EVERY DAY IS SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH

Artwork: Peace, Dove, Love
By Skitch

NOW:

      It's one of those questions that, as an American, you'll probably hear the rest of your life, and I'll bet you have an answer for it, “Where were you on 9/11?”

      I woke up on September 11, 2001 feeling sure that this was going to be just another day in what I hoped would be a long life full of mundane days, sprinkled liberally with spectacular moments. It's how I'd begun to view life, how numb I'd become to all but the gas hand on my vehicle, the cell phone in my pocket, the money in my purse. 

 

      That morning my husband and I had an old quarrel concerning our blended family. Our values were and are very similar, but our methods have always been polar opposites. He Plans (note the capital p) and though I've now learned the power of a good agenda, I love being spontaneous and wouldn't think life worth much if it were all as rigid as a plan. He and I are also separated by the churches of “feels” and “think”. I'm a feeler and he is a thinker. To be fair, he is largely correct when we hit the brick walls in our relationship because even my staunchest spontaneity and warm fuzzy feelings have to admit that logic should almost always prevail over emotions in the end. Add to all this that my husband has lived a few years more than me, is wonderfully intelligent, and is incredibly aware of life, and you end up with a relationship that's just a bit more one sided than what is likely ideal. He has somehow managed to give a myriad of things a lot more thought than I have and usually that wins out. I learned early on that often I was going to look back on our arguments and begin to think of them more as sessions. While I had my face buried in “True Story” he must have been pondering the ways of human nature and the truths of the universe. It can be embarrassing and is always frustrating, but I don't know if it is more frustrating for him or for me. I know it has been a beautiful life beside him, but it has been humbling for me, and likely exhausting for him. 

 

      I had to go to work on that tragic yet beautiful day. Aren't they all beautiful? I made a quick stop at the library, and checked out some books, including a thick volume by Kevin Leman entitled “Keeping Your Family Together When the World is Falling Apart”. Ironic, I know. The library atmosphere struck me as “odd” that morning. There was a charge in the air that I did not understand. I bundled my books into my bag and left, assuming they were getting ready for some bookish event. 

 

      I first heard of the twin tower tragedies in my car on my way to work. I switched on my radio a few moments after leaving the library. I drove through miles of autumn tinted woods without seeing them. I drove on auto pilot while I listened with disbelief and more than a little fear. I parked and went inside, wondering a million thoughts at once, feeling raw inside and out.

      My husband stopped by my work station later in the day. It was a slow time of year and no one was out much, they were all glued to their televisions, so I'd had time to both dig into Kevin Leman's book, and time to ponder the attacks going on around me. They did not make sense, but the book did. I'm sure it would have made sense on any day, but it rang as true as a bell on September 11^th. Suddenly our petty differences didn't mean very much. My husband and I embraced and assured each other that, come what may, we were in this life together. His arms felt like a harbor from the storm, after the fierce reminder of how precious and fragile life really is. Our problems were put into a very real and very painful prospective. How could a few differences in parenting methods mean anything when people were dying so tragically and with such injustice? 

      Many petty arguments later I find that I'm still struggling to hold on to that idea. Sometimes my husband reminds me, “This isn't a big deal. Remember September 11^th?” Sometimes he reminds me of my own favorite words in such times, “Will this matter in a hundred years?” And sometimes he gets sucked into the faux drama of our lives with me. I struggle to remember before he can remind me, that life is too fragile to worry about minor things. It's too fast to focus on this instant enough to be angry about something that isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Ask yourself, “Will it matter in a hundred years? Will it even matter in five years?”

      I want to remember that day. I want to remember the only thing that seemed good about it: The realization that we are not in this alone. Every day I struggle to hold onto the good that came to me as a result of that tragedy. I've become more aware of life as a whole. I've come to believe that September 11^th is everywhere and it's all the time. As you read this people are dying, killed over things as silly as religion, as pointless as ownership of the land that was here millions of years before us and will be here millions of years after we are gone. People are killed for the harvest that land holds, be it vegetables or oil. It doesn't matter if these people are in America or if they are in Iraq. It is pointless to wonder if they are Christians or Muslims. I don't care what color their skin is or if they are male or female. They are my brothers and sisters and I care that they are dying needlessly. It cannot matter if they are my countrymen, my religion, my color, my sex. All that matters is that they are dying pointlessly and that they are human just like me, just like you. 

 

      These days, I try to be more aware, more educated, to make better decisions that may truly matter in the long run. The world has bigger problems than my emotions, and though I strive to always remember, “This isn't a big deal,” when my husband and I don't agree on some trivial subject, what I never want to forget is that the big deal is out there, the big deal is all around us. I try to concentrate on what I can do about the things that are important. We can each make a small difference and a lot of small differences can make a large difference. We can reach out to our brothers and sisters that need us to look at the big picture, to stop quarreling with our spouse or neighbor, to stop looking at the gas hand, the cell phone, or the money in our pocket. They are counting on us to take a breath, look at the world around us, really see it, and concentrate on the things that will matter in a hundred years.

ONCE UPON A SKITCH

Skitch in a Diaper // First Photo 

THEN:

Once Upon a Skitch Or Other People's Memories of Me

It was a dark and stormy night that bore me out of the warmth of my mother's womb and into the hands of a waiting Catholic nun. 

 I didn't make a sound.

My mother tells me that the nuns gathered around me and worked frantically, desperately, and she knew that something was very wrong. The doctor had been late but I was impatient. The nuns had delivered me when I insisted on showing up -- doctor or no doctor. My father was fast asleep in the family car, dream-listening to the rain on the roof above him. It was one-thirty in the morning, my birth day, but I was not breathing. My mother began to cry in my stead. She repeatedly asked what was wrong with me, but she was ignored. The nuns were busy trying to fix what was wrong. They had no time for words.

Later they told her that I was a "blue baby". They said my navel cord had been wrapped tightly around my neck and tied in what they described as "a perfect bow." They told her my skin was blue from lack of oxygen. I wonder, these days, if those first blue minutes had anything to do with the learning disabilities I've learned to cope with. Perhaps there is a connection. Thankfully, they managed to free me from that death  grip, and my mam says my cries then were the sweetest sound in the world.  

Funnily enough, it was Johnny Cash and June Carter's fault that my mother's world was suddenly filled with the sounds of a new baby. In 1966, my parents went on a trip to go to a John and June concert. They were aiming for the sounds of good country music (not a baby crying to the top of it's lungs.) They got their money's worth in good country music, that is true, but my folks "forgot the protection," and after the concert they were feeling so happy and so romantic that they thought, "Just this one time, it will probably be okay." To this day, I'm convinced they were right. It is okay! I'm glad to be here. Thanks mom and dad! Thanks pseudo mom and dad AKA Johnny and June! Wonder how many lives you two jump started?!

My parents had hoped for a boy. After having three daughters and being forced to leave one in a cold December grave, I suppose it was natural for my farming family to hope for a son. Likely, it was a double disappointment to find that I was not only a girl child but that I, unlike my sisters, looked almost identical to the gone-child, Patricia. Pat had had straight blond hair and blue eyes. Sandi was dark haired and had brown eyes. Lila and brown hair and green eyes. And here I was, blond haired and blue eyed, just like Pat. The only difference was that, once it dried and grew a bit, my hair fell in curls. I remained a constant reminder of what they had lost.

