Dear Chick
August 1, 2019
Dear Chick:
I remember the day, almost 30 years ago, when I wheeled my grocery cart around Food Lion in search on one last thing to fill my growing boy’s Easter basket. My offering of jelly beans and Peeps seemed rather paltry. I needed something large that would stand out.
And there you were, your black eyes staring at me, yellow arms outstretched, your orange beak almost shouting at me: Take me! Take me!
The boy didn’t yet have a favorite friend, but he had a yellow blanket he loved, and so I thought you’d match each other well. Off we headed to the register, Jelly Beans and your soft yellow torso in tow.
Morning came, and the kids saddled up to the kitchen table to check out their loot. Your boy, who always left his candy in his basket for months until the magic beans melted together, plucked you up like he might a new puppy, and in this mother’s eye, rarely let you go. As he grew, though he didn’t take you to school (he tried), you sat with him on car trips, always, snuggled up with him each night for a story, hid in the caverns of that yellow blanket — it’s folds and you lit by a flashlight — long after you both were supposed to be asleep.
Once, you must have hurt yourself somehow, because you and the boy came downstairs to show me your arms, now guarded by green Ninja Turtle Bandaids, carefully placed. I wish I could remember the conversation, but it’s very possible (and likely) that he had identical ones on his knees.
In time, the boy wore the blanket to shreds, but you could still be seen holding fort beneath the windows left in the yellow threads by his nurturing hands. You were a team, the little yellow Chicky and the boy.
Until one day, while the boy was on a father/son trip with his dad, I found you abandoned on the bed. I couldn’t imagine he would have left you on purpose, but he was now in first or second grade, and maybe boys of that age didn’t want to be seen snuggling up to what others might see as a stuffed toy, in the middle of a cabin filled with boys and dads. That weekend I do remember, because the boy came down with a high fever and had to come home, and when we placed him on the bed, he searched until he found you, carefully tucking you under his arm, a place you had long-since molded to fit. And there you stayed for a really long time.
On another day, we visited the boy’s grandmother, who had a dog fond of chewing things. The boy had left you on his bed while he ate his breakfast, and upon return, found pieces of your face scattered about the room, your beak torn away. I thought he might be inconsolable, but he picked you up and loved you all the same. (A dog lover all his life, he did not, however, ever like that dog again.)
And so the boy grew up and moved away to college. The blanket was long gone, except for a tiny corner of silk and yarn and a single band of silk, salvaged by me because I couldn’t bear to throw it out. But you, you sat on his bed for the long-haul, beak-less but waiting for him whenever he came home. I know his love for you never wavered, though it may have waned in those years. Yet you were patient, somehow knowing that one day you might be needed again.
I thought about that, too, as I moved around his room, cleaning out, changing it from boy’s room to college kid’s and beyond. I sat you on his bookshelf, then on his chest, trying to find the perfect spot for you to stand sentry. I brought you out on his wedding day, wrapping what was left of the ribbon from his blanket around your neck to remind him that he might be grown, he would always be our boy.
This year, spring came, our man was about to become a Dad. I knew he needed something special to show him just how great a dad he would be, so I plucked you up, studying your whole body for the holes that might need stitching, the stuffing that might need replacing, and when I found more wounds than a box full of Ninja Turtle Band-aids could heal, I searched Esty for a shop that might care for you as I would. I found a woman who through her description promised care for you in her healing as much as our whole family did.
So Chicky, I bundled you up with a prayer and a picture of what you looked like at your most loved (but with your beak), and she set to work. You arrived safe at home a few weeks later, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, your new beak smiling as if you were chirping, Thank you! Thank you!
I found a box and put the picture of you and the boy and your Band-aids inside, wrapping you up with a special note. And on Father’s Day, I put you back in the boy’s arms, ready for your new work to begin.
Now you sit in the crib where in just a few short days, a new baby will be joining you. We don’t know if it’s a boy or girl yet, but I’m certain that as he or she grows, they will reach for you and will feel all the love poured into you by that boy rushing out to greet you, dear Chick. You. And you will pour all the love you’ve been holding in your heart right back out, and a new story will begin.
You have an important job, watching out for this new child growing up in our family. It is my hope that one day, the boy will find you under covers lit by a flashlight long after you and your new owner are supposed to be asleep, and he’ll crawl inside with the two of you, to see what the story is all about.
