A MAN-OF-DAUGHTERS

Photo: Daddy with his 3 daughters:
Sandi, Lila, and Skitch

THEN:

Written in 2000, not long after marrying my second husband, but still wonderfully true today.


     There is a wonderful tenderness to a man-of-daughters. I first found this out as a child living in a home that had borne four daughters and no sons. My father, who had always been a rough and tumble man, soon succumbed to our gentle sensibilities and treated even the tomboys among us like upstanding Victorian princesses. He had long adored his mother, and he cherished our mother deeply. Seemingly with ease, he transferred that love and respect to his own girls. With infinite patience, he sat while we braided the longest strands of his hair and pinned bobby pins and bows in the rest. To his great credit, he held his face immobile while tasting many a pretend and real culinary attempt. Then, with a noble smile, he would proclaim it, "Delicious"! We knew! We knew that every attempt we made was different and that not all of them could reasonably be palatable (especially those daisy eggs we popped into his mouth) let alone delicious. We also knew that, in his eyes, we did no wrong, and that was what mattered, what we carried with us all our days.

     Over the years, as we softened him, something unexpected happened, and he softened us as well. We came to enjoy being treated like ladies and we expected like treatment from every male around us. This led to more than a few disappointments that, in the long run, will not be ours. By his standards we measured our male friends, teachers, suitors. Poor men -- so few of them ever touched the bottom of the level we had placed our daddy on. Somehow two of our staunch tomboys imagined themselves stronger than they were, more influential than they could ever be. They married men off the graph, expecting them to soften as dear daddy had, but some men don't soften. As one of the tomboys, I found that out first hand. I married a boy from a house-of-sons. He was a gruff nurtured boy, with no sisters to set before him a standard of how women should be treated, and he held little softness in his heart for his own mother. How was I to know that this would render him incapable of the tenderness to which I had become accustomed? Many hardships later, after problems with substance abuse and violence, I stopped looking for it within him. It simply was not and would not be there. 

     My man from a house-of-sons had given me sons, and I struggled daily to provide for them a well rounded upbringing. With my tomboyish nature I was able to be a decent semi-dad. I taught them to throw a baseball and climb a tree. I was also a nester by nature, and as such was teaching them to cook and do laundry. I wasn't doing a bad job, overall, but something was missing. For, when I asked them to lift the toilet seat they lifted instead, an eyebrow and thought their mother suddenly nit-picky among her kind. And if I, out of respect for other females that would soon be entering their lives, cautioned them about words like "snot" and "fart" they considered the possibility that I was daft indeed! Didn't I say these words myself? Didn't I laugh at their fart jokes? It seemed to me that a tomboyish mother-of-sons was destined to raise men-of-sons with little or no regard for feminine sensibilities, for they only resented the difference between how I allowed them to treat me and how I hoped they would treat the more tender of my kind. I did not want to pretend to be someone I was not, but I was beginning to consider it because, ironically, I was fathering my children pretty well, but feeling like I was falling short as their mother.

     It was at that wonderful and opportune time that I met my own man-of-daughters. He had five of them! And one little son of his own. He had a mother he adored and a sister he cherished. With sensibilities not seen by me in too long, this man gathered us all into his strong but gentle arms: five girls, three boys, and me. My sons now raised both eyebrows in enlightenment when he instructed them on the necessity of lifting (and then even lowering!) the toilet seat. They nodded understandingly when he explained the obligation of watching one's language in front of females. It suddenly made sense to them now that not all girls were as staunch as "Momma" for they had five sisters in varying degrees of "princess" and their step-dad expected the females in our world to be treated with great respect. As the girls grew dearer to my sons, so did their regard for the opposite sex. They seemed to treat unknown girls in a manner similar to how they wanted the tenderest of their sisters to be treated. Suddenly, females in general were held in higher esteem and my new husband had mothered my sons for me. 

     There are exceptions to nearly every rule, of course: But my advice to womankind is this: marry a man that cherishes good relationships with the females in his life. As he treats his mother, his sisters, his daughters, so shall he treat you. Be aware, of the respect -- or lack of it, in your friends and suitors. And for men it rings as true: If she adores her daddy, her brothers, her sons, she will be more likely to adore you. That makes for a smoother relationship and a pleasure indeed. For I cannot express how delightful it is to watch the circle go fully around, as I sit observing little girls "fixing" their daddy's hair and popping over-cooked bacon into his mouth.

Photo: Daddy with 3 daughters:
Sandi, Lila, and Baby Skitch

AMANDA

Photo: Amanda, before she learned how to smile

THEN (mostly):

Though there were five years between Bo and Shana, Amanda was born only 17 months after Shana. She was to be Lila's youngest child, her baby, and the last girl that would be born into our family since that day over 30 years ago. If Bo hadn't had to good sense to adopt his step-daughter, Kimmy (Princess, to me) and share her with us we would have nothing but boys for the last 30 years! As it is, Kimmy is an adult, so all the youngsters in the family are male. I would later have two sons, Tanya would have two sons, Bo would have three sons (and our Princess) Shana would have a son and a step-son, and Amanda would have two sons and a step-son. In our family we throw out that "step" word most of the time. Son/step-son... either way it's a son so why waist any extra breath or complicate things? Also, Lila would raise three foster sons, so we had plenty of boyness to make up for all the earlier girlness, and my dad and Bo looked around one day and realized they were no longer outnumbered. Amanda was soon nicknamed Nana, to match Shana's nickname of Nona, and that was what both of them were called for many years of their lives. "Here come Nona and Nana!" To me they were Baby and Hope.

Amanda was thrust into the chaos caused by Shana's weak lungs. She barely had a moment in the spotlight before Shana was on death's door again, unintentionally sucking all the energy from the family. Still, a newborn as beautiful as Amanda demanded contemplation. Like her sister before her, she was gorgeous. They are a study in lovely opposites. Shana was fair and bubbly. Amanda was dark and quiet. As she grew she gained an exotic quality that caused people to do a double take. She was not smile city, like Shana, but when she smiled it would melt a frozen heart. Mostly she looked at you with deep chocolate eyes, quietly, making you wonder what she was thinking about. In those eyes you could see an awareness, a curiosity, a bank of secrets you could not get to. I knew immediately that Amanda was an old soul.

Hope spent much of her babyhood with an intense, somehow amusing, scowl on her face. It wasn't that she was being hateful, though she was certainly capable of that. It just seemed to be the way her face naturally arranged itself. Even when she was truly in a bad mood, if you let her be, you were safe enough. One of our favorite cousins, Teresa Kay, brought Hope a Care Bear shirt. It had a cloth flap that you could flip from "Today I feel Cheerful" (with an image of Cheer Bear) to "Today I feel Grumpy" (with an image of Grumpy Bear.) I confess that one of my favorite things to do was to switch my nieces shirt to "Grumpy". To me, it suited the scowl on her face, but it always made her, well, Grumpier. So, It became a game for me, trying to distract her enough to switch the shirt to Grumpy without her noticing. Sometimes she busted me and yelled, "Hey! Stop that!" Sometimes I was quick enough and sly enough to get by with it, briefly. She would eventually notice, and there was always heck to pay! She knew exactly who had done that to her shirt and she came after me quarreling as hard as she could and shaking her finger at me. I would pretend innocence, but I don't think I ever fooled her. It was wonderful though when she began to smile more. I remember the absolute joy I felt at getting a photo of a genuine smile on that lovely little face. Eureka! We loved her deeply and dearly, cheerful or not.

When she got a little older, Hope took a look around her and picked up the worries of the world. She didn't express one second of jealousy over Shana's unfortunate limelight, but instead, out of a great love for her sister, her mother, her family, Hope switched places with Shana. Hope became the big-little sister. She showed deep concern for Shana and would fetch cold cloths for her fevered head, bring her glasses of water or juice. It wasn't long before the vibrant little sister had outgrown the less healthy big sister and they looked their switched roles. Some people refused to believe that Shana was older than Amanda.

