I was working at my desk as usual when my shoji — sliding doors of translucent veneer in the case of my office, though covered in white paper in most cases — began rattling on their rails. They’re the best early warning system I’ve found, so I knew an earthquake was arriving but had no idea how big it would be.

The early tremors that shook my shoji were nothing. The roar of the earth that followed is what really tipped me off that this was no ordinary wineglass rattler. Imagine a wind you might have heard high on a mountain sweeping down toward you. That’s scary enough. Now, imagine that wind not being made of air overhead, but of earth underfoot and barreling down on you.

I shot from my chair to secure the office. I covered the computer, put my expensive vase on the floor, unplugged equipment, and was just heading for the kitchen when the quake slammed the building. The neighborhood surfed on dirt. The lights swung from the ceiling, then blinked out. For a second I thought they were smart earthquake lights that sensed the tremors and turned themselves off to avoid sparking a fire, but then I noticed that all the power was out.

From inside every cabinet came a delightful tinkling of glass as if a small party had broken out to toast the arrival of spring, then the party turned horrible in a fight between stemware and cookware in the kitchen, books and printer paper in the office, with a great attempt on all fronts to pour forth in a tidal wave of debris across the floor. The quake-resistant, spring-secured kitchen and office cabinet doors held fast, though, and no tidal wave appeared — at least not in my building. Farther north, a tidal wave of the real variety gathered strength to devastate the coastline with such fury that Hollywood special effects departments are going to need to rethink the way they’ve depicted such events. They’re even worse than portrayed.

Once the initial slam subsided, people rushed into the streets. The elderly, who are legion in Japan and prepared for anything, arrived in white hard hats. One of them asked me if that wasn’t an incredible quake, and I tried to lighten the mood by pretending I hadn’t noticed.

“Quake?” I replied. “Nothing happened here,” I said, gesturing to my place.

She looked confused, then turned toward her home. “This house has always given me trouble,” she began, and started to describe how it had shaken the dickens out of her. I felt bad and cut in.

“I was just joking,” I told her. “I felt it, too.” I thought for sure she would have known I was kidding. Pretending not to notice that quake was like pretending not to notice daylight. She looked at me without smiling, then said sternly, “This is no time for telling lies, Mr. Kelly.”

That’s what the Japanese call jokes like the one I’d just attempted, lies, and she was right. It was no time for that. I got caught up in the thrill of danger and my sense of humor is what I use to deal with such moments, but I cast it aside in a hurry and joined in conversations about who needed what, when the next wave of the quake crashed upon us. Then the next. Then the next.

So it went. Wave after wave coursed through the land, sending power lines swinging and roofs crashing and the ocean surging. The trains stopped. The emergency announcement system blared that the power had gone out due to the quake.

As darkness descended and still the power stayed out, people lit candles in their homes. I moved around the city to see how it coped with the situation, even as the tremors continued. Traffic lights didn’t work, so cars edged their way cautiously into big intersections until the police showed up later to direct. Islands of light betrayed where emergency power had kicked in: the hospital standing tall and staying busy, a home for the elderly that was a type of hospital itself, vending machines that apparently contain batteries to keep selling drinks through any crisis.

A few convenience stores had power, but quickly no food except the dried, instant variety, and then even that was gone. People bought magazines, which I thought odd until I saw by the looks on their faces that what they sought was a part of normal life that had seemed so banal half a day earlier. In a snap, anything that symbolized that placid pace through a typical day became valuable, so off the shelves it flew.

Darkness fell, really fell when no man-made glows pushed against it in a million domes of modernity. The stars came out. I noticed them with joy because they were much brighter in the purer darkness. They made me think of soldier stories where men noticed something beautiful in nature as they fought, like a flower on the edge of a foxhole or a red-winged bird singing on a branch shot through with holes. I observed the world through no such dire circumstance, but the post-quake landscape gave me enough of a nudge in that direction to better understand my fellow man under duress.

I climbed a hill at the edge of town to look down on the sea of darkness. It was creepy. Where usually an endless field of lights extends to Tokyo, only a few areas of light appeared. Directly below the hill, eerie pools of headlights moved slowly around, many looking for missing family members who were unable to take the trains home. There were no city lights around the cars, just the headlight pools drifting along invisible grids like ghosts shaken from their graves.

With most people early in bed, the shaking continued. Isolated reports from community leaders holding radios on the streets informed me on the way home that northern Japan lay in ruin. The voices came leaden, delivering facts so directly that their effort to suppress emotion was in a way more emotional than if they’d cried out their sadness at each collapsed school or deluged farmhouse.

The chain of facts overwhelmed me. There was no break, no “In other news” transition to a different grim event, much less a weekend human interest sideshow. One statistic after another emanated from the radios in a legato of misfortune.

Eventually I reached a saturation point. There’s a limit to how much disaster I’m capable of processing. The adjectives peter out somewhere beyond tragic and catastrophic and devastating, and then those once horrible emotionless facts become welcome as a way to make sense of the event and form a plan for moving ahead. Let’s reduce that number of missing people. Let’s get the lights back on. Let’s make toilets flush again. How about some real food on shelves? The disaster list turns into a checklist. That’s the human spirit, alright. Let’s crawl up out of this hole!

Through the night we huddled in our capsules atop the rumbling island. When the first photon of sunlight touched the Land of the Rising Sun, we became the land of the rising determined and got straight to work on our checklists. One day, they’ll be complete and life will become a boring string of daily predictability again, within which some kid is bound to complain, “Nothing interesting ever happens to me.”

To be so lucky, young one.

Note: Originally published on JasonKelly.com.

Photo by Abrilon

The stories written by the 21 finalists have been amazing. There were a couple with which I could relate; there were some that amazed me of the strength and fortitude of my fellow man; there were some that after reading I had to stop, take a breath and offer up a prayer for those who have faced such difficulties and sorrows. Precious stories, every last one, told by those who lived them, experienced them, and found the courage to write them to inspire us all. It always takes courage to share personal experiences, to show those we’ve never even met a part of our hearts, experiences, lives.

I truly hope that each of you have enjoyed the stories as much as I have. Thank you for taking time to read, to comment, to absorb, and maybe even to open your heart and let your life begin to change through the experiences of others. “No man is an island” and through these stories, perhaps new bridges have been built, new friendships made, and new encouragement given to those who have struggled with the telling of their tales.

We would like to give honorable mention to a few stories. By the comments from others, we know these stories were great!

143, by Dina Schroeder

“What a beautiful story! Your love for God is awesome and your obedience to Him is amazing. You are an inspiration. Thanks for sharing your story and revealing that God does love each and everyone of us and truly tells us so!”

June 16, 2009, by Cody Hopkinson

“There is nothing as beautiful as giving birth. And to hear it from a father’s perspective is in a way even more beautiful. I love the way he writes because it’s factual, emotional, humorous, tender, and full of love. It also makes me cry every time I read it and I love the way it brings back memories of my own children’s births.”

Falling in Love, by Jessica Jones

“I can relate in many ways. I love the emotion you put into this. It is very real and honest… Thank you so much for sharing this. I hope to see more of your stories soon!”

Assault on An Angel: A Rape Victim’s Story, by Donna Carbone

“I am one of the finalists in the writing contest myself, but I have to say that your story touched me and I found myself tearing up. Jessica is a very strong person and she is indeed quite the survivor…She is so lucky to have you and the support of her family behind her. There is very little times that I am at lost for words but in this moment I was made speechless at your daughter’s strength….God bless you and her!”

The contest winners, those who received the most “likes” on Facebook:

Third place:

The Mind of a Runner, by Dawson Vorderbruegge

“Dawson, that was awesome. That run is an awesome example of the pain cave. You enter by choice and you decide how long you are in there by choice… Not going in, and or leaving early are so detrimental to success.”

Second Place:

Life, The Way It Never Was, by Keshav Pratap

“I read it…..stopped for a while and thought what had I been doing all my life…..lost and busy I have wasted my life for so many days….showed me another way to live this life… Loved it.”

First place:

Mutual Induction, by Anant Utkarsh

“Way to go!! One of the best short story I have come across so far!”

Photo by Left-Hand

Welcome to Scinti and our latest writing contest! We have received more than 200 submissions, each writer telling their own unique story. It was a pleasurable task reading through each and every story although it has been a challenge to choose 21 finalists out of many wonderful submissions. Thank you, to every one of you who took the time to write and send us your story. We wish that we could post each one, for everyone has a tale to tell.

We know that you will all enjoy reading through the 21 stories that have made it to the finalists. Guess who gets to choose the winners?

You do!

That’s right. It is up to you what the top ranking stories will be. By “liking” the story on Facebook, you will determine the contest winners. If there is a tie, then we will look at comments and are happy to hear which stories have touched your heart, brought a smile to your face, or even tears to your eyes. For more details on the voting process, please go here.

You can “like” your favorite stories any time between Monday, February 28th and Sunday, March 13th at 10PM eastern time. We look forward to hearing from you, as do the authors of these wonderful stories!

Our finalists for the Winter 2011 Scinti Writing Contest:

Photo by Left-Hand

When I returned home from serving a mission for my church, I kind of dreaded running into people that I knew because I knew they would ask me, “How was your mission?”

That might sound weird, but when you serve a mission; or perhaps you’re in the military and return home from serving your country; or after you climb Mt. Everest; or watch a loved one pass into the next life; or do pretty much anything that stretches you to extremes that you never thought you were capable of surviving, a question like that is almost insulting.

I just wanted to ask them in return, “Do you really want to know? Do you really care? It was the most exhausting, difficult, rewarding, beautiful, sacred, humbling, miserable, and challenging learning experience that I have ever endured. I gave my blood, sweat, tears, and heart. People spit on me, yelled at me, berated me, threatened me, and hated me. I loved every minute of it; even the parts that I hated. Everything that is good in my life right now is a direct result of the time I spent serving others. I would never trade it or do it over. It was the best time of my life.”

But, you see, even a response like that can’t impress upon someone the feelings and the reality of it all. In the end, words can’t describe it. So, you end up with a short, but trite replay like, “Good, thanks.”

The truth is there is no substitute for experience, and unless you’ve been there you just couldn’t really comprehend.

That’s how it felt to watch my beautiful, healthy, and perfect son come into this world. All of you who have experienced it are nodding your heads because you get it, and those who haven’t might be too. But, you can’t really understand until you’ve been there.

At some time around 7a.m., after a long night of tossing and turning from anxiety, the phone rang. Hanna, my wife, jumped a bit at the sound and it woke me up. She answered. I could hear a woman’s voice coming through the receiver asking, in essence, if we were ready and how soon we could come in to be induced. We knew they might call, but weren’t really expecting anything until later in the day. Hanna replied that we could leave within a half an hour.

The bags had been packed for days and we had been ready to go because of the four days or so of false labor that Hanna had been experiencing. The contractions would begin to come and they would get consistent for hours at a time, but would never increase in strength. She had dilated to a 3 1/2 about 10 days earlier and was 90% effaced. She probably walked 20 miles in those couple of days trying to motivate him to come. She was ready, but I guess our little guy wasn’t.

I climbed out of bed and just kind of wandered around the room in somewhat of a daze trying to figure out where to begin. I finally remembered where we kept the bathroom and decided to start there. About 35 minutes later we were both upright, clothed, clean, the car was loaded up and the dog was fed. We got to the hospital just before 8 a.m.

9 a.m. they broke Hanna’s water, 1 p.m. she decided she’d had enough fun and the epidural was given, and in the following two hours she went from a four to a seven. Just before 5 p.m. she was declared a 10 and the real work began.

I was exhausted at this point. I just didn’t think that I could take much more. I thought about asking if we could just keep her numb until the next day after I got a good nights rest, but Hanna insisted. I trudged forward.

My beautiful wife was a total champ at the whole push the baby out thing. She was really great. I was pretty nervous going into this thing because Hanna can be a bit aggressive, shall we say. I think that she might have considered that trading my life for our son’s would be an acceptable proposal so initially I wondered if it was really in my best interest to be within arms reach of her. Luckily, the drugs had made her quite pleasant, and we had a very positive and healthy experience working together to get that baby out.

After about 40 minutes of pushing, and still no baby, we were notified that we liked our children sunny side up. I guess they don’t so much. Instead of coming through the birth canal facing down, he was facing the ceiling. I think that it was just because he was so excited to put a face with the very manly and comforting voice that had given him pep talks every night before bed. Maybe he’s a back sleeper like his mom. Who knows? Whatever the case, it was cause for much more effort from Hanna.

After about an hour of pushing Hanna just looked at me with pleading in her eyes, and I knew she was ready to be done. She had done so great, but she was losing energy and confidence. So I did what any good husband would do, I lied.

“Oh he’s so close. He’s like right there. Just one or two more pushes and he’s here.” I was just practicing for when I’d get to tell my kids, “Oh we’re almost there. Just up around the next corner. Keep walking and quit whining.”

6:36 p.m. our precious baby made his appearance. (FYI: I too was born at exactly 6:36 p.m.) What a moment. After the doctor unwrapped the umbilical cord and cleaned the airways, there was the beautiful sound of an infant crying. The single most amazing moment in my life was watching my lovely Hanna reach out and hold our firstborn for the first time.

I couldn’t stop staring. He’s Perfect. For days now all I can do is stare. We have loved having him here and I don’t think that either of us knew that we could love so much. We think that he’s pretty special. And, we know that he was meant to be ours, forever.

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Adi Thelen

Dear cancer survivors and anyone close to them,

This letter is to remind us-and all of those we love-that we are teachers in our lives. Through these inspirational battles, it can be easy to allow sadness to wash over us and forget there are people who will be by our side along the way. Even if we tend to forget, we are always supported.

A close friend of mine passed away March 6. Adi Thelen was a teacher, a mentor and a personal hero to me and many other people. She battled cervical cancer. Despite her short life, Adi managed to revive an instinct kept deep inside of all of us: unconditional love.

In a documentary titled “Determined,” produced by former Dixie State College students Bryan Johnson and Jared Burton, Thelen said: “If teachers can make a difference in your life, it’s because you allow us to come into your life to make that difference.”

This quote is something each of us should truly take time to ponder. This quote isn’t applicable just to teachers and professors; rather, it extends to everyone. Each person is a teacher in someone else’s life. The lesson of laughter is an example of this. Thelen constantly laughed and joked about her condition, saying she wanted to teach her friends another way to deal with the difficult situation. She focused on other people’s comfort before her own, and her unconditional love for everyone she met showed through. It is amazing to see someone going through the turmoil of the disease, yet still focus on others before worrying about him or herself.

This was the case for another dear friend of mine who battled breast cancer. Even after a double mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and the loss of her thick, blonde hair, she put her family first. All these events unfolded toward my graduation of high school. The family was supposed to come out for the event, but I received a call with an offer I couldn’t refuse. Her husband called and said it would cost the same to fly the family out to see my graduation, as it would be to purchase a real-hair wig. I knew she had a hopeful spirit until she lost her hair. As you might imagine, I told them to purchase the wig.

There is an important message with these lessons. The simple point is to be a supporter. Cheer them on throughout the process. You cannot battle cancer alone, but when you’re facing it with friends and family, it becomes somewhat bearable. Support can mean whatever you’d like it to mean: holding his or her hand through treatment, listening and being the shoulder to cry on, sending him or her uplifting messages and jokes, creating awareness, or just showing him or her you care.

To those going through cancer, remember it is OK to receive encouragement and ask for help. You may have a handful of supporters, or you may have hundreds, but know they are there for you through your ups and downs, your good days and bad days, through the hair loss and the weight loss, and anything else you may be dealing with.

