The Prayer Rug

                                                      

You’ve heard the stories for years about my friend Marjorie suffering from breast cancer: a disease that metastasized from breast to bone to lungs to liver to spinal column. But I’ve really never told you about her husband.

Keith stood by Marjorie for the seven long years of the stage 4 cancer diagnosis, a cancer that had actually surfaced 14 years ago, and then reared its ugly head seven years later.  When I visited Marjorie in the intensive care unit, Keith was there. When I came to the gamma knife procedure, he was there, too. When I went to the hospice, he was standing beside her bed. I saw what a toll this illness had taken on him as well as her. I told him to leave. He walked the halls. He ran out to Bob Evans to get a salad, a salad he then tried to feed Marjorie upon his return. I believe it was her last taste of food.

The final wish Marjorie had before losing consciousness on that late October Sunday was that she return home so she could die in her own bed. She said this in between morphine- driven naps. It was the last wish Keith could fulfill for his bride of 25 years. And no, it wasn’t her very own bed she died in, rather a hospital bed in the family room that she decorated herself, with yellow walls and blue and yellow overstuffed furniture and floral curtains sewn by Marjorie’s hands. She died in that room three days later.

It’s been three months now since Marjorie’s passing. Since then, I have taken on the task of helping Keith survive. I call him every few days or he calls me. Sometimes we cry together. Sometimes we remember. Although Marjorie has a sister, he says that I was much more of one. Helping Keith is the last favor I can do for my friend.

The other day when we were talking, he mentioned the Persian rug in their living room, a room which he describes now as a shrine to Marjorie’s family with all the assorted family furniture, photos and trinkets assembled there. 

“You know her aunt’s old Persian rug is worn on one side,” he said. 

Why is it worn, I asked?

“It’s where Marjorie knelt to pray,” he said. 

I could picture her there in my mind’s eye, with her Princess Diana beauty and her tall, waifish figure, and her eyes closed and head bent in solemn communion with God. I had no words.

A Persian carpet worn to bare thread from kneeling in prayer. Now that’s something beautiful, don’t you think? That’s what I call faith.  And isn’t it wonderful that her husband noticed? 

                                                                The Tattoo

I remember telling my Smithville High School colleagues after I’d gotten pregnant with my first child, “If caring for one baby is tougher than teaching 120 students a day, I will eat my hat.” Well, my friends, I have metaphorically eaten that hat more times than I can count over the past quarter century.  The latest challenge one of my children posed occurred just a few days ago.

 

My second child, Laura, just started her Master’s program in counseling at John Carroll University. She posed a question to me recently that had to do with tattoos. I have never had a tattoo. Moreover, I have never wanted one. I envisioned myself in the nursing home, tattoos swinging in the wind on flesh that had not withstood the test of time.  However, she asked me rather bluntly: what if we, in solidarity of our faith, had a small cross or symbol of God inked on our skin? This invitation from her hit me hard. Isn’t this step a physical manifestation of what I’ve been asking of my kids for the past 20 odd years of their lives?

 

A few days later, I drove up to her new apartment in University Heights. On the way to dinner, we ended up at a tattoo parlor in downtown Cleveland. Then the question presented itself again: are you getting a tattoo to mark our solidarity with Jesus? Wow, talk about being hit between the eyes with my own teachings? 

 

I nodded yes, etched out a scrolled “Jesus” and waited my turn. My daughter chose a  small cross, both to be inked on the inside of our wrists, no bigger than an inch or so in width. It didn’t hurt much, and my daughter was inspired by my example. In fact, I don’t think I have ever pleased her more. 

 

As an educator, I always thought my job was to teach. But one of the best things I’ve learned from my own children (and from my students) is that sometimes I must learn from their example, even if it means breaking the rules I feel so strongly about. They respect me more, and we both grow from the experience. 

 

After the ink session was over, my girl and I put our wrists side by side and took photos.  I thought to myself, I never told my kids to wear their faith on their sleeves, but perhaps that’s what it’s all about. 