First thing in the morning, she would come into the living room, wearing her nightgown and a scowl. Often I was already attempting to get the knots out of Shana's hair, but Hope's would have to wait until she was more awake and less grumpy. I told Shana many mornings that she must have made the hair fairy angry because she woke up with the messiest hair on the planet. I would smile at Hope and wish her a good morning. In a very froggy little voice she would drag out, "Gooood moornin'." That froggy voice was one of my very favorite sounds.

When she was about three, I was staying at Lila's and was snuggled in bed with the two little girls, trying to get them to go to sleep. Hope begged for one story too many. I was practically nodding off myself, so I suggested, "Why don't you tell me a story?" I was sneakily thinking I could go to sleep while she was talking and then she'd go to sleep as well, but her cute little girl voice whispered, "A man came home... to see his wife and children...but there was bloooood all over the floor... and there was blooood all over the walls..." We got up and had chicken noodle soup and ice cream and watched some t.v.

She was about 12 when I made the mistake of telling her she had been "Amanda Hope-For-No-More". I thought it was funny because she was the baby of the family and my sister did get a sterilization procedure not long after Hope was born. But I think I seriously hurt her feelings at the time, and I wanted to be able to suck those words right back into my lungs. 

She is different these days; almost all smiles but less healthy. It's as though all the illnesses that skipped her as a child have come calling on the adult she now is. She gets really sick, really quickly. It's frightening. She's been rushed to the ER. She's battled sepsis and many strep infections. These days it's sometimes Shana's turn to be concerned.

Today Amanda Hope is a lovely wife and mother. She has a husband and three boys. She's still ultra responsible. She's a hands on mom and keeps her kids as straight as arrows. She loves deeply and laughs freely. I haven't heard her froggy early morning voice in too many years... Maybe I should call her some morning at about 6am, just to hear that croaky "Gooood moornin'." That lovely sound would still be a joy to my heart, because in reality she is my "Amanda HOPE-For-Many-More".

Photo: Amanda, after she learned how to smile
Photo By Skitch 

SHANA

Photo: Shana and Skitch

THEN (mostly):

Three months after I hit the ripe old age of 13, Lila gave birth to Shana. I'd recently read several historical romance novels by the genre-pioneering author Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. My favorite was a spicy novel called "Shanna". I loved the name so much that, when Lila told me she was pregnant, I thought, "I wish she would name her Shanna." I was on a roll with predicting the sexes of babies. I'd only missed once in all my long 13 years, and I was certain Lila was carrying another daughter. I told her as much, but I did not suggest the name because I was equally certain she would never take the advice of a child on naming a child. When she called a few weeks later and told me, "If this baby is a girl, I think I'll name her Shana," it seemed like a miracle. I decided that I had wished that beautiful name on my niece so hard that it somehow pushed into Lila's mind. I've taken secondary credit for it ever since.

Shana was a gorgeous baby, and unlike Tanya and Bo, she didn't intimidate me. I was older, more practiced, and much better at appreciating babies this go 'round. I strove to be her second momma. Shana was bubbly, full of life and joy, and I loved her so dearly that I soon called her nothing but "Baby."

Soon the family discovered that Shana had asthma. She suffered one hard bout after another with bronchitis or pneumonia. Many nights, Lila stayed with us in order to have help with all three kids. Li and I would stretch out on either side of Shana and think about sleeping. Through the night, Shana's chest would heave so violently that it often seemed to be a separate entity from the rest of her. It was as though her muscles were forcing her to take just one more breath. I often found myself breathing in the same unnatural rhythm, praying between each convulsion of Shana's muscles, praying for the next pull of air. In the dim light, my eyes would meet my sister's and our souls would speak the fears that our mouths could not utter...

"What if she stops?"

"Could life ever go on?"

When she was healthy, life was golden. Shana lit up the darkest room with her smile, her bubbly way, and later, her constant mispronunciations. She had this delightful habit of accidentally using words we were not supposed to use. They always sounded so out of place falling from her cherubim lips. She pronounced "Roscoe" (a favorite uncle) as "Asshole" and would yell that name at anyone that reminded her of Roscoe, which unfortunately was any medium aged man with brown hair and a beard. I can remember running down the street with Lila, cupping our hands over Shana's mouth while she twisted her head and screamed her uncle's name at some confused guy that certainly was not her uncle, and probably didn't deserve verbal abuse from an 18 month old. My dad got a kick out of telling Shana to say, "I'm a smart feller." Inevitably she told him, "I'm a fart smeller." Nothing could have been less funny to my mom, or funnier to my dad. He'd laugh until his eyes disappeared in folds of wrinkles.

Shana was a brilliant baby (and is a brilliant lady. She made the Dean's List repeatedly in college) but those days foreshadowed a lifetime of twisted words. She never quite got the hang of a brilliant vocabulary. For example "specific" often still comes out "pacific". As a child, she told her mother they tried to make her eat "fruit fox tails!" at school. (Investigation discovered it was actually fruit cocktail.) And, unlike her very deliberate brother, Shana has always been good at "accidental funny." As a babe, she leaned in her mother's arms, out over a casket, and said, "Shhh. Papaw's sleeping...Boo!" She then laughed delightedly and added, "I scared Papaw to death!" She turned heads with her beauty, with her joy, with her malapropisms, and with her "accidental funny." She turned heads!

Shana's first sentence to me came from a song. I was singing along with the radio. "Don't you want me, baby? Don't you want me, ooh?" And Shana, who was "Baby", sang back, "Don't you want me, Dee Dee?"

Shana is now an adult and a very devoted mother. I've lost count of how many times she's made it through pneumonia. Thankfully, she is like my mother in that she's much tougher than she knows. Her greatest battle came when she had her son. High blood pressure, early inducement, an emergency c-section, a spotty epidural, she fought them all... And won. May God keep her winning, for I still feel the same way I did when she was tiny. "What if she stops?" I don't know what I'd do without her bubbly smile, without her created words, without her accidental funny, without her gigantic heart loving me every day. She loves fiercely and forever. Without her "could life ever go on?" I pray God that Lila and I never find out!

Photo: "Baby"

BEBO

Photo: Baby Johnny, Tanya, and Skitch

Then (mostly):

        
When I was nine years old, The Lord, Life, and Lila Ann gave me a nephew, Johnny. I was growing up in a family of mostly females and a boy was something to celebrate! Not because boys were better than girls, no not at all, but because boys, for us, were scarce. My dad, for many years, was the only guy in our world. The poor fellow weathered mood swings, swam through lace and ribbons, and let us "fix his hair." When Johnny arrived he became the only boy our family had been graced with since my father was born and the only boy it would have until I gave birth to my first son, over a decade later. Mother had four daughters. Lila would have three daughters and one son. Johnny and Dad were long outnumbered!

Because he shared a name with his father we called him "Little Johnny" or "Little John" when he was a kid. He now largely goes by "Bebo" or "Bo." Johnny" is still his dad's name, to most of us. Back in the day, Little Johnny was a smiley kid that loved to be silly. He was awesome at Donald Duck impersonations and Scooby Doo recaps. He was the number one fan of The Dukes of Hazzard, which is probably how he wound up with the nickname "Bo". For many years, my mother despaired that she'd never figure out what his face looked like because he was so often tail-up, rolling around in the floor, tumbling, twisting. Looking back, there is little doubt that he had some hyperactivity going on inside that bony little frame. Despite his antics and over-the-top entertainment choices, that kid harbored a subtle sense of humor. Like a good bottle of wine he was bold and dry, even way back then. When he was about four years old, he picked up a gray kitten and carried it through the house singing, "I'm gonna wash that gray right out of your hair." My sister had to stop him from shampooing the cat. A four year old singing a Clariol Loving Care commercial to a gray kitten is funny enough, but I've always felt that he got it. That he knew just why it was funny, that the cat was supposed to be gray, that four year old kids aren't supposed to dwell on gray hair, that cat's hate a bath. Like my dad, Bo has the best sense of humor, and it has only improved with age.

