Writing – Page 8 – Straight From the Heart

Thinking

Like a zombie he sits
In crypt-like silence
staring into space
Smoking a cigarette
Drinking coffee
Thinking

His wife
Is cooking and cleaning
Skinning her knuckles on the washboard
Bringing in firewood
As he sits in the shadows
Thinking

The bills are behind
The cupboards are bare
His wife is crying
The kids are misbehaving
As he sits in the shadows
Thinking

The kids are all grown
The boys are breaking the law
His wife is working
Cooking and cleaning
As he sits in the shadows
Thinking

The years pass by
They’re both old and gray
His wife is lonely and afraid
But in silence he lies
Between snow-white sheets
Thinking

He closes his eyes
He breathes his last
Leaving only behind
Fragmented memories of a man
Sitting in the shadows
Thinking

Broken Wings

These words came to me this morning as I thought about my son and the struggles he’s been going through for the past year. He travels the world to rescue children from sex-trafficking. He trains insanely hard to stay in shape, to be strong, to be ready for the next call. But, for personal reasons, he no longer works for the organization that sent him on endless missions to train the police in different countries, to teach them how to better rescue children, as well as him personally breaking in and rescuing a child. Many times, however, it was too late. For a year, he has been healing, praying, and longing to rescue as many children as he can. Pay or no pay, he is driven to rescue children from Satan’s den of sadistic torture, hopelessness, and despair. So, my son is waiting, healing, and longing with all his heart to spread his wings, and fly again.

There is pain in his eyes
His soul is restless
He longs to fly
But his wings are broken
How long he cries
Do I have to wait
Before you speak
Before you open the door
Heal my wings
And let me fly again
To rescue one more child
To tell her about you
How you can heal her wounds
Her mind
Her shattered soul
The wait is long and painful
Where are you
Don’t you need me anymore
Does the world not need saving anymore
There is pain in his eyes
His soul is restless
His wings are quivering
Healing
Unfolding
It won’t be much longer before God whispers
My beloved, faithful child
It’s time to fly again

Hanging Upside Down!

John 16:33
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world!”

Stress! Who isn’t feeling it these days? As a kid dealing with parents, two brothers, and school, I’d run bawling to my bedroom, slam the door shut, play my accordion, and sing until my tears dried up, and my heart felt happy again.

Today, dealing with a husband, two dogs, and everything in between, I still run bawling to my bedroom, and slam the door shut, but my accordion is too heavy to pick up, and I rarely ever sing anymore. And when I do, the dogs run and hide!

One day, at the brink of insanity, I glared out my bedroom window and noticed that our birdhouse on the old maple tree was hanging upside down. Just like I’m feeling, I grumbled to myself. Upside down! Inside out! My world is falling apart and everything in it is screaming, “Fix me!” and I don’t want to deal with it anymore!

I took a picture of the broken, upside-down birdhouse to use in my digital art, and as a reminder that ugly things can become beautiful when we see them from a different perspective. The ugly mess on the outside may not change, but the ugly mess on the inside; our rotten attitudes, anger, and resentment will change when we ask God for help. When we read His Word and listen as He speaks, and do what He says. He never promised He’d make things easy for us. He promised that He would always be there. That He will never put on us more than we can bear. That His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.

Things in my world are still broken, but today they don’t seem as broken as they were yesterday or the day before. I’m even thinking of leaving the birdhouse hanging upside down. It’s not so bad. I kinda like it that way. Maybe the birds will like it that way, too. Maybe they’ll want all the birdhouses turned upside down. Okay, stop! One broken, upside-down birdhouse is enough!

This Too Shall Pass

When life gets tough, the tough get tougher, and tougher, and tougher . . .

My mother had this saying; she had lots of sayings. But this one always stuck: You can get used to hanging if you hang long enough.

Maybe it’s true, I never tried it.

What does it mean anyway? Because there are just certain things in life I can’t get used to, no matter how long I hang. No matter how long I beat and bang against it. If it hurts, I want it gone. NOW!

