and analyzed. Jane did not die of head trauma. They will not find the jagged grooves of bite marks. Not a warrior, they will decide, knowing what little they do of such a bygone era—most artifacts lost to the fickleness of electricity and outdated technology. No geniuses of the age, only empty plastic boxes with blank glass screens. They will call us the Lost Age, unable to access the words and thoughts of generations of great minds.

Jane will be all they have, and they will be unable to understand her.

Jane was anything but a typical 21st century woman. No computer imaging will recreate the tears of those who knew her and mourned her. No tests on the bones will reveal how much she was admired by her children, grandchildren, and even the most distant acquaintance.

Her importance cannot be compared to the supposed icons of the age: politicians, entertainers, or leftover monarchs. Her accomplishments were quieter than laws or the laughter of crowds, but they were no less weighty and vital. How can you ever measure the impact of one human being? Every day, we come into contact with others from the grocery store to the post office. Is there a scientific test for the ripple effect of a single smile?

Jane was a warrior and a leader. Every night, she clasped her hands and spent hours on her knees—praying for herself, for others, for the world. Her impact impossible to determine by her mere bones.

She volunteered at hospices, spent an entire afternoon a month baking communion bread for her church, took meals to those who could not cook for themselves, donated clothing, recycled her papers and plastic, held the hand of anyone facing a fear in their lives.

Jane fought cancer for years—lost both breasts and all of her hair. She endured radiation treatments and experimental drugs. Just when she thought she’d won, the cancer would return and ravage her body again. But, Jane’s spirit was stronger than her body, and she refused to go gently into that good night, a beacon of strength to other sufferers.

Jane used a walker, but it did not keep her from supporting her grandchildren during their special moments. Though weary, she smiled and clapped and showed them all the power of the hope in things unseen.

No expert will understand that Jane was so much more than typical. No scientist can see how much she was loved and explain the remarkable beauty of her soul. No archeologist will be able to touch Jane by brushing a fingertip over her bones.

Jane’s bones cannot tell the stories of the strongest women who live in the 21st century.

We who wake up each morning and try to make a better life for our children and children’s children. We who suffer the horrors of incurable diseases with grace. We who quietly work our jobs, earn our paychecks, and try to be the best people we can be—better and wiser than we were the day before.

We are anything but typical.

Bird Lessons

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Sat, 15 May 2010 03:42:00 +0000

Whenever I hear the coo of Mourning Doves, I am eight years old again, sitting in Mrs. Alta Diehl’s second grade classroom at South Main School.

The coolness of the desk chills my forearms; the room smells waxy like warm crayons. The Mourning Doves perch on the window sills, peek in, and coo, coo, coo.

Every time I hear them, the morning air is crisp and itchy like a sweater you wear until the day warms and you wrap it around your waist. That melody transports me to my childhood, to that school, to that precipice where memories ache to be relived.

As children, we seem closer to Nature, more often outside with nothing to do but poke at the ground, rake muddy sticks along the sidewalk, and stare up into the trees.

I remember the broken bits of blue eggshell. I knew they were the shattered eggs of robins—that unmistakable azure.

After a hard early summer storm, you could find the broken eggs in driveways or on the sidewalk. You could even find the featherless, veiny unborn smashed from the long fall. Morbid curiosity would cause you to stand a few minutes to study the soft skin, large head, tiny unformed wings. A person couldn’t help but tear up at the creature’s sad demise.

Robins have taught me as much about life as any person I have known.

Once, as an early adolescent, I found one of those familiar blue eggs—unbroken. I was determined to save it. The instinct was overwhelming and unfocused. Survival. My human hand would intercede and help Nature protect one of its most vulnerable.

I picked it up, hurried into the house, and put it into a Dixie cup burgeoning with cotton balls.

“It needs heat,” my brother informed.

So, I found a way to rig the Dixie cup up to the lamp on my nightstand. A clever idea, except that eventually, the light would have to be switched off.

I don’t remember all of the particulars, but I remember knocking the lamp and watching my precious unbroken egg smash to the hard wood floor.

I let Nature down. I destroyed that baby robin’s chance for life.

At least, that was how I saw it at the time. I did not see myself as interfering with the harsh, necessary processes of Nature.

Another time, I found one of those featherless babies at the base of our neighbor’s tall pine—still alive.

I remember the way my heart lurched. I had to save this baby. I found a container, put the swaying creature into it—again with cotton balls—and tried to find a way to warm it. My mother and I kept watch.

But, this baby’s injuries, though not visible, were no less severe, and it died.

I sat on the couch, crushed and broken.

Sometimes, you just can’t save such a vulnerable thing.

One Spring, word must’ve gotten out in the bird world that the White house was good for young families. At our back and front doors, we had robins making nests. My father kept knocking down the nest in the back and front until I shamed him into allowing the nests to survive.

On our porch, tucked safely under the roof, was a little niche that made a perfect spot for a nest and a great place to view this miracle from our front door.

The nest took shape quickly, and before long, we saw the female perched atop her babies. We watched how both parents fed the babies, how both parents worked in cooperation as the babies attempted their first flights.

The babies weren’t pushed from the nest. They grew so big that they began to nudge each other and the nest could no longer contain them. That was when the first brave soul stood on the edge and gave it a go. We could hear the parents—one high on a roof or a tree limb, the other low on the ground—coaxing and communicating. The high parent kept watch and encouraged the baby upwards.

If only more human beings could be as loyal and committed to the survival of their children.

In the back of the house, the experience would be different. The last baby to leave the nest flapped and struggled and flew over our neighbor’s back fence. Their Springer Spaniel in one fluid snap caught that bird.

I burst through the back door, jumped over the fence, and chased the dog from its prize. The bird was alive but stunned. The parents’ chirping became screeching.