He spent his days surrounded by women, but, Bo held a quite sort of masculinity that could never be denied. He played with dolls and picked out things from the Avon book just like we did, but he had a penchant for mud that none of us shared, and he liked to take things apart, to play with cars and trucks, and to stare at pretty girls. Yep, he was definitely different. He once fell asleep at my house only to wake up with make up on and his nails painted. I was a bit of a prankster. (And I'd hidden the nail polish remover.) But luckily for him (and for me) my nephew was never one of those uptight men that was afraid of sandals or the color pink. In the tradition of his grandfather, Little John knew he was every inch a guy even when he was covered in foundation and blush. I've always loved that about him and I'm grateful my sons have displayed the same confidence. Still, it was pretty awesome watching him growl around the house looking for the missing nail polish remover. 

As a teen he became Bebo (a nickname bestowed upon him by his new step-father.) Bebo was the workingest son-of-a-gun you'd ever met. I've long felt he inherited that from my daddy too. That nephew of mine always had an odd job going and a dollar in his pocket. He found his way around a car engine before he was old enough to drive. I remember him working on a Blazer for me when he was 15. I depended on him even then for those crazy mechanical things that have never made any sense to me. He poked, and prodded, and crawled around under that thing and soon had it working. And this after several grown men had given up on it!

Bo understands family, he understands family with a capital F. There was a time in my life when I felt that mine had turned away from me, that I'd been disowned. Bo visited me when everyone else seemed to be looking the other way. He came to the museum where I worked and talked to me. I remember three consecutive statements best: "It's all going to be okay. You already knew our family was crazy. And why in hell did that chick at the ticket booth sell me this guidebook that doesn't guide me anywhere?" And that's my Bo. He's supportive, pragmatic, and as funny as a bad case of hiccups in math class!

These days, Bo is working hard at two jobs to support those he adores, his lovely wife and four gorgeous kids. But he still finds time to make me laugh at family gatherings, to share a story now and then, or to stick his head under the hood of my car when it's misbehaving. All that doll playing paid off and he's one of the finest fathers I've ever seen. He loves his daughter and three sons like there is no tomorrow. He loves them and his wife with words, with time, with money, and with all his heart and everything he is. And they (and I) return that love.
Thank God for my Be-be Bo-be!

Photo: "Little Johnny"

TANYA

Photo: Tanya my childhood best friend
my niece
my almost-sister
the kid I whooped many people over
& would whoop a million more 
my "Friday Night Girl"

THEN (mostly):                                       


    One of the best things that happened in my life was when my much beloved sister gave birth to a girl child and named her Tanya. As soon as I recovered from the disappointment of being an aunt instead of an uncle (which I thought could have happened if only that baby had been born a boy!) I tried to make the best of things and get to know the new person. She didn't do much, but lie around all the time. She didn't have much to say, and when she said it she said it loudly and it was completely incomprehensible. But it felt good to hold her in my seven year old arms. She was warm, and soft, and better than any doll or teddy I'd ever held. It also felt good inside my heart when she rested contentedly against me, as though I were a grown up and worthy of being responsible for something, some ONE very precious. I was far from grown up, however, and there were times over the years when I'm sure I let my sweet niece down. I didn't quite know what to do for her, especially when she was still tiny and seemed to cry for no reason at all. After she grew up some and began to talk I was able to do a better job of being her aunt, better but never great. What a cross to bear, being my plaything, but most of the time she bore it with a grace-filled spirit and a deep and tolerant love for me.

    As she got older we grew closer, and I came to love her accepting heart with every fiber of my being. She was often my brightest ray of sunshine. I've never been loved any more beautifully than she loved me, trusted any more fully, or heeded any quicker. She would have walked through fire for me, immediately and without question, and I returned that trust with a fierce protectiveness. I would have walked through fire for her as well, but the only fire I faced for her were a few unfortunate boys that thought it might prove entertaining to pull Tanya's long hair, or shoot at her with their b.b. guns. They were wrong, and I saw to it that they found out just how wrong they were! I was in so many fights with boys that I lost count, and most of them were over Tanya. It fired me up quicker than the Fourth of July for anyone to be mean to her!

    It was a rare Friday evening that didn't find her trudging up a mountain or a stairway with thirty-two steps to be with me, and me smiling, dashing out to meet her with news, and ideas, and excitement. We were together nearly every day that school was not in session and sometimes in the evenings after school. Closer than most sisters, thicker than the thievingest thieves, like peanut butter and jelly, we stuck together. I didn't make friends that would not allow her to tag along on all our adventures. I didn't waste time with boys that thought she was in the way. And if someone failed to realize that I was cooler than sliced bread they were quickly met with Tanya's complete disdain. We rarely disagreed, never argued, and either of us would have taken a beating before striking or hurting the other.

Photo: "The Trio"

    They say the best and worst things in life come in threes, and our cousin Ramona seemed to prove that theory out. She completed our trio. She fit snuggly between my age and Tanya's and perfectly into all our activities. Thanks to Tanya and Ramona I was blessed with many days that were not lonely. Once in a while, my wonderfully funny and rambunctious nephew, Johnny was along for the ride, but more often than not he was spending time with his daddy. Some days, it was just Tanya and me, occasionally just Ramona and me, but most of the time, it was the three of us against the world and all things that were not tied down. Together we proved that females could do anything they wanted. Of course, if something was boring or overly difficult, we simply didn't want to do it! We learned how to be as adventurous as only boys were (usually) encouraged to be, and as affectionate as any parent hopes their daughter might become. We climbed trees and did make-up. We played house; I was always the dad because I was the bossiest. We played cowboys and Indians but soon just played different tribes of Indians because no one wanted to be a cowboy when you could be a perfectly good wild Indian! Sometimes we specifically pretended we were Pocahontas, John Smith, and John Rolfe. Ramona, as our girly girl, was almost always Pocahontas. Sometimes we imagined we were Tom Sawyer, Huck Fin, and Jim, floating down the Mississippi. The couch or a big rock in the woods worked well as our imaginary raft. We dreamed up adventures against goblins that lived in the heating vents or crawled around under the ground, and we survived fake world wide apocalypses and battled the resulting zombies before we'd ever seen a zombie movie or even heard that term. We called them some name that I no longer remember, but was sure then that it was sufficiently foreign and formidable sounding. We rode bikes and jumped rope.  We played with b.b. guns and taught each other patty-cake games. We sang along with the radio and played the same records over and over until my sister Sandi begged for mercy. With our parents complete knowledge, and obvious humor, we smoked pipes and hand rolled cigarettes filled with "rabbit tobacco". We leg wrestled, and thumb wrestled with each other. We wrestled neighborhood boys with all our body and might. While living up on the mountain, if we were out playing in the middle of the day and decided we were hungry, we ate wild strawberries, birch bark, teaberry leaves, pawpaws, and ground cherries. We drank from the spring. We gave our jaws a work out on frozen snack cakes that my parents bought at the discount bread store and stuck in the freezer before mold could set in. We rode in the back of a pick up truck as long as the weather would allow. In the day we'd stand up and our long hair would twist in the wind until it had formed into knots that we'd have to help each other brush out. The worst ones Sandi would have to fight out of our hair before bed. We even rode in the back of the truck at night. Sometimes standing up, but usually we would spread out a blanket to lie on, then we would lie down and cover up with another blanket or a thick quilt. We'd watch the tree branches whiz by, and the stars travel along with us. The whole world was with us. I sometimes asked them to imagine what it would be like to slip up through the sky, through the atmosphere, past the moon and Mars, and travel among the brilliant stars. In those moments, and many others, I often told them stories, long imaginative tales that sometimes frightened and always entertained and delighted them. I did not know those stories had made an impact until Tanya, many years later, wrote about them for a school assignment. She sent me the paper after she received a good grade on it. How fierce and free we were! We lived childhood wild and wonderful! I sometimes imagine that Heaven is filled with eternal children in an everlasting summer. If that is true then we will fit right in. If it is true, then Tanya, Ramona, and I will be girls again together someday, and the stars and the whole universe will be with us.


