On being enough

 (For the ones that worry)

You need to know this: my mother did not like to sew.

My parents lived and raised their family among the Tsáchila people of western Ecuador, eventually moving from the jungle out into the neighboring town. Dad’s service could be measured in concrete achievements: study guides, a Spanish-Tsáfiki dictionary, the translation into Tsáfiki of the New Testament, consultancy, workshops, articles, and more.

Mom’s service was less visible. She learned how to bake bread in a wood-burning oven without burning the bread as well. She learned why a pressure cooker is your best friend when dinner involves jungle game. She raised chickens. City girl that she was, she really loved those chickens.

In the early years, she provided basic medical care to her family and community, and more-than-basic care with the help of a distant doctor on short-wave radio. Later, she served as interpreter and cultural broker between Spanish-speaking hospital staff and the Tsáfiki-speaking community. She did literacy work. Hosted Bible studies and prayer groups. Wrote songs. Taught music.

And she raised four children in circumstances that bore no resemblance to her own childhood.

We climbed trees, made forts, dug tunnels, swam in the river down the hill and she cleaned and treated the inevitable bumps, bruises, cuts and grime we came home with--and yet, with the exception of a few rules (such as “no shoes, no machete”), she never stopped us from doing it all over again.

Oh, and she sewed. There were no stores with ready-made clothes where we lived, so despite the fact that Mom really, truly, did not like to sew, she sewed.

The hardest thing my mother did, though, was watch her children go away to boarding school at a young age because at the time, where we lived, there were few other options.   

Through it all, Mom worried. She prayed and she worried. One of her deepest fears was that she didn't measure up as a mother. That she wasn't enough.

The summer before my senior year, Mom and I started the annual process of back-to-school shopping. In the absence of clothing stores, we made our annual trek to El Carmen, a nearby town where fabric shops lined the streets.

I say shops. They were more like small warehouses. Dogs roamed at will. Noise and dust floated in generously from the streets. Shelves lined the shop walls, reaching the 2-story-high ceilings, piled high with fabrics of every kind and color. There were ladders, but most of the time shoppers would point to the fabric they wanted and an employee would use a long pole to extract the bolt, letting it fall almost to the floor before catching it.

After the fabric stores, we visited the local seamstress. Mom and the seamstress discussed each piece, the cost, and life in general, while I fidgeted. Mom and I argued about style (she wanted ruffles, I wanted tailored; she liked lace, I hated it; she loved pink, pink was "eww"). A fitting date was agreed on, and just like that, my back-to-school shopping was done.

I realize now how bittersweet that last trip must have been for Mom. My siblings were grown and gone. That year, the annual ritual kicked off the final march toward an empty nest. Her chances to get it right as a hands-on mother were quickly running out. She didn’t even scold when I whined over not getting the grey pantsuit I wanted.

(As for me, I was 17, oblivious, and wrapped in righteous indignation. I really wanted that pantsuit.)  

Just before school started, Mom and Dad drove me back to Quito for my last year in boarding school. My father took off for Africa to do some consultancy work. My mother went back home, to a quiet, empty house. Before she left, Mom extracted a promise that, despite all the new-school-year activities, I would go home to visit in a couple of weeks.

On the appointed weekend, I made the 3-hour bus trip down the mountains. From the terminal, it was a short, 20-minute walk to the house.

Mom met me at the door. She looked inordinately smug.

When I walked into the house, there on the table was the sewing machine and the remains of a project. And there on the landing rail was a dove grey suit jacket. A matching vest. Skirt. Pants. And a beautiful, dark blue blouse with a tie, not a ruffle in sight.

…………………

Mom died 10 years ago. Just a few weeks after she made my grey suit, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She beat it. She went on to beat cancer two more times. She struggled all her life with depression. She loved her children messily but deeply. She was enough.

And so are you.

 

-CS 060124 

Edited to correct number of years to 10. 

 

What's in a name?

I wish I could introduce you to my friend John, but I’m not exactly sure where he is right now.

We’ve only met once, actually. It was a couple of weeks ago. I was on my way home from the post office, waiting in a line of cars for the light to turn green. It’s a busy intersection and seemed to be more backed up than usual. I craned my neck a little and spied the problem.

