I Love You. Do You Love Me. Check Yes No.

For some reason, the memory washes over me in mountain dialect. It comes back all these years later – not because of my own recollection but because I have been reminded of it over the years. Maybe that's why I didn't hear the memory in my own voice today. I was riding along pondering the thing that has usurped chocolate as most beloved in my heart (your visits to my blog). Suddenly the writer in me took over. I kept my mind on the driving, but my essence was far away. That inner voice beckoned me to long ago and far away.

I was transported to a valley between the peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The air was so juicy that if I had held a Sham Wow aloft for 2 minutes, I could have wrung out a gallon of water. Maybe it was that meteorological echo from the past that evoked the memory. The past and present welded together in my mind. It wouldn't be long long till crackles of electricity would begin to pop and puncture the water balloon holding in all that atmospheric moisture. Maybe again today, the rain would come. Back then, the water would daily gush from the heavens and fall in torrents until the valley was awash in rainbows. Whatever it was that unlocked the memory, it was there. The mountain born voice began to fill me up with words and sensations. I wanted to pull over and get it all down before the voice slipped away.

“As I a-heerd it telled all these years later, I come a-runnin' home from the school bus stop all breathless with my hair a-clingin' in sweaty tendrils around my baby 1^st grade face. I slammed thru the door and 'sploded with the 'tensity of a white tornado. 'Mamma! I got me a boyfriend. I don't like him. He got down on the playground today and kissed my feet. EWWWWW! YUCK!' “

His name was Weems, and he was mountain-born just like the voice in my head. His name was really William. The mountain folk had shortened it to that unlikely moniker. I had decided I didn't like him because of his nickname. Still in all, there was something pretty powerful in the aura of young love.

The news had first arrived via what we use to call 'tablet paper'. You probably had your own pad of it. Dotted pink lines separated rows of long blue lines. Together they formed the road map that guided every child from the infant nursery to the wide open world of literacy. Little rows of faces, some with tongue tips parked resolutely in the corners of mouths, intently mastered the ups and downs and arounds of their A, B, C's and 1, 2, 3's. Before long, individual letters became short words. Grubby little hands sooner or later thrust a sweaty or spit streaked paper full of erasures under the noses of ecstatic moms. The notes were intensely sincere and signed by the beaming child who would now understand the power of the written words:  I love you. It was an uncommon mom that did not swoon upon that 1^st heady presentation. It was an uncommon kid who did not suddenly understand the power of the words.

Didn't take too long for those powerful words to be aimed farther abroad in the world. Such had been my lot in life. The note arrived after some fanfare over a few days. My suitor was smitten. He made it plain in all his 6-year-old sincerity every time he passed my desk. I look back at my baby pictures from 1^st grade and can kinda see why he was so smitten. Who wouldn't get lost in those pools of navy blue?

I guess it was inevitable. The wadded up paper landed on my desk. I unwrapped it and spread out the wrinkles to uncover the mysterious message. There it was demanding my reply:

“I love you. Do you love me? Check the box yes no.” 

It wasn't too long ago, only this time last year, that she chuckled about that memory. The respirator would rob her of her voice in only a few days. But, that day, she looked over from the hospital bed and asked with a raspy chuckle, “Do you remember Weems?” She had never smoked in all her 80 years, and yet her lungs betrayed her. The medical team all reacted with shock when we told each new shift, “No, she never smoked. Never. Mamma never smoked and never drank. Daddy was a preacher. “ They'd nod with sudden understanding, look perplexed, finish the momentary obligation, and move on quietly to leave us alone again.

Her lungs were taking her away. Before they carried her away, they would rob us of her voice. So, words were precious. I didn't really know how precious. Ignorance is not always bliss, but sometimes it helps. We laughed together again they way we had over the years. All these decades later, the memory of my righteous indignation, worn like a crown as my curly hair shook with emotion, struck both of us as hilarious. I wondered what had become of my scorned suitor. I wondered if I had let him down gently or scarred him for life.

Sleep overcame her, and she drifted away a bit. Every time she would awaken during those 11 long weeks, I was aware that she was a little farther from us and a little closer to Heaven with every nap. I would pull my chair up and watch her sleep. I kept waiting for something to happen. You don't live in a preacher's house most of your life without hearing lots of stories about the way people die. Some die bathed in an aura of peace and tranquility. Others die cursing and foaming at the mouth – as angry in death as they have been in life.

No matter how many or how few times a soul darkens the door of a church in life, when dying time comes, most everybody wants the preacher. In some cases, it's almost like he is a magic talisman that will erase the record of inattention given to the hereafter and grease the way on through the door into eternity. So, I grew up hearing the stories of death and dying long before Elizabeth Kubler Ross told us how its done.

The quiet was deafening even once the machines were hooked up to give her failing lungs a rest. The hope was that a couple days rest would give her back the strength she needed to hold on to life. Medicine is as much an art as a science. Neither would work in her favor in the end. I sat alone in the quiet waiting. I asked God, “Tell me that you're here. Tell me that you are here in the middle of this mean season. It's been so long since I was sure you saw me. I'm the one that used to be your biggest cheerleader. I need to know where you are in all this quiet. Let me see the veil between Heaven and Earth part. Let me be here when you pull back the curtain to let her get a glimpse of where she is going.” 

As odd as the juxtaposition may be, the only thing I heard was Charlie Daniels singing over and over again, "Fire on the mountain run, boy, run..." and other odd snippets of his old classic, "The Devil Went Down to Georiga."  As best I know, that was as close to God as I ever got during those 11 weeks.

I had so often heard of saintly individuals who, while hovering on the cusp of eternity, would look around in amazement and ask, “Do you hear it?” or “Do you see it?” and then describe the sound of angels singing or the presence of Heavenly visitors. Soon after, the soul no longer lingered as the curtain to Heaven opened wide and whisked the suffering to the relief awaiting them. The surviving family remained behind, left to ponder the tenuous dividing line between mortality and Heaven.

