Tag Archives: Thoughts

Freedom to Choose

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            When I was a kid, back in the mid-1950’s, my “path” was frequently laid out for me: wife, mother and caretaker of my parents once they turned elderly.

            I never saw myself that way.

            Home was not a happy place, so why would I want to be a homemaker? My parents were cruel taskmasters, so why would I want to be a parent? I was forced to babysit my younger sister who was a self-centered narcissist, so why would I want to have kids?

            My place of refuge was school, and even that wasn’t such a wonderful place. As a shy kid with low self-esteem, my academic goal was to be invisible. I trembled as I worked on every assignment, as my parents offered strict punishment for any grade below an A.

            My teachers weren’t always kind or patient. Most of them ignored me, allowing me to languish in my seat and so not receive the education I deserved. Some of them actively humiliated me, calling me stupid in front of my classmates, putting me in the corner with a dunce cap. Some sneered or snickered when they called my name, most likely because they knew I was too fearful to respond.

            As I grew older, I became more aware of the path my parents expected me to follow. My life experiences solidified that their desires weren’t mine. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted or how I would get there, but I had to get away from that toxic environment.

            In eighth grade we were led into the church to hear speakers talk about the religious life. Priests, monks and nuns addressed our classes, explaining what that life meant to them. Monastic life appealed to me.

            Prayer came naturally, and although I’ve never been able to meditate, closing my eyes and reciting the prayers every kid learns, gave me a sorely needed sense of peace. Since I loved quiet, living in near silence seemed like a joy. I was a hard worker, so the thought of cleaning or gardening or even, heaven forbid cooking, felt like solace in a terrifying world.

            When it came time to sign up, I eagerly completed the forms. All I needed was a parental signature.

            Imagine my trepidation when I handed the papers to my mom.

            She tore the papers up into tiny pieces. She insisted I’d never be fulfilled in that life, that a woman’s job was to marry and have kids.

            When I declared that I didn’t want either, she walked away.

            My ability to choose my own path was taken away. I cried about it for days.

            As high school came to an end, I knew I wanted to go to college. I was comfortable in academic settings. I felt safe at school, even though I was often bullied by girls in the locker room or when teachers taunted me in front of the class.

            But at school, no one struck me, hit me with a belt, grabbed my arms and shook me until I saw stars or slapped me so hard my neck hurt for weeks.

            Because my brother was allowed to go to college, my parents allowed me to apply.

            After much research and consideration, I had limited my college choices to Ohio State and San Francisco State University, where I’d study math. I was also interested in the University of Redlands and the University of Southern California, both which offered degrees in Math and Russian.

            My brother thought he was brilliant. Why not? My mom told him over and over how smart he was, as opposed to telling me that I was a failure. He was an arrogant bully, much like my dad.

            He applied to the California Institute of Technology to study engineering.

            We drove from our home in San Bruno down to southern California supposedly so both my brother and I could look at colleges. Our first stop was CIT. We walked around the campus on our own, not part of a tour. It was a hot, windy day. The lawns were green, the buildings impressive.

            Redlands wasn’t too far away. I had begged to visit, so after spending two hours at CIT, my dad reluctantly drove to Redlands. I expected the same treatment: that we’d walk about the campus.

            I should have known better. I had never been considered an equal to my brother even though my grades were sometimes better than his.

            All we did was get off the freeway, travel down the long palm-tree lined road that led to the administrative building, then turn around and leave. I cried, begged, pleaded, but my dad refused to stop.

            My freedom to choose was taken away from me.

            The only college my parents would allow me to attend was the same college where my brother was going to go: USC.

            I spent three years there, living on campus. I chose my classes, ate when and what I wanted, and slowly made friends. I loved that life, dreaded the end of each school year when I was forced to return home and resume my life as a household slave.

            By this time, I had dated a bit, even found a young man that I seriously thought about marrying. Until he told friends that he liked me because I never had any opinions. That relationship ended within days of that comment.

            I knew enough that if I married, it would be on my terms, to someone who respected me as an equal. Who saw potential in me to do great things. Who didn’t put me in the motherhood box.

            I wanted the freedom to choose when and if I had kids. What I did with my life, in terms of career, continued education, hobbies and activities.

            My husband has given me all that.

            In today’s political world, women’s rights are being chipped away, piece by piece. All the things we fought for, reproductive freedom, the ability to vote, hold valued careers, be treated as equals in the workplace, are disappearing.

