Blame Game

As the oldest of four girls, I heard the question, “Who did this?”, a lot. “Where did that come from?” ran a close second, but never knocked “Who did this?” out of first place.

The question, of course, always led to pointing fingers and defensive whines. The words “…but she…” were thrown around quite a bit. I’m not saying those fingers were usually pointed at me…but my mother would.

Fast forward lots of years. It’s the late 80’s. MTV still played music videos and John Bradshaw was the darling of public television. Mr. Bradshaw wrote a book called “Healing The Shame That Binds You”, among others. He was featured prominently during pledge week. At the time, I was hoarding quarters in hopes of collecting enough to buy a box of Hamburger Helper, but I often dreamed of pledging and, when I did, I determined to do the magnanimous thing. I’d tell them to keep their silly old umbrella.

Bradshaw fascinated me for a number of reasons. He was good looking for one. And he had a great voice; a voice a father would have if you had that kind of father. You know the kind; the kind whose lap was yours for the taking, the kind that listened, the kind that comforted.

No, I didn’t have that kind either.

The thing I remember most when thinking of John Bradshaw, besides his delicious shock of salt and pepper hair, is the mobile. That’s what sucked me in, really; it was a simple thing. It might even have been made from a clothes hanger. Family members, represented by shapes cut from shiny paper, dangled from it. Bradshaw used the mobile to demonstrate that instability in one family member threw everyone else off balance. With a flick of his finger, he’d send one paper doll spinning. The rest followed suit in a crazy chaotic dance that demonstrated it didn’t matter who jumped first; in the end they were all hopelessly tangled up in their own strings.

Everyone loves a good whodunit…Who was the last one here? Who took the last paper towel? Who left the seat up? Who spilled the tea? Who moved the remote control? Who left the window down? And the classic…who let the dogs out?

Our society’s obsession with blame is the main reason I no longer talk politics. It’s impossible to make a comment, no matter how innocuous, without someone borrowing from my sisters and I; “But, he…”, “But, she….”, “But, they…” And we all know what happens next.

Mom gets the switch.

She never seemed to notice, but I did. Nothing good ever came from getting a switch. Despite her admonitions to the contrary, there was always lots of crying and, afterwards, Mom was red-faced and sweaty. We didn’t stop doing what she didn’t want us to do, we just did it better, more quietly, and with a heightened sense of accomplishment.

As the rare liberal living and working in a red sea of Bible-based Republicans, I’ve kept my head down since the partial government shut-down. (Even typing those words feels ridiculous…but I digress.) You can hear better with your head down, and what I hear is a lot of blaming. The paper dolls are dancing, and everyone is so busy pointing out who jumped first that no one noticed Mom going for the switch.

Maybe Ken Fisher watched John Bradshaw too. Fisher is the chairman of the Fisher House Foundation. On Wednesday, Fisher House committed to providing death benefits and transportation to family members of soldiers killed in the line of duty. Ken Fisher didn’t ask “who”. He kept his fingers to himself and, instead of muddying the waters with feckless accusations; he provided a solution to a problem caused by lesser men with bigger titles and lots to lose.

You can learn more about Fisher House Foundation here: http://www.fisherhouse.org/

Photo credit: http://www.diabetesmine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/pointing-finger.jpg

Warm Whispers

I have a thing for sleepwear. I like cotton nightgowns, silk nightshirts and girly pajamas. I own six bathrobes; one of them purported to be “The Softest Robe Ever”. It’s soft, alright. It’s also very fluffy, and putting it on makes me feel like a lavender-hued Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I hold on to it for those two or three days a year when the temperature dips so low that warmth trumps frump.

Two of my robes are girly. The silky peach one channels Hedy Lamarr. The sheer black one was an impulse purchase from a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. It has bright pink feathers at the collar and cuffs. I’ve never worn it. But you never know…

The red robe is short, made of cotton and features a very large dragon embroidered down the back. It’s one of my favorites. Depending on my mood while wearing it, I either feel like a prize fighter or a naughty Geisha.

