Memorial

A few days ago, I was startled out of my afternoon nap by a phone call from my high school friend, Jessica. We chit-chatted a while, and then she told me what had obviously served as a catalyst for her call.

"I'm reading the paper and they have an article about your mom."

"Oh..."

"Your church is starting that prayer garden, you know? And they built a huge memorial 'in dedication to former member Debra Hartmann.'"

At this point, tears began welling in my eyes. I was touched by the actions of my former congregation, but also hurt that I had to learn about the dedication from a friend who happened to be reading the paper. I still don't even know if the memorial has been built or if the dedication has already taken place. Why hadn't the church contacted me or my grandparents? Had they just told my step-father, and if so, how come he didn't inform me?

Families are complicated on their own; before, I had birth-father and step-family issues to worry about. Now, I have legal guardians, separation of estate, and Social Security checks thrown into the mix. In short, it's been a tumultuous year-and-a-half. Unfortunately, my mother's death has torn our family apart rather than made us stronger.

I'm glad that people on the outside haven't been affected by the legality that comes along with death. My friends, my congregation still remember my mother with no cynicism, no angst, no hurt in their hearts; just love. I sincerely hope that people will stand before this memorial and wonder about and remember the life that my mother led.

Yesterday, I sat at the kitchen table at my now home in Bellevue--my grandparents' house, where my mother grew up--browsing through old photos while my grandma fiddled over the stove. There were pictures I had never seen before: pictures that my mom took of me playing with geese when I was five, pictures of us dressed up for my second Halloween, pictures of her graduating college, pictures of her bald after radiation, pictures of her pregnant with me. I shut the box before tears ruined my makeup.

Someday, I hope I have the courage to go back to Seward and visit her memorial and remember her, remember how much she loved me, and cry.



The Garden: 9 Sept 2006

"its a garden"
i keep telling myself over and over
as i travel up the walk
click clack, click clack
and step around torn up bricks
from my fathers reconstruction.

thats not right.

her garden wouldnt permit high heels,
it wouldnt involve machinery and pattern.
itd be a place of barefeet
and dresses and dirt and smiles
and tea parties neath the trees.
the vegetables, the white picket fences
the roses, the cracks in the sidewalk,
those things made it so personal.
so iconically her.

hes taking her away piece by piece
and soon it will be something entirely different all together.
hes digging her up
and throwing her away.
the soil, the grass, the ornaments,
the flowers.

god, the flowers.

they came and went and came and went for weeks,
all staged in their little baskets
mimicking her work.
the most expensive floral arrangement couldnt compare
to her design.
nothing could look that alive.

but now its dead.

shes not there reinventing or
away spending a fortune on new finds,
shes gone.
the butterflies dont dance like they used to
and the pathways many twists and turns
dont hold the same sense of mystery.
its so much smaller with out her.

the day of the funeral,
there wasnt room in the church
for all the arrangments that had been sent,
substitute sympathies,
but there was room for that garden.
it went underground that day.
swallowed up by that which it was born from.

the only time ive ever seen something
that comes close to paralleling her legacy
was when i went to the cemetery.
i was literally forced out of the car
by my rough-and-tumble southern aunt.
i could tell which plot was hers from the enterance gate.

freshly packed.
still unmarked.

as i got closer, i saw that, in this rectangle
danced fairies and flowers in beautiful colors.
a tiny cariacature of her garden.
it made me dizzy.
things kept bombarding me.
talks and colors and stones and bridges
and plans.
all of the sudden everything just seemed to big.
i cried, i left.

i havent gone back.

everything here is greyer and older.
no matter how many bricks my dad lays,
or how many moss rosses my grandma plants to fill the gaps,
or how many times someone akwardly says
"your mother's garden is always so beautiful,"
its changed.

flowers do not have soul, people do.
flowers can come back every year, people can not.
shes not here or away,
shes gone.

its no longer her garden,
its my fathers yard.

This Is Not An Assignment

I don’t know why I do it; ever since I was five I’ve been preaching to other people about not doing it. I think it’s the smell. I love the smell on clothes, on fingers. I like the taste once it’s lingered in my mouth a bit. The taste is what takes me back: to steamed windshields, to Sunday mornings with the blinds open, the feeling of your tongue and your fingers wrapped around my own.

I don’t know who I am anymore, really. I don’t know what I am doing here, what I want to be. I can’t help feeling like I have settled, or help feeling that I’ve settled because of you. It kills me that we had a plan and now we are in the same city but we are more distant than ever. Tuesday would have been our one-year; instead I’m alone and lost. I made the mistake of letting us define me.

They—that anonymous, collective “they”—say that “you find yourself in college.” I liked who I was. I don’t want to find something new, something worse than what I began with. But despite not wanting it, I’m here—unsure if every move I make is done to please me, or the people around me.

A cigarette bummed from a friend warms me while I sit out in the cold. Soon, I will be tucked in, eyes closed, mind calmed, while others run about wildly, stumbling into each other in the dark. I, on the other hand, will be asleep, with my just my smoke-scented fingers resting gently next to my face on the pillow.

As we get older the urge we have to be accepted seems to calm itself. But think back a few years; growing up, it means a lot to be cool. When you were in middle school you had to be cool, whether that meant dressing like your favorite TV star, playing with the popular kids at recess, disrespecting your teacher, or ridiculing those who were less cool than you.

