Tattered Hearts

My heart was pounding in my ears and mouth was hanging open. I couldn't believe what I had just seen. It was a narrow miss. Such a close call. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins.

She walked across the pavement with the sway of an alcoholic, except that she didn't drink. Her hair was a frizzy gray, and brown cat eyed sunglasses sat on her nose. Her dark green camo printed maxi-dress was stretched around her belly and neon orange flip flops were on her calloused feet. 

A look of triumph crossed her face as she turned to me with wild eyes and whispered, as if she were telling me a secret.

"You saw that, didn't you? He's going to say that it was my fault, but you saw it happen. You tell him what he did."

I nodded my head in shock as I met the angry glance of the portly man riding the blue bicycle. I wanted to say something, anything to let him know how sorry I was about what had just happened. But he quickly passed by, glancing back and shaking his head in disgust. 

I was surprised that he didn't stop, or react more passionately-- after all he had narrowly escaped being plowed over by a large SUV driven by an aging man who had failed to look before he backed up. And just like that, the man and the bicycle disappeared from sight, as if nothing had happened.

The suburban jolted in front of us. He grunted as he climbed out of the driver's seat and limped over to us, his collared navy shirt hanging over his belly un-tucked from his worn out blue jeans.

"You don't even know what you did, do you?" she asked in an accusing tone. "You almost ran over a man on a bike!"

"Oh, hush. You don't even know what you're talking about. Just get in the truck and be quiet," he growled.

She looked at me. 

"Tell him," she said in excitement.

I paused. 

"She's right," I said cautiously, "You almost hit him."

"Well, if you weren't being so crazy and getting me all upset...," his voice was rising.

"No, you have to admit it. You can't tell me it's my fault this time because she saw it too," she said with a look of superiority.

He took her arm and helped her down the steps. She could barely move, her legs were swollen, and she was unsteady on her feet. 

She reached up and ran her hand through his silver hair. 

"You used to like it when I ran my fingers through your hair," she laughed. 

He growled, mumbled something under his breath, and said "Why do you have to act like this?"

He turned to me, "Do you want her?"

I didn't know what to say and so I just smiled. He laughed, as if he was trying to explain her craziness.

He helped her climb up into the truck and made his way to the driver's side. I could hear their arguing as they pulled out of the alley and continued on their travels.

Did they love each other? Sometimes it seemed like it. Did they hate each other? The tone of their conversations sure sounded like it most of the time. 

If you were alone with one of them, each one would tell you how terrible the other was. Actually, they were more than willing to share that information no matter who was around. They were unashamed of their lack of respect for one another.

But yet they stayed together. They argued, and yelled, and drove each other crazy-- quite literally. He couldn't live without her. She couldn't live without him.

 It didn't make logical sense, but somehow they depended on each other. One broken soul patched to another broken soul--the edges frayed, rips and tears over every inch of their tattered hearts. Yet they remained together and they always would.

She Always had Perfect Hair

She always took pride in her hair. She had her style down to a science—wash only a couple of times a week with a shampoo she could only buy in Canada, apply the Suave hairspray (the one with the pink cap) precisely on the front, expertly swoop the hair back just so, apply a specific number of hair pins (which she could only find at Sally Beauty Supply), and tease the strands until she was satisfied with the look.

Due to an obsessive urge for perfectionism, a trait inherited from her successful father who also had perfectly styled hair, this process could take almost an hour—sometimes including frustrated sighs, starting the process again from the beginning, and angry words directed at her bald and impatient husband who was standing by the door tapping his foot, having been ready long ago to leave for an appointment.

Her hair could dictate her mood for the day. A few loose strands would cause utter embarrassment as she anxiously worried that people would think her a slob. The decision to stop dying her hair and accept that she was growing older, and her hair whiter, by the year took her over 20 years to make. From the sight of the first strand of snow white hair, another inheritance from her father, she began to worry about how she would look as an old woman with white hair. Her hair was her glory.

One evening, after tripping over her husband’s ill-placed tool box in the dark, she found herself on the floor in the dark with one arm stuck above her head. She screamed in pain, panic, and horror at the fact that she had no control over her arm.