The black one is heavy and hooded and used to belong to a man. It’s a Bill Blass. 1998 was a very good year.

The one I wear is flannel and plaid, tartan plaid, in blues and greens. I remember tearing open the Christmas wrap covering the box it came in, and looking around to see what my sisters’ robes looked like. For several years, since we all had married, my mother bought four of the same thing in different colors. One year it was sweaters. Mine was beige. Have you seen me? Well you can’t if I wear beige.

Blue and green are not my colors either. I’m more a red and black or, better yet, a turquoise and silver kind of girl. And plaid? Honey, please…

And yet, that’s the robe I wear. I take care to make sure it hangs on the outside of the hook so that in the morning, as I stumble out of my bedroom and into the bathroom, I can grab it without thinking.

This morning I noticed a hole…a slice really…in the back. The fabric around the slice was thin, very thin; thin enough to make me wonder if the slice wasn’t really a tear; a surrender to time. The discovery inspired me to inspect further. As it turns out, there are lots of holes, some of them bigger than others.

But, you would expect that in a 30 year old robe.

This morning, as I drew the robe around me, I felt her.

I imagined her hands on the robe, as she chose it, as she wrapped it, and the image comforted me.

“It’s going to be alright.”, Mom whispered. “You’ll be fine. He’s here with me, you know. Your boy is here with me.”

Getting Crazy

For the first time since my son died, I’ve been left alone for longer than it takes to visit the chiropractor or have a music lesson.

It was my choice. I could have tagged along but it costs so much to board the dogs, and then there are the chickens. With temperatures soaring above 100 degrees every day they need extra care. I’ve put ice in their waterer several times daily, fashioned a pool out of an over-sized plastic bowl, and managed to gather the eggs before they fried inside their shells.

I had all kinds of plans.

First and foremost, I thought to write. All that quiet stretched before me like a highway I could litter, uninterrupted, with words I wouldn’t forget while answering questions like, “Do you think I should get a Ford F150 or a Chevy truck? ” He’s 15, and that learner’s license burns a serious hole…

Malaise hit me on Friday afternoon, just before I left the office. I did what I always do, I ignored it. I bought dinner, I went shopping, and I baked four loaves of chocolate zucchini bread. I’d promised the boys they could take some on their trip. I’d also promised the kids next door they’d get a loaf out of the next batch. And, there’s that co-worker who greets me with hungrily expectant eyes every Monday morning.

Once the travelers were on their way, I was disappointed to walk inside the house and discover all the usual “stuff” needed doing. The kitchen was a wreck, the furniture needed polishing, and there was no way I wasn’t capitalizing on oven-like temperatures. I had laundry to do.

I’ve noticed this phenomenon before. For some reason, as soon as I’m left alone at home for any length of time, every imperfection is magnified a-thousand-fold; as though, suddenly it’s all mine, and I’m responsible, and if it’s needs fixing I need to fix it, before someone comes and sees it. I’m sure it all stems from the time when I was 22, and a new Mom, and my Mom came to visit; only I didn’t know she was coming. There’s only so much you can stuff under the couch cushions before its actual dimensions start to change…

By the time I finished housekeeping, it was 5 o’clock. The day was done and the chair, now that I had a chance to sit in it, was cozy.

This morning, malaise made another appearance. Only this time, I was alone. I didn’t have to ignore it. I could languish in it. I could baby it. I could sit and wonder why it came, and what it meant, and I could doze. So I did.

There was a point, during one of my treks to the henhouse, when I knew I could be crazy. Nuts, even. It was after I’d dumped the ice. The latch on the gate refused to slide back into place. The fact of my leopard-print pajamas became important somehow, as I wrestled with the handle; winning, at last. And, I knew it, absolutely. Were it not for all the reasons I have to be sane, I would most certainly be crazy.

It would be easy, really. I can tell, having considered it, that it’s just a slide, and not a very long one; not one of those really, really high ones that scorch the backs of your legs on your way down. It’s a short one, like the one attached to the swing set we had in the backyard when I was a kid. It got hot, too. But, it was so short, it didn’t matter.