My husband is battling PTSD. He still cries for his shipmates that died in the fire aboard the USS Forestall fifty-six years ago. He still hears the screams and sees the charred bodies that he put in body bags. And he still feels guilty because he survived while so many others died. Survival’s guilt they call it. But they never tell you how to erase it from your mind.

The fresh-out-of-college psychologist Buck saw week after week thought she had it all figured out. Her theory was that if he kept going back through the flames and reliving that hellish day over and over again that he would eventually get used to it. That, poof! The nightmares and anger, rage, and depression would all disappear. But, her hanging theory didn’t work. The noose only tightened tighter around his neck.

Today, five years later, his PTSD has gotten progressively worse. Some days, I don’t even recognize my husband of fifty-one years. He’s a stranger. Mean and argumentative. And I don’t like him; that monster he suddenly turns into.

War breaks out in our house often. A vicious war that neither of us can win. Between my emotional madness and his angry episodes, we attack each other as if fighting a ferocious enemy. It’s like the real us stands outside our bodies, watching and wondering who the heck those two crazy people are!

Maybe this is the part where if we hang long enough we’ll get used to it.

Never! This is the part where we pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and work on fixing it. We’re tired of fighting. We’re tired of hurting each other and crying and begging for each other’s forgiveness. We’re tired of broken promises, of trying so hard and failing over and over again.

Buck’s seeing a psychiatrist, now, and I’m in cognitive therapy to get a grip and a better understanding of this ugly thing inside me called Borderline Personality Disorder.

We will get through this because we love each other. And we talk things out. We bare our souls; those raw, shameful parts of ourselves that we only share with each other.

Yes, it hurts, and we’ve been going through this for too long. And what makes it worse for Buck is that for years he blocked out the pain in his work and family and church and fishing and playing ball. He was young and strong and healthy. And now, he’s not. Now, he’s retired with mental and health issues that require lots of weekly visits to the VA.

Our world as we knew it has been turned upside down. Maybe this is all part of getting old. Maybe my expectations were set too high, and I was foolish for even thinking there is such a thing as the golden years. I don’t know. I just know that we’re going through a rough season right now, and we will have to ride it out. Because, as my mother used to say: This too shall pass.

When Apologizing is like Eating Dirt

It was just an ordinary summer day when my brother Kenny and I were left home alone while our parents and youngest sibling were grocery shopping. Kenny was seven, and I was eight.

Long before video games, PlayStation, and iPhones, we actually had to sit and talk to each other or play pick-up sticks or ball and jacks or tinker toys or build cabins out of Lincoln Logs.

Well, that particular day, we wanted a little more excitement than that. We couldn’t go outside and play, and playing hide-and-seek in our tiny apartment was like looking for an elephant hiding under the bed.

While pacing the tiny living room floor, I glanced out the window and saw the landlord working in her flowerbed. For whatever reason, mom, and daddy didn’t like the landlords, so I didn’t like them either.

Suddenly, as if being poked with the devil’s pitchfork, I coaxed Kenny into doing something totally out of character for both of us. We raised the window, stuck out our pea-brain heads and yelled, “Hey, old lady Brummel! Hey, old lady Brummel!”

We lived quite a distance away, so I didn’t think she even heard us until she threw down her garden tools and stormed toward the apartment huffing and puffing and smoke pouring out of her ears.

Oh, no! She’s coming to chop off our arms and legs!

Like a cat with its tail on fire, Kenny ran downstairs and locked the door just in the nick of time before she started pounding on it and screaming like the big bad wolf, “Let me in! Let me in! I’m telling your parents when they get home!”

True to her word and to my horror, as soon as the car pulled into the driveway, the phone started ringing.

My mother was the warden at our house. A strict, religious warden that didn’t put up with nonsense and expected her brood to follow the rules or else. And that day “or else” meant that we march our little impudent behinds over to the landlord and apologize!

I’d rather have shoveled a pile of manure in the freezing cold stark naked.

Yes, she made me go, but I made her pay!

Like a bloody battle between the North and the South, I bawled and kicked and screamed as mom nearly yanked my arm out of the socket, pulling and dragging me across the field. By the time we got to the landlord’s house, mom needed a long nap and I needed a straight jacket.

