Here are the winners of Story Circle's Life-Writing Competition, chosen for their freshness and originality, and the clarity and authenticity of the author's voice:
Topic: This year's topic focuses on evolution and growth. Here are some wise words to help you get started:
"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations." |
We know you will enjoy these stories as much as we do. Congratulations to our four winners! And look for an announcement of our next competition in June, 2009.
My spine pressed against the straight backed chair at the round oak kitchen table. Behind a child-sized Halloween witch's hat, I stared at my lover's wife. Marlene's glassy, dark-rimmed eyes stared back. Neither of us remembered a good night's rest.
She'd called my office that afternoon. "We have to talk."
"Yes." My reply was barely audible.
"My house. I'll call when I get my children in bed after Trick or Treat."
Halloween? Where had the two months since Robert's stroke gone? Surprised that I could sit in my swivel chair and perform the simple task of answering a phone, I welcomed action. Anything was better than doing nothing and feeling everything.
The smell of macaroni and cheese reminded me how far outside real life I lived. I pushed aside a red Superman cape, removed a pair of devil horns from beneath me, and waited.
"I'm not old, ugly, or stupid," Marlene began, her square chin high. She'd slipped out of a long black coat and stood straight and poised in black slacks and red sweater. I'd come willingly to her kitchen to listen to words that would hurt. I was not here to deny, justify, or explain.
No ordinary wife and mother, Marlene had begun work on a PhD and last summer took four of their five children to Connecticut and performed in summer stock. No, I never thought she was stupid, old, or ugly. I never wanted her life. Now, I wasn't sure I wanted mine.
She stopped in front of a refrigerator collage of photos, magnets, and scribbled notes, the diary of her active family. "I knew," she said, recognized the look of interest on my face, and smiled. "Last April I was sure. I saw you with him at lunch."
My mind flashed to the hotel restaurant. He always told me it was fine. He lunched with his other department heads, didn't he? I wanted to believe him—believe that no one noticed when we traveled to meetings together or saw those accidental touches. That day Marlene and her mother waved and detoured to our table. She'd smiled through polite introductions and looked as cool as I had learned to appear. So, she'd known since then. And said nothing.
Unable to be less than completely honest, I said, "It was Pittsburgh."
She shook her head. "The night he called and said his car was locked in a parking lot?" She hadn't guessed the affair had begun at the state conference.
I nodded. It sounded so dumb now.
Marlene bent, picked up a tiny princess's tiara, and set it on the stairway up to the bedrooms where her children slept. She turned and tossed me a hurtful line, "Even his Korean mistress was taller than you." Was this supposed to tell me I was not the only one? Not special? Instead, it reminded me that she and Robert never looked like a couple. Next to her tall, solid frame, he bounced like a leprechaun.
In my deepest pain, I wondered if our affair created the stress that caused his stroke. More likely, the years of drinking, smoking, and intense living had taken a huge toll on his forty-nine-year-old, Type A body.
Marlene sat. She and I were adults and unlikely allies. Robert could not make decisions for himself. It was her time to lay out the rules.
"The hospital staff must not know about the..." Her voice wavered at the word "affair." "So clichéd," she said with a laugh and a dismissive hand gesture. I smiled and something opened between us. Under other circumstances we could have been friends.
That moment passed and she continued, "If a hint of scandal gets back to the social worker, Kara will be sent back to that horrible Korean orphanage." Robert loved his three sons and two adopted daughters. He'd introduced them to me at a party, but I was too nervous to keep their names straight.
She told me the entire university community knew. No one had spoken to me since Robert's hospitalization. I appeared at work every day and maintained the charade that I was fine. Even the worst gossips didn't pry for tidbits of information or ask why I looked like hell. Other times, locked in my apartment, unable to eat or sleep, I journaled—if raving and repeating words on paper could be called journaling.
Marlene narrowed her eyes and tossed her head theatrically. "I wonder if I would have called you—if he'd died," she whispered sotto voce.
I believe she would have wanted to be the one.
