October 1 — A Daughters Birthday

by Linda Hoye

October 1, 1978 at 11:24am.

“Push! Come on, you can do it! Keep pushing! Look down here at the mirror; the baby is coming!” The delivery room nurse urges me to look toward the mirror positioned at the end of the bed.

“I can’t see! I don’t have my glasses on.” Why didn’t someone tell me that I’d need my glasses?

I give one more push with everything that is left in me and feel my baby slip from my body.

“It’s a girl!”

They lay her on my chest, and I look into the eyes of a beautiful, dark-haired, baby.  Laurinda is crying, red-faced, and obviously distressed at being so suddenly removed from the quiet and safety of the womb. The delivery room with its bright lights and hurried voices must be overwhelming to one accustomed to the silence of the pre-birth world. As her tiny fist grasps my finger my world shifts and my identity changes. I am now a mother.

Laurinda is, as my mom says, a “good baby”. She is happy, healthy, rarely fussy, a good eater, and an easy baby to care for. She’s perfect in my eyes. I delight in watching her grow and change and seeing her personality emerge. One day her imagination sparks an idea and she takes my face in her hands and looks me straight in the eye.

“You’re the big lion and I’m the little lion.” She tells me very seriously. I am not exactly sure what she is trying to tell me.

Fast forward sixteen years.

These terrible teenage years seem to last an eternity. She seeks to establish her own identity and, in doing so, wrestles against anything and everything that smacks of “family”. Our relationship is strained during these years when she strives to be the opposite of me in every way. Her brother teases her sometimes by telling her she is “just like Mom”. It is the insult of insults to her.

Fast forward fifteen more years.

Now my baby has a baby of her own and it blesses my heart to see her care for her own daughter. Laurinda is traditional, preferring books and building blocks to video games and electronic toys. She’s a teacher, gently introducing letters, numbers, colors, and new ideas in the course of everyday life. She’s committed to her daughter’s health and has a definite policy about what she can and can’t consume.

The relationship between Laurinda and I has changed, grown, and deepened over the years. It is one of the greatest blessings in my life that I can call my daughter my friend.  The other day I was thinking about the scene in the movie The Lion King where Rafiki holds up his cub Simba, and I was reminded of my young daughter’s curious comment about me being the big lion and her being the little lion. It seems appropriate that today I symbolically stand in the place of Rafiki and hold up Laurinda. I’m proud of her and she has brought more joy into my life than I could ever have imagined on that October morning thirty-three years ago.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I am a full-time HR Business Analyst and a part-time writer currently on a memoir about my quest as an adoptee to find healing from deep and unrecognized grief. I nourish my muse with the taste of caramel frappuchinos, the scent of  Yankee Candles, the sound of quiet classical music, the vision of Mrs. Potato Head and Gumby and Pokey on the corner of my desk, and the feeling of my smallest Yorkie on my lap. I live in Washington state with my husband and our two doted-upon Yorkshire Terriers. When I’m not writing or working, I have the most fun spending time back in Canada with my husband, our children, and our two brilliant grandchildren. Learn more at: A Slice of Life Writing

September 29 — Reading with Rachel

by Kali’ P. Rourke

“Hi, my name is Rachel.”

She looked down and protectively wrapped her arms around herself. Then she looked straight at me with big, brown eyes.

I introduced myself and asked if she would like to find a place to sit. We were in the library of her middle school, and there were long tables with incredibly uncomfortable little plastic chairs grouped around them.

The smell of books, children and an occasional whiff of whatever the cafeteria was serving that day filled the air. I let her lead the way to a table near the back of the room and she sat with her back to the bookshelves. I took a chair across from her and so began our first mentoring session.

I tried active listening, the way I had read mentoring should be done…but that assumed that the other person was talking. Rachel wasn’t saying much at all, and I found myself floundering, just asking one leading question after another with little response.

I tried telling her about myself, seeking in vain to find some common ground we could tread. I was thanking God that I was an extrovert, so this was not the root canal experience it might be for some people, but I also felt that Rachel tested the outer limits of my social skills.