The most important lesson for anyone to consider is this: Live every moment at that moment. It may seem cliché, but it is still important. Every strong person in my life who has battled cancer has said to not take life for granted because it only takes one phone call to change your life forever. I had received one of those phone calls from my doctor last year, and even though the doctor found no cancer cells developing, it changed my perspective on friendship, family and life.

I wish you all the best of health and the most memorable moments in life.

Sincerely,

Casie

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Saturday, June 30, 2007 was a perfect day for mother/daughter bonding. My daughter, Jessica, and I have always had a close relationship, and this beautiful Florida morning was the beginning to a day of pampering and shopping. She picked me up promptly at ten, her little sports car with its top down looking more inviting than a stretch limousine. Off we drove to Starbucks to start our gabfest over hot cups of caramel macchiato – our favorite — before rushing off to our manicure and pedicure appointments.

Once we were sure that the dreaded polish smudges could be avoided, we slipped into our sandals and drove to the mall. With nothing special in mind, we searched the shops for the perfect outfit for work or play.

In the dressing room at Victoria’s Secret, we tried on our selections and laughed over their sometimes unflattering effects. Our giggles were so loud, the sales staff knocked to inquire about our insanity.

By mid-afternoon, our stomachs were growling so to lunch we went. This was not the day to be weight conscience. Burgers and fries, and, of course, diet soda! How we enjoyed each bite! After a quick walk through the remaining stores, we called it a day, having made plans to meet again later for dinner and a movie with her dad.

At 11:30 pm, my husband and I left our daughter at her front door as many not well-stifled yawns distorted our faces. At 5:30 a.m., my cell phone rang. Nothing could have prepared me for the sound of my daughter’s voice crying, “Mommy, help me. I’ve been raped.”

My heart stopped beating. I was instantly awake.  “Are you badly hurt? Have you called the police?” I motioned for Mike to get dressed. “Stay on the line. Don’t hang up.” Jessica was sobbing, “Be careful, mommy. He has a machete!”

Mike and I lived very near Jess’s apartment. As painful as her phone call had been, the sight of her literally made my heart break. “Dear God,” I thought, “She looks like the Elephant Man.”

Jess was crouching behind her apartment door, shaking uncontrollably, as we let ourselves in. In the darkened room, it was difficult, at first, to see her. With pretend calmness, her dad, a retired doctor, led her to the sofa and examined her face. I dialed 911 and explained what had happened.

There are no words to express the gratitude we all feel toward the North Palm Beach Police Department officers and paramedics who arrived so quickly. No kinder, gentler, more professional men than these will ever be found. Our daughter, as you will learn in this story, is alive because she kept calm and followed her instincts. She provided the police with so much information that formal identification was never an issue.

At approximately 2:30 a.m., Jessica was awakened by the sound of keys in the door. Within seconds, a dark man was standing beside her bed, a machete in his hand. Jess bolted upright but was thrown back, face down, her hands zip tied behind her back. Although she pretended not to know who her assailant was, she immediately recognized him as the maintenance man who had repaired her air conditioner some weeks earlier.

Telling this part of the story always fills me with rage. When Jess rented her apartment just five months prior, her dad asked the manager if he could install an extra inside lock. “Absolutely not,” he was told. Like the law-abiding people we are, we obeyed. Do not, I beg you, do not allow some random person to govern how you protect yourself.

At the time her air conditioner was being repaired, Jess told us that this man made her uncomfortable. He had done nothing overt; they had not even had a conversation, but something in his demeanor set off an alarm. Jess noticed a Blue Tooth in his ear as he worked, and when it rang, it played the same rap tune over and over again.

When her attacker entered, Jessica was wearing a tee shirt and a pair of underwear. He took shorts from her dresser and put them on her. He shoved a pillowcase in her mouth and dragged her, barefoot, to her car, claiming he needed money. For some reason, he chose to drive and, as he pushed Jess into the passenger seat, she noticed one zip tie had become loose. As soon as her attacker was behind the steering wheel, she spit out the pillowcase and bolted from the car; running, screaming across the parking lot. Nobody came to her aid, although many heard her screams.

Bobby Broomfield, III, the perpetrator, tackled our daughter into some bushes and dragged her behind one of the maintenance sheds. She fought hard but her attacker was 6’3” and weighed over 250 pounds. He laughed at her efforts and taunted her by saying, “You must have taken self-defense. It won’t do you any good.”

During the struggle, his gloved hands pulled and punched at her face, tearing her lips and mouth. Eventually, he subdued her and re-zip tied her hands. This time he made them so tight that they cut into her wrists causing permanent nerve damage. Rather than try driving Jess’ car again, Broomfield used his own car. On the front console, Jess saw a Blue Tooth similar to the one the repairman had been wearing. Later, when Broomfield’s cell phone rang, it played the same rap tune. Jess also noticed what appeared to be a dry cleaning bag on the floor. That bag would later cause as much fear as the machete on the seat between them.

Jess thought they would now go to the bank. Broomfield had other ideas. He took her to a vacant apartment near the Intracoastal Waterway. As he pulled her out of the seat, he grabbed the plastic bag and asked if she could swim. Now, Jess feared he would throw her into the ocean with the bag over her head. Being a strong swimmer and a dive master, Jess began to plan her escape. What she didn’t expect was to be brought inside the vacant apartment and raped. Later, she was able to describe to the police the construction lights set up in what she thought was the living room. When the apartment was located, during the investigation, her underwear and the plastic bag were still in the room.

Once through with her, Broomfield dressed Jessica and again put her into his car. He began to drive aimlessly, sometimes going back to the apartment complex parking lot and then leaving again. He noticed the damage to Jess’ face at about the same time she began to lose feeling in her arms. Her crying upset her attacker. He panicked. From the trunk of his car, he took a wire cutter and tried to snip the zip ties. When that did not work, he tried the blade of a saw, which also did not work, but which cut into her wrists, leaving blood on her hands and the car seat. As a last resort, he drove to a gas station, where he bought scissors, telling Jessica not to run or he would shoot her.

More driving… this time stopping at random banks, attempting to get money from the ATMs with her bank card. When the card did not work, he accused her of giving him the wrong pin number. No matter how many times she explained that her account was only with Bank of America, he kept going to other institutions. After exhaustive pleading, Jess finally convinced him to drive to a BOA and, there, he was able to get some money from her account.

Eventually, they returned to the complex and her apartment. Once inside, Jess, thinking ahead, offered him a bottle of beer. During the night Broomfield had talked about himself and his family. He told Jess that his favorite beer was Sam Adams, the same kind she had in the refrigerator. On the pretext of being thirsty, she asked if she could get a drink of water and offered him a bottle, hoping his DNA would be left behind. He refused, pushed her back into the bedroom and raped her twice more.

During the night, Broomfield often banged his head on the steering wheel, stating he had to kill Jessica because she knew who he was. Jessica was adamant that she had not looked at him. Eventually, she convinced him that his identity was safe. Over the three plus hours they were together, Broomfield grew comfortable talking to Jessica. He told her many details about his life. He programmed her cell number into his phone and showed her pictures of his children. One minute he was convinced he had to kill her and the next he promised to return the money he had stolen. He asked what her plans were for the rest of her day and, when she said she was going to the beach, he asked to join her.

The teeter tooter of life and death was torture for Jessica. “Please, God, if he is going to kill me, let it be fast.” Jess was silently begging for mercy.

When Broomfield had finally abused Jessica enough, he insisted she take a shower. Sitting on the toilet lid, machete in hand, he made sure she washed thoroughly. At a loss for what to do next, he again said he needed to kill her. Jess talked about his children and how much they needed him. “Who,” she asked, “will care for them if you kill me and go to jail for life.” Broomfield said he would go to jail anyway because she would call the police. Again, Jess assured him she only wanted the night to be over. For whatever reason, he asked, “So, we good?” “Yes,” she assured him, “we are good.” And he was gone.

The investigation and the trial took two years to complete — two years during which emotional scabs would form and be picked away over and over again.

The hours that followed were almost as horrific as the ordeal itself — the verbal reliving of the event to the police officers, the retelling again to the detective assigned to the case and the ministrations of doctors, nurses and victim’s advocates…all there for your benefit but none the less invading your privacy.

The female detective assigned to the case has our undying gratitude. Detective Stephanie Joyce is an amazing. From the moment she arrived at the hospital, she protected Jessica from everyone not directly involved in her care.

The victim’s advocates were and are an incredible group of women. The first one to the hospital brought clean clothes, a toothbrush and other necessities to make Jessica comfortable. She remained until relieved by her successor, who stayed with Jessica through the traumatic face-to-face identification of her attacker.

The police officers first on the scene took the case very personally. As Jessica was certain she knew her attacker, they promised they would have him behind bars before the night was over. They kept their word.

Our criminal justice system moves at a tedious and frustrating pace. Motions and more motions were filed; postponement after postponement became the norm. Plea deals were offered and rejected, which pleased Jessica. She never wanted to allow Broomfield to get away easily. As difficult as a trial would be, Jess was willing to endure it. She wanted other women to know that there is no shame in being raped. “Come forward,” she wanted to yell. “Stand proud. Hold your head up!”  That is exactly what she did.

The trial lasted two weeks. The outstanding case presented by Barbara Burns, the Assistant State Attorney, the evidence collected by the crime scene unit and the testimony of the police officers and detectives were beyond reproach. Combined with Broomfield’s own condemning statement, the state’s case was more than strong. However, no matter how confident we were, the outcome depended on six strangers who sat and listened, showing no emotion, during the long hours court was in session.  Three men and three women - different in every way….what were they thinking?

The final morning of trial was tense for everyone. When both sides rested their case, the judge released the jury for deliberation. We wandered the streets around the courthouse…walking and waiting.

In less than two hours, the jury reached a verdict. Broomfield was convicted of three counts of armed sexual battery, one count of burglary while armed, one count of false imprisonment, one count of robbery and one count of trespass. We felt no sense of victory.

The prosecutor assured us that conviction on just one of the armed sexual battery charges carried a mandatory life sentence. We left the courthouse relieved that Jessica would be safe from this predator forever. By the time of sentencing, ninety days later, the mandatory sentence was no longer in effect. Now, we were dependent upon the judge to determine a fair punishment.

At the sentencing hearing, family and friends from both sides made statements, which the judge listened to politely, but I am sure Judge Smith had already reached a decision. Regardless, Jessica and I were determined to plead our case. Jessica wrote the following letter, which she read in court.

Dear Judge Smith:

What I would like to do in this letter is tell you about the changes in my life since the attack. For as long as I can remember, July has always been one of my favorite months. The fourth was not just a day to celebrate our country’s birthday; it was the day our family gathered to celebrate our love and kinship.   Red, white and blue signified patriotism and loyalty not blood and bruises. Now, July is the month I celebrate being alive.

At 29, I should have my own home, but I am terrified that, no matter how many locks are on the door, someone will break in. I have become a child again, living with my parents. Dreading the nightmares, I barely sleep. Therapy helps for a few hours, but when darkness sets in, I once again fear for my life. I want to stop shaking! I want not to be afraid every time a dog barks or a tree branch hits the window!

Relationships are so difficult because I’ve lost the ability to trust. I want a family. My parents would like grandchildren. Neither is going to happen when everyone I meet is found lacking. I fear never finding anyone who will understand that my tough exterior is a façade set up to protect me. I don’t like who I have become but am unable to change.

Only those closest to me know that the smile on my face each day is part of my makeup. Apply lipstick. Smile. It’s hard work to pretend to be happy but people really don’t want to be burdened with my sorrow. As a result, I’ve never really grieved for the loss of innocence, security, trust and independence. Grieving is weak. I’m afraid to be weak.

Judge Smith, I don’t want to be vindictive, but I do want justice. There will never be a day I do not remember what happened. I will always see the machete pressed up against my cheek. I will always feel the zip ties pulled tight around my wrists. I will always taste my blood in my mouth. I will eventually require surgery for my injuries….more scars to deal with. I will be a prisoner of these events for the rest of my life. Mr. Broomfield should be a prisoner for just as long.

Please sentence Bobby Broomfield, III to the maximum allowable under the law. I beg you to send a message to other predators that abuses such as these will not be tolerated in our society.

Then, it was my turn. “When Jessica was attacked, my son asked me how God could allow one of his angels to be hurt so badly. Jessica is an angel, our angel, and Mr. Broomfield’s assault took a part of her soul. He stole her freedom. He stole her trust. Her physical injuries will eventually require surgery. There is no surgery to repair the damage to her emotional state.

To the court, this case is a sexual assault but to our family it is a homicide. Mr. Broomfield effectively used the machete he carried to take away a part of Jessica’s life. She is no longer the daughter we knew and I doubt that time will give her back to us. Mr. Broomfield should have to pay for that loss with the rest of his life. He should not be allowed to victimize other women.

Perhaps, Judge Smith really did listen. She sentenced Broomfield to life in prison without parole. I wish I could say that justice being served worked a miracle and all the pain and suffering of the past two years went away. That didn’t happen, but the healing process has begun.

Jessica’s story is filled with women of strong character. Starting with Jessica, herself, they include Lieutenant Stephanie Joyce of the North Palm Beach Police Department; Liisa Spinello and Deliah Roman, the victim’s advocates who befriended and supported her; Randee Speciale, the therapist who saw her through the darkest days; Barbara Burns, the awe-inspiring Assistant State’s Attorney and the amazing Judge Amy Smith. At her side always were her good friends, Mary Bain and Carin Muley. With these women to look up to, how can we not stand tall and proud.

On her wrist, over the deepest scar left by the zip ties, Jessica has a teal blue ribbon tattoo. If you ask her why, she’ll tell you, “If I have to remember what happened for the rest of my life, I want to remember that I survived.”

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My world, as I know it, is full of complete sorrow.  I fight the urge to slice open my skin on a daily basis.  This self-inflicted pain was my only release for six years.  Then you came along.  You goofy, handsome, crazy boy.  I continued to cut for several months after we ’became official.’  But you knew about it.  And that night– New Years Eve— will always stick in my mind.  I can bring the past back, and feel you hold me.

The room is dark.  You decided to light candles–a flame to warm our hearts and bodies.  You come up behind me, kiss my lips.  You then turn your attention toward my bare shoulders.  I immediately move my hands up, a reflex due to years of hiding.  You slowly bring my hands down, while looking in my eyes.  You then lower your lips to my shoulder—kissing every single slash of the skin, every single foul word I decided represented the person I believe me to be.

Some are fresh and I wince at the simple pressure of your lips on them.  When you have completed your job, you look at me, eyes full of tears.  “Why does someone so beautiful write such ugly things on herself?”  In that moment, I find the courage to stop.  For it is in that moment that I realize I am truly loved.

Photo by J. Star

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I was waiting outside a movie theatre for its cash counter to open up. I knew I was going to see some really seducing curves on Katrina’s body, still I could not resist myself from seeing those I found on hot girls standing outside. Believe me, Nagpur is no less than Delhi, Mumbai or Pune when it comes to charisma that girls have.

Suddenly a shaggy figure loomed out of that happening crowd. I could make out that he was older than me but still quite young, may be in 30’s and he looked physically alright.

‘Saheb! Kuch hai kya dene ko?’ He said.   (In Hindi, it means ‘Sir! Do you have something to give me?’)

My friends were late. It is really tough on your part to pay for ten people when each ticket costs 120 bucks, no matter how well you know that everyone would pay their share afterwards. We hostelites, do not believe even in down payments, we strongly believe in debts and hate being on the wrong side.  I was not in my best mood.

‘I have but I won’t give you.’ I said.

‘Why?’ He asked.

‘Why should I and who the hell are you to ask me why?’ I said disgustedly.

‘Am I a fool? Do you think you can put on torn filthy clothes, with bare foot, a bit of dust on hair and a bent back can help you beg. You are bloody young. Why don’t you find a job for yourself?’ I screamed at him.