For a while, as adults, we remained close. Tanya had two sons, Ramona had one daughter, and I had two sons. We all became so busy that we weren't physically together very often. Still, I really believed that, at any time, one of us could call the others and the other two would drop everything to be there for the one that was in need.

Ramona and I are still very close. We call, and text, and keep connected on "the world wide web" (as we old timers say.) I'm pretty sure she would be there for me if she ever got one of those "I need you" calls, and I know I'd drop everything to go to her if she reached out. For reasons I don't and may never understand, Tanya has cut me completely out of her life. As best I can wrap my brain around the events, she felt that the family was not supportive enough of her marriage. I think she believes we (rather collectively) do not like or even love her husband. Nothing could be further from the truth. I miss him nearly as much as I do Tanya and their wonderful boys, my great-nephews. Most of us have not seen or heard from her or her family in over four years. She is in contact with her brother and his family but not her mother, Sandi, Tanya's sisters, and not me. For years she didn't even see my parents but she now goes occasionally for a brief visit. If her sisters run into her in public, she hurries away, pulling their nephew or nephews along with her. I have not chanced across her, but I've written, I've called, I've contacted through social networks, only to be rejected or ignored. After years of my questioning why she would not reply to me? What did I do? What could I do to fix things? I was simply told, "Your words once meant something to me, but now you are no more than a stranger to me and to my sons." I cried for days. I have begged her to tell me why. Mutual friends tell me that she puts memes on her social network sites, from which I have been blocked, about forgiveness, and Jesus, and not judging others because you never know what battles they are fighting. I can't help wishing she would forgive me whatever she is angry at me for, that she would not judge me, that she would love me like I love her.

Photo: Tanya and Skitch

Often I think the worse part is that she won't tell me what I did to deserve her disdain, or perhaps even hatred. I have this optimistic spirit that screams if I only knew what she was angry about I could explain it, I could fix it. I can't imagine what I did. I was not even living close when the rift began. But perhaps that is it: I left my hometown when I was 18 and Tanya eleven, not long before that I had married a military man. Tanya begged me not to go. It was the first time I had ever refused her something she wanted so much that it left her in tears. Tanya was tough, and so infrequently cried that her tears would rock you. I thought my future was with that man I'd married, and I tried to explain that to her. I felt so confident that time and distance could never steal from Tanya and me what we had in our hearts, that we would always be closer than most sisters, that we would always be family. When she saw that I was determined to leave, she begged me to take her with me. I knew her mother would not allow it, and I could not imagine coming between Tanya and my sister. Again, I turned her down. I tried to gently tell her that her place, for now, was with her mommy. Thinking back, I understand that night paved the way for Tanya to, many years later, turn her back on me. Perhaps I am getting no more than I deserve, but I cannot help pointing out that I never refused to speak with her, to be her family, to love her. To this day I would give my life for this woman that will not, as the old saying goes, "piss on me if I was on fire". I did try to explain to her that I wanted more than anything to take her with me, but I could not ask that of her mom, and her mother would never allow it anyway. Later when I was communicating with her unexpected cold shoulder, I told her that, by following my own dreams of marriage and children, I now had my sons that she and I both adore. (She does still talk to my sons if she sees them. They called her "Sissy" all through their childhood.) I pointed out that she has her sons that we both adore. I don't think reason and logic have ever erased the pain of being abandoned by me when she was so young. If I had it do over, what would I do differently? What could I do differently? I don't know. I can't imagine that I would avoid marriage with my first husband. I need those very sons that I now have. They have repeatedly saved my spirit and probably my literal life by waking me up to what I should be doing. I know Lila would not have allowed Tanya to go with me, but perhaps there could have been more visits going both directions. I feel certain that, if Lila and I both knew then what we know now, we'd work it out for the better. At the time, I felt it was enough that I took her with me in my heart. Apparently, it was only enough for me. I admit, I don't know what I would do differently, but I know I would do something differently. I must have my sons, but I also need and love that dear niece of mine, and my heart is heavy knowing that I ever hurt her.

For the longest time, the depression over the loss of her (and others I love who also largely do not talk to me) nearly buried me. And then I realized that no one can ever take my memories from me. No one can take that little girl niece, that teenage niece, that young adult niece. I've learned to hold to those memories fiercely, and finally realized that I don't know what the future holds. Perhaps her heart will soften again. Perhaps one day she will truly love me as I once thought she did. I remind myself, it is only today that I must be strong. And for now, the memories are still mine and they are enough. I cherish those laughing eyes, the radiant brown curls, the feel of her little hand in mine, the sound of her voice asking as many questions as there are stars in the sky, the absurd sense of humor she grew into, the heart that was then so gentle, the spirit that was always bold. Nothing on this Earth can take that from me and nothing in Heaven ever would.

  

Written by Tanya

WHAT DREAMS MAY COME

Photo: "Eight Cents"
By Skitch

THEN:

Dreams are a fascinating subject for me.  Since I have a great long term memory, I put that to use and collect my dreams like many people collect stamps or postcards. (Which I also collect, by the by.) From time to time, I pour my dreams out of my head and look them over, like glass marbles in my hand. 

The earliest dream I can remember I had when I was between two and three and we were living in what we dubbed "The White House", simply because it was the only house my family ever lived in that was painted white. I was much older before I realized it was a tongue in cheek kind of saying. I told some kids at school that something happened when my family lived in The White House and they laughed good naturedly. That was when I realized that most people thought of the president's home when you said that. In this dream I thought that my mother was a witch, complete with gray skin, warts, and a nose as pointy as her hat. We must have watched The Wizard of Oz recently. I dreamed that she chased me through our house, that I managed to get a bit ahead of her, and I hid behind the bedroom door. When she came into the room she pulled the door forward and looked behind it with her evil, beady eyes. I screamed and woke up. My mother tried to comfort me but I would have none of it. I wanted my daddy and mother was offended, angry that I was saying, "You are a witch, Mommy." Daddy chastised me for hurting Mother's feelings, and I tried to wrap my young brain around the idea that what I had just dreamed was not real.