Finally, something I said clicked. I saw it slot into place just from the look in her eyes, and like an anxious angler, I cautiously tugged on the bait line to see how far she would advance.

“So you like art?” I asked, leaning forward slightly. “Who is your favorite artist?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “But I really like pictures of oceans.”

“I think I might want to be a marine biologist some day.”

“Really, “I asked, “What do you have to do to become a marine biologist?”

“Um…go to college, I guess.” The corners of her lips drooped in a defeated curve and I realized this was something she hadn’t thought through at all. It was as much a child’s dream as wanting to be a ballerina or an astronaut and she had no idea that it might be within her grasp.

I suggested that we get a book about marine biologists, preferably with lots of pictures, and we set off to the check out desk to find the first of many marine biology books that we would bond over in the coming months.

In time, I would share in the grimy truth of Rachel’s home life, her incredible challenges and mourn her ultimate decision to fail that year of school and to terminate our mentoring relationship.

I learned far more from her than she learned from me, but she inspired me to help create a much better program than the one I had joined. I think of Rachel often, and her face is the one before me when I give speeches and presentations about mentoring and the difference it can make in young people’s lives.

“Blessings always, sweet Rachel.”

Kali’ P. Rourke is an avid volunteer in Austin, Texas and leads the board of the Seedling Foundation, which mentors children with incarcerated parents through a site based program called “Seedling’s Promise.” Seedling Foundation partners with the Austin Independent School District in positively affecting thousands of school children each year. Learn more at http://www.seedlingfoundation.net/images/stories/seedlingvideoicon.jpg and
 http://kalipr.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/58-a-promise-kept/

September 27 — Celebration

by Cathy Scibelli

Today I’m celebrating the good news I received–my MRI was “normal,” making me officially a two-year breast cancer survivor. The two year mark is an arbitrary one, but nonetheless it’s certainly comforting when they tell you that your odds of surviving long term just increased a few notches.

So how to celebrate? The first reaction to news like this is always to feel as if I want to dance on the moon and shout the news from the mountaintops.

Everyone I mention my good news to tells me things like “You should go out to a fancy dinner,” or “why don’t you take a really special vacation?” or “buy yourself something great.” But an odd thing happens after you’ve been through a life-threatening battle with disease, or at least in my case it happened. The most ordinary things that I used to take for granted become the very things that feel special and celebratory.

It’s like winning the lottery to hear that you’ve just beaten the odds and been given the opportunity to enjoy the fall (my favorite season) without another doctor appointment or scary test until after Thanksgiving. Suddenly, I can feel “normal,” joining the rest of the world picking out my Halloween pumpkins and buying decorations, enjoying long walks in the cooler weather watching the fall foliage emerge. I can look forward to the Pumpkin Fest at my cousins’ Sugar Shack where I can get plenty of warm hugs and hot cider. Then I can come home to my cozy apartment, do some fall cleaning and redecorating, work on my blog and writing class, and continue participating in the women’s writing and breast cancer groups I’ve joined.

Don’t get me wrong, I do still have bigger goals on my Bucket List. One day I’d like to go out to San Francisco and see some of the sites my father told me stories about seeing when he was there while in the Army. I’d like to visit relatives in Tennessee and then attend the Story Circle conference in Texas next April. I think about one day moving to the country and buying a little place where we can have a garden.

But right now it just feels great to wake up in the morning and look forward to a “normal” day. Because when you feel as if every day is a gift and where you are in your life is a place surrounded by loving friends and family, that’s really all you need to have a celebration.

Cathy Scibelli is a freelance writer and breast cancer survivor whose life has been immensely enriched by joining Story Circle Network. She blogs at http://iconicmuse.blogspot.com

August 30 — Compromises We Make for Family

by Marlene Samuels

About two months ago, I got a note from a long time friend describing the newly funded research project she was about to launch. While I know I was supposed to be totally thrilled for her, I may as well have gone off to suck lemons. A tenured anthropology professor at a huge eastern university, my friend is considered an expert in her field. So, what put me into my very bitter funk?