I saw his eyes moistened while my face turned red. He took his eyes off me. I saw his tears getting dense.

‘Nahi milta saheb, kya karu?’ He said.

I was angry and helpless – angry with this man, for he was not poor but still begging. I was willing to help him but not the way he demanded for. I was angry with my country – India. I was angry with myself, not for making him cry but for seeing him beg. Perhaps, I was angry with God. I tell you, perfect blend of such feelings can burst your nerves like anything.

I took a deep breath and said, ‘Bhaiya! Do you know who is a poor man?’

‘One who has no money.’ He replied.

‘No. Poor is one who is not loved. You are not poor. I love you.’ I said.

I placed a fifty rupee note in his hand and said, ‘Please do not beg. It hurts.’

He took it with a gentle smile. Rubbing his eyes, he walked away swiftly. I was again busy with my curve tracing. After a few steps he stopped, returned and gave back my fifty rupees.

‘Aap bahot ache hain.’ He said.   (It means that you are a very nice person)

‘You love me. I am not poor even. See, I am as good as you.’ I said happily.

‘Do you know what is one’s biggest wealth?’ I asked.

‘Love’ He replied.

‘No. It is hope. And no one can steal it from you.’ I said.

He hugged me and said, ‘I won’t beg anymore.’

People say affluence creates poverty. I think it is not affluence but paucity of hope that causes poverty.

Yes, I call this story ‘Mutual Induction’. It induced hope both in him and in me. In him, a hope to earn his living with respect and rise of this hope induced back in me, a hope to see my country free from poverty, where everyone lives happily with dignity. That day, I swore I would never give money to a beggar. Rather, I would give him ‘his hope’.

Two days later I saw him working at a refuelling station in Shankar Nagar Square. I looked up and thanked god.

I don’t know whether god will forgive me for the tears I gave him.

P.S- Katrina Kaif is a famous Bollywood actress.

P.S- I was never good in physics practicals, but this time I did well.

P.S– He had nice triceps. I envy him.

P.S– Curve tracing has always been my favourite topic both in books and outside them.

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It all started when I was sitting on the concrete aisle of the barn gossiping with my mom and my trainer, Nicole. Nicole casually told me about a horse from one of the other barns and he needed a new home. The previous owner didn’t want to be responsible for him anymore. Even though she had owned him for many years, she didn’t want to waste her time on him. I had been looking for a horse for nearly 6 months, but I couldn’t find one in my price range and a personality that would match mine. I instantly wanted to meet him. It ended up being one of the last few days of August when I went to ride him. I still remember the ride. It was so comfortable. I had to adjust my body to match his because he has a hump on his back connecting to his tail. A very rare hump that none of the vets have ever seen before, in any that they have read or during their practice. His hump isn’t a problem for him, I just have to ride a little different to insure that he is comfortable. I knew right away, just like how the boy in the movie sees the love of his life across the carnival and knows it is his future wife. A few hours after I tried him, Nicole called saying that the owner was going to sell him at an auction if he didn’t sell in the next few days. I was devastated. Selling a horse at an auction is a horrible experience for a horse. It is a lot of people around a tiny circle for the horse to walk  in to show off the horse in front of people. The atmosphere is filled with loud sounds, people moving in all directions or getting up in the horses face. Some people even throw stuff at the horse to see how the horse will react. That is when most horses freak out, causing a scene to the crowd and lowering their chances to be bought. That is when a Slaughter House can buy the horses for very cheap and take them into Canada or Mexico to make meat out of them.

I went to my dad crying. He must have seen the despair in my eyes, how I already had to put down two cats due to illness, a dog of old age, an older horse who was kicked by another horse  that shattered his knee, and dealing with the fact that I almost had cancer, all in one year. My dad just didn’t buy me my horse, he bought me my Hal. I knew at that moment I would cross rivers, climb mountains, walk a hundred miles for him.

Hal and I were a great team for a few months, until December. It was as if Hal just flipped personalities. We would ride in the indoor arena and he would just stop dead, spin around, and run away. Most of the time when a horse acts up or is scared of something a person can work through that with the horse, and get over the fear and move on. Hal wouldn’t move on. I tried everything. I had my trainer and her husband get on him to see if it was me that was doing harm. I never thought it was me because when someone else was riding him he would go full on bucking with them, throwing them around and into the air making them land in the dirt. When I rode him, he acted out but, he never went as harsh with me as he did with everyone else. I had my trainers husband ride him and see if his weight and strength would help Hal, as if Hal was just forgetting I was on his back. That didn’t work, Hal bucked him off faster than I have ever seen before.

At that point, people started calling me. Saying that they knew my horse at other barns before, and he would all of a sudden buck the rider off. That trainers from before would beat him, that he was on outside doing nothing for a whole winter. The following spring the people jumped him over a four foot jump the second day he was back in training. The height is fine for Olympians or horses that have been training for their whole lives, but this was only his second day of working from a very long break. He wasn’t ready, and the people just pushed him too hard. They never asked themselves what was best for Hal, only what was best for them.

At that point, I was out of options, I didn’t know what else to do. I had this horse who I loved more than ever, and I didn’t know how to help him. I finally called an animal communicator. I personally never believed in it, I thought it was a joke before. I called the woman, Beth, because I was out of options, and anything at that point was worth trying. Beth came and we stood together outside of Hal’s stall, to get him used to the fact that someone who supposedly knows what he’s thinking is now here. Beth imminently said that Hal was hurt. That Hal tried to give his owners everything that he could and they never listened to him, no one had ever listened to what he needed. That the people would mistreat him, that they never thought about his back. Beth started crying. When I called Beth to come and meet Hal, she only wanted to know his name and his age. She didn’t want to go into a situation and know too much about it. She came to my barn only knowing that my horse’s name is Hal and that he is 13. She ended up telling me everything that I was finding out from phone calls. Beth then went on to tell me that he has lived a very hard life. People would beat him in his stall, or come after him when he couldn’t do what they wanted. People would take the whip aggressively to him forcing him into something he wasn’t understanding. She said it wasn’t the pervious owners, that because he had a lot of people own him it made a long term side effect of trust issues. That most likely he was abused when he was younger and made the rest of the owners were simply unaware of what had happened to him. Being in the constant for sale adds had put a dent into his confidence and his ability to love and trust.

When Hal would go around the arena then suddenly flip out, it was because he was living his life on auto pilot. Like how when you drive home and you cant remember how you got home, the last thing you remember is getting into the car at work and now you are at home, not being able to remember when you stopped at that one stop sign, auto pilot. Every so often Hal would wake up and couldn’t remember how he got to the arena or how he even got to me. Beth gave me her card and told me that the only way to help him is to show him that he will be mine forever. To build a bond with him so strong that he couldn’t possibly forget me. I could call her whenever I needed her, but she can’t ask him about what happened again, he shouldn’t have to relive those memories.

After Beth came, my life was completely different. I would only ride him a couple of the days of the week, sometimes only for 15 minutes, only having fun with him. Other days I would go out to his paddock and sit on the fence and rub his face or talk to him about my day. I would go in the arena to just play with him, I would run away from him, and he would run after me. I always talked to him, like I was having a real conversation with a person. If I was fighting with my mom or having trouble with friends or school, Hal always knew about it. This is how we got over it, by just letting him be a horse, and giving him time to trust his tiny human. Every week I could ride a little more, work a little more, and love him for just the way he was. Eventually everything stopped and became a whole new experience with him. I could ride him for as long as I wanted to and he wasn’t going to freak out. I could go riding outside or ride him without a saddle, things that I would have never thought I could do with him let alone be comfortable with it.

I don’t think I can ever love a man the same way that I love Hal. I don’t think any man will be as perfect in my eyes as Hal is. Because I know that when I had to leave him for a year in Germany to work, that he curled his neck around my body, and his hair caught my tears that day. How I wear a neckless with a tiny charm with his name on it, to keep him always close to my heart. How before I go to bed or while I’m making breakfast I think about wrapping my arms around him. My love for Hal, is a type of pure love that you cant find anywhere else. I call him my troubadour because his songs filled with love found its way into my heart.

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(I tell this story with a sense of humor and one who has found freedom in love instead of a bunch of rules!!!)

It began when I found out that I was pregnant with my first child. I wanted things to go perfectly! I wanted God to be proud of me. I was going to do this His way. Or should I say the way I THOUGHT that He might want this to be!

A friend of mine gave me a book that could help me with my God pleasing birth. In this book it talked about how all you have to do is make a list of how you want things to be in the birthing of your baby. Naturally I wanted no Pain…so I wrote that down! The book told me how to be very precise in my prayers about what I wanted and how I wanted things to go. After making this VERY detailed list you must make sure that you do not doubt! YOU MUST KNOW that God can bring it forth. So I did!

I believed all the way and I knew I wanted no medication, no pain and I wanted God to be proud of me for doing this the “Christian Way.”

Well the time came and Tevia was ready to be in my arms. Labor started early that day. I went to the hospital when the contractions became close. I immediately told them I wanted no epidural! I believed all the way and I was putting action to my belief. Labor was pain free for a while then the doctor comes in and breaks my water! Yes, that was when the pain was on!!!! Can I tell you my body and I went to battle. I was in labor for more than 20 hours without that epidural. Within these 20 hours my cervix began to stop dilating! It would stop at 2 for along time then it slowly moved to 4 then 6. In the mist of this long labor and problems with dilating my body began to shut down on me. My fingers began curling up uncontrollably. My body started to tense up all over. The length of the labor and now with the tensing up of my body began to stress my little bundle of joy. The nurse came in and said we must speed up the process of this birth because if we do not we could put the baby in danger. She said, “We need to give you some patosson.” I asked what is that? She said it would speed up the birthing process and that things would get more intense because of how quickly the potasson dilates the cervix.

I began to cry at the realization that these pains were about to get more frequent and a lot HARDER!!! I had a friend there with me that had been helping me through this birthing process and she knew exactly what I was believing for. She was praying with me all the way.

But even she knew when the nurse said what she did that my body was telling me NO MORE! The nurse recommended the epidural so that my body could begin to relax. I began to cry because I felt that I had failed God.

The epidural doctor comes in and I assume the position to receive the epidural (over my friends shoulder) I whisper in her ear “Will God still love me?” She looks at me with loving eyes as I begin sobbing; she strokes my hair and says of course He will still love you. The epidural was a success and I feel asleep about 5 minutes after they gave it to me!! I was exhausted. They let me sleep. My body began to relax and do what it had to do for my beautiful daughter to be born. Within 2 hours of giving me the epidural they woke me up and said, “It is time Mrs. Schroeder” So they brought the stirrups and my little bundle came after about 3 pushes!!!

The doctor says let it show that the Schroeder girl was born at 1:43 am. 143? I heard that and it was so loud but yet it was a secret that nobody in that room knew except me. 143 was a code that my cheerleader sponsor would write at the end of all her notes to us and it meant I love you. 143 meant I love you to me! What was my question during my thoughts of defeat? …. Will he still love me? Not only did He still love me but He told me so in a very personal way!!! NOBODY in that room heard Him because He was talking to Me and He wanted ME to know Nothing could ever separate me from His love not even an epidural!

Photo by Trey Matula

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Cigarettes and cell phones, the air thick with smoke and Chin-chat, loud. There is no other volume.  Cities redolent of urine, shit, vomit and garbage. Eau de Chine.

No fragrant incense here to mask the rude odours of the great unwashed; the smoke from raw Chinese cigarettes a poor but often welcome screen.

So many people everywhere. And so noisy.  Nonstop talking. Loud, shrill, insistent voices hammering home their points at one another.  The China din starts well before six am, and carries on, a constant cacophony until well after midnight. When the dogs start barking.

Cities so Western – concrete, glass and steel.  Cars, buses, trucks everywhere –even on the sidewalks.  This could be Chicago, New York, Vancouver. No oriental flavour here to savour.

But the language survives, thrives – no English here – nary a word or sign: no catering to foreign tourists.  There is no need: so many Chinese tourists, spending spending spending. Big Yuan.

Communism well replaced (and replaced well?) with Consumerism, writ large.

Unbridled Capitalism.  All the big name brands – Nike Converse KFC Starbucks Hilton Holiday Inn Toyota Honda – are here.  And all the most exclusive, most expensive brands are here too – Mercedes BMW Gucci Hugo Boss Ralph Lauren Dior Dunhill Luis Vuitton – and doing well.

But is that bag a Gucci?  Is that watch a Rolex?  Is that belt real leather?  There are no regulations here, and even if there were, no one would heed them, no one enforce them. Anything and everything goes.  China is the counterfeit capital of the world: buyer beware!

The Chinese who have money – and there are plenty who do – have lots of it.

And like to spend it. Like to buy things that make them look good.  It’s all about face. Appearances.

China’s about face: from stringent Communism to rampant Capitalism in just a few short years: Where to next?

Women in cocktail dresses, baby-doll pajamas, poofy-hemmed curtain dresses, tight mini-skirts.  Like Disney dolls, in Minnie Mouse and Betty Boop outfits.

Big buttons and bows, knock-off Gucci purses, and always high heels, strappy high heels, clattering down cobble-stone streets, tip-toeing through mud puddles and seas of litter.

Little girls in fairy dresses and party shoes, pink and white princesses.  Babies with great gaping holes in the bums of their pants – crotch coolers? – being held out over the sidewalk by squatting parents, whispering shh, shh, shh…  Puddles of piss, baby and otherwise, all along the street.

And globs of phlegmy goo. Hoiking and spitting a national pass-time.  More dangerous and disgusting than the globs underfoot the flying globs – spat out the windows of passing cars and buses.

Walkers vie for space in the streets with buses, trucks and cars.  They stand, like rocks in a fast-flowing river, the stream of traffic momentarily separating to go around them, but never stopping – there is no stopping!

With luck, a critical mass of pedestrians builds up, enough to coax first one car, then another, to slow down or even – wow! – stop, for just a second.  Pedestrians dash across, watching out in all directions: nowhere is one completely safe, not even on the sidewalk.

Motorcycles in particular may come from anywhere – they obey no traffic rules at all – don’t stop for red lights, ride on the sidewalk, sail the wrong way up one-way streets, and even highways… but then so do cars and buses.

China’s finest, street-corner cops, sheltering under Coca-cola and Macdonald’s umbrellas: I’m lovin’ it!  Particularly fitting as no one pays these, or any, authority figures the least attention: regulations abound, enforcement’s non-existent.

If you have a problem, don’t call the police. They’re busy drinking coffee, having a smoke, reading a paper, playing a game of checkers, sleeping, smiling.

Or riding around on their dinky blue and white scooters with their fellow police persons.

We have yet to see a police person doing anything remotely like ‘policing.’ Perhaps there is no need here. Certainly we have seen no crime – no one even misbehaving. No punks on the street, no graffiti, no reckless driving (well, that’s relative…).

If I lived in China I’d like to be a police person: nice uniforms, cushy job and a free scooter! Yes!

We travel through the countryside by bus and train, passing through mile after mile of agricultural mosaic – rice paddies, wheat fields, corn, garlic, tea, vegetables – carefully tended, all by hand.  In all our travels we’ve seen just a handful of tractors, one or two rototillers.

China’s agricultural production is achieved, almost entirely, by peasants with shovels and hoes.  They are out there, from dawn until dusk, backs bent to their labour.  China is literally feeding herself on the backs of her peasants.

Fields interspersed with drab, dingy towns; heavy, gray Soviet-style buildings and apartment blocks.  Piles of brick, rock, sand, dotted everywhere, blocking sidewalks, roadways – what are they all for?  Acres of rubble, covering up old farmland, old rice paddies – what are they going to do here?