 

Besides, some day when I am dead and gone and can no longer speak for myself, perhaps someone will see that sacred name and know that’s whom I followed. Sounds like a pretty good reason to break my own rules. Now I have to go work on my boy. 

Celebrating 1,000 Columns

When I told my daughter that this is my 1,000^th column, she said, “Mom, you should write about Anne of a Thousand Days.” Most folks know about Anne Boleyn, the second queen of Henry VIII. The drama, written by Maxwell Anderson, was my first step into acting at age 15. I was a very shy girl back then. I was also the only sophomore on the Cardinal Mooney State Championship Speech Team. When my coach, the late, great Denny Barrett died of esophageal cancer at age 42, I decided to become a teacher and do what he did: help kids like me find their voice. I know that was God’s intention.

 

When I started writing my column over 20 years ago, I had two preschool children, two dogs, a big house and two part-time jobs, one teaching children’s theatre and one writing a weekly column. I just knew that was what I was meant to do.  I was a dig- in- the- mud kind of girl who wanted to show my students they mattered.  I also had a need to write for my readers each week.

 

The beauty of my rather simple life is, although I won’t be collecting big bucks as retirement draws near, I will have a great deal of satisfaction with having met some of the goals I set for myself long ago.  I loved my students. I was a good mom, or at least that’s what my kids tell me. I had a boatload of dogs, two of which I trained to do therapy work. I wrote a book about one of them. I published feature articles for national periodicals.  And through both teaching and writing, I found my voice.

 

I took a walk down Memory Lane a few days ago, watching Robin Williams perform in one of my favorite movies, The Dead Poets’ Society. Williams’ role in the film, a teacher tells his students, “Find your voice, boys!” It sounds like a simple task when I think about life in retrospect, but in truth, it Is perhaps the hardest task of all: to find what you were meant to be and speak of it with pride and determimation.

 

Over 20 years now, I’ve written columns about being a mother, helping my parents and in-laws find life’s end. I’ve written about teaching and writing, losing friends and loving one another. And no, life isn’t always easy, and that’s why we have God. Because He knows our voices long before we ever utter a single word. 

 

 So thank you, dear friends, for reading my column for 20 years. Thank you for helping me find my voice. I pray in some small way I’ve helped you find yours. 

 

And who knows, if God is willing, maybe I will write another thousand. It’s all in His hands.

 

Praying for Mamacita

 

She calls me “Hijita” which means, “little daughter.” In the last few years, I’ve begun calling her “Mamacita”. When we are together we hug often, then brush tears from our eyes. “If only,” I whisper in her ear.

My children first referred to her as Tia, for aunt, when they were small, then later they called her Abuela, for grandmother. We loved hearing the sound of Nydia’s laughter, the lovely Cuban words she tossed into everyday conversation, the enchanting lilt of her voice, the feminine gesture of her delicate hands. Having studied French in high school, I always wished I could better understand those Spanish terms she used, but I got the gist of what she was saying. Like when she called me Hijita. I knew it meant that I was special.

Twenty-six years ago when I came to Wooster, I found Nydia at the high school where we both taught. We sat at the lunch table together, discussing our families and our classes. She told me about her treasured sons, her beloved husband. She knew I was in Wooster alone, so she made me into family. When I married, she came to the wedding with her spouse. When I had young children, she showed up with home-baked cookies for the kids, or, more recently, flan for my husband’s birthday. 

Back when I was still single, we had one of our first celebrations. Our friend Marjorie and a few others met at my tiny apartment. Nydia’s husband, Oscar, brought Spanish music and we ate, then danced till sweat bled through our clothes. We emptied the cupboards looking for noisemakers like unpopped popcorn and peanuts in the can. When my husband arrived later, he gestured to the punch bowl with a smile. “No, John, it’s not spiked” I told him, thinking he should know better. 