Attached to her email was her academic vita–ivory tower idiom for resume. Pages and pages and pages! Besides the four books under her belt, she’s also published more than three-hundred journal articles, monographs, and textbook chapters. Do I care that in probably no more than 500 scholars in the world will ever read her work? You bet I do!

I ought to be happy for her, right? Wrong! Instead I became obsessed taking a mental accounting of all the compromises we make for our families, spouses, parents, and offspring. But in order to minimize my nagging guilt about not having joy for her, I also considered that I ought to itemize all the life choices Dr. Anthropology had to make to so much “career path” accomplishment.

That got me moving along the regrets tangent–the notion of what could I have done, how much I compromised, and sure there really was, and still is, an awful lot of that. While I was decorating homemade fudge birthday cakes with gummy worms, my friend was poring over anthropology journals in the library, perhaps way into the wee wee hours. When I was hiding from my kids in the basement toilet just to get a five minute private gossip session with a friend, maybe Dr. Anthropology was trying to find a friend with whom to have an acceptable, politically correct gossip session–one that wouldn’t result in violating university ethics codes.

Now, in view of my comparatively paltry accomplishments, I have come to admit the surprising. There’s something indescribably magical about ascending the commencement dais of a renowned university, extending my hand forward to receive the PhD I’d worked on for so many years between carpools and snow days, between orthodontist appointments and paintball parties and looking out into a sea of faces to find my husband and two teenage sons, simultaneously teary-eyed. “Welcome to the ancient and honorable company of scholars.” says the university president to me.

“Hey Yo! Mom, way to go!” my younger son jumps up and screams then gives me the high-five wave.

Marlene is a sociologist and writer,earned her Ph.D. and M.A., from University of Chicago in Social Science and teaches research methodology to non-fiction writers. She’s completing a short story collection and co-hosts www.expendableedibles.com and www.expendableedibles.com/blog.  Her writing has been widely published. Visit her writer’s website, www.marlenesamuels.com

August 27–Lions, Elephants, Giraffes and the Aha Moment

by Pat Bean

Before this country went to war against Iraq, and while I was still a journalist, I wrote four editorials against such an invasion. As we all know, my efforts were for naught. In 2003, America attacked. It was an action that was not seen kindly by much of the rest of the world.

Four years later, on August 27, 2007, I found myself bouncing across a savannah in Tanzania  in a Land Rover, looking for lions and giraffes and elephants and ostriches, with my friend, Kim. Our driver and safari guide was Bilal, a native African who spoke English. We three had been together for five days, and so had  come to know a little bit about each other.

He worried about us two ladies, and asked who was going to take care of us when we were old. I guess he didn’t notice that I already was, although he did call me “Mama” as a sign of respect. Kim, who is quite a bit younger than me, didn’t get the same honorific.

Bilal, whom we finally figured out was divorced, said it was the duty of his oldest son to take of him when he was old. But we noted that it was his daughter he called on his radio at every opportunity, always asking if his grandson was being a good boy.

This particular day, for the first time, the subject of politics was raised. So why,” he asked, “does America fight in other countries?”

My outspoken friend was first to point out that not every American had been in favor of attacking Iraq. I added that as a journalist I had even publicly written newspaper columns against the invasion.

The three words that Bilal spoke next shocked me. “Who hid you?” He asked.

This was the day I realized how blessed I was to be an American woman.

Pat Bean was a newspaper journalist for 37 years. Today she lives and travels full time in a small RV with her dog, Maggie. Her passions are writing, travel, birds, nature, hiking and books.  Accompany her on her sojourns at Pat Bean’s Blog: Traveling with Maggie.

August 14 — A Knock at the Door

by Carol Kunnerup

My cell rang during training. The kids wouldn’t call unless it was important.

Raechel was crying. ”Mom, can I move back home?”

” Of course. What do you need me to do?” She would borrow my minivan; her little zoomer would not hold much. Younger sister, Sara, would help her move out of her boyfriend’s house.

