Tag: Inspiration

  • The Gardenia Corsage

    The Gardenia Corsage

    “The Gardenia Corsage” story wrote By Edith Patterson Hill, Rockford, Illinois.

    My father was an astute observer of human character. Within seconds of meeting someone, he could sum up their strengths and flaws. It was always a challenge to see if any of my boyfriends could pass Dad’s test. None did. Dad was always right they didn’t pass my test either. After Dad died, I wondered how I’d figure it out on my own.

    That’s when Jack arrived on the scene. He was different from any other guy I’d dated. He could sit for hours on the piano bench with my mother, discussing obscure composers. My brother Rick loudly announced that Jack wasn’t a turkey like the other guys I’d brought home. My sister, Denise, belly-laughed with him over old Danny Kaye films. And Jack was great with my brother Chuck, who has a mental disability. One time, Chuck put his greasy hands, just dislodged from a cheeseburger, on Jack’s shoulders, kissed his cheek with ketchup-covered lips and called him by the wrong name, shouting, “Ah, Jeff, I Luv ya!” Jack didn’t miss a beat. “I love you too, George!” Jack passed my family’s test. But what about Dad’s?

    Then came the weekend of my mom’s birthday. Jack was coming down from his home in Milwaukee to Chicago. The day he was supposed to drive, I got a call: “Don’t worry,” he said, “but I’ve been in an accident.” His car had stalled; when he pulled over, another car careened into it. “I’m fine but I need you to pick me up.”

    Thank God he’s okay, I thought, as I drove up to Milwaukee. When I got there, we rushed to a flower shop for something for Mom. “How about gardenias?” Jack said, pointing out a beautiful white corsage.

    “You never see those this time of year,” I said. the florist put the corsage in a box.

    The entire ride, Jack was unusually quiet. “Are you all right?” I asked. We were pulling onto my mother’s street. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” he said. “I might be moving.”

    Moving? When was he going to tell me this? After he packed?

    Then he added, “Moving in with you.”

    I nearly put the car on the sidewalk. “What?” I asked.

    “I think we should get married,” he said. He told me he’d planned his proposal for a fancy restaurant, but after the accident, he decided to do it right away. “Yes,” I whispered. We both sat stunned, tears running down our cheeks, unable to speak. I’d never known such a tender moment. If only Dad were here to give his final approval.

    “Oh, let’s just go inside,” Jack said, laughing. We got out of the car and he walked up the driveway, carrying the corsage. My mother opened the door. “Happy Birthday!” we shouted. Jack thrust the box at her. She opened it up. Suddenly, her eyes brimmed with tears. Jack and I looked at each other. “Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked.

    “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes. “this is only the second gardenia corsage I’ve ever received. I was given one year ago, long before you kids were born.”

    “From who?” I asked.

    “Your father,” Mom said. “He gave me one right before we were engaged.” My eyes locked on Jack’s as I blinked away tears. Dad’s test? I knew Jack had passed.

  • The Education of Ruby Dell

    The Education of Ruby Dell

    “The Education of Ruby Dell” story wrote By Ruby Bridges Hall, New Orleans, Louisiana

    In November 1960, I walked up the steps of William Frantz Public School in New Orleans, the first black student at the formerly all-white elementary school. Today I am married and a mother of four. Many years have passed since that historic day and today. Those years have brought incredible changes in our country, forged in the crucible of the civil rights movement and the battle to end segregation. Years that changed me as well.

    I was born in Mississippi in 1954, the oldest child of Abon and Lucille Bridges. That year the United States Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision ordering the integration of public schools. Not that I knew anything about school at the time. What I knew and loved was growing up on the farm my paternal grandparents sharecropped.

    It was a very hard life, though, and my parents heard there were better opportunities in the city. We moved to New Orleans, where my father found work as a service station attendant, and my mother took night jobs to help support our growing family.

    As I got a bit older, my job was to keep an eye on my younger brothers and sister, which wasn’t too difficult. Except for church and the long walk to the all-black school where I went to kindergarten, our world didn’t extend beyond our block. But that was about to change.

    Under federal court order, New Orleans public schools were finally forced to desegregate. In the spring of 1960, I took a test, along with other black kindergartners in the city, to see who would go to an integrated school come September. That summer my parents learned I’d passed the test and had been selected to start first grade at William Frantz Public School.

    My mother was all for it. My father wasn’t. “We’re just asking for trouble,” he said. He thought things weren’t going to change, and blacks and whites would never be treated as equals. Mama thought I would have an opportunity to get a better education if I went to the new school—and a chance for a good job later in life. My parents argued about it and prayed about it. Eventually, my mother convinced my father that despite the risks, they had to take this step forward, not just for their own children, but for all black children.

    A federal judge decreed that Monday, November 14, 1960, would be the day black children in New Orleans would go to school with white children. There were six of us chosen to integrate the city’s public school system. Two decided to stay in their old schools. The other three were assigned to McDonogh. I would be going to William Frantz alone.

    The morning of November 14 federal marshals drove my mother and me the five blocks to William Frantz. In the car one of the men explained that when we arrived at the school, two marshals would walk in front of us and two behind, so we would be protected on both sides.

    That reminded me of what Mama had taught us about God, that he is always there to protect us. “Ruby Nell,” she said as we pulled up to my new school, “don’t be afraid. There might be some people upset outside, but I’ll be with you.”

    Sure enough, people shouted and shook their fists when we got out of the car, but to me, it wasn’t any noisier than Mardi Gras. I held my mother’s hand and followed the marshals through the crowd, up the steps into the school.

    We spent that whole day sitting in the principal’s office. Through the window, I saw white parents pointing at us and yelling, then rushing their children out of the school. In the uproar, I never got to my classroom.

    The marshals drove my mother and me to school again the next day. I tried not to pay attention to the mob. Someone had a black doll in a coffin, and that scared me more than the nasty things people screamed at us.

    A young white woman met us inside the building. She smiled at me. “Good morning, Ruby Nell,” she said, just like Mama except with what I later learned was a Boston accent. “Welcome. I’m your new teacher, Mrs. Henry.” She seemed nice, but I wasn’t sure how to feel about her. I’d never been taught by a white teacher before.