            Recently a professional football player gave the commencement speech at a Catholic university. He praised motherhood and being a wife. That’s his view of what a woman should aspire for.

            Didn’t he know that there would be highly educated women sitting there? Women who might have played college athletics, but who dreamt of something more than kicking a football?

            The college did send out a statement that his views didn’t represent the college’s philosophy, but the damage was done.

            The player’s view of women, that of the happy housewife with an apron around her waist and kids tugging at the strings, is what many want, the life as portrayed in old black-and-white TV shows where the little woman cleaned house in a dress and pearls.

            If today’s young women want what I did and continue to do, then they need the freedom to choose. If she wants to be wife and mother, then she can. If she wants to be President, then she can do that as well.

            The freedom to choose is a wondrous thing. Please don’t take away that right.

An Almighty God

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If not for an almighty God

who could have created the earth?

Speak to me not of inventors,

researchers, scientists.

Their works are both

improvement and ruination.

Humans, thanks to God,

have the ability to think,

yet we frequently do not.

Sunday rolls around and we find

excuses

We run hither and yon,

never stopping for even one moment

to give thanks to the One

who breathed life into our lungs,

blessed us,

filled us with promise of accomplishment,

then set us free to stumble our way

through life,

learning, hopefully, from errors.

All the while He sits in heaven

smiling down at His creations

waiting for the day when His loves wake up

and then take time

to sing His glorious name.

He welcomes even the unrepentant

saying, “Come here, my child.”

I, for one, will cuddle next to His chest

and cry tears of joy.

God is my reason for being.

I must never forget.

Unexpected Reunion

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            There’s something sweet about running into friends you haven’t seen in twenty years. A magnetic pull draws your eyes on each other, there’s the tilting of heads and wondering, is that…? And then you think about it some more, glancing at her face, looking for a tidbit of recognition.

            What’s incredible is the joy you feel when you remember Judy, how kindly she treated you, how she welcomed you into her group of friends.

            Going way back in time, I was hired to teach a Special Day Class at an elementary in Newark, California. This would be my first job as a special education instructor, with just six credits behind me. I’d been teaching for over a decade by then, but always with “regular” education students.

            I knew how to deliver instruction to them, but had only research and whatever I’d gleaned from the two college-level courses I’d taken.

            My students were fourth and fifth graders. All needy, all with severe learning disabilities that impacted academic work. But out on the playground, they were “normal” kids wanting to have “normal” friends.

            Think back to your school years. Nine and ten years olds can be mean. They target the weak and different. They exclude anyone who might impact their own social status. They won’t eat lunch with them, include them in playground games, and don’t like it when “those” kids enter their classroom for shared lessons.

            I could deal with that. I taught my students about bullies, taught them how to ask to join, taught them how to act in public.

            I integrated them into “regular” classrooms whenever possible, something every special education student has a right to do.

            What I didn’t expect was to be ostracized by my peers, those teaching the same age students that sat in my classroom.

            A very definite clique existed. There was a group of about five teachers who sat in the same seats during lunch and meetings. They spoke only to group members. They shared curriculum ideas only with group members.

            When gatherings evidence for a state-mandated review, they highlighted the achievements of their students, and even though I submitted my students’ work, none of it showed up in the finished binder.

            They planned fieldtrips for all fourth graders, but didn’t include mine. Same with the fifth graders. At the end of the school year their classes organized a picnic at the local park. As in every other way, my students weren’t included. In fact, if I hadn’t overheard them talking, I wouldn’t have known about it.

            I didn’t feel welcome.

            The lower grades were clustered on the east side of the campus. I could look out my classroom window and see them coming and going. I could hear the joyous sounds of the children and wish that my students could experience that same joy.

            Since I was an outcast during lunch and meetings, I often found myself seated near the lower-grade teachers. They were warm and welcoming. When I needed help, unlike the clique, they were there for me.

            They welcomed my students into their classes and treated them as equals.

            They became my friends.

            When our principal announced his retirement, at the same time, my Director of Special Education offered me a position at the high school, something I’d wanted for years.  I declined, not wanting to leave those lower-grade friends.

            A few weeks later, the new principal was introduced. She was a member of the clique, the one who refused to include my students’ work in the binder, the one who only looked at me with disdain, the one who didn’t want my students integrated with hers.

            I contacted the Director and accepted the transfer. But I told no one.

