Prayer for the Young Man’s Back

Of late I mostly see him coming and going – to and from school, practice, games, work—so I see as much of his back as his face.  The sight of him leaving causes me to screw up my courage a little.  Soon he’ll be off on his own.  Then I’ll have to screw up my courage a lot.

As I watch his back, I pray for it

• that the God Lord watch it for me, when I can’t be there to do it and even when I can
• that it will be resilient enough to bear life’s storms without breaking
• that it will be embraced by many a friend
• that these same friends and loved ones “have it” when it matters
• that it will be flexible enough to take him into new adventures, even if he has to stretch
• that it will be true enough to pull him back to those things he loves
• that he give it adequate rest and care
• that it will be strong enough to bear the loads he’s destined to carry
• that it won’t bear too much of a load – that he’ll share it with others – God, parents, family, church, friends
• that its strength will help and inspire others
• that it will be warmed with the sun, my personal metaphor for all the ‘fun’ he’s planning to have, without burning….
• that he’ll wear sun screen (another mother’s metaphor).
• that I’ll see it less than I see his smile

© Laura Hedgecock 2012

Danger! Danger! Danger!

Carolina Wren in Michigan

Far from being seranaded, my camera and I were being discussed in quite unflattering terms.

What could I say?   “Don’t worry, I’m just watching?”

Instead, I took the commentary in the spirit it was meant, and left.

But I DO like to watch!

© 2011 Laura Hedgecock

A Gift You Shouldn’t Give A Grief Counselor

About a year after my parents’ deaths, my family visited Alaska and had the privilege of meeting the wonderful organ transplant team at Life Alaska.  One team member, the grief counselor, had recently received a gift that turned out to cause more than a couple of awkward moments.

Life Alaska works with coroners’ and medical examiners’ offices throughout the USA and beyond.  Through various symposiums and conferences, they develop strong relationships with these offices.  When this grief counselor received black coffee mugs with “LA County Coroner’s Office” on them, she thought they would be practical for offering her clients coffee and tea.

I must have been the first one to have coffee served in such a mug.  I happened to turn mine around to look at the opposite side.  It looked something like this:

Having worked with Fran over the previous year, we knew she was incapable of insensitivity and so it was with great reluctance that I showed her my cup.  Predictably  she was mortified.  We, on the other hand, found that the mug, despite its dark humor, lightened the mood in the room.
© 2011 Laura Hedgecock

Yearning for the “Rest of the Story”

My passion for genealogy is what led me to volunteer to “key” for the World Archives project in which millions of microfilmed records are being indexed.

A feeling of headiness with my “exceptional” accuracy rating and my German led me to choose to key 1940 – 1941 WWII Nazi records from Kraków, Poland in which Jews applied for permits to remain in the city.

Immersion into this ugly period of history is itself disturbing.  It’s difficult for me to imagine a world in which one, by virtue of their faith, had to apply for a permit to keep a few pounds of their personal belongs and live in squalor.  Looking at the rejections is even more disturbing.  In 1940 Kraków, that must have been terrifying.  Seeing the names and addresses of these individuals, I yearn to hear the rest of their stories. Just because there were so many of them, doesn’t mean each one’s not a poignant drama worthy of being told.

What did they do? Where did they go? Did they survive?  Do they have relatives looking for their records?

Here’s hoping that one day their subsequent generations will hear their stories.

©Laura Hedgecock 2011

Tied in Knots

There’s a display of a Yakama time ball at the Simthsonian Native American Museum in Washington, D.C.   It ‘s a tradtion of the Yakama people that the rest of us could well learn from.

The twine in the ball represents life and the ball  itself represents a lifestory. Like life, it’s not perfectly spooled.  Like life, it’s got a few knots in it.   It’s not a story mean for others to interpret.  It’s a life story for a woman to savor or share.

The Yakama, rather than trying to mask the knots of life,  preserve or celebrate  the memory of those knots (i.e., events) with a bead.   Some of the knots represent happy events, such as a marriage or birth of a child.  Others represent a times of hurt, grieving, or personal growth.

If you think about it, we too should celebrate life’s knots.  Rather than sweeping the less than pretty, less than perfect times under the rug, we should preserve those memories, even share them with the other women in our lives.

That way, a life story, like a  time ball,  wouldn’t  have to look pretty to be beautiful.

The Faces of Memorial

In response to criticisms that we over-memorialized the 10th anniversary of 9/11/2011...

We memorialize
- to face the enemy – be it evil, chaotic, or indifferent
-to face our lack of control over the universe
-to face our loss
-to face sacrifices made, voluntary or not
-to face hope, renewal, and the future, though it’d be much easier to wallow in fear and grief
-to face the light without the comforting shadow cast by that one whose presence loomed so large in our life

For, after a while, you become accustomed to the dark; the light is harsh and moving forward on our own feet is terrifying.

(C) Laura Hedgecock 2011

How to Get a Better Place in Line, particularly at the Secretary of State’s Office

One hectic afternoon a man found himself at a Secretary of State office to have a newly purchased car titled.  In tow he had an energetic, grumpy, missed-his-nap-and-wanting-his-dinner two year-old and a fatigued, pregnant, nauseous (read: not much help at this point in the day) wife.

