A Good Man is Hard to Find, or the Story of My Dad, a Few Days Late.

"Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged."
--Col. 3:19, 21.

The situation of my birth was anything but simple. Thoughts of being a young and out of work widower with four children must have flown through my fathers mind, scaring the wits out of him.

From all accounts my delivery went well, except for the fact that my mother lost so much blood this time. There had been a miscarriage between the birth of my older brother and me, and the pregnancy with my younger brother was difficult. Up until delivery, her pregnancy with me was normal. Giving life to me nearly killed her.

But this story isn't about my mother. This one is about my father. He had been laid off from his job at a local military defense plant a few months before I was born and there were 3 other children to feed. My mother worked as a psychiatric nurse in the detox unit of a psychiatric hospital, but paid maternity leave was non-existent. So, in that cold February of 1965, there was no money coming into the house and a fourth child was added to the family. Times were tough, and bill collectors were even tougher.

Eventually my mother would go back to work, but my father didn't find a job until September of that year. He would stay there until his retirement  25 years later.

***

Young and carefree

 He often blamed himself for starting her on the road to alcoholism. "Sheila, if you can't sleep at night," my father would say, "have a beer before bed." It was the beginning of their marriage and my mother worked the wards drying out the drunks who had been committed to the state hospital. They did the hard stuff. She couldn't sleep. A beer sounded good. The road to hell starts with a single step, and for the next four decades my father would see his wife go to bed drunk every night.

A million times he could have left. He could have just walked out the door and said good-bye to it all.

But he didn't.

In 1956, he made a vow to love and cherish my mother until death. I imagine that it may have been quite difficult for him to practice that sacramental vow toward a wife who never sobered up. Quite often, he took on the role of both parents because he had to. To the best of my knowledge, he also never cheated on my mother. A lesser person would have cut and run.

Dad at 50, me at 15.

He's a man who keeps his promises, my father. At eighty years old and a widower for ten years, he makes sure that everyone in his family gets mailed a birthday card on the appointed day, no matter where they live. Every winter he goes to Florida. Each spring, when he finally makes it back from the land of the snowbirds, he sits in his chair and watches every Yankee game until the final out of the season. Every fall Sunday from that same chair, he watches the fate of his beloved New York Football Giants.


My father Pete taught his daughters what it means to be a husband and a father. I often see traits of him these days in Micki's husband, Eddie, as he tends to her breast cancer recovery. I see my father in the way Eddie makes sure someone is with her at all times; in the way he props her up to ease the pain. The sandwich he makes the night before and leaves on the night table.

At forty-six, I've never been blessed with the opportunity to live the sacrament of marriage, but because of my father, I know that love is not an emotion, but is the action of giving yourself completely over to another. My father then has made real for me the meaning of Christ's words, "As I have loved you, so you also should love one another." (John 13:34)

The Struggles of the Catholic Writer

"What Mr. Philip Wylie contends is the that the Catholic writer...cannot...see straight; and this contention, in effect, is not very different from that made by Catholics who declare that whatever the Catholic writer can see, there are certain things he should not see, straight or otherwise." 

Flannery O'Connor, The Church and the Fiction Writer.

"Test everything; hold fast what is good." St. Paul to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 5:21)

Recently, a writers association invited me to become a member. One of the benefits they promise is that they would display my books (I have none) at their booth, but they retain the right to "approve them for Catholicity."

The only thing I want my work to be approved for is publishing. So, this caveat raised quite a few red flags for me. Besides, I don't even know what "Catholicity" even means.

But this does raise the question of what it means to be a writer who not only espouses the Christian faith, but is a Catholic.

Some time ago, I wrote a story about a pedophile and her young prey. After a few weeks of working on the piece with a group of writer-friends, one of them asked this bold question: "How could you be so daring in your writing and still be a faithful Catholic?"


How could I not?

Being Catholic doesn't mean that I shut my eyes to the world or that I censor my craft to fit doctrine. To do so reduces faith to an ideology and makes my work nothing more than a whorish endeavor in service of it.

For this writer, being Catholic means that I am able to examine everything without fear. It is imperative that I be "as wise as a serpent and as innocent as a dove" (Matt. 10:16). I cannot accomplish that task if I refuse to explore certain areas because such a search might offend the moralism of someone else.