And slides are easy. You just let go. You just stop trying. You slide.

My friend lost two sons. They died within a few years of each other. She’s never been the same since.

Now I know why.

From my new vantage point, white-knuckled at the top of the slide, I understand.

She let go.

Boy Wearing Light-up Sneakers

He was tall…quite tall. And thin; the kind of thin that appeared to hide-behind rather than be covered-by the t-shirt that fell like a drape from his rack of shoulders. The shirt was nearly colorless. His pants were faded as well. Both had seen better days, probably on the back of an older brother or a cousin who would see him wearing clothes that used to decorate the floor of his bedroom, and never make the connection.

He stood behind his father who held his brother while talking to the waiter about a table. His eyes watched the floor, rising only occasionally to glance at his father’s face as though gauging his mood. He knew how to stay out of the way, but he also knew that what was out of the way now might not be out of the way in just a minute. He kept track. And, when his father’s free hand swung in his direction while motioning towards a larger table, he took two steps to his left.

That’s when I saw them…light-up sneakers…the kind I hadn’t seen since my boys wore them twenty-odd years ago. The shoes themselves were black and would, had the boy stood still, gone unnoticed. His steps though, set off a pattern of multi-colored lights that chased themselves around the circumference of his school-aged foot, sending shards of longing deep into my chest.

I will never again be the mother of a boy wearing light-up sneakers.

2011 – A Retrospective

As years go, there have been better and there have been worse.

1999, for example, was a wonderful year. 1999 was the year I remembered my worth and reclaimed my strength. After years of living a “less than” life, I gave the rudder a mighty jerk and set sail in a completely different direction. And I never looked back.

Given what I now know, I might have chosen to skip 2003, altogether. I had emergency surgery in March. Four weeks into my six-week recovery period my mother died. And while she’d been ill for most of the previous four years, her death came suddenly as the result of a blood clot. I learned she had died while shopping at Target in what was my first foray into the outside world since my surgery. My daughter and grandson had left me in the house wares department. He needed t-shirts.

I remember a voice inside my head shouting at me to breathe and finding it difficult to follow directions. That same voice reminded me my family was counting on me, if for nothing other than a ride home. And then there was the question of when to tell them. Did everyone need to carry that knowledge around Target? Or would waiting be more appropriate?

The words flowed from me as soon as I saw my daughter’s face and everything after merged into a days-long blur, with a few exceptions. I remember sitting, powerless, around a polished, wooden table meant for a high-powered board room, wondering why my sister hadn’t removed her sunglasses. I remember my dress. It was vintage, late 60’s I think, and gray. Embroidered flowers trailed down the right side of the skirt. And, I remember standing under a large, green tent, alongside my sisters, next to the casket holding my mother. The four of us sang “Amazing Grace”. It was her favorite.

2011 was significant in its own way. This year, for the first time ever, I drove several hundred miles across several states alone. And, before I did that, I drove several hundred miles across several states in the company of a friend who, up to that point, I’d only known online. The two of us were on our way to meet many more friends with whom we’d had years-long online friendships. The experience was wonderful and proved what I’d always felt; online relationships are real and can be every bit as meaningful as those we experience 3D.

Here are a few other things I learned this year:

– I do not have to react. In fact, in many cases its better I don’t. Action, in almost every case, is preferable to reaction.
– I can be most childish with those I care most about. Not behaving in a childish manner is a decision that benefits everyone. And it’s easier to do than you might think.
– There is a place in my life for religion, and participation in a group of spiritually like-minded people feeds something in me, making me more whole.
– You can’t fully appreciate the angst of desire until you’ve wanted something for your child that you are powerless to provide.
– Acceptance, in all its forms, is a major component of happiness.
– I’ve spent a considerable amount of time looking for something I already had but wouldn’t see.
– Despite disagreements, disappointment, and geography some people will always have a place in my heart…because they live there.

>Writing Yoko

My mother insisted I write letters…mostly to my grandmothers…mostly to her mother.