            I didn’t want a fake goodbye party or cards or a cake. I didn’t want to be treated to a lunch. Why should I? Only one of the upper grade teachers ever “saw” me or my students.

            So when the year ended, the last meetings had been held, when most teachers had cleaned up and gone home, I packed my things on a weekend, and left. Period.

            Today my friend Judy told me that my friends had wondered what had happened to me, why I left without saying goodbye.

            She was sad when I told her. She said that none of them knew what had happened, how my students were ostracized and how rudely I’d been treated.

            What’s wonderful is that we reconnected immediately. Before today’s lunch ended, we’d exchange phone numbers and promise to get together.

            As I was driving home, my eyes filled with tears. I am looking forward to seeing them, catching up and being included in a social circle that I thought had long ago forgotten who I was.

            What’s weird is that I know her husband through a writers’ group, but I had never connected his last name with someone from my past.

            Reunions can be sweet, and this one certainly was.

The End

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            I love music. Have loved it since I was quite young. I seldom sang where someone could here me, primarily because my family told me I couldn’t sing.

            My bedroom was the only place I felt comfortable singing, always in a soft voice. Unfortunately, I shared the room with my younger sister. That meant that I could only sing when she wasn’t in the room. And because she knew how to annoy me, she’d pop in whenever she heard the door close.

            We had a backyard, though. I started going outside whenever the dog was there, to keep her company (she was like a therapy dog long before there were such things). That worked only as long as it wasn’t raining or foggy, and since the house was up on Skyline Boulevard in San Bruno, it was often in fog.

            I took to walking the dog, carrying a small radio. I’d sing as we strolled up and down hills. One day, lost in song, I didn’t see the loose dog charging mine. I picked up Lady Coco and cradled her to my chest as the evil monster leapt up, over and over, trying to kill her.

            Because I was miserable at home, I had to get out of the house every day, usually at least twice a day, to give myself to calm down, to let the tears dry up, to settle my stomach. Even though Coco had been close to being killed, I wanted, no needed, to walk her.

            I left the radio behind and carried a wooden baseball bat. My music wasn’t with me, so I couldn’t sing.

            I traded my sanity for safety. I never regretted the choice.

            I didn’t sing again for many years. Well, until I bought my first car and found radio stations I liked. As long as I was alone (I frequently was forced to drive my sister places), I could sing.

            I never took a music class in high school or college. I never joined the church choir. I never sang on camping trips. And when my husband gave me a guitar for Christmas one year, I never accompanied myself.

            My first real teaching job was at a Catholic Elementary school. Teachers attended many workshops and seminars, dealing with a wide range of topics. Most were sort of okay. Not earth-shattering.

            Then we all went to the Cathedral in Oakland for three full days of music, services and workshops. Well known writers attended, singing tracks on their albums. Oh, how I loved those sessions!

            Music came back, full blast. I began singing, at church, with my students, to music in my car and at home. (I was now married, to a wonderful man who encouraged me to try everything.)

            Our church formed a small choir to sing at our Mass. I sat near the pianist, singing along. A friend convinced me to join. I did, but sang in a whisper, terrified that I’d hit a gazillion bad notes.

            The numbers of participants varied widely. Sometimes there might be six, others just two. Then one Mass it was just me. The time had come for me to raise my voice and sing.

            I’m not sure how I summoned the courage, but I did. Not just for that one Mass, but for many to come. I was often a soloist, leading the congregation in the psalm (standing up front at the podium).

            I did okay.

            Then that choir director was replaced with a very, very young overconfident, full of himself director. He did an excellent job encouraging people to join. He taught us how to really “read” music, to follow the symbols for dynamics, to blend voices.

            All was going well until we held a session at a choir member’s house. I was scheduled to be the cantor at Sunday’s Mass. During a break, I approached the director to go over the psalm. He informed me that I couldn’t sing, that I had to get rid of the vibration in my voice.

            I felt me cheeks get hot, packed my bag and left.

            I didn’t return to the choir until that director was replaced with a smiling, pleasant, encouraging young man.

            He made me feel welcomed and valued. I returned to cantoring the psalm and was often the only choir member (during the pandemic when we held Mass in the school parking lot.)

            He left for a new job.

            The new director brought a soloist with an incredible voice. She only seemed to know about four songs, the words were never projected for the congregation to see, and he made no attempt to form a choir.