I thought that if I danced around bawling and screaming long and hard enough, mom would give up and take me home. But, oh no! If it meant waiting for the rapture to take place, I was going to straighten up and apologize before I could even think about going home.

Like swallowing a ton of bricks, I finally choked up the words everyone was waiting to hear and never talked my brother into doing anything that stupid again.

But, I just remembered that other time when . . .

Take Up Your Mat and Walk Like a Boss

So, I’m paralyzed. Been this way since the car accident. I can’t walk. I can’t feed myself, bathe myself, even brush my own teeth. And this Man comes to me and asks, “Do you want to get well?”

And with a big, pearly white-toothed smile I say, “No. I’m good. I like people waiting on me hand and foot. I like using my handicap as a crutch. I like not having to do anything, prove anything, take responsibility for anything. I like people coddling me, making excuses for me, doing everything under the sun for me.

Of course, this ridiculous scenario is just fiction. I’m physically healthy. I can clean my own house, pull weeds from my flowerbeds, even walk around the block a few times.

But the man Jesus approached at the healing pool had been an invalid for thirty-eight years, and Jesus asked him, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6)

Why would Jesus ask such a question? Why would He even think that the man wouldn’t want to be healed? He was at the healing pool, wasn’t he?

As a snotty-nosed kid, and seeing the world through my over-sized rose-tinted glasses, I often wondered about that scripture. Then, when I grew up and those glasses got punched off my face, I saw the world and the people in it differently. I even saw myself differently.

Reality stinks. It rattles our brain and makes us see things about ourselves and others that we’d rather not. Don’t open my eyes, and I won’t have to see how many people use their long-time physical and emotional handicaps to bully and control others. Stick in a pair of earplugs and I won’t have to hear their never-ending moans and groans.

It’s funny how conversations often become a contest of who had the most surgeries or take the most pills or has the worst ailments or suffers the most pain.

Why do people do that?

As kids growing up, my brother and I had rheumatic fever, but Kenny’s was more severe than mine. He was sickly all the time, in and out of the hospital and pumped full of penicillin at the least sign of a cold. He cried a lot. Was coddled and babied a lot. And I felt ignored a lot.

Then, when I was in the third grade, I got deathly sick every day after lunch and laid my head on my desk trying not to throw up all over the floor. Finally, mom and daddy took me to the doctor to discover I had walking pneumonia.

Finally! I was one up on my brother and rubbed it in his face, boasting that I was the sickest, now, and it’s my turn to get all the attention!

But, Kenny wasn’t having it and argued that he was still the sickest. After dragging mom into it, she finally ended the contest by calling it a tie. We were both equally sick.

For many years I expected people to treat me with kid gloves because of my out-of-whack emotional disorders. I relied on others to do things for me that I was afraid of doing myself. I relied on my loved ones to protect and defend me, to be there for me, to boost my confidence, to validate and make excuses for me. And the more I relied on others, the more dependent I became.

Then, hearing my desperate cries at the healing pool one day, Jesus knelt beside me and whispered, “Do you want to get well?”

When the prison doors swung open, I just stood there gazing wide-eyed into the vastness of freedom. It was scary out there without my crutches —- those emotional handicaps I so desperately clung to for so long. The smell of freedom was alluring and sweet, but stepping into it was like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.

I still rely on the love and support of my family, but I don’t expect them to sit and hold my hand twenty-four hours a day, not that I ever did. I don’t expect them to make up for everything I lost throughout my life. I don’t expect them to coddle and pamper me and agree with every single thing I do or say.

Just as God has set me free, I set others free. I know what it’s like to be bullied by someone else’s handicaps, and I’d rather cry alone in the coldest, darkest cave than to ever do that to the ones I love.

Freedom always comes at a cost, especially if you’ve been enslaved for a long, long time. In order to gain one thing you have to let go of another and another and another, whatever tattered rag you’re clinging to because it feels reliable and safe.

And as crazy as it seems, many people would rather lie around sucking on their emotional pacifiers than get off their pity pot and walk.

