five

Friendships are like wildflowers, which I much prefer to the hothouse floral arrangements you can get from any store.  Obliging fields surrender the most sincere offerings, complete with flaws and unique in beauty.

This last month I have asked friends to give me 5 words.  Any 5 words to challenge my imagination and discipline me to write in the time that beta readers are reviewing my book.  I have a writing schedule, and I write at least three hours a day.  With this challenge, the writing became public - in my blog.  

I loved this challenge!  Not only did it let me create and play with words, it reminded me what incredible and unique friends I have.

As you can tell, if you’ve read any stories, the friend who has given me the words is a huge part of the influence.  My friends are beautiful, deep, have weathered many storms and are (for the most part) happy… despite the trials that life gives them.

If you’ve missed any of the stories, I have linked them here to the friend who gave me the 5 words for inspiration.  My next seven blogs are from my grandchildren (including my unborn granddaughter) and my daughter-in-law. 

After those, I pack up for South Africa to cheer Hennie Keyter on in Johannesburg as he launches his memoir “His Call, MyAll” (I helped him compile this and I am excited to be part of the launch) on the 23^rd of February at Cornerstone Church. 

Thank you to all of my beautiful friends who are named here.  Please shout if I have missed you and I’ll get your story done before I wave goodbye mid-February.

·     Elmay Oberholzer, a beautiful friend from Johannesburg  was the first.  She is a girl who has a spirit that desires to see the whole world – and she is lovely!  Her words:  "...as I stepped onboard I..." inspired “ghosts” – a story of a girl who is haunted by loss and abandonment. 

·     Frank Stephens is a super-literate friend of mine who is politically astute and a world-class apologist.  I look up to him spiritually.  His amusing words: “bald, glasses, turbulent, muffins, dog” inspired the work “turbulent” – a story of a man who has a fear of flying.

·     Michael Roome, a boy I once knew is now a man who will one day be a United Nations delegate.  He is sharp and wonderfully humble….  His words: “She glanced in horror as...” inspired “horror” – a tale of two vegan individualists having a fight about a conventional sweater that makes its way into their world.  

·     Kelly Simon Cooper  is a new friend from Sacramento.  A fellow writer and teacher, she is nearly finished with a masters program (yea!) and still finds time to read my stories!!  “Verdant, Astronomy, gargling, wicked, infrastructure, and her super-challenge “ cornobbled” inspired “fisherman” – a tale of a learned man who takes a job on an ocean trawler to prove he can be a man among men. 

·     Lisa Haynes, a beautiful mother of two, is a South African rose transplanted into the harsh wildlands of Redding, California.  Her words:  "this time, it was different" inspired “topoisomerase” – a story of a young couple whose lives change once they discover their daughter has autism.

·     Marc Peffer is one of our longest-heart-held friendships.  His brotherhood has been a gift from God and we are joined closely with his family forever.  His words were “ By grace we are healed” and inspired “unjani” – a story set in a South African township.  A man, who loses his eight year old son, struggles with his faith and marriage in the aftermath.

·     Sue Conner, a fellow teacher who worked alongside of me in the Christian school I once worked, gave me the words “She dared to open the ....”  which inspired “letter” – a tale of how the seed of gossip is sown in a small town, only to destroy the peace of a family unnecessarily. 

·     Connie Eaton Rogers, a spiritual mentor of mine, lives in Tempe Arizona now.  She is a delight to me and loves justice!  She gave me “ fractured, sanctified, Valedictorian, frenetic, sovereign” which inspired a story so complicated that I could not dilute its title down to one word: “Jin Campaigns Against the SongDynasty” – a teenage girl’s account of the ongoing war between her parents and the way it’s affected her life.

·     Vince Rodriguez, my beloved son, gave me the words “Vikings, samurai, space travel, bacon”  I cried while writing this story: “vikings” – a mother’s perspective on her adult son and how he has become a man every bit as wild as she saw him being as a boy. 

  

·     Debra Ann Young, a delightful friend and animal activist from New York City gave me the words “children, restaurant, beach, love, bankrupt” and it fell on Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday!  Such perfect words to  punctuate “martin”, a tribute to this great man.

·     Susan Purdy, a beautiful friend who is also a new mother gave me “garden, community, secret, violence, healing” – perfect words for her, a true community activist who champions gardens that are shared in neighborhoods!  The story “garden” is one of hope: Vietnamese immigrants change a patch of derelict land into a true blessing for their community that brings the whole neighborhood together.

·     Ronel Geldenhuys, a humanitarian and spiritual sister in my life, is one of those people who is contagious with inspiration.  She adores Africa and is happily working into many areas (especially central Africa).  Her words: 'Faith kept Rafiki's hope alive' inspired the tale “Faith” – a story about a Kenyan girl who will leave home to attend a prestigious art school.  Her only worry is leaving her father....

·     Christine Crom McGuire, one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen up-close, gave me the words: “Blessing, love, extraordinary, grateful, heartbroken” and inspired the story “agnes” an historical account of a Catholic girl who lived her faith out loud. 