My mamma was the kind of follower who showed up in God's house to play the piano the same day she tore her bicep muscle. She never met a stranger she didn't ask in the first 5 minutes, “Where do you go to church? Do you love the Lord?” I figured if anybody deserved the preview of coming attractions, it would be her. And, I was desperate to know he was present in that mean season because I had already had so many mean seasons in the last 12 years.

I knew I was coming to the end of me. I was on autopilot. I had pushed the 'move through your days like a zombie' button after I spent the night hovering over her bed. She writhed and moaned and fought back the forces of 3 bacterial infections at once. I told her to forgive me for letting them hook her up to that cursed machine. It only seemed to prolong her misery. The morning after that hellish night, her eyes cleared as the fever broke. Her smile returned. She sat up in bed and pleasantly engaged the nurses with gestures and notes. She had no memory of the hell that had consumed her the night before. I staggered down to the elevator to go home for a few hours. A nurse asked how I was. “This is not a good place to be,” the words spilled out in a hoarse, dead monotone.

She looked back at me, and her expression crumbled. Her mouth opened and closed as if she wanted to say something but knew nothing would suffice. Finally, she stuttered out, “There's a chapel...if you want...there's a chapel....?” Her voice trailed out into thin air. 

We were raised to respect anyone in uniform. In that moment I forgot my raisin's. I laughed a bitter, dead snort. Words froze in my throat. All I could do was stare unblinkingly as the snort faded to silence. I realized my head was shaking back and forth negatively ever so slightly. I wasn't sure who her God was, but I knew it was probably the same one I used to know. The same one my mamma knew 6 floors above us. He was the God that I would eventually find myself writing my way back to. But that day, he was as absent from me as he had ever been in my life.

In the pages of this blog, my question weaves in and out and up and down. The scrawled message appears on the dirty, sweaty, wadded up, winkled tablet paper of my heart:

I love you. Do you love me? Check yes no.

I wish I could begin at the beginning and write till it's all done. Maybe you do too. I think you know as well as I do that the process just isn't all that simple. You are a brave soul if you stumbled upon these pages and came back for more. I love you more than chocolate – which my children would tell you is most certainly a near medical miracle. I hope you'll come back tomorrow and bring a friend. Tell the all the fraidy cats you know. Tell them that if they've been looking for a place to come home to, this hideaway in cyberspace just might be it.

Fraidy Cat Parenting in a Fraidy Cat World

Around 9p tonight, the issue of my old age turned 14.  I'm not sure what God was thinking 14.75 years ago.  Our older son was 6 at the time. He sidled up to me one day and said, "Mamma, are we gonna have any more babies at this house?"

I gently explained that God made some families bigger and some smaller. Looked like ours was gonna be one of the smaller ones. That was ok, tho',  because I loved him and his daddy, and they loved me. So, things were gonna work out just fine.  God must have snickered because at that exact moment I was 'in the family way' as they used to say.  I wouldn't know for many more weeks.  I would be almost 40 when he was born.

Ended up at the MD thinking I had an ulcer.  The MD was smarter than me.  He said, "Let me run some tests." He came back laughing.  It isn't an ulcer, but what you have will cause one in about 13 years. Might wanna start thinking of some names."

13 years later...the doctor knew whereof he spoke!

I sat in stunned silence and then began to mutter, "How did his happen? How did this happen?" over and over till he started looking at me like it might be time to call in reinforcements with some happy juice.

He looked at me quizzically, and said, "You are almost 40. You have a 6-year-old. You've been married HOW many years...and you want me to tell you how this happened?"

I looked at him blankly and said, "You don't understand. How did this happen?"  Like I said...God had a sense of humor pulling that fast one on me! I told my middle aged friends that they would be buying Depends and getting bi-focals while I was buying Pampers and baby food. Middle-aged morning sickness made me a lot less smug.


I went home and called the man I promised to love, honor, and procreate with to break the news.  He was out of town on a business trip.  When I asked him what he was doing in about 6.5 months, he was as obtuse as I had been at the MD's office.  After a while, it hit him. He let out a long slow chuckle and said, "You're KIDDING?"  I informed him the MD had seemed fairly serious. 

If you know the Old Testament story of Sarah and Abraham. You know she was too old to have a child when she had Isaac. She laughed at the idea when she heard the suggestion that a baby was in her future.  Given our stunned reaction, my husband's laughter, and my less than spring chicken status in life, I figured a name was a foregone conclusion. So, in an homage to Sarah, Abraham and Isaac, he was immediately Isaac which means 'laughter'.  Good thing he turned out to be a boy since we didn't have a plan B for names.

Rock on...the louder the better...

He has been an adventure right from that auspicious beginning. How do I count the ways?  Well, we can start with broken ribs 2 months before his birth. I had the flu. He was a tall drink of water even in those days.  There is all of 2.5 inches between the top of my hip bones and the bottom of my rib cage.  He just didn't leave alot of room for coughing.  I coughed. My rib cage expanded as much as it could and then popped. Good times. Good times.  NOT.

On the day of his birth, the OBGYN kept exclaiming during delivery, "Look at his legs! Look at his legs! No wonder your ribs broke. There just wasn't enough room in there for all of him."  Good one doc! I had figured that out already.  

Technology: It's intuitively obvious, Mom.

He has provided a lot of laughter along the way, that is for sure. Parents say no 2 kids are alike.  If you aren't a parent yet, listen to that sage observation. It's true.  Son #1 responded to discipline in a way that was every parent's dream. Oh, he's had his rough spots like all kids. Overall, he was eager to please and easy to raise. He was a rule follower. He was cautious in the way of 1st borns. He grew up loving classical music, the piano, and violin. He writes orchestral arrangements.He was no preparation at all for son #2.

Son #2 would be an anarchist if it were allowed in our family.  We took a vote. He lost. He wants tatts and navy blue hair. We indulged him a bit with those little books of rub on tatts you can get at innocent places like Cracker Barrel. We've avoided the blue hair so far. Our only hair requirement is that it must be a natural color and shorter than Cousin Its on the Adaams Family. We drive a hard bargain. The harder the head-banging metal, the happier he is. To him, piano and classical music might as well be chalk screeching on the chalkboard of his life. He's the Democrat to his brother's Republican. I can see it coming from here.