Marlene decided that the sooner Robert's rehabilitation began, the better his chance of recovery. His family—his children—would be crucial in supporting his therapy.
She told me again the top priority was to protect his children, then tossed out a flip comment about the cost of therapy for five traumatized kids. Unable to meet her eyes, I stared at a glass bowl heaped with candy corn, apples, and Tootsie Roll Pops.
Marlene began to pace, automatically straightening the kitchen. The silence felt more awkward than sarcastic words. She picked up a carving knife next to a half-completed Jack-o-lantern and examined it like Lady Macbeth. "I didn't love him. We married in our late twenties and we both wanted a family. He loved me. But I did not love him. We made a good life. I grew to love him—too late." She sighed and tossed the knife into the sink.
I left. I do not remember getting into my car or driving home.
Months later, when he returned to work, I saw the sparkling eyes of the formerly vibrant man and my heart again wanted to reach out. Then I noticed he told only old stories. Later, I learned that Marlene had given Robert rules, too. He could stay in their home until he was well enough to go back to work, he would move out as soon as he could live alone, and then they would divorce.
I saw him alone one more time. I said a final goodbye with sincere sorrow. Gradually, over months, I accepted I'd loved a shallow and selfish man. I remembered him saying, "Be there for me. I'll try to be there for you," and I no longer thought it was a loving commitment.
My devastation at losing this man I loved burned down the walls I had lived behind all my life. At thirty-nine I experienced real feelings, from passion to grief, and at last began to move forward towards life.
Marlene became my secret role model as I creating a new life. A suffering wife and caring mother divorced a disabled man and made him leave his home and children months after facing death. I imagined her surrounded by sympathetic family and friends, yet she must have borne enormous guilt as she salvaged her life.
"I'm not good enough for you," Robert told me so often. I hope he said those words often to his wife.
About the author:
From a career as a librarian to yoga teacher with a few stops in between, Amber Polo has lived more places than many people visit. Since each move brought a new life, she'll never run out of stories. A recovering English major, Amber has written everything from computer manuals to romances (and prefers romance). Her comic paranormal romance, Romancing Rebecca, is available from The Wild Rose Press. For more than you want to know, check out Amber's website.
She said she would carry a rose so I'd recognize her. Perhaps I should have one too. I am alone at People Express in Newark this chilly November day to meet her flight from Boston. The plane drifts along the tarmac as though it doesn't intend to stop. I stare blankly as bulky stairs are dragged to the plane. The flight attendant pulls the heavy door and it swivels in slow motion toward her. Each blink of my eyes brings this miracle closer. The wait is tiring. Finally the door is open and strangers line the stairs. One is mine. I am here to meet my daughter.
Under my coat I feel trickles of cold sweat. The familiar chill reminds me of the shame my pregnancy brought to my life when I was so young. My thoughts return to my edgy nervousness. I've been anxious for two weeks because I never believed this reunion could happen. I'm on the cusp of a new chapter in my life. The call from the Children's Home Society caught me off guard. I sank to the kitchen floor as I listened to the social worker on the other end of the line. The daughter I gave up at birth for adoption in 1961, wants family health records. The caller gave me the phone number and name of my child, Susan. (Kimberly was my name for her the first five days of her life.) I phoned Susan the next night, on my fortieth birthday. We anxiously agreed to meet. The long secretive silence of 22 years had separated us, legally, emotionally and physically. Revised laws opened adoption records and reunions with birth families are commonplace. I watch them on Oprah, while I'm cocooned in my own secret.
At the gate the windows extend from ceiling to floor. The expanse of glass isn't big enough for this event. My impulse is to run and stand at the foot of the stairs and insist "my daughter" be let off first. Instead, I stand at the window, hands extended to the glass, to steady myself. I wonder if she sees me, and if I look anything like what she expects.
"I'm a forty-year-old with brown hair, tall and slim," I told Susan earlier on the phone. Susan sent me a photo of herself in the mail. She obviously resembles both her birth father and me. It is jarring to see his features in her face. I never told him about my pregnancy because I didn't want to marry him when I was eighteen. We had a wedding planned but I cancelled just twenty four hours before it. He needed financial support through medical school and I wasn't willing to forfeit my future for his.