We cross over rivers long dry – dammed and damned.  And in the rocky river bed, back-hoes and trucks busy mining sand and gravel, digging great holes, making big piles, hauling the rocks and sand away to build more roads, prepare new lands (most previously agricultural) for housing, factories… . No fish in the rivers here – there’s no water and nowhere to hide from the hungry.

We wind through mountains scraped and scarred to make roads, grand double-lane highways, freeways.  But where are the cars?  We pass by miles and miles of new roads with nary a vehicle. Who and what are these roads for?

Careening through these landscapes, no choice but to listen to endless dreadful screeching music, people screaming on their cell phones, or at one another, all talking at once, talking talking talking.  The Chinese do not know how to be quiet, do not know quiet.

Stopping for a ‘nutrition’ break – nothing to eat but watery noodle soup, a few green weeds masquerading as vegetables.  Or a mountain of rice and a few pieces of pickled cucumber.  Stale popcorn, undercooked potatoes, tough corn on the cob, warm sodas and soft drinks.

In the bigger cities, where western tourists are more plentiful, a few restaurants produce somewhat better food. But still always too oily, and often too hot.  Coffee $3-5 a cup, and tea – Chinese tea! – not much cheaper.  We leave most restaurants disappointed, and often hungry.

We ask ‘where’s that great Chinese food we get in Vancouver (San Francisco, Singapore)?’  ’Ah, that’s not ‘real’ Chinese food! That’s Americanized, westernized Chinese food!’  No chow mein or chop suey here. No sweet and sour spare ribs. No lettuce wraps.  Few vegetables or fruits.  It’s noodles and rice, rice and noodles.

We watch the Chinese chowing down on rice with soups of chicken heads and feet, pigs’ livers, and unidentifiable innards.  More often it’s just instant noodle soups, the Chinese staple food, eaten on the run.  Or KFC or Dicos – its Chinese cousin.  I’m lovin’ it!

Public toilets are despicable. We find the toilets by their stench: ‘just follow your nose!’  Inside no separate cubicles: a long, open, cement or tile trough runs alongside the walls.  The stink inside is overpowering: you hold your breath.

You squat over the trough, in front of or behind someone else.  You do your business, trying not to look at anyone else, although they have no compunction about staring at you – do foreigner’s shit like we do?  You avoid looking down into the trough, try not not to splash.

There’s no water to flush. Of course no toilet paper.  No water either to wash your hands; maybe a hose outside where someone’s doing their laundry, or washing a fish… . Maybe not.

In hotels and guest-houses we use clean toilets, gratefully. Still we are instructed not to toss the toilet paper in the toilet.  It goes in the disgusting overflowing bin beside the toilet – or the floor if no bin’s provided.

And this a nation where everyone has a cell-phone, where cells work everywhere, where high-speed internet access is accessible everywhere.  A nation proud of its space program, its medical advances, its advanced education.  So what’s with their toilets? Why can’t they get their shit together?

But wait! Here come the symbols of the ‘real’ China!

A young man in pleated pants and a tailored shirt, holding a cell phone against his ear with one hand, and a cigarette with the other; weaving gaily through pedestrians and vehicles on his red motorcycle, helmetless and happy.

A young woman in rough peasant clothes, bent over double, a baby on her back, and up to her knees in the muddy water of the rice paddy, planting fistfuls of young rice as night falls, wondering what she will give her family for supper.

The ‘real’ China: I’m lovin’ it!

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Shredding the Layers to Find My True Self Underneath

I don’t know how she did it so well, but she did.  Maybe it was the bottomless carpetbag. Maybe it was her magical abilities.  Or maybe, just maybe, it was that she descended from the clouds as if she was sent from the Gods above.  Whatever it was, children respected her, everyone adored her, she was measured as practically perfect in every way, and it all came wrapped up with the most delightful British accent.

I, too, descended from the clouds, but unlike Mary Poppins, it was on a flight from Los Angeles to France.  My “bottomless carpetbag” was lost by the airlines somewhere between my layover in Chicago and destination to Lyon, and while I don’t know magic tricks, I can make an obscene amount of chocolate disappear before your eyes.  Okay, so maybe we don’t share much in common, Mary Poppins and I, but what we do share is our full time job of caring for children. Except I’m an Au Pair testing the waters of living abroad, meaning that this gig has a one year expiration date. And instead of a spoonful of sugar, I need Levatol for the stress and non-stop kid action that has my blood pressure on the rise.

This hasn’t always been my life. In fact, my life used to be simple. Undemanding.  Routine.  Once upon a year ago, I could be found working in the calm and unruffled corporate firm setting.  I was paid well.  I was off the clock by 5 p.m.. I was bored to tears – waking up every morning feeling like I was wasting my life away.  I longed for challenge and distraction from the routine.  Travel.  Adventure. Wine and cheese.  And then came the light bulb: France.  One year in France.

But here’s the catch: Without a French husband, a French job offer, or being a wealthy housewife of any city, my options for living in France were limited.  I searched for a means to an end; I found a calling for Au Pairs.  It seemed like a decent prospect.  I’d had plenty of experience working with kids; I’m in shape; I can run after a 6 year old; I can totally do this. I registered on an agency website and a few weeks later, was contacted by an interested French family.  A swell fit it seemed, so I took it as a sign, gave up my job, my 401K, my comfortable California lifestyle and boarded a plane on December 31st to Lyon. A new year it was.

6,000 miles and a 9-hour time difference later ….

I stepped off that plane so hopelessly optimistic as I reunited with my Long Lost Love (France).  I envisioned Mary Poppins, afternoons dancing in the park, and the comeback of high-buttoned black boots.  Plus after doing my research and communicating with the family, I had certain expectations of what the job would entail. You see, the term “Au Pair” translates (loosely) to “on equal terms”, which is theoretically different from your hired nanny or servant.  In exchange for a room, meals and usually a modest stipend, Au Pairs offer up childcare.  The job is for 20-somethings looking to use the Quarter Life Crisis excuse to move to a foreign country, learn a foreign language and experience a foreign culture.

That is exactly what I’ve done.  I live in France.  I can now speak French quite fluently. But the foreign culture I’m experiencing isn’t European, it’s parenting!

Somewhere between the children’s fondness for me and my unrelenting desire to please others, my position evolved into round-the-clock care and the parents evolved into the background.  Between tutoring, reading and entertaining the children; bathing them, feeding them, disciplining them and repressing the desire to beat them (Somewhere, Mary Poppins is frowning in disapproval); it’s no wonder I felt more like the parent than the help.  And when the kids started coming to me even when their parents were home, I knew we had an issue.

The thing is this: I’m used to doing a good job and I have a phobia of disappointing – of failing.  Somewhere in my distorted logic, I thought that if I wasn’t constantly at the mercy of the children, I would let everyone down.  A fail, obviously.  But I was left feeling defeated and drained; over-extended, under-appreciated and well, I’m just going to say what the twenty-something year-old who so badly wanted success isn’t supposed to say: I was miserable.  This was not the luxe-life of France I’d imagined.

But hold on…

It’s not the kids’ fault because in truth, I love the kids.  I really do; Well, I think I do. Or I did.  No, I’m pretty sure I still do.  I love their appreciation for simplicity; for creativity; for everything chocolate and sugar coated.  I love baking cookies with them and then packing them up with a good book for a picnic in the park (even if my arm is still itching from grass allergies).  Or when one of them pauses to put down the book mid-sentence and superfluously informs me that she has a friend, Margo, “who once lost her tooth, swallowed it and pooped it out a week later.”  I love building Lego houses, constructing forts (which I will disassemble and clean up), and playing dress-up.  And most of all, I love the verbal acumen they provide when they inform you that you look better with glasses, that these earrings really go better than the ones you’re wearing, or that your bras are “so much smaller, no, but like a lot smaller than our mom’s.”  Thank you, Kids. I get it.  Hold on to that honesty.

The kids, they’re not la raison d’être of our stress.  Maybe I was the one stressing myself out, trying to be the best.  At the risk of sounding like a walking cliche, I came to France to find myself; but what I wanted to find more was how to gently let go of the person I didn’t want to be.  How I could relieve myself of the people-pleasing and affectation, the obsessive need for control and security, the need to feel needed.  Let go of being the perfect daughter, the perfect sister, the perfect girlfriend, coworker, employee, neighbor, friend, and most importantly, let go of the resentment.

So here it goes.  It’s time for ME; Time for me to de-clutter, purge the guilt and free myself for the meaningful experiences that I want.  Time to stop and smell the roses, the tulips and the Nutella crepes.  Eat salmon instead of Slimfast; take walks in the parks instead of runs on the treadmill; maintain friendships to maintain my sanity.  Take a bubble bath and a break.  Accept a compliment and rekindle the flame.  Time to pause and reflect; recognize and release; savor a good piece of dark chocolate.  Then when the sun starts to set on Sunday evening, come inside, exhale and realize that now, combating the week doesn’t seem so….difficult. In fact, it doesn’t have to be a combat.

With introspection and a new-found appreciation of my life, when the weekend arrives, I un-regretfully used my own verbal acumen to say “No” to the kids and giving up my time in France (my therapist is proud).  I finally accept an invitation out with my friends, enjoying a glass of Merlot as my aperitif, Chardonnay with dinner, and relinquish my guilt for dessert.  My God, how the French know their desserts.  We walk among the city lights and we listen to music aboard the famous riverboats.  We make jokes, we laugh about nonsense, we imitate the French’s mannerisms and we laugh some more.  We call it a night and I am reminded that life, with a little pleasure, is, well, quite pleasurable.

Some days, I still have to remind myself to breathe; to summon a bit of patience and muster up some courage.  Spoiler alert: there’s never a finish-line with self-improvement.  There’s continuous work: Reading, journaling, indecisions and set backs.  Two steps forward, one step back; turbulence and curvy roads ahead.  But this past year has taught us a lot from learning that butter is usually always the secret ingredient, to taking a time out and enjoying some peaceful solitude.  Sooner or later, the kids and I will find ourselves back in the kitchen prepping for our famous afternoon picnics.  The sun is shining and the weather is perfect.  We love these moments; so simple, so pure, so very French.

Photo by Leeni!

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I start walking towards the street, and glance back a few times to make sure everyone is ready to go.  We start our watches and take off, super slow.  We’re just warming up for the first two miles, so there’s no need to push it.  We all get a little more awake once we start jogging, and the jokes get louder and funnier.  The lead switches between everybody, nobody really takes command of the group, since we all know where we are going.  A few minutes in, I start to sweat, and my legs start to loosen up.  There’s plenty of lactic acid built up in my muscles today, as we’ve had an extremely hard week of running.  I try to shake it loose and get my legs and lungs ready to work.

Today we are running a Michigan workout.  It’s one of the harder runs we do during the season, and it takes a lot of mental preparation and toughness.  The run consists of six and a half miles of hard running, broken into timed mile and quarter mile intervals.  There is virtually no rest; as soon as you finish one repetition, you start the next one in less than fifteen seconds.  To finish the workout is a huge accomplishment in itself.  I have to start preparing mentally several days in advance for this workout, because it is so mentally draining, and it’s easy to quit in your mind.  In running, having a strong mind is most of the battle.

We finally get to the local high school, where we commandeer their track before school starts.  The team lines up and we start to do our stretching drills.  This is where everyone starts getting focused and serious.  It is interesting to see how people cope with a hard workout.  Some people try not to think about it, some people dwell on it, some tell jokes and try to lighten the mood, and others try to be alone and get in the zone.  For me, I have to withdraw into myself.  I’m still physically with the group, but mentally, I am in my own little shell, focusing on myself.  I visualize myself running fast and smooth, and feeling good.  It’s important for me to think about feeling good, to garner a positive energy about myself.  When the workout starts to get tough, I will force my mind back to this picture of success, and try to regain composure.  But for now, I just need to formulate the image, make it clear, and store it in my mind.

We finish the warmup drills, and everybody goes to grab a drink.  It always gets very quiet while we are drinking, the pressure of the looming work ahead really sinks in at this point.  Everyone takes their sweats off and strips down to just tights or shorts.  No one ever wears a shirt, even a few ounces of fabric start to weigh you down when you’re running fast.  Even in colder weather, clothing only serves to cover what needs to be covered, and nothing else.  Many times I’ve been in 40 degree chill, sprinting around the track in shorts, a beanie, and some thin gloves.  Speed is the objective, and anything that compromises that is purely waste.

As we sip from tall, uniformly green Gatorade bottles, little encouraging gestures go around.  People start saying things like, “Let’s get some, baby,” or, “Here we go fellas.”  High fives, fist bumps, pats on the butt and back all give off the vibe of a readiness to work, and a brotherly support of each other.  It’s interesting to watch how men support one another.  We don’t always say it directly, we tend to beat around it, not wanting to sound soft or vulnerable.  But, our actions communicate a sort of encouraging banter.  The tone of voice, a look in the eyes, a heavy touch.  It’s a way of showing emotion without compromising stoicism.

We toe the line for the first timed mile, and Coach sends us off with a, “Ready, go.”  I jump out front early, and lead the boys around the track.  I’ve decided to push from the front today, to try and run away from everyone as motivation to run faster.  I normally run with two other guys, Joey and Jose, because we are about the same speed.  But today, Jose is taking the day off, and I want to make a jump in my training, so I make a bold move to the front.  Sometimes I get complacent in running, thinking about being one of the best on my team, and I get satisfied with that.  Really though, I need to be hungry to be the best in California, the best on the West Coast, the best in the nation, and to do that I have to push myself alone sometimes.

There is definitely an aspect of loneliness to running, as the faster you get, the fewer people you have to run with.  It’s hard to embrace this loneliness, but it’s something what must be done in order to succeed at a very high level.  I think I’m getting to that place, where all my motivation has to be my own, which is a very metacognitive place to be.  I have to constantly be aware of my thinking towards running, and always be evaluating my performance, and what I can do to get better.  Even throughout the day, every decision has to go through a filter of, “How will this effect my next workout?”  What I eat, how much I drink, when I study, how early I go to  sleep, how I can fit a nap into my schedule, how far I have to walk, how many stairs I go up and down; all of these are factors that must be considered, because they will all directly effect my next run.  Running is definitely a self-focused activity, because your day revolves around your workout, and all your physical decisions from that point forward lead into your next workout.

The danger in this lies in pride.  Thinking so much about yourself is never a good thing, as it leads you to generally think less about other people, and eventually to view others with less esteem and regard.  Once your mind is set on yourself, it is hard to break the cycle of inward focus.  Pride has really tripped me up before in running and in life, and I have to be careful not to let that happen again.  Having success is always hard, no matter who you are, and especially in athletics when you are recognized and praised for your success on a very public level.  I have often thought much too highly of myself, and paid the price by viewing others negatively in response.  For instance, if I see someone who isn’t as fast as I am, I automatically think that I deserve my success because I work harder, and that they are just lazy.  Or even if I see someone who has success outside athletics, I think, “Well, they can’t do what I can do, so I am a better person all around.”  It is really poisonous thinking, and unfortunately it is very common among successful athletes.

One thing I do is think about God often, and think how He has blessed me with such an able body and mind, and that my abilities in life are really just gifts from Him.  I hate sounding cliché when I’m talking about Christ, but I believe in my heart of hearts that He is the source of my joy in all things.  I’ve been proud in the past, and thought, “Man, I am so good, I have so much talent, look what I’ve done!”  But really, that is a crippling thought process, as it focuses so much on myself and doesn’t give credit where it is due.  Sure, I have ran fast, and I have done some impressive things in running, but am I really the source of my physical strength?  Am I ignorant enough to believe that I, weak little Dawson, deserve all these blessings and rewards?  I know I’m not, and I know it is foolish and selfish to think so.  Thankfully, God has given me an enormous amount of grace to combat my selfish pride.  I don’t struggle with it as much anymore, because He has really shown me my place in the world, and He has shown me the amazing gifts He has given others.  Seeing the world from Christ’s eyes is so refreshing and enjoyable, and it moves me to think about others more than myself, which is a beautiful vantage point.