I don’t want to be one of those people. I want to get well. I want to be what I was created to be. I want to take up my mat and walk like a boss!

When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?” John 5:6

Devils in Disguise

The ER was the last place I wanted to be. Unless you’re half-dead, it can take hours before your name is called, and then you’re taken to a room where you sit and wait some more. That’s why I decided to go by ambulance. Made sense to me.

When we arrived at the ER, I was pleasantly surprised to see a smiling nurse standing beside a gurney waiting for me. Elated that my plan worked, I imagined being whisked away to a happy, sunshiny room and covered with a warm, fuzzy blanket. No waiting. No begging for pain relievers. No getting the brush-off like a bum on Skid Row.

And there’s my room. My cold and lonely little room, where I was wheeled on a bed of nails, writhing in pain and left to slowly freeze to death. Where are my people? My angels of mercy? My warm, fuzzy blanket? My PAINKILLERS?!!

My husband’s warm hands and sympathetic eyes were the only comforts in this desolate room. I’m grateful for him. I love him to death. He’s my best friend, my Knight in shining armor. But right now, I’d trade him in a heartbeat for a painkiller!

The minutes crawled by. Then an hour. Then another. Finally, a nurse came in, his smile brighter than his snow-white jacket, asking more questions than Judge Judy. “What’s your name? How old are you? Are you allergic to anything? On a scale of one to ten, how bad is your pain?”

Finally, the song and dance ended, and Mr. Sunshine shot out the door, promising to return with something for pain.

And I waited, and waited, and waited.

Pacing the floor, my husband opened the door, and across the hall, the nurse’s station was buzzing with important stuff, like drinking coffee and clowning around with their buddies! No wonder patients are put on hold for so long. But what do I know? I’m just a bag of bones with one foot in the grave, praying to be put out of my misery.

My husband is a patient, loving man, and would rather cut off his arm than confront anyone. But when he stormed out the door, I started praying.

I don’t know what he said, and I don’t care, but within seconds, a host of nurses sheepishly appeared.

Seconds later, an absent-minded X-ray technician rushed in, got me out of bed, then flew out the door and down the hall, leaving me limping behind like a three-legged dog. Suddenly, as if remembering to pick up his kids from school, he stopped, spun around, and gasped, “Oh! Do you need a wheelchair?”

And my brain screamed: Are you kidding me?! I needed a wheelchair when you broke my back, jerking me off the bed! No, I’m good. I always walk like this after being hit by a train!

Finally, with no help from him, I dragged my twisted body through the door, feeling as naked as a plucked chicken beneath the flimsy, paper-thin hospital gown.

Barely looking my way, he says, “Stand here, stand there, turn that way, turn this way, hold your breath, breathe. We’re done; you can go back to your room.”

How thoughtful of him.

No sooner than I crawled back on the bed, he rushed through the door again. “I’m so sorry! But I need a few more pictures, but you don’t have to get up. You can lie right there.”

There was nothing human about this elf-like, dark-haired guy. Like a drunk driver, he zigzagged his X-ray machine beside my bed, banging it, apologizing, and banging it again. I felt like I was auditioning for The Three Stooges!

“Lift your bottom,” he said, his voice hurried and apologetic. “I need to slide this board under you.”

Up until that moment, I was as brave as a lion. No tears, no moaning and groaning, no screaming and yelling; not even a whimper. But when he SHOVED that board under me, that’s when I died and went to Hell! That’s when demons ripped my flesh apart and began eating me alive. That’s when I yelled. When I bawled like a baby! When I screamed like a burning witch!

I actually felt a twinge of pity for the little guy. Despite his clumsiness, he was frantically trying not to hurt me. And insane with pain, I was frantically trying not to knock his teeth out!

Then, like a hit-and-run driver, everyone gathered their gear and left my mutilated body to slowly bleed to death. No warm, fuzzy blanket. No painkillers. No hope of getting out of this hospital alive.

Another hour crawled by before Mr. Sunshine finally returned with something for pain.

