Archive for the ‘Non-Fiction’ Category

I Nutured a Relationship with Fear

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My daughter on top of Mt. Killin in Scotland

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death-that is, the devil-and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.  -Hebrews 2:14-15

My four -year-old daughter flopped over the nurse’s shoulder like a cloth doll.  Her plats dangled helplessly towards the floor.  I hated seeing her like that, loopy with medication.  She tried to point at the small tank, but as she slurred, “Fish…,” her brown arm flopped down.  Then her next slur was, “Mom…my.”

“Yes, Mommy’s here, and so is Daddy and Tumbles.”  Tumbles was her favorite doll.  They suggested she bring her favorite toy with her the day of surgery.  The nurse had even given Tumbles some medicine to make her loopy, too.  I was too worried to be amused, but the professionals were right;   Tumbles was a comfort to my daughter.

“Tell Mommy and Daddy you’ll see them later,” the nurse sang.

 This is her job, I thought.   She’s used to this, I observed.  She carries children to the operating room every day.

My husband and I followed the nurse down the hall as he massaged the back of my neck.  When the nurse walked through the double doors and my daughter waved and smiled weakly, I lost feeling in my knees, sank to the floor, and collapsed in my husband’s arms.  I wept like I had just buried my daughter because, since the day she was born, I had been afraid she would die.  It was my biggest and most debilitating fear.

DSCN2489My daughter at age 4

My daughter was born two months premature, and we had had so many scares since her birth.  Our very first scare came when a nurse called us from the neo-care unit.  She told us our daughter may not make it through the night because a few babies on the unit had died from a highly contagious respiratory infection.   That phone call disturbed me for years.  Many nights thereafter, I tormented myself with the thought, she may not make it through the night.  Instead of internalizing the nurse’s message, I should have quoted some scripture or at least said something positive back to her.  The Bible says, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (Proverbs 18:21).   I don’t think I was familiar with that verse at the time.

I am sure you can imagine how grateful I was when I found out my daughter had made it through the night. I praised God for it all day long. Yet, I had subconsciously stored the nurse’s message in my mind, so when my baby came home from the hospital on a heart monitor, I replayed the nurse’s voice every time I put my daughter down to sleep.  Every time the heart monitor went off, I thought, she may not make it through the night. Most times it was gas, a cough, or a loose lead, but with each false alarm I became more nervous.  My mind was as jittery as my body, and most nights I stayed awake because I was afraid she would die in her sleep.

I lived with that fear for years, until I realized I could not fully enjoy anything with her hypothetical death prowling around.  For example, whenever my husband and I would be on a vacation, having a wonderful time, I would catch myself and think, I should be worried about my daughter, and then of course, I would worry even though she was safe at my mother’s house.   If my daughter even cleared her throat or coughed while I was on the phone with my mother, I would panic and ask my mother if she were okay.  As the years passed, my fear of her dying did not wane.  After pneumonia and a second surgery, I became even more fearful. Instead of realizing she was strong, resilient, and purposeful, I sometimes visualized her in a casket.  That was when I realized my fear had turned into something much more debilitating than I could have ever imagined it could be.

My fear was affecting me and each member of my family.  Even though I did not verbally express my feelings to my daughter and son, they could sense my gloom. My husband, on the other hand, had the difficult job of trying to get me back to the fun-loving free-spirited woman he could only reminisce about– the wife who used to laugh and smile most of the day.  I tried to explain to him that I could never again be that woman, full of love, full of life.  I tried desperately to explain to him that harsh circumstances had changed all that. While I was giving multiple explanations for this new creature I had become, and while I tried to convince him that the old one was gone and would never return, I secretly missed her, too.

I couldn’t reach her because I didn’t know how to get help.  I tried to conquer my fears on my own because Satan had convinced me that I was alone.  See, Satan will make you think you have to handle all your problems single-handedly.  Even when you are in a room full of loving family and friends, he will make you feel like you are all by yourself.   He will have you thinking that no one, including God, cares or understands what you’re going through.  At the very moment you feel that way, beware.  Satan tested Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11), so he will certainly come for you (1 Peter 5:8).