Her husband rushed in the room and, after assuring her that she looked presentable, they headed off to the emergency room, an orthopedic surgeon and to a diagnosis of a fractured and dislocated shoulder. They returned home with strong pain meds and a sling to hold her arm and shoulder.

Her husband was racked with guilt. Why had he left the tool box in the middle of the room? If only he had just put it away. How could he have been so stupid? He apologized to her from the depth of his heart and she accepted with true forgiveness—never once uttering a word to make him feel guilty for his mistake.

After the initial shock of her condition and the intolerable pain she was feeling, she wondered how on earth she would comb her hair with the use of only one arm.

She could never be seen in public with messy hair and since she would have to go to physical therapy and countless doctor appointments—she wasn’t going to be able to hide in the privacy and comfort of her home wearing her pajamas and disheveled white hair. Even if she could have, she would have worried that someone would stop by to visit and see her hair such a mess and she would never get over the embarrassment of it all.

It was agreed upon that her husband would comb and style her hair under her direction. Whenever she was ready to have her hair done, she would call for him and he would get up from his easy chair without a word and be ever-ready to be her personal hair stylist.

She handed him her brush and he gently ran it through her hair. He held one large working hand near the top of her head as he brushed her hair with soft movements, so as not to cause the slightest discomfort of pulled hair.

Next, per her instruction, he carefully created the straightest of parts. With intense concentration he swooped her hair up just so, removed the pink cap from her Suave hairspray and applied it with the smooth motion of an artist’s hand, gently tucked the pins in place and fixed any areas which she felt made her hair look unruly.

Though her eyes showed that her hair wasn’t as perfect as she would have liked, the disappointment was quickly replaced with a look of love as she thanked him for helping her. He graciously told her he would help her anytime because she was his best friend and partner in life—had been since they were 16 years old.

When he left the room, she used her one working arm to straighten her hair to attempt to perfect her style. She didn’t believe it, but her hair had nice volume and looked great.

“Oh, I suppose it’ll do,” she said with a laugh, “when someone is helping you with something you can’t do yourself, you just have to show grace even if it’s not quite how you would do it.”

And so she lived with a few stray hairs and a style that wasn’t just so.

The Price of Peace

I woke up with the massive headache I’d had for over 24 hours. My one year old daughter, Sienna, had woken and was standing in her crib yelling for “Dada” (daddy) as loud as should could. I chuckled at her lack of patience as I climbed out of bed.

Opening her door, I greeted her with an enthusiastic “good morning” and was given a glare and a little smile.

“Dada?”

“Daddy’s at work, sweetheart. He’ll be home later.” She thought for a moment and then reached her arms up for me to pick her up. She fussed as I changed her diaper.

Downstairs, she walked over to the front window and indicated that she wanted me to open the shades. When I did, I noticed that an animal had gotten into our garbage and shreds of trash were strewn across our lawn, into the street, and in the neighbor’s yard.

Groan.

It always annoyed me that my husband put the garbage out by the road in trash bags instead of placing the trash bags in our garbage can. I texted him to tell him what had happened, partly out of annoyance.

“Make sure to pick it up right away so we don’t get in trouble,” he responded.

How can I manage picking up garbage right next to the street with a one year old along? And then the solution popped into my head—I would put her in her red Radio Flyer wagon and pull her along with me while I pushed the garbage can with my other hand, this way she couldn’t run into the street.

My hair was messy, having just woken up, and the little one was still in her purple elephant pattern pajamas. We trekked out to the street and I knelt down to begin picking up the remains of food, paper towels, and who knows what else, which was already being consumed by bugs.

This is so disgusting. Yuck! It had just rained and everything was soggy, smelly, and full of flies and ants.

The neighbor’s white garage door began to rumble open as Sienna chattered happily in the wagon.

Each morning our elderly neighbors left their home in town to go to their farmhouse. But this was two hours earlier than normal.

Oh no…

Mr. Neighbor had just recently either decided to be friendly with us again (after being mad at us for a few years over the fact that our walnut tree “got walnut juice” on his siding) or he had forgotten due to old age, probably the latter.

