Gaining Perspective

My husband had his gall bladder removed this week. He spent an evening in emergency a couple weeks ago in Madison, Wisconsin, halfway between home and board meetings in Chicago. Gall bladder symptoms look a lot like heart attack and within two minutes of walking into a local clinic they had him in an ambulance, dissolving nitroglycerin under his tongue.

He had had a similar attack the previous night after I served him waffles and sausage for breakfast, grilled brat-worst for lunch and pot roast with Yorkshire pudding and gravy for supper to welcome him home from his latest overseas trip. (This is the man who collects countries-in-which-he-has-eaten-pizza. Current count? 78) He got up long after jet-lag should have knocked him out and sat in front of a TV ball game I had recorded while he was gone. He would have liked to throw up and be done with it. I got up and made him mint and rosemary tea.

"I'll be fine," he said. "There's nothing you can do. Go back to bed."

I brought him a cup of tea and didn't mention our friend reading in bed while her husband died of congestive heart failure in front of the TV minutes after assuring her he was fine.

Eventually the emergency room doctors in Madison determined Steve was not having a heart attack, or other life-threatening problems and sent him on his way with instructions to see his family doctor. Due to my commitments in Indianapolis, he lived on oatmeal, un-buttered pancakes, grilled chicken and dry toast for a week before that could happen. They brought him a lovely vegetable platter at my $60-a-plate awards dinner.

Last Sunday I participated in the Race for a Cure with my daughter, grandchildren and a group of friends. For us it was less a race and more an amble among the strollers, wagons and 50,000 other people raising money to fight breast cancer. All around me were little groups with names like "Treasure Chests" or "Angie's Angels". They walked in celebration of a survivor (wearing a special pink T-shirt) or in memory of a loved one gone. Each of those 50,000 people had a story to tell. My cousin's daughter is fighting breast cancer right now. Her grandmother is a survivor.

Our pastor friend, Don Gerig, is blogging his journey with a brain tumor. A colleague from Africa recently retired to Australia only to find she has advanced pancreatic cancer. It all puts gall bladder surgery in perspective. In the future Steve may have to be a little more careful about the quantity of pizza he consumes.

White Gowns and Roses

On a warm evening in early June thirty-four girls in white formals with armloads of red roses walked down the aisles of a neo-gothic church in Indianapolis, Indiana, and received our diplomas from Tudor Hall School. When the ceremony had ended and the last echoes of John 14:27 had faded beneath the vaulted stone ceiling, we tearfully handed out our long-stemmed roses, one by one, to family and friends who came to wish us well.

Forty years have passed. We are scattered from Maine to Honolulu. Somehow when we gathered last week to tour the old campus, the rivalries, resentments and insecurities of those long-ago days had fallen away. We were a miscellaneous dozen or so who had not been close then and hadn't stayed in touch, but you would never have known it to hear our chatter.

"Remember when we ..."

"Where is ...?"

"Mrs. Kuprion's room! Oh, those Friday afternoon math 'tea parties' to catch up and get extra help!"

Mr. Zimmer's room no longer smelled of pipe tobacco from his lunchtime walks in the grounds. The offices, once so foreboding, looked tiny and insignificant stripped of the commanding presence of Miss Whitford and her assistant head, Miss Smith. The stage where we performed "Carousel" and "Brigadoon" is positively primitive compared to the current facilities at Park Tudor, the school that merged Tudor Hall and near-by Park School.

Forty years is a long time. My classmates have grown and matured. How could we not? We have experienced life as we never imagined it on that June evening--joy and success, death and loss, personal weaknesses, failures and everyday plodding. Some have discovered a faith in God that wasn't there in high school. Or perhaps, in our grown-up confidence, we are just more willing to talk openly about it. Some I considered shallow then, have gained depth. Others burst with expansive hearts and enthusiasm I was too blind to appreciate at seventeen. Something in me wants to apologize for the self-confident know-it-all I must have seemed at the time.

Sharon lost many of her possessions in a flood last spring. We gathered around her to replace some of her beloved books. 'Perhaps the biggest lesson driven home to me since the flood,' she writes, 'has been that “things” are just that: things. When everything else is stripped away, the core of our lives is all about our relationships. With God. With friends. With family. With our pets… and sometimes with perfect strangers.'

"To the girls, we'll not forget them," said our school hymn, but I had forgotten. I'm sorry about that. There was treasure there I was too wrapped up in myself to notice. But then perhaps we all were. We were young after all.