The girls picked me up after the training, seemingly in good spirits. I hugged Raechel and said we would help her figure something out. She was so independent that I could not imagine her wanting to stay for long. She would rather come by on her own for suppers, snacks and to hang out with her sister and little brother. We had all been enjoying each other this summer.

I had to collect Trevor from Vacation Bible School. She needed to go make her car payment.

”Raechel, we’ll be eating hamburgers across the street for dinner, come with.”

”I might go with friends,” she replied.

”That’s okay. I’m glad you’re here.” I told her.

‘Thanks, momma.’

I watched her walk to her silver little car. Beautiful, tan skin, cute tank top, luscious dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She is home. I felt such joy and relief. I crossed the street to pick up Trevor from VBS, shouting, ”See you later, sweetie.”

Our regular routine, late dinner because of Peter’s long hours. We discussed how we would handle an adult child in the house. It would be a challenge for us all. Then all off to bed for us. I was wishing I had gotten her a key already.

There was a knock at the door. 1:30 a.m. Holy cow. This would definitely be a conversation with Rae tomorrow.

It was the officer Raechel had thought was so cute when he helped her unlock her car one of the times she locked herself out. Like mother like daughter.

He asked me to get dressed and come with him. Peter was sitting up in bed, wide awake and asked me if he should call Marilee to sit with the kids and follow me. Of course.

I was in a daze. The officer said nothing for our three block ride. There were so many young people wandering the hospital parking lot. I could not fathom why.

I was led in and a nurse greeted me. I followed her. I just knew that whatever happened I would care for Raechel and nurse her back to health. I would put everything on hold to help her.

The nurse took me to a curtained area.

‘I am so sorry. Your daughter was in a motorcycle accident with a young man. Neither survived. She passed away at midnight.’ She opened the curtain and there was my beautiful girl. My girl who just moved back home. My girl who had just asked if I could believe I have a daughter who would turn 19 soon. My girl who had taught me so much about being a parent.

I am a mother, a wife and a woman who is rediscovering her artist within. I have lived many places and find that my home is always with me; my children and my husband are the heart of me. We are in North Dakota on a lovely farmstead. I teach preschool and am working towards my masters in special education. Visit my blog at http://carolsquilting.wordpress.com

August 11 – OMG

by Carol Sanford

I’m sitting here at my computer, looking out the window to the lovely, sunny, Seattle afternoon. What a perfect day to feel terror wrapping its tendrils around the pit of my stomach.

I have only a few months left to begin bringing in enough money to stay put in the 55+ community I have grown to love.

Our community is income restricted, so there are many senior women in the financial weeds along with me. Some have seen their 401K’s decimated; others, like me, have made foolish choices about money.

I have a loving and generous family which helps keep me afloat, but the assistance I receive is coming to an end next March.

So I was thrilled to discover the Older Women’s Legacy Workshop, and the possibility of keeping body and soul together by teaching, something I love doing.

I purchased the OWL materials and have been offering the Workshop here at my residence gratis. I have gained valuable experience while giving my neighbors something priceless . . . a voice to tell bring their personal history to life.

Over the five-week Workshop, as class members got comfortable with one another and the class structure, they began writing from the heart. Some of the stories were very funny; others brought tears of recognition; still others had heads nodding in agreement . . . “Oh, yeah; I’ve been there too.”

With one Workshop under my belt and another one starting in September, I began feeling confident about taking the Workshop public. I created a brochure, business card, and a blog. Lots and lots of work. But I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.

I began making calls in earnest on Monday. It’s Wednesday and I still don’t have a Workshop set up. Self-doubt reared its ugly head earlier today: maybe my brochures are, in reality, pretty crappy; maybe I’m no good at selling myself; maybe the blog is a disaster; maybe no one has any money to spend on the Workshop; maybe no one likes me!

Ironically, I posted this morning about the positive psychological effects of blogging. According to one source, blogging releases dopamine, so I should be feeling calm and relaxed, as if I were listening to beautiful music while gentle waves lap on a sandy beach just outside my door.

Time passes. After my regular Wed. evening bridge game, I compulsively check my email. OMG. There it is: a response from the Creative Retirement Center. I fill out forms, fire up the scanner, send off the requested information.