In his short life time, comparatively speaking, he has been headed toward careers including but not limited to: cartography (map making), professional poker player, Catholic monk (we are Reformed Presbyterian), world champion hang glider, hypnotist, chemist, and comic book writer.  On the days I can't keep up with him, I simply look at the heaven's and say, "What WERE you thinking?"

Dad and Poppy affirm Isaac's faith in Christ

I'm pleased to say he returned from his recent week at camp a new man. He had found a peaceful place to heal a bit from the bullying taunts of the last 3 years.  He had canoed and jumped into the lake from a trapeeze. He had reveled in paint ball combat. He shared his abundance by blessing a friend who lost a dad to cancer. He discovered he likes lattes just like his big brother. He engaged in his first public speaking foray by sharing what camp had meant to him. Apparently, 400 other campers gave him some sort of ovation when he opined that 'normal' is a fairly lame concept.  I won't regale you with HIS way of expressing it. Let's just say, for the sake of decorum, that my mamma would have probably brought out the Safeguard and engaged in a little wash, rinse, and repeat.  He came home stronger, more self-assured, and more resolute about who God is despite the fact that his own mom remains, at this moment, pretty confused about that subject.  He's had some highs and lows this last year. Camp was definitely a high spot.  How fitting that he wrapped up the year on that note.


As I type, I'm sitting in an uptown eatery that houses a Christian music venue on their upstairs floor. He's up there in the thick of things having the time of his life -- moshing to the beat with the heavy metal bands of the night.  The ambient noise bombards the eatery. The crashing waves of the drums relentlessly drive each song to its welcome (for me) conclusion.  I'm not sure how much more my brain or eardrums can take even tho there is soundproofing and industrial flooring between us. The things we do for love.

If you had asked me, when Son #1 was 14, whether he would fly around the world to China when he was 18, I would have asked you what herb you had been smoking.  There would not be, I would have guaranteed you, a large enough quantity of your herbs to keep me calm enough to endure that challenge to my fraidy cat heart. I reckon God would have snickered over that one too.  He seems determined to keep me guessing, doncha think?  I wonder what scheme he has up his sleeve to surprise me in the next 4 years.  Who will son #2 be then and what will he be poised to do?  Makes the fraidy cat in me tremble just a little.  Will he be a navy blue haired Christian metal rocker that plays poker and hang glides? Will he star in some show like Myth Busters so that he can enjoy using chemicals to blow things up? Will he remember how we spent his 14th birthday?

Wasn't this just yesterday?

I sit here tonight wondering where the last 14 years have gone. The days have been chewed up by one crisis after the other.  If there is such a thing as normal, my kids never had a chance to know it. A voice in my head says they are resilient and will be stronger, more well-rounded people with the capacity to care for others in crisis. My fraidy cat heart wonders if I was up to the task of being their mom.  Will I have enabled them to overcome the challenges life presented on a never ending cycle. Will I have planted the seed of faith deeply enough in their hearts that they never know the paralyzing fear that penetrates my heart? Will I have given them wings to fly far beyond the boundaries of my fraidy cat borders.  Will they rise up and call me blessed because I never stopped trying no matter how hard it got? 


I'm guessing a few of you know a little bit about the fears that are washing over me tonight. My job with these 2 fellas is almost done.  In 4 short years, I'll have an 18-year-old and a 25-year-old.  My oldest will be the age his Dad was when he was born.  Where did the time go, what did I do with it, and was it enough?

I leave you now with the words Isaac took to heart while at camp.  Come back tomorrow and bring a friend? It's a fraidy cat world out there, but we can overcome if we stick together, doncha think?


Micah 6:8  (NKJV)

He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

Dateline Summary Court -- Fraidy Cat vs da Man -- Case #BR549

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creations

Here's the deal: I have 4 preachers and 5 church musicians on my mom's side of the family tree. One of 'em preachers was my dear old dad. I'm not here to contradict what you surely know about the deacons' kids teaching us PK's how to live on the wild side. I just want you to know that truism didn't apply to me. No sir. Remember me sayin' that it was not my mamma's proudest moment when I informed the post-colonoscopy recovery room nurse about my lineage with regard to record setting gastrointestinal fortitude? Suffice it to say, that in my childhood home, we had rules of decorum. It started with little things like not being able to call deviled eggs by their God-given names. No sir. At our house, they were 'word-eggs' because any word to do with the devil was a cuss word. That's how high the bar was set where I come from. I grew up thinking the devil would personally come snag me with his pitchfork for the slightest infraction.

You can imagine that, in my native childhood habitat, R-E-S-P-E-C-T was more than an Otis Redding song that Aretha Franklin hijacked for the sake of the women's movement. We knew we better respect our elders, every living soul in the church and all their relatives, teachers, and any man in uniform...whether he was military, police, or the garbage man. It was a heavy load to bear what with the influence of all those wayward deacons' kids, let me tell you!

Well, here I am at the ripe old age of fifty-a-cough-choke-gurgle years, and my heart still races every time I see an official vehicle near me in traffic. If I see rack lights...I don't care if it is the man who reads the water meter, I get all spazzy about it. I'm scared to death my inner fraidy cat has gone and gotten rebellious and done something wild when I wasn't looking...like run a yellow light as it turns orange on its way to red.

Thanks to my mamma teaching me how to behave and my avoiding the unseemly influence of all those deacons' kids, I've gotten to this young old age without navigating a certain right of passage: a traffic ticket. I figure that, technically, I stopped maturing about the age of 21 when most folks have gotten one. I'm sure my shrink would back me up on this hypothesis. (She's out of town, so there's no need to call her.) I think this inexperience is why I have not needed botox, Oil of Olay, or liposuction. I stayed young because I didn't hit all my maturational milestones!

Sigh. Pull up a chair real close now. I got another one a them true confessions ya'll live for. It's not my fault. I'm no guiltier today than I was the day the International Space Station wobbled in orbit a few weeks back. And, if I had not decided to go to rehab...uh..I mean the writer's conference, it never would have happened anyway.