Grandmother Eakes (We called her “Eakes” to distinguish her from Grandmother “Howell”, though the two were as different as night and day.) never answered. Never. I don’t mean to suggest she forgot. I don’t mean to infer she was busy. She just never answered. Period.

I mentioned it to my mother once…the lack of response. The meat of her answer escapes me now, some thirty-plus years later, but the flavor remains. I taste it often. It serves me well. After all, there are many occasions in which when we are called upon to “rise above”.

Eventually, my mother presented me with a pen-pal. The how’s and why’s faded over time, but I know her name. It was Yoko, as in Ono, but no…Ono was not her name. It is, however, the way I’ve thought of her since John Lennon died. One day she came to mind as she always had; she was Yoko Yakushima. And, the next, she was Ono. I don’t know…

I can’t stop thinking about her.

We exchanged letters for a couple of years. Hers were always enthusiastic, filled with life, and all the drama a thirteen year old girl could muster. I tried to keep up. I pretended. I crafted excited sentences and feigned filial frivolity I didn’t feel; until I didn’t.

I stopped writing Yoko. Her letter came, wrapped in onion skin that labeled it foreign even before seeing the postmark. I read it, but I didn’t answer. I felt guilty for as long as allowed between volleyball games, swim meets, and clandestine bumper pool lessons given by Bernard, a seventeen-year-old boy my parents hated that I would have followed to the ends of the earth.

Even without response, Yoko continued writing for weeks; until she didn’t.

And now, I wonder where she is.

I hope she’s okay. I wish I’d kept writing. Are her children safe? Did her house wash away? Was hers one of the faces standing in bread lines? I worry.

The tragedy in Japan compelled me to break my years-long boycott of television news. I watched as death flowed onto the beach and kept on going.

Over and over and over, again, I watched houses join other buildings, unidentified debris, and the occasional vehicle, in a watery swath that wrapped its arms around everything in its path, until I couldn’t breathe.

Yoko wasn’t the kind of girl that would have left home.

Days passed. I continued watching.

An elderly man excused himself as he passed between two people standing in a line that wrapped around the grocery store he exited. He walked down the line handing out loaves of bread from his ration.

Diane Sawyer, appropriately devoid of makeup, happened to be standing nearby. In a voice filled with just the right amount of disbelief, she asked the man why he was giving away the food he’d waited in line for hours to receive.

“I only need one.”, was his answer.

And I wonder, “Would that ever happen here…here in the land of “me”?”

No matter her actual proximity to the destruction, nothing I have survived can come close to what Yoko has endured. That knowledge serves me every day; that and the image of that man, the one who shared his bread.

Combined, they are grace. In deference to their sacrifice my spirit quiets. I am more giving. I strive to share what they have taught me.

Today the earth shook again.

And still I pray.

>Shoes, Shopping, and Shame

My grandson can’t tie his shoes.

You might imagine a boy of three or four, his brow knit in Pre-K concentration. The harder he tries, the more his chubby fingers become entangled in the laces.

No. Elijah is seven. He’s in the second grade. He’s among the brightest children in the second grade.

But he can’t tie his shoes.

He doesn’t like shoes. He sheds them at every opportunity, necessitating frantic hunting expeditions before he can play outside, or accompany me to the market, or help with walking the dogs. He finds them, though. The speed with which he finds them is usually dictated by his interest in the reason for wearing them, but he always finds them.

What he doesn’t find is socks. I don’t mean to suggest he searches for socks, because he doesn’t. It seems he holds socks in even lower esteem than he does shoes.

It would be his obvious disdain for socks, in fact, that led to the purchase of new shoes which he then had to tie and couldn’t, but I’m getting ahead of myself….

High school football is a big deal in Georgia. In fact, when compared to professional football, there’s very little difference in terms of fanfare, music, noise, face-paint, dancing mascots, and other related tomfoolery that a seven year old might find entertaining. Elijah had never been. That and the fact that, at thirteen, my son is sure that missing even one game would be instant social suicide made choosing Friday night’s entertainment a no-brainer.