·     Lynette Devenish, one of my beautiful, faith-filled friends, gave me the words: “pumpkin, unchanging, waves, clouds, storms” to inspire the story “restoration” – a tale of an art restorer that needs restoration herself - from God!  The story meant a lot to me, as it came during a time we were in heavy prayer for Garth, Lynette’s husband, who has cancer.

·     Graeme John Forbes, my mischievous, pot-stirring friend loves to climb mountains and expects us all to keep up.  Just being around him makes me smile.  He actually had the audacity to give me 5 GERMAN WORDS!!  “ rindfleischetikettierungüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (the longest German word – meaning rules that govern the packaging of meat), schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittle (birth control), speck (pork fat with very little meat), schadenfreude ( a terrible thing that happens to someone that makes you laugh), and Grundgesetz (German constitutional law).  It actually yielded a very mischievous story – “schadenfreude” about American tourists who make the mistake of being a little too clueless on a German train...

·     Debbie Woodhouse Van Graan, a beautiful business woman who can hold her own in any country, gave me the words: “Dreams, Disasters, Deadline, Deep, Disciplined” and asked  for a true story.  I actually thought the request came from her sister in law, Michelle, my friend I went to church planters with.  For her, I wrote an account of our leaving South Africa, a story I called “succulents”

·     Ang Keyter, a fellow writer and full-time Mama gave me: traffic, turquoise, twins, twilight, truth.  I loved these words, and they inspired “mythomania” – a story of two pre-teen girls sitting by the pool and hanging out.  Since no girl passed through these years unscathed, the feelings that accompanied this story were all-too real.  Very interesting...

·     Lulu van Aswegen, one of my besties from South Africa played the intimacy card and gave me 5 words that were inside jokes: “Salud, Nicomedes, Lekker, lekker and hondjie"  Instead of writing a story, I told you our inside jokes!!  A great post: salud

·     RobandBridget Forbes, a couple of immense value in our hearts gave me the words: “Cheese, vw beetle, favourite, wine, ger” to inspire heroes.  This story is a reflection of who the Forbes are to us – having lived in Mongolia for fifteen years – and also championing the beauty and wildness of the ger (the Mongoliam round house) and Genghis – a hero to all Mongolians.

·     Mike Rivera, a genius and brother in the faith, gave me “Searches, Finds, Loves, Loses, Reunited” the day that my beloved Uncle Walt died.  In his honor I wrote “Uncle Walt” and cried as I did.

·     Lara Ashley Fowler, a beautiful girl and former student gave me: “ Ballroom, pink, sock, princess, and SHANK!!”  Honestly, Lara!!  I wrote a story about the random pop-ups in family: wife.  This takes place at a funeral when the unwelcome wife of an estranged brother shows up.

·     Bridget Shank, another one of my mentors and a very special woman gave me: “Change, contemplation, choice, intimidating, spring” inspired “change” – a story of a young lady and her niece at the park who have a chance encounter with an old lady that influences their lives. 

·     Danny Lake, a former football coach and all-around man of God gave me the words: “Danny, manly, awesome,wonderful, available”  then quickly added hahaha.  I actually warned him: “Obviously, you have never read my short stories, Danny Lake! You may regret you gave me those 5 words. ...”  He didn’t.  It gave me “manly" a story of a rough and ready biker who meets a man who lives by his word, on generosity and for his family.

·     Francois Marais, our beloved personal trainer and incredible seeker of truth, gave me “Calamity, reprobate, Tukuman, Iscariot and schitzo” to inspire the frenetic “horror” – a story of schizophrenia from the perspective of a schizophrenic.  I found this to inspire a great deal of prayer for friends with this disease. 

·     Rick Martinez, our most beloved pastor and Spiritual leader also likes the way I write.  For this reason, I wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote “zeke” – the most popular story of this series (according to hits).  Rick’s words were: “ I don't believe in God anymore,” inspiring this story of a homeless skateboarder who has been let down by his family and the church.

·     Caroline Passier, a true friend who loves Israel and will take us all one day (!) gave me the words “love,  in love, and  romance” – inspiring the very Jewish “shiva” a story of the traditional grieving period after a loved one dies in the Jewish community.  I absolutely loved this story.  It told itself, unfolding with a story of a young couple whose happiness is cut short by an unexpected death.

·     Amanda Lai, a very cool girl who has become a woman right before my eyes, invited me to craft a story for her daughter, who LOVES princesses.  “Princess, Love, Beauty, Giving, and Heart” inspired “emeralds” – a tale of a magic kingdom of acceptance told for all ages.

·     Tim Silva, one of the very first boys I ever had a crush on, gave me “Excitement, Paranormal, Scary, Beautiful, and Spiritual” – for me to tell first person narrative “paraexistence” from the perspective of a young girl trapped in a small town with a ghost story.

·     Alicia Robynn Vosburg, my beloved beautiful daughter gave me the words: “Mother, daughter, flute, eggroll, fight” and I surrendered “tigerdragon” – a tale told from a mother’s perspective about her relationship with her adult daughter.  I wept as I wrote, and reminded myself it was all pretend.. all fiction.  How much she means to me!

