Fireworks

Like any other kid in the 1970s, as dusk fell on that momentous night, my excitement mounted. Inside the house, Mom swiped cream cheese onto Ritz crackers and scooped vanilla ice cream into the American flag glasses that lived on the top shelf of the cupboard the other 364 days of the year. She poured root beer over the creamy frozen treat, and we kids grabbed the frothy drinks and headed outside into the steamy remains of the day. The mosquitos, those faithful attendees of the party each year, came over—and my brother’s friends too, who rolled up on banana seat bikes for the fireworks show.

After the obligatory safety lesson (I think Dad knew someone who had lost a finger or nose to pyrotechnics), it was time for the grand display. I don’t recall anything as fancy as a Roman candle at our place, but we oohed at the whistly spinners and aahed over the crackling balls. Next, Dad ignited the firecrackers. Brother and friends whipped snappers onto the cement, their satisfying bang synonymous in my mind with freedom. And they lit those snakes that foamed into a charred curl and stank like rotten eggs, leaving a stain on the driveway to remind us later of the evening’s fun. The rest of the night we slapped at mosquitos and frolicked in the front yard, trying to light the sparklers that burned out as fast as our root beer floats. And the fireflies blinked over the ditch on our property, giving their own show for all who might see.

Later in life, I traveled the world. I witnessed fireworks in Las Vegas, New Orleans, New York City, Paris. Those displays were extravagant and otherworldly, sucking the breath from my lungs. But none of them equaled the little—yet larger-than-life—celebration of Independence Day at our ranch-style house on the edge of town in Middle River, Minnesota.

And the memories? They spark brightest of all. But you already knew that.


The reading list of '95

A time of rest calls to me.  

Oh, I’ll keep working and checking off household duties too as they arise, but I’ll allow my soul a time of ease. I think of reading now for my Sabbath summer, and the term beach read floats to mind. What does it mean? A languid book? A breezy romance or fluffy mystery? A novel with a pair of bare legs next to a suitcase in the sand on its cover?  

I recall the summer of 1995, the three sizzling months before I graduated from the University of North Dakota that December, and how I committed the season to reading. I asked a few people for recommendations, trekked to actual libraries to fetch physical volumes, and dove into them.  

I dig out my old diary now to remember the titles, and sure enough, I listed them all. Only a few of those books would I classify as beach reads, but I treated them all as such—like sugary vacations from meaty reality. And because location matters, I even shoved open the living room window in our second-story married housing unit and climbed out, using the nearby entryway’s roof as a step stool to the real thing. The asphalt shingles were no beach, but they would do—and did—for as long as I could stand the piercing arrows of the day. 

Here’s my summer of ‘95 reading list (with the authors): 

The Prince of Tides, Pat Conroy 

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway 

The World According to Garp, John Irving 

The Red and the Black, Stendhal 

Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend, Robert James Waller 

The Awakening, Kate Chopin 

Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh 

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger 

The Bridal Wreath, The Mistress of Husaby, The Cross (all in the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy), Sigrid Undset (In some places, these titles are simply The Wreath, The Wife, The Cross) 

A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle 

Night, Elie Wiesel 

The Princess of Clèves, Madame de La Fayette 

Many Waters, Madeleine L’Engle 

 

Happy reading, all! May your summer nights be short because of it!  

More discoveries

And the discoveries in our new house continue.

They’re not as thrilling as learning of the bomb shelter under our garage and later locating it, but they’ll do.

Last week, Husband’s weed whacking uncovered a horseshoe pit, and my weed plucking unveiled autumn sedum, roses, hostas, ferns, and Snow on the Mountain. A visiting aunt of mine even spotted an apple tree in our yard, the variety of which we're unsure.

I might add legend has it the original owner of the place in 1973, a stockbroker and gambler, built hiding places into the house to stash his money before fleeing in the middle of the night one night in '84. But that may or may not be a story for another day.

For now, enjoy our growing things.


Discoveries (part 2, I guess)

I didn’t intend to turn last week’s blog installment into a two-parter, but you readers are adventurous and curious souls, and you spurred me on into searching for the bomb shelter. For that I thank you. Enjoy part two today.