We finish the first mile, and move right into the second mile, then the third, fourth, and so on.  As we begin each new interval, I set my pace and make the conscious decision to continue.  The pain becomes intolerable, but I’ve been here before, to this place of extreme discomfort, and I know nothing terrible is going to happen.  I’m not going to have a heart attack, or pass out, or die or something, it is simply discomfort.  It helps to realize that everyone is feeling the same pain, and that I don’t want to be the one to fold first.  I think there is a healthy amount of pride in athletics, the kind where you say, “No, I won’t lose.  I’m better than this.”  To realize your place and become totally aware of your abilities should be a source of confidence.

As the miles click by, they begin to blend together.  We run in concentric circles around the track and around a large grass field, and the scenery becomes a series of checkpoints.  “Make it to the next tree,” I tell myself.  Once I’m at the tree, I aim for the next tree, then a fence post, then a bend, and so on.  I know I can handle the pain if I break the run up into manageable segments.  The pain becomes a constant agony, and every runner must devise a way to deal with it.  Running is quite simply pain management, and I am faced with three choices to help manage the pain.  First, to slow down and lessen the pain.  Second, to stay the same speed and try to mentally ignore the pain.  Or third, to keep speeding up and somewhere find the fortitude to overcome the pain.  It is this third option that drives me in every workout.  Will I succumb, ignore, or overcome the pain?  Overcoming sounds the most triumphant, and the most heroic, so I choose that.

The workout starts to build to a finish, like a crescendo of pain and labor.  The final mile is always the toughest, and it takes the most mental resilience to finish.  The body wants to scream, “Stop!  What are you doing to me?!” And the mind wants to shout, “How are we still going, why don’t we just quit!” But somewhere deeper than the body, deeper than the mind, there is a voice that says, “No.  We aren’t slowing down.  Let’s go faster.”  I believe every person has this voice, this spirit-driven motivation, and tapping into it is an extremely powerful experience.

The workout ends.  I cross the finish line and pant like a dog.  I’m drained.  My legs are pudding, my mind is toast, my body aches all over.  But there is an overwhelming sense of accomplishment that resounds above the chatter of the pain.  I’ve gone through the fire, I’ve stretched my limits of pain threshold, and I’ve survived.  In running, constantly reaching a point of no return yields a career of no regrets, and the same is true in life.

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The woman didn’t look like an angel. She was short and squat and tired looking, with three squabbling kids, all under the age of ten. My friends and I were just behind her in line and we watched as she negotiated the counter, getting her children’s orders straight, taking her coin purse out of her shoulder bag and carefully counting out the money. She was wearing some sort of cleaner’s uniform and a pair of old shoes with the heels turned down, and she looked as though she’d had a long, hard day.

Just as she received her order, an ill-dressed man sidled up to the line. “Spare change?” he muttered.

The man reeked of alcohol. His long grey-streaked black hair was dull and greasy and he had obviously been sleeping in his clothes for God knows how long. We all shook our heads and averted our eyes, and so did the cleaning lady.

“You can’t give money to guys like that,” one of my friends said. “If we gave him money, he’d just go out and get drunk with it.”

The rest of us agreed. We were students, after all. We didn’t have much money and we weren’t about to waste it on some street person who’d just blow it on a bottle of cheap wine.

Just across from us, the cleaning lady was getting her kids settled, pulling hamburgers and packets of French fries out of paper bags. Two of her children quarreled over who had asked for the cheeseburger and she sorted that out, then distributed drinks. Her own meal sat untouched on the table.

My friends and I had just started to eat when we saw the woman get up from her table and get back in line. We assumed that she’d forgotten something one of her kids wanted, but after she’d paid for her second order she walked over to the ill-dressed man, who was sitting by himself at a table, trying to get warm. Silently she handed him the food — two hamburgers and a cup of coffee — and placed them in front of him.

It was hard not to watch as the man tore the paper off his first hamburger and began wolfing it down with swigs of coffee. He almost spilled it in his eagerness to get food and drink to his mouth.

My friends and I watched this in open-mouthed amazement. “She’s one of those Jehovah’s Witnesses or something,” someone at another table muttered. We all watched and waited for the woman’s save-your-soul pitch to begin.

But the woman wasn’t rummaging through her bag for a religious tract; she was finally eating her own dinner, reaching to steady the drink of one child, to wipe the nose of another. She ignored the street man, who all but inhaled his second hamburger. It was clearly the first meal he’d had in a long time.

The man finished his dinner in very little time and got to his feet. Stumbling over to the woman’s table, he mumbled his thanks. The woman barely nodded back at him, and he left, letting in a frigid blast of wind as the door slammed behind him.

Decades later, I still remember that mother and her unselfish act of kindness, and how it humbled and touched us. Though my friends and I were students, all three of us were better dressed than she was, and we almost certainly had, if not more money, better prospects of getting it. But her generosity given her circumstances was not the only thing that impressed us; this woman saw a need and immediately knew the best way to meet it. She had no agenda, and unlike us, she didn’t immediately think of reasons why she should not give; instead she spontaneously spotted the very thing that was needed and gave it. What a great example she was to her children — and to us. To this day, I can think of no better personification of the Christmas spirit than that tired mother, my Fast Food Angel.

Photo by Riccardo Cuppini

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To say my religious instruction was lacking would be an understatement. We never went to church, I never read the Bible and my impression of religious types was “in the dictionary under twits it says see them.” Oddly enough one day I come home from school to find these two short hair guys dressed in black suits,white shirts and black ties sporting named tags saying”elder so and so”…the Mormons had invaded our home…unknown to me at that time my Dad had some Mormonism in his background from his mom’s side of the family. So I sit and listen to their sales about Joe Smith and God coming down to a grove of trees and telling everybody else in the church world was WRONG ..I’m listening thinking”I thought I WAS HIGH” but somehow my Dad convinced me to hang out and I actually got talked into getting baptized…go figure…in fact the night I got dunked…some friends came and got me and we went to the University to hear some live music and as fate would have out came the beer.

I remember coming to under a table with my head hurting, hair still damp from being baptized thinking”Uh….

……something didn’t stick” the next day I had to go see the “Bishop” A rather stern looking guy with the standard short hair, black suit, white shirt and black tie (I kinda like that look today) He informs that Mormons don’t

drink alcohol,coffee,smoke,have sex outside of marriage or take drugs….I’m thinkin…’What the hell do you do? cause you just shot down EVERYTHING I REALLY REALLY LIKE!!!….I was especially disappointed about the sex part…that alone was enough to make me run for the door. Needless to say I didn’t last long and in fairness to my Dad he was cool when I finally said Sunday mornings weren’t working out for me. I think he knew I was far to much like him at that age to be a dyed in the wool church type. Needless to say after that anything that smacked or smelled of church I avoided like the plague.

So when friday rolled around I went because a) susie sweet lips asked me to and b) It wasn’t a “church” it was a house with long hair hippie types playing the guitar..reasonably cool.

I was totally ill-prepared for what was about to happen. In my home the only time I heard “Jesus Christ” was in reference to me doing something wrong. In fact I almost thought that was my middle name as a youngster was Jesus Christ, because every time my old man wrote up from a nap he’d look at me and say say “Jesus Christ look at the mess you made.”

We were met at the door by a guy named Kim who every other word was “praise the lord” or “Thank you Jesus”. Totally Odd. We were hustled into a fairly large living room full of all the accouterments of an elderly woman’s home, family pictures, doilies, lacy lamp shades. Sitting in the middle in an overstuffed chair was Helen…everyone called her “Granny.” Next to her were the “leaders” several guys strumming guitars, a few long hairs and a few who were obviously military. There were a few other odd balls as well. One guy was standing by the obvious leader (a military guy named Mark) holding a Bible the size of a sunday turkey. He looked like a cross between Elvis Presly and Oral Roberts. He was sporting slicked back black hair with sideburns and was the only guy wearing a tie and loafers. He had an absolutely crazed, pentecostal hellfire and brimstone gleam in his eyes…scary…I immediately didn’t like him. We continues to scoot over because the room continued to fill up to the point of kids standing out the front door. I was surrounded by alot of people going “Praise the Lord,” “Hallelujah,” “Thank you Jesus!” It was disconcerting and so utterly foreign to me. Let me say that as I took all this in I had noticed something totally out of nature for me. A scene like the one I found myself in would have normally found me out the door as fast as my feet could take me, however, the moment I stepped through that door, and I mean as soon as my foot crossed over into Granny’s living room, I felt SOMETHING! Some………..presence, and for the first time in my whole life I was surrounded by odd ball weirdo strangers and felt comfortable, utterly disarmed, and relaxed (even though my knees were practically smacking my forehead).

The service starts and the music kicks in. Rowdy, lots of shouting, hollering, and carrying on. People were “raising their hands” something I never saw and was unsure what it ment. Then someone over my shoulder started rattling off rather loudly in some odd sounding foreign language. The Jesus people later explained that that was “speaking in tongues.” Frankly, it seriously shook my tree. As things went on the meeting began to seriously heat up both emotionally and physically (do the math 40, 50 kids crammed sides by side in an old woman’s living room you get the drift…….or whiff). At this time the musicians are really cooking…strumming and stomping. Elvis is pacing back and forth behind them like a hungry tiger smelling fresh blood and ready to pounce. The other believers are singing, shouting, speaking in tongues and the whole house seems to rattle shake and hum.

Finally at some point the dam breaks and sure enough Elvis makes a bee line for guess who?….ya ME….

I don’t know why but it seems my whole life if there is a nut case within 5 miles of me somehow they show up, start bumming cigarettes, and telling me their life story. Elvis bounds over the heads of a few nervous teenagers and reaches out for what I thought was a hand shake. He grabs me and and next thing I know I’m nose to nose with the guy! Reeking of butch-wax and body odor he shouts about hellfire and damnation while I realize Oral is sporting a lisp…sorta took the wind out of the drama of it all. Meantime I could feel my girlfriend go stiff as soon as she saw this happening. Out of the corner of my eye I see her go from being naturally a bit pail to deathly white. But I was cool. I remember thinking “Naw I ain’t gonna hit this guy it would ruin my girlfriends night” I just wish someone had given Elvis some Right Guard and Chick-lets. After he was done with me he moved on down the line and continued to scare hellfire and damnation out of the less intimidating teens seated next to us. I felt my girlfriend breathe a sigh of relief over my reaction to Elvis’ strong-arm tactic, or my LACK of reaction rather. Soon afterward the meeting ended. I stood up feeling hot wet and sticky and thought “I need a bong hit and a hamburger.” As I’m standing there holding my girlfriend’s hand an odd and unexpected thing happened…..suddenly a sense of calm and peace washed over me and in my minds eye I saw all those believers faces. The looks of love and joy. They seemed to glow and I knew I was dealing with something WAY beyond me. As I stood there, eyes closed, I felt a voice. A feeling from deep in some part of me I didn’t even know existed… a voice… strong and resilient yet still small and comforting. Something I knew was from inside of me, yet came from some space way beyond me, and I “felt” as much as heard it say “See that joy? Feel their Love? Follow me and I’ll give you that and much more.” For the first time in my life I became aware that GOD had spoken to me….. unreal.

We finally get outside where some kids hanging around (Granny had a large yard so everybody was mulling around the grass). Sonja is standing there with a very wary and worried look on her face. I watch the musicians pack up and leave while I light up a smoke…. she’s still looking at me….I turn around with this big grin and say “Hey that was fun… let’s do that again next week!!!!” Little did she or anyone else know I walked away that night with a deep, deep hunger to know who that voice belonged to and how I could fill this void I finally became aware of.

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I don’t know you? Even you don’t have much knowledge about me but yet we are talking to each other, sharing our feelings. That’s Life? Maybe it is. Lets first make some things clear what this extract is all about.  Its NOT an article on How to be successful or 7 mantras to live life cheerfully, the matter is much more serious than that, I will be just telling you an incident, and I promise no pre or post lectures, just a narration.

Now let me tell you something that may stir you totally. This is a true narration and if you take it seriously, it may, can, will change your life a bit, a little, rather a lot. Let me take you somewhere, come with me, hold my hand. The country is India, the city is Delhi and where are we in the city is the Hospital ICU.

Its mid October the season when you can’t decide if its hot or cold but the wind is chilly. Nights are cold and this is a story of a night. Lets get back to the scene without wasting much time. I am on bed no. 7. All other beds are vacant except bed no. 2. But why am I here? Who am I? I am a 12 year boy at the time of the incident. I know what you might be thinking that this 12 year old boy who had not seen much of the world has come to tell us something about Life. “Nonsense.”

If you don’t have faith, you are free to stop reading the account. Stop it now. Yet I will continue. The room is quite big with around 15 beds, totally closed with glasses and only one gate. There are a lot of medical instruments. Silence flourishes but continuous beeps of medical instruments can be heard. This hospital has a department for each and everything. The ward I am admitted in, is totally for children. My mother is sitting besides me. She is a middle aged lady and is like usually mothers are. She is beautiful, certainly the most beautiful thing to me, a gift from God. My health had gone bad 2 days ago. In these 2 days, her face has lost its blush and she had not slept since last 2 days. She is too fearful to sleep, what if something happens to me. I passed smile time to time but my smiles were too timid to keep her blushing. She is tensed, you can guess that by looking at her face. All my medical checkups have been done today and the reports will be given tomorrow morning. She is taking my care, praying to God, simultaneously consoling and boosting my father up that everything will be alright. I will just say she is a strong lady. But this incident is not about me, my mother or my illness. Its about the one who is lying on bed no. 2. She is a six year old girl or may be seven.

You may be wondering how she looks like. She is beautiful and has the same kind of innocence that every child bears, a lovely gift from God to her parents. Her cheeks are red, but rest of the face pale. She bears that silence and stillness on her face that no one would like a child to have. There is an oxygen mask on her face and some wires and instruments on her chest to record her heart beats. Every time she breaths out, the moisture of her breadth accumulates on the plastic mask and vanishes instantaneously. She is as lovable to her parents as your child is to you.

Ahh, all of you, please, don’t show empathy towards her or make a sad face. I don’t think she will like it. Her eyes are closed. The lower half of the body is under a thin blanket. Go and see her, observe her, go near her, the doctors won’t stop you from going there. You won’t understand the expressionless face’s emotions until you observe her face judging with your heart. I don’t know who she is. I asked my mother. She doesn’t know, neither she knows what had happened to her.

Its 12 o’ clock, I am feeling sleepy, my mother who has been waking up since last 48 hours has at last fallen asleep but even my slight movement will wake her up. I don’t want to disturb her. I think I shall sleep now. Why don’t you just take a round of the hospital or you can also take some rest. It’s your choice. Choose any bed, but don’t go near bed no. 2. She may get disturbed.

1:30 AM
I can hear some noise. I can hear a man shouting something. I opened my eyes and that is the Doctor, he looks worried and is ordering his juniors something. He looks quite exhausted. Oh you are still awake, Did you take hospital’s round? No, ummhh, but there are not much things to see. You will just see some nurses and doctors roaming here and there always in some kind of hurry. Are you in some kind of hurry too? If you have to finish any work, first go and finish that. This narration needs time. I will wait for you.

Don’t want to go?

Anyways, I was telling you about the hospital. I have not seen much as I am on strict bed rest but I saw some wards when I was taken to the therapy room for having my tests. I saw a room of glass with one door. There were 8-9 beds all for children. Some children had their hair shaved off, some had a piece of cloth used as a mask for their mouth. Their room had a T.V. I asked my mother “Why they have a T.V. in their room unlike us?” My mother did not reply, she just smiled at my stupid question, instead, the nurse accompanying us to the therapy room answered “because they live here, they are not allowed to go to their home. I questioned “Why? They don’t play outside? Don’t they play cricket? Why are some wearing masks? To all my questions, she gave only one answer “All of them have very serious diseases. Most of them are cancer patients.”