I exchanged pleasantries with the parent manning the gate as he halved our tickets. My son’s hand barely grazed mine as he grabbed his share, darting off in the direction of a group of boys that appeared cloned, from their unruly mop-tops right down to their khaki cargos. Elijah and I picked our way through knees and feet to gain seats on the fifty yard line.

The game didn’t hold my interest; our team is two and five and they play like it. Instead, I watched the girls sitting next to me. I decided that the one with long blonde hair was much too young for the skin-tight hip huggers she wore under her cheerleader’s vest. Attempting to get an answer to the question, “What kind of mother lets her daughter walk around like that?”, I craned my neck in an effort to see further down the bleacher.

That’s when I smelled it.

I knew right away what it was. And there was no question as to the source.

“Elijah?”

“Yes?” Bent in half, he shooed his shoes under the seat.

“Did you take your shoes off?”

“Yes.” Sitting up now, he spoke quietly while instinctually covering his shoes with his bare feet.

“We don’t do that. We don’t take our shoes off at football games.”

I watched as he hurried to replace them. The laces had been cut and knotted, making them slip-ons. They looked like they’d been slipped on a lot.

The next day, at the department store, I grabbed a package of socks before heading for the shoes. I slid sneakers over his freshly socked feet, tied them, and pinched the toes the same way my mother always pinched mine. Hiding the others inside the box the new ones came in, we headed out to find more things to buy.

Minutes later, he whizzed by me. One shoe had come untied.

“Tie your shoe, Elijah.”

I walked a few paces before stopping to read the label on a jar of protein shake mix. The air around me moved as he whizzed by me again. At the meat counter, I waited my turn in front of the steaks. Seems lots of us were planning to cook out. Elijah squirmed around one corner of the refrigerated case, dragging one shoelace behind him.

“Tie your shoe, Elijah.”

“I did!”

“It’s untied. Tie it again.”

Pouting, he plopped to the floor. I watched him make shoelace bunny ears, then everything fell apart. He started again. One bunny ear, two bunny ears, and a mess. And, again. One bunny ear, two bunny ears, and something resembling an attempt at a bow that came unraveled as soon as he made a move to stand. I cursed silently at the memory of knotted laces and bent to help.

I’m not one of THOSE Moms. I don’t give my daughter parenting advice unless she asks for it. And I can count the times she’s asked for it on one hand.

This was different.

On Sunday, I passed Elijah off to his parents with a kiss to his begrudging cheek. My grandson did not inherit my penchant for “kissy face”.

Ten minutes into the drive home, I dialed my daughter’s cell phone.

“Did you know Elijah can’t tie his shoes?” Either the question or my complete lack of pleasantry surprised her. It took her some seconds to answer.

“I saw you bought new ones.”

“Well, I was going to buy laces. One of them was broken. But then he took them off. He doesn’t wear socks, you know…”

“I know…”

“It’s the knots. Someone is tying knots in his laces. He’s forgotten how to tie. This isn’t good.”

“I know. I’ve asked him to stop.” “Him” is always her husband, my son-in-law.

“Do I need to ask him? Because, I will. I’ll ask him to stop.”

I hadn’t used that tone with her since she was a teenager, a teenager who’d held so much promise, a teenager who’d seemingly lost her mind, the answer to my mother’s twisted mantra, “You’ll get yours! I hope you have a daughter just like you!”

She got there so quickly. In that moment of separation, that space of time during which I could speak and also watch in horror as the words left my lips, my mother was there. She lives in my snarl.

“No, Mama…” My daughter’s voice was tired, because she’s not like me. And most of the time, I remember, most of the time that’s okay.

It’s just sometimes….

>Not Fit To Be Around

I’m surly when I’m sick. I don’t whine. I’m not demanding. I’m surly.

I don’t know if there is such a thing as a Southern Dictionary, but if there isn’t there ought to be. For my purposes, let’s pretend.