·     Debbie Haines, a doctor who accompanied us on our trip to the Sudan, became one of my very best friends who understood the deep, deep parts of my heart.  Her words: “ father, necklace, solace, refugee, Narus (the town in Sudan)” inspired “protoplasm” – a story of the great dysentery plague during the Sudanese civil wars of the 1990’s.  The terrible nature of war gives the most hideous images, but also yields the most hope for survival and humanity. 

·     Jan Ahlfs is a friend I haven’t seen in awhile, but can connect with like no time has past when I do!  Her words: “Sky, tunnel, blue, grace, friend”  All wove a story of a friend’s desire for vengeance and the true power of redemptive "grace".

·     Callie Tayler, my dear Snow White friend, is one of the best people I have ever travelled with in my whole life.  Her testimony of God in her life is amazing (corner her and get it!) Her words: “On a dark, stormy night…” created a story within a story: absence.  When parents have adult children, you are not supposed to interfere with their lives, but you can’t help overprotecting them...even when you’re not invited!

·     Tiff Debrichy gave me a very pensive “love and intimacy” to inspire the story “shopping” – a complicated story of prejudice, racism, ageism and the changing landscape of culture.  Like Tiff, it is a story with many nooks and crannies... not easily told. 

I have a friend name Judith Stone Moos, a wild-card that gave me these words: “floral, wave, create, imagination, play” – which helped me compile this blog – five. 

Give me five words and I will be so so so so happy to weave it into a story – inspired by you!  Please stay tuned for my family stories.  They will be consecutive for the next week. 

Janet 

shopping

It was Analee Greyson’s custom to shop on the first day of spring and fall – it had been for the past sixty years.  Nothing, in her mind, could ever be worse than a woman letting her wardrobe go.  She found it necessary to acquire the latest fashion to make herself look as modern as possible, and she did it here, at JC Penney’s.  A woman with classic taste should be able to acquire two outfits per year on budget, the seventy-year-old matriarch thought.   Mrs. Greyson made appointments every fall and spring with the personal shopper that worked in the women’s department of the store, and for the last few years, the personal shoppers left much to be desired.

The manager of downtown’s JC Penney was a boy named Jerry, a boy who had worked there since he was twenty six, fresh out of college and returning to his hometown.  Analee found comfort and one might even say love in his greeting and readiness to understand her needs.  She was to buy  three complete outfits on the day she came in,  and Jerry always made sure that he told her how much he appreciated her patronage. 

The JC Penney was in the center of town, a brick building that used to look like a school until they painted it white.  After the white, it had been painted tan, and then two years ago it was covered in mirrored tiles.  Analee, a woman who knew the value of a penny, thought that the modernization was a waste of money, with one exception: when they replaced the wooden staircase with an escalator. 

She loved the escalator.

“Mrs.  Greyson, I’m so glad to see you,” Jerry greeted Analee as she entered the store.  He knew she would be there at 9:30 a.m. sharp and he was waiting for her at the entrance. 

“Hello,” Analee smiled,  removing her leather gloves one finger at a time.  “What is this I hear?  Are you really closing?”

“I’m afraid so,” Jerry smiled. “This building will still be owned by JC Penney, but it will be a corporate office, no longer a store.”

“So you’ll get to stay on?”

“Mrs. Greyson, it’s time for me to retire.”

“Surely, you’re joking.  You can’t be more that forty.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Greyson.  I’m sixty-five.”

 “Sixty-five and you’ll retire?” She put her gloves into her Dooney & Bourke bag and straightened her hound’s-tooth jacket. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded, smiling.  He joined his hands in front of himself, almost like a schoolboy. 

 “My husband worked all the way into his eighties…”

“He was a good man,” the manager said, respectfully.

“…and he bounded out of bed each morning like he was born to do it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And he was, you know!” She looked at the light cardboard signs, suspended from the ceiling with fishing wire.  Markings of discounts were everywhere in bright colors, as if the sale were happy news, rather than the sign of a store failing to meet its profit margins. 

“Mrs. Greyson,” the manager motioned to the right with an outstretched arm.  “May I escort you to women’s wear?  I’ll introduce you to who will be helping you today.”

Analee followed him through the junior section into the women’s where they found two women behind the counter speaking quietly to one another.  As soon as they saw the manager and the old woman they straightened and nodded.

“Monique,” Jerry now spoke in a stern voice.  “This is Mrs. Greyson, who I told you about.”

“Hi,” A blonde, thin girl looked wide-eyed at Analee, not knowing what to say. 

“You’ll be assisting her with spring shopping today.  If you’ll come with me,” he said, firmly. 

Monique came from around the stone-look counter and stood next to them.  Analee sized her up as new and sighed.  These new girls that the manager hired didn’t stay long and seldom greeted her properly, she thought. 

“Unless you would like Consuela to help you,” the manager offered.  Consuela smiled shyly behind the counter, standing up straight. 

“Have you ever assisted before?” Analee asked Monique, a girl who was pale and thin but still managed to show too much cleavage. 

“Yes,” Monique left off the ma’am and Analee sighed again. 