*****

“Where’s your sense of curiosity?” Our friend Todd said when word of our possible bomb shelter slipped out over gyros last Saturday night.

“I don’t know. We’ve been busy?” I said. “Wanna go and look now?”

Todd and his wife Trixie left their food and traipsed downstairs with me. I opened the door to the storage closet under the stairs, the only possibility I had seen that could lead to the shelter. I pointed at a piece of plywood propped over an opening inside the closet. I heard Husband, tinkering around with dishes in the kitchen upstairs, his curiosity level apparently matching mine.

“Go ahead and look behind it, if you want,” I said. “If it’s anywhere, it’s behind there.”

Todd hunched over to fit into the closet and crouched in front of the wood covering. A sliver of dread poked me, but Trixie and I followed anyway, armed with a battery-operated lantern.

Todd wrestled away the makeshift door and hollered. Trixie and I screamed, and from upstairs, Husband belted out something in response. Todd laughed.

“Just kidding,” he said, “but there it is. It’s awesome.”

The void—about a hundred square feet, maybe bigger—smelled of dank dungeon. Inside were a few items: a commode-like chair, two five-gallon buckets, and a bag of something weird. Todd jumped about four feet down into the space. Suddenly Husband was there, taking the bag from Todd.

“What is that?” I said, wrinkling my nose at what appeared to be a sack of water.

“Something that pulled the moisture out of the place, it looks like,” Husband said.

We spent time gazing at our new-to-us square footage, but only Todd actually walked around in it.

Later that night in bed, I thought about the two five-gallon buckets. What could be inside them? Stacks of cash? Gold bars? It was possible, wasn’t it?

By morning, my curiosity was fully roused. I summoned Flicka.

“Hey, wanna go down into the bomb shelter and check out what’s in those two buckets?” I said, realizing it was a sentence I had never before spoken in my life.

“Sure,” she said.

I held the lantern while I watched my oldest kid drop into the musty mystery room. She pried the top off the first bucket. Why was the lid rusty if it was plastic? Nervousness rattled me.

“Ew,” she said, peering inside.

At the bottom of the pail was a charred black substance. She replaced the cover and tugged the lid off the second one. Inside was a black liquid.

“Ew,” she said again, grimacing.

She replaced the second cover, brushed off her hands, and climbed out of the hole.

The End.

What do you make of that?

The weird bag.

The bomb shelter.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.


Discoveries

And the dream comes again.

I’m living in a house where I discover new rooms—hidden parts I’ve never seen before. Those rooms, while dusty, contain all my favorites: vintage furniture, retro lamps, Persian rugs, framed paintings. I know my house, though. How could I have missed these secret places?

In real life, I know our new house too. I’ve seen it all—or so I believe.

One day, while I assess the many boxes, Husband enters the room. I frown, waving an arm over all the totes we need to keep—even after all the donating and tossing. “We’ll have to get shelving in the downstairs for all of this.”

He shrugs. “Well, what you don’t need often you can always store upstairs in the shed.”

Never mind that the building he calls the shed I call the pool house. He delivers this information like I know we have an upstairs in that structure out back. My thoughts flip with happiness. Another storage area to enjoy? How was I only learning this now?

I climb a ladder to open the barn-like door into the upper level of the pool house. The sight inside delights me. It’s clean, empty, and large. The girls and I hump containers out of the house. We plot and execute a strategy to muscle those beasts up the ladder and into the space. And the pool house swallows my material burdens.

We invite our new next-door neighbors over for dinner. The conversation is easy, entertaining. Over tacos, we discuss neighborhood trivia and laugh about our families’ commonalities. Husband and I share the exact wedding anniversary—date and year—of the mom and dad, and our three girls almost match their three boys in age.

What intrigues me most, though, is their acquaintance with our house—their knowledge of the history of the place we now call home. We learn details about the previous homeowners, but after The Upstairs Of The Pool House Discovery, at least we know the rest of our abode—or so I think.

“So,” the woman says, taking a bite of pineapple upside-down cake, “is there still a bomb shelter under your garage?”

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.