Not long after that, and at the same home, I dreamed that Daddy and I were outside our house when people ran up and started telling Dad that a monster was out; that it was looking for people to eat. They ran away in a panic. Dad took a ketchup bottle and said, "We'll put this on us and that old monster will think we're already dead and no good to eat. He'll pass us up and go on looking for someone he can kill." It sounded like a fabulous plan to me. Then Daddy squirted the ketchup all over his stomach, but when he started to put some on me the bottle was empty. He grabbed a mustard bottle and squirted that on my stomach instead. As I sometimes did as a little girl, I was not even wearing a shirt. Just underpants or shorts, I don't recall which. I was upset with the mustard. I was not convinced that would work as well, but Dad said it would. We heard the monster coming and Daddy told me to lie down, close my eyes, and not to move or even breathe. The monster was gigantic! Taller than our house! As best I can recall this monster looked a lot like the Abominable Snowman from the Rudolph cartoon. Through barely slitted eyes my dream-self watched him look over my father, sniff him, and pass him by. I was so relieved that my daddy did not get eaten, but now I was worried for myself. The monster came to me and I could feel his hot breath on my bare skin. He sniffed me and instead of walking on, he picked me up in his big clawed hands and sniffed my stomach again. He began to lick the mustard from me, and I struggled to remain silent and unmoving. I knew that at any moment he could take a huge bite out of my stomach. I lost my courage and I woke up screaming. I had been asleep in "the back bedroom" of our home. It was evening and dark but not yet bedtime. I knew this because all the adults were yet milling around the house. The window in the room I was sleeping in had been left open to lessen the sweltering summer heat. My mother came when I cried and picked me up. She carried me from the spooky nightmare room to the warm yellow light of the kitchen, and suddenly I was surrounded by many of the comforting adults that filled my days. Daddy was there, and one of my sisters, though I can't recall which. They made the comforting sounds that adults make for crying children. I was babbling about a monster eating the mustard and they said things, too lightly, like: "She must have had a nightmare, poor thing." I could hear humor in their voices and though it infuriated me a bit, it wasn't at all funny that I was about to be eaten by a mustard loving giant monster, it also calmed me. They would not laugh if I were in any real danger. I knew that. Momma said to my father, "Honey look! No wonder she was having nightmares; she's covered in mosquito bites!" My skin was tight and itchy and I was bathed in a film of sweat. Mom wiped me down with a cool cloth and put medicine on the bug bites. She admonished me not to scratch. Dad or my sister brought me something to drink. I told my father about my dream and he said. "Dee Dee, it was just a bad dream. There are no monsters, but if there was and we only had a little bit of ketchup I'd put it on you first and I'd try the mustard on me. Don't you know that?" I drank the cold orange kool-aid, listened to the crickets outside, and thought about dreams, and life, and my family.

The next dream I remember having was at "The Trailer" and I was six or seven. We had two horses that I claimed as my own and no one ever disagreed with me. Lila had named them before she got married at the ripe old age of 15, when I was five. She named the tall skinny one Gideon, and the shorter but stouter one Goliath. We also had two black cats that she had named Midnight and Tar Baby. I thought that Lila gave animals the best names. That night I dreamed that mom, dad, and I were having a picnic in our yard. This is not something I'd ever done but in the dream it seemed perfectly normal. It was a beautiful day, and I was playing nearby as we'd finished eating. Mom and Dad were talking and smiling at one another. Gideon was tied to the hitching post nearby and suddenly he began to grow, and grow, and grow. As he grew, his breathing became louder and louder. As he breathed louder I could breathe less. I remember thinking, "He's sucking all the air out of the world!" I tried to scream but couldn't draw a full breath of air. I startled awake, sucking in a large amount of air through my mouth, and discovered that my nose was so stuffed up from a head cold that I could not breath through it. That was when I first discovered the connection between what is going on in the real world and what goes on in your dreams.

At about the same time and in that home, I had my first hypinc jerk. I dreamed that my best friend Randall (Ran) and I were riding our horses and being chased by "Indians". By this time in my life, I'd spent some time watching Daniel Boone and The Lone Ranger with my daddy and Ran and I played cowboys and Indians all the time. In this dream, I was shot in the side by an Indian arrow, and as I fell from my horse I jolted awake. I knew instantly that I'd only been asleep for a second or two and I marveled at how quickly we dream.

When I was about nine or ten and living "Up on the Hill" (which was actually a mountain) I dreamed a horrible dream about a pig. I thought it was chasing me through our home, and I knew it wanted to eat me, or something even worse. I crawled up on top of things but it was so big it could knock furnishings over and that is just what it did. Everything I climbed it knocked over. In desperation I ran outside, thinking I could get on top of the hen house and it could not knock that down. The pig caught me before I made it to the hen house though. It knocked me down in the dirt yard. It sat on me and began to chant and sway. Before my eyes it turned into a fat foreign man. (Perhaps it was Buddha?) I knew it was the devil or some agent for the devil. I knew it was trying to destroy me body and soul. I woke up more frightened than I had ever been from any dream. At that time in my life, my mother had warned me about devil worshipers that she had heard were kidnapping young blond little girls and sacrificing them. There was also some talk in church about The Mark of the Beast. I knew even then that those two things had played into that dream but it still terrified me for years afterward. 


Dreams That (in part) Came True:

In my teens, while living "Behind the Paylo" (Supermarket) I dreamed a few dreams that had portions that later came true. I dreamed that I was in a cave and a young boy was brandishing a broom at me like a weapon. The next day Lila brought her nephew Dexter over and he picked up a broom and tried to hit me with it. I took it from him easily enough but could not shake the cold sweat that crawled over my skin when I remembered the same incident in the dream of the night before. I told Sandi and Lila but they shook it off as coincidental. I was not so sure. No, I was not in a cave, no he wasn't the exact same person, but the fierce look in his eyes, the stance, even the angle of the broom, all had been identical to the dream.

Several times, I dreamed of faces and later saw them in passing. Sandi said it was a twist on dé javu. I saw the face today and filled it into the dream memory, convincing myself that I had seen the same face in the dream the night before. I was not convinced. Why would I do that? But I did not deem it worthy of an argument with my wonderful sister. 

Twice I dreamed of having eight kids, five girls and three boys. In the first dream I was having babies but so were several other young women. I had a daughter then had to jump up and let the attending women ( possibly midwives) help the next girl with her delivery, and so on,  around and around in a line until I had eight children of my own, laid out on a dirty mattress. I had five girls and three boys. I looked at them all with a heart filled with love, and more than a little fear. The next day, Greg, my boyfriend and future husband, tossed coins at me playfully when I would not get up off my bed and come see what he wanted to show me. They landed, as he intended I am sure, between my legs. I picked them up and counted one nickel and three pennies. I was reminded of my dream and told him about it. He laughed it off. "If you have eight kids," he said, "It will not be with me! I want two kids: one boy and one girl. No more." 

In the second dream of eight kids my husband and I were readying to take them somewhere. We were trying to put them all in a truck. Car seats at that time were very new, but I was insisting that all my babies be in car seats so they would be safe. My husband and I were strapping car seats into the truck bench, into the floor, and hanging from the door of the truck. I had three little daughters in frilly blue dresses that had identical little faces and heads simply full of brown curls. I had two other younger daughters, and three sons, all of varying ages except for the triplets. They were all beautiful, all sweet. I remember being so proud of them as I scooped them each up and strapped them safely into their seats. Nothing untoward happened the next day, so I only remembered the dream because it had been pleasant and had reminded me of the other dream. Years later, after having two sons with Greg, I met and married a man that had triplet daughters, two more daughters, and one son. I now have eight beautiful children that I face with a heart filled with love and more than a little fear. I am very proud of each and every one of them. They are capable of great kindness and selflessness. They are intelligent and beautiful, and they can be so humorous, so witty. It is hard being a step-parent under the best of conditions and our conditions are far from ideal, but I would give my life for any one of them, and I'm so glad they are part of my family!


Recurring Dreams:

As an adult I've had a few dreams or themes that recur. I used to dream of finding the same frightening face staring back at me from a hiding spot in my home when I was checking to make sure everything was safe. This one troubled me a lot for a time, as I have had faces that seemed to come out of my dreams and settle into my reality. After I time, I did not dream his face up anymore and eventually the fear left me, but I still remember that face. Part of me thinks that I may yet stumble upon him, but he has waited too long if I do. I no longer fear him. I have much to live for. I am sure to win.

I have had nightmares in which I lose my teeth, usually the front ones. I have had dreams of falling from a great height in which I startle awake. I've dreamed of being caught in a tight spot, usually under a house. None of these dreams trouble me anymore but did for ages while I was re-visited by them. I have not had any of these in over a decade. 

On a happier note, I've dreamed of my favorite actor, Kevin Costner, multiple times. Now, now! Usually they are quite mundane even boring dreams in which we are walking together, or having lunch, talking and laughing.

The dream that visits me repeatedly these days is my favorite. I dream of moving into a home so huge I'm quickly lost in it. I can't figure out how to get from one area to another, but I'm having fun trying. Usually in these dreams the kids are younger and are going through picking out bedrooms. We are together, happy, and filled with hope for the future. It is a very good dream. 