"William Dustin" was the name they had chosen for me, so when I surprised them by showing up a female, they allowed my aunt to name me. She gave me a very unusual name, which was good. I was to be a very unusual person. It took me many years to grow to love it, and to realize that it was fitting. But does the name suit me or do I suit the name? Perhaps, the odd name shaped part of my uniqueness? In school, I had friends with one unusual name and one "normal" name. For a commonplace touch, they would often go by the one that raised fewer eyebrows. I was not afforded that opportunity. Both my first and second name were unusual. "Normal" it seemed, was not for me.

My mother tells me that she was very weakened by my birth, and that, although they sent her home when I went, she had to return to the hospital to recover and to endure a D & C, though probably not in that order. My father was more of a hands-on type of dad then most of his peers were, and my sisters were 12 and ten years older than me. So, I was in good hands until my mother made it home.

She was home with us when the nurse came to see me for my two week well baby check up. Mam says the nurse was intrigued by the intense, even "knowing", look in my eyes. She held up a finger in front of my tiny face and moved it back and forth. My eyes followed the movement. The nurse was amazed and told my mother, "I've seen a lot of infants this age but I've never seen one that would do that! She must be very smart!" Whether I am smart or not is still up for debate, but the fact that I was unusual was not long in doubt.

My parents tell me that, before I could even sit alone, my mother would prop me up with pillows and leave a book in front of me, not a book with photos, just a book full of words.  They swear that I would run my baby finger along the lines of print and babble as though I were reading aloud, that I would  be totally absorbed in this activity, and sit happily for long periods of time while my mother cooked or cleaned. My mother's uncle, Luthor, came to visit and refused to believe it until he saw the odd sight with his own eyes. Then he remarked, "That baby is either a genius or she's dumb as a stump!" He was a little more pragmatic and a little less tactful than the nurse.

When I was a few months older and had learned to sit up and, not to crawl, but to scoot around on my bottom, there came a day when my father says I came to him in the deep belly of a Virginia coal mine, kissed him on the cheek, and disappeared. It gave my dad the heebie jeebies. He told the man working with him that they needed to get out of that mine now. The fellow followed Dad out into the blinding sunshine, grumbling much of the way. Just as they settled down under a tree and Dad's heart rate returned to normal, the mountain grumbled, followed by a crashing sound, and then a billow of dirt and coal dust rolled out of the mine entrance. An investigation revealed that the exact area Dad and his friend had been in when I kissed him was now filled with dirt and rock. If they had not come out when they had, they would both have died.

My father tells me that insomnia has been a life long battle for me. He says that when I was a tiny thing, he was telling me stories about "Rawhide and Bloody Bones" because I could not sleep. To which I replied, "Maybe I couldn't sleep because I was afraid of Rawhide and Bloody Bones?" Dad laughed, but he swore it was the other way around: I couldn't sleep, so he told me the stories. He also said that, at that time, I probably could not understand a word he was saying, let alone that it was supposed to be a scary story. But that just when he got to the spooky part, I pulled the covers over my head. He went on telling the story in a low voice, pulled the sheet down a few minutes later, and I was sound asleep. Rawhide and Bloody Bones were nothing to be afraid of with Daddy around. I must have known that, even then, in those days that I cannot remember.

THE SECOND TIME I TRIED TO KILL MYSELF

Photo: "New Mother"

THEN:


     The second time I tried to kill myself, I was twenty-one years old. Certainly old enough to know better! Looking back I think the same thing about that attempt as I do the first time I tried it when I was fifteen: "What the hell was I thinking?!" Life was tough, for sure, and it was going to get tougher, but life was and is also wondrous, beautiful, interesting, hopeful, breathtaking. Life is so many things, some horrible and some wonderful, but over all, if you just learn to look at the water in the bottom of the glass instead of the air in the top, life is awesome! And not only that, but this time I had a son to live for. 

     My son Cory was about nine months old and, my first husband, Greg and I had bought our boy a Beagle puppy. Greg named the pup Butch. Butchy was a cute little dog with those Beagle ears that are softer than satin. I remember how calming those little ears could be, just the feel of them made you believe in God. They felt like a miracle, like living silk.
   
    One evening I was a little stressed out with trying to keep up with a nine month old, housebreaking a puppy, and getting dinner on the table at an expected time. We'd fallen into the habit of eating in front of the television, so I sat my plate on the coffee table and went back to get my drink. By the time I made it back into the living area Butch had his nose in my spaghetti. Greg was watching the television and hadn't noticed. I made a disgusted sound and an accusatory, "Greg!" as I walked into the room. When he looked away from the television and saw that the pup was eating my food, Greg grabbed Butchy by the back of the neck and hit the dog, hard and repeatedly, before I even made it to the coffee table. In ten seconds I moved from annoyed to devastated. I wrestled the dog from him, crying, "He's just a puppy! He doesn't know any better." The pup had given a loud wail at the first blow but was too injured to cry anymore. His eyes rolled back in his head and blood began to ooze from his nose. I looked at my husband with fear and revulsion, and fled the room with the dog. I took him to the baby's room and tried to gather my wits and my strength and figure out what to do for the dog.

    We didn't have any money for a vet and I was suddenly afraid of Greg. I was sure I did not know him at all, did not know what he was capable of. I did not want to even walk back through the room he was in. I cleaned the blood off the pup and watched as he seemed to regain his senses, then I hid him in a box under the baby's bed. I sat in the floor in the hall, my back against the door going into that room and felt like a pathetic, puny, worthless guard. My thoughts went crazy. I decided I'd married a monster. I didn't feel safe. I didn't think my son was safe. I'd created a nightmare for both of us and for the little pup. Cory's dad was malicious and his mother was a frightened idiot that had brought this nightmare on. The baby would be better off without either of us, and if I died Greg would give him away. He would let my sister have him. Cory would be so much better off with my sister than with Greg and me.

    While all these crazy thoughts were going through my head I could hear Greg cussing, smashing the plates full of food into the sink, popping the top of his first beer of the evening. It was sure to be followed by many, many more. He turned off the television and turned on the stereo. He started playing, "Leader of the Band," by Dan Fogelberg, which (though Greg's father did not play an instrument) made him think of his dad. I had introduced him to the song, and I soon wished I had kept it to myself. He would play that song and "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin until my brain was fried. The stereo got louder as he listened to "Leader of the Band" repeatedly and drank one beer after another.

    I did not want to live like this, and I didn't know how to get out of it. Divorce was not an option in my mind at that time. I decided that the only way to not live like this was to not live. I made up my mind to drink everything my husband was overlooking, everything in the liquor cabinet, to both bolster my courage and to make a statement about drinking, and then cut my wrists and save Cory from this life. Maybe if I got drunk and killed myself Greg would quit drinking. Maybe Cory would never drink.