A garden

Evil subtracted more people from the world this week. Sickened, saddened, and infuriated are just a few adjectives I’d apply to myself. The bloodguiltiness of this nation overwhelms me. It always has, actually.

The following blog installment is one I’ve posted twice before. For worse or for better (yes, I have to view it in that order to maintain my sanity), it’s always relevant.

May the Light warm you today.

*****

The rain streak just ended. No more excuses.

The grass is bushy now and as tangled as my thoughts; I can think straighter when the lawn is cut. Other people have already planted their splashy annuals and lovely perennials, but not me. Yet.

I break free of my eternal captors—the calendar and the clock, the deadlines and the doing—and head out to the back yard. With hands on my hips, I survey what winter concealed. New green things poke up from the flower beds—some desirable, others not so much.

I imagine how it used to be when The Gardener planted the garden in the east, in Eden, and in the cool of the day strolled through its lushness with the world’s first people. They were all friends back then—back before weeds and pesticides, suicide and depressed kids, CT scans and chemo. Before the dirt in our jeans and the stains in our souls.

I sigh now because of The Incident in that ancient garden. It happened too soon, and the rift between The Gardener and humanity has left a mark. The cosmic divorce was as messy as they come. And along with all the other groanings, we sweat and dig harder into the earth to make pretty things emerge. Not like before The Break-Up when beauty came easy.

A pool of light warms my dog Lala, slabbed out on the pavement, her nose twitching for information about her surroundings even as she dozes. And the scene reminds me all is not lost. The Son shone on the ancient garden too—even after The Split—promising us a future garden, if we want it.

On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

It started in a garden, and it ends in a garden. But for now, I work the soil while I wait.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Your windows

Last week I asked you readers to share your (literal) views with me, and here's what a few of you sent me:

It seems like I spend the most time looking out my kitchen window in the summer when I do my canning, freezing, dehydrating. And most of the time I see my side yard with a pine tree that was a wedding favor at our wedding, a couple weeks short of 25 years ago now. My aunt planted it in her garden until we were home owners and then she gave it to us. There’s a small flower bed in front of it, with a little white picket fence piece framing my mom’s old Schwinn bicycle, seasonal flowers/pumpkins/greenery in the basket.

Beyond our side yard is our neighbor’s house where the new neighbors have a pair of kittens that take up their posts in the windows to watch back at me!

Jen, Grand Forks, North Dakota

*****

When I look up from the desk in my office over the garage, I see the trunks of trees in our woods. Tiny russet buds are erupting from the twigs of one tree. The rest of the woods is still bare except for the evergreens that cling to their needles throughout the long, snowy winter. Through the tree trunks, I glimpse the lake, reflecting a blue sky and the trees and houses on the far side of our bay. Soon the water will be warm enough to plunge in. Then I will see the passing boats of our neighbors and hear the shouts of my grandchildren, but on those days, you can bet I won’t be watching from my office window!

LeAnne, northwestern Wisconsin

*****

When I look outside this morning, I am warmed by a small sense of pride seeing yesterday’s work spread out on the grass. I’m talking about a dirty pool tarp. This vantage point, does not confront me with the still dirty pool, which is okay by me. Don’t get me wrong, I am actually looking forward to relieving the pool of its leaf collection, but it isn’t a beauty in its current sludgy state. Instead, I see the chairs tipped in last night's storm, vibrant grass, and a corner of the sunroom that is getting a more expansive look at what I am seeing from bed, like an incentive to get up for the day (kind of a meager reward, but who knows? Maybe something exciting is happening on the right side of the yard).

Todd, Oak Grove, Minnesota

*****

Note: I thanked Jen for sharing her view with us, bringing us a sense of home, and she said, “It was fun to actually see what I look at.”

Today, reader, may you actually see what you look at!


Windows

Today, I want to hear about you.

What do you see from your window?

“All of us, at some point in our daily lives, find ourselves looking out a window. We pause in our work, tune out of a conversation, and turn toward the outside. Our eyes gaze, without seeing, at a landscape whose familiarity becomes the customary ground for distraction: the usual rooftops, familiar trees, a distant crane. The way of life for most of us in the twenty-first century means that we spend most of our time indoors, in an urban environment [or other], and our awareness of the outside world comes via, and thanks to, a framed glass hole in the wall.” Windows on the World: Fifty Writers, Fifty Views by Matteo Pericoli (preface by Lorin Stein.)