Possibly the oddest dream I've ever had was one about a pig, not a big, mean pig this time, but a sweet, little, pink piggy that, in my dream, I loved very much. The dream was so real to me that I missed him all day after I awoke. I mourned for a pig I'd never really known. How crazy is that?

I have dreams in which I am myself and dreams in which I am others. I've dreamed, more than once, of being a man, more than once of being black, and I always dream in color. I've dreamed of bright yellow dresses, red blood, and fields of blue flowers. Most of my dreams are complete stories. My husband says I dream movies in my head. Many of my favorite novel ideas have come from my dreams. I've toyed with the idea that some of the dreams are from past lives or from some psychic connection with other people, living or dead. Who knows? Who has all the answers in this life? Certainly not me! But I am truly enjoying the quest that the questions provoke. I'm truly enjoying my life. I hope you are too!

Sweet Dreams to you and yours!

POVERTY IS A BITCH AND A BOSS

Photo: "The Professor"
By Skitch
(Still the best Teddy, after all these years.)

THEN:

Growing up poor in the Appalachian mountains, like most hard times, is both a bitch (at the time) and a boss (later in life.) When you can finally step back, see the silver lining in that dark cloud, tout the lessons you learned, and say, "It's over," then you can feel like you conquered that bad boy and any overcoming is a good thing, an accomplishment that will help you the next time life throws something at you. You have also acquired valuable skills and knowledge that can save the next generation from going through much of what you went through. What doesn't kill you not only strengthens you it teaches you. What doesn't kill you is less likely to injure your children. I overcame some pretty extreme poverty. Of course, I'm not far above the national poverty level now, but it seems like a million miles away. It is like I live in a different world from the one I grew up in. 

I remember having little cousins that became indignant, when I told them we (as in my family and theirs) were poor. "We're not poor! We're rich!" They insisted. At my sophisticated age of seven-ish, I would laugh at them. This happened more than once, and I remember wondering why I had never had delusions about being rich, like they did. In hindsight, it's probably because I was very observant as a child. I witnessed my parents discussing poverty and how many bags of pinto beans we could afford that month and did it mean we would have to pop some popcorn and mix it in with the beans a few meals in order to get the food to last until our food stamps came in again. I remember conversations about how long the "light bill" could wait so you could buy a turkey and a present or two at Christmastime. You can't listen in on many discussions like that one without getting the gist of it. You're left with the strong notion that your family is broke and sort of stays that way. 

You miss a lot growing up poor. You don't have the same kind of clothes and shoes the other kids have. But by default you learn that that is not what is important, that fashion, while sometimes fun, does not really "make the man." You can't talk about the new movie your classmates have gone to or the new songs they have been able to purchase. But you watch the old black and white movies with your folks, and you crank up your parents outdated stereo system and listen to the songs they liked when they were younger. Then, sooner or later, you hear the new songs on the radio. You develop more eclectic tastes than your "with it" friends. You can talk music and films with anyone from eight to 80. You don't get to compare vacations or show off your dad's cool car. But you throw yourself into reading and by that method you visit not only Florida but Jupiter, and you learn how to open a corroborator, and tie up a muffler, and whack a starter if it's going out. In  ways, you learn and live even more than the people with money. Hence, poverty is a bitch AND a boss. But the thing I missed with a capital M, the thing I missed and wish I hadn't, the thing that had such a small silver lining you have to use a magnifying glass after all these years, was food, especially meat. We had very little of that in our diet, and I stayed anemic to prove it. 

Breakfast at our home, more often than not, was biscuits, gravy, and eggs. My family would eat the eggs scrambled, boiled, or fried and "runny". Eggs in general did not appeal to me and runny ones made me sick. I was never forced to eat them, so I had biscuits and gravy for breakfast. It tasted great, but had very little iron or protein. My Dad once told me there was a monster looking down the hole in the ceiling to see if I ate my eggs. If I did not, the monster would notice. He would know I was puny and that he could catch me. If he saw me eating my eggs though, he would know I was strong and he'd leave me alone. It might have been the only time I ate my eggs as a child, and the last time I ate breakfast in the kitchen. 

Lunch was called "dinner" and if we made time for it at all we would eat a mustard sandwich which consisted purely of white bread and yellow mustard. You know, the condiment that most people put on a sandwich along with the meat and cheese? Sometimes I would salt it, partly because I was a saltaholic and partly because I just wanted to eat a sandwich with more than two ingredients on it. Somehow salting it made it seem more "normal". "This sandwich is a complicated gourmet food," I would tell my little niece, Tanya, while we were eating our bread, mustard, and salt. In lieu of a mustard sandwich we might have biscuits (left over from breakfast) and those would be pried open and smeared  thickly with mayonnaise. In the summer months we at least felt rich, for then there would be tomatoes or cucumbers to add to the sandwiches or biscuits, and green onions usually sat upright in a mason jar on the table. Tanya and I did not eat those, we used the hollow green blades as straws for our water or, when truly indulged, our cow milk. Sometime in my teens, my family discovered ramen noodles and that would occasionally be our noontime meal. Still, though actually quite tasty, none of these foods were helpful with my iron deficiency. The only break in the mundane lunches seemed to come when they gave away the "government cheese", big blocks of yellow cheese, un-sliced. We had cheese sandwiches, cheese and crackers, macaroni and cheese. They also gave powdered eggs, and I liked the flavor of those much better than the real eggs. From that, my mother figured out that if she made eggs for me and put flour in them I was more likely to eat them. She called them "egg pancakes" but they were not sweet like normal pancakes. Until I was eight years old and she got so sick that she started sleeping all but about five hours a day, I ate egg pancakes now and then for lunch or breakfast.

"Supper," as we called it, came early in our home. Most of the time we would eat that final meal of the day at approximately 3:30 pm. My mother said they used to eat it later in the evening, but once I started going to school I always came home hungry, so the family got in the habit of having supper ready in time for us to eat when I got off the school bus. Once or twice a month we would have spaghetti, once or twice in the cooler months we would have homemade vegetable soup. I simply did not like most meats and I found myself picking around the meat in the soup and spaghetti. Every now and then we had Shake and Bake chicken. About once a month we would have canned beef stew and canned chicken and dumplings on the same day. We would heat them up and pour them over white bread to make a couple of cans stretch into a full meal for the entire family. About once a month we would have T.V. dinners, and once a month we might have hamburgers heavily stretched with large pieces of bread mixed in with the meat. The rest of our evening meals, about 24 days out of the month, were beans and 'taters (fried potatoes). I did not, in those days, like beans and so I had fried potatoes for supper, more often than not. Despite eating two to three meals a day, I felt hungry a great deal of the time. I suppose it was because my system was still craving iron, protein, and other nutrients and minerals I was not getting. 

In the evenings, Sandi usually got hungry about three or four hours after supper, and she would pop us some popcorn. Sometimes the popcorn was from Dad's garden and Sandi and I could remember removing the kernels from the cobs or "shucking and shelling" it until our fingers ached. Sometimes it was from a plastic bag that we bought in the store with our food stamps. She poured the kernels in the hot oil in a pan and shook it constantly over the burner. The popcorn sounded like mini guns going off under the lid and filled the air with it's delicious aroma. We would eat that in front of the television, watching Lawrence Welk, The Wonderful World of Disney, or enjoying adventures with Laura Ingalls or John Boy Walton. I went to bed many a night full of popcorn and woke up the next morning with a sick stomach. I would belch and Sandi said it smelled like "rotten eggs". She said most people would pass gas and it would offend you but my gas was both silent and scentless. It was my burps, she said, that could kill you. She told me my system ran backwards, that I burped out my butt and passed gas out my mouth. She would make me go read or play in another room on the mornings when I did not have to go to school. On school days, I tried to turn my head and burp silently, exhaling long, trying to blow it far away, but still someone would say, "What is that horrible smell?" Some nights I would wake up crying from severe pains in my stomach. The doctor diagnosed me with "pre-ulcer condition" and put me on stomach and nerve pills. These are the same pills I later tried to kill myself with. I had frequent infection knots under my skin and cold sores on my lips. I had little white reoccurring boils inside my mouth that hurt like the devil, and my hair fingernails grew slowly. Above each of my nails the skin peeled off like weathered paint on the side of a barn. I bruised easily and any kind of healing seemed to take forever. I had frequent strep throat, tonsillitis, croup, bronchitis, and bladder and kidney infections. I was the only kid I ever knew that had a case of shingles. 

