May 3 – Penteli Mountain

by Marilea Rabasa

My son and I loved to fly kites when he was growing up in Virginia. The right kind of wind could propel his paper bird high and far, with us right on its tail giving it enough slack to keep it soaring in the air currents.

He’s a grown man now, but I remember a day twenty-five years ago when we were living in Athens, Greece. We were driving home from his friend Chris’ house. Chris lived on Penteli Mountain, one of my favorite haunts outside of Athens. From the crest of this hill on a clear day in winter you could see the whole bowl of Athens, with the smog hovering overhead, and even beyond. This was where the Brits came to celebrate Boxer Day every December 26. They hiked up more for the whiskey than the view, but that’s another story.

As we turned the corner, we saw the tail of a kite peeking out from under a pile of rubbish. We knew it was a kite tail because it had flags zigzagging down the string. Also, everyone came to fly kites on Penteli Mountain in December when the weather changed. This kite had lost its wind and lay abandoned in the field, its owners having no more use for it.

And so, our curiosity taking over, we stopped the car, got out, and went to investigate. Right away our curiosity turned into compassion and we wanted to breathe new life into this broken and tattered old kite. I never thought that something inanimate could come to life. But at this time in my life there was a dying in me that I knew I had to defeat or it would defeat me. My son was part of this tragedy, and somehow we knew that the road to healing could start with repairing this kite and watching it fly again. A dust-covered old TV pinning it down to the ground was holding the kite hostage. Its colorful tail saved it from certain death.

So we took the kite home and repaired it with glue and tape. We waited for a good day with just enough wind to try and fly it. The day finally came, a clear sunny day with a nice breeze. Together we took the kite back to the mountain and flew it. We watched it continue to rise and float in the air until all the string was used up. We ran with it as it leaped in the wind. It was flying like it was brand new – a miracle!

We didn’t let that kite go. We brought it down and carefully put it in the car. We knew we would probably never fly it again, but we couldn’t let go of something that had taught us such an eloquent lesson: I was sure from that day on that there are second chances for those who have the heart to reach for them.

Marilea is a retired teacher. Toward the end of her career, she earned her Master of Arts in Teaching. “This was a critical step on my life journey because it concentrated on reflective practice. Now I have time to reflect back on my life and put my stories down on paper. I look forward to sharing them with you.”

December 29 – Remembering Michael

by Patricia Roop Hollinger

“Pat, Mike is dead” are the words that echoed through the mouthpiece of the phone when I picked it up May 3, 2009.

What is the best way to deliver the news that a mother’s son is dead? There is no best way. Mike’s father delivered the news the best way he was able, as his shock was just as real as was mine.

I prepared his Memorial Service. My role as ordained minister took charge. My husband was dying of cancer. There were just seconds and minutes to reflect and remember.

My gift to myself this holiday season was the gift of TIME and SILENCE to read words that Mike and I had written to each other over the years. To read his poetry written while coping with chronic pain. To truly KNOW and grasp the depth of his pain. He left me quite a legacy by writing down his thoughts and feelings. REMEMBERING Michael is now a part of my DNA and always will be.

Patricia Roop Hollinger: Chaplain/Pastoral Counselor/Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor for 23 years at same hospital where once was a consumer. Seeker of the “truth” which has set me free. Third marriage to high school heartthrob 2010 the best yet. Musician, voracious reader and hopeful writer. Cats a must.

November 19 – Monday

by Madeline Sharples

I wake at 6 and get ready to go to the gym. I negotiate the huge and blinding sun as I drive east. I work out on the elliptical trainer and lift some weights and then go on to the grocery store. By this time it is sunny–much clearer and cooler than usual in southern California at this time of the year.

I have a lot on my plate so I rush home to eat breakfast, shower, and change. Then I go to my office. The stickie reminders on my desktop overwhelm me. I need to finish two website articles, write a poem for Robert Lee Brewer’s November Poem A Day Chapbook Challenge, and do my regular marketing and blogging work.