Write me a note about the view from your window (photos are welcome too) and send it HERE (or if you’re a subscriber, simply hit reply to this email.) I’ll publish your writing (along with your first name and location) in next week’s blog installment (5/12/22.)

I’ll get us started…

The cul-de-sac I see from my kitchen window still sleeps, even at 7:40 this Thursday morning. The view into the back yard, though—now that's another story. The trees, still mostly naked from winter, obscure little. Deer, nimble and silent, sashay through the trees, and I wonder what they thought the other day when our girls stretched themselves out on beach towels, winter skin finally exposed, on their terrain. Turkeys, fattened by suburban life, strut through the property now too, showing us we're the ones trespassing and not the other way around. At least the inside of the house belongs to us. Or does it? I sit on a sliver of couch while the dog sprawls her sleeping self over the rest of it, a hind leg thwapping me again and again as she dreams.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Vermin

The unpacking in the new house is calling me today. Do the boxes ever end? Enjoy this old blog entry while I tidy up around here, okay?

*****

A cloying, rotten smell wafted from a vague location in the house. It sent me into sleuthing mode, and I pinpointed its whereabouts to the kitchen. I inspected the trash can for spoiled food that might have missed the garbage bag liner. I cleaned out the fridge. I muscled the appliances away from the walls, mopping hot bleach water under each of them, but none of my efforts reduced the stench.

“This is awful,” I said. “Help me find what’s making that smell.”

Husband and the girls searched with me. The smell emanated from a certain spot by the refrigerator, but we found nothing. Since there was no more we could do, I tried to forget about it.

“This makes no sense,” I said, still enduring the stink two weeks later. “If something died in here, shouldn’t it have decomposed by now?”

“You’d think so,” Husband said.

One day, I had an idea. While I had moved the refrigerator in and out numerous times to clean under it, I had never looked underneath. I knelt down and removed the fridge’s front panel that ran along the floor. I switched on a flashlight and peered in. A mouse—suspended in some metal wires—stared at me with bulging, lifeless eyes. Startled, I flipped through my options and phoned Husband at work.

“You can get him out when you get home,” I said at the end of my story.

When he returned that evening, Husband pulled on a rubber glove. He crouched in front of the fridge and extracted the mouse, securing it between his index and middle fingers. He raised it—like a fat cigar—to his face and sniffed.

“Yep, that’s the smell,” he said.


Another day, we discovered a squatter on the property—living behind a hole in the peak of our house—and Husband decided it was as good a reason as any to race out and purchase a pellet gun. While he was preoccupied with how he would snipe down the squirrel, I wondered about the size of the rodent’s living quarters. And I worried about the future of the window located just inches from the roofline.

Curious about the loudness of his new weapon, Husband squeezed off a practice shot into the ground in the back yard. But since it sounded like a cannon going off, he was convinced ShotSpotter—the city’s gunshot locator system—would bring the police over for a visit. And, he decided, the gun might also leave craters in the house’s stucco. So he drove back to the store to exchange his purchase, settling instead for a standard pump-action bb gun with a scope.

That night, Husband took his post in the back yard by the fire pit—his bb gun at his side—and the girls clustered around him, all of them keeping keen eyes on the hole. I hoped the sound of a crashing window wouldn’t be the exclamation point at the end of our day.

Husband’s hunt was fruitless that night, but he tried again the next day. The girls, enthralled with his new hobby, settled into a routine with him; each night after dinner, they followed him outside, and the four of them trained their gazes on the peak of the house and waited.

One evening, the squirrel poked its head out of its hole, emerged, and hunkered down on top of the window frame. Husband later told me he had considered—in that moment—the possible consequences. With the inaccuracy of the bb gun and its useless scope, it was a sketchy shot and posed the strong possibility of blasting out the window. But he took the shot anyway, which sent the squirrel skittering down the house. Like a pack of hunting dogs, the girls chased after it, and the rodent zipped around the corner. Husband squeezed off one more round before the animal disappeared for good.