It all happened this-a-way. Back in May, I was at the pre-game warm up for the writer's conference. Some of the locals in the writer's group met for the 411 on what to expect when we got there. I went for the express purpose of not making an idiot out-a-myself when I got to the real thing. Met a few folks. Pressed some flesh. Flashed a few smiles. Asked a few idiot Q's that only newbies ask. It all seemed like a good idea at the time...only I forgot to take some chocolate as a sedative before I went.

If you have been following my fraidy cat progress for a while, you probably remember that I left that meeting in a full tilt panic attack. The lovely lady who ran the session (who by the way just made my day when she hit 'like' on my facebook wall under my blog post link), had scared the Hoo-ey (sorry mom) out of me. She had gently informed all the newbies that we needed business cards – preferably with a headshot, business casual clothes, and writing samples for 2-15 minute evaluations with bona fide industry professionals. I thought I had signed up for the fly on the wall observation pass. I would work my way up to all that professional stuff in a decade or so if I ever went back to another conference.

I didn't look all smooth about it, but I held myself together till I could flee to the car and collapse in a heap of quivering jello of fear. I woulda backed out right then and there, but my dear old sainted brother had sprung for the whole week because he believes in me. I owed the boy. So, because I am such a dweeb and was wrestling with a newly diagnosed case of severe trauma reaction, I cried most of the way home. Yea. I know. It's pitiful. But, what can I say? The name of this blog IS Confessions of a Fraidy Cat. You get what you pay for. And, I work cheap, so this is what you people got!

You know how they say most wrecks happen within 2 blocks of home. I don't know who 'they' is and never have, but sometimes 'they' know what 'they' is talking about. I suggest that from now on, you folks WALK the last 2 blocks home when you are out and about. Yea...I was at a traffic light 2 blocks from home snuffling and gurgling like a panic stricken fool. I was so undone, I wasn't even talking on a cell phone because I didn't think I could drive, cry, and talk at the same time. I was minding my own business. I realized I had no tissues or fast food napkins or old grocery receipts. That was a FINE time for my husband to decide to start keeping a cleaner car. Since the light was red, I figured I had time to reach over and dig around in the glove compartment. If all else failed, maybe I could wipe my soggy face on the car registration. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creations

So, I leaned my short self over the console and stretched out for the glove compartment. I had almost made it when I realized my foot had slipped off the brake pedal ever so slightly. I looked up as I hit the brake again only to see myself smack right into the 14YO Honda in front of me. Well, ain't that great. There I am BLUBBERING like an idiot BEFORE I hit the guy. Now I have to jump out at a major thoroughfare and explain to my victim that I am NOT crying because I hit him/her! Proven guilty before I have a chance to be innocent. I knew right then and there that I do not look good in an orange jumpsuit.

I jumped out, surveyed the situation and realized that there was no damage to either car. So, I ran up before this 20-something-year-old kid could get out and look for himself because the light was changing. I have to give him credit. If some crazed woman had just smacked my car from behind and came running up blubbering, I'd have been concerned too. Before I knew it, he had gotten on the phone to tell his mom and dad that some crazy woman was unhinged and that the cops were on the way.

Thankfully, the officer of the law showed up and agreed with me that neither car was damaged. He apologized and wrote me a ticket anyway because the boy and his folks wouldn't let me off the hook. Lance Cpl Mr. Officer said if I'd showed up at court today, he'd plead my case with the judge. So, today I guess I became an official adult. Being the good girl my mamma and daddy raised, I showed up like he told me and was there early. He was late. I didn't care. I got to see almost everyone go before me, so I was a graduate of traffic court university by the time it as getting down to case # BR549.

Man, oh man...we were a sorry, deer-caught-in-the-headlights-bunch. They separated the chaff (guilty) from the wheat (those that were innocent till proven guilty). They let those guilty suckers pay their fines. Then, the judged turned his attention to the rest of us. We'd waited so long that we had compared family trees and figured out half of us were related. There was a lady who had to leave there and go to the unemployment office. There was a postmaster. There was me. And, there was a local TV sports personality who was back because his case had been continued a time or two.

I had my story all set re my failure to self medicate with chocolate and was ready to throw myself on the mercy of the court. His Honor, the Summary Court Judge, called the sports personality first which I thought was fair. After all, he came dressed like a lawyer, had an official looking file of papers, and was back for his 4^th visit. He probably needed to run back to the station for some face time too. I knew where I was in that pecking order! Still in all, I was a little miffed since I had my speech locked and loaded and was sure I could charm His Honor into reducing my fine.

I got all nervous thinking I didn't have a sheaf of official looking pics of my major intersection. I did have cell phone pics of the vehicles right after the wreck. I wasn't sure the court would accept that exhibit into the official record. I realized my ticket had gotten limp and damp in my sweat drenched hands. That TV fella did what he does best, he talked - more than I write. He talked so long that my ticket started to disintegrate about the time my 'arresting officer' (sorry again, Mamma) asked for it back.

The judge finally started talking about the state's burden of proof and the difference between 'reasonable doubt' and 'any doubt'. Given this week's court case in Florida, His Honor made me think about changing my blog post for tonight. I nixed that figuring I ain't no Nancy Grace or Greta Van Susteren. Much to my surprise, the judge told Mr. Officer that he felt Mr. TV had done a good job of raising reasonable doubt with all his measurements and pictures and other stuff I didn't have. Man...I was getting a vision of me in orange, and it was getting uglier every time I looked.

He let that smooth talking, guilty-looking TV guy sail out of there for 'time spent in court today' and canceled his fine to $0.00. I wondered if 'time spent in court' was the same thing as 'time served' about the time I thought I heard the paddy wagon pull up to the back door.

I was relieved when he called Mr. Postmaster next. I figured that would give me some more time to refine my sorry tale and have him cancel the tailor that was hovering in the door with a tape measure and orange fabric. So, Mr Postmaster launches into what I could tell was going to be as long and drawn out a story as Mr. TV guy had told. I settled back to eye that tape measure snapping tailor and wondered if he had a cousin that wore a red suit and carried a pitch fork.