Writing is a dangerous activity because it opens the mind to wandering. Wandering, or rather imagination, is a God-given gift, that I like to think we should use for such things as oh, say, the arts. Further describing what happens in the mind of a pedophile as she fantasizes about her victim is an even darker, more dangerous wilderness. Add to that a depiction of self-pleasure as a response to this fantasy. Surely some might scream "Pornography!"

I struggled immensely writing that part of the story. Many thoughts passed through my mind: Is this true to the story? Is it sensationalistic? Is it unnecessarily offensive?" The truth is, I still struggle with the answers to those questions; but the struggle isn't because of the teachings of the Church; it has more to do with what Flannery O'Connor called the constraints of the art. It is quite a balancing act between being gratuitous and being afraid to explore this uncharted territory.

I have two choices then: I can explore the mind of the pedophile with my readers or I can shut  my eyes and decide not to write about her at all. If I choose the latter, I can't help but suspect that I will miss an opportunity to see and reflect God's grace on this world. What the Catholic writer can never forget is that God found the world dying for. Even the world of the pedophile is worth the cross. Seen in this light, the horror of the unspeakable illuminates the absolute necessity of Someone greater than us to save us from ourselves.

The Scars That Bind

We were sitting in her room--she on the bed and me on the chair next to it. The makeup she wore had begun to slide across her face as the oil from the drudgery of the day surfaced on her skin.

"I can show them to you," she said. "But you will have to close my bra."

I'd never seen the scars of a double-mastectomy in person before. Those I had seen in pictures were years healed. Micki's were fresh.

"Okay," I said.

***

Sitting on the floor in front of the television, my  nine-year-old self had had enough of these napkins commercials. The women in them smiled and ran carefree on the beach, played tennis or swam.

What the heck are those things, and why would any lady be happy to wear them? The question burned in my gut for some time until finally, I could take it no longer. I would bust if I didn't ask. Just bust!

"Ma, what are sanitary napkins?" At long last, it was out. My mother, working the tab of her third can of beer for the night, sat in her corner chair. Her eyes began to drift into space, as they always did when she was like this. And when she was like this was every night.

"Women use them," she slurred.

Micki, sixteen, said, "I'll show you, Kim."

With a slight sound of relief, my mother said, "Don't show her yours."


Taking me by the hand, my sister led me into the bathroom. She opened the linen closet and pulled a cardboard box from the top shelf.

K-O-T-E-X, it spelled.

Next, she dug an elastic band out of a bag. The band had two strips hanging from it, with metal closures at the end of each.

"You put it around your waist," she said, "but you attach the napkin through it first." Then she put her hand in the cardboard box and pulled out a pad. It was the same as the napkins I saw on television--rectangular, with cotton padding in the center and two strips of material at each end.

Perplexed, I said, "Why do women wear these?"

"Because they bleed every month for a week, dummy."

"Ewww," I said.

***

"Can you?" she asked. Micki laid down slowly as I unzipped the post-operative brassiere. And then I saw them: two sanitary napkins where her breasts used to be. She sat up and moved them. I could hardly speak. Each side consisted of two seams: one horizontal, the other a railroad line plowing up the middle in neat stitches.

"The surgeons did a good job," I muttered.

"Yeah, they did." Taking a moment, she looked at herself in the mirror above the dresser. "Ready?" she asked. She lay back again and I began to fasten the bra.

"Sure," I said.  She winced as I missed the first eye-hook. 

My fumbling hands betrayed the calm in my voice.

Missed it again. She winced again.

"Sorry."

Why won't this damned thing close?

Saying "Yes" When Everything Screams "No!"

Moses:   But seriously, God, I'm not up to the task. I sound like a bumbling idiot.
God:      Look, I made you. I know what you sound like. Talk to them anyway.
Moses:   Can't you send someone else?--Exodus 4:10-13, kinda.



Anytime I've ever been asked to write for something specific, my mouth says, Sure, no problem, while my insides scream, Run for the hills! You can't do this! You're a terrible writer! Most of the time, when I'm first asked, the crowd inside my head is a LOT louder than anything that might escape my lips.

You want me to do what?