Confident the squirrel wouldn’t return, Husband rented a forty-foot extension ladder from a north side hardware store, so he could patch the hole. The ladder, though, was harder to control than the bb gun. During the repair job, Husband almost smashed the window he had earlier avoided shooting. But the ending of the story was a happy one. The squirrel was no longer a tenant, and no windows were harmed in the making of Husband’s adventures.


Our nextdoor neighbor, Glenda, called us one day, her normally relaxed voice taut.

“There’s a bat on my porch. Could you come and get it out right now?”

Husband pulled on gloves and headed over next door, armed with a broom. Glenda, bat-phobic and shaken, had gashed her knee from falling in her attempts to shoo out the creature. She had also sprayed her garden hose inside the enclosed porch—soaking its insides—in the hopes of blasting out the flying mammal that now cowered in a corner.

In just a few minutes, Husband scooped up the bat in his hands and set it free outside. And peace was restored to Glenda's house.

We homeowners have a tight screening process when it comes to what’s allowed in our homes: domesticated animals, yes; creatures of the field, no. In this world, it’s the perennial struggle of the owner to keep his or her home from succumbing to nature. But we’ll fight for it if we have to. And it doesn’t hurt to have a Husband come along and save the day.



Welcome: Part 3

The blur of four little girls—our three plus one—spun my days into weeks and weeks into months until two birthdays passed for Willow in our shared world. I paused my care for the happy four year old in early 2006, however, to take care of Dad. Willow's mom, Rachelle, understood; life with a cancer patient at their house too called for time and careful days.

Illness or no, the earth kept revolving. When Dad was readmitted into the hospital in May—for the final time, although I didn't know it then—I reached out to Rachelle. She easily accepted my offer to watch Willow again, so I knew Jim’s health was worsening. Rachelle and Jim floundered through each day, I learned, but I knew it more from how she looked than what she said. She was thinner, and her words were leaner too.

After Dad died on September 18, Rachelle biked over to bring me her condolences. She stood outside on the sidewalk as I sat on our front steps, and we talked a little. She pressed the tender spot with a couple of well-placed questions, and I let the tears splash onto my skirt, not bothering to cover my face. She understood. She had lost loved ones in the past and was losing one now.

I saw the need before me—and Rachelle too, standing there with her bike—and felt the rejuvenating spark of usefulness. I couldn’t do much for her, but I could watch Willow more, and I said so. She welcomed the offer, and I thought about the flowing of welcomes, back and forth, that had become our way.

After a string of long days with Willow, Rachelle told me Jim was in the hospital. His health disintegrated further, and he became unresponsive. Rachelle stayed by his side. We kept Willow overnight.

During the tucking in for bed, I went down the line of girls.

“The Lord bless you and keep you,” I said to Willow, resting a hand on her head when it was her turn. Her gaze drank in each word, serenity smoothing her features as she watched me say the blessing over her life. “The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.”

A few days later, on the morning of October 6, 2006, I phoned Rachelle.

“I’ll come and pick up Willow this morning,” I said. “Are you at the hospital already? It’s no problem for me to—”

“Jim died this morning.”

My heart clenched. “Rachelle, I’m sorry.”

“Could you still take Willow? She’d have more fun with you guys.”

Willow spent the day with us. I nestled her under my wing wherever we went. I read her stories. We created play-dough snakes. I wouldn’t let Ricka bicker with her like they sometimes did as almost-sisters.

While I was making lunch, the little girl came to me.

“My daddy died today,” she said, pushing smeared glasses up on her nose.

I paused from the peanut buttering. “I know, honey.” I had said her same sentence a few weeks earlier, a strange and terrible bond for me at thirty-six to share with a four year old. “Oh, I know.”

Later in October, I drove north alone to Jay Cooke State Park for Jim’s memorial service. The trees along the route toward Duluth waved their golden sides at the world with a new kind of greeting. The gathering of mourners met in a pavilion, and I knew no one in attendance except Rachelle. She snuggled in for a long hug before wandering off to mingle with her other guests.

I sat at a picnic table, a light breeze tossing leaves at my feet and pulling them away again. I recounted the two years following one phone call from a stranger: the shared path of giving and taking, the always assurance of birthing and losing, the hard way of the welcome. And my heart rested.