Clutching his brown cane, wearing brand new overalls, a white undershirt, worn brown work boots, and a tired green seed corn hat, he limped down his driveway with purpose.

“I saw the dog that did that,” he said as if he had been anticipating this conversation for a lifetime.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep,” he said pointing to another neighbor’s house, “They never keep that dog tied up.”

“Oh I see,” I said with a smile, thinking of the other neighbor’s brand new puppy.

“You should really call the police about this,” he said angrily.

I glanced up at him from where I was picking up trash to see if he was serious. His piercing blue eyes told me he was dead serious.

“Well, we should really put our trash into a can so that animals can’t get to it. It’s really our fault,” I said, trying to smooth it over as I continued picking up a rotten onion.

“I can’t believe you’re going to stand for this. It’s a law to keep your dog tied up and they’re breaking the law. I just can’t believe you’re not going to call the police,” he growled.

I was taken aback and frantically tried to think of how to respond. A million thoughts ran through my head.

It’s not worth creating conflict with the other neighbors over their puppy getting into our trash one time.

I can’t believe he’s serious about this.

How can I make him go away?

How can I calm him down and help him to understand that this isn’t a big deal?

“It’s ok,” I said with a smile, we’ll make sure to put our trash in a can from now on.

Anger rushed across his face as he turned to walk back to his house but then turned back around.

“This is going to happen again, you know. Do you want the dog to keep getting into your trash? You need to call the police and do something about this,” he tried to persuade me.

Sienna was silent, just staring and watching this all unfold.

I’m trying my best. Can’t he see that?

Just breathe. My anxiety was rising because conflict bothers me to the very core.

I continued to pull the wagon with me as I picked up the trash and stuffed it into a new sack. He pointed out everywhere that the trash had been scattered by the wind.

“There’s trash over there, and there, and way over there too,” he growled.

“Yeah, I’ll pick it all up,” I assured him.

He limped across the street to where an empty Mountain Dew bottle rested against the curb. He kicked the bottle across the street to me as if it were a soccer ball.

“Thanks,” I said as I placed all of the trash into the can.

He began walking back to his house with no word.

“Have a good day,” I said, trying to cheer him up.

“Well, how can I have a good day after this? You’re just going to let them get away with this. This is ridiculous!”

“Try not to let it ruin your day. I’ll tell my husband about it,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Ok,” he said with relief.

I pulled the wagon into the garage and stood for a moment with my hand over my eyes and took a deep breath.

It’s ok. It’s ok.

How can someone be so unhappy like that?

How is something like this worth the cost of his peace?

I looked down at Sienna and realized she had seen and heard it all. She may not have understood what was happening, but her silence indicated that she definitely knew there was conflict.

“I love you,” I said wearily as I gave her a kiss on the forehead.

Neal’s Violet

Both excitement and nervousness ran through my veins about the at-home school project that my third grade teacher, Mrs. L, had just assigned. I was lucky because I had been assigned the state of Illinois, the most coveted of the 50 states of all of my classmates because it was home to us. I couldn’t wait to tell my mom when she picked me up from school! She would be so excited, I just knew it.

At the end of the school day, I flung my backpack on one shoulder, the way that the cool kids did, and made my way to the parking lot where my mom was waiting. The assortment of key chains attached to my backpack jingled and made a pat-pat-pat sound with every step. I wanted to run to get there as fast as I could but I had to appear calm, collected, and cool.

“Hi mom! Guess what?,” I exclaimed immediately after I climbed in the car and closed the door.

“Why hello! I don’t know, tell me,” she replied with a laugh.

“Mrs. L assigned us a state project and it’s due in two weeks. I have to get started tonight so that I get it done in time. Can we work on it after supper?,” I inquired.

“We’ll just have to see. Why don’t you tell your dad about it when he gets home,” she sighed.

I waited anxiously for dad to come home, the table to be set and the meal prepared. The news was bouncing around in my chest, hardly to be contained, but I waited until after we prayed and dad had eaten a few bites of the meat loaf before I let it out.

