on this day

It has been another year since this annual posting. This year finds me in another quite-different season. My location is the same as last year. But I am no longer traveling alone. I have a partner in life: one who is almost as unusual as I am :-) We fit each other well . . . marriage is good.
That said, life itself is no less trial-filled and rocky than it ever was. Some days find me trudging forward with gritted teeth. But some, like this morning, find me running freely, grateful for the gifts that I so often forget to be grateful for.
The gift of a weekend away from the city . . . the gift of music that moves me to run along a remote village road with my arms lifted high in praise . . . the gift of water clean enough to wade into . . . the gift of this life that is mine for the taking: mine alone to live.
As I ran today I found myself talking out loud as the music, and emotion, moved me. “Do You love me?” I asked. I do not know why the words came out; but I believe it is significant that they did. Because I was able to answer out loud. “Yes, I believe that You do.”

on this day . . .

I remember, this day–November 30–in 1988. On this day, I awoke excited–no, more than that–I was ecstatic. I was running through lines of the Christmas program in my head, eagerly rehearsing for the program that night. You see, tonight we were performing for our families, for my family. They were on their way by this time, I knew, beginning the drive early that morning that would bring them along many lonely dirt roads, winding through villages and across open plains, to arrive here.

It had been 3 months now since I last saw them, when I boarded the little Cessna on the grass strip of our village, clutching my stuffed bear in one arm and holding my sister’s hand with the other. We stood there waving goodbye one last time on the boarding stairs, and then waved again out the window as we sped along the airstrip and lifted off into the air. I loved that moment of lifting off in the airplane–and have ever since–the exciting rush of becoming airborne and soaring faster and faster through the air.

That day, however, my excitement of the beginning was tinged with the sadness of knowing I would be away from my family for many nights now. The days were always full of learning, fun adventures in the bush with friends and with various creatures to be discovered and trees to be climbed. The nights were the hard part, though, when I fought the tears that often came in spite of my fierce will, silently dampening my pillow while I stifled the shortened breaths that may give away my tears to the classmates sleeping near me in rows of bunk beds.

The 3 months since that last flight had passed quickly–3 months of good books read, math problems solved, geography discovered, play weddings acted out in free time, and all manner of grade 4 activities. I had also turned 9 the previous month, and knew my family would now celebrate my birthday and my brother’s 4th birthday 3 days earlier, as soon as we made it back home. While on a shopping trip in South Africa, my Dad had acquired our first car, so the decided to make the road trip instead of Helen and I flying home as we had always done before. So, I knew they were loaded up in the Isuzu, along with 2 village friends–a teenage student of my Dad’s and the Zambian pastor he worked with in our Church.

So that afternoon, after various activities designed to keep all us boarding students preoccupied so we wouldn’t be bouncing off the walls with the excitement of our families’ arrivals, we all filed out the drive-up area to await the first arrivals. I had in my mind the perfect picture of what to expect, so as each vehicle arrived, I craned my neck to see my mom’s long arm waving out the window and Alex’s goofy grin peering out from her lap. But the cars came, parents claimed their clamoring kids, and my picture-perfect arrival still had not appeared. Finally, a lady I recognized as the mom of some friends who lived fairly near us went over to our Dorm Mother and said something to her, gesturing in our direction. She then came and told us to go ahead and get ready for the program–not to keep waiting for our parents there.

I was disappointed, but assumed they would arrive at any moment, so just kept waiting as we practiced our songs. My mental image just altered itself to adjust to a late clamor of hugs and kisses rushed in before the program started . . . but the program came, began, and ended, and they had not arrived. The next morning we were taken to the Cessna, and told we were going to go back to the village by flight after all. This time I imagined the whole family standing there on the airstrip, coming into focus as the plane landed, with eager smiles and waves–still, no. The parents of a classmate took us in their car instead–so of course I changed my expectation once more, this time thinking they were taking us to our house where the family would be, picture-perfect, waiting in front of our little home.

Instead we arrived at their house. Auntie Elaine (according to British habit, all family friends were “Auntie” and “Uncle” to us kids) finished up dinner preparations while we helped set the table. And then, instead of sitting down to dinner, she asked Helen and I to come and sit with her on the couch–”Anna, Helen–I have some really sad news . . . your Daddy went to heaven . . . ” Before the sentence was finished, I had burst into loud sobs, Helen looked at me and started crying, and Auntie Elaine and her daughter were both crying and hugging us.

I don’t remember any mention of the rest of the family at that point–nor did I wonder, as far as I can remember. The rest of the day, of the week, of the month, passed in a sort of a fog, in which my memories are clear but displaced, as if each memory was plucked from its proper place in the continuum of time and placed instead in some never never land of homeless moments.