    Mrs. Henry took my mother and me to her second-floor classroom. All the desks were empty, and she asked me to choose a seat. I picked one up front, and Mrs. Henry started teaching me the letters of the alphabet.

    The next morning my mother told me she couldn’t go to school with me. She had to work and look after my brothers and sister. “The marshals will take good care of you, Ruby Nell,” Mama assured me. “Remember, if you get afraid, say your prayers. You can pray to God anytime, anywhere. He will always hear you.”

    That was how I started praying on the way to school. The things people yelled at me didn’t seem to touch me. Prayer was my protection. After walking up the steps past the angry crowd, though, I was glad to see Mrs. Henry. She gave me a hug, and she sat right by my side instead of at the big teacher’s desk in the front of the room. Day after day, it was just Mrs. Henry and me, working on my lessons.

    Militant segregationists, as the news called them, took to the streets in protest, and riots erupted all over the city. My parents shielded me as best they could, but I knew problems had come to our family because I was going to the white school. My father was fired from his job. The white owners of a grocery store told us not to shop there anymore. Even my grandparents in Mississippi suffered. The owner of the land they’d sharecropped for 25 years said everyone knew it was their granddaughter causing trouble in New Orleans and asked them to move.

    At the same time, there were a few white families who braved the protests and kept their children in school. But they weren’t in my class, so I didn’t see them. People from around the country who’d heard about me on the news sent letters and donations. A neighbor gave my father a job painting houses. Other folks babysat for us, watched our house to keep away troublemakers, even walked behind the marshals’ car on my way to school. My family couldn’t have made it without our friends’ and neighbors’ help.

    And me, I couldn’t have gotten through that year without Mrs. Henry. Sitting next to her in our classroom, just the two of us, I was able to forget the world outside. She made school fun. We did everything together. I couldn’t go out in the schoolyard for recess, so right in that room, we played games and for exercise did jumping jacks to music.

    I remember her explaining integration to me and why some people were against it. “It’s not easy for people to change once they’ve gotten used to living a certain way,” Mrs. Henry said. “Some of them don’t know any better, and they’re afraid. But not everyone is like that.”

    Even though I was only six, I understood what she meant. The people I passed every morning as I walked up the school steps were full of hate. They were white, yet so was my teacher, who couldn’t have been more different from them. She was one of the most loving people I’d ever known. The greatest lesson I learned that year in Mrs. Henry’s class was the lesson Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to teach us all. Never judge people by the color of their skin. God makes each of us unique in ways that go much deeper.

    From her window, Mrs. Henry always watched me walk into the school. One morning when I got to our classroom, she said she’d been surprised to see me talk to the mob. “I saw your lips moving,” she said, “but I couldn’t make out what you were saying to those people.”

    “I wasn’t talking to them,” I told her. “I was praying for them.” Usually, I prayed in the car on the way to school, but that day I’d forgotten until I was in the crowd. Please be with me, I’d asked God, and be with those people too. Forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing.

    “Ruby Nell, you are truly someone special,” Mrs. Henry whispered, giving me an even bigger hug than usual. She had this look on her face like my mother would get when I’d done something to make her proud.

    Another person who helped me was Dr. Robert Coles, a child psychiatrist who happened to see me being escorted through the crowd outside my school. Dr. Coles volunteered to work with me through this ordeal. Soon he was coming to our house every week to talk with me about how I was doing in school.

    Really, I was doing fine. I was always with people who wanted the best for me: my family, friends, and in school, my teacher. The more time I spent with Mrs. Henry, the more I grew to love her. I wanted to be like her. Soon, without realizing it, I had picked up her Boston accent.

    Neither of us missed a single day of school that year. The crowd outside dwindled to just a few protestors, and before I knew it, it was June. For me, first grade ended much more quietly than it began. I said good-bye to Mrs. Henry, fully expecting her to be my teacher again in the fall.

    But when I went back to school in September, everything was different. There were no marshals, no protestors. There were other kids—even some other black students—in my second-grade class. And Mrs. Henry was gone. I was devastated. Years later I found out she hadn’t been invited to return to William Frantz, and she and her husband had moved back to Boston. It was almost as if that first year of school integration had never happened. No one talked about it. everyone seemed to have put that difficult time behind them.

    After a while, I did the same. I finished grade school at William Frantz and graduated from an integrated high school. I went to business school and studied travel and tourism. For 15 years I worked as a travel agent. Eventually, I married and threw myself into raising four sons in the city I grew up in.

    I didn’t give much thought to the events of my childhood until my youngest brother died in 1993. For a time, I looked after his daughters. They happened to be students at William Frantz, and when I took them there every morning, I was literally walking into my past, into the same school that I’d helped to integrate years earlier.

    I began volunteering three days a week at William Frantz, working as a liaison between parents and the school. Still, I had the feeling God had brought me back in touch with my past for something beyond that. I struggled with it for a while. Finally, I got on my knees and prayed, Lord, whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing, you’ll have to show me.

    Not long after that, a reporter called the school. The psychiatrist Dr. Robert Coles had written a children’s book, The Story of Ruby Bridges; now everyone wanted to know what had happened to the little girl in the famous Norman Rockwell painting that had appeared in Look magazine. No one expected to find me back at William Frantz. Dr. Coles had often written about me, but this was the first book intended for children. To me, it was God’s way of keeping my story alive until I was able to tell it myself.

    One of the best parts of the story is that I was finally reunited with my favorite teacher, Barbara Henry. She reached me through the publisher of Dr. Coles’s book, and in 1995 we saw each other in person for the first time in more than three decades. The second she laid eyes on me, she cried, “Ruby Nell!” No one had called me that since I was a little girl. Then we were hugging each other, just like we used to every morning in first grade.

    I didn’t realize how much I had picked up from Mrs. Henry (I still have a hard time calling her anything else)—not only her Boston accent but her mannerisms too, such as how she tilts her head and gestures with her hands when she talks. She showed me a tiny, dog-eared photo of me with my front teeth missing that she’d kept all these years. “I used to look at that picture and wonder how you were,” she said. “I told my kids about you so often you were a part of my family.”