“Dad, I have a very important project for school that I must get started on right away but I will need help,” I requested with urgency.

“Oh yeah?”, he said as he took another bite, “did you tell your mom about this?”, he said in between chews.

“Yeah. She said to tell you about it,” I responded.

“Oh did she now?,” he chuckled as his laughing warm brown eyes met my mom’s grinning baby blues.

I giggled because they were giggling.

“What’s so funny?,” I asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” my dad said with a smile and another playful glance at my mom, “I’ll help you with it another night.”

Looking back, I’m sure my mom was exhausted with the unending tasks of trying to take care of four children, cook the meals, clean the house, take care of the dog, do the laundry, pay the bills, and care for an elderly friend, just to name a few. When dad arrived home at the end of a long work day, all he wanted to do was eat supper with his family and then sit in his recliner, read the newspaper and relax. But a child doesn’t have a clue about all of the work that a parent does and to me, this time-sensitive project required immediate attention.

Every night after supper I asked if we could work on my project. It seemed like it was an eternity until he finally said yes, but in reality it was only a few days. When the stars aligned, we got started on my important project.

Dad always had fun with these projects. He has always been a dreamer at heart and he had the perfect idea for Illinois mobile construction. We sat at the kitchen table carefully cutting rectangles out of a white poster board and I did my research on the state of Illinois, thrilled to have the time and attention of my dad all to myself.

Dad cut small wooden dowels into foot long pieces and used a knife to cut small kerfs into the wood. He began the tedious process of connecting the dowels with clear fishing line and hanging shorter pieces of fishing line from the dowels where the pieces of poster board would attach and the creation began to come alive. My mobile was going to the best one! I was so proud of how talented my dad was.

Each cut-out poster board rectangle contained facts about the state of Illinois on one side and a hand-drawn picture on the other. The state bird was the cardinal, the capital was Springfield, Illinois was the “Land of Lincoln, the state tree was the oak, and the state flower the viola which is part of the violet family. My dad helped me draw some of the pictures and then I colored them in, but the picture of the violet was up to me.

“I can’t do this—it’s too hard to draw,” I whined.

“Yes you can. You just have to try,” he wisely advised.

I tried again, getting more and more frustrated by the minute while flecks of pink eraser began to cover the table. My older brother of four years, Neal, had been sitting at the table watching.

“I’ll draw the violet for you,” he kindly offered.

“Okay,” I accepted.

I remember taunting him while he drew the picture and told him it didn’t look like a violet, even though I hardly knew what a violet looked like myself. I could be so cruel sometimes and I didn’t really understand how hurtful words could be.

“Believe me, this will look awesome,” he assured me, “just wait until I’m done.” He made his way to his room to finish the drawing in private and away from my critique.

He spent considerable time drawing the flower so that it was perfect. Proudly, he emerged from his room with his masterpiece and handed it over to me.

“This is ugly,” I laughed, “it doesn’t look anything like a violet. I don’t want to use this. It’s dumb.”

His heart having been crushed, he escaped back to his room and closed his door. I never saw his tears, but my dad did.

“Give me that picture,” my dad said angrily. He looked at the drawing like he had never seen something so beautiful before.

“This is perfect! I never could have drawn a picture so well,” he said loud enough for Neal to hear.

He opened the door to Neal’s room and said, “Neal, you color this in and I am going to keep it on the mirror over the dresser and I will treasure this beautiful violet forever.”

“But I want to use the picture in my project,” I complained, suddenly seeing the value of it now that dad had approved it.

“Nope, it’s too late. You didn’t appreciate it and now it’s mine. You made Neal cry, you know,” he said sternly, “you will have to draw your own flower and you also need to tell him you’re sorry—and mean it.”

I understood how much I had hurt him, but I was too proud to show I or even admit it—instead I was mad and angry. I offered him several unapologetic “sorry”s at my dad’s insistence that each “sorry” I offered was not truly from my heart, and retreated to my room in tears.