A man was trying to cross the intersection while pulling/pushing two shopping carts (one large, one small), and propelling his hand-powered wheelchair. He needed about three more hands.

It was excruciating to watch.

Drivers were starting to get impatient. A few began inching forward. One or two tapped their horns. The man was sweating visibly (and I was 3 cars back), desperately trying to maneuver his meager belongings across the 6-lane road.

“I wish someone would help him!” I grumbled to God.
“Why don’t you?” He replied.
“I’m too many cars back.”
“You won’t always be.”
“I have a wonky knee.”
“You have a cane.”
“I’m in a turn lane.”
“So turn. You can always turn around.”

God is irritatingly good at poking holes in my excuses. 

Cars inched past, and by the time I reached the intersection the man was almost across. The only place he could possibly be aiming for was the grocery store on the corner. The road begins a downward slope right there; once past the store entrance and its uphill incline, it gets steeper. If he missed that entrance, he was in danger of picking up too much speed and rolling uncontrollably to the bottom of the hill.

Traffic, still inching past the man and his carts and giving him disapproving looks, grudgingly let me move over two lanes. I pulled into the grocery store parking lot and stopped.

“I might fall going down that entrance,” I reminded God.
“And you might not.” He answered.

I didn’t.

As I approached the man, he looked wary and I realized that oncoming strangers were not usually a positive experience in his world.

“Where can I push this for you?” I asked, reaching for the larger cart.  Out of breath, he gestured to the grocery store. I pushed the cart up to a level place and went back. He’d reached the upward slope with the smaller cart in tow.

“I’ve got it,” he panted, but he hadn’t. I grabbed one end and said, “You push and I’ll pull,” and between us we got the cart up the slope and onto level ground beside the larger one.  It  crossed my mind that passers-by might assume that I, too, was homeless and that made me smile. We made a confusing pair: thin, wiry, homeless him and out-of-shape, obviously-not-underfed me.  

“Do you have any chocolate milk?” he asked and I thought that a bit odd. “I need the calories and the fat,” he added, and then it made heartbreaking sense.

I apologized for my lack of chocolate milk and held out my hand. “I’m Carol.” He shook my hand firmly. “John,” he said, “like the author of Revelation.” I laughed and countered, “And like my late husband. It's a really good name.”

Side-by-side, we made our way to the grocery store, me walking and pushing the large cart, John rolling and pushing the small one. He shared a couple of stories from his life on the streets. Not self-pitying, just factual. The car that hit him because he was in the way. The frequent thefts because others could run and he couldn’t give chase.

“But I’ll survive,” he said. “I have so far.”

We reached the grocery store. John was going to go in and use what little money he had to buy chocolate milk. It killed me that I had no cash in my purse to offer him. We parted ways.

As I started to walk back to my car, he called out, “Stop, please!”

I turned and he gestured for me to come nearer. As I did, he took out a beautiful purple, blue and green handmade throw. “A lady made this for me,” he said softly. “I can’t bear for it to be stolen. I want the chance to give it away. I want to give it away to you.”

His face looked haunted. I thanked him for his generosity and promised to take good care of it. “I’ll survive,” he said again, “and I have other things to keep me warm. But I’ll be happier knowing I was able to give it away.”

So I turned and walked to my car, a man’s dearest treasure in my hands. I was glad he couldn’t see me cry.

I haven’t seen John-like-the-author-of-Revelation since, but I carry chocolate Ensure in my car now, just in case.

And yesterday marked 19 years since my John died. Generosity was his hallmark. He would have stopped his old pickup truck mid-intersection, gotten out and helped push the carts, chatting with his namesake, and gleefully exaggerating his limp for the benefit of all the impatient drivers. 

I don’t have his chutzpah. Instead, I have a world of memories of one John to make me smile, and the precious treasure of another to keep me humble. 

That's a lot to pack into a name. Unless it's a really good one.

©2024 Carol Shaw

Of Magic, Queens, and Paddington Bear

There’s a picture online of Queen Elizabeth having tea with Paddington Bear, and it made me smile when I saw it. But I wasn’t surprised. You see, I have my own Paddington/Queen Elizabeth story.