Today I also work as a volunteer administrator on Facebook’s Putting a Face on Suicide (PAFOS) page from noon until 8:00 pm. Though I feel good about doing this volunteer job, it takes a toll on my emotions.

PAFOS, a memorial page, provides education and comfort to survivors by creating personal tribute pages featuring their loved ones. Its objective is to collect 99 photos of people who have died by suicide for each day of the year. As of this writing PAFOS has 1750 faces and is on Day 18 of our 365-day project. PAFOS also creates commemorative posters and a video for each day. My son Paul is part of the Day 4 video. His music plays in the background.

My job is to either Like or respond to every comment posted. Though I’m still able to do my writing work while volunteering, I check back every few minutes so I can respond quickly. I need to keep minding the store.

I’m overcome by all the young faces on the PAFOS page–a 15-year old girl, and boys 18, 21, 16, 17, and 19. A few older faces are also there. It’s either the anniversary of their death or their birthday, each date lovingly remembered by PAFOS staff. While I look at these faces, I can’t help wondering what makes these people take their lives. How do the young ones even know how to do it?

I also have another challenge. Someone leaves a message that she would just like to talk. Unfortunately that’s not our job. I explain I’m a survivor and volunteer, not a therapist. I suggest, if she is in trouble or distress, that she contact the National Hope Line Network 1-800 784-2433 (SUICIDE). She thanks me. I still worry about her.

My son was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when he was 21, and he took his life at 27. Ever since I’ve worked to remember him and help erase the stigma of mental illness and suicide. I also find writing a way to heal. I turned to writing during his illness. A few years after his suicide I created a memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On (Dream of Things, 2012), in hopes that others will find it useful in surviving their own tragedies.

Madeline is the author of Leaving the Hall Light On: A Mother’s Memoir of Living with Her Son’s Bipolar Disorder and Surviving His Suicide (Dream of Things) and Blue-Collar Women: Trailblazing Women Take on Men-Only Jobs (New Horizon Press). She co-edited The Great American Poetry Show and wrote poetry for The Emerging Goddess photography book.

December 20 – The Long Green Thing Surprise

by Pat Bean

“Hey Mom, I brought back a surprise for you from Afghanistan,” was the message I got from my oldest son, D.C. I was in Idaho at the time, and the only thing I wanted from Afghanistan was my son, home, safely.

Later, I wondered what the surprise could be.

“It’s a long green thing,” my daughter-in-law, Cindi, hinted.

It took a few minutes, but then I burst out laughing.

“Oh, you mean his Christmas stocking,” I said.

This is a thing that goes back many, many years, back to the time when my son was a pre-teenager. It was a time when money was in extremely short supply in our family, and so our Christmas stockings were just that–everyone’s own clean sock. And the kids always found the biggest ones they owned to hang up.

Now D.C. always was an ingenious kid. He chose his long Boy Scout knee sock, but decided it still wasn’t big enough. So he cut the foot off one of the socks and sewed the rest of the stocking to the top of the other one. It was such a brilliant idea that he didn’t even get punished for the deed. I think I filled it up with oranges that first Christmas.

In the meantime, as kids do, D.C. grew up, joined the Army, married, had kids of his own and made the military his career for the next 35 years. It was during one of his three tours in Iraq as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot that I came upon that long-forgotten green stocking.

As a joke, I filled it up with goodies like smoked oysters, canned chili, Vienna sausage, nuts, toy cars, hand warmers, a Pez dispenser and a heck of a lot of other stuff and sent it to him that year for Christmas.

He’s made sure the stocking was returned to me every year since.

I guess in thankfulness for my son’s safe return from the war zone, his upcoming retirement and all the laughter that stocking has provided the family over the years, I’ll have to fill it up yet one more time.

Pat Bean is a retired journalist who lives and travels the country in a small RV with her canine companion, Maggie. She is passionate about writing, birds, books, nature and travel.