    I gathered my courage and went to the kitchen liquor cabinet and carried the first three bottles to my room. Greg had his back to me and the music up, and he never knew I had walked through the room. I sat in the floor against the foot of my bed, watching the door to Cory's room, thinking about how much I had ruined his life and mine too. He never woke up in the middle of the night now and dinner had been so late that he'd been asleep in his crib for hours now. I finished a nearly full bottle of brandy, half a bottle of peach schnapps, and half a bottle of Jack Daniel's. I laughed at the idea that Greg and I were drinking together alone. I felt a little happier with my decision, a little happier with everything, as I made my way into the kitchen and brought out the last three bottles of booze, swinging by the bathroom to grab a razor blade along the way. I was saving us all. Maybe even Greg would find a better life without me.

    I tucked the razor blade into the padded frame of my water bed, thinking in my boozed up head that Greg might come in the room and take away my chance to escape. I wanted to finish off the last of the liquor before I sliced myself, make a bold statement about drinking. So, I drained what was left in a bottle of vodka, some gin, and some Southern Comfort. By then I could not keep up with how much was in the bottles, but I knew when they were empty. I tossed all the empties into the same pile and felt accomplished. I pulled the razor out and thought about how I had enjoyed cutting my fingers when I was four years old. I wondered why I had done that, and then I thought, "If Cory cuts his fingers when he's four, will it be because I left him?" I shook my befuddled head and reminded myself that I was doing him a favor, doing us all a favor. I laid the blade against my wrist, and just as I started to push it against my skin, Cory, the baby that never woke up in the night anymore, woke up and started crying. I could not stand the idea of him crying all night, and I knew his dad was too drunk to even hear our son, let alone make him a bottle. Besides, Greg did not know how to make the bottles. I figured if I made Cory a bottle and he went back to sleep then I would be able to kill myself believing that he would not cry again until after I was found dead.

    I stumbled into the kitchen and made a bottle, no longer caring if Greg saw me. When I entered his nursery, Cory was standing in his crib, whimpering, and sobbing my name. "Mum. Mum. Mum," over and over. I looked at the tears in his eyes and I suddenly knew that no one would ever love that child as much as I did. I was drunk, but I wasn't too drunk to know that. Yes, there were better mothers, better fathers, better lives, but no one would ever love him like his Mum. I also knew that killing myself would not be something he'd shrug off. "What," I thought, "What if he wondered why he wasn't enough of a reason to stay around."

    I took my son from the crib and he snuggled into my shoulder and as he stopped crying I began to cry. He needed his "Mum" more than a bottle. I sat down with him and fed him the bottle, and tried to not keep him awake with my drunken sobs. The last time I'd tried to kill myself I begged God to forgive me. This time I begged my little baby boy to forgive me. I felt I had nearly wronged him more than myself, Greg, or even God.

    Once I stopped crying and Cory went back to sleep, I put him in his crib and headed to the bathroom. I knew I had drank enough to possibly hurt or kill myself without even using the razor. I leaned over the toilet and forced myself to throw up. I remember the vomit being red, and I remember trying to tell if it was red booze or red blood. I could not tell.

    I had black outs the rest of the night. I do remember that Greg figured out I was even more drunk than he was and decided it was entertaining to hang around me. He annoyed me so much I ran outside and crawled under our car in my nightgown. He pulled me out and put me back in bed. 

    The next day, Greg went to work and I took care of Cory and Butch. They were both especially good, and I knew I didn't deserve it. I was so sick I could barely breathe, let alone move for necessary tasks like making bottles and changing diapers, and picking up puppy accidents. I vomited a few more times, but I did what had to be done. I also sat around a lot with only my fingers moving, rubbing Butch's soft, soft ears or stroking Cory's silky hair, thanking God for both of them, and for this new but painful day. Somehow Co and I got through that day. Somehow, we got through many, many more.

    I cannot say I love my kids more than God, but I can say I think they need me more than God does. I broke my word to God and tried to kill myself after promising to never do so again, but I never broke that promise to Cory. I never felt free to leave him, free to set the example of a quitter, free to take the risk that my leaving might make his life any harder than it had to be. My sons have saved my life over and over and forced me to be a better and stronger person than I knew I could be. Motherhood is not for everyone and I'm not the best mother in the world, far from it, but I do hang around as long as I can, as hard as I can. I do try to show them how to hang tough and stay alive. I do keep my promises to my sons. Motherhood saved me.

    If you love anyone, don't hurt them by giving up. Make sure they know they are enough of a reason to hang around...

THE FIRST TIME I TRIED TO KILL MYSELF

Photo: Skitch at Fifteen

THEN:

     The first time I tried to kill myself, I was fifteen years old. Looking back I think, "What the hell was I thinking?!" Life was hard, yeah, and it was going to get harder, but it was also going to get easier. Life was and is also full of wonder and beauty. It's interesting, hopeful, breathtaking. Life is so many things, some hideous and some splendorous, and everything in between. But over all, if you just learn to look at the blessings more than the burdens, life is awesome!  

     But I did not know that then, and I suppose, that the better question is, "What was I feeling?" My emotions were spent, tangled, tragic. I felt so alone and sad. I would wake up crying in agony from stomach pain. I kept blisters inside my mouth and had recently had a painful bout of shingles. The doctor had put me on "pre-ulcer" pills for anxiety, along with an assortment of other medications. I was concerned that my small nieces and nephew might get into my meds, so I kept them locked up in a tool box in my room. This also gave me my first taste of privacy. I'd lived in a shotgun house (which is an Appalachian term that means you could stand at one end of the house and shoot a shotgun out the front door without hitting a wall.) It was made up of one room after another with only the bathroom having a door. My sister and I had learned to dress and undress under our nightgowns, that's how little privacy we had. And my mother would not hesitate to read your letters or your journals, so we did not have that sort of privacy either. But now I had this box, obtained with the excuse of keeping the kids out of my pills, and I kept letters from school, my journals, my poetry, and my pills in it. When I did share my poetry with anyone the first words out of their mouths were in reference to how "morbid" or "depressing" the poem was. I tried to write happy poems but I just couldn't find any inside me. 

     One night I was particularly sad. I didn't understand it then, and it took me years to understand that night and what I did, but I had all these thoughts and emotions that I couldn't make sense of. I had this new sexuality that (I had thought) was supposed to be fun, but so far it just left me feeling like a piece of meat, like my identity had been scooped out and all that was left was a hole most of the men in my life were trying to find. I had a cousin that was much older than me. He had told me he would "be the brother you never had," but suddenly my "brother" was asking me to run away with him and marry him, telling me he "ached for me". I'm not saying I was particularly innocent in the situation. I tried to play him like a drum. I was angry that my identity had been scooped out, that my soul was empty, and I wanted something in return. What could I get for a smile or a flirtatious word? What would he give me for a glimpse of my cleavage? Something needed to fill the emptiness inside my heart, and I thought it was only fitting that this new sexuality stuff should buy whatever could fill me back up, but that wasn't working and I knew it.