When I was 6 or 7 years old, a nearby missionary family received a shipment of children’s books. They generously let me borrow some from time to time, which is how I came across A Bear Called Paddington. It was instant love. And with the decisive logic of a 6 or 7-year-old, I decided that the Queen of England needed to know about that love.

My parents gently explained that:
Her Majesty was a very busy person;
her staff was very busy;
a letter from our tiny town in Ecuador would take weeks to reach the U.K. and might get lost along the way;
I would probably never hear back from Buckingham Palace.

Then they gave me paper and pen and Mom helped me spell the big words. I don’t remember the whole letter, but I do know that I thanked the queen for running a country that had such things as Paddington Bear.

Dad took my letter with him to the capital city on his next trip and mailed it from the main post office. As the weeks passed, I pictured the Queen reading my letter and sharing it with her gal pals. They were probably too busy having tea to write back, but I understood.

And that could have been the end of the story.

Instead, about two months later, I received a small package from London. There was a note on palace letterhead thanking me for writing to the queen. Enclosed was a Paddington Bear pin.

As I got older, of course, I realized that there was probably some office vaguely attached to the palace and tasked with sending out form letters to school children who wrote to the queen, and that someone in that office dug one more pin out of the box of thousands, folded one more school-kid form letter - and then decided to ignore geographic boundaries.

But this is really a story about parents teaching kids that it’s okay to risk disappointment. It’s about the importance of reaching for stars beyond our grasp. It’s about the kind of magic that happens best when we're 6 or 7 years old and know that queens often take tea with adventurous bears.

And it's about the lasting impact of a fleeting moment of kindness, even when it’s to some random child in a backwater town in a small, faraway country.

-cs 060522

 

Matt Brown from London, England, CC BY 2.0 

<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

In Spirit and in Flesh

The spirit of Christmas-now walks soft beside me,
weaving as we go:

the chat with a good friend;

Christmas dinner at a table set for two instead of six;

unkind words about another driver; 

kisses blown to sick loved ones through a patio door;

quiet moments reading (sometimes to the cat);

until what I truly value is etched into the fabric of the day,
a gift to me:
an image of my Faith, raw, unmasked, unclothed.


The spirits of Christmas-yet-to-come stand silent:  
watching, shifting with the winds of time and choices  
from now and yesterday,
until one stands alone,
pregnant with possibilities and Hope.


But the Spirit of Christmas-long-ago – ah, that!
It wraps itself around me,
embracing me in all my humanness,
holding Humanity itself so tightly
that it can’t help but be born
in spirit and in flesh;
and it whispers softly that its truest name is Love. 

©Carol Shaw 122521

 

©evgenyatamanenko - Can Stock Photo Inc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of Lent and Litterboxes

Lent was approaching, and I hadn’t yet decided how to observe it. In my particular tradition, Lent is a time to slow down and examine how we live our faith in the day-to-day. It’s a time to challenge our comfort zones, which can so easily become barriers to a dynamic life of faith.

Last year, of course, we were midway through Lent when the entire world came to a screeching halt. And it didn’t start up again on Easter Sunday.

So this year seemed a little odd. I’d had a year of semi-isolation, yes, but I hadn’t really slowed down. If anything, I was busier than ever. I was focused on work and associations and research and to be honest, with nothing and no one at home to interrupt my introvert self, that comfort zone had gotten a little more rigid. I put on a few extra unwanted pounds, but otherwise the isolation of the pandemic didn’t affect me as deeply as it did others. I kind of liked my rut.

On this particular day, though, a friend stopped by to drop off a book. After placing the book on my doorstep, Jim withdrew partway down the walk and texted me. I came out and stood in the open doorway to visit a moment. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a flash of movement.  A cat was running down the alley across from me, a little over a block away.

As Jim and I chatted, the cat made a beeline across the street, down the sidewalk and up my walkway, glancing up at Jim without breaking stride. When he reached me, the cat paused, looked me in the eyes, and walked through the open door into my house.  

After Jim left, I went to find the cat. He was sitting on my sofa. I could hear him purring from across the room. I grabbed my phone and took a few pictures. A cat this friendly must have humans somewhere.