It was exactly as it was meant to be.

This is the painting Rachelle made for me. On the back is the title she gave it: “Welcome”

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Welcome: Part 2

Willow had a flair for mismatching her clothes, just like my girls. Her red hair was cut in a choppy bob—matted in the back—and she owned so many pairs of artsy eyeglasses, it was hard to keep track. She was two and a half years old in 2004 when she first came to spend some days with us every week, and from the start, she was one of mine. Back in those years with Willow, life was a whirlwind of four little girls in dirty bare feet and princess dresses.

Although Willow was younger than Ricka by five months, she was bigger, so Rachelle, Willow's mom, brought us loads of clothes her girl had outgrown, and those black garbage bags brimmed with delights that smelled like The Wedge food co-op and Rachelle’s house. Purple Danskos and Hanna Anderson clothes, Scandinavian sweaters and red Doc Martens—all second-hand for Willow too when she first got them.

Jim, Willow's dad, visited for a bit each time he dropped his girl off at our house. He was upbeat even though he awoke each day to his battle with melanoma. An outdoors enthusiast, he biked everywhere and told stories about his adventurous rides. Some days he’d have a seizure, though, fall off his bicycle, and pass out. He’d wake up to find himself in an ambulance heading for the ER. I cringed at his stories. He’d shrug and laugh. As we talked about his declining health, the girls leaned into our adult mystery world, pretending to play on the floor near us, but I wished they’d play for real somewhere else. No kid should know what cancer means.

One day, Rachelle dropped off Willow. A full workday was ahead of her, but she lingered in our open front door.

I waved toward a chair. “Wanna sit for a minute, Rachelle?”

“No, I really should go.” She stayed in the doorway.

The girls scampered away, leaving Rachelle and me. And in the next moment, my friend opened her life's book and showed me the hidden thing on its pages.

When Jim was first diagnosed with cancer, they chased after treatments. Convinced there was no way for their family to expand during his radiation therapy, Rachelle and Jim had loved without restrictions. But she had become pregnant. How could they manage a baby in their circumstances, along with Ireland and Willow? Their struggle was too hard, too overwhelming to bring another life into it.

Jim had an idea. His sister was unable to have a baby. Why not give her theirs? Rachelle agreed the plan made sense. And so, they promised Jim’s sister their baby. She was overjoyed.

Five months into the pregnancy, though, Rachelle changed her mind. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t give away the little one she carried. She wouldn’t give her up! But it was too late, Jim stated; they had given their word, and they couldn’t break it now.

I dropped onto the couch, heavy under the weight of the truth, forgetting I had my own children, and they were somewhere in the house doing heaven-knows-what. Expressionless and still standing, Rachelle delivered her story to the end—a delicate thing barely breathing as it came out into the reality of my living room.

Baby Ruby was born in February of 2004, only three months before I met Rachelle—three months before our Dicka was born. Rachelle had honored Jim’s wishes, and Ruby went to live with his sister, her new mother.

“Can you get her back?” I said.

“No,” Rachelle said, unblinking. “We gave our word.”

“But what if Jim’s not here one day, and it’s just you, and she’s yours—”

Her eyes softened. “No.”

My chest hollowed. I had forgotten about the bags of secondhand goodies, the seizures on bikes, the time we spent with Willow each week. It was only about Rachelle now—and Ruby.

Later, I told Husband the fragile story. Sad, he frowned and shook his head, but he fell asleep that night. I didn’t.

Bear one another’s burdens.

The next day, I paced. Distracted and on autopilot, I cared for the girls. I wasn’t hungry, and I couldn’t focus. I was sick with a regret that wasn’t mine and grieving a loss I hadn’t suffered. I was desperate for Ruby.

Later, I went shopping and picked out a fragrant bar of soap and a cute dish towel and tucked them into a gift bag.

“I can’t stop thinking about you. And Ruby,” I said to Rachelle when she came over. I handed her the present.

“You didn’t have to do this,” she said, peeking into the bag.