Dare I believe this charming, white-toothed devil? Dare I trust those baby blues? That mesmerizing smile? You decide. He handed me a wee, little, tiny pill in a wee, little, tiny cup and said, “Chew it up. It’ll work faster.”

What planet am I on?!!

From across the hall, moans for help were cut short with a flippant, “Take a deep breath!”

And I felt like screaming, “It doesn’t work!”

Suddenly, the technician ran back in and cheered, “No broken bones!”

Yay! I feel so much better now!

A few minutes later, Mr. Sunshine returned with a jackhammer and jammed it into my hip. To ease the pain, he said. It didn’t.

An hour later, I was discharged. Really? Just when I was beginning to like it here.

Feeling like I’d just spent a week in the Twilight Zone, I hobbled with my husband arm-in-arm down the long, dimly lit corridor. No wheelchair. No Painkillers. No warm, fuzzy blankets. It’s as if I came to the ER with a chopped-off arm, and they slapped a Band-Aid on it and sent me home.

But wait! Hell’s fury isn’t finished with me yet. No sooner than my husband helped me to a chair before leaving to get the car, an Amazon woman with a Freddy Krueger scowl told me to get up because someone else needed to sit there!

Seriously?! I’ve just been put through a meat grinder! Can’t you at least pretend to be a human for five seconds?!

Lessons I learned in the ER:
If you’re not having a heart attack, take the car.
If you’re in pain, suck it up.
If you’re in a hurry, stay home.
If you want special treatment, go to the spa.
If you want amusement, go to Disneyland; it’s cheaper!

Teacher From Hell

We’ve all had at least one, that teacher that made a career of belittling their students in front of the class. We were kids. We were taught to obey authority. So we didn’t fight back.

Then there was Eugene.

Every day, for no reason at all, Mr Savage, a dark-haired short little man with a great big fat ego, punched Eugene on the shoulder. Maybe he didn’t like the way he sat in his chair or that he wore glasses or had curly hair and a Robert Mitchum dimple in his chin. Maybe he didn’t like that Eugene was bigger and smarter and better looking than he was. Or maybe it’s just that Mr Savage had to live up to his name by terrorizing his seventh-grade students.

One day, Mr Savage was extra mean. I don’t know what Eugene did, but Mr Savage marched over to his desk and plowed his fist into Eugene’s shoulder nearly knocking him out of his chair.

Suddenly, as if waking a sleeping lion, Eugene jumped up, shook his fist in Mr Savage’s face and snarled, “Now, hit me again!”

And sitting dumbfounded across from him, my insides were yelling, “Yeah! And that goes for me too!”

He must have heard me because Mr Savage laid off Eugene and started bullying me.

Every day Mr Savage singled me out, asking me questions hoping I’d give the wrong answer so that he and everyone else could roll with laughter. And every day I just sat there clenching my jaw and shooting green-eyed daggers through his heart.

My you-can’t-make-me stubbornness didn’t sit well with him. So one day while the students and teachers were lined up to go to their classrooms, Mr Savage marched over to me and snarled sarcastically, “What’s the matter with your mother? Is she an invalid or something?”

Dumbstruck and wondering what the heck invalid meant, I blurted, “Yes sir, she’s in a wheelchair.”

Suddenly, as if I’d punched him in the nose he spun around before I could explain, tucked his tail between his legs and practically ran into the classroom and slammed the door behind him!

I didn’t know Mr Savage had written my parents requesting a conference with them because I was failing Social Studies. It wasn’t until much later I discovered that daddy wrote back telling him about mom’s back injury and that if he wanted to talk to them he’d have to come to the house.

God was my hero that day. He grabbed the savage beast by the horns and gave him a swift kick in the butt. And from that day forth, Mr Savage never ever bothered me again.

Yes, I failed Social Studies. But Mr Savage just plain failed. He failed at teaching. He failed at having compassion and wisdom and understanding. Rather than building us up and helping us learn he beat us down to the ground. So I give him and every teacher like him a big fat F!

“Whoever digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit they have made. The trouble they cause recoils on them; their violence comes down on their own heads.” Psalm 7:15,16 NIV