            He left suddenly a few months ago. The new director, another young man, this one a graduate in Music, started a choir. I joined shortly after.

            A week ago he asked me to cantor the psalm. Just the thought of singing up there, in front of the congregation made my head hurt. He encouraged me, met me privately to go over the psalm.

            Sunday came. I practice out in the garage, going over and over the psalm. I knew I wasn’t ready, I knew I wasn’t hitting the right notes, and I knew I was too scared to do it.

            When I arrived at church, I should have said something, I should have declined (there were two seasoned cantors there who could have taken over) but I didn’t.

            Two of my friends recorded my “performance”. I didn’t have to listen as I knew every off-key note I’d hit.

            The humiliation was so great, so painful, that I could barely walk out of church.

            The intent was to add me to the rotating list of cantors. When rehearsal comes up Friday, I will announce boldly, clearly, without hesitation that I will never, ever cantor again.

            I will sing with the choir, where I feel both comfortable and confidant, but my days of being a cantor have come to an abrupt end.

A Humbled Man

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Things have been rough this year.

My wife died giving birth to a stillborn child.

I lost my job to a younger man.

The earth shook and things went wild.

Alcohol became my best friend

Keeping me warm on cold winter nights.

Teeth fell out and tongue turned brown

And vagrants challenged me to fights.

One rainy night, down on my luck,

No nickel to my tarnished name,

I stumbled into an empty house

Where I could hide in shame.

I searched through cabinets covered in dust

And looked under every loose board

Hoping to find a morsel to eat,

A blanket, a shirt, anything to add to my hoard.

Upstairs in what was a little boy’s room

A magical things I did find.

Buried beneath a pile of rags,

A book to challenge my mind.

A stubble of candle sat on a shelf

And so I quickly lit it with glee.

By the flickering light I eagerly read.

A realization soon came to me.

The story spoke of a man long ago

Who owned very little but love.

He roamed his world bringing peace,

Goodwill, a message from God above.

I am like He, I began to think,

With nothing to lose nor fear.

Resolved to act I fell asleep

Like a child, both loved and dear.

When the new sun brightened the world

I stumbled, confusedly, into the hall.

For there surrounded in unearthly glow

Hovered the Man to whom I did fall.

“My Lord, forgive this humble man

who long ago fell out out of Your grace.

Today I beg you, I am renewed

And ready to take my place.”

A breeze arose, tore off my rags

And dried the tears from my eyes.

Gentle fingers brushed my cheek

And lifted away my cries.

That was the day when I took control

And rejoined the human race.

From that day forward I was His man

And walked with smiling face.

I now believe that my wife and child

Truly did not die in vain,

For their sacrifice brought me back to God

And to feel His love again.

Emotional Rollercoaster

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Alone

In the middle of a crowded room

Silent voices scream for recognition

Fear

Twists guts into compressed clay

Paralyzing limbs, numbing throats

Degradation

Fills the ears of the emotionally injured

Ruining scarce moments of hard-fought joy

Depression

Carries sinking hearts into oblivion

Erasing memories of happiness felt

Hands

Reach out, begging for salvation

Yearning for one sign of love

Answers

Arrive in rain-soaked clouds

Pouring down tears of understanding

Compassion

Clears the night of unmasked terrors

Awakening remnants of esteem, long forgotten

Joy

Blooms in multi-colored bursts of words

Spoken, thoughts shared, kindnesses felt

Light

Seeps into crevices of the heart

Obliterating shards of self-doubt

Happiness

Explodes in multicolored bursts

Opening souls to welcoming voices

Surrounded

Encased

Enfolded

Alone no more

Camera Malfunction

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            We were recently on a long-waited for cruise up the western coast of Norway. The goal was to enjoy the spectacular Northern Lights. The trip, hopefully, would give us night after night of colorful viewings.

            Our first port in Norway was Narvik, a hillside town surrounded by snow-covered mountains. The skies were clear, the weather freezing.

            We’d signed up for a nighttime outing to a Sami village where we’d learn about the people and their culture. We didn’t know that a shaman would be the leader. He spoke quite a bit about the prejudices they’d endured. He sang the songs of the Sami and that thanks to a recent law, all Sami children now learn their language at school.

            It was quite warm in the luvva (some would call it a yurt), so when I had to use the port-a-potty, I zipped up my coat, put on my ski cap and gloves. When I was finished and stepped outside, many of my fellow travelers were gathered around the luvva, staring at the sky.