Satan came for me, and I believed every negative thought he put in my mind.  I thought, no one cares about my daughter as much as I do.  My best friend doesn’t because she’s preoccupied with her own life. My husband doesn’t because he’s not a mother. My mother doesn’t because she has her own children to worry about, and God doesn’t because He sacrificed Hisown son, so death apparently isn’t that big of a deal to Him.

Yes, those were my thoughts, and for a long time I didn’t really want to talk to God about it because I didn’t want to talk to someone whose thoughts were higher than my thoughts (Isaiah 55:8).  I wanted someone right there, feeling what I felt and thinking want I thought.  I felt that way for a long time until I realized it wasn’t getting me anywhere. I had to try something different, so I decided to tell Satan the same thing Jesus told him, “Away from me, Satan!  For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only’ (Matthew 4:10).  With that, I stopped serving my fear.  I no longer gave it what it needed to survive.  Instead I gave myself what I needed to survive-God’s living word.

I prayed often and read my bible consistently.  I talked to Jesus, and He taught me how to encourage myself just as much as I had discouraged myself in the past.   I was becoming the woman I used to be, but better because I had learned to seek God in the midst of my adversity.

I spent hours reframing my thoughts by studying my faith more deeply and reading Christian books.  Not only did I read more, I began to write and dance more.  I started doing more of the things I enjoyed most—things that did not include my family. I know that may sound selfish, but I had to train myself to enjoy life away from my family.  I needed to know my life still had meaning without them.  We live in a world where people die all the time, children included.  We cannot stop living because people die, and we cannot worry ourselves to the grave.  Death is not going to change, but our perspective on death must change.  We cannot live our lives worried about something Christ has already given us victory over (1 John 5:11).

The multiple times I worried about my daughter when she was sick, she lived.  My worrying did not accomplish anything positive.  I was not allowing her to enjoy life because I was afraid something horrible would happen to her. I felt like she and I were both walking on a tightrope, she on one end and I at the other.  Now that I have overcome that fear, my daughter and I are both free to live.

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Her Freshman Year at Princeton

Apparently, my mind was the only thing walking a tightrope.  I spent years consumed by thoughts of tragedies that never happened.  Today, my daughter is a wise, healthy and strong twenty year old junior at Princeton University.  She has studied abroad while I have remained in the states.  She was in Germany during the most deadly E-coli outbreak ever recorded, she drove through the flood waters of Hurricane Irene, helping restore the lives of those affected by the storm, and she climbed  up a mountain in Killin, Scotland, where she saw mountain sheep grazing on its summit. Yet, I worry about her less now than I did when she was younger, sleeping a few feet away from me.  Thank God I am free from that debilitating fear and have learned to focus on the beauty of life.

Dear Lord, I have already missed so much of life worrying about death.  Thank you for giving me peace “which transcends all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).  I am grateful for Your word that has taught me to value the present and not be afraid of anything negative that may happen in the future (Psalm 112:7).  I trust you for today and tomorrow, and I am leaving the issues of my heart and mind in Your divine care.  Amen.

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The Brown Crayon

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The Brown Crayon

BY Shawn R. Jones

…Love your neighbor as yourself.

Matthew 22:39

“Mommy,” my four-year -old daughter spoke from the backseat, “today the teacher snatched the brown crayon out of my hand.”

We were on our way to Atlantic City to visit my mother.  My husband was driving and my son and daughter were in the back of the truck. I wasn’t happy to hear that the teacher “snatched” something out of my child’s hand, but I figured it would be best to respond calmly.  “Why did she snatch the crayon from you?”

“I was coloring a picture of Jesus.  She said I had to use the peach crayon.”

“So, she snatched the brown crayon out of your hand?”

“Yes, and she gave me the peach crayon, and said I had to color his face peach.”