     I had suffered from insomnia all my life, but once I went to sleep I hated to wake up. I had recently slept for sixteen hours and when my mother woke me up I complained. I told her later that I'd like to sleep for a hundred years. She looked at me from her sick bed, deep in the arms of nerve pills and anti anxiety medications, and told me that what I was talking about was a death wish. I wondered if it was. She also told me that my penchant for black clothes told the world that I was morbid and depressed, that I wanted to die. Maybe, I thought, maybe she was right. I did wear a lot of black. I loved it. I had stomach issues. I wrote morbid poems. I hated being a girl. I didn't know how to fill my hollow insides back up. I was lonely and felt hopeless. I wanted to sleep for a hundred years. Maybe death was indeed the answer.

     I wondered about all that while looking at a palm full of multi colored pills. I'd poured some from each of the bottles in my toolbox. They made art in my hand, but someone would probably tell me that my thinking of pills as art was a death wish, or morbid. I wondered if I was afraid of death? I didn't think so. I wondered if I had a reason to not swallow all those pills, and for the life of me, at that moment, I couldn't think of a single one. So, I took them. It took two glasses of water to swallow them all. I moved to the kitchen in the dark and refilled my glass as I'd done many times before, and swallowed the last of them. Then I sat on the couch in the dark living room, and listened to my cousins' boom box, and watched the lights that lit up to match the beat. 

     Too late I thought of music, of all the songs that would be written and sung that I would never hear. I thought of all the smiles I'd never see or have, children I might have been blessed with, a husband that loved me. All the good things I'd hoped for were slipping out of my grasp... Maybe I'd live through it?

     I sat there and listened to music in the dark and I thought about the sunshine, about Christmas mornings, about horses, puppies, and kittens, about good books, and good films, about my nieces and my nephew, my sisters, my dad, even my mom. "Too late," I thought. "Too late." I'd taken the pills and they would take their toll, whatever it might be.

     Within less than thirty minutes my heart began to pound. It was odd that, at first I didn't even notice, and then it startled me. I realized that I didn't know anything about killing yourself with pills. What if you don't just go to sleep and never wake up? What if you vomit and have diarrhea? What if you have pain and panic? What if you live through it and you have lost part of your brain, lost more of yourself than I already had? 

     The pills were making me sleepy. My head was nodding and my heart was hammering. What an odd combination. My head did not need my heart to settle down in order to sleep, but suddenly I knew that I did not want to go to sleep and die! I crawled up on the arm of the couch in order to be less comfortable, to stay awake and alive. I began to pray. I asked God to forgive me for being stupid, to help me live, to help me not have to wake, frighten, and hurt my parents, to help me, to help me, to help me!

     It was quite a while before my heart slowed just a tad, but I grasped at that with optimism. Surely I was going to live? I slid down on the couch and surrendered to sleep. 

     When I woke the next morning, I felt a jolt of hope that I'd not felt in months. I thanked God for helping me live. Maybe I'd lost part of myself, maybe being a girl was not what I'd wanted and wasn't easy, maybe life was tough, but I swore right then and with a thankful heart to be tougher even than life itself. 

THAT KIND OF GIRL

Photo: "Steele Paddling"
Taken by a sweet friend

THEN:

    I grew up in the "spare the rod and spoil the child," years when Appalachian parents and schools meeted out strict corporal punishment for any kids that didn't understand that children should be seen and not heard. The idea that a shepherd does not beat his flock with the rod, but instead gives them guidance, had not occurred to anyone I knew, including my own parents and every teacher that I heard express an opinion on the subject believed in strict physical punishment.

    A paddle hung in many of the classrooms as a constant reminder of what you risked if you dared to disagree. The most formidable ones had holes in them or tape wrapped around them. Teachers with holes or tape were serious about inflicting pain. My first teacher didn't even have a paddle and the only physical punishment I got from her was near the end of the school year, right before summer break. My normally sweet teacher bent my hand back and smacked my palm hard, three times with a ruler. I loved my first grade teacher, but I felt she should have understood that a bird flying around in the gymnasium ceiling was much more interesting than a visiting choir group. I simply could not sit still, be quiet, and watch a bunch of high school kids singing when there  was a tragedy going on right in front of me. That poor little bird was trapped inside the school. It might die of hunger, thirst, or even fright! And everyone was ignoring it!

    I suspected, even then, that I would not have been punished if my teacher's sister hadn't been among the singing troupe. She had admonished us before the program to be on our best behavior because her sister would be singing for us. My classmate Kim had been equally excited and concerned for the trapped bird. She was punished in a like manner. Kim cried pitifully, but I did not. Even though the teacher took me behind the blackboard for the punishment, it embarrassed me much more than it hurt. My teacher had no idea, and at that time neither did I, that my hands are malformed. I have no sweat glands or oil glands in my palms. I only knew then that they were tough as leather, more like my daddy's work roughened hands than my mother's smooth ones. I only knew that the teacher could have pounded on them much more and much harder and I would have barely felt it. My feelings were hurt and I was embarrassed, but not enough to cry in front of all my classmates.

    I didn't get another physical punishment until I was at a new school and in the fifth grade for the third time. Thanks to my sister Sandi's urging, I had turned over a new leaf and decided to stop deliberately failing all my subjects. I brought home predictably good grades and made honor role several times that year. I had always been a little prone to laugh and play, a bit of a distraction, but I was a fairly obedient child. The incident with the ruler had been the extent of my physical punishment for all my years of school. And yet, that year I got not one, not a dozen, but twenty-four paddlings, and they were all from one teacher, Mr. Steele.

    Mr. Steele was not very tall, but what he lacked in height he seem to make up in girth. Looking at him now, I'm surprised he seemed so big to me then. But at that time, to see him coming down the hall in the mornings was a frightening sight. As students, we spent most mornings playing in the parking lot. I was one of three girls I knew that usually played touch football with the boys. But on wet or extra cold mornings, we were disallowed that pastime. We were herded off the buses and into the hallway to wait for classes. We would sit near the door that led to our homerooms, our backs against the wall, and socialize or work on the homework that we should have done the night before. We were not allowed to enter our classrooms for a while, so the hall would soon be teaming with as much activity and the noise as fourth through seventh graders thought they could get by with. Mr. Steele was sometimes hall monitor and we dreaded those days. But, monitor or no, every morning he would come walking down the hall, swinging his paddle in his hand. Though almost every teacher would paddle you, he was the only one I knew that carried his paddle nearly everywhere he went, prepared, like a big boy scout, to blister your bottom. He moved fairly quickly for a man of his size, but that required some fierce swinging of his arms, and therefore some fierce swinging of the paddle in his hand. He seemed to rush down the hall with the broad paddle narrowly missing some wiggly fourth grader's head. If he passed someone that was producing more noise or movement than he deemed allowable, he would pull them into the middle of the hall and set their backside to burning with several licks of that fierce paddle while spectators wincingly looked on. As far as I can remember, these hallway offenders were always boys. Children far enough away to get by with it often snickered and made fun. No matter how far away I was, I did not snicker. I did not find Mr. Steele's paddle to be one bit funny, and I felt utterly sorry for anyone on the receiving end of it.