I looked at the pittance in her hands. A small gift to soothe a gaping heart-wound. A ridiculous offering. “Rachelle, I’ve decided I don’t want you to pay me anymore. Just let me watch Willow for you.”

“How about a bartering system? You babysitting Willow for art?”

“I’d love that.”

If I were an artist, my medium would be paint and my style would be just like Rachelle’s: Egon Schiele meets early Picasso. I drooled over a few pieces of art in her house and acquired a couple of them over the next year in exchange for watching Willow. Finally, I commissioned a painting, telling Rachelle what I wanted.

“For me to do this,” she said, “you’ll have to tell me who he is to you.”

“He’s the Lifter of my head and the Lover of my soul,” I said.

Rachelle unveiled my painting in the spring of 2006 at an art gallery showcasing her work in northeast Minneapolis. I went with a friend to the opening night of the exhibition, and there on the wall was my idea on canvas, combined with Rachelle's artistic interpretation. My eyes brimmed. Next to the piece was a small card: “Not for Sale.”

Rachelle stood by me as I gazed at her work. I nodded. She took it off the wall to show me the title she had chosen and scrawled on the back: “Welcome.”

I took the painting home that night. It fit perfectly above the window over our buffet, and I stared at it.

Jesus, His eyes intense and His palms marked by excruciating love. One of His hands pushed away the darkness, and the other was opened to welcome all who would come.

*Come back next week for the conclusion of the story.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Welcome: Part 1

We are made for togetherness. We are made for all the beautiful things we know. We are made to tell the world there are no outsiders. Unknown

One of life’s most common actions, answering a ringing phone, might be forgettable. Or, within a moment, it might invite a person into someone else's story. In the spring of 2004, at the thirty-eight-week mark in my pregnancy with Dicka, I got a call. And in came the invitation.

“I’d like to hear more about the childcare you do,” a woman said.

I frowned. “Sorry, you must have the wrong number. I don’t do childcare.”

“Is this your phone number?” She rattled off my digits.

“Yes. How did you get it?”

She explained, and the memory of the flyer came back. Sometime in 2002, near the beginning of our life in north Minneapolis, I had a flickering urge to make some extra money. If I wanted to stay home, what better way than to do childcare for someone? On a whim, I had dropped off a flyer—with my phone number on tear-off tabs—at our little local library, asking the woman behind the desk if she would post it for me. I had never seen it hanging on the library’s bulletin board, so it was a miracle having the subject of the flyer surface now, two years later. Curiosity needled me. I had to meet Rachelle, the woman on the other end of the line.

Rachelle lived only six blocks from us, and later that week, she came over with her two girls, Ireland and Willow, and her husband Jim. Husband was home to meet them too, and we learned that while Jim was a stay-at-home dad, sometimes he needed a respite from caring for two-year-old Willow. Ireland was eight years old and in school, so she wouldn’t need the coverage.

While the men visited, I took Rachelle on a tour of our house. She was engaging, and her eyes brightened at the art on the girls’ bedroom walls. She was an artist too, I learned. She asked my childcare rates. I threw out a number, and she said she’d talk with Jim about it and let me know.

The visit ended, the warmth of connection singing through my soul. Another in-road into a neighborhood I was determined to welcome into our lives. As Rachelle, Jim, and the girls climbed into their car, we waved at them from the window.

“What a great family,” I said to Husband.

“When you were upstairs, Jim told me something.”

“Really? What?”

“He has cancer. That’s why he needs help with Willow sometimes.”

The news punched me, and any mundane thoughts about our day skittered from my mind. The childcare request grew larger than life—and death.

Rachelle phoned me the next day.

“Your rates are reasonable, and we’d love to have you watch Willow. After your baby comes, and you’re ready, of course.”

I swallowed hard. “Rachelle, I heard about Jim’s cancer. I’m sorry.”

“Well, now we’re happy we met you,” she said, her tone light. “It will help so much.”

“I’ll let you know when the baby’s here.”

But I knew the birth of more than one change was upon us.

This morning in 2022, I pause from my eighteen-year-old story to remember Rachelle and the intersection of our lives, the times to come that would bind our families, and lessons about the sacred welcome that awaits us all.

Come back next week for more.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.