Thank God my daughter did not tell me about her day as soon as I picked her up from school because I would have responded immediately without thinking.  It was truly a blessing that she waited to tell me Friday evening on our way to the shore.  That gave me Friday night, a talk with my mom, Saturday, Sunday, and a church service to cool me down.  Thank God, because by Monday morning, I was all prayed up when I confronted my daughter’s teacher at the little Christian School that sat on the corner of a very quaint neighborhood.

I walked in the classroom and looked up at the students’ artwork.  Peach Jesus crown molding lined the ceiling of the room, and there was one with my daughter’s name on it.  I walked over to the teacher.  “Can I speak to you for a second?”

“Yes, sure, Mrs. Jones.”

I told her what my daughter told me in the truck Friday evening.

“Oh, she made that up.  I don’t remember that at all…” she looked down at my daughter.

“Ms. Eagle, I know my daughter is very creative, but she is not that creative.  She did not make that up.”

The teacher sighed deeply, “Well, where did she get the idea to color Jesus brown in the first place?”

I really could not believe she asked me where she got the idea to color Jesus brown.  At that moment I knew she had an attitude, but I continued to be diplomatic. “She’s brown.  Her mommy’s brown.  Her daddy’s brown.  Her older brother’s brown.  Why wouldn’t she color Jesus brown? She should have been allowed to color Him whatever color she wanted to color Him.  She chose brown, and that was a healthy identification for her.

“Look, I am not accusing you of being a racist, Ms. Eagle, because I don’t really know you, but you definitely need hours of cultural sensitivity training. What you did to my daughter was damaging to her self-esteem, and she will probably never forget it.”

“I’m sorry,” the teacher sat down and rested her forehead on her palm.

I put my hand on her back gently.  “It’s okay.”

I was angry at the situation, but I was no longer angry at the teacher. She was a small contributor to a much larger societal problem with which we had both become victims–racism.  She was no longer my focus.  My past and my daughter’s present had collided, and I was having a difficult time separating the two because I was confronting an identical beast.  It was the 90s, and I could not believe my daughter was dealing with the same giant I had to deal with in the 70s.  At twenty-eight-years old, I was still on fire about the injustices I had to face in middle school 16 years prior.  I thought I had gotten over it, but the offense was still there.  It left me wondering how many times I would have to relive it through my own children and how many times I would have to call on God to help me conquer a similar Goliath (1 Samuel 17).  With those thoughts, I left the classroom.

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My Daughter (Age 4)

“Mrs. Jones?” the teacher called after me, but I was already on my way to the Principal’s office.

The principal’s comments shocked me even more than the teacher’s.  “Well, we try to do be… uniform here.”

“I don’t understand.  Your student body is culturally diverse.”

“We just want all their pictures to look the same when we hang them up and-”

“I should have taken my children out of this school as soon as I found out you didn’t celebrate Marin Luther King ’s Birthday.”

“Martin Luther King, Jr.  was a communist, Mrs. Jones.”

“What? ” I am sure the little devil perched on my shoulder wanted me to smack her.  Instead, I asked, “Can I use your phone?” I picked up the bulky receiver before she could answer.

“Sure,” she spoke with no emotion.

“Yes, I am in the principal’s office and I need you to come down here.”

“Is everything okay?”  My husband asked from the other end.

“Yes, I just need you to help me pack our kids’ stuff up.  We’re taking them out of this school today.” My voice was shaking.  I was so angry because I couldn’t slam her against the wall like I did in the schoolyard so many years prior when Jenny called me a “nigger.”  In fact, I was even more angry that I had let my guard down.  I trusted them, the teachers, the principal, and the staff.  We all loved Jesus.  He was our common denominator.  I thought it was okay.

“No problem.  I’ll be right there.”  My husband sounded disappointed, too.  “And, Babe, stay calm.”

“I will,” I hung up the phone.

“But your children are doing so well here.  And your family is just the type of family we want here.”

“Look, I sent my children here so they could get a Christ-centered education.  That’s what I thought I was paying for. I refuse to pay for racism. I can get that free almost anywhere in America.”