“She’ll do,” she said, looking back at the manager.  He smiled politely and extended his hand.  Analee shook it, and did not smile.  “I’m sorry about the store closing,” she said. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Greyson,” he said, nervously smiling again.  “I’ll leave you two to shop.”  With that, he walked away and Analee watched him. 

“How can I help you today?” Monique asked, breaking the strange silence.  Analee turned toward her and remembered it was a young thin girl helping.  Her shoulders dropped with disappointment. 

“Where is the spring line that has arrived?” she asked, quietly. 

“The what?” Monique’s face crinkled at the words as if she’d never heard them. 

“Please show Mrs. Greyson the new suits that came in last week,” Monique said from behind the counter. 

Analee recognized the short Mexican woman that Jerry called Consuela.  She had been there almost as long as Jerry, but Analee had never been helped by her.  She seemed to be a simple stocking clerk and not a personal shopper.

Monique walked slowly toward the window display.  For a moment Analee considered asking Consuela to change places with skinny Monique, but then remembered herself and followed the girl to the aisle of new arrivals. 

“These came in last week,” Monique said, lifting a sleeve of a spring jacket hanging from a chrome display rack. 

“So I heard,” Analee wasn’t impressed.  So far the girl was doing nothing, just like the girl that was supposed to help her last fall.  She lifted the jacket sleeve and examined the cuff stitching.  “Where is this made?” She asked, almost to herself.  As she checked the label, Analee heard Monique’s voice.

“I don’t know.”

Just as Analee expected she saw no union label.  This meant that the work was taken out of the States to another country where labor was cheap.  The stitching would be defective and the jacket could prove to be ill-fitting.

“Hmmm….” Analee considered the design.  The cut of the jacket was one that previously had looked timeless, but she was suspicious of its quality and the store mark-up. 

 “Can I show you this in your size?”

Analee looked up and answered, “I’m a ten.”

 “Are you sure?”  Monique lifted an eyebrow at Analee, the first real sign of attention she gave her.

“You know what, young lady, I’ve had enough of you.  Get me Consuela and I’ll wait here.”

Monique blinked like a doe in headlights, then walked slowly back to the counter.  Analee was fuming inside, insulted by a mere waif about half her body size.  The outfit she was wearing was purchased in this very store just six months ago and looked beautiful  in her reflection in the mirror.    Monique was just a buzzard of a girl who wanted to lose a sale. 

“Mrs. Greyson,” Consuela spoke softly and Analee turned to face her.  The Mexican woman stood facing her.  From the distance she stood, Analee could see that Consuela was about as old as Jerry was, perhaps even older.  She looked humble and ready to help.

“Where was this made?” Analee asked her. 

“I believe the Phillipines.”

“I only buy American made, you know.”

“Yes, we send American fabric to the Phillipines and it’s assembled there.”

“Is that the best we can do now?” Analee asked, disgusted.  “This country used to make everything for itself.”

“Yes, Ma’am, we did.”

“I guess I’ll take this one, but I won’t wear it with the same pride.”

“No, Ma’am.”

Consuela chose a size twelve from the rack and hung it in the nearest dressing room. 

“What are you doing?” Analee snapped.  “I’m a ten!”

“Last year you preferred the twelve, remember.  Last seasons were all twelves, too.  I believe it is the assembly being outsourced that makes it a tighter fit, Mrs. Greyson.”

“Oh, sure.  You’re not supposed to tell me that my middle is increasing in size, either, are you?”

Consuela laughed.  It startled Analee, but then she laughed, too.

“After all, I’m a paying customer,” the elder woman said, beginning to feel better about shopping.  

“Yes, Ma’am.”

They worked together well, and Consuela possessed the surreal intimacy needed to understand Analee’s taste and ever-changing body.  It occurred to Analee that Consuela had been the one who was there each time she came to the store.  Consuela was the one who had lined up the outfits that she would be seeing.  Analee realized that she should have asked for Consuela at first, rather than the slow waif with no manners.

At the end of an hour, Consuela was wrapping three spring outfits for Analee in a garment bag that she found in the back room.  Analee appreciated the extra attention to detail she had and as Jerry came around to see how things were going, she said so.

“Consuela has been very helpful,” Analee told him.

“Yes, she loves personal shopping,” Jerry beamed.  “I’m glad you finally decided to give her a try.”

“Yes.”  Mrs. Greyson answered. 

Although she normally paid her bill in the mail, but since the store was closing decided to pay by the ATM they had available at the counter.  As she did it, she thought of the changes in this store over the years.  It used to be a place for the middle class to shop.  The white middle class, that is.  As the nation changed, so did the store.  At first it was the customers that changed; then it was the employees.  Soon, even a position as intimate as personal shopper could be occupied by a person of color. 

Just like Consuela. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Greyson.  I love all of your choices, especially the powder blue one,” Consuela said, and Analee knew she meant it.  For some reason, the clerk had shown her more respect than most of the personal shoppers she had met here in a long time.

“Yes, that one is easy to love.”  Analee smiled.

The women looked at each other and knew it would be the last time that they would see one another.  After all, this store was closing. 