            They said we were looking at the Northern Lights, but all we saw was a grey streak over the luvva that we thought was either smoke or the Milky Way. There was also a shimmering spot of grey off to one side.

            I tried taking pictures with my “big” camera, but because it was so dark, I couldn’t see anything in the view finder. I pointed the camera up and took a couple of shots.

            Almost everyone was using cell phones, so I got mine out. For some reason, there was a grid and wavering line that blocked whatever was up in the sky. I tied to see through the grid, but couldn’t. I was in tears.

            On the bus ride home, the women in front of us were looking at their photos. Their cameras “saw” the Lights! They both had amazing photos filled with color.

            That streak of gray was actually a colorful display that seemed to be hovering over the luvva.

            The women helped me get rid of the grid, but I feared that all hope was lost.

            Around midnight, back on the ship, our phone rang alerting us to the Lights. I stepped out on your balcony and caught a tiny streak of gray, which later on turned out to be a vibrant green.

            The was the last call we received.

            Our ship headed north, the skies were once again clear. We figured there’d be more sightings, but our phone never rang. The next morning we overheard passengers talking about how spectacular the Lights had been.

            When we returned to our cabin, I tried calling Guest Services to find out why we hadn’t received the call. Our phone had no service!

            The phone did get fixed, but from then on we sailed under a thick layer of clouds.

            Because I thought my camera couldn’t “see’ anything, because of the grid on my cell phone, I’d lost my chance to capture the Northern Lights.

            What I learned was to take pictures anyway. To keep shooting in case something wonderful pops up before the lens.

            While I was frustrated with what I “saw” as the failure of my camera, turned out to be a valuable learning experience.

My Own Coming of Age Story

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Most kids travel from childhood into the teen years after their thirteenth birthday.

Not me.

At that age I was still firmly under my mother’s control. If she thought she saw a zit of blackhead, I was treated to pinching and squeezing.

If I needed a new blouse, she bought it. Same with pants, shorts, shoes. Because she was old-fashioned and ultra-conservative, I dressed like an old lady.

If she said I had to attend Mass, I did. Take Communion or go to confession? Yep.

She was a terrible cook, but I had to eat everything she prepared in the amounts she deemed necessary. No wonder I was overweight.

My parents controlled everything I did, said, and perhaps even my thoughts until I got accepted to the University of Southern California and so would live on campus.

Imagine my ecstasy when I unpacked my belongings in my half of a dorm room! It was small, but it was mine.

From that moment on, I chose what time to get up and go to bed. What to wear, where to go, and thank goodness, what I ate. Those three years were the happiest, and at times, saddest, of my life.

On good days, when I hadn’t struggled with my classwork, I floated across campus. In my hip huggers, cowgirl hat and barefoot. Unless it was raining or cold. I decided when and where to study, who to share meals with, who I dated.

The sad days were the ones before I discovered lonely people like me, when I broke up with a boyfriend, when a class was harder than I expected. And yes, when my mother demanded I come home for the weekend.

My coming-of-age journey began at age eighteen and ended when I married at age 24.

It took that long because even though I was at college, my mother still tried to control my life. She used guilt to get me to call home, to come home. She cried when I didn’t call, saying I didn’t love her anymore.

It was about that time that I realized that, no, I didn’t love my parents. Probably never had. At first I blamed myself, thinking there was something wrong with me. Doesn’t everyone love their parents?

Around my senior year, I accepted the fact that most, likely, my parents never loved me. I was the disappointing daughter, the middle child, holding a spot between the cherished older brother and the spoiled younger sister.

Once you truly understand your place, you are instantly set free.

I no longer had to answer every beck and call. I no longer had to carry the guilt my mother tried to place on my back.

I could do what I wanted, wear modern-styled clothes (if I could afford them), and date even a young man who didn’t look like me, but who like me for who I was.

I love reading Young Adult stories in which the protagonist struggles to come of age. Mostly they are nothing like who I was at that age, but yet there are common themes that I could identify with.

Independence. Identity. Place in the World.

Coming of age isn’t easy, but once you’re on the other side, life is a million times better.

I Just Had to Try

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If colors are magic, then fireflies would transport messages. Why not, I thought? But how to measure when it’s so darned hard to catch enough bugs to test my theory.