It broke my heart that I had disappointed my dad. I felt horrible for the way I had treated my older brother who had only been trying to help out of kindness. My heart ached, but I never truly said I was sorry—even though I was, but had not yet learned the humility to admit that I was wrong.

I drew a violet which, in my mind, never measured up to the one Neal had drawn. I was ashamed of it. I felt like it ruined my entire project.

I brought the completed project to school in sadness. My heart was heavy as I presented it to the class. My classmates “oohed” and “aahed” over its greatness. It was most definitely the best one there, but I only felt ashamed. No one in my class knew how hurtful I had been to my own big brother, and the perfect score I received wasn’t as gratifying as I had imagined.

As the years passed, I felt a pang of guilt every time I saw the violet proudly displayed on my dad’s mirror; a constant reminder of the effect of hurtful words.

My Illinois state project mobile has been long gone, but I can still see Neal’s violet so clearly. The soft pencil strokes that had been so carefully and artfully drawn; the purple petals and the green leaves colored perfectly within the lines—imprinted in my mind and on my heart.

I will always remember that the official flower of Illinois is the violet and that one should always accept gifts from the heart graciously and with kindness.

This post is in response to the prompt “something someone gave you” from the 52 Weeks of Gratitude Challenge.

Someday She Won’t Need Me Anymore #PostPartumDepression #PPDChat

My eyes popped open the moment I heard the frightened and desperate cry. Although groggy, I climbed out of the comfort of the warm bed and quickly made my way down the hall in my bare feet.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” I said with concern as she stood up with tears rushing down her cheeks and reached her little arms up towards me.

I gently picked her up and held her close and immediately, like magic, her crying stopped and she started to settle back to sleep in my arms, clutching her pink owl blanket and softly sucking her pacifier in quick intervals.

I sat rocking her in the big tan comfy chair, that I had spent countless hours in over the past year, and felt a surge of emotion. Joy and sadness both. I cherished the precious moment but grieved for all of the moments that had been stolen from me.

For the first year of her life, I fought a vicious battle inside of my head. I fell to the depths of postpartum depression and had finally climbed my way out of the darkness and emerged a changed woman—a woman who knows what it feels like to be broken, desperate, and afraid.

It wasn’t long before when the same desperate cry would have made me feel overwhelmed, angry, resentful and helpless. And the guilt of all of these feelings was the heaviest of all—it forced me farther and farther down into the depths of darkness.

The delicate pink and gray room, that had been so carefully planned and excitedly prepared before her birth, was lit by the gentle light of the moon. Her initials were carefully placed above her crib, a tree decal was planted on a gray wall with its pink leaves blowing as if in the middle of a gentle breeze. The art work I had chosen almost foretelling what I would desperately need to know, “Don’t worry about a thing, because every little thing is gonna be alright”. Finally, I could hear the peace in this room, which was no longer being drowned out by the clanging dissonant loudness of my thoughts, anxieties, and fears.

I held her for a long time, well after she was asleep again. I felt her soft and smooth skin, listened to her baby breath, inhaled her baby fragrance, and showered her in soft kisses—careful not to awake her.

So often I had held her while tears of sadness rushed from my eyes. This time, joy was overflowing instead. For the first time, I felt what it was like to feel bonded with my beautiful baby girl and I didn’t want to miss a thing, having already missed so much.

I slowly stood up from the rocker and carried her back to her crib, placing her gently inside what had become her own little nest. She quickly settled in and was fast asleep. I tip-toed out of the room, careful to avoid all of the places on the old wooden floor that creaked and quietly closed the door behind me.

Down the hall, my husband was fast asleep having not even noticed I was gone. I climbed into bed and I continued to silently cry, knowing that someday she, this precious little girl who needed me so much right now, was no longer going to need me anymore. She would grow up and become independent, no longer needing her mother’s comfort or wanting to hear the lullabies that escaped my lips and brought her peace.

What was taken from me by postpartum depression in that first year cannot be returned and the grief of that is heavy. We are not promised tomorrow, but we have today. And I am clutching to these little moments each day that move like soft whispers of love to an eager ear—heard only briefly in tenderness —and then they’re gone.