“How do I say thank you, Consuela?” 

“You said thank you to me by choosing me as your personal shopper.”  Consuela’s eyes were solid brown, like coffee, as Analee looked into them.   

It turned out to be a very good shopping day.

absence

On a stormy dark night, we drove home in silence. 

It didn’t matter at all to either one of us who won the Super Bowl.  What mattered was something completely different from football.  In fact it mattered so much that I can’t tell you what it was here.  You’ve all figured out by now that my short stories are more than stories – they are a reflection of my life and the people in it. 

That’s why I can’t talk about what mattered here.  

Not outright, at least.   I will try to disguise what matters from here on in:

We were worried about the rabbit we left alone in the backyard, caged up in a hutch.  We hadn’t expected such cold weather today and while we were at the Super Bowl Party, it had gotten colder.  In fact, the weather was icy and the rain threatened to turn into hail and the rabbit was so young and so unprotected.  

Neither one of us could relax.

“I wish you let me bring the rabbit with us,” I told my husband, Fred.

“Why do you say this once we’ve left home? You could have told me before we left.  Now if we turn back we’ll be late.  We’ll show up late for a Super Bowl Party holding a rabbit.  Is that what you want?”

I crossed my arms and refused to answer.

“Judith, do I turn around or do I keep going?”

Fred was good at acting like I had made the choice, not him.  I was pretty sure that he didn’t want to take the rabbit with us to the party, even if it might rain and she was a baby.  So he fed her and locked her in the hutch as I rushed out into the car (so we wouldn't be late).

My heart was breaking.  The rabbit was only one of four animals we had and were leaving behind.  The dogs (resilient little schnitzels) were used to us abandoning them, but the cat, Simone, (too sensitive for her own good) and our rabbit, Olivia (too young and tender to be left all alone) were always with me in my heart, no matter where we went. 

Five hours after we left our house, the Super Bowl was over and we were driving home. 

The road going there was long and there was a lot of traffic on Mulholland Drive.  I was sick to death, thinking that we’d find the rabbit dead or at least shivering and wet.   

Guilt consumed me. 

We drove up to the yard and parked the car in the garage.  I got out and carried the tray that held hot-wings earlier.  Fred carried the rest – chips, an empty guacamole bowl and three books that our friends had lent to us. 

We walked into the house and closed the garage door. 

I looked out the kitchen window at the hutch, just as I heard Fred sit down in his chair and sigh.  It was the sigh he usually had after a tough day, and I knew he didn’t want to get up. 

“I guess I’ll go check on Olivia,” I said, looking fearfully at the hutch.

“Want me to go with you?” Fred asked, perfunctorily.

I didn’t answer, but walked out the back door in the cold drizzle and carefully through the slippery grass.  As I approached the hutch, a terrible feeling of dread settled in my stomach.  What if she was dead or sick?  I resolved to bring her inside with me no matter what. 

I looked inside the wooden hutch, its grate covered with droplets of water.  The rabbit was nowhere to be seen and my heart dropped.  I opened the door and felt the familiar shuffling of Olivia making herself known.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I whispered.  I looked into the hutch and saw the reflection of her eyes, a pink nose twitching.  Was she wet?   I reached in to get her, to cradle her in my arms.  As I put my right hand in the hutch, I felt her damp fur and began to scoop her out of the corner. 

Right then, I felt a terrible bite on my index finger, as if spiked pliers clamped down suddenly. 

“Ouch!” I pulled my hand back and bashed my elbow on some exposed grate.  It hurt even worse than the bite.  As I removed my arm, my eyes clouding over with painful tears, Olivia came out slowly toward the opening. 

“Oh, yeah, now you come!” I said, wounded.

But Olivia wasn’t coming toward me, she was moving past me.  She jumped out of the open door and onto a wet pile of leaves near my ankle.

“Damn it!” I cried, turning to grab her.  I was much too slow.  Olivia moved like she had been plotting her escape for weeks.  She jumped past the leaves, over the roots of the ash tree and through a crack in the fence.  The crack led to our front yard and I bolted for the gate, in the dark, so I could catch her. 

Instead of reaching the gate, I tripped on the fence post we had been meaning to replace and fell on my shoulder against the cement walkway.  I was pretty sure I broke it, and I screamed.  The next sounds I heard were rain, my breathing and then… more rain.

I waited for Fred, but realized he was probably inside watching the post-game wrap up or maybe even off to bed.  I couldn’t move, I was in so much pain.  On top of that, my rabbit had run away from home after biting me.

As I lay on the ground, I thought of the things Fred would say.  “Did you really need to check on that rabbit?  After all, you did see she was fine.  Why did you have to hold her?  You probably scared her!”

I hated when he was right and he was going to be right about this.  I knew I felt guilty and responded to my guilt and checked on the rabbit and she bit me.  If I wasn’t out here lying on the ground in pain with a broken shoulder I would have walked into the house and blamed Fred for everything: for not caring about our bunny, for going to the Super Bowl Party without her.  For making me feel like an irresponsible fool when I was the one who went outside to check on her and then allowed her to escape. 