If you looked up “surly” in the Southern Dictionary, the word would be defined as “not fit to be around.” And, while I don’t remember hearing my mother use the word “surly”, she threw the definition around quite a bit. And, not just when we were sick…

Bad behavior would get a “not fit to be around”, as would poor hygiene. And anyone who “pitched a fit”, was definitely “not fit to be around”.

Demonstrating our unfit status, she required us to spend sick days in our bedrooms; in the bed with the lights out, creating a strangely comforting atmosphere, almost like another layer of blanket.

After successfully seeing my sisters off to school, mother eased my bedroom door open. Light in the hall glinted off a chrome television stand as she attempted to navigate shag carpeting. As long as I didn’t move, her progress continued quietly, albeit slowly. If I so much as opened an eye though, she burst forth with a string of whispered epithets that seemingly propelled the stand over the bumpy surface. She plugged it in. She turned it on, and after several seconds, the tiny light in the middle of the screen burst open to reveal Bob Barker and “The Price Is Right”. It was never anything different. It was as though he waited for my mother to plug him in. I dozed as buzzers buzzed, wheels spun, and curtains opened. “But wait, Bob! That’s not all!”

The next time I saw her, my mother held my lunch tray. Lunch was always chicken noodle soup and saltines. And, no matter what ailment waylaid us, we drank ginger ale. The only other time I ever had ginger ale was in the Shirley Temples I was allowed to order with my birthday dinner. Ginger ale became important.

The sound of my sisters’ excited voices accompanied blinding sunlight splitting the curtains. The room grew warmer. I shucked blankets, wishing for a break in their footfalls, a hand on the doorknob. Their voices faded as they dispersed.

Smells of supper seeped under the crack between my bedroom door and the floor. I could always tell what she was cooking. I could also tell it was time for Dad to come home.

He always stopped. He opened the door with his shoulder, his head turned in the other direction. He slipped inside, closing the door softly behind him. His weight on the edge of my bed pulled me towards him.

“Well!” To this day, he starts many sentences with a hearty “well”.

“How’s my girl?” Awkwardly, he stroked my hair from my forehead.

“Okay,”, I squirmed, delighted at the attention and unable to contain a smile that might be interpreted as a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be sprung.

He answered my word with a pat to my head and a “Good”, before turning to leave the way he had come.

I continue my mother’s tradition with my own kids. A sick day means a day spent in the bedroom. Wheeling in the television would be much easier over hardwood floors, but I don’t have to. The television is always there, behind the doors of an imposing armoire, and the remote control is within easy reach. What with all we’ve learned about food in the last forty years, I’ve altered the sickroom menu by substituting broth for soup and foregoing crackers altogether. Perhaps some nice yogurt if you’re still hungry?

And, no matter how much time passes, nothing pacifies me as well as a darkened room and a softly playing television.

Don’t open the door unless you’ve got food.

Hair Raising

It’s fitting, I suppose, that I have unruly hair. I’m a pretty unruly woman. But, sometimes, I think it’s my mother’s fault…

Some of my earliest memories are of my hips wedged between my mother’s ample thighs atop our ultra-chic, avocado green, vinyl couch. For reasons known only to her, she insisted on using a comb on my hair. And, not just any comb, but one of those barber’s combs with skinny, pointed teeth that were so close together a dime wouldn’t pass through them. As she raked those teeth across my scalp, I gritted my own and prepared for the blood that was sure to start running into my eyes just any minute. Occasionally, I howled, until I realized that only made her angry, causing her to plow even deeper.

The only respite from the raking came when she found what she referred to as a “knot”. I don’t know how it happened or why. I only know that every single time my mother raised a comb to my head she found the hair at the nape of my neck to be a tangled morass that inspired her to mutter mild epithets between groaning tugs.

There was lots of “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life!”, even though we both knew she’d seen it just last Saturday. And she whined a lot. Occasionally, the comb she extracted contained more than hair. The mass more resembled a bird’s nest than a knot, with wisps of lint and the occasional tiny scrap of paper woven into the mix.