    We have stayed a part of each other’s lives ever since. It turns out that because of what I went through on the front lines of the battle for school integration, people recognize my name and are eager to hear what I have to say about racism and education today. I speak to groups around the country, and when I visit schools, Mrs. Henry often comes with me. We tell kids our story and talk about the lessons of the past and how we can still learn from them today especially that every child is a unique human being fashioned by God.

    I tell them another important thing I learned in first grade is that schools can be a place to bring people together kids of all races and backgrounds. That’s the work I focus on now, connecting our children through their schools. It’s my way of continuing what God set in motion all those years ago when he led me up the steps of William Frantz Public School and into a new world with my teacher, Mrs. Henry—the world that under his protection has reached far beyond just the two of us in that classroom.

  • Skunk on The Loose

    Skunk on The Loose

    “Skunk on The Loose” story wrote By Elizabeth Sherrill, Hingham, Massachusetts.

    It was a rustling in the woods that made me glance out the window beside my computer. At the edge of the trees, I caught sight of a skunk, his black-and-white pattern duplicating the dappled light. He seemed to be busy burrowing, maybe? My knowledge of skunks began and ended with their dreadful odor.

    The next moment, though, the animal emerged from beneath the trees and zigzagged across the lawn: plume-like tail, striped back and … where his head should have been, a bizarre-looking yellow helmet. As he came closer I saw what the “helmet” was: a plastic yogurt container.

    The cartoon struck a rock, and the creature whirled in another direction, only to bump up against our picnic table. For a second he stood still, shaking his head frantically. But the yogurt carton was wedged fast. The skunk charged blindly back into the woods.

    I stared at him in dismay. How long had he been running in darkness and terror?

    It would be the work of a second for me, I thought, to pull that thing off. But the idea of pursuing a skunk through the undergrowth kept me immobilized at the window. How would I ever catch him? And then what? Wouldn’t he spray me?

    I sat down and tried to pick up the thread of the story due in the mail that afternoon. But I could think only of an animal running till he dropped from exhaustion. Hadn’t this sort of thing happened before? Might animal experts know what to do?

    I dialed the local SPCA. “We only handle domestic animals,” the woman told me. “You want the Department of Wildlife.” She gave me a number in New Paltz, New York.

    By now the skunk was probably a long way off. Maybe someone else would see him. Someone braver and more athletic.

    I dialed the number in New Paltz. A man in the Department of Wildlife listened to my story, then held a muffled conversation. “If skunks can’t see you,” he said, “they don’t spray.”

    Well … that sounded all right, as long as the skunk’s head was inside the container. “What happens after the carton comes off?” I asked.

    “Make sure,” the man advised, “that he doesn’t feel threatened.”

    I wondered how one went about reassuring a terrified skunk.

    “You could throw a blanket over him,” the wildlife man suggested, “then run while he’s finding his way out.”

    “That might work,” I said, but I must have sounded as unsure as I felt because the man asked where I was calling from and began looking up names of conservation officers in my area.

    How long would it take, I wondered, for someone to get here? Where would the skunk be by then? I was gripped by a sudden strange urgency. I thanked the man, hung up and ran outside. Without stopping to change out of my next-to-best slacks, and forgetting about the blanket theory, I ran up our driveway to the road.

    Of course, the skunk wasn’t there. Nor did I know why I was. In his frenzy, when I had seen him last, the animal had been heading the opposite way, straight down the hill into the woods. But my feet never slowed. I turned left and dashed down the street as though rushing to a long-ordained appointment. I had run perhaps a hundred yards when a black-and-white streak emerged from the bushes beside the road and ran straight at me, the carton bumping the pavement with each step.

    I stopped and grabbed hold of the yogurt carton before the astonishment of finding the skunk hit me. The animal was tugging and twisting, unexpectedly strong, to get away. His front claws scrabbled against the slippery yellow plastic, his body strained backward, and still, he could not wrench free of the carton’s vise-like neck. It took both of my hands tugging the other way to hold on until a small black head suddenly popped free.

    And there we were, facing each other, two feet apart. I don’t know what he saw, and how threatening or not the apparition was, but what I saw was a sharp quivering nose, two small round ears, and alert black eyes that stared straight into mine.

    For fully 10 seconds we held each other’s gaze. Then the skunk turned, ran a few yards and vanished into a culvert that goes beneath the road. I stood there, looking after him. Three minutes could not have passed since I had hung up the telephone.

    But a timeless parable had played itself out, I thought as I headed back down the drive. The skunk was all those needs I hesitate to get involved in: Involvement takes time and I have deadlines to meet. I probably can’t do anything anyway. Somebody else can handle it better. Besides, involvement can be ugly, and the stench may rub off on me.

    And all these things, of course, may be true. But I’ve got a yellow pencil holder on my desk, a rather scratched and battered one, to remind me that every now and then God’s answer to a need is me.

  • The Last Tape

    The Last Tape

    “The Last Tape” Story wrote By Nan Pinkston, Stone Mountain, Georgia.

    The bustle of the hospital was a welcome distraction as I opened my new patient’s chart and headed for her room. My son, Eric, had just brought home a disappointing report card, and my daughter, Shannon, and I had argued again about her getting a driver’s license. For the next eight hours, I wanted to throw myself into helping people who I knew had much more to worry about than I did.

    Rebekah was only 32, admitted for chemotherapy after breast cancer surgery. When I entered her room it took me a moment to spot her amid the bouncing forms of three giggling little girls.

    I told Rebekah I would be her nurse and she introduced her husband, Warren; six-year-old Ruthie; four-year-old Hannah; and two-year-old Molly. Warren coaxed the girls away from their mother with a promise of ice cream and assured Rebekah they would return the next day.

    As I rubbed alcohol on her arm to prepare it for the intravenous line, Rebekah laughed nervously. “I have to tell you I’m terrified of needles.”

    “It’ll be over before you know it,” I said. “I’ll give you a count of three.”

    Rebekah shut her eyes tightly and murmured a prayer until it was over. Then she smiled and squeezed my hand. “Before you go, could you get my Bible from the table?” I handed her the worn book. “Do you have a favorite Bible verse?” she asked.

    “‘Jesus wept.’ John 11:35.”

    “Such a sad one,” she said. “Why?”

    “It makes me feel closer to Jesus, knowing he also experienced human sorrow.”

