Category: Uncategorized

“Unfinished”

Yawning, I crept down to my basement.  Time to try to make a dent in the laundry, I thought.  With a busy family of five, the pile had grown uncharacteristically large.  Stepping off the last step of the staircase, my eyes rested upon the miscellaneous debris. Boxes of my daughters’ drawings, old files, plumbing parts, recycling, and seemingly millions of other items consumed the basement floor.  I sighed.  A new meaning for ‘unfinished basement.’

After switching a wet load of my family’s clothes to the dryer and starting a new load, I ascended the steps to the main floor. Rounding the bend through the dining room, I climbed the stairs to the upstairs.  Placing both feet on the landing, I looked up.  Still that hole in the ceiling.  I sighed again.  Spackling tools, a rubber mallet, and a stool rested guiltily upon the floor in the corner, refusing to make eye contact with me.  An unfinished job. We gotta get to that, I thought to myself.

Quickly dressing, I quick-stepped back down to the main floor, making my way toward the kitchen.  In the fireplace sat the pile of ashes I’d been meaning to sweep out.  Another one. Dismissing that thought, I made my way to the front door and out to the car. We needed milk to make pancakes.  Starting the car, I was immediately greeted by the check engine light, politely reminding me an oil change was due. Gotta schedule that today, I thought to myself.

Returning from the store, I turned to reenter the driveway.  That’s when I spied the large, panelled window adorning the front of the house, and remembered the sills were still rotten.  I gotta get those replaced this summer, I thought with another sigh.

Now back in the house, I could hear everyone was now awake and at the breakfast table.  The aroma of sizzling sausage greeted my nostrils, along with the playful chatter of my three daughters in the dining room.  Iris, the baby, sat laughing in her babyseat as Lexi teased and made jokes with her along with Livi.  Three beautiful daughters, all so young but so happy.  They too are unfinished.  But I think I’ll continue focusing on them. They’re what’s important.

I’ll get that other stuff later.

 

 

• “Story is the basic unit of human understanding.”  On Saturday, March 18th, Drew Dudley, the keynote speaker for the Teachers College Saturday Reunion, made this profound statement.  And for me, listening to that speech has been the type of experience that has become a lens through which I currently view the world.  Yesterday, I had the good fortune to hear a story of how one person can unknowingly make a profound difference for another.

One of my colleagues has shared with me that her husband now lives with a mental disability that affects his short-term memory.  However, despite this impediment, he still enjoys coaching middle school sports (alongside a head coach), particularly soccer and softball.  The problem is, sometimes he is unable to remember to come to practice each day.  Last fall, one of his athletes, who shall be known as “Andrea” here, took it upon herself to call him each day to remind him about soccer practice.  And each day, he would thank her, get in his car, and drive to practice.

But that’s not the story.

Many months later, my colleague, amidst another hectic day of middle school, was rushing down the hall to a meeting.  Suddenly, she heard a voice from the cafeteria.  It was a parent’s voice.  A quick exchange ensued.  “I’m sorry,” my colleague explained, “I can’t really talk right now.  I must get to a meeting.”  The parent in the cafeteria waved her on, understanding completely.

The meeting ended before scheduled, and upon her return to her classroom, my colleague decided to stop in at the cafeteria…just to see if maybe that parent might still be there.  She was.  Entering the cafe, my colleague engaged the parent, letting her know her meeting had ended and she had a few minutes.  “We wanted you to know something,” the parent began.  It was Andrea’s mother.  “Interacting with you and your husband last fall has changed Andrea’s life,” she explained.

Somewhat taken aback, my colleague felt a bit shocked by this news.  Andrea’s mom continued. “Allowing her to call him every day and work with him as a coach has sparked something inside her. She not only loves him dearly, but now wants to learn more about people with disabilities, how to work them and help them. It’s just amazing. It’s changed the trajectory of her life.” The parent looked my colleague in the eye.  “It really has changed her life. And we want to thank you and your husband for this.”