With much love, Sooze
the third day
of course this is ridiculous. there is plenty of light inside me somewhere, but lately, it feels like i am almost choosing not to let it out.
on new year's eve as i left the grocery store, a woman walked through the doors with a smile stretching so wide across her face that i looked around to see what could be so delightful. turns out, nothing — she was simply smiling. i huddled to myself against the wind and aimed for the car, wondering just what could make someone walk around that happy, all the time. i was also well aware that my expression would bring a passerby the exact opposite question to mind: why would someone frown so?
i spent that day as i often do on the last day of the year, taking stock of the things i have done and ought not to have done, understanding that i am not as right or as true as i sometimes think i am. the last few months of 2012 found me using angry words against the very people i love most, distancing my children and friends, and the reality of that leaves me feeling mired in the weight of me.
in all of my thinking, i promised myself i would make the changes in this new year that would make me more loving, less critical, less judgmental. no longer would the glass be half full. and i would tell the truth when i screwed up, not making excuses for my bungling of so many situations. not anymore.
on the first day of this new year, it took me exactly two hours to learn that even in truth telling, i will always be a bit broken. sometimes, like in the past couple of days, it feels like most of me feels broken, shattered into minute shards like the ornaments that fell from my tree this year, and most often from my own doing. on other days, somehow, i'm cracked, but the cracks hold together.
i spent the second day of 2013 second-guessing every decision i have made, pretty much in my life, praying that surely it is not in my DNA to hurt others, over and over again. and if it is, asking how i might go about deleting this fatal flaw.
a good friend who knows my heart and life very well said she sees much light in me. she didn't know that i had wrangled with those very words, that image of myself, as i began this post five days before. she says that none of us is all good or all bad. we are mixed up parts of both, and everyone has days when the light does not show through.
like any strand of Christmas lights, some of the bulbs do burn out. i have spent hours, sometimes, going through a strand to find that one defective piece, removing one bulb after another until i just throw the whole thing out and start over. but i can't throw my whole self out because half the light in me seems at best, dim in these early days of 2013.
on the third day of the new year, i went about my way, walking the dog, checking off the details of my work day. i've said before that when you work at church, God is pretty much in every corner. so there is no escaping the broken pieces of self, nor more than you can escape the light that flickers, even in the shadows of a darkened nave. God is there and watching, waiting i think, for those calls for help.
at the end of the day, i sat with my friend/priest/boss and we talked it all through. i cried a bit. we prayed a good long prayer, me saying right out loud that i wasn't really sure it would work. he said, yes, in his experience, prayer worked in even those most extreme situations, to bring about reconciliation of self, of others torn apart. so we closed our eyes and prayed for light. for love. for healing.
i was late picking the dog up from doggie day care. as i waited for the kennel worker to bring him to me, i overheard a woman on the phone explaining that she would get to work as soon as she could, but she was in a domestic situation and was uncertain of how she would get there.
she had just dropped her dog off at the kennel for the first time, uncertain, too, of when she would be able to get him. she was about my age, a soft face and graying ponytail, and there was something about her that showed great beauty.
sometime in me wavered, but i heard myself say:
do you need a ride somewhere? where do you work?
at a gas station, not far from here, she said.
so a few minutes later, the dog and i invited donna into our car. the dog licked her, and she talked about her own dog, a pug, she had rescued not long ago, and how he was going blind.
he is in good hands, i told her. the best. they will care well for him.
as we drove down the dark highway toward the quick mart, she spoke of being escorted by police from her home earlier that day, the same place where her fiancé had tried to kill her in october. he'd been in jail but had posted bond and showed up. she called the police, left all of her belongings except for the dog and walked out with no place to go.
she had left him before, sleeping in her car in 23 degree weather, so as not to be hurt again. but she did go back. until yesterday. his court date was to be this morning, and she was to testify.
he thinks if i'm dead i can't testify against him, she said, and i felt my throat catch, my own trivial self-inflicted problems fading. this was a woman's life. her life.
i'm intelligent and educated and embarrassed that i have gotten myself into this situation, she said. things like this don't happen to me.
they happen to anybody. this is not your fault, i told her.
as we pulled into the lighted parking lot of her work, i told her about the shelter for women in her situation, a place where she could find food, clothing, shelter and support. the police had told her about it, but she didn't know how to contact them, so i offered to get the number. she wrote the number of the gas station on a sheet of paper, squeezed my hand and disappeared into the busy quick mart to begin her job overnight job.
at home i found the number, reading online that:
• One woman is abused every minute in the United States*
• that it takes seven attempts for a victim to successfully leave her abuser*
i thought of all the women right in my town who died in the last year at the hand of someone who was supposed to love them, one of them in a shopping center i frequent. i have been distanced from this world, i think, but on the third day of this year, a beautiful woman in the midst of this very crisis shared a ride and conversation with me.