Thirty minutes ticked by.  The ticket in the man’s hand still read #143. His toddler switched from joyfully running around to clingy and whiny, and back again. Grumpy or not, when running around the kid was nearly impossible to catch.  The “now serving” sign crept up to #79.

Man and wife were about ready to give up when a stern-looking clerk caught the mother’s eye and beckoned her over.

“What number do you have?”

“143”

“No you don’t. That child wants to go home.  I want that child to go home. You’re next. “

Thanks Nate.

© Laura Hedgecock 2011

Fleeting, Enduring Memory

My memory of my grandfather’s funeral is reduced to a couple of fleeting moments.  They are also enduring moments, for they define a father–daughter relationship.

I was seated beside my dad in the chapel.  I’‘m sure my grandmother was on his other side, but I don’t actually remember that.  To the right of our family was a louvered divider, on the other side of which sat the majority of the congregation, where they could listen to the pastor’s message, spared from the sight of the family’s naked grief.
At seven, my feet didn’t reach the floor, which is really kind of a metaphor. I didn’t understand everything that was going on, only that everyone was sad and emotionally volatile.  Born a peace-maker, I saw my role as finding ways to make people smile for a minute, or, at the very minimum, not to make anyone any sadder.  This included dressing nicely and behaving nicely.

In the background of my ephemeral memory, the smell of flowers borders on claustrophobic and a long prayer continues (drones?) on.  I’ m carefully and quietly swinging my legs back and forth, staring down at my black patent leather shoes when a potential disaster strikes.  My little purse clatters to the floor presenting my seven-year-old peace-maker mind with a dilemma of epic proportions: Should I pick it up?  Should I acknowledge that I dropped it? Was I in trouble for dropping it, especially during the prayer?  Forty-two years later, I remember the panic building up in my throat and nausea sweeping over me.  I stared down at the purse for what seemed like an eternity, finally deciding to do nothing.  I snuck a peak at my father, hoping to see his eyes closed.  Instead I found him watching me with loving eyes.  He winked at me and whispered, “Good girl!” before re-closing his eyes.

With those two words, pride and relief replaced the panic.

So how did that define the father-daughter relationship?

Now that my feet reach the floor, hopefully in more ways than one, I understand more of what was going on in my father’s world that day.  The only son had lost not only a wonderful loving father, but was faced with dealing with his mentally ill mother from that point forward.  Additionally, his father was also revered by his church – a church Daddy had strayed from.  Decades later I found the sermon transcript; the cruelty of the message is still shocking.  There was no mention in the funeral sermon of a loving son or even a grieving son.  There were only innuendos of not living up to the mold and a message that warped the hope of the Resurrection into grief being a manifestation of selfishness.

In other words, in my “moment,” Daddy was grieving, scared, angry, and ostracized.   It would have been completely understandable if he had showed irritation, or ignored me or been impatient with my neurotic purse dilemma.  Instead, he reached out to me with love, patience and understanding.  Parent transcended self.

It wasn’t my behavior that was tested in that moment; his was.  He passed with flying colors.

© Laura Hedgecock 2011

When Daddy was a Little Girl

Fun on the floor with Daddy

It’s not unusual for a little girl to hear her mother begin a story with, “Back when I was a little girl…”   It is unusual when the speaker is the little girl’s father.

No, this isn’t a trans-gender story. 

My dad loved to kid kids. Sometimes he loved it more than my mom thought was wise.  He honed his craft on his own kids. For instance, he used to tell us that spinach was grass that a cow had already eaten once.  (Not to side too much with my mom, but I didn’t start eating spinach until I was over 30.)

At my grandparents’ house, a picture of my dad as a toddler was proudly displayed. In it, he was wearing what appeared to be a dress.  Most fathers would have explained that the “dress” was a gown and that was the traditional pose for babies in 1931.  Instead, he contended that he was not always a male –when he was little he was a little girl.

My sister and I were gullible, but not that gullible.  The fact that we never believed him, however, didn’t dissuade him from insisting.  Perhaps it was his way of fitting into an all-female household—he could always claim he could relate based on his past as a little girl.

More probably, though, he just liked to stir things up.

 
© Laura Hedgecock 2011

5¢ Son

If there's a Nutbush Road, there must be a Nutbush.

My mom grew up near Victoria, Virginia.  Though U.S. Census records listed their home as Pleasant Grove District, the locals called the immediate vicinity “Nutbush.”  (I used to thing my dad was making it up to tease my mom, put MapQuest backs him up.)

There wasn’t much in Nutbush, Virginia, but there was a general store.  My mom and her siblings liked to remember the owner and his kids.   They would gleefully remember one young son in particular who worked the cash register.  When someone bought a bar of soap, he would “holler” back to his father, “Pa, how much is the nickel soap?”  With seemingly infinite patience belied only by the exaggerated elongation of the already long “i” of his Virginian drawl, the father would holler back, “Fiiive cent, Son.”

© Laura Hedgecock 2011