    Rebekah nodded thoughtfully and started flipping through her Bible as I shut the door quietly behind me.

    During the following months, I watched Rebekah struggle with the ravages of chemotherapy. Her hospital stays became frequent and she worried about her children. Meanwhile, I continued to contend with raising my own kids. They always seemed either out or holed up in their rooms. I missed the days when they were as attached to me as Rebekah’s little girls were to her.

    For a time, it had seemed Rebekah’s chemotherapy was working. Then doctors discovered another malignant lump. Two months later, a chest X-ray revealed cancer had spread to her lungs. It was terminal. Help me to help her through this, I prayed.

    One day when I entered her room, I found her talking into a tape recorder. She picked up a yellow legal pad and held it out to me. “I’m making a tape for my daughters,” she said.

    I read the list on her pad: starting school, confirmation, turning 16, first date, graduation. While I worried how to help her deal with death, she was planning for her children’s future.

    She usually waited until the early hours of the morning to record the tapes so she could be free from interruptions. She filled them with family stories and advice trying to cram a lifetime of love into a few precious hours. Finally, every item in her notes had been checked off and she entrusted the tapes to her husband.

    I often wondered what I would say in her place. My kids joked that I was an FBI agent, with my constant questions about where they’d been and who they’d been with. Where, I thought, are my words of encouragement and love?

    It was three o’clock one afternoon when I got an urgent call from the hospital. Rebekah wanted me to come immediately with a blank tape. What topic has she forgotten? I wondered.

    She was flushed and breathing hard when I entered her room. I slipped the tape into the recorder and held the microphone to her lips. “Ruthie, Hannah, Molly this is the most important tape.” She held my hand and closed her eyes. “Someday your daddy will bring home a new mommy. Please make her feel special. Show her how to take care of you. Ruthie, honey, help her get your Brownie uniform ready each Tuesday. Hannah, tell her you don’t want meat sauce on your spaghetti. She won’t know you like it separate. Molly, don’t get mad if there’s no apple juice. Drink something else. It’s okay to be sad, sweeties. Jesus cried too. He knows about sadness and will help you to be happy again. Remember, I’ll always love you.”

    I shut off the recorder and Rebekah sighed deeply. “Thank you, Nan,” she said with a weak smile. “you’ll give this one to them, won’t you?” she murmured, sliding into sleep.

    A time would come when the tape would be played for her children, but right then, after I smoothed Rebekah’s blanket, I got in my car and hurried home. I thought of how my Shannon also liked her sauce on the side and suddenly that quirk, which had annoyed me so many times, seemed to make her so much more precious. That night the kids didn’t go out; they sat with me long after the spaghetti sauce had dried onto the dishes. And we talked without interrogations, without complaints late into the night.

  • Grandma and The Paper Girl

    Grandma and The Paper Girl

    “Grandma and The Paper Girl” Story wrote By Ella Duquette, Syracuse, New York.

    I squinted against the afternoon sunshine, looking out the window for the paperboy. Ever since a stroke had weakened my legs I hadn’t been able to get around so well. I depended on the paper to keep me up to date with the world from which I often felt disconnected. When the paper came late, I got edgy. Finally, I saw someone coming down the street. A girl, no more than 10 or 11 years old, hurled a rolled-up newspaper toward my screen door. It landed with a thud.

    “Just a minute,” I called out the window. “where’s the usual carrier?”

    “I’m the carrier now, lady,” she said, hands on her hips.

    “Well, the old one used to bring the paper into me.”

    “Oh, yeah? well, I can do that.” She came in and plopped the paper onto my lap. I got a better look at her. Frayed shorts and a cropped top and it wasn’t even summered yet. She tossed back her shoulder-length red hair and blew a huge pink bubble.

    “I hate bubble gum,” I said.

    “Tough beans,” she said.

    I gasped. This snippy little thing needed to be taught some manners.

    “The children around here call me Mrs. Lee, after my late husband.”

    “Well, you can call me Kristin,” she said with a sassy tilt of her head, then bounded down the steps.

    Just what I need, I thought. nothing was easy anymore. Simple tasks like dusting and doing laundry were an ordeal these days. And baking, which I used to love, was far too much trouble. My husband, Lee, and most of my friends had passed on. Lately, I had found myself wondering why the Lord had left me behind. It was clear to me, anyway, that if young people today all acted like that smart-alecky paper girl, I had been too long in this world.

    Kristin’s attitude didn’t much improve over the following weeks. Still, I had to admit she never missed a day or forgot to bring the paper inside to me. She even took to sharing some small talk when she stopped by. She came in from a wicked rainstorm once and pulled the paper out from under her coat.

    “H of a day, huh, Gram?” she said, handing me the paper.

    I could feel the muscles in my jaw tense. “Do you talk like that just to shock me?” I asked. “And I’m not your grandmother.”

    “I just talk to all my friends.”

    “Not in this house, you don’t,” I shot back. “In my day you’d have your mouth washed out with soap.”

    She laughed. “you’d have some fight on your hands if you tried it, Gram,” she said.

    I threw up my hands. Why do I even bother with you? I wondered as she strutted down the street.

    But she started coming by after her paper route and other times as well, chitchatting happily about school, her friends. Each time she left it was as if a radio had been turned off. One day a bundle of newspapers slipped from her hands onto the floor and she uttered a dirty word. Instantly she clapped a hand over her mouth and said, “Oops! Sorry, Gram.”

    Well, she’s learned something, I thought, smiling secretly.

    I dug out some of my old photographs and outfits, thinking she might like to see them. She never tired of my stories of growing up on a farm, how we had raised our own food and washed our clothes by hand. All this girl needs is some pushing, I thought. Why else would she keep coming back when I was always fussing at her over her clothes or talk? God, is that why you’re keeping me around for Kristin?

    She showed me her report card when I asked one afternoon.

    “This is awful,” I said.

    “I do better than lots of kids,” she snapped.

    “You’re not ‘lots of kids.’ Have a little pride in yourself.”

    “Oh, Gram, you make such a big deal out of things,” she said. But I kept after her about her grades.

    A short time later Kristin gave up her paper route and shifted her visits to after school. I didn’t ask why she kept coming to see me because—though I wouldn’t have been caught dead admitting it her visits had become the highlight of my days.