Now I wait. And write a press release. And look at my Linkedin connections. And decide to advertise in local senior publications.

After retiring from the non-profit arena where I raised money and wrote and designed marketing materials, I’ve begun teaching the Older Women’s Legacy Workshop. I’m also a mixed-media artist and digital designer. You can visit my website: http://www.writefromlife.com

August 1 – Hello Beautiful!

by Judy Whelley

I’m in Florida licking my wounds. My divorce finalized last September and the ex remarried in June. I’m still healing from the relationship betrayals that ended the marriage. He appears, at least outwardly, to be happy: new wife, new house, new stepson, and successful in his work. And me? Not so much. I was diagnosed with breast cancer just prior to the divorce and spent last summer and fall recovering from two surgeries and radiation. Between the divorce and the cancer, I’m feeling unwanted, undesirable, and afraid. I retired prematurely from teaching when the stress of the marital problems became so great that I could no longer function at school. I’ve come to Florida to gain some perspective, to focus on who I am, what I want to do, and where I want to go.

I feel least confident about my body and whether or not I am attractive. The ex had a sinister way of publicly praising me and showering me with exquisite gifts while ignoring or rejecting me sexually. The wounds came from what he didn’t say and do as opposed to what he did. Any private compliments given felt like being damned by faint praise. These mixed signals confused me. While mostly a confident and assertive person, sexually I doubted my worth.

He fancied himself a photographer, was always taking pictures. I was rarely the subject. He took pictures of others and often asked me to take his picture but inevitably when film was developed there were few shots of me. I had gained weight during the marriage, soothing my hurt feelings and loneliness with food, and felt shame about my appearance. I definitely did not have the self-confidence to ask to have my picture taken, even though there were times I wanted a photo of myself in a particular location because the magic and beauty of it spoke to me.

Today I’m sitting on the patio of a restaurant on Siesta Key. Because it is beastly hot and humid by midmorning, I get up at six to walk the nearby shady bike path and then come here to have breakfast and journal. I love this spot, feel like I belong. I smile at everyone I meet and they smile right back. Today I did something that required courage. I asked the owner to take a picture of me with my journal and ice tea at my favorite table. He was happy to do it and even though I felt self-conscious and awkward I posed with a smile. I treasure this not-very-special photo. Even though my hair is plastered down from walking in the heat and I’m wearing a tee shirt and no make up or jewelry, I look beautiful. I’m learning that beauty comes from passion within. No one else decides if I am beautiful. I decide that. I create that. And I welcome and embrace those who see and recognize it. Starting with me. Starting today.

Judy Whelley is a writer living in Dayton, Ohio. You can blog with her at www.sensuouslysixty.blogspot.com.

July 1 – Sister From a Different Mister

by Candi Byrne

I learned last Friday that my brother died. I didn’t know I had this brother…don’t know his name…been told I can’t learn his name until the woman who gave birth to me dies. I don’t know her name either. I know someone who does know, but she is sworn to uphold Michigan’s closed adoption laws, outdated and unfair though they are.

C, as I’ll call her, is a confidential intermediary whose job it is to broker connections between birth families and their surrendered offspring or siblings. She holds the keys to the magic kingdom–”identifying information.” I sometimes fantasize about holding her hostage until she releases my 55-year-old file which is stored on rapidly deteriorating microfiche. I wouldn’t hurt her, mind you, I’d just grab and run off with the flimsy index card-sized film detailing the beginnings of my life story.

C has spoken with my birth mother on several occasions…has spoken my name to the woman, given her details about me…but my birth mother does not want to establish contact. She’s not told her children about her early indiscretion…never revealed it to her now-deceased husband. Some of her siblings don’t even know about it, C said.

I’ve been trying through C to get a picture of my birth mother. “I’ll think she’ll follow through,” C told me in late February. But my April birthday passed, then Mother’s Day, and still no picture.