When Oscar took ill years ago, I visited my friends often. I rubbed Oscar’s feet and fed him ice cream while Nydia cried in the kitchen. After his passing, Nydia bravely moved to a different home, after living at the same address for over fifty years. She often told me about her immigration to the states, her early years with Oscar. She spoke of her brothers and extended family, too, some who still live in her native Cuba. 

Over the years, our family had our own holidays with Nydia. She brought pages of silly jokes to read to the children. She ruffled their hair and looked into their eyes before clutching them to her chest uttering “Miguelito” and “Laurita”.  There was no secret to her loving.  Even the dogs ran through the house, excited to see their Abuela.

Last week while driving through town, I suddenly thought of Nydia: her full head of blonde hair, the soft blue of her eyes, the gentle touch of her hands, the way she cradled me to her often and murmured “Hijita”. I tried to imagine a world without her, but my heart came up empty.

Only days later, I discovered that she had taken ill. I remembered my last birthday, when Nydia was our only guest. She presented me with hand carved foot molds that her aunt from Cuba once used for the booties she knitted. Booties like the ones I now make. 

Thinking of her in the hospital bed, I took those little wooden feet from the shelf and held them to my chest as she so often held me to hers. 

“Mamacita” I uttered with prayers cast to heaven. “Protect her, God,” I asked Him. And tears welled up in my eyes, as I remembered.

Keys and Wallet

I can’t believe it’s been over a month since my youngest nephew’s wedding. I told you about the handsome groom, Logan; the gorgeous bride, Danielle, and their entourage of pretty ladies and dashing gents. But there is one moment, perhaps insignificant to other, that stands out in my mind as the most memorable of the lavish affair.

 

We had just been seated in the third row of the Holy Cross in downtown Columbus. A light drizzle was causing hurried guests to scamper into the vestibule, shielding lovely outfits and hairdos from the falling mist. The organ was playing instrumental music.

 

I was sitting in the pew beside my daughter, my son, and his girl. The tall ceilings of the massive edifice were a great distraction from my own thoughts that April afternoon as the rain began to fall in earnest. I kept turning in my seat to make sure it was real: that my brother from Houston, his wife and their 3 grown children were truly there. Along with that beloved crowd sat 2 of my brother’s little grandsons, Braydon and Brady, so cute I thought I could eat them up.

 

It was then that Adam, my sister’s elder boy emerged from the sanctuary and approached me in the pew.

 

“Aunt Leslie, can you please hold Logan’s and my wallets and keys for us. We can’t fit them easily in our tuxedo pockets.”

 

I opened the huge satchel I was carrying, a light blue leather thing that could accommodate an elephant. He dropped the items into the purse and hurried back behind the altar. As Adam left my vision, my eyes filled with tears.

 

The wedding went off without a hitch. The groom was handsome. The bride was lovely. Adam who served as a groomsman, who just turned 31 last week, looked precious too.

 

After the wedding, the crowd of well-wishers from 14 states greeted the new couple in the church vestibule. I stood off to the side, waiting. Finally, it was photo time. That was when I knew my exit had come. I approached Adam and reminded him of the stash of goods I carried in my purse. Adam extended his hands and I set the items in the palm of his hands. I looked at those blue eyes I’ve loved since the day I first saw him in the hospital nursery, the day of his baptism when I was his Godmother, the day he made his communion and confirmation, the day he graduated high school and college. And now as a man.

 

“Thanks, Aunt Leslie,” he said. 

 

“It was my pleasure,” I said in return.

 

Although holding those boys’ wallets and keys was a very small part of the wedding, I knew at that moment they needed someone they could trust, someone who would protect their belongings, someone who loved them. That was me. I was needed. And I smiled. 

 

 

 

Carl's Dealership

Back in the 1960’s when I was a small kid, my dad owned a string of “big-assed cars.”  The first was a Plymouth Fury. Its red interior was bright and clean with my father’s careful polishing. I ran my hand along the puckered seats as my mother wept each weekend at her babies’ graves.  Against my chest, I clutched a stuffed dog.  I guess I always loved dogs, even back then.