    Once she told me, giggling, about some of her friends who had been shoplifting.

    “That’s nothing to laugh about, young lady,” I said. “Shoplifting is stealing, plain and simple.”

    “Well, I didn’t do it.”

    “All the same, you could be guilty by association. Your reputation goes with you all your life, you know.”

    “Oh, Gram, stop preaching.”

    “If you don’t like it, there’s the door,” I declared. But she didn’t leave. In fact, we spent more time together. Still, we had our moments. Like when she baked a cake, then sank down on a chair without laying a finger to the mound of dishes.

    “Come back here and clean up after yourself,” I ordered.

    “No way. I’m not putting my hands in that sink. It’s gross.” She had just polished her nails a ghastly purple.

    “Tough beans!” I blurted. She laughed. Mercy, I thought. Now I’m starting to talk like her. But she did the dishes that day and many another. I taught her how to bake fresh bread and my famous apple pie. It was wonderful to smell those familiar smells coming from the kitchen again.

    One Sunday Kristin stopped by. “You didn’t go to church dressed like that, did you?” I asked. She glanced at her shorts and t-shirt. “All the kids dress like this.”

    “I’ve told you before, Kristin, you’re not ‘all the kids.’”

    “Well, I suppose you think I should wear one of your old outfits, complete with hat and long white gloves!” she flounced out the door, only to come back a moment later. “I’m sorry, Gram,” she said, giving me a quick hug. “Forgive me?”

    How could I not? Making up with her seemed as natural as making up with one of my own daughters after a fight. Gradually, Kristin started dusting and cleaning up around the house, without the slightest hint from me. She even did my laundry. It chafed at my pride to let her do things I had done for myself all my life—but she was insistent. And this was the same girl who just a short while earlier wouldn’t put her hands in a sink of dirty dishes!

    “How about I set your hair?” she asked one day. “My mom taught me.”

    This was too much. “I’m not so old and helpless that I can’t take care of myself.”

    “Oh, don’t be so stubborn. Come on, Gram,” she wheedled. For the first time, that nickname didn’t annoy me. I gave in, and she proceeded to work several different lathery formulas into my short locks, not letting me look in a mirror until she was done. I had visions of my hair dyed the same awful purple as her fingernails. I was amazed to find it soft, shiny, and still blond. “You’re good at this,” I said, and Kristin beamed.

    I was even more impressed when, shortly after graduating from eighth grade, Kristin brought me a scrapbook filled with certificates of academic achievement.

    “See, I told you-your wasn’t like everybody,” I said, hugging her. “You’re special.” It was wonderful to see she valued my approval. But the best part was seeing she was pleased with herself.

    I still didn’t think much of her study habits. She insisted on keeping the television on when she did homework. I couldn’t fathom how she could concentrate with all that racket.

    But then there was a lot I couldn’t fathom about Kristin’s world. “Gram, do you know there are eight girls pregnant in the freshman class?” she told me. I gasped. “And that’s nothing,” she continued. “In some schools, they have police guards and metal detectors and just about everybody smokes, drinks and takes drugs.”

    I shuddered. It’s so different nowadays, Lord. How can I help her deal with all these things I know nothing about? Then I thought of how far Kristin had already come, and I knew the best thing I could do was to keep being there for her, as she always was for me.

    One evening Kristin brought over a cake mix. “I’m going to bake us a super-duper double-chocolate cake, Gram,” she announced.

    “No way,” I said. “Shortcuts won’t make a cake as good as from scratch.”

    “Oh, come on, Gram. it’s easier this way.”

    “Don’t ‘oh, Gram’ me, young lady. Easier isn’t always better and in this house” She broke into laughter the laughter I had come to know so well and in a moment, I joined in.

    Kristin shook her head and took my hand. “I don’t know what it is, Gram,” she said. “We hardly ever agree on anything and you make me so mad sometimes. But I always come back. I guess I must love you.”

    Who would have known that when I looked out the window for the paper carrier that afternoon five years ago I would end up finding my best friend?

  • A House for Katherine Red Feather

    A House for Katherine Red Feather

    “A House for Katherine Red Feather” story wrote By Robert Young, Bozeman, Montana

    Ten years ago, if you told me I’d give up the business I spent my life putting together to go build houses on Indian reservations instead, I’d have said you were nuts. the Seattle-based loungewear company I started with a partner was cranking out a profit. At 33, I had just married my longtime sweetheart, Anita. I wanted to slow down, have a family, savor life and the rewards of success.

    Then I saw that headline.

    I was in New Mexico on business and picked up a local paper called Indian Country. There it was on the front page, like an epitaph: “Elders Freeze to Death.” How could such a thing happen here in America, the richest country in the world? I tore out the article and stuck it in my pocket.

    That night in my hotel room, meetings done, I read the story again. it seemed so tragic. Somebody the government, the tribal council would no doubt do something to make sure it did not happen again. Still, I tucked the clipping into my briefcase instead of throwing it away. Why I had no idea.

    Two weeks later, another business trip. Another headline staring at me from the local paper. “Taos Woman Starts Adopt-A-Grandparent Program for Aging Native Americans.” According to the article, on reservations across the country, thousands of elderly native Americans struggled not just to make ends meet but simply to stay alive. At the end of the piece, there was a number of people interested in volunteering to call. I didn’t stop to think. I just picked up the phone and dialed.

    Soon I was matched with a “grandparent” Katherine Red Feather, of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation. I dropped her a note introducing myself. “I am 78 years old,” Katherine wrote back, “and blessed with thirteen children and seven grandchildren. I am so happy to learn I now have another grandchild! Do you have a wife and children of your own? I hope so, as they are one of the most wonderful gifts the Great Spirit can give a person in this life.”

    I told her about Anita, and how she was indeed a godsend. Then I asked Katherine if there was anything I could send her. “Yes,” she wrote. “If it’s not too much trouble, I would very much appreciate a bottle of shampoo and some aspirin. Thank you for your generosity, Grandson.”

    Grandson … Katherine was really taking this program seriously. But shampoo? Aspirin? Why wouldn’t she have such basic items? I decided to visit the reservation after my next business trip and look in on Katherine.