About 3” into Mr Postmaster's diatribe, His Honor, my personal hero and new BFF if he knew I existed, held up his hand to quiet the fella. He gestured over to me and the rest of the motley crew waiting our turn. He said, “I've already found one fella innocent today. By the looks of you folks, I'm thinking I'll be finding a few more innocent as well. Ya'll can go. Have a nice day. I'll cancel your fines. No need for you to wait while I finish up with Mr. Postmaster here.”

I sat there in stunned amazement. Was he speaking English? Did he just say something like, “Go in peace, and sin no more”? Did he really expect me to leave without giving him my sob story? What about my perp walk? I had been practicing for weeks determined to make mine as good as Paris Hilton's.

Courtesy mad Penguin Creations

My distant relatives and I got up and began to stumble our way toward the exit. We moved in a tightly knit knot, so it would be hard to pick off any one of us if he decided to do so. We kept looking back in case we had stumbled into some Twilight Zone episode of Night Court in which he would say, “April Fools, you fools!” and ship us all over to the Tower of London to serve out the remainder of our days. I looked back one more time. His Honor the Judge said, “Shoo..go...I mean it...go...” Hah! He didn't have to tell me that 3 times. I looked over my shoulder at Mr. Postmaster and wondered how he was gonna look in orange. Anybody got the address for the Tower of London? I got a post card I need to mail.......

Into The Twilight Zone

The counselor sat back looking satisfied and gleeful. The offer hung out there in the air. The retreat was mere weeks away. If we wanted to go, we needed to hop on board quickly. Slots were filling. What I now know was a panic attack began flirting around the edges of my mind. My heart was beating so fast and hard my eardrums felt like they would explode. I fought the urge to get up and run out of the room.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creations

I should be happy, right? The counselor sure was. Here was what I wanted, what I had longed for on that night years before. When I had curled up on the front seat of the car in a dark, cold grocery store parking lot mourning the departure of my friend who could have been so much more, this is the reward I hoped for. Here was what I had wanted all the days I mourned my commitment to that tough decision to drive away from the comfort only inches away. Here was what I had wanted all the lonely nights I had stared at the ceiling in the wee hours of the morning with tears dripping out of my eyes and filling up my ear canals. And yet, I was terrified by the offer.

After all this time, after all the hurt, after all the loneliness, after all the loss, after all the lost dreams, could I trust enough to take this final step in a reconciliation. I was dizzy and sick to my stomach. I'll be honest with you, thinking about it as I write now 5 years later, my fraidy cat body feels all the effects of my traumatic stress reaction. I'm dizzy. I'm nauseous. My hands are shaking. I want to run even tho' I've already lived thru it. Being a fraidy cat is hard work, doncha' know?

Courtesy of Mad Penguin Creations

I took a ragged breath and must have said I'd go. I'm not sure how I said it now. I just know that come September, I found myself in a packed car headed toward a conference in the mountains of Tennessee. I steeled myself with the knowledge that if I got too panicky, I could grab the car keys and flee. Someone would take my husband home. We'd both be embarrassed, but that might be preferable over my having a heart attack.

At some point that weekend, the keynote speaker said, “I know there are some folks here who are so battle scarred that you are here with fear and trembling. You don't want to make eye contact much less have any physical contact with the person sitting next to you. That's ok. This weekend is not about that.” He went on from there, but I'd heard enough. I felt no less panic-stricken, but I knew I could reach for my dream and the husband who had worked so tirelessly to escape the monster that had ruled his life.

Later that weekend, he turned to me, “I am not the man you married. I'm a different person now. Would you marry me again?” I was sure I had somehow found my way into an episode of the Twilight Zone. It was too improbable, too fantastic, to be true. We arrived back home to the little house that had become our launching pad into a new post-Chapter 13 life. We told the boys there was going to be a wedding. Our older one would be both best man and musician. Our younger would carry the rings and be his dad's other best man. Fraidy cat fairy tales do come true.

Wasn't God really doing all he promised me he would do those long, bitter years ago? When he said, “Let it all go. You can't fix anything. This will be the first time in your life that, through sheer force of will, you couldn't fix something. But, you can't. Be still.”

I hadn't been able to be exactly still, but he had meant it. Nothing I did fixed anything. Again, I thought, “It was worth everything we've endured if it meant finding what we've found.” I had no idea what the next 2.5 years would hold.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creations

Oh my....are you out there, God? Have you seen me all this time? I used to be your biggest cheerleader. I was the one about whom my friends said, “You have the strongest faith of anyone I know....” Look at what has happened to me now. What happened to that girl that believed you were a good God with a good plan? I'm writing my way back to you. Will you come find me?

What about you, fellow fraidy cat? What has driven you to the point that you no longer steadfastly believe there is a good God with a good plan? Or, have you never given it much thought as the fraidy cats wander in and out of your life? I know my fears have a different name and different roots, but it takes a fraidy cat to know one. Come back tomorrow. Bring a friend, won't you? You know what I'm going to say, right? I hope you will, but I'm scared to death you won't.

Fraidy Cat Choices in a Fraidy Cat World - Pt. 2

I had arrived at the meeting feeling more overwhelmed and lonely than usual. I was more certain than ever that my old life was really over. I laughed little and made even less eye contact with anyone. I made my way out into the chill night air without saying goodbye. I tried to make my exit invisible. If only, I could climb into the shelter of the car, blast the heat on, and soak in the shelter and anonymity of the darkness. I would make the miles between me and home last as long as possible. Increasingly, the car was my only safe space in the world. The safest place was the darkest corner of an otherwise busy parking lot after dark. In those invisible places my anguish poured out in abundance.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creations

The door closed behind me with that hollow sound of sharp thuds on chilly nights. It opened again with an urgency that made me hasten my sluggish steps. Someone was in a hurry to punch off the next thing on an overcrowded to do list. I envied a place to go and a life to live. In the next breath, I knew. It was him. He was not close enough that I could take a long slow inhale of his cologne. He was close enough that if I turned abruptly, we would collide. If only I could bring myself to turn.

We were alone in the darkness. No one but us seemed to be in a hurry that night. He had not lost his military swagger, and his gait belied his Marine background. He was gaining on me and waiting for me to turn. We were parked in adjacent spaces. In an instant I knew I had a choice to make. The choice would define who I was. It would determine the future of my family.