At the end of May the seniors of Park Tudor School will receive their diplomas. There will be boys among them, the successors of those Park boys who handed us up the steps lest we trip on our long skirts. The Park Tudor girls will be wearing white formals and carrying red roses. They have the adventure of life ahead of them.
[My sister and I with our beloved music teacher, Elise Marshall, at the awards banquet. If you are wondering where I am in the group photo above, I am the one with her eyes closed on the right in the back row.]

Nine Hundred is less than 12 million

"This is the only time in the year when we have the whole school together," the alumni coordinator told me when she asked me to speak. "There will be students from age four through seniors in high school."

"How many?" I asked, wondering how I could handle the age span.

"About 900."

"900? 900 kids ages four to eighteen?"

She didn't tell me that I would come after several other speakers in the Founders Day program, that the little ones would be beginning to fidget and the older ones to yawn. Young people can't fathom what it is like to look back on these years after a lifetime.

I didn't try. I read them a story--Toto in Trouble (Shuter and Shooter, 2006). It's a funny little story that got the wiggles out of the little ones and drew laughs from the older ones. They sat still while I talked about Toto and children like him who live in child-headed households because AIDS has taken their parents. I challenged those who were oldest in their families to think about what it would be like to be responsible for their younger brothers and sisters--not just to babysit while their parents had an evening out--but to be responsible for what the family would eat tomorrow, for the clothes they would wear next year when their current wardrobe was worn out or out-grown. "What would you do if someone got sick?" I asked. "Would you make everyone go to school and do their homework, or would you just give up and let them do whatever they wanted?"

There are nearly twelve million orphans in Africa today--a lot more than the 900 students at Park Tudor. Twelve million is more than all the children in all the schools in the state of Indiana. In fact, it is about as many as all the children in all the schools in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan--all with no mother and no father.

I showed pictures of my kids in Tembisa, and talked about reading with them. I challenged the 900 young people (who weren't fidgeting anymore), "The founders of this school knew their students would be privileged. They knew you would be gifted young people. They wanted to prepare you to serve your community. Today with the Internet and global economy, that community is the whole world. You can't solve everyone's problems, but I want to challenge you to find something you can do that will make a difference."

At least some of them got the point.

[Excepts can be viewed on the Park Tudor Facebook page.]

Needed: another Nelson Mandela

Elections will be held next week in South Africa. When we lived there in the 1990s the country was a budding democracy brimming with hope. Newly-elected President Nelson Mandela encouraged people of all races to form a rainbow nation that would work together for peace and prosperity. The bid for the 2010 soccer World Cup grew out of that dream.

But cynicism has obscured the rainbow. Political corruption is treated as normal and no reason not to be a candidate for president. There are well over a million orphans in the country as a result of rampant AIDS. Incest and child rape are all too common. While I was in Johannesburg last month, taxi drivers went on strike in fear that a more efficient bus system might put them out of business. They dragged commuters from private cars, beat them and forced them to walk to work.

Endow the king with your justice, O God,
the royal son with your righteousness....
(Psalm 72, verse 1)

So prayed King Solomon when he ascended the throne of Israel after his father, the great King David. He anticipated an international influence that would be the envy of modern leaders.

All kings will bow down to him
and all nations will serve him. (verse 13)

And on what did he base that international reputation?

For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
the afflicted who have no one to help.
He will take pity on the weak and the needy
and save the needy from death.
He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
for precious is their blood in his sight. (verses 12 to 14)

The needy cry out in South Africa. The afflicted look to government agencies and too often find no one to help. More than five million South Africans are living with HIV/AIDS today, many weak and close to death. And as to violence--Johannesburg has one of the highest murder rates in the world. How precious is the blood of the people in the sight of those on next week's ballot? More precious than the wine of power? More precious than the friendship of the oppressor next door? More precious than a Swiss bank account? South Africa needs rulers at every level, endowed with justice and the righteousness of God.

Praise be to the Lord God, the God of Israel,
who alone does marvelous deeds.
Praise be to his glorious name forever;
may the whole earth be filled with his glory.
Amen and Amen. (verses 18 and 19)

Granny Evelyn

Alexandra Township outside Johannesburg, South Africa, has little in common with the Northwoods retreat where I now live. I used to think it was so crowded nothing green could grow there, but this picture shows there is at least one, no, two trees in the area. In the background is one of the notoriously violent hostels built to house workers brought from the African homelands to the city to fill job needs under the old apartheid regime. I have been told that more than two thousand men live in that building. Surrounding the hostel are small houses. Some are reasonably comfortable, but to pay the high cost of the mortgage (or bond, as it is locally called) multiple shacks were built in the yard and rented out. I described one of these courtyards when I visited Imelda.