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My Daughter (Age 21)

I later discovered that minority children were being treated similarly in other classrooms in that same “Christian” school.  Another student was told she could not color her angel brown because “there are no brown angels.”  The more I listened to stories from other parents, the angrier I became, and I knew God didn’t want me to feel that way.     I realized I couldn’t continue to be that angry every time someone treated my children unfairly.   I knew we were not inferior to anyone, but I didn’t know if I would be able to successfully convince my children of that when so many people would teach them the very opposite in both blatant and subtle ways.

I knew I had a daunting task before me because the world consistently confirms the point my daughter’s Pre-K teacher made, and at four-years-old, it only took a rude gesture and a few seconds for it to sink in.  After that encounter, my daughter got the message: Peach is the preferred color.  God is peach.  You are brown.

So, what did I do after I took my children out of the school?  I went out and purchased a framed print of black Jesus and hung it on the wall in my home.  When my friend Tammy came over she asked, “Shawn, who is that supposed to be?”

“Jesus.”

“Jesus?”

“Yes, Jesus.  You see he’s hanging on the cross.  Who else would it be?”

“Well, he has a six pack!  He looks uh…sexy.”

“Oh.”

“I just think it’s kind of sacrilegious.”

“I wasn’t looking at the picture like that.”

“Well, Girl, if Jesus looked like that a lot more people would be saved,” she laughed.

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My girlfriend and I laughed about it for awhile, but I found myself in a struggle.  I really didn’t think anyone should have prints or paintings of Christ, but since there were so many blue-eyed blond haired pictures of Jesus, I felt I had to create a balance for my children.  At the same time, I knew God didn’t want color to be my focus.

I eventually packed the “sexy” Jesus away in the closet when my children got older, and I told them, “No one really knows exactly what Jesus looked like when he walked the earth, but He loves everybody and He doesn’t care about skin color.”  I also told them we all came from one person, and no matter where we live or what we look like, we are all related (Acts 17:26).

I wanted to teach them so much more at the time, but they were too young to understand that race is a social construct  we are forced to live with. As such, teaching them that color did and did not matter at the same time was a difficult challenge, but I had to take it on because I knew, from experience, that it would not be enough to say, “It doesn’t matter what color people are.” Colored mattered in the world, and in my daughter’s Christian classroom.

Focusing on color and disrespecting our differences stunts our Christian growth.  Sometimes we get so caught up on color that we find it difficult to worship with people who are not like us.  We should welcome everyone into the church with a sincere smile and open arms because the bible says, “There is neither Jew or Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:28-29).  We are ALL equal in the body of Christ.

Ask the Lord to teach you to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).  Harboring anger and plotting and scheming to get people back who have hurt you takes too much negative energy.  It rots your insides and damages your spirit. Remember Christ asks, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get (46)…and if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others (47)?  They are very simple, yet powerful questions, and contemplating on them can change your life brilliantly.

Dear Lord, I desire to love everyone, but it is so difficult sometimes.  Anger is often the first emotion I feel when I suspect I am not being treated fairly. I no longer want love to be an afterthought.  I want to love like you love and live like you lived  when you walked the earth.  Amen. 

        

By Shawn R. Jones

 website: www.shawnrjones.com

Author of the devotional book, Pictures in Glass Frames   http://t.co/BxiNwWRG

and the poetry chapbook, Womb Rain, 

http://www.amazon.com/Womb-Rain-New-Womens-Voices/dp/1599242699/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337717218&sr=8-1

 

On My Son Moving Out

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Two days ago, my son settled on a new beautiful home.  I thought I was going to fall on my knees and cry when I walked in his empty room, but I didn’t.  As a matter of fact, I kept walking in there different times of the day, trying to evoke some type of emotion.  I kept asking myself, “How do you feel about this, Shawn?”  And there was nothing, so I would just walk back out of his room and do whatever I was doing before I walked in there.  I was cool.  I handled it pretty well until I came across this photo:

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My son and I in Los Angeles 1990

I got a little tight in the throat and glassy-eyed.  I sat down and thought about all the years that came after that photo.  I am so grateful that he is a responsible and caring young man who can now take care of himself.