The year was 1963 when I started first grade, the same year the principal came over the PA system to announce that our president had been shot, murdered.  I trailed my older sister and brother to St. Matthias School each morning, sniveling as I left my mother’s side, her thin frame clinging to the doorway as she nibbled and sipped the Clark Bar-Pepsi Cola combo she proclaimed to be a suitable breakfast, but only for herself. After school and on weekends, I trailed my father.

My favorite place to tag along with my dad was to the Southside Chrysler Plymouth dealership where he admired the “big assed cars” on display. Carl Marino, the gray haired owner, lifted me to his desk on our visits, encouraged me to raid the glass candy jar of root beer barrels and butterscotch candies on his desk while he and my father discussed the cars on the lot. Carl didn’t seem to mind my sticky fingers examining every surface, even the spit- shined sedans in the showroom. 

 The truth of the matter was I didn’t care much about cars.  Carl’s dealership had another drawing card for me: Carl had dogs. Those animals lived within the silver link fence on the far side of the dealership. After hours, they were released to meander through the lot. 

 “This place is sealed up tighter than Fort Knox,” Carl said one day as we studied his pack of animals through the plate glass window surrounding the showroom while my father browsed the lot. Large, big boned, mixed breed mongrels gazed back at me through the glass. Their coats in shades of gunmetal gray and muted tans were dull and lackluster under the late winter sky. I shivered in my brother’s outgrown navy sweater. I stopped sucking my lollipop and studied their ratty fur, their pale pink tongues, their long white incisors. Spittle dripped from their hungry mouths, the hair on their spines raised as if to charge, as they paced restlessly like ferocious tigers behind their gated barrier

 “No one can get in this place when I’m not here, honey,” Carl whispered. “I let those dogs loose around the perimeter after hours. Only a fool would try to break in,” he giggled. “But you don’t have to worry. The dogs know you are my friend.”

I waved at the pack of dogs. They stared back in silence. Their tails fanned the winter air as they watched Carl stand beside me.

 Carl’s big dogs didn’t scare me. I looked into their steely eyes, studied the lonely perch of their shoulders.  The dogs lowered their gaze at me, as if I were not a threat. I saw the stark beauty that a good bath would bring. These were big, strong animals, ones that would be better suited to living in a forest with their stand up ears. 

“Let’s give them some grub, sweetie,” Carl said as he walked me to the doorway and stood me on a chair. “That’s what makes these dogs so loyal to me, you know. I feed them real good. Now you just watch through the glass, OK?” 

 Stainless steel bowls were stacked in the corner. The dogs lined up beyond the doorway, heads drooped, tails wagging as Carl poured the food into their bowls. The kibble rattled noisily, as the dogs lifted their heads to howl with want. Their eyes shifted from the bowls to me, the intruder. 

  “I’d like to look at that black Chevy Bellaire out front,” my dad approached, wearing a hopeful grin. “What kind of mileage are we talking, Carl?” 

The manager dropped the bowls on the floor, food slopping out the sides, as he rushed to his desk to retrieve the keys, the desired paperwork. The dogs were forgotten, like me, in hopes of something better: profit.

“Oh, yeah, Dickie bird, she’s a real beauty, that one. I know you like your Plymouths and all, but that Chevy will give you a real nice ride,” Carl said, walking to the front lot. I trailed behind my father, behind Carl, watching the interaction. I could tell the men didn’t want to be bothered.  I would just wait. 

After a few minutes, I wandered through the building, studying the coveted sodas in the pop machine, the days-old cream sticks in the plastic container near the percolator far beyond my reach, playing hopscotch on the squares of tile on the floor. I had succeeded.  I was invisible.  Forgotten. Just like Carl’s dogs.

Standing near the water fountain, I heard a distant yelping beyond the showroom.  I retraced my steps, navigated the showroom, listened frantically for the source of the noise. No, not in the bathroom. Surely, not in Carl’s office.  There was only one room remaining: a rear storage area.  