Just when I was ready to get up, Fred opened the side gate and let in our two schnitzel dogs, Mary and Lara.  The rushed to me and licked me in the face as I was lying there. 

“What are you doing lying there?  What happened?”  Fred asked me.  I looked up at him and wonder how he can be so insensitive.  I stop thinking this when I see him holding Olivia, a trembling little ball of fur, in his hands.

“You got her!” I said, thankfully. 

“She must have gotten out, I thought I locked her cage, but I guess I didn’t.  Are you okay?”

I was rejuvenated and stood up, knowing my shoulder wasn’t broken at all.  It was a little bruised, but not broken.

“I actually let her escape,” I confessed.  I kissed Fred and stroked Olivia’s fur.  We put her back in the hutch and as I felt inside, I could tell that it was warm and dry enough for her to be there. 

So that was our evening.  As I walked back into my kitchen I found Simone on the ledge, waiting for me.  She is too sensitive for her own good and sometimes I think that she times my absence with a stopwatch.  

She misses me when I’m gone and I miss her.  Mary and Lara seem to be fine with each other. 

It’s those other two I worry about….

grace

As an actuary for a leading insurance company, I see life tunnels differently. 

In recent years, a number of spectacular traffic accidents occurred in tunnels which have triggered debates about their safety.  An average of eighty accidents in freeway tunnels occur in California alone each year.  Because of a myriad of extenuating circumstances in tunnel accidents, the available data for the effectiveness of safety belts, airbags, brakes, and  tires is dramatically changed. 

I have imagined Clive driving through a tunnel.

He is in his brand new M3 Convertible, listening to Radiohead and approaching a darkened tunnel that he has been through a million times.  Only this time, Clive has to slam on his brakes when he sees a series of orange road signs signaling a work crew ahead. 

Of course Clive’s brakes and tires (complete with exclusive 18-inch double spoke wheels) are not able to keep the car from stopping in time.  The car is propelled, end over end, and finally comes to rest in the middle of the freeway in the way of oncoming traffic.

Clive’s life is not spared; neither is his car’s.

It would have to happen relatively soon, before his divorce to Hannah is final, if his widow (my best friend) is to have possession of all of their property, not just fifty percent.  She would then be grieving the loss of her scoundrel husband who left her for his sister’s friend (still in college) and not forced to watch that scoundrel parade around town with her. 

I would offer tissue to both Hannah and Clive’s mother, but secretly be cheering his death deep down inside.

Hannah is much more forgiving.

“For the last three years we haven’t been best friends, you know,” she says over coffee at Peet’s.  I have offered to be moral support as she signs the papers, but I don’t have to like Clive or pretend I like him. 

“Really?” I ask.  “Maybe that’s why he slept with his sister’s friend who is still in college.”

Hanna sips her coffee and raises an eyebrow at me. 

“Where’s the grace, Amelia?” she asks me.  ME!  She wants to know where the grace is for her husband who even flirted with me right before they got married. 

“I don’t have grace for him.”

“Well, then, do you deserve grace?”

“You’re taking what I say out of context.”

“Oh, I see.”

Hannah puts down her coffee cup and I see a hidden smile that is perpetually on her face.  She is the first friend I’d call in the middle of the night, the most faithful friend to laugh with me and cry with me.  She has an angel’s face framed with wispy curls.  She is joyful and perpetually optimistic.  This kind of savagery isn’t supposed to happen to her. 

It should have happened to me. 

“I’m just saying that we all need forgiveness.  We all need grace.” 

I want to smirk and tell her that most of the time that’s true, except when your husband sleeps with another woman.  It is then that I remember my Dad. 

Part of me dies inside when I remember the day he left. 

I had just walked home from school and it was a sunny day in October.  I was walking with Robert Newcastle, who lived just two blocks away from me.  I secretly liked him and he secretly liked me, I was convinced.  We had such chemistry, even in the fourth grade. 

As we walked we talked about the science fair and what we were going to enter and then he asked if I wanted to do a team project.  I remembered that my heart just stopped.  The sky exploded into a multi-colored brilliant display of stars and I had to look down at my feet to see if I was still walking. 

When Robert Newcastle turned down his street, I walked for a bit before running home to mine.  I couldn’t wait to tell my Mom what just happened. 

I turned the corner and saw my Dad’s car in the driveway; he never came home during the day. I thought Grandpa or Grandma had died and my absolute euphoria was forgotten momentarily.  I ran into the house to see my parents standing up and facing each other, looking like they could slap each other. 

“What happened?” I asked, fear pumping through my veins. 

They both dropped their anger and looked at me.  My mother, with a look of sadness and pity; my father with a look of guilt.  I had a terrible feeling that my life was over.  In a moment we would all sit down like adults as Daddy told me that he was in love with Mrs. Greenbaum, a married neighbor who lived two doors down from us. 

That’s when I heard the word: divorce.  They were getting a divorce.    

I emotionally divorced myself from my father that day.  I even insisted to Mother that we move and we did.  We lived in the apartments on Willow Street, next to elderly people and single teachers.  It was just the two of us, she would say, trying to smile.  I didn’t ever do a science fair project with Robert Newcastle and from that day forward, I’d never emotionally trust a man.