She bends to leave the plane then steps down the stairwell and I see a vision of myself at twenty-two: Tall, brunette and tentative. She reaches for the railing to steady herself, dangles her superfluous rose, and descends the stairs. My nerves electric, my heart syncopated, I forget the script I planned. I wonder if she'll let me hug her and whether she forgives me for giving her up. She enters the gateway. Her lovely eyes sweep over the crowd then she spots me. We walk toward one another like mirror images reaching out to embrace. We cling for several moments, each weeping into the other's shoulder.
We pull back to hold one another at arms length. We are close enough to look into each other's eyes for the first time, and to see that we are biologically, mother and daughter.
Twenty-five-years later I am still telling our story of that visit, reflecting how dearly I hold the memory. I see it in my mind and replay it over and over. I chose to keep it alive, forever hopeful, and eternally optimistic. It was the first time Susan and I had together as adults.
Susan and I drove home from the airport and sat across from one another at my kitchen table. "Let's compare our feet now," She said after we had noticed the similarity of our hands. We flipped through her high school and college yearbooks and listened to each other's stories about the years separating us. She met her two half sisters, newly teens, as they walked into the house after school. The girls were greatly affected after I told them about Susan, just days before her visit. They reacted dramatically with confusion and tears.
"All I wanted was to find my mother, and never let her go," Susan wrote after the visit when she returned to Boston. I relived a monstrous weight of shame when she came into my life. While grappling with the past it came to me that what was lost was found, and that she was a gift. It was terrible giving her up as a baby and now miraculously she returned.
After meeting Susan in 1983 I told family and friends about her and why I had disappeared in 1961 during the summer months. I was secluded in a home for unwed mothers. A light flooded into the black hole reserved previously for my dark secret. I was emotionally high on sharing my story. No more secrets and no more invented lies were necessary to cover the truth. "Every birthmother should know her child is safe," I emoted to everyone hearing our story. At first it was so good I believed it would never end.
My family supported me in this remarkable situation and upheld me when it dissolved years later. Bob knew about my secret from our engagement forward, and our daughters eventually accepted their half sister. My mother was awed by the turn of events, which were originally known only to my parents and me.
During my relationship with Susan, I sought solutions to bridge my life with hers, to include her in our schedule, and always to continue plans to meet again. In the past few years her calls became fewer, and my emails answered briefly. Time had run out it seemed, in her interest in my life. Somehow I felt she wanted less contact. Maybe she was seeking an excuse to exit, or perhaps all her questions about me were answered, I don't know.
My husband, two daughters and I predictably weathered her absence as we would any difficult time. I learned to let her go; sadly at first, then gradually with acceptance that Susan was never mine. I have been changed by working through the experience. I forgive myself and the decisions I made as a youth. Rejection by my loved ones, never happened.
My inner void about giving up my baby, is filled. Susan's story is the missing chapter I sought about questions tormenting me since her adoption. Her presence had lasting value, even if the relationship did not survive. Our reunion reflects a time for unimagined photos of haunted and difficult beauty. The album is real. It stands on a shelf in my home as a tribute to our time together. The girl I was at seventeen, present but not visible in the photos, is forgiven and healing. I have come home to myself, after a long absence.
About the author:
I graduated with a B.F.A. in 1964 from Ohio State University. A "townie" from Columbus, I rode my bike to class from home. My career in Interiors was shelved by choice in order to marry. We transferred every three years with his job and I wrote letters home to family. Those were my journals while raising our two daughters. Friends told me to write my stories and encouraged me to begin. Story Circle published "Hometown Girl," in the June 2008 Story Circle Journal. "Name That Tune" is online with SCN's True Words From Real Women, June 2008. I'm thrilled.