Granny Evelyn lives in a similar courtyard. She is one of the grannies from the group at the Baptist Church that I talked with about reading with their grandchildren. Besides her own grandchildren, Granny Evelyn does child care for a dozen small children whose parents are trying to make a living in this challenging environment. My friend Ruth dropped off a box of chocolate Easter eggs for the little ones to enjoy. Eleven teenage orphans living on their own will stop by in the evening for the hot meal Granny Evelyn prepares.

Only a few grannies came to the meeting that day. They talked about how to grow the group. "You can be a granny without being old," they said. "Can the younger grannies come?" These older grannies have a lot to teach younger grannies like me about unselfishly giving of ourselves.

Like a weaned child

"Do my eyes look funny?" I asked my husband.

"No," he said.

I wasn't sure if that was a relief or not. The lids felt puffy, and when I ran my finger across them, the skin was rough. Were they red? It's hard to see your own eyelids even in a mirror.

Maybe it's just part of the aging process. Most people don't think I look as old as the calendar says I am, but after all I am... never mind.

I had already tried a couple different lotions instead of my usual eye cream. Maybe it's an allergic reaction. I stopped putting anything on the lids.

That was in Africa. I returned to North America and lingering Minnesota winter to help my daughter with her new baby. My lids still felt like they were covered with tiny scales. They itched. I caught my second daughter looking hard at them.

"It's like I'm allergic to something," I explained, "but what?" I stopped using makeup altogether.

Then it hit me. Years ago during the war in Mozambique, I used to break out in a periodic rash on my arms and legs. As time went on, the rash would spread to my chest and neck, driving me crazy with the itch. One morning after being hit with a particularly stressful situation, I woke with my face so swollen I could hardly open my eyes.

Could my swollen eyelids be caused by stress? But I had a wonderful time in Africa! I'm glad for this time with my two grandchildren. Yes, but for weeks I have been pushed just slightly beyond my comfort zone. I love talking about books and children and encouraging those who are on the ground working directly with African children at-risk. But the groups I spoke to were never suburban housewives. The setting could be be a challenge, as the echoing room at the Saturday's Cool or the long line of grannies on the shaded side of the alley. The meeting wasn't likely to start at the scheduled time and ended....? Africa is nothing if not unexpected.

Even here with my daughter, I am not home. It isn't my kitchen or my laundry. Babies and toddlers don't keep to my schedule. I must be constantly alert for how to be helpful without being an interfering mother-in-law.

This morning before anyone else was up I read from Psalm 131,
I have stilled and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child with its mother,
Like a weaned child with its mother is my soul within me.

A picture of my granddaughter curled up on her mother's lap in her penguin pajamas. She grasps the bottle of milk that she only uses at bedtime now. Her mother's arms are wrapped securely around her. She is content.

Like a weaned child with his mother is my soul within me. Let it be, Lord.

Babies

I had forgotten how tiny a newborn is. My new grandson swims in the smallest onesie. He waves his little fists in the air, not yet coordinated enough to get them to his mouth to suck except by chance. He scrunches up his eyes and opens his mouth to search for the nipple. His vulnerability melts my heart.

He already made his first trip to the library. Big Sister has been part of a play group/story time there since she was five months old. Baby Brother beat her--he was only three-days old his first trip to the library. He is not yet choosing his own books to check out, but Big Sister freely quotes Masie and Curious George.

I am an early riser, and the added incentive of jet-lag from my recent return from Africa has had me downstairs at the computer long before others rise (except when I find Mommy and Baby doing the early-morning feeding thing and have the chance to send Mommy back to bed.) One morning I had been up for several hours when I heard the pitter-patter of little feet on the hardwood floor and a cheerful, high-pitched "Morning, Grammie!" That was special since normally Big Sister wants only Mommy in her drowsy waking moments.

Daddy has taken a couple weeks of paternity leave, a twenty-first century privilege. Yesterday he was seen holding the baby with one arm, balancing the bottle with his chin while typing on the computer with his free hand.

I think of the pregnant teen Imelda introduced us to in Alex. Will her baby have two healthy parents or will Daddy abandon them and Mommy sicken and die? Will he have enough food in that tiny shack by the open drain? Will the girl's father I met be a model of strength and self-control or will he exert his power to drink away their small income and beat his family? I saw no books in the home. It will be a miracle if his mother gets him a library card. Will he go to one of the creches I have visited where loving teachers read and sing with the children and prepare them for school in a challenging new world? Maybe he will attend Saturday's Cool and catch an enthusiasm for learning. What kind of chance will he have in twenty-first century Africa? I wish I knew. I am grateful for those like my friend Ruth and her colleagues who are working day-by-day in small ways to make a difference in his life.