November 11 – Remembrance Day

by Linda Hoye

In Canada, where I was born and grew up, November 11 is known as Remembrance Day. It is a day set aside to remember those brave men and women who gave their lives for our freedom. Members of the Royal Canadian Legion sell poppies and almost everyone wears a poppy on their lapel in the weeks leading up to Remembrance Day. It is a statutory holiday and at ceremonies are held all over the country at the eleventh hour of the eleventh month honouring our war dead.

When I was a little girl on the morning of Remembrance Day my dad brought out his war medals and polished them in preparation for wearing them as he marched with other veterans in the parade leading toward the cenotaph. Shortly before eleven o’clock the bugler would play The Last Post and the last mournful note signaled two minutes of silence.

In 1983 when I was twenty-four years old I donated my money to a veteran in the Aberdeen Mall and gently lifted three red poppies from his tray. Dad had died suddenly two months earlier and I was still grieving the loss of the man who had loved me unconditionally and called me his Princess. I led my two children, Laurinda and Michael—then five and three—to the side of the busy mall and knelt in front of them and pinned a poppy on their jackets.

“This is to remember Grandpa.” I told them as I fought back tears.

In later years Michael marched proudly with his Cub Scout pack toward the cenotaph on Remembrance Day and as I stood shivering in the cold November morning I imagined Dad marching right alongside of him—as proud of his grandson as I knew he would have been had he lived long enough for the day.

I live in the United States now and the American Legion doesn’t sell poppies like their Canadian brothers do. I saved one from when we lived in Canada and I will pin it on my lapel before I head out for the day today. I remember all those who made the ultimate sacrifice for us and I remember my dad.

Lest we forget.

Linda Hoye is a writer who still misses her dad twenty-eight years later. She lives in Washington state with her husband and their two doted-upon Yorkshire Terriers, but Saskatchewan, Canada, will always be the home of her heart. Linda blogs at A Slice of Life Writing.

October 3 – Support and Solace

by Khadijah

I was a teenager when I became a mother for the first time. I wasn’t married, and I had already begun the journey towards a college education and all that that would entail. In many families, such a thing would be cause for angry words, accusations, and a pulling apart of the fabric of the family. In my case, though, it ultimately resulted in my having a stronger relationship with both of my parents, as we faced the difficulties and challenges of unmarried parenthood together.

I don’t remember telling my mom, but I would guess I did so while driving somewhere or other in her little Dodge pickup. I do remember her telling me to go for a drive while she told my dad. When I returned after an hour or so he simply enveloped me in his big football player arms and told me he loved me and we would do this together.

The summer of my pregnancy passed quickly. Mom and I would go to the bigger towns that surrounded our little village of Gays Mills, Wisconsin, and shop on a regular basis. As a family we went to different tourist attractions around the state, like Villa Louis in Prairie du Chien, and the steam train in New Freedom. Dad would go for walks with me after every meal and sit up with me at night if I couldn’t sleep- something he continued to do after the baby was born- he would stretch out on the couch in his blue pajamas while I sat in the rocking chair nursing the baby.

When Mujaahid was born, on October 3, 1988, my parents were both present. While laboring I held onto Charlie, my stuffed monkey- Dad sat by me and held Charlie’s hand. When the contractions got too intense I sent him out to the waiting room. Mom said that he hadn’t attended the labor or birth of either of his own children, so I knew what it had cost him to sit in there, by my side. Mom stayed near the entire time, except for periodic trips out for a cigarette, telling jokes and lending quiet strength right up until the baby made his appearance.

And so it continued, even after I went off to college. My parents supported and assisted me in every way that they could, and I owe so much of what I am, and what my son is, to them. September 27 of this year saw the birth of my second grandchild, Yasmeen, to Mujaahid and his wife Hiyaat. I only hope and pray that I can be there for them, always, like my parents were for me.