“What is grace except undeserved forgiveness?” I am thinking that she forgives way too easily.

“Exactly!”  Hannah laughs, like I’ve just told a joke. 

“No, thanks.”

“No, thanks until you need it.”

“No thanks for forgiving Clive.”

“I can forgive him,” she says, stretching.  “I can and I will.  I chose him; he and I had a covenant that he broke, but what else can I do?  I can’t hang on to this offense… I want to get on with my life.”

I am all astonishment as I look across the table at my friend who is signing her divorce papers with that little smile on her face.   

“I was supposed to be here for moral support,” I say, drinking my last sip of cappuccino.  “You’re the one encouraging me.”

Hannah laughs and reaches for my hand.  I hold it and I feel a surge of hope, a deep desire to have this grace that she’s talking about.  I don’t know the first thing about forgiveness and I want to.  I want to learn so that I can be free.

“Don’t worry, Amelia.  I’m no doormat.  I’m forgiving him to set myself free, not just him.” 

“I never said you’re a doormat, did I?”

“No, I guess not.”

We gather our purses together and she places the signed documents in her bag.  Our next stop is to her lawyer’s office to drop them off.  She could have signed them there, in her attorney’s office, but she wanted to do it at her favorite coffee shop with me next to her. 

“Next time you want moral support, ask someone with morals to go with you.”  I say, hugging her and we get into her car to drive off. 

As start to back out of the parking space, I notice a blue balloon tied to the post. 

I think it must have been placed there over the weekend for a party.  Now the balloon’s helium was waning and it was no longer inflated to its full capacity.  Still tied to the post, it looks like it’s trying to get away but it can’t.

“Wait!” I say to Hannah, who stops backing out of the space.  I jump out of the car and go over to the sad blue balloon, whipped about by the wind so much that it’s bopping itself against the post it is tied to.  I untie it and set it free, and it goes flying down the street, blown by the breeze.  I watch it and am satisfied.

Even if it didn’t have enough helium to go up to the sky, I knew it should at least be free.  

protoplasm

Photo by Brett Innes
(a good friend and filmmaker from South Africa)

You can call me Christine, that is my English name. 

I have had two generations of  white people call me Christine and they think they know me.  In some ways, they do – they know the woman whose fat is gone but whose brain is still active.  I’m the one  who is not afraid to speak Dinka, Arabic and English in this place.  I am the ghost that still lives, the one that saw all the living and dying in Narus, the Red Cross refugee settlement in South Sudan.

I know language and that’s why I’m still alive.  Otherwise I would be sleeping under the hard ground with all of them – the ones who had all of their life drain from them during the time of the war.

My father, a man they called Abraham, never had a son.  He had one wife and three daughters who he hid from the Janjaweed here.  I was the eldest daughter and so he spoke to me.

“Don’t let them steal from you,” he told me before he left to go fight in the dubious war that no one ever returned from.  He looked into my eyes and spoke seriously.  “Don’t let Mother trust anyone.  Don’t allow her to drink the dark syrup.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Learn all you can while you are here.  Make sure you practice the English here.”

“Yes, Father.”

With that, my father turned around and started walking away from  the camp with no fences.  There were thousands of people there, most of them clinging to life.  The ones who were the worst were dying in the tents that the Red Cross had set up. 

Those of us who were alive watched the tanks. 

The tanks were large black containers of water that were covered.  On most days they would be replenished with more water, escorted in by a team of militia with AK-47’s.  The men were dressed in camouflage, their skin as black as mine, but they carried a severe, jagged authority with them.  We all knew not to address them.  I watched their commander, ordering the other soldiers around in Dinka, our language. 

“Don’t spill one drop!” the Major shouted as they hoisted the hose that filled up the black tank into place.  While slivers of water, the smallest amounts, dripped from the hose, some women and children rushed to the water truck to hold out their hands with scowling faces, braving the loud noise of the pump for a few drops on their palm. 

“GET BACK!” the Major screamed at them, hitting one woman with the butt of his AK.  She fell to the ground and a few people dragged her body away.  Just as the major turned his attention to shout at her and the people carrying her off, others moved forward to hold out their hands for drops of water. 

That’s the memory I have of the water:  It was worth risking our lives for. 

In a week’s time there, I could see why.  Water would keep us from contracting the terrible sickness.  People in camp were all dying of one thing and the children died the fastest.  The sickness came out of people in a syrupy black fluid. 

Some who were dying were so crazed with thirst that they even attempted drinking the fluid coming out of people.  As much as the Red Cross Volunteers warned the crowds not to do it, people could be seen doing the unthinkable. 

“Father warned me to keep you all from doing this,” I told Mother.  Her eyes looked into mine with a terrified sadness.

“Anifa,” Mother whispered to me.  For that is my real name, ‘Anifa – one who loves this life.  “I have brought you into this hell and your sisters, too.  I am dying and now you will die alongside of me.  My family will never forgive me.”