I remember falling asleep with fitful dreams, waking up convinced I had dreamed reality, and that Daddy would walk in and comfort me any moment. I remember being reunited with my brothers, staring at Alex’s discolored and misshapen head, and carting Ian around carefully in his body cast, propping him up against walls . . . supporting him and holding his modesty blanket over his midsection as he pinned the tail on the donkey at his belated birthday party. I remember visiting Mom there in the Zambian hospital, horrified at the sight of my strong, active, beautiful mother lying there on the stretcher bed unable to move herself. At one point during a visit, the nurse had to turn her over so that she wouldn’t get a bed sore. As she did so, she let go of the sheet and mom was briefly exposed to us all in the room. I didn’t know whether to blush, sob, or scream–I wanted to just run away, to disappear forever into the endless, dreadfully beautiful African wilderness. I hated seeing mom like that, and dreaded the visits . . . and I hated myself for feeling that way, thinking there must be something wrong with me if I didn’t want to see my mother . . .

Somehow, time passed. My Daddy’s funeral passed in a blur of friends, strangers, languages I didn’t know, and wails I knew only too well. As soon as mom was strong enough to be transported, we were shipped to the U.S., where hospitalization and then physical rehab came for her. I hid in my books–in beautiful worlds of fantasy–to the extent that my grandmother still teases me for always having my “nose stuck in a book” as a child.

And eventually Mom was well enough to take over the care of the 4 of us again. I still don’t know for the life of me how she did it–a paraplegic supporting and caring for a home of her own and 4 not-always-angelic children. She did it well . . . she loved us well.

On this day, during my childhood, Mom beautifully commemorated the anniversary. She would buy what looked to me like hundreds of helium-filled balloons, bringing them home so that the house was bursting with balloons. Then she tied note cards to the string of each one, and told us to write notes on them–as many as we wanted, and whatever we wanted to say to a stranger. I remember writing things like “Jesus loves me this I know . . .” and “My Daddy died on this day, and he is now in heaven with God, because he loved God. I do too.” I wrote silly notes, but meaningful ones, longing, in all my childhood intensity, to somehow tell the world that I had a great Daddy, and that some day I would see him again.

I still catch myself, when I am still enough to listen to the deeper desires of my heart, craving moments of remembrance of my Daddy, and eagerly clasping to memory any tidbits about him that people from his past may be able to share with me. And thankfully my own mind clamped down firmly on all the memories I had of my times with him, out of a personal need for them and, I suspect, out of a nagging suspicion that someday, somehow, there would be a greater use for, outlet for, it all.

finish the race

Some days I feel pretty spoiled. Work days that include running around with little ones, dressed like a turkey, fall into that category.
Today I wasn’t sure how the day would pan out. I was, quite frankly, stressed about the prospect of it. But of course, every time I feel that way, things seem to come together. And that they did.
On one level, I was worried about the change in the workday itself. Knowing that the annual turkey trot would be tucked in the midst of my normal classes left me nervous about the potential rush. But on a day I was expecting to be on my own, a library angel who comes to visit me sometimes showed up, clearing the day of the tasks that tend to accumulate and eat up the time. There was time enough to do it . . . time enough to say, “Yep, you bet I’ll be out there running with you guys!” One little one I’d cheered on a few times during her P.E. class which, one day a week, coincided with my Chinese class. When weather cooperates, my teacher and I have been holding our class outside, so I’d been able to watch the progress of the kindergarteners in the weeks leading up to the run. This one would always finish last, with tears of frustration as she expressed her dislike of running. One day I left my teacher and began to run with her, telling her she could do it: she could cross that finish line. It struck me that she was very self-aware for her age—aware of how she compared to others in her class, and aware of others in general. When she began to cry, she told me that she knew her mother was going to see her finish last when it came time for the race . . . said her mother would be disappointed. I could only hope that I was speaking truth when I told her that no, her mother would just see how hard she had worked, and would be proud.
That was last week. Yesterday, when I realized I’d be able to run with them, I tucked into the classroom. Last year they had given me an extra of the turkey hats they made, so I wanted to see if I could run in style once again. V pointed me to the bin of extra turkey-hat parts and I quickly stapled one together as she put the finishing touches on her own. Then I joined the head-feathered parade, filing down the stairs and out to the starting line with the class. As expected, the run was a struggle for T. What I did not expect was that, instead of just bemoaning the difficulty of the run, she had a new frustration: her mother, she said, had promised to come, but was not there. I have no idea what kept this mother from coming to cheer her daughter on [or run with her, as some parents did], but it made for a whole new significance to those 10 minutes for me. I couldn’t really say anything worthwhile to her—nothing new, at least. I still encouraged her to just do her best, and to focus on finishing. I realized, however, that the most important thing I did on this day was to just run alongside her. I don’t know what she came away from that race with. But I do know that she knew I was there. And, you know, she ran that whole thing . . . finishing well ahead of several others in her class!
*A teacher of this class was running with them as well. After the race she sent me a few of the photos she had taken. “His light shining down on you,” is what she wrote. She has this tendency to take sunbeam photos and, when I ask her how she does it she just shrugs and claims ignorance. I think it’s a pretty cool gift :-)