Drew Dudley, in his keynote address, discussed a second fundamental truth: You never know how your story, your actions, will affect others.  “Do people smile at the mere mention of your name?” he asked.  For Andrea, the mere mention of my colleague’s husband’s name certainly does.

 

 

Title: “Reader”

I arrived home late last night.  My day had been consumed by participation on an interview committee, and it had pushed my usual return to our snowy driveway well into a foreign hour, around 6 p.m.  Leaving my empty coffee cup and laptop bag in the car, I hurried to the front door, hoping all was well with my family.  It was the ‘witching hour’, and I silently hoped my children had not transformed themselves into little ghouls and tied my wife to the piano.  I exaggerate.  They’re wonderful, all of them. But all parents know how stressful this hour can be.  So I was a little worried. It had been a long day for my wife, and I knew that.

However, upon opening the door, two little kindergartener feet scurried up to me for a warm, hug-filled greeting.  Lifting my second daughter, Lexi, up off her feet, I squeezed her and looked at her face.  All smiles.  No ghoul.  There she was.  Then she was back down, rushing away and mumbling something I couldn’t quite make out.  It sounded maybe like, “…show you something,” but I wasn’t quite positive.  She disappeared into the house.

As I entered the kitchen, aromas of black beans and rice swirled about in the air.  My wife had started cooking.  We began to exchange details of our respective days. Suddenly, Lexi padded in.  “Papa, I want to show you something!  I’m reading this book.  But… what’s this word?”  She held up our tattered copy of Cynthia Rylant’s Henry and Mudge: Sparkle Days, and pointed to the word ‘winter.’

In my best reading-specialist-as-parent voice, I gently instructed, “Well, can we try sounding it out?”

Lexi pointed to the word.  “Win…”  Pause.  “Win…turr.  Winter!”

“Yes! Are you reading this book, honey? Wow!”  Here I must make a confession.  My children do not yet read a ton at home.  Yes, we read every night before bed.  Other than that, it is hit and miss sometimes with reading-as-a-leisure-activity around here.  But I’ve made a  conscious decision not to force my children to read. I believe forcing them to read now could have an adverse effect on them as readers in future years.  I believe they will grow up to be readers, all of them, but coercion and requisite reading time has not yet appealed to me as the route from here to there.  Yet, here was my kindergartener, independently picking up a first grade book and really giving it her all.

Breaking with tradition, my wife and I allowed Lexi to continue reading the book while we all ate dinner that night.  It seemed one of those precious moments for both growth and celebration.  And I was reminded what a miracle reading is, and how fun it is to watch kids improve as readers.  It is truly golden. I thought back to the time- not all that long ago- when Lexi was still working to learn the sounds associated with letters.  Now, here she sat, independently decoding many of the words in a beloved book she had heard many times read to her.

I leaned close to Lexi and whispered, “Are you proud of yourself, honey?”

Her blue eyes met mine.  “Yes,” she nodded.

TItle: “Faith”

I placed the loaf of sourdough down on the belt, right next to the pound of grass-fed ground beef, and began to fish in my pocket for my wallet.  The woman scanning the groceries, who I will call Patty, clutched the loaf and pulled it over the bar code scanner.  We both gazed longingly at the overpriced bread. And for a brief moment I felt so fortunate to be able to afford the luxury of buying such a beautiful item as this.  My daughters will be so happy, I thought to myself (they love sourdough).

Patty scanned the rest of my groceries and recited my total aloud. “Sixteen-oh-four, please,” she stated mildly.  With my credit card poised between my finger and thumb, I stood just about to pull it through the magnetic card reader. Suddenly the question came: “Would you like to donate one dollar to ‘Meals on Wheels’ today?” asked Patty, holding her finger over a button on the register.  With her other hand, she pointed to a small sign taped to the back of her register.  It looked something like this:

“Um, yes,” I responded. “I would like to donate.  I guess we’d all better donate before it gets cut from the budget.”