When I was very young, my parents managed for a while to keep Vienna sausages and potted meat stored up in cases under their bed, and I alone was allowed to eat it. They guarded it vigilantly and dolled it out to me at every opportunity they could. This made for bad relations with some of my cousins that lived with us as they were every bit as hungry as "The Baby" was. Some of them still mention how "spoiled" I was and how I was the only kid out of the nine in our joined households that was allowed to eat those meats. But my sisters bore it with immense dignity, even as children. I think they were nearly as worried about my health as Mom and Dad were. The doctor had told my parents, in no uncertain terms, "You figure out how to afford some meat and get it into that baby or she will die before the year is out." Since they had already buried one blond haired daughter they were a bit paranoid about my health to begin with, so they "figured out" how to afford some meat and get it into me. I'm alive today due to cheap processed meats, free lunches, government cheese, and food stamps. Without those I have no doubt I would not be here to tell this, or any other, story. 

Free lunch at school was not something you could hide in those days. If you had free lunch everyone else knew it. You were called to the front of the lunch room to get your free lunch coupons with most of the school watching. Sometimes this was embarrassing. Sometimes the kids made fun of you for being poor, but what is a little embarrassment when it saves your life? Even then I knew they were worth it. Those little colored tickets brought me store bought milk, tasty meats, and variety like I had never known. To this day, I look forward to the meals most people hate. I love airplane food, and the food they bring you in a hospital, and school cafeteria food. All of it beats a mustard sandwich ten out of ten times. I almost always cleaned my tray at school because not only was I hungry, but I might not get a chance to have another sloppy joe and spoon full of peaches for months! And that peanut butter cookie? That was saved for last, like the treasure it was, and it was eaten in the tiniest bites I could take. I wanted to make that one cookie last as long as I could.

Going to my sister Lila's house quickly became a eating adventure. Lila, due to having her own babies ( She married at 15 and had a child by 17.) was connected to programs like Women and Infant Children, otherwise known as WIC, that gave her milk, and cheese, and peanut butter. She also had her own allotment of food stamps and her own ideas about what was healthy and what was not. Her home had many food offerings that were unfamiliar. From her I discovered yogurt, Ovaltine, concentrated orange juice, and several sandwich meats and cheeses I didn't know existed. She always had store bought cow's milk and cans of soup on hand and she almost always fed me when I came to visit. Most of the time, I wasn't even allowed to be there, at my own sister's house, without my parents, but they would hang around long enough for me to eat a sandwich and drink a glass of orange juice. I didn't like the o.j. very much but I drank it because Lila wanted me to. I would have done nearly anything for Lila. She had been my near-constant caretaker until she moved out when I was five, and I the very bones in my body missed her.

Luckily, as a child, I didn't have much of a sweet tooth or I might have been even more malnourished. When given a chance to purchase a treat potato chips, slim Jims, and pickled sausages were usually the snacks of my choosing. These items made my mouth water whenever I accompanied my dad into the store to buy a quart of oil or to pay for the gas we put in the family vehicle. Sometimes he would say, "Possumfrog, you want a meat stick, or a bag of chips, or a pop?" But most of the time we paid for what I saw as the car's food, and we went home to our beans and 'taters. By the time I was three I did not ask for anything when we went into the store. I had learned early that, when there was money for it, my parents would offer. I had already begun to dislike the look of disappointment on their faces when they had to tell me no. I remember overhearing a ten year old classmate pitching a fit for a toy in the local department store one day and feeling scandalized. Her name was Regina and I'd always liked her, but now I entertained ideas of shaming her when I saw her next at school, of calling her a baby and telling her she should never be so mean to her parents again. By contrast, I will tell you that when I was nine I followed my dad into a pharmacy. While he waited on Mom's medication, I browsed the shelves playing, for just a moment or two, with toys I'd never own. A pink teddy bear called out to me with his bright blue eyes. They reminded me of my daddy's eyes. I picked the bear up and he seemed to whisper, "Hug me," so I did. It felt good to hug him. He was a fun hug and a beautiful bear. I stood there and held him and brushed his pink hair this way and that with my fingers until Dad said it was time to go. On the way home we were talking about all the stuff in the store, and I told him the best teddy bear ever was in that store. I told him it had bright blue eyes just like his, and it was soft and pink. The next day, Dad told mom he had forgotten something in town and he'd have to go get it. It was quite unusual for him to make two trips to town in two days. Usually, we only went to town about twice a month. He wanted to go alone that time, so I quickly swallowed my disappointment and went to the swing he had made me. I did not beg or push my way into his life, but I liked to follow him around as much as he would allow. My swing was a great compensation prize. I knew it was the best swing in the world. Dad had climbed so high in the tree when he hung that swing, that it swooped like a trapeze. Mother had stood at the bottom of the tree with me saying, "Honey. Be careful! Oh my Lord! He is going to kill himself!" But I smiled at her. Daddy knew what he was doing. He could hang a wet noodle on a bear. This was nothing. That swing became my favorite spot in the world, and I spent hours there every day that it was not raining. A few hours later and Dad came back and I jumped from my swing and raced to meet him. He got out of our truck with that teddy bear in his hands. My eyes teared up when he gave it to me. 

"I'm sorry I told you about him, Daddy." 

"Why?" My father asked. 

"I know we can't afford him." But Daddy insisted that he knew what we could afford and what we could not. He said to let him worry about that, and that I needed to keep the bear that I was still trying to give back to him. With a little girl's heart full of joy, I took the teddy to my swing and I held him on my lap and swung high, in the best swing in the world, with the best teddy bear in the world in my arms and my tears fell into his soft pink fur. Maybe we were poor, but I still had so much! I named him Professor Bayer, because Sandi was reading "Little Women" to me, and I was in love with Jo's professor. To this day, Professor Bayer sits in a place of honor in my bedroom. His hair is not as soft as it once was but his eyes seem just as bright, and every time I look at him, he seems to whisper, "Hug me," and I do. And when I hug him I remember that my Daddy could make the best swing in the world and afford the best teddy bear in the world for his little girl, and I know that I have so much!

Hunger can easily lead to theft. I was three years old when I first shoplifted food. I was craving a Slim Jim like no one's business. "Jonesing" for it, as the kids say these days. I had gone into the store with Dad to pay for the car's food and I had looked at the Slim Jims and the potato chips, sitting on the shelf waiting for people with money to buy them. No one offered to buy me anything that day and I tried to swallow my disappointment. I realized my dad was deep in conversation with the store owner, Billy. They were talking about gardening and the spring weather, and I suddenly knew I could slip that Sim Jim in the pocket of my long fake fur winter coat and neither of them would notice. So I did. In the car on the way home, it occurred to me that I could not open the Slim Jim. I had not yet mastered the hand/eye coordination necessary and I knew if I asked anyone, even my sisters or my adopted uncle Crit, I would be ratted out and questions would be asked about where the Slim Jim came from. I finished the journey home trying to think of some way to get that snack opened, but nothing worked. Momma kept her scissors up high, and I had to ask permission to use them, and she always watched me. Dad kept his razor blades up really high, and I wasn't allowed to even touch a kitchen knife. In the hallway at home, while dad was in the middle of taking off his coat, I pulled the Slim Jim out of my silky pocket and showed it to him. 