And then there were the permanents…

For years, my mother lined us up on linoleum that was scored to resemble stone, if you were willing to allow that stone could possibly be tinged the same avocado green as the couch. By now, she’d invested in detangler which allowed her comb to slice through our tresses, unfettered. It was pretty smooth sailing, really, until it came time to roll. Because, rolling required wrapping, and wrapping involved small wisps of tissue paper, and, once again, she met her match at my nape.

At this point, she turned us over to my grandmother who owned a beauty shop on the ground floor of what would now be termed an assisted living high-rise. The real money, however, was made styling hair for regular customers who no longer required a return appointment. She spent Saturday mornings at the funeral home. Mother dropped us off after lunch and picked us up several hours later.

“Remember now!”, my grandmother called from the porch where she stood with one waving hand raised. “Don’t wash it for at least two days, so you don’t wash it out!”

I spent the ride home calculating how I could gain entry of the bathroom before my sister.

I drove myself the last time my grandmother curled my hair. By that time, I was compelled by more than style. By that time, the trek across town, and the smelly chemicals, the pulling, the tugging, and hot minutes spent under the hood of a hair dryer were a trade-off. Because, after she curled my hair, we could visit. She took me outside to her sun porch. She showed me her plants, some of which were decades old. She talked to me about them, told me how to grow them, and pulled up tiny samples for me to root when I returned home. It was worth the thirty minutes or so I would spend with my head in the sink later that evening.

The last time my mother tackled my hair involved one of those new-fangled curling irons; the kind encased in plastic bristles, the kind that not only curled your hair but brushed it, too. She was dolling me up for some kind of event. It may have been Easter. Easter was big deal at our house. It was one of two times, each year, that my parents would accompany us to church. We dressed in new dresses and wore pantyhose from freshly cracked eggs.

My mother separated a swath of hair from the crown of my head, twirling it around the plastic-bristled, metal shaft. Steam billowed from the contraption in her hand as she marked time. Time came, and she rolled her hand in an attempt to un-wrap. But, it wouldn’t. The curling iron, with its rows of plastic bristles, had a death-grip on my hair. Steam billowed from the crown of my head as my mother pulled and whined, pulled and whined.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life!”

Whines turned to whimpers as we both imagined what I would look like after she cut the hair at the scalp in order to remove it from the shaft. My mother cursed. My sisters watched in horror. Finally, the hair loosened. I never saw the curling iron again.

Two weeks later, my mother made an appointment for both of us at the hair salon she frequented. Despite odiferous armpits at the end of her pendulous arms, Sandra could feather with the best of them. Kristy McNichol had nothing on me…

I was in the eleventh grade. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do. I drove quite a distance to the salon and was somewhat taken aback by the pumping, bass-driven beat of the music that greeted me as I entered. “Toto? We’re not in Kansas anymore…”

A tall man with sallow skin under his brush cut rushed, as fast as his leather pants allowed, to reach me. I left with what amounted to a crew cut. And, I loved it…but I never did it again.

Since then, I’ve been shorn by a tattooed biker chick, one Valley Girl, a middle-aged woman with an unfortunate spiral perm, and one really nice Vietnamese man. He didn’t try to talk to me. I like that in a stylist.

Several weeks ago, I got the urge. You know the one; that feeling that you have to have your hair styled…NOW! Several weeks ago, the Valley Girl had sent me home looking like something the cat had dragged in, and it wasn’t the first time. As I left work, I made the decision to stop at the first salon I passed.

It took longer than I anticipated. I was almost home. The sign on the marquee read “Famous Hair”. The fact that it occupied a space just two doors down from the market was a huge selling point.

She was introduced as “Nancy”, but I’m willing to bet her green card reads “Tran” or “Nguyen”.

“What you want?”, she asked, whipping a black, nylon robe round my neck, matador-like.

I produced a copy I’d made of a style I’d found on the internet. Nancy laced tiny fingers through my hair as she studied the picture, frowning.

“But it doesn’t matter…”, I laughed. “I gave up a long time ago. My hair does what it wants to do…and I let it.”