About serious illness I don’t know much, but I had seen a movie “Anand” and the hero dies in the end. I had this much idea that people die in a certain time period. I wondered what I will do if I am told that I have only six months to live. That was the incident of the morning, but what is happening now? Why the doctor looks so nervous? My mother is already awake. I asked her “What’s going on, Maa ?” She said “Nothing, You sleep, Nothing much to worry.”

But the expression on her face tells the whole story, there is something serious. three more doctors have now entered the room. They are discussing something, but what are they talking about? They all are around bed no. 2 and the girl is no more calm. She is gasping for breath beneath the mask and the heart beat instrument was also not sounding usual. There was a lady sitting besides her who was a nurse and one more person was there who was definitely not the hospital staff, maybe he is the girl’s father. He is not crying but grief in his eyes can be instantly noticed. He asked the nurse if the child is in conscious state or can hear him. The nurse nodded. The father said stammering nearly after each word “Everything will be fine , You are a brave girl, Everything will be alright. Be brave. Mumma will be coming in few minutes and then we will go home together. Be brave my child.”

There is no response from her and eyes still closed. Her father rushed outside the room and I can figure him crying with his palm against his forehead and his back against the glass of the room. Its all a bit frightening. I am having some odd feeling. I am not liking all this at all. When I looked at my mother, I could see a tear trickling down her cheek. And I understood the matter is much more serious. My mother never cries just like that. The doctors have now put some curtains around the bed no. 2 so we can no more see the girl.

The only person outside the curtain is the nurse. The nurse came near my bed, checked the glucose bottle which was nearly empty, replaced it with a new one and is now sitting besides my mother.

My mother- “Sister, you can go and assist them and I will take care. I think you are needed there.”

The Nurse- “No, its Ok. The arrangements are conducted by another nurse, an experienced one.”

My mother- “What is the matter?”

The nurse- “Blood cancer.”

Silence follows and the atmosphere is gloomy now and the air is thick. My mother nearly choked on hearing that. For me, first thing is that I don’t know what this term means but word cancer signifies some kind of disease. Isn’t it? May be some kind of dangerous disease. For next ten minutes, the only audible voices are the beeps of cardiographer, or the doctors ordering the nurses what to do.

My mother- “Where is the Child’s mother?”

The Nurse- “Her mother is dead. The girl was admitted today only. The girl suddenly collapsed today and was brought here.”

My mother- “They had knowledge that their child has got blood cancer. Is it?”

The Nurse- “Certainly they knew it. The girl was brought here in her initial stages too. The case became complicated and the doctors could do no good anymore. They told the family that she will survive only for 3-4 months.”

My mother- “How these months would have passed for the family?”

The Nurse- “God knows.”

And both are silent again, no more talks just eerie, gloomy beeps of the cardiographer. And after some time the short beeps turn into a long continuous one. I can now see the doctors coming out, the curtains being folded, the doctors exiting the room, going straight to the girls father and talking to him. I can’t hear what they are saying but can see their faces through the glass. The father starts crying like a lunatic he nearly fell down on the floor, so the doctors supported him.

Now, me and my mother are alone in the room with the small girl who is on bed no. 2 or may be a dead body of a girl. I had never seen a dead body before. The skin has now turned white, white as milk, as if there is no blood flowing in the veins. All the expressions are lost, just a blank face. I am so frightened that I can feel my whole body shivering. I can feel my eyelids closing and the last thing I can feel is my mother patting on my head crying “Wake up. What happened to you? Wake up.”

After regaining my consciousness the very next morning, the first thing I can see is that Bed no. 2 is vacant. No signs of what happened the previous night. New sheets. New blanket. Nothing but one thing— Bed no. 2 is Vacant….

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You can fall in love many different times with many different things… different people…and at all different times. I can listen to my husband play a certain song on his Martin guitar and I fall in love with him again…see a certain pair of shoes…taste a certain food…watch a certain movie. I can sit back and observe my life from a distance and I fall in love with the feeling of contentment.  This isn’t the life that I had planned for myself but this is the life that God knew that I needed…

As I sit and watch a movie on lifetime about a woman that has never wanted children that suddenly finds herself pregnant, as soon as she has the baby she falls instantly in love with the child. It makes me think back to a time when I myself was in that same situation…17 years old…normal teenager that had her whole life planned ahead and a child certainly wasn’t in that equation. That term “Falling in Love” keeps coming back in my mind. You know…  the books, society, your family, friends, everyone around you says you’re going to instantly fall in love with your baby the moment you see that sweet precious face. For me they were wrong…I didn’t…I’m probably breaking some sort of motherly code here by saying what I just said but I have lived 8 years with that tiny secret..Thinking I was a bad mother due to the fact that I didn’t feel what others said I should feel. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me….

Want to know what I felt??

Imagine yourself sitting in your car, home, work, school, somewhere that you feel completely comfortable…you pick up a glass of water that you can see right through…you take a sip…suddenly a situation that should have gone so smoothly turns in the blink of a eye…the water has gone down the wrong path…In a full 60 seconds you feel more emotions than you have probably felt in days , maybe even months….Scared, panic, confusion,  you can’t breathe, when you try to take a breath you feel as though you’re going to suffocate, it starts to hurt, eyes water….you finally get one full breath down…barely…then another, and another, breathing starts to get easier…throat still burns… eyes still watery…finally relief starts to set in…throat still burns…but your breathing….

As I looked into that face…that face that I had harbored in my stomach for 8 months…that’s what I felt…Where was that “falling in Love” feeling? ..I wanted it…I so wanted it more than anyone can imagine…I was desperate for the feeling…any feeling than the one I had right at that moment. All of the air was being sucked out of the room…everything around me felt like it was fading away and no matter how many time I tried to suck in a deep breath I felt like my lungs were collapsing…no air…panic…what am I supposed to do now….Please God,  give me the feeling that I’m supposed to have… This isn’t the path that I’m supposed to take… I can’t do this…I can’t breathe….My mind and body was exploding with so many emotions and thought’s …I couldn’t control them…and the one thought that kept reoccurring….”What am I supposed to do now?”

I saw a stranger looking back at me as the nurse placed him in my arms. He was a beautiful stranger but a stranger all the same… Then before I could take 2 seconds to tell this little stranger hello and maybe even ask how he was doing…the whirlwind began. … People were everywhere…asking questions…signing papers…pick out a name…change a diaper…and the strangest thing of all….calling me mommy… I wanted to scream “I am not a Mother, I’m 17!”  I wanted to put my head between my legs and breath, count to 10 with my eyes squeezed shut, and pretend I was playing hide and seek with my younger brother again. Pretend that none of this was real….I would open my eyes and everything would be back to normal…or what I called normal.   1…breathe…2…breathe…3…breathe…open eyes…. The scene hadn’t changed but I knew in that instant that everything…my whole life…had changed in the count of three seconds….

Not soon after, my inner voices started arguing internally…both whispering in my ear….keep him…give him away….keep him…give him away…

There’s that question again….What do I do???

One voice whispers… you can do this….you can’t give him away…It’s wrong….own up to your own mistakes …you’ve made your bed now lie in it…

The other voice whisper’s ….your wrong, you can’t do this….what were you thinking…you can’t give this child a home…you’re a baby yourself…this child is ruining your life…you will never make anything of yourself…

The voices soon began to become the voices of my parents…my family…my own….before I knew what was happening the room grew gravely silent… the social worker sat down beside me with a false sense of comfort and picked up my hand and held it….”Jessica… what do you want to do?”

What do I want to do??? What do I want to do???  I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and shout “What the hell do I want to do???” I don’t know what I want….I want my life back…I want my youth back….I want to go home….I want to be able to breathe without feeling this dread…this loneliness….this abandonment….fear….panic….I want this floor to open up and swallow me whole so I don’t have to feel anything at all…I want all of you to stop looking at me with your mask of pity, false sympathy, and most of all disappointment. That’s what I want….This…as I look around…is not what I want….

I can’t think clearly…my mind is all fuzzy and I can’t hold one thought without my eyes burning with tears and my chest squeezing with anxiety and fear.  I nearly shout at everyone to get out of the room…I want to be alone…that’s all I want at this very moment…the nurse brings me my baby…how weird It feels to say that…”my baby”… I am alone in this room with this stranger that is called “my baby”….I can’t help but to sit there and stare at him…I count his toes…his little fingers…trace the outline of his face,., his chin….the small slope of his eyes that he so obviously got from me….I place his hand flat next to the palm of my hand and I wrap my fingers around his….kiss him gently on his forehead…and ask….”What is it you want me to do??”  In that instant, he opened his eyes and looked straight at me and held my gaze for a mere second…it felt like 10 years to me…and I knew….No…I had not “fallen in love” but I wanted to get to know this little stranger….I wanted to know everything about him… he was mine.

At that very moment, I knew that the falling “in love” part would come eventually and nothing else mattered.

Suddenly, while holding my son’s hand, I realized that I was breathing effortlessly for the first time that day…. Breathe in…Breathe out…

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There are times in life when you stop coasting along, stop dead in your tracks and realize that things are out of control.  You take a long, hard look at what your life has become and ask yourself,  how did I end up here?  This is not my life, this is not who I want to be. But then what?  Change is difficult, and scary.  Fear of the unknown paralyzes you and sometimes it seems easier to keep being miserable because at least it is familiar territory.  My story is about what happened to me when I finally took that leap of faith, and decided to change my life for the better.  While they were happening around me, I had no idea how significant these events would eventually be.  This is the story of the best decision I ever made, the decision to take control of my life, to stand up for myself, and to love again…

It seemed a day like any other day.  I walked into the back door of the restaurant, ready to start my shift.  It was hard not to notice the new guy- he was six foot five and bald, with a presence about him. As he introduced himself, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was about him that was so intriguing.

I was a server at the nicest restaurant in town, which wasn’t saying much considering where I’d ended up.  My hometown had a population of over a million people, and I had attended an elite private school, followed by earning a bachelor’s in photography at a prestigious art college. Then I’d married a closed-minded idiot, who had moved us and our daughters to the place he’d grown up- a bustling town of 26,000. I asked myself on a daily basis what the hell I was doing here, and had yet to come up with an answer in the five months that I had been there.

The restaurant was not a bad place to be, all things considered.  Before I started working there I had become convinced that the town consisted only of old people and children. When I started I was delighted to be amongst my peers.  So this is where all the twenty-somethings were hiding. Many of my coworkers were in college, which led me back to my unanswerable question- waiting tables was an occupation for people who either hadn’t been to college or were in college- so what the hell was I doing here in this graveyard of a town waiting tables with my bachelor’s degree?  At least at the restaurant I made a few friends- and one really good friend- but we’ll get to that.

The new guy, Josh, was our new chef, and he was really nice.  As an added bonus he knew what the hell he was doing in the kitchen, unlike some of the other staff.  Gradually we became friends, having occasional, then more frequent conversations over Camel Light cigarettes on the benches behind the restaurant.  He wasn’t flirtatious like the other guys that worked there- who were so direct as to sometimes be grotesque.  But the way he looked at me, I could tell he liked me, and it made me feel pretty for the first time in a long time.  As we got to know each other and grew closer as friends, things were getting worse at home.

In the time that he had been away, my husband’s little hometown had discovered meth.  At least it seemed that all of his friends had.  Although they were not your stereotypical junkies, many of them dabbled in its use.  So eventually he started dabbling too.  He had always had a hot temper, had always been somewhat of an asshole- excepting the first six months of our relationship, when he had put on the act of appearing like a normal guy.  But the drugs were like a magnifier.  Every few weeks he would get some and I would brace myself for the coming storm.  He would stay up all night playing video games, and when I got up in the morning he’d still be on the couch watching TV, or playing the same game as if eight hours hadn’t just passed.  His face was gaunt and his eyes were sunken and hollow.  He looked like the living dead.  Then he would be an irritable son-of-a-bitch for at least three days.  Our worst fights happened then.

He especially resented my working at the restaurant.  Not at first, but over time, he couldn’t stand the thought of my being out at night, he was sure I was going to the bar next door with my friends every night before I came home.

In the mornings, as soon as he woke up, he would ask “Are you working tonight?”  If the answer was no, then things were cool for a bit, until he found something else to bitch about.  But if I said yes, the arguing would start right then, at 6:30 a.m.

The day I decided that I liked Josh was when I came to work and his funny glasses were gone.  He had gotten contacts.  Who knew that those glasses had been hiding big, dark, beautiful brown eyes?  We still weren’t openly flirting, but we talked every night, sitting on those benches, smoking Camel Lights.  We talked about TV shows, our dream vacations, and who knows what else- it’s hard to remember because all we were really saying- not with our mouths, but with our eyes- was I like you.  I like you a lot and what a shame that we are in such circumstances that we cannot be together. I do remember clearly however- when he mentioned the night my husband had come to pick me up from work- how disrespectfully he had talked to me where others could hear, how unfitting a couple we were.  I tried to explain it all away, but he saw right through it.  He knew I was unhappy.

About a year after he started at the restaurant, Josh broke my heart.  He said he was moving away, moving to the city where his father and sisters lived.  I pretended to be happy for him- he was getting out of this place- but I was in agony.  My only refuge was leaving.  I wanted to keep him for myself, even if it would only ever be nightly conversations, seeing him was the only thing that kept me going as things got more chaotic at home.

His last night in town he wasn’t working, but he came up to the restaurant to say goodbye to everyone.  He and I walked outside together for the last time, but we didn’t stop at the back of the restaurant.  We walked through the parking lot behind it and down a set of stairs that led into a pretty courtyard behind the art museum.  We sat on a bench across from a fountain and talked a little while.  Then it was time for him to go, and me to get back to work.  He leaned in and gave me a sweet goodbye kiss- that sent me briefly to heaven and broke my heart all at once.  Goodbye.  I love you, but I will probably never see you again.

I was afraid to give him my phone number but I gave him my email address.  He said he would be in touch.  He also told me if I ever realized how unhappy I really was in my marriage, if I ever got out of that little town and went back home- he would be waiting.  He would only be a few hours away and would come see me on the weekends and would treat me better than any man had ever done.  It seemed like a fantastic dream that I would never realize.

A few weeks later, I did get an email from him, and we emailed back and forth occasionally.  He gave me his number, and we talked from time to time, flirtatiously, but with no real hope of being together.

Things between my husband and I got progressively worse.  The fighting was incessant.  He was always yelling, always angry, always putting me down, cussing, name calling, controlling.  I hated and feared him but felt trapped at the same time.  He was violent, and he was mean.

They say the night is always darkest before the dawn.  And January 16^th was the darkest day.  As he was getting ready for work he became angry at my oldest daughter and began screaming at her in a rage.  I couldn’t stand to hear him berate her that way, so I jumped in.

“You don’t scream at my daughter that way!”

Then began the worst fight we ever had.  Thankfully she had the sense to go into her little sister’s room and shut the door so neither of them had to see what happened.  Most of it is a blur now but what I do remember was- my dresser, the top of my dresser was where I kept a collection of jewelry boxes and trinkets, arranged in the same way for years, some of which I had owned since I was a little girl.  With his arm he swept it all off, sending my things smashing to the floor.  Then I jumped on him…then we were in the living room, where he dragged me across the floor by my hair, skinning my knees on the carpet…then in the bedroom, where he had his knee pinning my chest to the floor so hard I couldn’t breath…smashing my face down with his hand…his finger got close to my mouth so I bit down as hard as I could- I was trying to bite it off…then a few minutes later in the kitchen, where he slapped me in the face.  And at that moment, I had had enough.  We had fought before, he had struck me before, but never had I been so afraid as I was that morning.  And I wasn’t going to be afraid anymore.  I wasn’t going to live in denial- he won’t do it again. He would always do it again, worse every time, unless I stopped him.  So when he wasn’t looking, I grabbed the phone.  And I called the police.