She was horrified and I tried to calm her.  I ran toward the the tents to look for a woman who was known for the way she treated our people with love – Nurse Jen.   When I found her, she was caring for a sick child, but I pleaded with her to come back with me, half in motion, half with my broken English.   

Nurse Jen said “Yes,” a word I grew to love. 

We arrived where my Mother was, sitting up against a fence-post, my sisters crying next to her. Nurse Jen just stayed standing.  

“Does your Mother know God?” 

I shook my head.  What Nurse Jen asked was a terrible thing to ask to a Jieng person. To us, it is like asking if you are already dead.  I didn’t have time to explain to her the wrong nature of her question. Instead, I just said no.

Nurse Jen knelt down next to me and pleaded with me this time.  “Then we must hurry.  You must tell her to believe in her heart that Jesus Christ is her savior!”  She spoke with such urgency and I translated it to Dinka without thinking.

“She says there is no time to heal you.  You must trust that a man named Jesus Christ who is coming here to heal you.  Will you do that?”

Mother’s face became calm.  For a moment, she looked like she was milking our goats at home.  “My daughter, he is already here.  Do you not see him?”

I knew Mother was leaving me and I clasped her wrist.  I wanted to stop the death, but Mother had already lost all of her fluid.  She left me while the nurse was there, waiting for her answer.

“What did she say?” Nurse Jen asked, her dirty face worn from caring for all the sick people. 

I was embarrassed and didn’t want to tell her, but I was also sick with disappointment. 

My Mother was no more.

“She say Jesus…” I was trying to piece together whatever English I had to make a sentence.  “She say he already here.”

Nurse Jen nodded.  From the look on her face I could see that she didn’t think my Mother was crazy.  She explained to me that Mother saw with her Spirit what I could not see.  In her explanation, I felt hope and comfort, mainly because I saw Mother’s face as she was dying.  Her frightened look had left and now she was gone. 

No more, as my people say.

Every day after Mother was no more,  I would take my sisters to help at the hospital tents.  The nurses all spoke English and they spoke to us as if we understood them and eventually we did. 

Each day we helped carry water that was black with blood and feces and dump it far away from the camp.  Some people chased us, but we spilled it there on the ground, as the nurses directed us to.  We eventually  were able to dispose of it in an underwater tunnel that people built next to the hospital.  It was called deech, the nurses said.  “Go put the water in the deech…”

At the hospital, I learned other words, too.  The word I remember is protoplasm.  Apparently the sickness attacked this protoplasm (the smallest part of what makes up the body) and then took over the body.  Without healthy protoplasm, the bodies of those around me were doomed. 

“Sudan has become weakened, just like the bodies of those with this dysentery,”  Dr. Whallen told the nurses one day.  They quieted him, signalling that I understood his words.  For some reason, they thought I would disagree. 

“He’s very right,” I said, quietly.  The nurses all looked shocked, but the doctor smiled. 

“Sorry, Christine,” he said, wiping his washed hands on a towel I held for him.  “I always forget you speak English.” 

On that day, I realized that I spoke English.  Before that, I didn’t think I did. 

One day, we heard good news.  The Sudanese in the South had made a good alliance and there would be more water for all of us.  People were going to bring bricks and build a proper hospital and even a school for the children. 

With this news also came sadder news.  Nurse Jen came to tell me herself. 

“I have received a request to go back to South Africa.  I must  leave you here at this camp.” 

I did not want to hear her at all, so I looked to the ground. 

“I am sorry,” she said.  I could tell she was crying, but she was white and I knew she wasn’t dying. 

 Before she said another thing I felt her hands on my neck.  I was startled and stepped back.  She was giving me a gift, a treasure to keep only for myself.  It was what the whites call a a necklace.  It is not copper rings, it is not beads.  In fact, it felt flimsy as if it didn’t belong in the Sudan.  It felt like a wispy string that a bird would drop on its way to build a nest. 

“You are very special, Christine,” she was saying as I examined the gift.  “I hope you learn even more than you have at the camp.  Even learn Arabic, if you can.  It is important to learn everything that you can.”

And with that, Nurse Jen turned around and left me there, clutching the strange gift she left hanging around my neck.

That was fourteen years ago.

My people have settled here nicely at Narus, but there will always be the issue of water.  Some of the missionaries come and think they are doing us a big favor, but they are really only drinking our water.  The ones who have made a difference are the ones who dig the wells and build the schools.  The rest carry a Gospel without feet.

Now the English call me a chonslatoh.  The Americans call me a translater.   The Dutch call me a verrtalerr.  I can hear all of them, but they seldom see me as more than the woman who can make my simple people understand their ways of doing things. 

Every day I read the Bible in English.  Not only does it help me understand the way the language works (so unlike the Dinka tongue!), but it has given me assurance of meeting the Jesus my Mother went with at the end of her life. 

I find solace there, in the words of God. 

A simple Dinka girl who was expected to die a terrible death!  God has made me more than what even my father thought I could become.  

It is the life of my people that I pray for everyday.

This is a picture taken yesterday in Narus, Sedan.
 Click here for photo credit and for an article about the drinking water for the people.