Khadijah grew up in the Kickapoo Valley in Wisconsin and now lives in Yemin with her husband and eight children where she teaches Arabic and Islaamic studies to women and helps them recognize their importance and the need for their stories to be heard. Khadijah was the winner of the 2010 Story Circle Network Lifewriting Competition.

May 7 – Caution

by Sally Jean Brudos

Walk, run, hop, skip and jump and by all means take the stairs; the mantra for the weight loss program at the Stanford Department of Dietetics.  O.K.  I can try that – and I did.  But, now I am more cautious. 

My son Eric had just started a new job in a tall building 50 miles away in downtown Oakland.  “Come for lunch and I’ll show you around the office.” he said. “Call me when you get to the parking garage and I will greet you at the office door.”

After maneuvering the freeways 680, 880 and 980, I finally arrived at the tall building.  Following instructions, I called him and started to go up in the elevator.  The only problem was his office was on Floor 17 and the elevator that I had taken only went to Floor 15.

So – Oh, I can take the stairs two floors up.  The stairway door; quite a heavy door at that, slammed shut and I began my ascent.  When I got to Floor 17, the door to the hallway was locked. PANIC! What do I do now?  Go back to Floor 15 and find the other elevator.  But, the door was locked on Floor 15 as well.  PANIC!  I took off my Patten leather dress shoe and pounded on the door to no avail. 

Then I saw a phone – but no one answered.  PANIC!  I raced down the stairs and tried every door.  I’m not sure which floor it was that I finally found unlocked or how many times I picked up the phone on each floor, but I do know it took fifteen to twenty minutes before I walked out of the elevator to Eric’s questioning eyes.  We calmly looked around the office and then went downstairs in the elevator to the café on the street level.

Just as we were ordering our lunch, we heard the loud scream of sirens and saw three huge fire engines approach the building.

(I guess that telephone did ring some where after all!)

Sally Jean Brudos was a closet writer until breast cancer showed up on a mammogram and she began writing with other women in the “Sisterhood.” From the positive comments she realized there is a writer in everyone. A survivor, Sally Jean now leads a small group of women writers who encourage each other with laughter, tears and compassion.

April 8-Sobering Thoughts

by Marjorie Witt

An ordinary day, in our household, changes with the decade. There are only two things that remain consistent: the sun rises and I peruse the daily newspaper with the first cup of coffee each morning.

It’s the end of the eighties. We are in the midst of raising two teenage boys, I work more than full time, and life is challenging.

I wake up in the usual groggy fog, focusing my blurred eyes on the clock. My head throbs, my mouth is dry, and my stomach feels about to heave. I can’t remember what I did the night before.

I pour my coffee with jittery hands and begin the morning nag ritual, an impatient drill to get the boys off to school. It is Wednesday, my work at home day. My concentration is poor as I am distracted with the task ahead of us this afternoon.

We have an appointment at a rehab for our fourteen year old son. We’ve been in counseling for months now and nothing has changed. If only he would clean up his act, we could be a normal family. He’s resistant when I pick him up after school and inform him we are going to see a new counselor. He pushes his Dayglo green hair out of his eyes. “I’m not the one with the problem,” he says.

As we wait in the lobby for the assessment results, I study the sign above the receptionist’s desk, “This Too Shall Pass.” An hour later the counselor delivers the recommendation. “Your son’s drug habit is out of control. We can’t risk him leaving here today.” I am scared and desperate as she hands us papers to sign. Leaving the facility, I read the lobby sign once more. Maybe when the sun doesn’t rise, I think.

When we return home my husband offers me the usual evening martini and I turn it down. It’s not an ordinary day. I have decided I’ll never pick up another drink.

Margie Witt joined Story Circle Network over ten years ago intending to “write the book.”  Memoir may be the goal but is currently best pursued in short stories as life unfolds with complex challenges. Balancing work, play, and raising a grandson leaves little time to write so blog posts appear with less frequency these days at www.wittbits.blogspot.com