The pictures went up on Nextdoor. I searched the “lost pet” websites and bought cat food and kitty litter. Temperatures were dropping that night and I wasn’t tossing the friendly little guy out into the cold.

Besides, I like cats. The first pet I ever had that didn’t have to be shared with my siblings was a little grey tabby with tiger stripes.  He disappeared when I went off to boarding school; it broke my heart.

The next day, I let Cat out of the bathroom where he’d spent the night turning a toilet paper roll into confetti. He ran outside the open back door and disappeared. Gone to find his family, I assumed. Minutes later, he returned, meowing loudly at the door. After a while, I let him back in. It was time to take him to the vet to check for a chip.

He had no chip.

I sat down at my desk to see if anyone had responded to my attempts to find his humans. No luck there.

Cat jumped onto my desk and stared at me. Did I mention he’s a grey tabby with tiger stripes?

“You’re gonna to be such a pain in the butt, aren’t you,” I said, and he crawled onto my chest, put one paw on either side of my neck and pressed his face into my shoulder in shameless agreement. 

Forget my comfort zone. The cat now interrupts every activity and takes over my desk. When I work, he supervises.  

 

I had to upgrade my noise-cancelling headset so that Zoom depositions wouldn’t be interrupted by indignant yowls when I locked him out of my office.

My daily power naps have long been a perk of being self-employed. My first midday snooze after Cat moved in was interrupted by an unexpected thud! on the bed that my drowsy forgetfulness interpreted as the presence of an intruder. Adrenaline does not mix well with naps.

I decided to shut my bedroom door at night to avoid such surprises. The first night, I woke up out of a deep sleep, every sense suddenly on alert. I’d heard something, but wasn’t sure what. There it was again! Scratching… on the inside of my bedroom door! 

Heart pounding, I snapped on the light. Two paws were slid under my door, scratching on the inside to wake me up. Soon there were vocals. Not a simple “meow”, but a three-toned “ah-OOH-uh”, sometimes varied with “AHH-ooh-ah” or even “ah-ooh-AH”, which always sounds like a question.

I yelled, “Cat! Stop!” and realized he needed a name so I could yell at him properly. He looks like Irish Cream in a cup of coffee, so Bailey it is.

One week later, Texas went into a deep freeze. My house lost power. In a time when I’d gotten too busy despite a worldwide pandemic, my personal world now came to a screeching halt.  

As the temperatures dropped inside, I took refuge under my covers with my fully-charged laptop, phone, portable charger and Kindle. A camp lantern sat on my bedside table. For the next four days, Bailey joined me. Sometimes he crawled down to my feet like a feline hot water bottle. He watched me on the computer, stared over my shoulder as I read, and occasionally went to monitor the rest of the house.

Since then, I’ve lost a few of those pandemic pounds. It’s hard to snack absently when every bite must be guarded against a curious feline.

I can’t focus just on work anymore: there’s a litter box to clean, food to supply, backyard doors to open and close, and “stop that, bad cat!” to yell from time to time.

My fourth granddaughter was born, and when I finally got to hold her I was horrified to hear myself crooning, “Oh, she’s a good girl, yes she is. Such a good girl.” I may be on my way to becoming that cat lady.

Lent is almost over. Today is Good Friday. Although the pandemic persists, there are signs of hope on the horizon and I think of the disciples’ grief and hopelessness. Spring buds promise new life, and I think of Mary in the garden on Sunday morning, every expectation about to be shattered.

Sometimes we go into Lent with intentionality. We examine how the comfort of our worldview may be hindering our spiritual journey. We solemnly mark the days until Easter Sunday.

But sometimes Lent surprises us. Sometimes, to borrow from Carl Sandburg, Lent comes to us on little cat feet.

 Photo credits: Carol Shaw  

Murphy and the cold, hard facts

There are icicles on my porch roof that haven’t melted since Wednesday. The weather folks say it’s going to get worse before it gets better. We’re getting snow with high winds tomorrow and are on our way to single-digit temperatures.

I love the cold. My teen years and early adulthood were spent high in the mountains. Chilly weather makes me feel young, energized. Cold in Texas is a treat, so when I went out to pick up a last-minute order from my local Walmart, it was with an eye to staying off slick roads, not out of the weather.