So, it came as no surprise to me or the committee renting space in my brain when I said yes to Father Roy yesterday. Father Roy is the director of a pretty well-known Marian shrine (at least in these parts, anyway) and he's been wanting me to write a history of the  place for quite a while. There was nothing particularly definite in the previous requests, but yesterday was different.

"Can you come tomorrow and start on it?" he said.

"Sure, no problem," I said. What? Are you insane? Tomorrow is Memorial Day, you have plans! You're not good enough to write this. People will actually read it! So went the conversation in my head.

Maybe this is a standard practice of writers or maybe it's just me and the crazies. But there is something to be said about being willing to rise to the challenge when such doubt is all-pervasive.

God: Okay, Fine! Don't you have a brother named Aaron? He's got a smooth tongue. Let him do the talking. Here's how we'll do it: I'll talk to you, you talk to Aaron and Aaron talks to the people. Capisce?--Exodus 4:14-16.

The trouble with my conscience, both as a human being and a writer, is that I have to follow through on what I promise to deliver. What a bother. And the trouble with my humanity is that I don't always deliver. I showed up today at the shrine anyway. It took a while, but I finally understood how it was going to go down: the shrine itself was going to tell me the story, and I, in turn, would relay it to the folks who made it their pilgrimage. Easy peasy.

Yeah, right.

Memorial Day 2011: Working Toward Peace

"He wrote to us of the clubs in the Russian port, and how the men were treated as men, capable of appreciating lectures, concerts, dances and meetings with student groups. In this country...the seamen were treated as the scum of the earth; port towns and the port districts in these towns were slums and waterfront streets made up of taverns, pawnshops and houses of prostitution...The Russians treated their American comrades as though they were creatures of body and soul...made in the image and likeness of God...and here in our professedly Christian country they were treated like beasts, and often became beasts because of this attitude."
-- Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness


***********************************************************************************

Look familiar? It should. This is the exact same quote I used last year for this day. Has anything changed? Sure, lots. And nothing at all. We're still at war, for instance. The day is still observed in shopping malls across the country.We remember the dead who are long gone with ceremony and solemnity, but have difficulty remembering that war is a failure of peace. Same old same old.

So, what's different? Osama bin Laden is dead. Thousands took to the streets this year and hooted and hollered, forgetting that to cheer at the death of a human being is to diminish our own humanity. The celebration of death was the order of the day.

And then there were those who registered shock that some would show such exuberance at the execution of the enemy. Surprise is a failure of looking at reality. Because the reality is that our culture so often encourages the total annihilation of the enemy, whoever that enemy may be. Nothing is won if all is not destroyed is the thinking.

This Memorial Day, let us remember that the best way to honor the dead is to work toward peace.

This Discomforting Life

It was Monday. Laptop in hand, I was answering emails when the surgeon arrived in the family waiting-room to talk to my brother-in-law and me.

"One of the lymph nodes is diseased," he said.

Diseased. This meant my sister might have to undergo chemo. It meant the cancer had spread beyond the breast. Crap. Not what we were expecting. We were hoping the double mastectomy would do the trick and get rid of the cancer altogether. Realizing the depth of what he just said, Dr. J assured us that her prognosis was excellent and that the cancer had not spread to the other lymph nodes or any other part of her body.

A sigh of relief--then discomfort. My discomfort. I was in a role I rarely ascended to in my 40+ years of existence. I was at the front lines of the battle when I'm usually pulling rear guard. In a family of five children (three girls and two boys) I am the youngest daughter.  I know rear guard. I like it. In a family crisis, the two older sisters are the "go-to" team. Not this time. My second eldest sister was in surgery and the eldest could not be there. My sister needed her sisters (or at least one of us), and so up to Connecticut I went. It was my duty to be there with my brother-in-law on his journey for that day. To ask questions ("Excuse me, Dr. J, can you clarify this for me......?"). It was my role to inform the family of any news. I didn't like it.


And yet, I did. Somehow, this event fit perfectly into my life at this juncture. In fact, it was okay. It was really, really okay. And uncomfortable as hell.


Two days later, this article from Christine Valters Paintner of Abbey of the Arts, popped into my mailbox. Immediately, I was recalled to the fact of who I am--someone who does not like to put a positive spin on things, just for the sake of being positive. I like the real, raw picture of life. I like it so much, it became too painful to bear and I squashed that pain in a decades-long haze of compulsive eating. Now, with no buffer between me and reality, I have to make some sense out of this discomforting life.