    Mr. Steele taught my grade, Health and Spelling. In his classroom, we played a little game that only he enjoyed. He would ask the students questions by turns, and anyone that gave a wrong answer would get one lick with the paddle. Correct answers bought you only a delay, another chance to lose later. It seemed to be more of a pretend paddling for most of the girls when they missed a question. But me, he paddled like he did the boys, fiercely. Looking back, I wonder if that was because I was a tomboy. Surely, he saw me playing football with the boys outside in the mornings. At any rate, he set me on fire every time. And "a lick", like the other kids would get, would rarely do for me. Often if he called me up to be paddled for missing a question he would strike me three or more times before allowing me to sit back down on my now fiery bottom. After Mr. Steele got hold of you with that paddle, you had to sit slowly and easily.

    I found it odd that he would give me more than one lick when one lick seemed to suffice for everyone else. Odd that he wore me out when most of the girls got easy licks. Odder than either of those, though, were the times when he'd say to me, "Come on up here and take your whooping." And I would protest, ask what I had done, proclaim my innocence, only to be told, "Girls like you need whooped now and then whether they did anything wrong or not. You're that kind of girl!"

    I did not want to be "that kind of girl," but I accepted his skewed reasoning. I took the three licks when it was supposed to, by his own rules, be one. I took the real paddlings when most girls got easy ones. I took the paddlings that came out of thin air for no reason. I did not cry, but instead I smiled or laughed. He pretended it was funny, and I tried to pretend I was in on the joke... But I wasn't. I simply would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I thought that was what he wanted, and besides, crying would humiliate me even more in front of the other students. So, the built up tension came out of me in laughter.

    I had decided years ago that telling your parents can only make a bad situation worse, and that, in this world you were largely on your own. Most likely, I would be in a different grade with different teachers next year, and I was determined to tough it out until that time. Toughing it out had worked brilliantly in the past. I felt certain it would work now.

    Near the end of the year, one of my classmates brought her camera to school. She was a sweet friend. She asked for a photo of Mr. Steele pretending to give me a paddling because it had been such a common sight for the fifth grade. I objected because I knew him well enough to believe that he would actually paddle me if he got that close to me with a paddle in his hand. But I really loved this girl; she was one of the sweetest girls I'd ever met, and I marveled at the fact that she treated me so kindly, when clearly, she was "above me". She was very pretty, and wore nice clothes, she hung out with the "popular" and the "rich" kids. And I was so grateful for her kindness, that when she asked me twice I was petrified but felt I had to do it. I took the photo with my arms drawn up against my chest, trying to brace myself for the blows that might come. I don't remember if he managed to get a lick in that day or not, but now, I'm glad I took the chance and took the photo. I love the picture. If you're going to endure something painful and life-altering, it's nice to have a souvenir.

    That summer I saw a woman named Norma get shot and killed in the supermarket in front of my home, and I was relieved to get back to school where the threats held paddles and not guns. When I came back for the sixth grade, I wondered if everyone would know that I was there when the cashier was shot. Our town was a small one, and people were not often murdered in the supermarket. I was concerned that it would be the topic on most of the students lips, and prayed so desperately that they would not know. I didn't want to hear about it, or tell the story, not even once. Finally, my life was "normal" and if they knew what I had seen it would explode into something else. I didn't want to be "the girl that saw the murder." I loved blending in with that grade full of kids that didn't treat me like something or someone different. To my great relief, Norma's death was barely mentioned, and no one seemed to know that a young girl was in the store at the time. Instead, everyone was bustling with the news that Mr. Steele had died of a heart attack over the summer! After the shock wore off, some of my classmates started the joke that I had killed him. All those paddlings had worn him out and given him a heart attack. It was all my fault that he was dead, they told me. I smiled but I didn't really find it all that funny. Unlike my classmates, I had looked death right in the eye and I did not consider it a humorous subject. It seemed to me that no one deserved to be that still forever, that gone from this world. I wasn't glad he was dead, hadn't hated him, and certainly had not killed him. The only thing funny to me was the fact that he would never again single some girl out for being, "That kind of girl." The idea wasn't funny enough to make me laugh, but it did put a smile on my face once and a while.

    I only received a few paddlings that year, though one of them did send me sprawling down some steps. When the teacher saw that I had righted myself without plowing nose-first into the floor, I imagined, for just a moment, that she might she be ashamed of herself, might call it quits for the day. She did not. She ordered me back up to her, faced me in the other direction, and administered the rest of my punishment.

    I was middle aged before I realized that, just maybe, Mr. Steele had enjoyed not only sadistic pleasure from striking me, but possibly sexual pleasure. I was two years older than the other girls in my grade. I was a short girl, but my body had developed more than most. A friend said he paddled the kids he liked. At that time, I'd rather have been disliked by him, if that were the case. I still don't know why he did it. I only know he did, and that I survived it, and learned from it.

    By the time my sons were in school, corporal punishment was not allowed in most states. We did live briefly in a state that allowed it though, and I met with the boys' teachers and the principal. I explained that if anyone ever deemed it appropriate that one of my sons have a paddling they absolutely must call me in. If the child needed a paddling I would do it myself. I further informed them that if my sons were ever paddled without my consent and my presence I would not only sue the county school board I would physically punish whoever had hit my sons. I wasn't very popular at that school, but I didn't really mind then or now, and no one ever took a board to either of my boys.

    Mr. Steel, and a few other teachers, beat me. They taught me that I did not support corporal punishment. They taught me that children often need protection from adults, and that sometimes you have to defend kids in advance because maybe they'll be convinced that not telling you is a good idea. They helped me make sure that both of my sons made it through school without one of the dozens of paddlings I got. In the end, I think I owe them. I would not want to be without those lessons.
    

WHY I FAILED THE FIFTH GRADE TWICE

Artwork: The Garden of Eden
By Skitch, second year of fifth grade

THEN:

A Secret to Myself or Why I failed the Fifth Grade Twice

 

     When I was in the fourth grade, I missed sixty-four days of school. Almost unbelievable, I've been told. But that year, I'd fought a tough war with meningitis, suffered one bladder infection after another, and several bouts of strep throat, ear infections, and tonsillitis. My mother worried over every little sneeze and kept me home as often as she could without the truant officer knocking on our door. My fourth grade teacher didn't like me very much, so I found myself encouraging my mother to order me to stay home. When you consider all that, maybe sixty-four days at home seems a little more believable. 

     Near the end of the school year, my parents told me I would be held back. At my blank stare, they explained that I would have to take fourth grade over again. This news saddened and frightened me. I didn't want my best friends Jutannia and Angie to go on to the fifth grade without me, but my parents told me that it was too late to change anything. The school year was nearly over and I'd missed far too many days to be sent on to the fifth grade.

     Still, on the last day of school, my report card read that I was promoted to the fifth grade. I carried that card home as proud as punch. My parents, instead of being pleased and proud, like I expected, were angry. I was too young to understand that they were probably embarrassed about making a firm prediction and seeing it fall flat, or to realize that maybe they were worried about me being passed on to another grade without the proper preparations. All I saw was that they were angry that I was going on to a higher grade. They were angry about something that had pleased me very much.

     My father took the report card and went to school to talk to the teachers. When he returned he looked defeated. It broke my heart to see him so. He told my mother that the teachers said I'd managed to keep my grades acceptable even though I missed so much school, and that I was simply too bright to hold back.

