Soaring

My son's Eagle Project is finally falling into place. I've been badgering him to get to it for three years, now. True to form, he waited until the month before his birthday to get started. To his credit, he's in three different choirs, the school musical, art club, swim team, and loads of church activities. He's not a lazy boy--just busy. Luckily he's fairly tractable and he gets things done cheerfully when he finally puts his mind to it.

The project has been fraught with problems from the start. First, the man who said he had a project down at the church ballpark strung him along and never got back to him, so this one was his back-up.

The people in charge of Colossal Cave park are often out of town or otherwise unavailable. They also sent over the wrong hinges for the gate and several of the fence posts were substandard. Several times they have canceled scheduled workdays without any notice, which meant that people were confused about when to come to help out.

Getting the right supplies has been interesting. Because the hinges were different than they previously indicated, the latches for the gates don't meet very well and we had to jury-rig something to make them fit. And the existing gate posts canted so far outward at the top that we had to shim the gates to make them even work, which meant that the wheels we bought don't work and we'll have to take the gates back off and remove the wheels. We'll do that when we get the cables for them.

Through it all, my son has been grace under fire. He kept people doing what they were doing, for the most part (a great feat in itself), and has been pretty good at trouble-shooting. I think he has earned this Eagle.

That said, now I have to go clear out there and put on a latch and a cane bolt to finish it off. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but a mom does what she can for her eagle chick. Anything for a chance to see my son join that fantastic brotherhood.

An Ode to M&Ms

O rounded O's which sit and stare
And make me anxious not to share
You taunt me ever with your taste
Which, though delicious, wrecks my waste.

You sit there waiting for my love
While I hover from above
Green one? Blue one? Orange? Brown?
The mind just boggles--makes me frown.

Shall I eat in twos or threes?
Shall I make you look like trees?
I'll make two sides of chocolate war
With greens on one side, reds before.

Something hits the orange side
Have to eat them. Purples, hide!
All too soon the battle's o'er
Now I must go and hunt for more.

Star Seed

He came up over the orb of the earth trailing a blazing, cometous glory of rainbow hues in his wake. He bent his new trajectory to match the bright curve of Earth's face, dipping like fiery crystal into the troposphere.

There was a thunderous crackling, tearing, roar as his wake burned a trail through the cerulean sky. "Here I rest," he thought as he streaked towards the planet's green-furred surface.

He felt old today--old as a quasar; as old as hydrogen.

"Here I rest."

And it was good.

Paean for a Dying Knight

Lie ye down, Sir errant knight
Lie ye down in the tall, tall grasses
Cover ye over with May rose
As your red blood stains the meadow.

Lay ye down your war-blunt spear
Also, your notch-ed great sword
Last breath mingling with the breeze
Last sight sees the raven.

No more to see the hills of homeward
Nor to kiss thy lover's lips
Gone are the banners bright and snapping
Gone are thy marching soldiers.

Hush, let the night breeze sooth your brow
Let the pain subside, now
Follow ye on to a new frontier
Away with you into the sunlight.

Bridget's Father

Bridget's tears cascaded down her cheeks as she listened to the song a girl sang about her father. Bridget had always wanted a dad like that--one who wasn't a walled up, impregnable castle. She was starting to forget the few times when he had actually talked to her without being stone cold angry. She remembered long ago as her daddy danced with her on his feet. He had been a great dancer. She remembered the joy on his face as they twirled around the room. It was so long ago, now.

Apparently before his stint as a medic in the Korean war, he'd been a happy-go-lucky guy. His friends had all loved his open, sunny personality. Since the war, and for as long as Bridget could remember, his remoteness had set him apart from the rest of his family. How she longed to come into his arms and have him tell her he was proud of her. How she longed to hear him call her his Princess and tell her she was beautiful. She'd try to ask him about his life and what he was doing or thinking, but he'd give her a one-word answer or merely smile a little inscrutable smile and go back to fixing the car, or cleaning his rifle, or some other important task.

Bridget's voice cracked as she tried to sing along with the song. Finally she left the singing to the professional. She looked over at the gaunt man in the bed. Her dad smelled like musty old papers, split pea soup and cleaning astringent. He wore an oxygen cannula and a heart monitor. An IV fed him pain meds on a drip. A tracery of new lines in his face bore testimony of the constant pain her father faced. Now and then he opened his eyes, but they were glazed over. She could see him retreating hour by hour further into that other world where it was sunny and pain-free.