They say your life flashes before your eyes just before things like a wreck occur. In that moment as my world threatened to collide with the unknown, life did flash before my eyes. It was as if some super computer had taken over my brain. I gasped the chilled air in panic and was rewarded with a sudden light-headed disorientation. The word began to tilt and spin under my feet as if I was on a carnival ride.

My heart longed to let my body spin just like my head was spinning. Only inches separated me from words that had gone unspoken for months on end. There was no doubt in my mind what choice I would make if I turned. We could both say what was hanging in the air. I knew we would make a plan. Our conversations would no longer need to be quick snatches here and there. I could drink in the laughter in those eyes at my leisure. He could remind me again that he saw me in the midst of my painful life even though I felt invisible.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creations

I paused with my hand on the handle of my car door. I paused a scintilla of a second. Then, I slowly opened the door, got in without looking at him, cranked the engine, and drove away. I heard the pieces of my heart crunch between the pavement and my wheels. Watching in the rear view mirror, I saw his car, then his tail lights, disappear in the other direction. I knew I had ended what had never really begun. I knew he would understand the period at the end of my sentence. I knew things would never be the same. I was as alone as I had ever been.

I pulled over in the darkest corner of the first busy parking lot and doubled over in grief. I was going to a house that was not a home. I was going back into the lion's den. If my husband was awake, there would be no warm and cheerful greeting, no eyes dancing with mirth, no real recognition of me at all. In fact, the best I might hope for was a growl if I got too close to the door of his office. It was a place I dared not set foot inside anymore. I did not know what I would discover several years later. A monster was living in the shadows of our lives. I did not know that monster had robbed us of all we might ever have been. All I knew then was how harsh and cold and lonely my world had become.

As the sobs subsided, I told myself there would be consolation in the fact that my choice had been honorable, unselfish, and for a greater good. I had not been above reproach because he belonged to someone else as did I. Yet, I had chosen to honor the fidelity he had promised to her decades before. I had not done to another woman what I did not want done to me. I had chosen my children's peace of mind over my momentary comfort. Had I chosen a different path, I was sure that I would have only added confusion to an already confusing life. At least, I could spare them that added chaos.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creations

Wrong added to wrong would have not made anything right. I looked up at the skies with so many stars watching over me. “Oh, God...why have you forgotten me? How much longer can I live through this? Will it ever end? I am so lonely. Where are you?” Only silence filled the air. I cranked the car and headed into the cold and lonely night toward home.

When next I saw him, our eyes met and held with unspoken resignation and grief. I raised my shoulders in question. From down the empty hallway, he nodded one slow nod to say he understood that reality was what it was. In the following months, we did a slow, sad dance. The laughter was still there, but our eyes no longer twinkled when they met and held. Often, he would give me that slow single nod. Now the message was, “I still see you, and I understand. I still care, but I understand.”

One sunny morning just as spring began to signal its approach, I rounded a corner intent on making another quick and invisible departure. I came face to face with the woman I had come so close to betraying. I pulled up short as did she. She asked to speak to me a moment. My heart sank. My reckoning time had come. I had earned whatever she had to deliver. She laid her arm on mine and began to thank me for the small remembrance I had provided for a recent family event. She told me how much it meant that, in the middle of all I had going on, I would remember them.

Behind her, he rounded the corner in a mad dash at the behest of that never ending to do list. His effervescent and almost omnipresent smile did a slow, confused fade. Shock registered on his face as his thoughts mirrored my own raggedy expectations. As he stood agape, she and I embraced. His eyes closed, and a sigh escaped. He looked at me and smiled that now familiar slow, sad smile. A glint of tears filled his eyes. Again the slow nod. This time it was to acknowledge relief for choices we did not make all those months ago. He nodded again and mouthed, “Thank you...I mean it...thank you,” and then quietly turned and walked away. As miserable as I felt in that moment, I knew I could look myself in the mirror that day and all the days after. I might flinch, but I could do it.

See, I told you. I didn't want you to be shocked. I told you that my life has unfolded in such a way that you can hardly come up with an inner fraidy cat whose acquaintance I have not made. I bet you are closer to believing me now, huh? I hope you'll come back tomorrow and bring a friend. I'm afraid you won't. I'm writing my way back to God. Won't you come along?

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creations

Psalm 139 (NIV) 1 You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. 5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?    Where can I flee from your presence? ⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. ⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, ¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,  your right hand will hold me fast. ¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” ¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

Fraidy Cat Choices in a Fraidy Cat World

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

There I was with what I had longed for dangled before my eyes.  The counselor was suggesting a romantic weekend with the man I had promised to love, honor, cherish, and endure with till the bitter end. As the months had passed, we had enjoyed the fruits of our counseling labor.  I felt less and less like I was walking on eggshells or diving into a trench to avoid incoming rockets. And yet, I still was not sure I could trust the new relationship that was emerging. I had not been alone with my husband in years.  Over 3 to be exact. The idea of being alone..in a bedroom...for a weekend was enough to send a fraidy cat into hiding.

Convention says hindsight is 20/20.  Another says there are 3 sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth.  I fear that while hindsight clarifies what we see in the rear view mirror of life, our vision remains skewed by our humanity.  Even as I navigate the hallways of my memory, I am acutely aware of the imperfect nature of my explorations.  I cannot speak for my husband and sons as to the totality of their impressions and experiences.  This blog contains my part of the story, my recollections, my fears, my loneliness, my victories, my growth - or lack thereof - as a person, and represents my spiritual journey.

Courtesy  Mad Penguin Creative

I am humbled to see that, as my story plays out through these pages, other folks are reaching out to me...some more hesitantly than others.  The theme is the same, "I'm scared to death because....."  No 2 situations are the same. Some have plunged suddenly and headlong into circumstances they have not seen coming: a husband's infidelity, an angry tenant, a vengeful neighbor, a natural disaster, a child in trouble.  Some wrestle with long term stresses that have robbed them of the underpinnings of trust in a world that spun out of control:  the death of a parent or spouse that tilted the earth on its axis, unemployment that seems it will never end, chronic health issues that required a change in the parameters of life. It's a fraidy cat world, I tell ya. You are not alone.