The back room smelled of motor oil and dog dung. A square whelping pen was constructed of unfinished plywood in one corner, set amidst equipment of every kind. Old car parts, engines gone still, supplies for the office, all rested in that space. A solitary warming light hung suspended above a simple pen.  Standing on tiptoe, I saw the babies at their mother’s side, their bellies swollen with milk, amidst the soiled yellow straw. 

“Puppies,” I whispered. 

I had never seen newborn puppies before. I’d read stories about them with my grandmother. But this was the first time I’d ever seen them up close, close enough to smell their musky milk breath, see their down-like puppy fur as they clamored about the pen. With trembling fingers, my hands searched for the latch to open the gate, then scurried into the enclosure. The mother-dog raised her silver-black head from the nest, studying me warily. She reminded me of the animals on my favorite program, “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.” 

“Hello, Mama dog,” I said softly. I folded my legs beneath me and ran my hand down her coarse, burnished coat. She bristled at my touch. “It’s OK, I won’t hurt your babies,” I promised.  

I could see that motherhood had taken its toll. Her milk bags hung low. Tufts of silver and black fur littered the corners of her bedding. Her eyes were sleepy. Like my own mother, she looked worn and tired. Perhaps that’s why she tolerated my intrusion.

The chubby brood ambled toward me as they left her, goose-stepping with newfound energy. One squatted to pee while others play-growled and tumbled over one another. I giggled into my hands. They climbed over me, nibbled my fingers and socks, chewed the long tendrils of my blonde hair, rooted my pockets for root beer barrels and butterscotch suckers.

 “You sure are cute.” My voice echoed through the room as I laughed. The mother dog studied me for a long moment, then dropped her head back to the straw.  I know now she was too weary to see me as a threat.

The pups’ soft fur glistened in the meager light as they investigated me from top to bottom.   I rubbed one pink belly, and patted another soft head. I examined the pups’ petal-like ears and the soft dark pads of their tiny feet. They bantered among themselves, play fighting, arguing for dominance and attention, growling in infant voices, their tails swishing the fetid air as they continued their examination. I laughed again, unabashedly, this time. I felt one pair of tiny razor sharp teeth gnawing my ankle, another chewing a button on my big brother’s sweater. How could anything be as delightful as these puppies?

It was then that I heard the quickened steps of Carl and my father in the showroom. The laughter stopped in my throat. 

“I don’t know where she went to, Dick.  She was eating a candy right here beside me, just a minute ago,” Carl said. 

“Well, for Christ’s sake, man, it’s not like she drove one of your goddamned cars out of the lot,” my father bellowed. I froze. The mama dog lifted her head from the straw. A deep snarl resonated in her throat. 

“Maybe she’s back here by the soda machine or raiding my candy jar,” Carl said, attempting laughter. 

“Leslie, where the hell are you?” my dad called.  Their voices grew louder. Their shoes resonated on the cold, hard floor. Again, I couldn’t speak.

”Oh, Christ, Dick, don’t move,” Carl said. “That’s a wolf hybrid and her newborn pups in that pen. That bitch would just as soon rip you to shreds as breathe.”

My dad’s blue eyes fastened on mine as I sat among the litter. The female’s snarl increased. She stared at my father across the room. Her body tensed, ready to spring at his advance. 

“Stay there, Dick. The dog won’t hurt the child. She sees no threat in her. You’re another story.  It’s OK, Queenie,” he spoke soothingly to the mother dog. “Now move slowly, Leslie. Don’t touch the Mama. And whatever you do, don’t touch those puppies, OK?” Carl was smiling, but his face had drained of color. 

The fur raised along the mother’s back as a feral growl resonated deep in her throat, her eyes still fixed on my dad.

“Am I bad?” I whispered. Carl smiled, perhaps never before having heard my voice. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong, honey. You just wanted to play with the pups, that’s all,” Carl said. The mama dog hunched beside her pups, all wild dog now. 