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I am blessed to still have a beautiful relationship with my son.

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   Cherish your family members, and have a beautiful weekend!

Before You Eat Another Candy bar…

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Backseat Conscience

About a year and a half ago, my husband stopped to get some gas at Wawa.  It was summer and a pretty hot evening.  I, as greedy as I was at the time, said, “Hey, honey, can you run in Wawa and get me a pack of Peanut Chews?”

My daughter, who was home for the summer warned from the backseat, “As soon as you eat that you are going to gain ten pounds.”

Did she really think her comment was going to stop me?  It most certainly didn’t, but she continued to be my backseat conscience.

My husband got back in the car and handed me a pack of Peanut Chews. My hero, I thought, smiling, as I unwrapped the package.  I quickly shoved one into my mouth,  my conscience still grumbling in the backseat, saying things like, “Mother, you have no control.  I thought you weren’t eating sweets anymore.”

“Oh, be quiet, ” I mumbled with my mouth twisted in pleasure.

My daughter gave up. My husband drove in silence, and no one was prepared for what happened a second later.

I felt small legs moving on the left side of my tongue!   I screamed and spat  candy all over the center console, digging frantically in my mouth, searching for tiny parts that may have been left on my tongue.

My husband yelled, “What?  What’s wrong?!!!”  He thought I was choking.  I am sure he thought I better be choking, spitting all over the place like a fool.

I am not sure what I was saying as I spat, but I called on God a few times, tears in my eyes and nauseous with disbelief.  I remember holding  my hand over my mouth and saying, “Oh my God, Jade, what is it,” as she examined the half chewed chocolate pieces and watched the creature crawl. At first she laughed so hard she couldn’t speak.  ”What?!  What is it?” I asked again.

“Mom, it’s beetle!!!! Ah….ha….Ah…..Hahahahahahahaha…”  I have never heard her laugh so hard!  ”Mom, that’s what you get for being so greedy! Ah…hahahahaaha….”

Now, I was thinking, my mother always told me to never eat chocolate in the summer.  I thought back to the time when I was ten-years-old and had maggots in my Clark Bar.  I couldn’t even get mad at my daughter for calling me greedy.  I rode home, in silence, with my hand over my mouth as my husband drove with one hand and wiped off the console with the other.  I told them I just needed to get home and brush my teeth.

I haven’t had a candy bar since that experience, and I don’t want one either. So, the next time, you think you may want a candy bar, think of me and my beetle incident.  It sure helps me think twice every time a see candy bars displayed below the front counter of CVS or in the aisle of a grocery store.  I am now my own backseat conscience.

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 Me with my backseat conscience

By Shawn R. Jones

Author of the devotional book, Pictures in Glass Frames   http://t.co/BxiNwWRG

and the poetry chapbook, Womb Rain, 

http://www.amazon.com/Womb-Rain-New-Womens-Voices/dp/1599242699/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337717218&sr=8-1

Mountain Fern Road

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While on the deck writing, I look over at a small orange sliding board in the backyard.  It has been sitting in that same spot for at least fifteen years; yet, I can still see my daughter going down the slide, wearing her purple coat and purple, pink, and lavender hat, ears covered.  She is about four.  Her brother stands beside her, cracking jokes.  He is about eight, thin, and always smiling.  She is mostly serious, even as she slides.  However, there are many times he makes her laugh harder than anyone else in the world.

I look over at the snowmobile.  I see my son, wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals.  He lifts the snowmobile’s cover and reaches his hand inside.  A swarm of bees fly out. He yells.  One got him on his ankle.  My husband takes the stinger out.  Then, I stare at the four-wheeler, wrapped in blue tarp.   I see my son walking up the red stoned driveway, helmet in hand.    He accidentally ran the four-wheeler off the road into the bushes, showing off for a couple boys his age.