     I was an adult before I understood how my subconscious computed all this information. Now I can remember realizing that my parents seemed to react about the same way to a bad grade as they did a good one, and thinking about how their own school history ended early. My mother did not make it past the sixth grade and my father didn't make it out of the fifth. Maybe they wanted me to be like them? The back of my mind decided it did not like it when my dad looked defeated; The teachers would not win next time.

     All this, though, rested so far back in my brain, that if I had tried with all my might to explain to you why I stopped caring about good grades and pleasing my teachers, I would have failed miserably. I didn't understand the progression of my own thoughts well enough to spell them out to myself, let alone clue anyone else in. At that point in life, I was a secret - even to myself.

     My first year in the fifth grade I did not miss as many days, but I turned in almost no homework, and I did no studying. I let my mind wander during class and kept my head bent over a sketch, or a book of my own choosing most of the day. The kids in my class had been hard to get along with for years, ever since the teacher that had trained them to call me "poor" and "filthy". So, I practiced not caring what the teachers wanted, as I had worked on not caring what my fellow students said about me. It was actually a bit of a relief to divorce myself from the cares of the fifth grade.  My report card at the end of the year listed me for the fifth grade again. I showed it to my parents and I can remember a look on both their faces that I thought said, "I knew it." Now, the teachers could not argue with my dad and tell him I needed to be passed on to another grade. Now my dad would not have to bother talking to them or coming home with a defeated look. Still, it did not escape my notice that they did not seem particularly pleased either.

     My second year of fifth grade, I tried just as hard to be uncooperative, really I did. The back of my mind had decided that I would not go any further than the fifth grade because I was not one bit better than my daddy. I avoided as much responsibility as I could force myself to, but I nearly passed despite my efforts. I had a wonderful teacher, Mr. Dotson. I had a lot of great teachers in school, but he was head and shoulders above the rest, in my estimation. He went above and beyond when it came to teaching. He wanted us to learn and he knew that in order to really learn something you have to be interested in it, so he worked at making everything he taught just as engaging as he could make it. That is how Mr. Dotson went above. He also brought in subjects that were not on the school's curriculum or reflected on the report card. He taught us vocabulary, current events, photography, art, and more. We even researched some of the Believe it or Not!s that were in the paper, and we researched Robert Ripley, the man that had started the collection of odd facts. That is how Mr. Dotson went beyond. He introduced us to subjects I didn't even know you could study in school, fun things, things of great interest to an inquisitive young mind. He taught the required subjects and taught them well, but he still found the time to teach us so much more. We worked on crafts and made most of our own costume accessories for a Halloween school play. (I was a witch!) We kept an art folder, a written journal of our day to day lives, and a creative writing journal that we filled with stories and poems. He also taught us to research, take notes, and make story outlines; and those went in the creative writing journal as well. Every morning, Mr. D. passed the newspaper around for a bunch of ten year olds to read. (I was eleven.) He did not yell at me if I got sucked into an article and missed something that was being said, or if I chuckled aloud over Snoopy's latest exploits, which in those days were brand new and wholly unexpected. Every morning the class discussed an article or two from the newspaper. Almost every morning we discussed the "Believe it or Not!" entry. Some of us believed it; some of us did not. Mr. D. treated us like human beings with opinions and ideas that actually counted. He treated us like part of the world, like the future. He did not treat us like irrelevant snot-nosed brats that needed to sit down, shut up, and do as we were told. Oh, I loved and love him to this day! He taught me so many important things and the most important of all was how to treat a child like a human being.

     Mr. Dotson had two young ladies that the other kids considered his "pets", Jennifer and Rose. Jennifer was a feisty little short haired girl. She had lots of opinions and energy and probably more money than I could have imagined. Rose was a deep-woods hillbilly girl. She had a kind spirit, a speech impediment, hand me down clothes, and free lunch. I loved Mr. D for his diversity, for not singling out the boys as pets just because they were boys, and for not treating me as though I were less important than Jennifer and Rose. In my opinion we were all his pets. I loved Mr. Dotson and craved his attention and admiration, and yet I was never the least bit jealous of these girls. I was not convinced they were his favorites. I felt he was just as good to each of us as he was to the others. Some of us demanded more attention. Some of us needed more attention. But I did not feel for one moment that he liked those girls more than he liked me. When he looked at me, I knew he cared and wanted me not only to learn but to be safe and happy. When he looked at me, I knew he saw me, the real me, the human being under the scraggly blond hair, second hand clothes, and skinny frame. And yet, if Jennifer was particularly hyper that day, he might look at her a bit more than he looked at me. If Rose was struggling in English, he might look at her more than he did the rest of us. I figured when he looked at them it was the same. I believed that he cared about them, that he wanted them to learn and to be safe and happy. I did too, so I never minded his showing attention to the other kids in class.

     He praised my sketches often and handed my art folder over to a few people that came in the room asking to see the work from some of his best artists. They chose a half finished sketch of "The Garden of Eden" from my folder and put it on the cover of a book the school was printing. It pleased me to be chosen and annoyed me that they did not have the time for me to finish the picture. Half my fruit was colored in and half was not. I thought it looked ridiculous, but they loved it, so on the book it went.      I remember once, sitting at a table working on crafts, and someone asked, "How do you spell spaghetti?" 

     A moment of silence followed while I waited for someone else to tell him. When the silence dragged on I said, "S-P-A-G-H-E-T-T-I." 

     "Wait a minute!" He raised his voice, "You went too fast!"

     So, I spelled it again, slower this time. And when the silence seemed to continue to drag out, I looked up to find Mr. Dotson staring at me. "How do you know how to spell that?" He asked me, "I can barely spell that one myself."

     "I don't know." I shrugged. "It's on the jars and packages." And I looked back at the craft I had in my hand, but I never forgot the surprised look on his face. Who know spelling spaghetti could be such a big deal?

     Mr. D. spent much of that year encouraging me, telling me to, "Always do your best" in everything I undertook. It pained me to disappoint him by not bringing in homework, but I loved my parents very much. My grades were never good, due mostly to the lack of homework. He signed my yearbook, "You are as bright a student that was in my classroom this year. You have all kinds of ability, believe me. I hope that in the future you will discover that learning can be fun and you can enjoy school." I watched his long fingers as he wrote the words. I wanted to tell him that I loved to learn, but that school was very hard to enjoy when some teachers were as different from him as salt was from sugar. I wanted to tell him that I didn't want to disappoint my parents again, and that I was sure I was not one bit better than my mother or my dad. But I only said, "Thank you," and I sat back down with my yearbook.

     I survived disappointing him at school and then had to deal with my sister's disappointment at home. This was even worse! Sandi shook her head, and her eyes looked moist. She said she knew I could do better. For weeks, she looked very sad whenever she talked to me. My family would be moving from our wonderful sprawling farm to a small town house soon. Sandi tried to put a nice spin on it. She told me that maybe what I needed was a new start in a new school. She gave me pep talk after pep talk about fresh starts and giving school my best efforts. Like Mr. D. she often told me, "Always do your best!"