No, I didn’t have him arrested.  The cops came, interviewed, took pictures, and then he went on to work.  Then I called my parents- get a u-haul, come and get me.

And the next day, after I was all packed up, my kids were riding with my parents and I was in my own car, driving down the highway- I called Josh.

“Guess where I am?”

“Where?”

“Driving down I75 South.”

“What?

“I did it.  I left.  I’m going home.” I will never forget what he said then.

“I am trembling at the thought of being with you.”

We talked for a long time.  And every day after.  And he began to come see me after a few months.  And we fell in love.

Recently he moved to my hometown, and we got a place together.  It is a nice little home and I have never been so happy.  It has been a year since I left my old, tragic life behind.  And I contemplate often how I made bad decisions and remained in a dangerous situation as long as I did.

But I am grateful every day for the courage I finally had to take back control of my own destiny.

And I have all the love in the world to show for it.

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You know what dream I had once (when I was hopefully, painfully young)?

I dreamed, well, I wished, that one day I would see with both eyes—and then I thought I would be whole.

Born with a micropthalmic right eye that was eventually removed, I have always warred against myself and my vision, and have never seen anything good about my situation.

I always felt so lacking and so apart. It was never funny for me, once I realized how different it made me and how much I was missing. I can’t even see in 3-D—which I suppose isn’t all that terrible, I mean, optical illusions for the most part don’t fool me. Then again, I could never experience those “Magic Eye” books—because I had no magic eye. It took me forever to figure that out, and I wonder why somebody didn’t just tell me. I stared and stared at those books, squinting and turning them every which way and all my friends said, “Hold it up to your nose and then slowly pull it away” when they were being patient and “Give it to me I’ll show you” when their patience wore thin. Why didn’t my teachers take those books away? I suppose they didn’t think about it, I suppose it’s not something that would immediately come to mind when you have a classroom of thirty children and you’re trying to keep them focused on one task—I was just lost in the shuffle. There was nothing malicious about it.

That doesn’t go to say I never suffered any malicious intentions. Maybe that is why it was so important to me to regain my sight.  As a young, young child, a kindergartener I think, I would play with my glass  eye substitute, I even threw it at people I disliked. When you’re that young you don’t feel discrimination. Sure, you can be puzzled as to why you’re not included in everything all the time, but you don’t really know what that is, what that means. You’re free of stigmas and labels when you don’t know what they are. You have to be taught what they are: and everybody gets taught that lesson.

I slowly learned that I was different, and that different was bad. More swiftly I came to the conclusion that I was weird and with that also came the association of being bad. I didn’t teach myself these things, they were demonstrated to me by my peers, mostly, and sometimes by the adults who watched me—though I don’t really remember any incidents, just vague recollections of being made to feel awkward without really knowing what I had done to cause the uneasiness.

Children grow in stages, I have observed. When they get to be about six or seven, they tend to pass through a phase of high inquisitiveness and simultaneous fear of what they don’t know; this usually manifests as cruelty, but really is a form of self-preservation. If you’re the one who sticks out in this group of children, the others will cabal against you, will find your weakest spot and exploit it, glorying in the newfound power to cast someone down simply because they scare you with their differences. They want to know everything, and yet everything new is frightening and therefore must be punished.

I don’t know if that makes much sense, but here is the example I was leading up to:

I went to public school in kindergarten and first grade. My parents pulled me out at the end of first grade and put me in a smaller, private school because of what happened to me when the playground supervisor  ostensibly had her back turned. I was set upon by a group of my peers, little children, which makes this all the more horrifying. I was pulled to the ground and held there. My artificial eye was plucked from its socket, held up like some Martian gravel and examined by my assailants.

When they were done, they threw it on the ground and sauntered away.

I know why they were compelled to do it. My artificial eye, though made by the most excellent craftsman in the field, was pretty obviously fake to those who were old enough to know that people sometimes had glass eyes. To these children, however, it was just weird. So the revelation (and I don’t know how it came about) that it was artificial and what’s more, removable excited their curiosity. When I wouldn’t let them play with it, they decided to take the matter into their own hands. Little sharks, everyone.

As I mentioned, my horrified parents transferred me to a “safer” environment. While nothing of that sort happened again, there really was no way they could guarantee my safety from the cruel/inquisitive/stigmatizing  qualities of children. At this new school, I remember two incidents very clearly—again, out in the playground, being called a “one-eyed, one-nosed, flying purple-people-eater”

The other memory I have from that school was of arriving late one morning—it was one of those mornings—after everyone had been settled into their seats and I hadn’t realized I had forgotten to put in my eye. The children stared, some asked me, “does that hurt?” and I didn’t know what they were talking about. The teacher was quick to pick up the phone and call the office, who rushed me through the halls and into a more private area until my mom came and brought my missing body part. I wonder how it is she didn’t notice—but then again, even I didn’t, so I lay no blame on her. I was rushed through the halls, as I said, and by then had been made aware of my situation; so I held my hand over the right side of my face, clamping it hard against my brow and cheek bones, hiding my deformity (or would that be a lack thereof?) from the loiterers in the corridors.

Each new school  (and I went to many) brought some new incident, which makes sense—this kind of thing is something those who matriculate with you have to get used to, they don’t immediately disregard it and accept it, at least not while in primary or secondary school. It is far easier, I imagine, for adults to slough it off—but, as we know intimately, not every adult has this capacity to look beyond and ignore. Each new school had some petty occurrence: following that small private school, I went to a smaller private school where it was assumed that my brother had scooped my eye out with a fork, and when that rumor was dispelled they wanted to know if they hit me on the back of the head while I was onstage, would the eye fly out and hit the audience? Thankfully, no one tested this theory. All in all, this group was more tolerant than the previous two. Rumors, I think, are better than outright accusations or taunting. Easier to bear, still, when you find out about them after they’ve stopped circling.

I left that school for a Christian school where you would think compassion would be the order of the day, but really, it was just another swarm of fascinated sharks—at least these had learned that physical aggression was not to be tolerated. I could have made a good deal of money had I taken up their offers of cash to see me remove the eye, but I was insulted. I took to wearing my hair over one side of my face and looking down when I walked. I tried to follow my father’s hard to hear but warranted advice against rolling my eyes as that was a dead giveaway. My glass eye just didn’t track like my real one did, and so it was while at this school, when I became a teenager and was even more self-conscious about it (if that even was possible), that my parents and doctors decided to put me under the knife, again, to try and fix me up, again. No , not give me a new eye—just make the artifice a little more clever by tying together the muscles around a titanium ball so that the ball would sit in the socket and cause the eye to move with the other.

This was one of the most painful procedures I have ever gone through. So painful, in fact, that I don’t remember the recovery period at all, except a vague memory of where my bed was at this time, and how my bible was on the side table next to it.

It was the going back to school that I remember well. I had to have a huge gauze patch over my eye for what seemed like forever, and I petitioned the school to let me wear big, black sunglasses to try to hide it. That was a futile attempt, and after a few days people stopped pointing anyway. Then the most absurd thing occurred—the student body came to the consensus that I was not really in need of the eye patch after the first two weeks. Constantly I was told to take it off, asked why I was still wearing it, considered to be “milking” my surgery.

I shake my head at this today.

After so much of this, this and “can we see what it looks like underneath?” I made a bold move that was both cathartic and liberating. While filming a school assignment about martyrs with some other students (I wouldn’t call them friends, per se, I didn’t have many of those)I decided that my role would be more realistic if I jumped into a lake. Luckily, there was one right across the street from my house, so I led the kids and the film crew over and we shot the scene—with my eye patch off. I couldn’t very well have the cotton sopping and dripping after being submerged in the murky water, so I took it off, in front of everyone and on camera. I was so proud at that moment, so free—but when it came time to show the film to the rest of the class I stayed in the hall as they replayed that scene over and over, letting everyone have a good look at that thing behind the gauze.

Just a little like the phantom of the opera, with my right side of my face covered in white, hiding my ugliness and my shame.

I was very, very devout at the time; after all, I was in a Christian school. Maybe that’s why it was getting so hard to not be angry at God—more specifically, God the Son, Jesus.

It was undeniable that Jesus healed the blind multiple times as recorded in the synoptic gospels of the New Testament. Next to healing lepers, this was his most prolific miracle. Now, at this school, and growing up, I had been taught a few things about God: first, nothing was impossible through him; second, with faith in him the size of a mustard seed  we could move mountains; finally, he listens to prayers.  The concept of “anything is possible through faith” was drilled into me at this school, and I began to think, to believe, that if I had enough faith….that God would restore my eye.

At summer bible camp that year, we read the story of the two blind men, and then we prayed. I forget what all we asked for, but I cupped my hands around my face and took out my eye while everyone’s head was bowed and no one could see. I prayed harder in those few minutes than in my whole life. I thought that the only thing stopping my regeneration was the glass eye that was in the way. I thought I finally had enough faith to make it work, to move the mountain, to regain what was lost.

How very awful the next few minutes were when it was apparent that not only was I foolish but pitifully naïve. God doesn’t re-grow limbs, he doesn’t give back what he takes. Still, even knowing that, I have never held on to more supreme disappointment in my life.

My tenure at that school ended with me weeping blood.

During a school assembly some girls got very upset  as I was wiping my watering eyes. They took me to the bathroom where I could see it was blood, not eye gunk, that was spilling down my face. Panicked, my mother took me to the optometrist but it was all so silly looking back on it. Some scar tissue from the operation had ruptured, that was all. Nothing to get worked up about.

In high school, my peers reverted to calling me names behind my back. Maybe they had never stopped, but I didn’t know. “Pirate-girl” and (so original) “One-eyed girl” were the most popular…

It’s been a while since I have had much to think about or say about my eye. I’m finally all grown up and though there are scars that will never heal I’m managing. I won’t forget that boys wouldn’t date me, or that girls wouldn’t have me at their slumber parties.

Most of all, I won’t forget, ever, that this was the reason I was abandoned at birth.

Two selfish people, adults as child-like as my tormenters in school, conceived a child–conceived me. Their cold hearts were devastated when, with their own eyes, they saw how marred I was without two full eyes of my own.  They must have quarreled bitterly, for I cannot imagine a mother can easily give up her child—but in the end, the idea of spending time in hospital waiting rooms while I was attended to seemed too tedious and not to be tolerated. So with this in their heads, and no compassion in their hearts, they left me there, at the hospital, in the care of two wiser, loving people who longed for a child. They (my new parents) saw beyond my deformity and saw potential. They were not dissuaded by the fact that I would need quite a bit of care from doctors and nurses through the years. They loved as my birthmother should have loved, and took me in, defected as I was.

My mother (the only one I consider as my mother) wept when she heard that my pretense of an eye had to be removed when I turned two. She pleaded against the news, and offered her own eye as a substitute. Unfortunately, the infection in my microphthalmic right eye had eaten away the optic nerve. No matter how hard I prayed that day at bible camp, there was no hope from that point on.

Their love has sweetened me, however bitter I have been. Their love, and the love of one who sees me better, with vision as poor as my own, than anybody has before: my husband’s love.

We met under strange circumstances. He lived in Vancouver, BC and came down to Seattle, where I lived, for a conference. The night we met I had intended to be in Vancouver myself, but circumstances long forgotten prevented my trip.  I remember I was depressed, and sought refuge in my favorite bar. Having just turned 21, I had come to love a little Irish pub around the corner from my apartment in the city.

I walked in, dejected that night, and saw the most curious sight: a man, alone at the bar, with what appeared to be a spyglass, with which he was surveying the whiskies and scotches on the shelf behind the bartender. He was the only person aside from the staff in the place, and intrigued and amused, I sat a seat down from him and ordered my favorite drink.

I couldn’t resist talking to him, and asking about his spy-scope. He told me he had a congenital eye defect, nystagmus. His eyes shifted constantly from side to side and made many things impossible for him: driving, seeing into the distance, reading for too long.

Between our two maladies, it was love at first sight—such an irony for two whose vision is limited. He brought out the best in me, and made me forget that I lacked full vision because he also lacked full vision. We complement each other, like bookends we situate ourselves in such a way as to always support one another. He looks beyond the glass eye and sees me. I see between his ever-mobile eyes and see him. We see each other in a way no one has regarded either of us before: as complete, functioning individuals with nothing to feel shame about. We love. I read to him at night, he explains three dimensional concepts to me.  If you believe, like I believe, that there is a God who plans good for us, then you must see that this was no accidental encounter: this was fated love.

Eventually, we married, and though it hasn’t been long, I know that our vows to each other will last. I have finally found solace and love, after years of being set apart. He has found in me the same. No childhood cruelties touch me now, I am mature and I am loved.

I will never stop wishing to be wholly whole, but I have started to accept who I am and what I can see. Now, with my husband’s unconditional love, I finally see me not for my deficiencies, but for my capabilities. I will never see with two eyes, but I see now with my heart, which has no limited vision. I should have been looking through that lens my whole life, and I hope that any out there who have shared my history can grasp this truth someday as well.

Sticks and stones have broken my bones, but words of love have lifted me up and I finally feel that I am healed.

Photo by J. Star

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She studied the white piece of paper, it’s black ink faded to gray due to time and bad photocopying. Mother, she read, of medium height and weight, quiet, pleasant, brown hair, brown eyes. Her eyes moved down the page. Father also of medium height and weight, serious with a pensive demeanor, black hair, brown eyes. Then, slowly, as if fearing the words had suddenly changed in the last five minutes, she read the next line.

Legal Status: Orphan.

Well, thought Diana, that settled that.

She trooped downstairs where her mother was making dinner. The kitchen smelled of chicken, which Diana did not like. Her mother was mashing potatoes in a large plastic bowl. Diana’s mouth watered. Then she thinned her lips, straightened her tiny shoulders and marched up to her mother.

“Mom,” she said, “I want gruel for dinner.”

Her mother paused mid-mash and stared down at the determined figure before her. Brown eyes looked up from underneath a straight fringe of black bangs.

“Excuse me?” her mother asked.

Diana shifted. Her eyes darted to an apple pie set out on the counter to cool. Her mouth watered again, so she bit her tongue.

“I don’t think I even know what gruel is,” her mother continued. “Why don’t you set the table, and we’ll find some gruel tomorrow.”

Diana stuck her chin up and out. Her mother sighed. “Diana,” she said. “Go set the table.”

Diana turned on her heel and marched outside. After she set the table.

Sitting in the middle of the green square in their front lawn, Diana considered her options. She could not have gruel. Maybe she could have gruel tomorrow. Gruel was not necessary. Her gaze strayed to the pile of mulch that had just been delivered to their house. Her father was going to spread it tomorrow. Diana looked down at her clean hands lying in the lap of her spotless dress. She looked back at the mulch. She looked back at her hands. She looked at the mulch.

Diana hopped up, ran over, and jumped into the mulch.

“And that was a new dress young lady, and I don’t want to hear a peep out of you until it’s time to brush your teeth! Understand me!” Diana’s mother glared at her and then shut her bedroom door. Diana grinned.

The door opened. Her little brother Joel came in bearing a plate heaped with chicken and mashed potatoes and a sliver of apple pie.

“Here,” he said. “Mom said you’re supposed to eat this.”

Diana gaped. “But-but-but-”

“It’s your own fault,” smirked Joel. “You shouldn’t have jumped in the mulch.”

“That’s not the point!” Diana wailed. “I’m supposed to be punished!”

“I don’t get it,” said Joel.