In each situation, I have to remind my fellow fraidy cat, that I am not perfect nor am I the voice of all reason.  My rear view mirror doesn't make me Solomon or God.  It hasn't even made me an Americanized Mother Theresa.  Remember, I'm the one who went sobbing to the counselor asking for reassurance that the men in white coats weren't about to knock on my door. I'm the one who is writing her way back to God because life has confused and confounded me beyond my understanding.  I remind you of those facts because I don't want you to be surprised by what's coming. 

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

The loneliness in our marriage etched its way into our days since before we were married.  That's a rear view mirror reality. You don't realize it when you are awash in china patterns and honeymoon destination choices. You don't realize it when you are busy with the arrival of children.  You just wake up one day and realize you are all alone in the world even tho' the person you promised to love, honor, and cherish is only 2 feet away.  Later, if you are lucky I guess, you look back and see that the seeds of isolation were there all along. Given the right soil and fertilizer, seeds became a crop while you kept on trying to live the American Dream.

Sometimes, you don't even admit you are lonely until something happens to make you come face to face with the reality and the heartbreak.  I was busy being the good, homeschooling, church-going wife of the successful professional man.  As he got sicker, I did sometimes think I disappeared in the urgency of his days.  Kind folks inquired about how he was doing and clucked and murmured all the right things - about him. As it got harder, I sometimes thought, "It's as if I disappeared.  Everyone wants to know how he is. No one seems to care that my life is fractured as much as his..." Then, being the good girl I was, I'd chide myself for my petty, petulant pity party, suck it up..and go on.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creation

When it happened, it as as if I had been hit by white hot lightening.  I was feeling lonely and forgotten.  I was tired of dodging my business-partner-in-life's ever present and seething anger.  We were broke.  Other couples were looking forward to vacations and date nights and weekends away.  I was looking forward to packing my comfortable house on 3 acres and moving into 2 bedrooms and a full bath.  I was at a meeting with still enough of my old life left to be pretending life might, somehow, be resurrected and allow me to keep on living as I had.  Despite my effort to act like the old me, I was a shattered shell of loneliness, fear, and defeat.


One of the folks at the meeting made a joke. I laughed. It felt oddly freeing. My ever present fear lifted for a moment allowing me to feel lighter than air. You know the feeling after you've been in the pool for a long time? When you get out, you feel as tho' you weigh 100x your normal weight. If you jump back into the pool right at that moment, it feels like a huge relief. That was the sense of relief that settled over me in that moment of laughter. 

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

In mid-laugh, I glanced over my shoulder to acknowledge the prankster. Only thing was-- my eyes never got that far.  The other set of  eyes that met and locked with mine danced with impish glee, and lightening shot from my eyes to my heart.  My breath evaporated into thin air. I snapped my head back to look forward and began to pray, "Oh dear God...not now...why now?  Why do I feel this way now?  How can this happen now and why him?"

When it was safe, I tucked a look back over my shoulder wondering if I was so traumatized by life that I was irrationally seeing what was not there. The eyes were there waiting.  It wasn't my imagination. I had not felt like that since I met the man under whose roof I lived that no longer seemed to know me or even see me coming and going. It was a heady thing. I knew it wasn't trustworthy. I knew it wasn't seemly.  I knew I wanted to feel it again even tho' his wife was seated only feet away from me. For all I knew about them, they were blissfully happy.  Until that moment when lightening struck and buried a seed deep in the dirt of my heart. At that moment, I knew what I knew.

I found myself hoping for more meetings and hoping that he was not traveling when meeting time came.  If he was there, I felt as if I was lighter than air. I was the swimmer floating in a lazy pool of oblivion.  If he wasn't, I trudged thru another week feeling as heavy as the swimmer just emerged from a 3 hour set of laps. I went home with a cold heart hoping time would compress till the next called meeting.  Light and laughter put on hold one more week.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

And, oh, did we laugh at every opportunity.  Laughing with locked eyes became our calling card.  Sometimes, I'd turn a corner, and he'd be headed from the other direction. We'd pull up short and breathless with surprise.  He'd reach out to steady me. "Are you ok? Are you holding up? Can I do anything?"  The words would come tumbling out in a rush as he tried to communicate so much at once.  Mostly what I heard was, "You are not invisible. I see you still in the middle of all that is happening in your life. I'm here. You know I'm here. I see you."  I'm not sure how many months we went on like that.  It was early spring when the blossoms of hope and temptation emerged.  A chill had invaded the air when the time had come to choose which path to follow. (See part 2 dated July 4, 2011.)

Psalm 139: 4, 5 (NIV)
 Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.
 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.

The Monster in the Mirror -- Coming Home (Pt. 9)

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creations

He came in the door from work the next Monday and seemed to float in like he was lighter than air.  The youthful softness of his transfiguration remained.  I had feared it would disappear in the night like a dream, but it had lasted 48 hours and counting.  I had walked on eggshells for so many years that I didn't trust any reality except a fragile peace easily broken by random and unpredictable events.  I pinched myself to check to see if my senses were trustworthy. Perhaps I was in some parallel universe?  Nope. Pain was still pain.


Most days, I let him have 10-20" alone on his return from work.  I edged around him warily trying to get a bead on the kind of mood he was in before I overwhelmed him with chatter. Even then, I would tread lightly til I knew it was safe to say much. Some days, I didn't say much of anything only speaking when spoken too.
 He had never been violent, never raised a hand in any way. But, the seething anger that had always ruled him had trained us to be on guard lest each day be the one that reality changed.

This Monday, he stopped and leaned against the kitchen counter vs sailing on by me w/ a grunted, "Hey." He grinned like a little kid on Christmas.


"Sooo....how was your day?" I asked not sure if I should be relieved or perplexed.


"Incredible. For the 1st time in my life I could look people in the eye...especially men! I could look anyone directly in the eye and keep on looking without being afraid.  My entire life, I have been unable to look anyone in the eye for fear they would see the monster inside me and know who I really am! I feel so free, so alive!"