I decided to experiment with flashing colors into tanks of fireflies I’d paid little kids to catch. They had a wonderful time running around with the jars I’d given them, and the only cost to me was a few rainbow lollipops.

I must have a hundred: no, maybe only seventy. Fifty? Never mind. It was enough because it was all I had.

I set up photography reflectors, one on each side of the rectangular tank. Turned off the annoying overhead lights, then with a color wheel attached to my flashlight, began the experiment.

Red, no matter how dark or how faded, caused great agitation. The “flies” dashed and dated about, bouncing off the glass walls of the tank, careening into each other, even tearing off the wings of some. So I turned off the light.

Waited a good ten minutes.

Blue kept them calm lethargic almost. They’d fly about in slow zigzags, eyes half-open.

Yellow sent them to the top of the tank, clinging to the mesh lid and swaying their heads back and forth, back and forth as if drugged.

Green sent them off, looking up and down, up and down. I couldn’t decipher why until it came to me they were looking for food.

After that I played with color combinations. I shot bursts of light into the tank, using the Morse code. Imagine my surprise when the fireflies clustered close to the light source and began rhythmically blinking their eyes.

I wrote down the letters, or what I thought were letters. It wasn’t a language I knew, so I called in the School of Languages. Five professors showed up, looked at my recordings, watched the bugs, and argued. Was it Spanish? No. French? No. A form of ancient Egyptian? Still no.

Oh, the argument that ensued! All those experts yammering at each other, determined to prove the others wrong!

I shooed them away, filled out a grant request to create a language lab that only I would run. It was quickly approved: this was a novel idea! Something no one had ever explored before.

Applications came in. I hired two, a young man with knowledge of six Latin-based languages, and a teen from Illinois who was fluent in four Middle-Eastern tongues.

The students divided the fireflies into separate tanks. (This was a fresh supply as the durned bugs don’t live that long!)

Each student flashed in alphabets from a language. Waited. The bugs responded with the blinking of eyes and the flapping of wings.

Within a week, both students and bugs had mastered a form of communication that was part of this language and part of that.

Newly hatched fireflies knew the language so well, that we decided to release the more advanced ones into the university’s forest.  We set up observation stations, night-vision cameras, sent up drones and attached homing boxes high up in the trees, on the tops of buildings.

Imagine how pleased I was when more and more of the bugs seemed to be communicating! Not just with each other, but with us!

I saw myself winning a Nobel Prize, writing an award-winning scientific study, jumping to professor status seemingly overnight!

Not content to stick with the whiteish light from our flashlights, we experiment with colors. Yellow made them land on branches. Purple seemed to put them to sleep (we had to stop right away when bats swept in and began eating our students!)

Red. I didn’t want to use red, but the boy, he disobeyed just to see what would happen.

An all-out war began. Bug eating bug, tearing off wings and legs. Biting off heads.

The boy thought it was great fun and wouldn’t stop until I tore the light from his hand.

By that time, not one bug was alive.

All that research wasted. My Prize and tenure gone.

Oh, well, I thought.

What would happen if I worked with cougars instead?

Gratitude Comes in Small Packages

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            One September morning as my mom and I sat on our back porch steps, a group of children walked by, happily swinging colorful metal boxes. They laughed and giggled with huge smiles on their faces. I thought they were the luckiest kids on earth.

“Where are they going?” I asked.

“To school.” Mom lit a cigarette, threw the used match into the dirt.

“What’s school?”

She inhaled and then blew out the smoke. “You’ll find out in a few years.” I coughed as her smoke filled my throat and nose.

Two more happy kids walked by, carrying those strange boxes.

“Why are all those kids carrying metal boxes?”

“Their lunches.” She inhaled again, this time, thankfully, turning her head to the side before blowing out the smoke.

“Can I have one?”

“It’s too early for lunch.”

“No, I mean,” as I nodded in the direction the kids had gone. “Can I have a box, too?”

“Not until you go to school.” Using her scuffed tennis shoe Mom ground the cigarette into a mashed-up blob.

“Can I go to school now?” I asked.

“Not until you’re five.”

I counted on my fingers. “So in two more years.”

“Yes. Your brother will go to school next year, then you the year after that.” My mother lit a new cigarette. She inhaled and then once again, her smoke drifted my way.

“What do you do at school?”

“Learn things.” This time she leaned her head back before sending her smoke into the sky. With her cigarette dangling from her fingers, she stood, brushed off her skirt, turned and opened the door. “It’s time to go inside.”