I hadn’t learned my lesson from before. I had to interfere. I grabbed the bird with my bare hands, its damaged leg dangling, and I put it back into the nest.

I stepped back into the house and feared the old wives’ tale about touching baby animals. The parents won’t feed it anymore because they’ll smell the human scent.

In this case, that wasn’t true. Immediately, the parents began their feeding routine. They kept watch over the nest and the baby until it decided it was strong enough and gave flying another try.

The baby could fly, but because of the broken leg, he couldn’t land.

I tried to stay out of it. When the baby landed on the ground, I checked to make sure it was alive, and tried to stay out of it. I left the baby there one night. Scared. Cold. On the ground.

I worried all night that one of the neighborhood stray cats would find him. I was older, in my early twenties.

I knew that Nature had ways of handling things that a human heart should never try to understand.

Still, I rushed out there in the morning. Baby was still alive. I picked him up again and put him on a tree branch. I let him grab hold of the limb and learn how to balance his weight. I helped but only so far as to help him become independent. There would be no smothering this time.

I honestly don’t know what happened to the bird. He was gone when I came home from work. I like to pretend that he learned how to fly and that his leg healed.

But, I remember seeing a stray lurking around that day. I remember seeing a pile of scattered feathers back by our garage.

In my mind, I kept what I wanted to be true and what I knew to be true side by side.

Robins taught me about teamwork, responsibility, obligation, instinct, about knowing when to let go, navigating the boundaries of compassion and acceptance—some things are simply too vulnerable to save.

On March 17, 1994, sitting in my grandmother’s house with all of the windows and doors open to air out the exhaust fumes of two cars running for over six hours, robins taught me another lesson. I could hear the rescue workers' slow footsteps in the garage. My brother was dead. He himself had made sure he would be before anyone found him.

My parents, my cousin, and I sat in my grandmother’s den. I stared at the fireplace mantel, the family heirlooms, chilly from the opened house, and I remember this moment as clear as if I were seeing it now. It was such a profound vision that I wrote it down on a piece of scrap:

In the midst of all of the pain and sadness, I turned to look out the opened door, and there I saw it, a robin, the promise of Spring.

Robins taught me that seasons change. The winter’s gloom eventually ends. There is always hope, even when there are people who are simply too vulnerable to be saved.

Different birds have symbolized the epochs of my life.

I remember the big, brash blackbirds that roamed the Iowa State campus when I was a graduate student pursing my first Master’s degree. I cannot see a crow without smelling the fertile farmlands of Iowa.

Cardinals, my state bird, always brought shrieks of delight at every sighting. Bluejays earned respect and disdain by being such magnificent animals who could be such bastards.

Starlings, finches, sparrows, geese, owls, hawks, falcons, the scurrying, long-legged killdeer, and all of the others whose song I hear but cannot name—they have been the soundtrack of my memories. I have communed with their calls my entire life.

Even now, after the long quiet of winter, my heart beats a little faster at the return of our songbirds, and I sit poised for yet another lesson to learn.

The Empty Desks

noreply@blogger.com (S.E. White) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 04:40:00 +0000

The names fade faster than the faces. Brittany. Stephen. Stephanie. Courtney. Scott. Ryan. The list goes on.

The last names are harder to reach in the back of your memory. Vanderholten. Marley. Franks. Schaefer. Over time, the faces blend. Blonde hair, black hair, red hair—a blur. They come and go. Some slip away during the middle of the year, or at the end, or near the beginning. Only an empty desk remains.

They loiter in the shadowed periphery of déjà vu. You travel state to state and still see familiar faces—don’t I know you? Was that a student who just brushed by you in the grocery store, or served you your dinner, or took your name at the receptionist’s desk?

I think I know you.

Most of the time, you will never know where those occupants of the empty desks went, what caused them to stop coming, or what they pursued once they hurried out that classroom door for the last time.

Those who do finish the course stay eager and curious in your mind, leaving with almost the same shine with which they entered—limitless possibilities, endless potential, nothing less than the hopes you have for their futures. You hope that you have affected them somehow, given them the tools they will need to be what they dream.

A few you get to know more one-on-one. Maybe they come by your office, or stay after class and talk with you about writing, books, their lives, but then, they always go and you always wish them well. Even fewer manage the transition from student to cherished friend.

Your face looks familiar.

I’m sure I’ve lost students to tragedy before. I’ve been teaching College English for ten years now.

As far as I know, I’ve never lost a student while still in my class until this semester. Such a thing leaves an impression on you. The girl worked in our department office. She fit the cliché of someone who always had a smile, even when she didn’t feel well. Her intelligence and charisma were obvious in the infectious way she spoke about topics that interested her. She wanted to be a journalist. She died at the beginning of a research project about the local prisons—a deeply personal topic for her. She bubbled with passion and enthusiasm. The members of her research group couldn’t help but be swept along. Her loss is all the more difficult to endure because of how avoidable it could’ve been. She was texting. I doubt she ever saw the tree, or if once she did, it was too late.

Her face is seared into my mind—but grief and death are not strangers to me. I know too well how Time loosens our mental grips, and before we know we don’t know, a strange urge shakes us in the middle of a thought and we realize we no longer remember the one name we thought we’d never forget.

Didn’t her name start with an L?

Sometimes, I ask students who they had as a teacher for previous English classes. Some don’t remember. “She’s average height with brown hair”—our names and faces fade for them, too.

Names and faces get pushed aside in our minds for newer names and faces. Five classes finished—five new ones begin.

But, I remain haunted by the incomplete stories, the losses, the absent presence of people I had the privilege of meeting once in a classroom one semester.

I will never forget those empty desks.