He paused with his coat half on and half off, "Where did you get that?" 

"Billy and Myrtles." My voice was just a whisper.

"Possumfrog, I didn't pay for that." I nodded, and his coat when right back on.

He explained to mother that their daughter had stolen something and we had to take it back right now. The looks on their faces were much worse than the looks I faced when asking for snacks and the answer was, "No."

Dad took me back to the store and told me before we went in, what he expected of me. Myrtle was now at the counter instead of her husband, and I cried after I told her I was sorry and it would never happen again. You could tell that her heart went out to me. She tried to give me the Slim Jim, but Pop shook his head. No daughter of his would be rewarded for being a thief. I was broken by the look of shame and disappointment in his and my mother's eyes the rest of the day. They didn't say another word about it, but I hurt over that mistake many times in the future. It was the not the last time I stole food, but it was the last time in many years, and the next time I stole it, it was more for someone else than for myself.

When I was a twelve we moved to a house in town and my niece Tanya and cousin Ramona continued to be as my companions as often as their parents would allow. Since I was ten years old, Rae and Tanya had spent every weekend and summer vacation they could with me and much of their spring breaks, Thanksgiving breaks, etc. When school was out and their parents would allow it, the three of us were together. I was only allowed to visit their homes, in the daytime and almost always with my parents along. But they could come and stay with me for days on end. That was the way the world worked, and I was just grateful for their company. When I was about 13, we were sitting around fantasizing about food and it occurred to me that they didn't have to be hungry with me. They could be at home with their store bought milk and their peanut butter. The thought spurred me into action. I took the girls to the Paylo Supermarket in front of my house, and shoplifted some jars of baby food. Small, easy to slip into your pocket, cheap enough for my parents to assume that Ramona or Tanya had brought a little bit of money with them, and a tasty addition to a mustard sandwich. For the next two years I swiped food when they were there, never when they were not. We were allowed to walk to the Piggly Wiggly and back during the day, and I would steal entire huge sub sandwiches, pops, and big bags of chips. When I started high school, much later than most kids did, I made a new friend named Dreama and she taught me to skip school and to shoplift clothing, jewelry, and makeup. She said, "You tell your parents that I gave you this stuff and I'll tell my parents you gave me my stuff and no one ever knows we stole it!" It sounded like a foolproof plan and we proved to be very good at it. I walked out of a store with four shirts and three pair of pants on and a soft drink cup full of jewelry and accessories. When I told Ramona, I usually told her everything, she was upset instead of proud and pleased like I had expected. The food theft had always made her nervous, but this was too much! She begged me to stop but her pleas fell on deaf ears. For the first time ever, I could look at something pretty in a store and take it home instead of taking home only the dream of it. I could finally have what I wanted now and then, and I wasn't in any hurry to give that up. She didn't come to see me for weeks after that, which was very unusual. The next time she came to stay with me her parents came in for a visit. This was rare but not unheard of. I thought little of it. But when Ramona's mother Barb came into my room and Ramona slipped out. Barb talked to me in low tones, she was fooling no one. She told me that she had a cousin that worked at "Heck's", the store I had been stealing stuff from most often, and that cousin saw me stealing things on the store videos. This cousin, Barb said, knew that Barb was also related to me, and, instead of having me arrested, she called her and told her to talk to me. Barbara wanted my promise that I would not steal again. I looked at her and tears filled my eyes. I knew the real score. Ramona was so worried about me that she, who had been my constant "Yes" woman since she was three years old, had ratted me out to her mother, and Barb was so worried about me that she cooked up this elaborate story to try to convince me to stay out of trouble. Barb had come directly to me with a big fat lie instead of doing the "grown up" thing and telling my parents. They had both gone to a lot of trouble to try to fix this with minimum discomfort for me. They both apparently cared a great deal about me. I felt very ashamed. Food was one thing, but this was quite another. The shoplifting had been fun, a thrill, and yes what a joy to have something nice, and new, and pretty once in a while. But it was not worth the look of disappointment I now saw in Barb's eyes. It was not worth worrying two of my favorite cousins, or putting a strain on mine and Rae's peaceful relationship. We almost never even disagreed, but Ramona hadn't even been over in weeks. That was a long long time go without her. I wiped my eyes and promised Barb. She probably thought I was afraid of being arrested, but I was not. I never stole another item, food or otherwise. Ramona came back in the room after Barb left. She moved like a kitten, ready to run if the need arose, not afraid of me physically, just afraid of my anger. But when I moved it was to kiss her startled cheek. I had never loved her more.

The combination of not stealing food and of having menstrual periods was almost my undoing. The doctor said he'd given me enough iron pills to "dissolve a brick wall" and they weren't making much difference, so he prescribed iron shots, every other day. They left big rusty colored bruises on my hips (which lasted for months) and every time I took one I was very sick the next day. So sick that I had to be taken to the ER several times. In the ER they insulted me by insinuating I was using drugs. I was horribly sick, but not too sick to have a temper flare. I loudly told my mother, "This idiot can't be a doctor. He don't know sick from high!" The next day I was fine and took the shot. The day after that I was ill again. This went on for a little over a week before Pop and I decided that the shots were connected to the sickness and were not worth it. We defied the doctors orders and walked out without the injection. But something wonderful came of that hard time too. That incident is what taught me to force myself to eat eggs and beans and to stop picking around the hamburger meat in the homemade soup and spaghetti my mother or father made. I didn't like those shots, or the bruises, or the sickness that followed. So, I determined I would try to eat more meat. The long overdue decision to force meats is all it took to make the shots unnecessary. I liked scrambled eggs now, so I ate them with my breakfast. I tried to save up money and buy meaty baby food for my mustard sandwiches on non-school days, I ate the meat, for sure, on my lunch tray, and I mixed beans in with cornbread and onions and forced myself to eat one bite of the bean mixture for every bite of potatoes that I took. When I went back in to the doctor, I was still anemic, but not dangerously so. I was amazed that just eating what was there was enough to get the doctor to stop wanting to pop me full of iron shots. That lesson paved the way toward forcing myself to eat a lot of other "good for me foods" years later, when I found out I was pregnant. And I made it, not only into adulthood but into middle age!

These days, though I can't always rescue my sons from roach motels, I can pay for a Slim Jim as often as crave them. I had one today. I have an extra store of empathy for hungry kids, I can eat almost anything you put in front of me, including eggs and beans, which I now like, and I worked and work hard to make certain my own kids did not and do not go hungry. I saw to it that they had a variety of foods growing up, including meats, and milk, and yogurt, and orange juice - sometimes concentrated. I put a variety of nutritious foods in front of them and hardly ever any sugar, and they did much better with their health than I had done. My oldest had some anemia now and then, but never anything dangerous. Every now and then I forced my sons to eat things they weren't too fond of, and they always had to take two bites of something if they hadn't tried it in over a year. "Your taste buds change." I kept telling them. But they never had to go hungry, and they never had to force the foods they truly disliked in order to avoid iron shots or to fill an empty belly. The one time I had to put one of them to bed on a sub-standard meal of pickles and biscuits, I got out the next day and walked all over town pushing him in a stroller until I fixed the situation and nothing like it ever happened again. Going without taught me to make sure my kids had better nutrition than I did. It taught me look at how people think and feel in a deeper way than I might have been able to see if my stomach had been full. Full stomachs can be selfish. Doing without also gave me some pretty interesting stories to tell. It played toward my being a writer and toward my being a better parent than I might have been. I gotta admit that poverty is a bitch, but it teaches you, it strengthens you. I learned how I did not want my children to grow up. I toughened up enough to make sure it didn't happen. I learned how to eat foods I don't like until I do like them. Just like anything else in life, poverty can break you or it can make you. Your choice.