My eyes avert to the rock pit.  Wild colors dance through the darkness as marshmallows roast at the end of long sticks, our brown faces aglow with delight.  Char and goo stick to our tongues and lips. Snakes slither from the pit of warm rocks.  No one is afraid. The night is too perfect.

I stop writing.  I walk back in the house.  It is quiet.  Our children are grown.  My husband and I come up alone now.  We browse antique shops that hold small and large items of history.  We examine unique treasures like zithers, Roseville pottery, vintage watches, and signed photos of living and deceased stars.  I purchase a signed photo of Debbie Allen and a book of poems by Helen Steiner Rice.  We dine at our favorite restaurant and enjoy the foods our grown children tell us we should not eat.

In spring and summer, we walk by the lake and take pictures. Butterflies are shy and fireflies pose in flight. In fall, we bear watch as they roam down the side of a wooded road.  In winter, we talk and play cards by the fire, remembering and forgetting shared and unshared moments our lives.  We swap secrets like candy as snow piles up outside for hours.  But we do not worry.  We do not regret.  The night is still perfect.

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Your Life has Significant Value

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 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. –Psalm 51:5

I wasn’t born into the best circumstances. My mother was seventeen-years-old, on her way to college on a full scholarship.  When she became pregnant, my grandmother was devastated.  Too poor to pay the doctor to perform an illegal abortion, they experimented with pills, Tanqueray Gin, turpentine, and boiling water.  When the popular home remedy failed, my mother was sent to live with her Uncle and Aunt in Hartford, Connecticut.  She was supposed to put me up for adoption, return home to Atlantic City, and prepare to leave for Howard University in the fall. However, when she was eight months pregnant, she changed her mind and refused to sign the adoption papers.

My great uncle and aunt sympathized with their niece, but they still felt she was too young to handle the responsibilities of motherhood. They offered to adopt me, hoping my mother would feel more comfortable knowing her baby would be reared by someone in the family. To their surprise, my mother refused their offer, and much to my grandmother’s dismay, her college bound daughter returned home with a baby.

My grandmother had a right to be concerned. My mother was poor, unmarried, and knew very little about parenting, but when I came into her life, she gave me the best that she had.  My mother also wanted the best for herself.  When I was in Head Start, she went back to school.  Four years later, she graduated from Rutgers-Camden with honors, and used her education to educate me.  She also sent me to dancing school, read the Bible to me daily, and kissed me every night before bed.  Not once in my childhood did I feel unwanted or unloved, so when she told me about the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy and my birth, I was shocked, but not angry.

You may wonder why I know this story and why I’m sharing it with you.  First, I know this story because my mother understood that sharing her darkest moments with me would strengthen our bond, and I, in turn, would not be afraid to come to her with my own transgressions. Second, it is important for you to know that over four decades ago, God decided that I should live. He had a plan for me even though I was “unplanned,” and he definitely has a plan for you.   God can work anything out for you, and his plan will come to fruition regardless of your circumstances.

Dear Lord, please teach me to cherish my life.  Remind me that you have a wonderful plan for me even though I was born in sin, and thank you for your divine virtue that is more powerful than my worst transgressions. Amen.

Reprinted from Pictures in Glass Frames (Ambassador International 2011)

  By Shawn R. Jones

 website: www.shawnrjones.com

Author of the devotional book, Pictures in Glass Frames   http://t.co/BxiNwWRG

and the poetry chapbook, Womb Rain, 

http://www.amazon.com/Womb-Rain-New-Womens-Voices/dp/1599242699/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337717218&sr=8-1  

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 Pictures in Glass Frames is also available on the Nook, kindle, and itunes.