“Raise up your arms to me, sweetheart,” Carl said as he leaned toward me, nearing the pen. 

“Bye, bye, doggies,” I said as I stood, straw clinging to my denim pants and brother’s sweater. I lowered the puppy I was holding to the floor.  “Bye, bye, Mama dog,” I said. 

Carl took a big step forward and pulled me from the plywood pen in one swift motion. The mother dog and her pups’ heads lifted as if to follow me. 

I could hear Carl exhale as I cleared the pen. He took several large steps toward the door.  I began to cry into his shoulder.  He then pulled the storage room door shut and bolted it. I could feel his heart pounding. 

“Gee, Dick, I’m real sorry.  We were just looking at the dogs in the fence when you asked me for the keys to that Chevy. I left her for a minute,” Carl began, looking up at the looming figure of my father. “I never guessed she’d wander all the way back here.” 

My dad wrenched me from Carl, pulled me to his broad chest and held me to him, kissing my neck roughly. I could feel his whiskers brush my chin. I could see the anger in his eyes, tinged with great sadness, just like the dogs in the lot. 

Years later, I now know what my father was thinking. “That’s how fast it happens. How quick a child is taken, is gone, dies.” 

“Now, Dick, if you want to test drive that car,” Carl began speaking quietly and hesitantly, like the whispers of my parents in the confessional. “You could take Leslie to see her mother in that Chevy you like.”

 My dad stared at Carl as if he’d lost his mind, then shook his head. He held me closer still and kissed my brow. Then with deliberate steps, he walked out of the showroom, toward the car we came in, the black Plymouth Fury we bought from Carl, the car my mother wept in each weekend at the cemetery, the same car we then drove home.

Teddy's Incarceration

Every once in a while, I stumble upon a solution to a problem that surprises me. Problem:  my 83-pound baby dog named Teddy, also known as Theodore Seamus, has eaten two of the seatbelts in my Honda CRV. As I told you back in December, his recent foraging ran me into some big bucks, considering $700 per seatbelt is nothing to sneeze at. But a solution is at hand.

 

This is no small issue. My doodle has eaten quite a few things in the past year since I took him in to be my little son. Yes, I did call him my son, but if you saw his black, furry coat, his beseeching brown eyes, and heard that sweet little boy cry of his, you would understand why I love him so. But today we must set love aside. Instead let’s talk about Teddy’s issue of well, eating everything. 

 

First of all, you know those toys that manufacturers deem completely pet-proof? Well, I put a few of them in Teddy’s stocking at Christmas, and guess what? They were destroyed in just a matter of minutes.  I also found the most innovative toy in the pet store recently…a lovely carved wood slab with rounded corners (a glorified stick, in other words) that is said to be perfectly safe for big chewers like Teddy to gnaw on for $14.99. Teddy was enamored, and yet, within several hours, I removed the toy because of how it had diminished. (No, it was not returnable.) All of Finn’s toys are gutted and left in tatters. 

 

In addition, Teddy has eaten bully sticks, pig ears, cow snouts, horse hooves, and even deer antlers. He has deflated hard balls, surfed counters, and chewed up any food stuffs that he finds available.  And then there is the steel tie-out he attacks with fervor whenever he hears his comrade, Petey, barking across the street. They do a duet of sorts as he unearths fist-sized rocks and seashells that his crazy mother brought back from numerous beaches and scattered in her flower beds. Why, one day, Teddy stood on his back feet and grabbed a basket of floral decor off my wall. And then there was the dry wall that he consumed while a sitter was caring for him last summer. And let’s not forget the computer mouse.

 

What’s a mother to do? Well, I got a fixture for my hatchback so he can’t reach the back or front seat of my car, not to mention their very expensive seatbelts. Yes, T.T. is firmly ensconced in the hatchback, looking at me longingly through the grate, and at his brother in the backseat with overwhelming sadness. I no longer have room for groceries, but it will have to do.

 

Sorry, dear boy. You did it to yourself. Poor, poor little Theo. He’s been incarcerated.