You see, my grandmother is a current recipient of the federal anti-poverty program for seniors known as “Meals on Wheels.”  She spent her life raising three daughters (my mom is the eldest), owning her own business (a beauty salon), and being a generally productive citizen.  She and my grandfather, who worked various agricultural jobs, were not monetarily rich.  But they were both hard-working, honest folks. They attended church on Sunday, and my grandfather sold Christmas trees in the winter. When my grandfather died in 1982, he left my grandmother a modest pension. At age 96, she is mostly able to make ends meet on her own.  Mostly.  But ‘Meals on Wheels’ helps, just that little bit.

So when I heard this program is slated to be part of a series of budget cuts by the new federal government, naturally I was angered. Angered and worried.

“Oh, I don’t think ‘Meals on Wheels’ will be cut,” offered Patty. And she was serious.

“You don’t?” I asked, incredulous. How can she say that?

“Oh no, I really don’t,” she calmly replied.  “And if it is, the states will step up and find a way to fund it.  And if the states don’t step up, then people will band together and make sure it doesn’t go away.”  And then it came: “You just have to have faith.”

Faith?

I left the store that day wondering three things:  First, with all I’ve seen in our body politic lately, I’m not sure I do have faith. Not like that. Secondly, I’m not sure I should have faith…should I?  Will state governments find a way to help seniors like my grandmother if the federal government slashes all the programs designed to help poor people, like they’re currently planning to do?  Would regular folks really organize to prevent these programs from falling by the wayside?  Should I have that kind of faith?  Really?

But Patty did.  She really did.  So the third thing I wondered was…how can she have that kind of faith?

Weaving my way down the bustling hallway, I spied my office door.  I was getting close – finally.  I carefully stepped past the busy sixth graders kneeling at their lockers, packing and repacking tired backpacks.  With a few brief hellos to some of my colleagues standing, arms folded, almost wilting at their classroom doors (it was the last period of the day), I picked up the pace a little.  My student was likely awaiting my arrival, and I was running a bit late.  Then I heard the voice.

“Mr. Ball!  Mr. Ball!”  Slowing slightly, I recognized this voice. I turned my head to the right, searching through the frantic line of sixth graders desperately trying to gather the necessary belongings for the final class of the day.  Hmm…who was that?  Wait! Sure enough, there stood Julian.  I  spotted him amid his daily epic battle, a battle that raged daily between him and the evil contents of his locker.  Colorful, crumpled papers strewn about his feet, it appeared his locker was winning.  Again.

There stood Julian, awkwardly listing to his right in an effort to pull something from his backpack.  Face scrunched in concentration, glasses sagging a bit down his nose, I could tell he was working to retrieve something from this pack.  Fully aware I probably ought not be stopping- I was finally so close to my office! – I whipped a quick u-turn to circle back to Julian and his colossal skirmish.

“Hi Julian! How are you?” I greeted.

“I need a book!” he bellowed, finally pulling his hand out from his backpack. Secretly, the motion reminded me of someone who had finally, after several moments of attempting, succeeded in prying the cork off a fine bottle of wine. Pop!  Out came Maximum Ride: The Angel Adventure, by James Patterson, my personal copy.  I could tell right away that Julian had spent a lot time with this book. The quality of the creases, the slightly bent corners- every one of them- the wrinkled edge of a post-it, barely visible…yep, this book had definitely been read. But was it loved?  I wondered.

“So you finished it?” I asked. “What’d you think?”

“I loved it! But now I need a new book.  Anything you think I should read, I’ll take it.”

What did he just say? Now, this situation had just officially landed in a category I would label, ‘Unusual’.  Anything you think I should read, I’ll take it?  He’s really going to make it that easy?  My heart leapt, because I knew this book was from a popular series.  I’d recommended it for that very reason. And he had liked it. Loved it!

Ah, but then I remembered I was in a hurry.  “Um, okay, Julian…I’ll get you something.  But it may not be today,” I stammered. I wanted to sprint to the library at that very moment and grab that next book for Julian.  I really did!  But my student was waiting.

“Okay.” And he was off.

EPILOGUE: I found the next book in the Maximum Ride series the following morning.  He thanked me.  Here’s hoping he likes it as much as the first book.