     My parents did not have anything to say, good or bad, about my being held back yet again, and I remember thinking if it meant so much to my sister, and my folks were going to be just as happy with As as Fs or vice versa, then why not pass in school? I decided I would stop avoiding my homework and pay more attention, that I would stop causing that sadness in my sister's eyes.

     We moved and the kids in the new school had never been trained to call me "filthy"or "poor". They liked me! They had a wonderful accepting attitude that I'd never experienced before. The "rich kids" were often more kind to the "poor kids" than I had ever imagined they could be. Sandi was delighted when the good grades started trickling home again, and my mom signed the report cards as agreeably as she had the ones with a line of Fs going down the side. I made second honor roll several times that year and passed on to the sixth grade with ease. Passing from the sixth to the seventh was nearly as easy, though I hadn't studied the same books three years in a row that time. I remember that it was a relief to have a new Literature book once I entered sixth grade! I was beyond tired of that fifth grade Lit book.

     Looking back, I realize my parents probably did not want for me what I thought they did. More importantly, looking back, I realize it was my own life that I was tripping up, not Mom's, or Dad's, or Sandi's, not Mr. D.s. My life! And if I had my life to live over, I would do a few things differently. I would certainly learn with a capital L, and I would not be reluctant to show it! I would put even more effort into my classes than I had when I decided to stop failing, because even then I had dragged my intellectual feet, content with "good grades" when I could have made great ones. I would show Sandi and Mr. D. that I knew exactly what they were talking about when they said, "Always do your best!"

THE LUCKIEST DAY OF MY LIFE

Skitch and her After-Bath-Snuggle-Buddy, Liam

THEN:   

The Luckiest Day of my Life or I Bless the day of the Cooked Foot


    On what was probably the luckiest or most blessed day of my entire life, I did not win the lottery or a trip to Hawaii. I didn't win anything that might make you think of me as lucky. In fact I was wounded pretty badly, but it remains in my heart the most blessed of all my days!

    It was the early 90s and I had one son that could not yet walk and one that I had to keep scraping off the walls because he walked everywhere, and climbed everywhere. I was still living with their dad at that time and things were tough in several ways, most noticeably they were financially tough. Both the adults in the home were unemployed, young, and therefore inexperienced. When my husband found a part time job or an odd job that he could do to earn a little money he often spent a significant portion of his earnings on alcohol. Like I said, I was young and inexperienced. A mountain woman my age would never put up with that!

    We were looking forward to our income tax return, planning to catch up on some bills and purchase some things we were in need of, including parts for a broken water heater. For several months I had been heating bath water on the stove and carrying it down the long hall of the mobile home we lived in. On this lucky day the check had finally arrived, but the check had nothing to do with the luck. In those days there were no instant refunds, so for a while I had nearly been bursting with the anticipation of getting the monkey off our back and the wolf away from the door. 

    When we found out the check had come, I called my parents and asked them if they could keep my two young sons, Cory and Liam, while my husband I went to pay bills and purchase the items on my list. My parents agreed; they were always happy to help with the boys. I had started heating water for my bath. The boys had been bathed before bed the night before, as was our custom, and I had already filled the tub up once for my husband to bathe a few hours earlier. 

    Cory was playing in the kitchen floor with Matchbox and Hotwheels cars. Liam was in his baby walker, pushing his way around, running over his brother's vehicles and frustrating Cory. Instinctively, I did what my mother had taught me to do when my nieces and nephew were little. I moved the kids from the kitchen because hot stuff was going to be transferred. I helped Cory gather his cars and, despite his pointing out that they do not roll very well on carpet, I moved his play to the living room, giving him a couple of large books to "drive" on. I pushed Liam into the living room as well, and dropped a broom down in his path so that he could not scoot his way back into the kitchen. 

    I then picked up my old kettle full of boiling water and turned around to take it through the hall. (If you took super hot water in there then you could add the cold from the spigot and it kept you from having to carry so much water from the stove.) As soon as I took the first step, the handle broke and boiling water landed on both my feet. My left one caught most of it. I had on the big slouch socks that were popular in those days, folded over at the top. When the water landed on my feet I was washed with a quick stab of agony and panic. I must tell you that, just a little, I urinated. For a second or two time stood still and I was caught in that land of fear and pain that I've visited more than I ever wanted to. I was smothered in the idea of "What now?" Then time picked up and moved normally again. I met my spouses eyes and they clearly said, "Uh oh! You are in big trouble!" My brain kicked in and demanded that I pull the socks off, but when it also whispered, "Your flesh may come with it." I grasped for the next best thing. I didn't think I could handle tearing off my own skin. My brain said "Cold water then!" I headed down the hall to the bathtub. My right foot was screaming in agony but the left one felt like it belonged to someone else. It felt like a stump that I could not control. I yanked it along and tried to not trip over it. 

    Once I made it to the tub, I put both feet, socks and all, in cold running water. I peeked under the sock on my right foot, pink skin that did not stick to the cloth. I removed that sock. I looked under the other one. The skin there was a scalded, angry red, but it too did not stick to the sock. I pulled off that sock as well. 

    My husband called my parents and told them what had happened. He said he wasn't sure, but maybe I needed to go to a hospital. My folks jumped in their vehicle and were there before I'd even moved out of the tub, because every time I pulled the right foot out of the trickle of cold water I had it under it started burning and I had to put it back. 

    While I was waiting - for my right foot to stop burning, for my left foot to start burning, for my parents to arrive, for evidence enough to make the decision about going to the hospital, for so much, and for nothing - I had time to think about what did happen and what might have happened.

    When my mother arrived, I told her, "Momma, thank you! Thank you so much for teaching me to keep kids out of the kitchen when you are messing with hot stuff! This could have happened to one or both of the boy's and it would have covered their whole little body!" When my sister's kids had visited, my mother had always insisted that they stay "out from under foot" when people were cooking. She had not allowed me to touch the stove until I was nearly an adult and then only for popcorn, or cornbread, or something terribly easy. I was an accident waiting to happen and she knew it. So, largely by example, she taught me that when you have kids in the house you never leave the kitchen with something cooking, you never cook on the front burners, and you keep all cords and stove knobs out of reach of little fingers. I had followed all those rules with my own children and, on this particular day, mother's rules had possibly saved their skin, maybe even their lives. 

    My right foot soon stopped burning enough for me to crawl out of the tub. I told my mom, "The right foot hurts but I know I got most of the water on the left foot." 