Compassion. It is the very heart of Christian existence. It's also the reason why wakes are very popular. Our understanding of God has Him suffer as we suffer. Our hurt is His hurt. Jesus didn't cure everyone's ills--instead He held their hands; He comforted them. He suffered with them. As the old hymn tells us, we'll never walk alone.

"Dear God: Thank you for this abundance. May  it be enough for me today."

Every night for the past half year, I have gone to bed hungry. Not starving, just hungry. This is unthinkable for a food addict. It is insufferable. It's also a matter of justice. For years, I had taken more than my just portion. Now, even one grain of rice extra is more than my share.

The discomfort I go through every night doesn't cure cancer; nor does it take away anybody's pain. But it does make present the fact that cancer does exist and people do go through pain. And more importantly, it reminds me that I am so utterly helpless when faced with these things, that the only thing I can do is but a fraction of what Jesus did as I stumble in the attempt at holding somebody's hand in their time of need. Maybe, just maybe I will actually grab it.

The Stone and the Cross; A new life story.

"It seems as if all my bridges have been burned,
You say that’s exactly how this grace thing works
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart,
But the welcome I receive at the restart"
--Mumford & Sons "Roll Away Your Stone" 

 
It's Easter, and the evening is winding to a close. I sit up here in my room listening to the rain pelt against the window. My father watches the late news downstairs. He's eighty now, and while I know it's wrong, my patience with him often wears thin. His patience with others is even thinner. Perhaps it's my way of denying his advancing age and increasing need. My sister Micki once said she believed people got more crotchety as they aged as a way of making their death easier on the surviving family members. That's a pretty good way to look at mercy, I think.

It's Easter, and I sit up here, writing, wondering if I have any readers left. Only God in His mercy would see to it that I do, because I certainly haven't done a thing to retain any. It's been months since my last blog post, and to the two readers I had, if you are still reading, then all I can say is this: I am sorry.

Roll away the stone

You see, I've been getting my life in order. The truth of the matter is that I am an addict in recovery. My "substance of choice" is food, but it really could have been anything: alcohol, coke, sex, crack.  The trouble is, I've been too chicken to do most of those things. So, food seemed safe.  Harmless, even. But that "harmlessness" set off cravings in me like any alcoholic or drug addict. As a direct result of my addiction, I ballooned to over 240 pounds. I wore my addiction. It was evident to everyone except me. In fact, it was easy to avoid it. If you don't look below your neck in a mirror, you don't see the effects of years of compulsive eating and isolation. Now, I go to 3 or 4 meetings a week. And since I've put down my substance, I've lost a significant amount of weight. Go figure.

I am an addict who has been to hell and back. On July 17, 2010, I got my sobriety back when I put down the food. On August 26th, 2010, I got my serenity back when I walked into a church basement for the first time in over ten years and uttered the words, "My name is Kim and I am a compulsive overeater."

Photo credit:The jof

I still have to eat to live, but I no longer eat compulsively. I have a food plan and every morning at 7:30 I tell another woman what I am eating for that day. It's terribly humbling to start the day admitting my brokenness to another human being. Humility and I aren't natural friends, which is why this daily phone call is so important. But even before I make my phone call, I have two women who call me to make their own humbling admissions. The first call comes in at 6:30 AM.

My addiction doesn't define me in my totality, this I have come to realize. It doesn't define me, but it sure as heck wanted to reduce my existence to little more than a slave to it. And I was a willing participant in my own demise.

Addiction is the work of a force that offers me no hope. I need hope. I'm a goner without it. I want more than whatever it is I thought food could offer. Food became the stumbling block, the stone, between me and the only Person who could offer me such beauty; who could roll away the stone of my addiction. That Person, that "Higher Power" for me is Christ.

Christ is risen! He is truly risen! For the next fifty days, Christians around the world will proclaim this in the liturgy. But in order for us to know the Resurrection, we must also bear our cross. For me, and millions like me, addiction is our cross, bearable only because of the presence of Another. We start life again--refreshed and renewed.


Happy Easter.