30°F

It was still light outside when I left the house just after 6 p.m. Walmart is barely 2 miles away, so I slid my feet into sandals and threw a lightweight poncho over my short-sleeved t-shirt and sweat pants. That’s all I would need to sit in my car while some bundled-up teenager put my purchases in the trunk. Besides – young and invigorated, remember?  

I must have said that last part out loud, because somewhere, Murphy’s ears perked up.

When I got to Walmart, the app kept telling me I was 18 minutes away. Eventually it dawned on me: I’d placed the order on the other Walmart, 5 miles away in rush hour traffic. By the time I got to the right store, dusk had faded into dark and the temperature was dropping.  A polite, cheerful young man loaded my purchases and I started back home.

Ooh, Boston Market! Chicken pot pie for supper sounded perfect. Unfortunately, by the time I managed to move over just one lane, Boston Market was 5 blocks behind me. I’d have to loop back. The added “adventure” seemed to justify a Boston Market brownie, too.

27°F

Eventually, I pulled into Boston Market’s parking lot. My sandals no longer seemed practical so I decided to stay in the car. After placing the order online, I pulled around to a curbside pick-up spot to wait my turn. Switching off the car, I sat and enjoyed a few moments of unbusy-ness.

A young woman opened the Boston Market door and made her way toward the car. I hit the window button, and nothing happened. Oh, right, the engine was off. I pushed the ignition. Lights flashed, something chittered in the console, but that was all. Nothing useful happened. She walked around to my side and handed me my supper through the door. I explained that my battery seemed to be dead and I’d have to wait there for Roadside Assistance.

24°F

Roadside Assistance notified me that my rescuer would arrive in…. 1 hour and 49 minutes? I decided to eat my pot pie. And brownie.

The cold  was no longer invigorating. Bracing, maybe. I thought about how it's been a minute since those chilly nights in the mountains of my youth. I pulled my poncho closer around me, tucked my feet in a bit and prepared to wait. Time crawled by. I read Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and WhatsApp, emails and all 5 news sites on my phone in a steady rotation to pass the time. Unbusy-ness had lost its charm.

20°F

An hour and 45 minutes later, my toes were on strike and my arms were thinking of joining them, when a truck pulled up beside me and a man got out, wrapped up like a human burrito. I stepped out into the night in my frozen-toed sandals to say hello, and popped the hood on my car. Arctic wind whipped my poncho around. I climbed back behind the steering wheel, not sure if it was the cold or my arthritis that was slowing me down. My cheerful rescuer hooked up the cables. Frigid fingers pushed the ignition. Frozen toes pushed lightly down on the accelerator. The engine sprang to life and warmth, blessed warmth, began to fill the car.  

Burrito man walked over as I let the engine run. “I never knew it could get so cold in Texas,” he said.

“Yeah, but it’s been a while,” I answered. “Back in the mid-80s we had several cold winters, if you’ll remember.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said politely.

“Oh, you’re not from here? Where are you from?”

“No…” he hesitated, then went on, “I am from here, but back in the mid-80s… ma’am, I wasn’t even born then!”

Just like that, the years caught up with me. Thanking human burrito child, I drove away, amused and grateful for my greying hair and thawing toes and the heated bliss pouring from the vents. Maybe, I reminded myself, maybe sometimes I should embrace the wisdom of Not Young. 

And somewhere, I swear, I heard Murphy laughing gently in the cold, invigorating night.  

(c) Can Stock Photo / Pellinni

On Stories and Holy Ground

For the last 3 weeks, members of my church have been meeting in small groups online for Safe Conversations - honest, vulnerable looks at stories and experiences of racial prejudice and bias and our own, often-subconscious responses. For me, it keeps coming back to the stories. Listening to someone else's reality without judgment or critique. Listening to learn. Listening for what is holy.

Holy Ground Come. Let me move myself over. Sit a while and share with me your story. Let your words Filter through the cracks and fissures of my world, past my certainties and creeds and the neat arrangement of my understanding, until they take shape, and grow. Stretch the sinews of my conviction. Push my inner parts aside. Let your story hollow out in me new holy ground and let me witness God’s eternity in you. © Carol Shaw 072120