    She said, "Well, let's worry about the one that hurts. " That time she was wrong, and some nagging in the back of my head said, "Something is not right here. You know you injured that left foot more. Why isn't it hurting?"
    Soon, the pain eased off enough for me to put on a pair of sneakers, leave the boys with my parents, and go pay bills and run errands. While we were doing that a large water blister grew on top of my left foot. That night I slept with it out from under the covers, which I never do. Even in the heat of summer, I liked to at least have a sheet over my feet. The next morning I awoke to find that, despite my efforts to protect it, the blister had burst and the entire top of my foot was covered in raw meat. It was a nasty looking wound. I went to a doctor straight away and he told me. "If a pot handle is going to break when you're carrying boiling water you are best off to have shoes on. If you don't have shoes on, you should hope to have no socks. If you have socks on you should hope to think to pull those socks off as quickly as humanly possible after the water hits them. You wore your socks through the house to the tub and that entire time the heat they held onto was cooking your feet. You have first and second degree burns on the right foot. It will hurt for a while but will do okay without a doctors care. You have third degree burns on the left foot and it did not hurt because you killed the nerves in it. You need to come back to see me every day for thirty days and let me work on that foot. If you come back every day, and you do exactly as I tell you, you can probably keep it. Probably! It could still set in an infection that would force us to amputate the foot or even cause you to lose your life. You will certainly be scarred; you may need skin grafts. We will just have to wait and see."

    For thirty days, I made the trip to town with my foot bandaged up and a pair of awkward crutches under my arms. For thirty days, I settled onto a table and the doctor scrubbed my raw flesh with gauze while the nurse poured sterile water over it. The water came out of the jug clear and landed in the basin below a sickly pink. I would hold my breath and grit my teeth, as my daddy taught me to deal with pain, and I got through every session without weeping or calling out for mercy. I did sometimes ask (gasp) for a moment to catch my breath. Then back at it the three of us would go. I tried to keep enough sanity to pray. When my strength allowed, I used that time to thank the God I knew and loved for keeping this agony from my little boys. When my strength did not allow, my mind was reduced to a white hot light of pain, a scream inside my head. The cleaning only took a few minutes, but it seemed longer. My husband and I would then hurry home because (after the first day) experience taught me that the worst was yet to come. About fifteen minutes after the cleaning my foot would begin to tingle, then sting, then burn. By the time we made the twenty minute trip home it would feel as if it were being held in the deepest pits of hell. It helped to prop it up higher than my head. The lower it was the hotter it felt. I did sometimes weep during those moments because they went on much too long for the breath-holding-teeth-gritting method to help me. 

    One day I took my sister Lila and my niece Shanna along on the trip to see the doctor. Shanna was about twelve, a timid girl that hated injections and seemed to have a low threshold for pain. She spent a lot of time being ill and under a doctor's care. I thought that watching me deal with pain might help her understand that she was not alone the next time she had to deal with something painful. I hoped it might fortify her. I expressed this idea to my sister and she agreed. They went into the examination room with me, and the doctor asked me how long it had been since my last tetanus shot. I could not remember. He went out to tend to some other issue and sent a nurse in with a needle less than an inch long to give me a tetanus injection, "Just in case." The needle barely hurt at all. Then the doctor came back into the room with a different nurse and Lila and Shanna watched as he scrubbed my wound. When he was finished I sat up, took a deep breath, and looked at them. My sister's eyes were filled with respect and something akin to sympathy. My niece looked a bit horrified, and I wondered, "Was this too much for her?"

    As I was hobbling back to the car, I didn't speak. I waited to see what my sister and my niece would say about the experience. Before I'd hobbled more than a dozen steps through the parking lot Shanna cried out, "I can't believe you took that shot and didn't even cry!" Lila and I laughed until we were nearly hysterical. 

    During that hard month my husband took over the cooking and washed dishes a few times, but he would not touch the other housekeeping chores. This was not a big deal to me at that time because I'd fallen into a deep state of depression and hardly bothered with them myself. It was evident that a clean house was important to my spouse but a sober husband was important to me. I think I figured, "If he doesn't care about what I want and need why should I care about what he wants and needs." Plus, I was exhausted from keeping up with my two sons, so housework had hit the rock bottom of my to-do list. I kept the area the boys played in clean, I washed our sheets and clothing. I washed enough dishes to eat off of and cook out of. Every now and then I wiped down the tub, and toilet, and both the bathroom and kitchen sinks. That was about it, so an untidy house was no big deal to me. But he also would not get up in the night with the baby. He would not even get up in the night with me and help with the baby. This was a big deal. Liam was no longer breast feeding, and cranky nights meant trips to the kitchen in the wee hours of the morning for a bottle. I clearly remember crawling through my house on two limbs, cuddling Liam against me like a mother monkey. I used one arm to crawl, one arm to hold the baby under me and pushed up against my chest. I used one leg to crawl, and held the other injured leg out behind me. I did not leave Liam in his crib and crying because his crib was in my room, and I feared that if I left him there, making all that noise, my husband would eventually sit up and, at the very least, smack the baby's little legs. That would have mean war and I was in no shape for war. Once I'd crawled to the kitchen and made the bottle, I would sit with my back against the kitchen wall and gave him half of it, enough to calm him for the trip back to the bedroom. Then when we were back in the bedroom, I gave him the rest of the bottle and put him back in his crib without all the jostling of being carried like a monkey. I remember sitting in the kitchen, feeding the baby, and trying to keep my tears of disappointment and frustration off of his tiny face.

    Once during that time I dared the trip up the thirty-two steps to my parent's house. My husband carried the baby up, and I scooted up the steps on my butt. I asked my mother to help me bathe Liam because for some odd reason, my foot would burn a lot more if I put it low to the ground, which was where it surely was when I stood up for certain tasks or chores, like that one.

    She gave him a nice warm bath in the kitchen sink and marveled at how still he would hold while she poured water over his hair. Both my boys had quickly learned that if they held very still while I washed and rinsed their hair they would not get the water and soap in their eyes. If they fought and wiggled they forced me to just pour it haphazardly over their heads and they did not prefer that.

    When mother finished bathing him she let out the water and wrapped him in a towel. I was sitting nearby with my foot propped up and said, "Quickly! Hand him to me!" She was puzzled but brought him to me as quickly as she could. Liam then began to snuggle into my neck while I dried him off. He would wiggle and snuggle and snuggle and wiggle. My mother and I laughed at the silly little baby then. Now the after-bath-snuggle-bunny is one of my fondest memories of Liam's babyhood.

    I did get to keep my life and my foot, and I didn't even have to have one skin graft. The doctor was happy to tell me that the intense pain I kept feeling day after day meant that my nerves were repairing as we went along. So, I took that knowledge and fed my strength with it. The pain was a good thing. 

    It did not take me years to see the silver lining for that cloud. I am left only with a large scar that has lessened some over the years. I knew, from day one, that I could have lost one of my sons, or seen them in much worse agony than I was in, scarred and maimed for life. I told the doctor what a blessing that day was, compared to what it could have been and explained what I meant. He starred at me a long time before saying, "You have one incredible attitude." 

    I said, "No doctor. I have two incredible sons!" And he smiled.

    So there you have it: Perhaps I had other days that were as blessed, possibly even more. Maybe the time Cory fell and had a bump the size of a duck egg on his forehead, was an even luckier day. Maybe the day Liam got out of the hospital after having bronchitis was a miracle to surpass the day I dropped boiling water. I've certainly had a lot of blessed days! But as far as I, with my week and mortal mind tell, the luckiest and most blessed day of my life I did not win the lottery or a trip to Hawaii. I won something so much better: two unmaimed and living little sons that would grow up to be two grown men any mother would be more than proud of. And so, now and forever, I bless the day of the cooked foot!