“This room is bad enough,” Diana said. “It’s all pink and fluffy and white and has Mr. Bear and Bunny and Pal Puppy. But supper! Supper! SUPPER!”

“Can you take the plate?” Joel asked. “My arms are getting tired.”

“Joel,” Diana said, “you are five years old.”

Joel bristled. “So what?”

“So,” said his sister. “I think you’re old enough to know.”

“Know what?”

“Joel,” said Diana, “we are orphans.” She sat back among the soft white pillows of her bed, waiting to see the effect of her proclamation.

“What’s an orphan?” Joel asked.

“Never mind,” snapped Diana and grabbed the plate from him. She grabbed it a little too hard, and the food spilled over the floor.

“Moooom!” Joel ran to the head of the stairs. “Mooooom, Diana spilled her plate all over her room!”

“Stupid orphan,” Diana sniffed.

Diana lay in her bed in the dark. She licked her lips, and hugged Pal a little closer to her chest. She sighed.

“I guess,” she said to Pal, “we have no choice.”

Quietly she got out of bed. She went to her closet and dragged out her small backpack.

“Edward,” she addressed the pale, fanged face that graced the front of the bag, “you understand. You’re the only one who could possibly understand what this means.” She pressed her lips against his nose. She liked his nose.

She took her blue pajamas, her black jersey dress, and a pair of underpants. She stuffed her feet into her green crocs and pulled a Boston Red Sox sweatshirt over her head. After a moment of consideration, she packed Pal as well.

“If Annie had whatever her dog’s name was,” she said to Edward, “I can have Pal.”

Cautiously she opened her bedroom door. She snuck into her brother’s room across the hall, took out his Iron Man backpack from his closet and packed the first clothes she touched.

“Joel,” she whispered. “Wake up.”

Joel turned and slept harder.

“Joel.” She shook him. “Joel, we’re orphans. We have to run away.”

“Whassammmmph,” said Joel.

“Joel!” Diana smacked her brother on his head.

Joel woke up. “Ow! Ow! Ow! Mom! Dad! Diana’s in my room! Mom! Dad! Diana hit me! She HIT me! MOM! DAD!”

Down the hall she saw a light turn on underneath her parents door. “You’re a crybaby,” she told Joel before darting out his room and down the stairs.

“Mom! Dad! Diana called me a CRYBABY!”

“Ouch,” said Diana as her father yanked the seatbelt over her and belted her in.

“Ouch is the least of your worries, young lady,” Diana’s father said. He slammed the passenger door and marched over to the driver’s side. Diana despaired. She was riding in the front seat. The front.

Diana’s father buckled himself in and then sat back rigidly. “Do you know what time it is?” he asked.

“Midnight?” Diana guessed.

“Yes. Midnight. It is the middle of the night, I have to get up in six hours, your mother has to get up in five. Not to mention the fact that it is pitch black, and you ran right onto the busiest street in town–”

A tinny version of Fur Elise erupted from his pocket.

“Shit,” he said. Diana gaped, impressed. Her father dug his cell phone out of his pocket.

“What is it, Jean? Yes, I have her? Well I was just reading her the riot act when you—what?” He paused, listening. “Are you sure?” Diana watched him closely. “Well, I….” he ran his hand through his blond hair, making it even more unruly looking. He looked at Diana. Diana looked back. “We’ll be home in five.” He shut his cell phone and put it in his pocket and stared out the windshield. A car whizzed by.

“Is everything okay, Daddy?” Diana asked

He turned and gave half a smile. “Everything’s fine, sweetie.” He started the car.

Fine?

“Shit,” tried Diana.

“Not now, sweetie,” her father said absently.

Diana gave up.

Jean and Paul Washburn sat next to Diana on the couch. Jean held a piece of paper in her hand.

“Diana,” she asked, “why were you in my closet today?”

Diana shrugged. Brown almond eyes looked into round blue ones.

“Diana,” Jean tried again. “Did you take this out of the brown box in the back? Did you read this?”

Diana shrugged.

“Diana,” said Paul, “answer your mother.”

Diana shrugged.

Paul and Jean exchanged glances.

“Honey,” said Jean, “you knew both you and Joel were adopted. We’ve never kept it a secret from you.”

“I know,” said Diana.

“Did anything on the paper bother you?” Paul asked.

“No,” said Diana, puzzled. “It just told the truth.”

“What truth?” Paul asked.

“I dunno,” said Diana.

“Then why did you say—”

“Paul.” Jean laid her hand on her husband’s arm. Paul quieted.

“Honey,” said Jean, “ We’re your parents. We love you no matter what.”

“I’m an orphan,” said Diana. But she didn’t say it out loud.

“Does it matter to you that…what you read about…the other people on here?” Jean asked.

Diana shrugged.

“Answer your mother, Diana,” said Paul.

Diana opened her mouth. Paul and Jean drew closer together. Diana noticed Jean’s tightened her grip on Paul’s arm.

She closed her mouth. “No,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

Paul and Jean relaxed. Paul ruffled her hair. Jean smiled at her.

“Your father and I will put you to bed, okay? And we’ll make French toast in the morning, your favorite.”

Diana nodded. She let Paul carry her up to bed. She let Jean tuck her in. The door closed behind them.

“It doesn’t matter, Pal,” she said, and hugged the stuffed dog closer to her chest. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.”

She closed her eyes. Tomorrow, she thought, she would eat French toast because she was eight years old and Jean and Paul wanted her to.

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Life was good in February of 1998.  I was sixteen years old, just received my driver’s license, and seemingly had the world in the palm of my hand.  I had good friends and a good family.  School was mandatory, of course, but any chance I got I would be outside running, playing basketball, or throwing a baseball.  I was just beginning to really get good at athletic activities.  I genuinely looked forward to each and every day and the opportunities it would bring.

Then February 11 came.  I did not feel so good getting up, but I was excited about going to school and seeing friends.  I asked my father if I could use our 1978 Oldsmobile to drive to school.  He declined, saying, “Maybe tomorrow.”  That move possibly saved my life.

I made it to school and did not talk with people like I usually did.  Instead I just went straight to class.  I had a bad headache.  School was six periods in length not including lunch.  Surely the headache would get better throughout the day and by the end of the day I would be playing basketball like usual.  However, the headache only got worse.

I honestly do not remember the first two classes I had.  The third class I do remember.  It was speech.  I remember my bad headache getting worse.  I did not participate in that class.

Next, was lunch, which I do not particularly recall except for the headache getting worse.  Then geology class was next.  The pain was excruciating now.  Still, I thought it would go away soon.  I remember talking to friends, yet not comprehending the conversation.  I thought to myself, “Breath, take it easy, and go to gym class and have fun, and then I’ll feel better.”

By the time I made it to gym class I was not able to comprehend what I was seeing.  Stuff just did not compute in my brain anymore.  Everything was just looking wrong.  Yet, I could not figure out why.  I tried shooting a basketball, but I could not clearly see the hoop.  I went back and took a drink out of the water fountain and rinsed my face with water thinking that would cure me of whatever was going on.  I tried basketball one more time.  Still the result, I could not see clearly.  For the second time I went back and rinsed my face with cold water, but it did not help.  The pain was now unbearable.  Should I go ahead and go to the nurse?  No, because there was only a few minutes left and I wanted to report into my next class before I went to the nurse, then I would get this taken care of.

I walked into my final class of the day and told the teacher that I do not feel good and I thought I should go to the nurse.  I was told to wait until the bell rang and see if I felt better, if I did not then I could go to the nurse.  The five minute wait for the bell to ring was literally mind numbingly painful.  When the bell finally rang I went directly to the teacher to get permission to go to the nurse.  To my amazement I was denied.  I was told to go lie my head down on the desk and wait out the class.  This decision nearly cost me my life.

I survived an hour of indescribable pain in that class.  I was surrounded by people, yet all alone with life slowly draining out of me.  The bell rang and signified the end of the school day.  Somehow I had to get myself out of school and home.  My happened to be off work that day and was waiting for me in the car.  We lived not far from the school, but the ride seemed endless.  We even managed to get stopped by a train!

I made it home, but something was horribly wrong.  I hurried straight to the bathroom.  I knelt down beside the toilet and began vomiting bile.  My mother rushed in behind me to see what was going on.  She tried to help me to my feet.  I managed to stand up and then I said five of the most terrifying words I ever spoke:  “I can’t feel my legs.”  I immediately was laid on the bathroom floor.  I did not know what was going on, but one of the last things I remember was seeing my left leg rise into the air and violently shake.  I was done.

I awoke roughly three weeks later in a hospital setting.  I did not know why I was there, and although many people tried to explain the situation to me, the words did not resonate in any way.  A blood vessel had ruptured in my head.  I was now bald with three dozen staples holding my tender flesh together upon my head.  I know because I managed to lift my hand that high to feel it.  In disbelief I dropped my hand right away.

My parents were told to expect the worse.  I survived, so the next worse thing was not being able to think.  I could think though for myself though, so the next worse was not having functional use of my body.  At the time I did not.  I had no voluntary use of any appendage on my body.  The devastation was amazing from the ruptured blood vessel, which I would later learn was technically called an Arterio Venous Malformation (AVM).  I dropped to eighty pounds.  I could barely do anything, literally.  The doctors, with their infinite knowledge, explained to my parents that I would most likely be sent to a home for mentally and physically disabled adults.  Imagine, just a few weeks before I was jumping up and grabbing the rim of a basketball hoop.  Now I was told I would not be able to anything on my own again.

I knew I would be able to do everything and more again.  I quickly developed a tough, no quit attitude.  I spent four months in the hospital.  I left in a wheelchair and still could not do anything on my own.  While my friends were busy cruising around in their first cars, I spent hours in brutal therapy and drab doctor’s offices.  Pain became expected on a daily basis.

For the next four years I continued my quest to get better.  By 2002 I was walking, be it ever so slowly, with a quad cane.  That was more than I was told I would ever do.  Then I had the opportunity to travel to Poland to receive specialized therapy.  I spent a month over there and it helped.  I came back using a cane in each hand and had a new level of confidence.

Since the initial trip worked so well, I went back for a second time that same year.  On the second trip, however, I met a beautiful Polish woman named Marta.  We met by accident and whether it was pity or genuine interest she began to talk with me.  I was thrilled.  We quickly developed a relationship, but each of us knew it could not last, as I was leaving in just two weeks.

I returned to the states, expecting to not hear from Marta again even though we did exchange contact information.  To my amazement, she called me.  We would talk once a week for a couple hours at a time.  Then she purposed that it would be a good idea if I were to travel back to Poland and stay with her for one month.  I did.  The original one month quickly multiplied into three months, and then I had to get back to the states.

Luckily, she came over to America shortly thereafter as an au pair.  We kept in contact and saw each other when we could.  Three years went by and I continued to defy the doctors.  Marta, however, had to go back to Poland.  I could not bear the thought of being separated from her like that.  What should we do?  The answer was we should get married!

We wed on September 22, 2005.  My stomach was full of butterflies.  We both wondered if we were making the right decision.  I knew in my heart we were.  She encourages me to keep pushing and trying.

We’re coming up on our five year wedding anniversary.  During those five years we traveled throughout Europe, I made even more progress in my recovery, and we are establishing a relationship that gets stronger ever day.

It does not seem like that long ago I was being written off as someone incapable of doing anything.  I am still recovering, but I am getting better and stronger.  No doctor or therapist would have ever guessed I would have fairly normal life and a gorgeous wife with a bright future ahead.  I knew it all along though, and this is only the beginning.

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Some birthmarks don’t really start out as birthmarks.  After my son was born in 2001 I noticed a small spot forming on his chin.  Given the fact that I was nursing him, he was drooling constantly as all babies do, I brushed it off as a dry patch of skin.  I consulted all the popular books and magazines, bought myself the most recommended cream and applied it religiously each day.  At baby well visits with the pediatrician I mentioned it and was re-assured it would go away.

In fact, it didn’t grow away.  It grew bigger, fatter, rounder, darker.  It grew so much that I quickly realized that we didn’t have a dry spot on our hands we had a mole.  One that didn’t sneak back into a hole in the ground.

By the age of two the mole had grown so that it covered about 1/4^th of my son’s chin.  We had a portrait taken (just the two of us) that my son referred to in later years as our “wedding picture” being both in white and the mole was present in that photo.  When my son entered daycare kids were intrigued by it—it was like instant entertainment on his face.  The mole soon became part of our family life, like another member of our family.

Adults and children alike would ask us about it.  On shopping trips and trips to the museum we would be greeted with a look of pity (or accusation) and usually “Hey little guy, looks like you took a nasty tumble!”.  Then a quick retreat while I said “Actually it’s a birth mark” or my son would wiggle it vigorously in the stranger’s face and introduce them to his mole.

It occurred to me (sooner rather than later) that this could be a problem—after all what if it was cancerous or affected his development in some other way.  We went to a large specialized hospital about sixty miles from home.  The student intern and specialist were not as amazed as I was or as concerned.  It wasn’t cancerous or a problem.  In fact, it would be best if I just left it be.  I tried a plastic surgeon closer to home and he responded that to take it off would be tantamount to cosmetic surgery.  I repeated this procedure about every 6 months.  I really had to be sure that I was exhausting all my options.  In the meantime, the mole continued to grow and it also grew on us.

In kindergarten we thought up names for the mole.  “Holy Moley” and “Moley” seemed to stick.  We liked to animate the mole and give it a voice and although at first I shrugged this off as silly nonsense it became a great way of coping with the seemingly endless array of questions we got about it.  I consider my son fortunate because he was rarely made fun of and when someone did make an offhanded remark, the “kung fu Mole” would emerge and most kids would laugh it off.  Score one for teaching our child a humorous approach.

After time we became very good at being pro-active about the Mole.  We informed all pertinent parties ahead of time—teachers, day care providers, anyone who interacted with our son had an introduction.  We could at least cut to the chase and avoid some of the questions and misnomers about falling down a flight of stairs (nope, just born that way).  Being different was a great conversation starter about compassion for others—others who often had disfigurements of a larger nature or other challenges physically.  And it was surprising at times how compassionate children were to us—one girl telling my son at one point “Maybe next time I see you it will be gone.”

Perhaps this was a foreshadowing of things to come because as my son approached his 8^th birthday and the 2^nd grade we seriously decided again to consult with a plastic surgeon.  The trigger this time was a nick to the Mole—an actual injury to the injury of sorts.  The more active my boy became the more often he began coming home from school or birthday parties with a little scar on his mole—he had bumped it, scratched it, was “rough housing” with it.  It really didn’t bother us (as was mostly the case with the mole) but it bothered others who saw the sight of blood and weren’t sure what to do.

After consulting with a local plastic surgeon who this time DID agree it was in fact time, we prepared for what I affectionately refer to as the “long goodbye.”  We had a few months to get used to the idea that soon something that had been a part of my child’s life from day one was going to be gone.  Something that had literally grown before our eyes with a life of its own and was essentially a piece of my son’s personality was going to be removed.  As the day of the surgery approached I wondered how this would change our perspective.  Would my son still have compassion for others?  Would he remember this time in his life when he had a mole, something different that set him apart?  Would the lesson about being different and being okay stick???

My son handled the surgery like he did his mole—with humor and dignity.  We took pictures of the numbing cream spread over it like a lemon meringue pie and jokingly told “Moley” it was time to go to sleep.  We marveled at the mole sitting in the specimen jar after the procedure was complete and we introduced our selves to our new friend, “Mr Scar”.

The other day my son had a friend over and I listened to him explain that he used to have a mole.  Logan rushed to show his buddy pictures of his “old friend”.  I stood back beaming with pride.  Much like the boy in the story my son knew his mole was special and nothing to be embarrassed about—it was indeed a “beauty mark”.

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