No Longer Down the Hall

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First draft written 12/2011

When my daughter told me she wanted to study in Germany for a month in the summer of 2011, I wanted to say, “Germany?!  No, I can’t even drive there if you need me!  Germany?!”  But then I remembered I wanted her to see the world, study abroad, and experience places and people firsthand that I had only read about. But then I kept getting haunted by the fact that I could not protect her in Germany.  Germany!  Not to mention that it was not a cultural melting pot like America and right away the natives would know that she was a tourist. And once she spoke German with her cute American accent, how would they treat her? Would someone try to take advantage of her?  Kidnap her?!  Boy, my mind was going off in so many different directions, it was ridiculous.   That’s when I decided to pray about it–you know after I drove myself crazy thinking about all the worse possible scenarios.  Well, God put my mind at peace.  At some point a mother has to realize that she cannot go everywhere with her children.  They may not always live in your house, your town, your state, or even your country. With that in mind, I came to the realization that it was best to let her go without a fuss.  What argument did I have anyway?  She is living in God’s perfect will for her life, and He is with her everywhere she travels.

She had gotten to Munich safely. She wasn’t alone.  She was with 40+ other students from Princeton.  She was learning and site seeing.  We communicated through Skype every evening, so I got to hear her and see her face, so I got pretty comfortable with the idea, until… I read the headlines:  “World’s Largest E-coli Outbreak Kills 14 in Germany.” I continued to read, ” more than 300 seriously ill in Germany and it has spread to other north European countries and is expected to worsen in the coming week.”  Worsen in the coming week, I thought.  My child has to be there for 4 more weeks!  Maybe I should make her come home.  I consulted with my husband.  He was pretty relaxed about it, so it helped me relax.  He said, “Just tell her not to eat the cucumbers.”  Well, that seemed easy enough, but then the next report said that no one was really sure what foods, especially vegetables, were causing the outbreak.  So… one would figure, well, just tell your daughter not to eat the vegetables.  Well, that would have been just fine, but my daughter is a vegan, and I knew there was no way I could convince her to become a meat eater for the month she was there.  So… I verbalized my solution to her while we were on Skype, “Eat chips and water, that’s it.”

“Mom, that is not enough nutrients. I’ll pass out.”

“I don’ care.  I need you to stay alive.  Passing out is nothing compared to what the people are going through who have gotten sick over there.”

My poor child lived primarily off of pretzels.  I don’t know why she didn’t go for the bag of chips.  Apparently, Germany has irresistible pretzels. Well, even though I continued to worry, my daughter came home safely–a little thinner and very hungry, but she was okay.

She is now in her sophomore year of college, but she is home for winter break-right down the hall in her bedroom, and I am just a holler away, so I am one happy mom.   However, a few days ago, she comes to me and says, “Mom, what do you think about me studying at Cambridge for a couple months?”

“Cambridge?  You mean like in England?!!!!!”

Well, folks, what can I say?  I have a long way to go before I am completely used to her not always being right down the hall.

By the way, here is a photo of my daughter in Germany.  This is what she was doing while I was home worrying:

A Memior

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Clotheslines made the best double dutch ropes.  The hard plastic would whip the rough sidewalk, ticking rhythmically like a well-wound grandfather clock.  And if someone were double-handed, one of us would shout, “She turn like a white-girl!”  And none of us had ever even met a “white girl,”  but we knew for sure… that they sang with high-pitched voices, danced off beat, and turned double-handed.  Little did we know back then, double dutch was a city game and black girls from the projects were not the only ones who could turn a double dutch rope.

Most of us in Stanley Homes Village were good turners, though. We could whip the rope across balding grass and cold cracked gray dirt just as well as we could whip it across even concrete.  We would let the clothesline droop slightly below the counter of our backs and sway and bop our behinds from side to side.  And if there were a really great jumper in the rope, we would put our whole back into it with our knobby bruised knees bent and sing numbers in our exaggerated urban twang.  And if we had cherry-flavored Now & Laters to chew while turning…our mouths, backs, behinds, and hands would be going all at the same time with our Vaseline bright brown bodies twisted in rhythm.

And if a new girl moved to our projects and could turn and jump like that, she was cool and could definitely make it in our world of cornrows, slap me fives, and “I can dig its” – a world where we stood outside the ropes, preparing ourselves to jump with plats hitting the sides of our brown faces as we bounced forward and backward in uncertainty, not knowing exactly when to enter the ropes.