Frayed Strings

No one loves their children more than I do. My youngest is thirteen now, which only goes to prove that all the minutes I spent wishing he could be my baby forever were for naught. But I knew that…

To my credit, I’ve turned those mournful minutes into reasons to be grateful. When he recounts an exchange with another student in school, I pay attention. The day will come when sharing won’t be so easy. When he calls “Mom”, as I walk past his darkened room, I stop and listen before reminding him, again, to go to sleep. When he allows me to take his hand as we walk, I feel it as I hold it. And, when he wraps his arms around my waist, and rests his head against my chest I thank God for the blessing. Every little boy hug, every little boy kiss, could be the last.

He turned thirteen last week, three days before school let out for summer.

“Do you want a party? You could invite your friends from school, the guys from your baseball team, and some of your football friends. We could go to the park. You guys could play baseball, and we could cook-out.”

Shane sat silent, looking through the window to the backyard. Movement in his eyes told me he was considering the offer. He’d attended several birthday parties this year.

Valerie invited him to his first boy/girl, night-time party. There was dancing, which led to sweating, which provoked Shane to stealthily comb the health and beauty aids aisle during our next visit to the grocery store.

Chelsea’s mother went one better and rented a pool-side clubhouse. As we pulled up, the outer walls of the building seemed to vibrate in time with the disco ball sparkling through an upper-floor window. Expecting hesitation from Shane, I turned in my seat to offer words of encouragement from someone who has personally experienced countless disco balls. The backseat was empty, the car door slammed, and by the time I turned around Shane had mounted the walk towards the door without so much as a wave good-bye.

A pattern began to develop, and I saw my mistake.

“Oh…I just realized all the parties you’ve gone to this year were given by girls. Boys your age don’t have birthday parties, do they?”

Relief colored his face.

“Not really…”, he smiled, lowering his head.

“Ok! So what do you want to do? We could go out to dinner. Your choice! Or we could go to the movies. You could take a friend….You tell me. What do you want to do?”

“I want to spend the weekend with Josh.”

Josh is his oldest brother. He married just before Shane’s birthday. He and his wife live in a rural area seventy-five miles away.

Shane left on Friday.

Friday night I had dinner out, and for the first time in a long time, no one offered me a children’s menu. My companion and I enjoyed uninterrupted adult conversation. And when we left, there were no tell-tale crumbs beneath our table.

Saturday I slept in, and woke to a quiet house. I never realized how much noise is generated by the simple act of breathing until mine was the only breath drawn. I took my coffee to the patio and never felt compelled to grab at the table beside my chair in hopes of steadying it. Birdsong fell on my ears without accompaniment. No one asked me any questions.

I spent the rest of the day doing as I pleased. I shopped without uttering the word “no”. I turned my Ipod up as I gardened, never giving a thought to what might be going on inside the house. I gutted the playroom, and in so doing generated quite a pile for the next charity pick-up. He hasn’t touched those toys in years…

I organized his dresser, and added several threadbare t-shirts to the aforementioned pile. The one with the hole in the collar has bothered me for months.

I baked cookies for the neighbors and no one whined, “You always make the good stuff for other people!” I watched tennis on TV without giving advance warning of an imminent takeover of the den. Music wafted from speakers mounted beneath the eaves as we grilled on the patio and no one asked me sardonically, “Why don’t you like rock music anymore?”

As I turned out the lights above the mantle and closed the sunroom door against the night I thought, “So this is what it will be like when he is gone. I can do this…”

The phone rang and I jumped to answer it.

“Hello?!”, I never gave a thought to sounding casual.

“Hey, Mom.”

Those two words began tales of Clydesdale horses, front flips from diving boards, and a dog Shane loved enough to bring home.

“I’m glad you’re having a good time.”

“Ok, Mom. Gotta go.” Male voices parried in the background. I understood the distraction.

“Ok…” Silence in the line told me he had hung up already.

For the first time in thirteen years Shane hung up without saying “I love you.”

But he does…