    Pine Ridge Reservation encompasses the two poorest counties in the United States. So the letter from the Adopt-A-Grandparent program had informed me. But I was not prepared for the reality of that poverty. Rutted dirt roads, dilapidated shacks, rusted-out automobiles with entire families living in them…. The dwellings I passed wouldn’t keep a person warm on a chilly fall night like this. In the Dakota winter, temperatures sometimes plunged to 60 degrees below zero. How could people freeze to death on a reservation? The answer was right before my eyes.

    Katherine’s “house” was a small, busted-up trailer pushed against the body of an old school bus. The trailer door opened and a delicate-looking woman wearing slacks and a simple patterned sweater emerged.

    “Grandson! Come in out of the cold.”

    The trailer was dark and barely big enough to turn around in, but the three people sitting by the wood stove stood when Katherine led me inside. “This is Robert,” she announced. “My new grandson. Robert, these are my children. They are your family now too.”

    Katherine must have seen my confusion. “The Great Spirit has chosen you to be a part of my life,” she told me. “We are one family in his eyes.” We sat down to a simple meal of white bread and beans heated on a propane stove.

    There was no running water, so Katherine needed to carry it from a well out back. it was next to an outhouse with a black flag flying overhead. “To scare away the rattlesnakes,” she explained. “They think it’s a hawk.” Katherine took such pains to make me feel at home that it was only at the end of my visit two days later that I could bring myself to ask her, “Isn’t it hard for you to have to fetch wood and water every day?”

    Katherine took my hands in hers. “I know how my life must look to you, Grandson, but all of us here live this way. I’m no different than anyone else.”

    I couldn’t stop thinking about Katherine once I got home to Seattle. The days grew shorter and colder. I looked out the window of my cozy apartment and imagined my new grandmother in that tiny trailer, huddled over her smoky little stove.

    “She needs to be in a place that will keep her warm,” I told Anita one night. “A place where the wind doesn’t blow through the chinks in the walls. Katherine needs a real house.”

    A real house. The moment those words left my lips, I knew what I had to do. At the end of that summer, I took two weeks off and went back to Pine Ridge. Anita and a handful of friends came with me. We were going to build Katherine a house. None of us had built so much as a doghouse before, but I figured that with a simple floor plan and plenty of enthusiasm, we could get the job done.

    Word got around the reservation. Dozens of Katherine’s neighbors and family members pitched in. Toward the end we worked round the clock, my car headlights trained on the site. Finally, the last nail was driven. Katherine’s tribal chairman said a prayer of thanks, and there was a big celebration. It was the first time Katherine had all her relatives together since the Red Feather clan had been divided and made to live on two different reservations years back. She welcomed them all into her house, her eyes brimming with tears of joy.

    Anita squeezed my hand, and I knew what we had done here was bigger than anything I could ever hope to achieve with my business. At last, I understood what Katherine meant about all of us being one family.

    Back in Seattle, I tried to concentrate on my work. Katherine would be safe and warm this winter. But what about all the neighbors who’d pitched in to build Katherine’s house, only to go home to ramshackle trailers? America has about two million tribal members, and some 300,000 of them are without proper homes. What about all those people?

    Building frame houses like we had done for Katherine was impossible. Too expensive and labor-intensive. I had to come up with a design that was warm, inexpensive and easy to build. A little research and I came across straw bale houses. Built from blocks of straw covered with stucco, they’re ideal for reservations. The straw is plentiful on the Great Plains and provides extremely effective insulation.

    Getting straw bale houses built on a large scale, though, would take the organization. A huge investment of time and energy. Time and energy I wouldn’t have if I kept my day job. I sold my half of the business and started a new venture, the Red Feather Development Group, to help native Americans get decent housing. Eventually, Anita and I moved to Bozeman, Montana, in the vicinity of half a dozen reservations.

    To think, none of this would have happened if I hadn’t seen those headlines 10 years ago. Even then I’d known someone would look after elders like my grandmother Katherine. I just never expected that person to be me. But that is how the Great Spirit works.

  • "Helped" A Dog Named Cheeseburger

    “Helped” A Dog Named Cheeseburger

    An inspiring story about a homeless man, his dog named Cheeseburger and how they helped one woman on a hot August day. The Story Wrote By Marion Bond West, Watkinsville, Georgia.

    “I couldn’t put my finger on why, exactly, but I had been feeling far away from God lately like he wasn’t really hearing me. A case of the spiritual blues, I guess. The sweltering heat didn’t help August here in Georgia can get pretty unbearable. It was 100 degrees today, and really sticky. I turned up the air conditioner in my car full blast, ready to head home from my errands. That’s when I saw the dog.

    He lay on top of a lumpy Army-green duffel bag right on the walk outside Applebee’s restaurant. No shade. Sleeping, or at least I hoped he was. Why he could be dead in this heat! I pulled in and found a parking spot. Then I hurried over to the dog. I bent down. “Hi, fella. You thirsty?”

    I love dogs and they like me. But this one he was medium-sized, black, graying around the muzzle opened one eye, then shut it and turned his head away from me. Deliberately. His tail didn’t budge.

    He had a collar, and by the way, he was guarding the duffel bag, I figured he was waiting for his owner, who was no doubt sitting inside the restaurant in air-conditioned comfort!

    I stormed into Applebee’s, ready to do battle. Right away, I spotted the owner. He sat alone at the counter, a tall glass of iced tea in front of him. Longish wavy blond hair and a goatee. Thin, like he didn’t always get enough to eat. He was wearing jeans that had seen better days, but they were clean, though his hands had what could have been faint paint stains. He seemed to sense me coming and turned on the stool to face me.

    “That your dog?” I demanded.

    “Yes, ma’am, he is.”

    “He’s in the sun and has no water. I imagine he’s hungry too.” I must have raised my voice because some people stared at me. “Dogs like me, but he wouldn’t even open both eyes when I spoke to him.”

    The man broke into a slow, easy grin. he slid off the stool. “That’s because he hasn’t been properly introduced to you. Come on. I’ll do the honors.”

    Introduced? I followed him outside.

    He squatted down next to the dog, who sat up and fastened his eyes onto his owner. His tail came alive.