I was never the ridiculer, always the ridiculed. I suppose with my fleece vests, round face, round glasses, and bowl-cut I was a pretty easy target. Nevertheless, I tried my hardest, always inviting the few most popular girls to my sleepovers, hanging on desperately when my best friend began to join their clique.

I suppose it was with those memories and that sentiment that I trudged down the slick cement stairs outside Mickle Middle School, umbrella in hand and jacket buttoned against the wind, to Portable 8 this morning. Fuck middle school. Fuck middle school-ers. Did I really want to revisit the days of being a hormonal, chubby, book-worm, outcast from my fellow classmates?

I stepped into the classroom greeted by the sounds of an elderly teacher (my mentor!) barking “John how many do you have? Four take away three is not two, seriously!” The students were packing up their Trapper Keepers, this was not my group. A few minutes passed and new students trickled in, their clothes speckled with raindrops.

Once we had all been introduced, I began seeing myself in some of the students, my old classmates in others. Alexa Who-Loves-Books may as well be the seventh-grade version of me. Liz Who-Likes-The-Color-Purple reminded me of the few middle school bad asses we had, head-to-toe black garb and all. Andy Who-Skates had the same apathy of the boy I played footsie with in eighth-grade Health. Thomas Who-Doesn’t-Go-A-Day-Without-Playing-Video-Games was a spitting image of the kid who pooped his pants in the sixth-grade.

From an outsider’s perspective, these are the kids that make a real impression. I can’t tell the rest of the Jaydens from the Jaylas from the Kaylees and Kyles.

I want to scream to them: “It doesn’t matter if you have your nose in a book or a funny hair cut, if you laugh when the class is silent or have a crush on another boy in your Cub Scout group, someday kids, standing out instead of fitting in will pay off! Don’t wait to establish yourselves later; the sooner you figure out what you stand for, the easier life will be for you. Please don’t waste your time being cool!”

Why are so many people following the same routine day in and day out; leading shallow, selfish lives that are satisfactory at best? What makes a life better; more fulfilling?

Ultimately, things that the Foundation For a Better Life names (things like courage, ambition, hope, achievement) all lead to self-betterment. But the one virtue that really leads a person to living a better life is sacrifice. Whether it be sacrifice of time, of talent, of treasure--giving up a part of your self for the benefit of another or others is what leads people to truly successful lives.

What I wish that more people realized is that these sacrifices don’t have to be large, as long as they are meaningful. Many people, if they choose to perform service at all, choose large, well-hyped projects so as to appear ambitious and, in a sense, super-human. Others just find the idea of service to be too large, looming, and time-consuming.

Service is not about networking, or image, or any of the selfish spins that some people put on it. Service is about stepping outside of yourself and your problems—whether it be to address another person’s problem, a community’s problem, a nation’s problem, or an overriding problem of society as a whole.

“A lot of little actions add up to huge changes in the world,” says Kristi Shoemaker, member of the Leadership Lincoln Board of Directors. “I think people can forget that it’s the small things that often make a difference.” This year Leadership Lincoln is recognizing 305 everyday heroes for the service and sacrifices they incorporated into their daily lives.

Flashing a smile at someone you pass on the street could turn a day from gloomy to bright. Being positive and vocal in the work or classroom environment could inspire your peers to approach their work in an entirely new way. You have the potential to change the world through your actions. You can initiate this change through one person, one deed, one phrase, one gesture, one smile.

Do you live everyday on purpose? Do you live it as an example? Maybe it’s time to start.
Think about it and, as the FBL says, “pass it on.”

A Tissue For Your Issue

It starts with a tickle, an itch. Your eyes start watering, your cheeks redden and your face tightens. Ah-AH-AHCHOO!

I myself never say those well-known customary words when another utters an explosive, high-pitched snort. I don’t know why I don’t. Maybe it’s because I am not comfortable with the religious connotations the words “bless you” hold. But, if this were true, I could easily substitute the phrase for the German word “Gesundheit,” which wishes the sneezer “good health.” More likely, it’s because I am a firm believer in saying what I mean at all times. I don’t mean “bless you,” I don’t wish a figment’s blessing upon you just because you were able to spout mucus out of your nostrils. I don’t mean “excuse you,” you just interrupted my paper-writing because you couldn’t control a damn sneeze. I really don’t wish you “good health,” I could care less if you catch cold just as long as you don’t spread it to me.

But, I always have had the words said to me. A good portion of the time, if I sneezed in public, there was someone there to pardon me from my infraction—whether it be a pastor, a classmate, or my grandma using the German version in her heavy accent.

Today was the first time that I have sneezed in public on campus and no one has said, “Bless you!” I had just sat down in the computer lab, opened my browser, and without delay a sharp, quick, particularly tickle-y and particularly loud sneeze issued from my nasal passages. There were several other students in the lab, but none said a word, let alone looked up from their mountainous math equations. It was a lonely feeling, not having anyone to at least pretend to wish you well.

That is why, from here on out, I propose that I adopt new action to extend to other sniffle-ridden students. During cold and flu season, I will carry personal-sized tissues and hand sanitizer with me at all times. In the event that someone around me sneezes, I can simply hand them the goods and say, “Here, clean yourself off and then go buy some chicken noodle soup and OJ so your germs are out of my proximity.”