Just before Memorial Day I asked C if I could send pictures of my granddaughters to my birth mother. I secretly hoped once she looked into the eyes of 2-year-old Corrina and newly hatched Jillian, my birth mother would say ‘to hell with keeping secrets.’ C said she would ask my birth mother if it was okay to forward the pictures.

“I have information,” C told me, her voice tight, “Your birth mother’s son–your, well, brother–passed away suddenly; she found him dead in her house.”

Stunned, I whispered, “What happened?”

“Heart attack,” and then quickly, “There is no history of heart issues on either side of the family.”

“Can you tell me how old he was?”

“52.”

An emotional hurricane blew through me, thoughts whipping and whirling–
“52? That’s only three years younger than I am.”
“Oh my god, I can’t imagine losing my son.”
“Now she’ll contact me!”
“Now she’ll never contact me.”
“She’ll think this is God’s way of punishing her for giving me up.”
“My tribe is shrinking before I even get to know them.”
“I could be a comfort to her.”

After hanging up I sat for hours in the storm’s aftermath, poking through mental detritus for shiny or unbroken bits…for hope.

Finally, I rallied, turned to the computer and typed “michigan obituaries” into Google. Selecting the first site on the list, I entered “52″ into the search box. Over 5,000 results returned.

Not so many to look through, I thought, not for family.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Candi writes in a tree house perched on the side of a West Virginian mountain. When not having tea parties with her two besties, 2-year-old Corrina and her baby sister, Jillian, Candi, handicapped by her post-menopausal brain, labors over learning graphic design software. Find out more at her blog:
http://www.candiapplered.wordpress.com

June 29 — My Mother’s Gift

by Andrea Savee

WHEN I DIE by Beulah Irene Hagedorn

When I die
close my eyes.
I will have
gone away.
Keep the news
quiet.
My departure will be
unnoticed,
except to you
who hear me
and watch.

Be quiet yourselves.
Hold no public services.
Sing a song
you like,
and deal with loss
your way.
I will watch.

Let no one look
at my empty body.
Give it back
to the earth,
quickly, quietly
and move on.
God watches.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

1921 by Beulah Irene Hagedorn

No one
came
to the
chamber
where
I waited
inviting
me
to be born.

I slid
down
the corridor
and entered
this side
of life
in a small
square room,
out
of a
nineteen
year old girl
to a
twenty year old
boy
who held
me and
whispered
“welcome”.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My mother wrote these poems in June of her seventy-ninth year. My mother, Beulah Irene Hagedorn, died June twenty third, two thousand four, six days before her eighty-third birthday. She left me all the words she’d ever written.

A flat rectangular dress-box bulges with hundreds of pieces of yellowing paper of various sizes. She began writing at age sixty following the end of her thirty year marriage. She wrote to save her life and her sanity, always in her usual elegant and steady script.

In the last decade of her life, she spent many months assembling a photo album in the large upstairs bonus room of her house. Pressed between the plastic sheets aren’t photos, but typed pages of poems, thoughts, remembrances filled with sorrow and grief, rantings and regrets. Eventually, reconciliations, revelations, and peace:

“I stayed and faced my demons where I had created them, where I found them–in the bedroom, at the dining table, in my children’s eyes, my ex-father-in-law’s groans, my ex-mother-in-law’s strained struggle to cope, and the dark accusing hours when my inner voices badgered me into hell and back. Finally, I walked through the night into the day repeating a litany of God’s promises of love and forgiveness, forgiving everyone in memory until I came to myself.”

I grew up hearing a fairy tale that turned out to be the story of my own beginning. She recorded this on one of her pages:

“My fourth child was conceived on August twenty seven, nineteen hundred and fifty nine because I knew from an unknown source deep within me that there was a child who would be a special gift to me.”

I grew up hearing my mother’s story from its beginning and living it with her to its end. In my hands now is her life in her own words de-constructed and re-constructed on the page. Words no one else has ever read. Until now.

Andrea Savee lives in Lakewood, California with her husband, Mike, and their cat, Chico. Retired from a career in business, Andrea enjoys traveling and writing. Her work has appeared in SCN journals and anthologies.