    “Ma’am, I don’t know your name.”

    “Marion.” I bent close to them.

    “Marion, I’d like you to meet Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger, this nice lady is Marion.” The dog looked right into my eyes and offered a paw.

    I took it. “Hi, Cheeseburger,” I said.

    He licked my hand and his tail shifted into high gear.

    “And I’m Johnny,” the man said.

    “Johnny, I’m afraid he’s thirsty.”

    “Oh, he’s okay,” he said. “this spot was shady when I left him here just a few minutes ago.” Johnny picked up his duffel bag. “We’ve been together for nine years. See, his collar has my cell phone number on it, and he’s been vaccinated.” Johnny moved his bag beneath a Japanese maple tree and Cheeseburger settled down there beside it, in the shade.

    “How far do you live from here?” I asked.

    “Not far,” he said. “Back in those woods across the street. We have a good tent.”

    “But couldn’t you go to a shelter?”

    “They won’t take Cheeseburger, and I don’t go anywhere without him,” he said. Each time he said Cheeseburger, the dog’s tail flopped back and forth joyfully.

    “Johnny, I’m not going to be able to drive off without getting Cheeseburger some food and water,” I said. “It’s not you. It’s just, well, I have this thing about dogs…”

    “Okeydoke, if it’ll make you happy,” he said. “I’m going back in now and finish up my drink. It was nice to meet you, Marion.”

    I zipped into Walgreen’s and came back with a bowl, a big bottle of cold water, a small sack of dog food and a bone. Then I went in and fetched Johnny from the restaurant. “I thought you should be with me when I give the food and water to Cheeseburger,” I told him.

    “Okeydoke,” he said. Cheeseburger stood as Johnny and I approached. I set the food down and he nibbled at it mostly to be polite, I think. He did lap up quite a lot of water.

    “I guess he was thirsty,” Johnny said. “Thanks. I’m not going to start giving him bottled water, but don’t worry, I take really good care of him.”

    “And who takes care of you?” The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them, and I knew they sounded sharper than I intended.

    Johnny didn’t seem to mind. “Here’s the way it works,” he said gently. “Every morning me and Cheeseburger step out of our tent and look up at the sky. And I say, ‘Lord, we belong to you. We trust you. Take care of us another day. Thank you.’ And then at night when we lie down to sleep, I look out at the stars and say, ‘We still trust you, God.’” He smiled again—that slow, easy grin.

    I smiled back. there was just something about his eyes I liked. “Maybe I’ll see you and Cheeseburger again sometimes,” I said.

    “Okeydoke. I and Cheeseburger come here or head over to McDonald’s most mornings. Then we walk down toward the post office. I’m a painter by trade, hoping to find some work.”

    There was a genuine peace about Johnny, even in the face of my unkind accusations.

    I fished around in my purse and found a twenty. “Could I give you this?” I asked hesitantly, not certain how to go about it.

    He didn’t reach for the bill, just kept looking at me with that contented expression. “You don’t have to. We’re doing pretty good.”

    “I’d like to. Very much.”

    “Then I thank you, Marion. God bless you.”

    I got back in my car and turned on the air conditioner. At the red light, I leaned forward and gazed up into the blue cloudless sky. “Lord, I belong to you. I trust you. Take care of me today. Thank you.”

    The light changed. I pulled out onto the highway, feeling refreshed, not so much by the cool air but by an unmistakable peace, the same peace I had seen in Johnny’s eyes.”

  • Annie’s Soldier

    Annie’s Soldier

    Annies Soldier

    Annies Soldier, written By Elizabeth Hassee, Greenwood, Indiana.

    “Mom!” my 10-year-old daughter, Annie, shouted as she burst through the front door after school that falls afternoon. “I just got a letter from a soldier!”

    Annie’s teacher had given them a project: Write a letter to a U.S. serviceman or woman in Iraq. Annie had worked hard on a big picture of a red, white and blue cat. On the bottom of the page she’d written, “Be safe, and thank you.”

    I’d cautioned Annie not to get her hopes up too much. “There are a lot of soldiers over there,” I told her. “And they’re very busy. I’m sure they’ll appreciate hearing from you, but you might not get an answer from them.”

    “That’s okay, Mom,” Annie had said. “It was fun making the picture.”

    Now Annie pulled the letter from her schoolbag and read it to me.

    Hi, my name is Scott Montgomery. I am a sergeant in the South Carolina Army National Guard currently stationed in Kuwait. Two weeks ago in Iraq, on a mission just north of Baghdad, my truck was hit by a bomb. A piece of shrapnel struck me in the arm and I had to be rushed to the hospital. I had two operations and was feeling pretty sad. While I was recuperating, someone gave me an envelope addressed to a U.S. soldier. I found a beautiful handmade card from you. It brought a big smile to my face to know that a young girl in Indiana took the time to wish good luck to someone she doesn’t even know. Thank you, Annie. You really brightened this soldier’s day. I hope you get a chance to write back. Take care, Scott.

    “That is so cool!” Annie said. She raced upstairs to show the letter to her sisters, while the words she’d just read echoed in my head. Kuwait. Baghdad. Trucks. Bombs. Shrapnel. The kinds of words I read every day in the paper, along with another one: Casualties. I instantly liked the young man who had been thoughtful enough to write back to Annie to make her feel so special. But to be honest, I was worried. My daughter was a sweet little fourth grader. Her world was small and, I hoped, protected. Scott was a man in the middle of a war where people were getting maimed and killed. A conflict that adults argued about every day…on TV, the radio, even in our own church parking lot. The ugly realities of war were nearly everywhere. Did I really need to expose my 10-year-old to them? Wouldn’t the world find her soon enough?

    “She’s going to grow up fast enough as it is,” I said to my husband, Jim, that night. “War is the most horrible thing in the world. Does she have to learn about it now, when she doesn’t even know that Santa’s not real?”

    “Look,” said Jim. “We’re the ones who taught the girls that we need to support the troops over there. Annie’s just putting that idea into action. She can learn from this. It is scary, true. But you’re never too young to do the right thing.”