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creations

In truth, what had transpired the last 2 days was nothing short of a Lazarus like resurrection.  I breathed in long and slow wondering if my years of labor in a lonely marriage were finally paying off. Were we, indeed, finally free of the ghosts of the pasts?  I had always known that the man with whom I had fallen in love was in there somewhere--buried deep beneath layers of something.  Only now I knew what that something was and how the missing piece of the puzzle fit so that our lives could fall into place. But, would they?


The boys were like me...not quite sure how to respond to this new and improved version of dad.  They were fascinated like a moth drawn to flames by this new fella that had emerged from the bedroom on Saturday afternoon and stayed over a couple of days. Was he real?  They were not quite sure. Our older one was wary. The younger one was delighted.

The cold, unexplained anger that had always seemed to drive Jeff had caused our oldest and me to distance ourselves. So many times, it had seemed like us against the world AND his dad. We had forged a well oiled machine to survive. I wondered, "If this new Jeff is real, how will we help our oldest son adjust to the change in our family dynamics?"  I guess it was the former child and adolescent counselor in me again thinking through our lives like I was thumbing through an admission chart. I could already see that a fairy tale ending for my marriage might kick over dominoes in our other family relationships. Stress is stress whether it is good or bad.

Counseling came not soon enough that week. Rather than the reluctant participant I had been, I went eagerly wondering what ground we'd cover that had never been covered before.  The clinician quickly addressed the letter we'd both received pointing out the more sensitive portions to make sure I knew about them.  Asking if there was anything else I needed to know.

He affirmed that something monstrous had happened to my husband but that my husband was not the monster in the scenario. Jeff seemed both relieved and uncertain. For so many years he had taken responsibility for someone else's sins.  For so many years, the face staring back from any mirror had been that of a monster.
We quickly defined issues that would rear their heads:  Jeff's quick temper, his social anxiety, the change in our family dynamics as our oldest and myself learned how to be a team of 3 instead of 2.  It was a heady time even though uncertain and new.

I almost immediately noticed an abrupt change in Jeff.  Up to the day the truth set him free, he was particularly affected by any news reports of children who suffered abuse.  He would literally run from the family room while crying out, "Change it! Change it! Change it!" I would scrambled blindly for the remote I could never find fast enough, my heart racing wildly as his sudden and inexplicable panic spread to me.

Three days after he gave me the missing puzzle piece, a particularly heinous story came on the news. One that made even me, the former psych hospital counselor who had read all kinds of records of families in crisis, flinch. I breathed a sigh of relief thinking Jeff was in a remote part of the house.  As the story ended, I heard him clear his throat.  He stood transfixed and whispered, "HOW can anyone do that to a little, defenseless kid."  He turned and walked calmly away. I was as transfixed by the sudden change in him. The entire segment had played in full without him uttering a word of panic I wondered if, for the first time in his memory, he finally knew he was safe from the monster that had lived there.

He suffered 2 more definable angry meltdowns between March and July.  Each time left me shaken to the core fearful that the old Jeff was back, and the fairy tale was over. So many things were changing for the better that those sudden reminders took us almost back to square one.  Son #1 and I would eye one another with unspoken paragraphs of distrust and disappointment telegraphing between us. More broken dreams to sweep up like shards of so much broken glass. Son #2 would come confused and uncertain wondering where the new dad had disappeared  and why.


And yet, as quickly as the storms overwhelmed him, the new and tranquil man we were getting to know returned.  He became easier to trust.  I had missed so many of the little things that so many wives appreciate and enjoy like a husband who would drop by the grocery store on the way home from work. For the 1st time in 17 years, I no longer ran all the errands.  Date nights were things I heard about and longed for.  A big night out for me had been a hasty solo trip to the grocery store fearing what chaos I'd find on returning home. And, there always seemed to be chaos.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creations

We finally began to act like a couple and reveled even in quick trips out to do simple things.  I joked that I was an easy date. A Coke, a Milky Way, and a ride to the landfill were enough to fill me with transforming joy.  I wondered if these feelings were what it should have felt like to be a newlywed all those years ago. I mourned what we had been robbed of. We had been robbed of all we could have been as a couple. All 4 of us had been robbed of all we could have been as a family.  I was willing to accept all God had required of me during the long years between 1999 when Jeff got sick and 2005 when we were back on our own 2 feet again. It finally made sense.  Perhaps God really was going to restore all he had stripped away in the process of setting us free.  I thanked my good God for his good plan and trusted that the best was yet to be.

As heady as the time was, I was right. My world shifting into place had resulted in disorienting my son. Suddenly, he was no longer my traveling buddy. To watch his dad and me sail out the door to run errands came as a shock. He felt betrayed and abandoned just as I feared. I know we didn't get it right, but we tried as best we could to ease him into this newly formed and correctly structured family paradigm. He grew angry and distant and waited warily for his dad to fail us -- sure the old dad would come again when we least expected it and come to stay.

One day in utter despair, I looked at my son who was by now in his mid teens and said, “Don't you see? You are begrudging me a trip to the grocery store with your father. Other wives would be OFFENDED by the bread crumbs that satisfy me. This is not a week in a suite at a resort. This is not a hot date at some fancy restaurant. It's a trip to the grocery store for crying out loud. That is what you are angry at me for. Can't you just be happy that we are finally what we always should have been? Why is that so hard? Would you rather we go back to the way it was? Would you?” He was between the proverbial rock and hard place for sure. Was there any right answer? Maybe not after all we'd been thru that he'd never asked for.He was not yet 18 and had lived more lifetimes than all his friends combined.  Good stress was just one more stress for a kid whose cup was empty after so many draining years.

Courtesy of Mad Penguin Creations

Counseling was finally fulfilling. I'd finally come to believe that all the missing pieces had been accounted for. We were finally building the foundation we'd never had. The counselor proposed something I hadn't seen coming. There was a weekend retreat for couples at a mountain resort. It would be a nice reward for the ground we'd gained. Here it was...the thing I'd longed for all those lonely years, a romantic weekend. My heart froze. I looked for a place to run and hide. How had I gotten myself into this jam and how could I get out?