Suddenly it became paramount that she get through to him. She couldn't let him go without connecting at least once. "Dad. Dad, can you hear me?"
His eyes opened a crack and then closed again.
"I know you can hear me, Dad. I just wanted..."
There was a long pause and then he rallied a little. His lips moved slightly but no sound came out. Bridget bent to hear what little she could.
"What...can you want...from me now?" His voice was raspy, like steel sponge scraping on the kitchen counter. What could she want? Tears coursed down her face and dripped onto the pillow. She shook her head, trying to negate the accusatory tone in his voice.
"You never...got...enough."
She stood upright and reached for his hand. The skin was papery and thin and nearly transparent. His hand shook with the effort of living, as if that hand was the only thing holding him here in this life.
"I wanted you to know that I've always loved you. I wanted you to be proud of me, Dad."
There was a long pause while he martialled his forces. The effort was costing him in pain. "You want...me to say...I love...you."
Bridget looked away, out the doorway to the nurse's station. She wanted him to say those words so much she could taste it. But, more than that, she wanted him to say them on his own. She wanted to have to drag a confession of fondness out of him about as much as she wanted a root canal without anesthesia.
"Not if you don't feel like it."
He snorted a little and took a ragged breath. "You'll never...know...how much..." He never ended the sentence. The heart monitor suddenly flat-lined and the alarm went off. Nurses and a doctor poured into the room and edged Bridget out of the way. They briskly went about trying to revive her dad, but he had gone.

Bridget stood there in a haze of anguish. None of the flurry of activity registered on her. She was caught in that last sentence. She shook her head and tried to stanch the torrent of tears. Searing anger boiled up to choke her.
"You're right, Dad. I won't ever know, now."

Diamonds

I spent the day helping hunt down a friend's runaway son with her. We have been scorching the ground out from under him, making it uncomfortable for those who help him to run. I hurt for this fine family. I can't imagine the anguish they must be feeling, knowing as they do, that they love their son and want him to live happily with them; wanting him to understand their love and the measures they must take to keep him safe and help him to reach his potential.

We go to church and see these families who have such mountainous problems and we secretly rejoice that at least that is not our family. And then suddenly it is. We find ourselves facing things we never ever thought would happen to our own, back when we were wide-eyed innocents and planning out our perfect lives. For some reason we think that we will be the perfect ones, slipping unscathed through life's cavalcade of drama. We think for some reason that none of life's unconscionable, painful, or embarrassing disasters will stick to us like the 'oobleck' in Dr. Seuss's 'Bartholomew and the Oobleck' book. But they do.

Sooner or later we must all pass through the Refiner's Fire and be proven either a diamond of rare water or a smudge of dross. It is said that the only difference between a bit of carbon and a fine diamond is great pressure. We float through life hoping we will magically become a diamond, avoiding the massive stress, without which a diamond cannot be made. It will not happen. A diamond can only be made after having passed through the experiences that will perfect it, re-aligning bonds to make it not only the most beautiful of stones, but the hardest.

Christ himself knew these principles. He knew He could not fulfill the measure of His creation without passing through the fire to come out the other side. How can we, his little brothers and sisters, think that we can arrive where He is, without at least some of the same kind of testing?

The wonderful, saving grace is that we don't have to go through this process alone. We have Christ to stand with us, as Daniel's friends stood together in the Babylonian king's fiery furness. Christ has already passed through the fire, and now shows the way for us. He stands sentinel and helping friend and guiding light all in one. How very thankful I am that I don't have to do it alone.

I only hope that I can withstand the tempering process to emerge, if not unscathed, at least a diamond of pure water.

Internal Warfare

Half of my brain is partying today. It thinks it has the day off, since yesterday I sent my latest offering to a few Beta readers, entered a magazine contest, and started Beta testing a book for a friend. What more could one ask on a day when one's head was being pulverized by a migraine? I mean, really.

The more intelligent half is jeering and throwing popcorn and cans of unopened soda at the other half. Of course there is no holiday. The migraine was yesterday, Pansy. I have two books to finish writing (which I have been neglecting to get Rodeo Queen off the skids) plus three to re-write. Am I crazy? Then it answers itself: "Clearly. You've been Face-booking and playing Beleaguered Castles like you have all the time in the world. Get to it, idiot."

And then my other brain half gets all disgusted and goes to hibernate while thinking up awful and disgusting things to do to the other half.

Life is a party in my head...;o)