    The next day after school, Annie showed me a letter she’d written to Scott. It was short, but I could see the work she’d put into it in every carefully lettered word. Dear Scott, I’m in fourth grade. I’m in gymnastics twelve hours a week. I like Sponge Bob and using my dad’s computer to play office. Annie. “That’s nice,” I told her, and she sent the letter off.

    Starting almost immediately, the first thing Annie did when she got home from school or gymnastics class was to check the mailbox. Three weeks passed. I figured Scott wasn’t going to write back.

    “Don’t feel bad,” I told Annie one afternoon following another fruitless check of the mailbox. “Scott’s a soldier. He’s got all kinds of things to think about over there. Writing you a letter right now might not be so easy for him.”

    “I know, Mom,” Annie said, her voice upbeat as usual. “But I can still think he’s going to write back. I can hope.”

    A month flew by and I hoped Annie had moved on. Then one day a package with a military return address showed up. Inside was a bracelet made of rope, a small stuffed camel and another handwritten note from Scott. Every guy in my unit wears a bracelet like the one enclosed, it read. Annie immediately wrapped it around her tiny wrist; it was a perfect fit. She went to bed that night with it on, and the camel tucked in beside her. I peeked in on her later. Her face, bathed in the soft pink glow of her half-moon nightlight, was peaceful almost beyond imagining, so opposite of the way our world was now. How would she react if Scott or someone in his unit got hurt or worse? I went to bed more worried than ever.

    “Christmas is only a month away,” Annie said the next morning at breakfast. “Let’s send Scott a holiday goodie package. We can put cookies in it. The frosted cut-out kind. And Chex Mix. You can’t have Christmas without Chex Mix.”

    Christmas in Iraq. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it. Broiling heat. constant danger. And homesickness. I opened my eyes and saw Annie staring at me, a big, eager grin on her face. I looked at that innocent, completely trusting face, and decided I had to say something more than I had so far. “War isn’t nice, honey. This isn’t just another fun school project. It’s real. And dangerous. I want you to know that.”

    Annie fixed me with one of those looks she gives me from time to time. A look that basically says: “Mom, how can you be so dumb? “I know, Mom,” she said. “And that’s why I wanted to write the letter! That’s why I put Scott and the soldiers in my prayers every night.”

    Now I was the one being naive. I should have known Annie had thought this through, and that there was no hiding the world from her. And certainly, there was no holding back her prayers. And how could she pray if she didn’t know what she was praying for?

    “Christmas in Kuwait!” I said to Annie. “We should put some practical things in the package too. Things he can use every day, like gum and lip balm. He can’t drive down to Target like we can.”

    Annie nodded vigorously as if this fact had already occurred to her.

    By the time we’d gotten everything packed into Scott’s holiday package and sent it off, I was as excited for him to get it as Annie was. That night I added Annie’s soldier to my own prayers. Lord, I guess Scott’s a part of our family now. Please keep him safe.

    The holidays came and went. No word from Scott. I kept my eye on the mailbox. I was as bad as Annie. Worse, probably. Finally, a box arrived—a big box. inside was an American flag. With a mix of awe and excitement, Annie and I spread it across the dining room table. It was covered with written messages from everyone in Scott’s unit, like a page from a high school yearbook.

    Dear Annie, Scott’s letter read, We flew this American flag in Iraq and Kuwait. As you can see, all the soldiers on my team have signed it for you. They know all about you, and it is our way of saying thank you for your support. You aren’t really supposed to write on the flag, but we made an exception. I hope you like it. Take care. God bless. Scott. I turned my head away. Wars make us cry for the right reasons too.

    That spring, Annie developed an injury to her back due to gymnastics class. Her flexibility caused her to develop a hairline crack on one of her vertebra. This meant limited activities for her, and she needed to wear a back brace for several months. She told Scott all about it in a letter. Dear Scott, I had to quit gymnastics. I hurt my back. I have a brace that I wear, and I have to do therapy. Ugh!

    Scott wrote back—in an envelope covered with some of the SpongeBob stickers Annie had sent him. Dear Annie, How are you doing? Is your back still bothering you? I hope by now it is all better. Take it easy and be patient. I know you’re upset about not being able to do gymnastics right now. Try not to get too upset. Remember, God has a plan in mind for you. When I got wounded back in October, I was pretty upset about it. I wondered why that happened to me. I now know that it happened so I could get your letter and we could become friends. Your friend, Scott.

    “See, Mom?” Annie whispered after we read the letter. “It’s all part of God’s plan.” I couldn’t say anything. I pulled her close to me, kissed the top of her head and breathed in her little girl smell. Sometimes moms forget that there are even bigger plans than their own, and how fast children grow up.

    In the fall of 2005, Annie’s friend sergeant Scott Montgomery came home to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to resume duty as a police patrolman the job he had held before shipping out to Iraq. He invited our family down in February 2006 to meet him face to face. We decided to meet Scott and his fiancée down at the beach.

    Annie hesitated at first, feeling a little shy, then threw her arms around Scott like she’d known him her whole life. So did I. It was so good to see him and see that all his wounds were healed. We had dinner with Scott and his fiancée. Scott had arranged for us to attend a tribute to our Armed Forces at the Alabama theater the next day.

    He greeted us at the auditorium and showed us to our seats. “Just to let you know,” he whispered in my ear, “I have a little surprise to give to Annie, so I’ll be asking her to step up to the stage with me when the time comes.”

    When the announcer called Scott up, he walked nervously to the stage. After the applause, Scott called to Annie, “Annie, get up here. I’m not doing this by myself.” “This young lady was always there for me when I was in Iraq,” he told the audience. “She deserves to share this award.” The room broke into applause as Scott handed a plaque and a bronze eagle to Annie. Someone snapped a picture. “Annie, while we’re up here,” Scott continued, “there’s one more thing I’d like to give you.” Scott reached into his pocket and pulled something out: his Purple Heart, the award wounded soldiers are given by their country. Annie’s eyes widened as Scott pinned his Purple Heart on her jacket. The whole house erupted in applause. Scott’s fiancée gave me a hug.

    Annie made her way back to her seat, the plaque and eagle in her hands, the medal pinned proudly to her, and an impossibly huge grin on her face. “Mom, can you believe how cool this is?” she said.

    “It’s pretty cool all right,” I said, putting my arms around my daughter. “And so are you.”…..End!