The hot wind rushed thru the open cab of the truck, blowing out all but the thoughts that tumbled thru my frantic mind. "Without this surgery your husband will be blind in six months" rumbled over and over again. The wind and truck engine drowned out the sound of my sobs as I headed down I35, home, to an uncertain future.
It was the last summer of my youth. My husband, a diabetic, had just had his first laser surgery for retinopathy. He was blessedly asleep for the drive home, having taken strong medication for the pain of having his eye zapped in an effort to stop his body from completely robbing him of his sight.
Why was this happening? I didn't want a blind husband. I looked over at the man beside me and felt a rush of shame. How could I think about what I wanted when he was the one that was losing his sight? When I met David, I fell in love. When he told me he was diabetic, I squeamishly learned to give him insulin shots and reminded him it was time to eat. During the physical exam for the marriage license I became angry at the doctor when he said "you do realize that he will not live very long, don't you?"
My unformulated life plan was to get married, have children and create a happy space for my family. My bookshelves were full of cookbooks, gardening, decorating and healthy living. I wanted a house in the country where I could grow food for my family, play with our children, and surround ourselves with animals and loving people.
The reality of my husband's disease began to blow my world apart.
David soon quit his job. It was too difficult for him to fight against the disease that wanted to rob him of his sight and health. He became depressed, and that never really went away. We needed health insurance and a steady income.
We moved back to Austin where I returned to the job I had left behind. I began to take night classes and plunged into making sure the job was not just somewhere I had to be for 8 hours a day. I pushed David to continue his education and focus on something that he could do with, or without sight. I desperately wanted a baby. I was afraid. Afraid David would die and leave me alone. Afraid we would have to depend on handouts to survive. Afraid of where my feelings for David would go. Afraid fear would destroy me.
David could not accept what was happening to him. He refused to follow the instructions to eat right, monitor his blood sugar and control his exercise. When told that he could have a normal life if he only maintained blood sugar control, he knew it was a lie. He struggled to maintain a job, eventually giving up and going on social security disability.
My reaction to the winds of uncertainty led me to take control. I had the babies I so wanted. I turned my job into a career, developing talents I didn't know I had. Although I couldn't have the dream of my youth, I dreamed new dreams and found the means to make them reality. At times I raged against the unfairness of the hand we had been dealt, but I was determined to play with all the cards we had.
We found that David was a good father and so he became the "stay at home dad." It was a role we both knew was best for him to play, but neither of us ever really came to terms with the cost. He found it difficult in social situations to explain what he did, so more and more he withdrew from those situations. He dreaded that inevitable question of "what do you do?" I lost my dream of motherhood. I deeply resented that it was David that greeted our children when they came home from school, not me. I could not be as involved in school activities as I wanted. I couldn't always arrange my schedule to be there.
The young girl with dreams of raising kids and chickens changed her definition of motherhood. I did become a scout leader, PTA member, chauffeur to dance, baseball and swim lessons. I also enjoyed the business world, becoming a world traveler, making business decisions involving millions of dollars, although sometimes leaving meetings to take the phone call from the child needing to hear Mommy's voice. I learned to speak, giving presentations before large groups of people. The bookshelf now contained books on parenting, business processes, human behavior and how to prevent kidney disease. The how-to garden books were replaced with picture books of beautiful gardens from around the world.
As time passed, David slowly lost most of his vision. He began to accumulate the list of complications associated with diabetes. I found the advantage to having a blind husband. He never failed to tell me how nice I looked. He never saw the grey in my hair or the lines that formed on my face. I retained the look of my youth.
In Texas, my home state, there is always wind. Out on the plains of my youth the winds blew strong, leaving desolation behind. Down by the coast, the trees are bent and shaped, hugging the ground, with deep roots in resistance to the wind. The wind can be hot and dry, wringing moisture from all it touches. Sometimes the wind is wet and cold, piercing everything in its path. Then there is the soft gentle breeze that caresses the skin, cooling and rejuvenating. So have been the events that have shaped my life.
I have endured pain that I thought was impossible to survive. I have had to stand by as someone I loved endured physical pain I could not comprehend. I have also mothered two wonderful humans to adulthood. I have achieved success in ways I never dreamed possible. My dreams changed to reflect the reality of my life.