A few years later, when my family moved from Stanley Homes Village to the Absecon Town Houses, I tried to teach the suburban girls how to turn and jump, until I realized…I was the double-handed girl in their world of chlorine, featured hair, and sunscreen-a world where they did not play double-dutch at all, but instead used clotheslines to catch minnows swimming upstream.

*I wrote the above memoir at a writer’s conference last year.  I decided to revise it this morning. For the past 20 years I have attended the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway.  Here is the web address, if you would like to check it out: http://www.murphywriting.com/

Arms up

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It was the first time I had ever been frisked.   My husband was next.  Neither of us said anything.  Then about fifty of us were jammed into a small area where guards, holding semi-automatic weapons, stood above us on a balcony. I would call the area a room, but it didn’t have a ceiling, just the blue sky, which would have been nice just about anywhere else in the world.  At first, there were three walls, battleship gray.  Then the fourth wall, a steel door, came thundering down, “SHUMP!”  I jumped, grabbed the right side of my neck, and scanned the crowd.  The other visitors looked angry, but not afraid.  It was definitely a part of their routine.   

Glaring down at us, the guards bellowed, “Tighten up! Tighten up and be quiet!” We got as close as we could get to each other.        

To my surprise, my husband yelled back at the armed guards, “You can’t talk to us like that!  We’re visitors! We’re not prisoners!”     

I was trying to blend in with the crowd.  I thought that would be easy since most of us were minorities, but once my husband spoke, I knew he would give us away.  Even though we were from the city, neither of us had a strong urban dialect.  I squeezed his hand, signaling him to be quiet.  I was shocked by what happened next.  The other visitors cheered my husband on.  He had become their spokesperson.  Tattoos, gaudy jewelry, gold teeth, and tight clothes stood in agreement with him.  He had gained the support of a group of visitors who looked rougher than the prisoners we met on the other side of the wall.     

“They don’t want you to come here,” my husband explained to the people around him, “so they want to make it as unpleasant of a visit as possible.  This is absolutely ridiculous-“     

The guards continued to bellow commands from the balcony as I grew increasingly nervous. I turned my rings around and pulled nervously on my string of secondhand pearls.  I should not have worn any jewelry, especially not pearls.  No other piece of jewelry could say, “I have lost touch,” more clearly than a string of pearls on a brown neck, but ironically, I wanted to make a good impression on the cousin I had not seen in twenty years.     

In my memory, he was the cousin who took me to his “clubhouse” with his group of “cool” friends.  It was an abandoned house that smelled like a combination soot and urine.  Yet, I felt special being there, climbing broken steps to the top floor and kicking through bits and pieces of someone else’s past.   At seven-years old, I was a tomboy who just wanted to fit in.  There were no adults around to draw the line between danger and fun. So when the cops came and my cousin held out his arms for me as I escaped from the second floor window onto a dirty mattress, I thought that was fun, and when he whizzed me home on the handle bars of his bike, I thought that was fun, too.    

He was my cousin who introduced me to the streets of Atlantic City before mischief became murder.  We were from the same place and the same family, but when my mother and I moved out of the housing projects to the suburbs, my cousin and I didn’t see each other as often.  He and I lived drastically different lives, but my affection for him never changed.  He was still the cousin I looked up to.  I really didn’t know the man I was visiting in a maximum security prison with a 30 year sentence.  So when he walked into the sunlit prison yard, bright orange and strong, I hugged the little boy who once held out his arms for me.

 Age 7, dressed like a cop

Ironically, it is the only photo I have of me at this age.

By Shawn R. Jones

 website: www.shawnrjones.com

Author of the devotional book, Pictures in Glass Frames   http://t.co/BxiNwWRG

and the poetry chapbook, Womb Rain, 

http://www.amazon.com/Womb-Rain-New-Womens-Voices/dp/1599242699/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337717218&sr=8-1