I followed her into the kitchen. “Why can’t I have a lunchbox now? Why do I have to wait two years?”

“There’s no money and you don’t need one.” My mother bent over and removed two pans from the cabinet. She opened doors and drawers, taking something from each. Lastly, she dug around in the refrigerator, emerging with something in each hand.

“I want a lunchbox now.”

She flung a hand toward the front room. “Go away and quit bothering me.”

I went into the bedroom that I shared with my brother. I climbed up on my bed so I could see out the window. A few more smiling kids went by, each of them swinging a lunchbox. I placed my right hand on the window glass, as if I was reaching out, wishing I could walk with them. I watched for a while longer, but saw no more kids.

When my dad came home, before he could hang his coat over the back of a kitchen chair, I asked him for a lunchbox. I thought he’d understand since he carried one. His was old and dented, not new like the ones the kids had, but he had one.

“Can I have a lunchbox?”

He looked over at my mom who was doing something in the kitchen.  “Why does she want a lunchbox? Did you put that foolishness in her head?”

Mom shook her head, but didn’t turn around. “She saw kids carrying boxes like they do every morning and that’s all she can think about.” My mother scooped food into bowls and carried them the table. “Dinner’s ready.”

My brother was already seated in his chair.

I slid into mine and began swinging my legs. “I to be like those kids.”

“Let it go.” My mom glowered at me.

I knew that was the signal to shut up, but I didn’t want to shut up.

“Daddy, do I have to wait until I go to school? Can’t I have one now?”

“Shut up and eat,” he said.

I did the best that I could with tears in my eyes and dripping down my throat. It took me a long time to finish, long after Mom had washed the dishes and put them away.

I was still seated at the table when I heard Mom tell my brother than it was time for bed,

Knowing my dad was alone, I tiptoed into the front room. “Please, Daddy, can I have a lunchbox?”

“Go to bed,” he said without looking my way.

The next morning, I sat on the kitchen steps again, watching kids go by. “Mother, I’d take really good care of a lunchbox.”

“Shut up about it.” Her face looked angry, so I was quiet while my mother finished her cigarette and went inside.

I drew pictures of lunchboxes and kids and me, all walking together, smiles on our faces.

When my dad came home, I asked him again. He didn’t say no, but he didn’t say yes, either. I listened when he went into the kitchen where my mom was working on dinner. I tried to pick out words, but not even one came clear. We ate dinner and then my brother and I went to bed.

In the morning, I discovered a blue metal box sitting on the kitchen table. “What’s that?”

“Something your father brought home,” my mother said. There was a look on her face that I didn’t understand. She didn’t seem to be angry, but she wasn’t smiling, either.

My fingers carefully touched the sides of the box. It was bumpy in places and smooth in others. “Who’s this for?”

“Open it up.”

Inside I found a sandwich wrapped in paper and an apple. “Is this for Bill?”

“No. It’s yours.”

My eyes grew huge with surprise. And when my mom nodded, I picked it up by the handle. I walked all over the house swinging it just like those kids. “Does this mean I’m going to school?”

She shook her head.

“Did Bill get a lunchbox?”

“He doesn’t want one.”

“Oh.” I rocked back and forth, thinking. My brother didn’t get a box and he had to go to school first. “I get to keep it?”

“Yes. It’s for you.”

I carried my lunchbox into the front room and sat on the couch. I opened the lid. The sandwich and apple were still there. I picked each one up, turned them from side to side and then put them back inside. I closed the lid and flipped the latch. “When will it be lunchtime?”

 “Find something to keep you busy,” my mother called from the kitchen.

I went into my room and retrieved a coloring book and crayons from under my bed. Sat on the floor with my lunchbox at my side. I colored several pictures, taking time to stay in the lines like my mother wanted.

My mother called from the front room, “Lunch time.”

I put my things away and carried my lunchbox into the kitchen. I placed it on the table and sat in my chair. I opened the lid and took out my sandwich.

“Is this what kids do at school?”

“Yes. They sit at tables to eat.” My mother opened the door and stepped outside. She lit a cigarette, inhaled and blew smoke out into the air.

I took a bite of the sandwich. “Why do I have this if I can’t go to school?”

“Your father wanted you to have it.” She inhaled again. “Just be grateful.”

I was grateful.

That blue metal box was my most precious possession until it got lost during one of our many moves.