Twenty six years after that summer ride there was no wind in my home to drown the sounds of my sobs as I lay pounding the floor and screaming no, no, no. The long slow battle against the winds of diabetes was over. The man whose life became entwined with mine was gone. He left behind a woman shaped by the winds of life, rooted and able to bend with the currents that ebb and flow, sometimes leaving desolation, other times a gentle caress.
About the author:
Carol Hyde lives in Round Rock, TX and is the mother of Jessica and Joshua, grandmother of Jadyn. She enjoys being mother, grandmother, and her work as manager in the semiconductor industry. As her last child prepares for college, she is finding her way, not only as an empty nester, but also as a widow.
For an hour after her last breath I sat holding my mother's hand. I felt its slackness as the life slowly cooled. Ninety-four years of life expressed through these ten thin fingers and fragile bones.
My mother's hands reflected a restless spirit. They were hands that were seldom idle, always engaged in some activity or simply fidgety. To see my mother with still hands was to view a picture of forced repose.
Mama said she was always told she "talked with her hands" and was reprimanded for this as a child.
"Why?" I asked.
"I don't know," she replied, thoughtful. "Maybe it wasn't considered ladylike."
As a child I experienced my mother's hands as strong and directive. She taught me to chop vegetables and write my alphabet by placing her hand over mine and making the motions.
I liked to watch her cook and was amazed by the continuous, coordinated ballet of her hands. I especially loved to watch her knead bread and then gently pat the dough into multiple loaves that would turn into a hot, delicious miracle. She would cut into a hot loaf, spread a slice thickly with butter, and extend it to me, smiling. It was pure alchemy performed by my mother's hands.
Her movements were graceful and precise. No fluttering of hands or limp wrists. She had a love of precision instilled by a German father and a prim New England mother. For all of that, though, she also had a love of "the grand gesture," significantly enhanced by broad, sweeping hand movements. Would there be drama without hands?
I experienced my mother through her hands. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub while she used tweezers to remove gravel embedded in my knees after the latest bicycle miscalculation; crying from the sting of the Mercurochrome she applied afterward (but later proud of my bright pink knees), and then her hands wiping away my tears.
Mama had a habit of clapping her hands together when she was delighted, as she often was. She always greeted me this way in later years—clapping her hands together and saying "Karen!" and then opening her arms to scoop me up in a hug. She reached for people and for life with her hands.
My mother lived the last four years of her life in a nursing home. It was difficult for her at first, but after two lonely years following my father's death, she thrived on the social activities. Her hands became even more important to her as the rest of her body failed her. She especially loved the Tai Chi class, done from her wheelchair, with its graceful and precise movements.
I spent endless hours at the nursing home sitting with my mother and her hands: watching her cut paper and string in craft classes, or act as music conductor on karaoke nights. I watched as her careful hands faltered trying to complete the motions of eating her meal due to faulty instructions from her Alzheimer's-ridden mind. I unwrapped her straw and cut her meat for her. Later, I placed my hand softly over hers to guide the fork to her mouth.
The morning of the day she died, I washed Mama's hands and massaged cream into them. They were so frail, really only tissue-thin skin over bones gnarled with arthritis. But, our lives are in our hands. I imagined my mother's infant hand clasped in her mother's hand. I remembered my own child hand clasped in hers. Just as I now folded her thin hand in mine and brought it to my cheek to wipe away the tears.
About the author:
Texas is my home, but I am really a northern-southern, eastern-western hybrid. I lived my early years in the woods and rolling fields of usouthwestern Ohio. As a teenager, I transplanted myself to the streets of San Francisco. Since then, I have moved frequently until coming to rest in Texas, which snuck up and captured my heart more than twenty years ago.
I am fifty-five years old. I work forty hours a week at a profession that I have loved, but have outgrown. Joining the Story Circle Network was a first step on my way to trading the out-lived for the un-lived.
Last updated: 08/01/08