Hobo Christmas Morn

The following is one of my personal favorites. Written Christmas Day 2006 and never edited (ducks various thrown objects), here it is for your raw reading pleasure on this St. Stephen's Day. Remember Good King Winceslaus looking out on the Feast of Stephen?~~GH

I wake on Christmas morning to the children's excited "Good morning, Momma." Dog-breath kisses are exchanged between us along with regards of the day and I stumble to the kitchen to check on my roast. This year I decided to slow-roast it at a low temperature for three times as long. Not good for fuel efficiency but perfect for human efficiency. 

It occurs to me we should feed the birds. I read someplace you'll have good luck all year long if you feed the birds on Christmas morn. 

"You can't feed the birds," my husband chides. "It's pouring rain down; there are no birds today."

"Still, we should try…" 

My youngest pipes in. "We didn't feed the birds, but we gave a hobo a sandwich." It's too early for my brain to process this strange statement. Hobo? Where did she learn the word hobo? And how did she come to give a "hobo" a sandwich?

Our son James is here to spend Christmas with us, fresh from the arms of his live-in girl friend and the walls of his new apartment. "He was standing outside and asked if he could have a sandwich," James explains. 

"I made him a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich… and I gave him a cookie," my daughter adds hesitantly, as if I might be angry at her generosity.

"That was sweet, Kelly. I like your heart." The smile on her face tells me she's glad I approve of her decision.

It's a dreary day, a Monday and Christmas too. The soup kitchen across the street doesn't operate today. I expected a line of homeless and elderly to queue up outside but the news spread along the invisible grapevine, and no one shows up to stand miserably in the rain.

All day long I imagine the faceless "hobo" who asked for a sandwich and was given a sandwich… and a cookie. I feel like crying. I wish I could have given him more. He surely smelled the roast cooking. He probably knew I routinely feed the overflow from the soup kitchen.

The rain falls, bitterly cold, cold to the bone kind of cold. I'd hate to be standing in the rain, waiting for a sandwich or a soup kitchen to open on a day like this, much less a Christmas morning. Was the man thankful? Did the sandwich/cookie touch his heart? Did he breathe a sigh of relief? Or did he curse the rain and God, and the soup kitchen, and my child?

James tells me Aqualung died. Our city's homeless mascot, Bill Dunn, showed up around town in 1971 pushing a shopping cart with an impossible stack of grocery bags towering above. His wild long hair and beard reminded us teens of Jethro Tull's Aqualung characterization, and the nickname stuck. Bill was never a threat to little girls and as far as I know, he didn't check out their pretty panties. No one I knew was afraid of him.

I sat at a lunch counter having a slice of pecan pie and a chocolate milkshake – disgusting to think of now but manna from heaven for the fifteen-year-old girl I was at the time. Aqualung – I didn't learn Bill's name until years later – moved along the sidewalk and I watched him through the restaurant's window. A man flicked a cigarette into the gutter and Aqualung scurried toward it. Birdlike in his movements, he darted and snatched up the smoldering butt before it went out. He smiled and took a whiff of it, then smoked the remaining tobacco.

Disgusted, dismayed and yet fascinated, I watched him finish the stranger's cigarette. I couldn't eat my food. I left a small tip for the waitress and with my legs trembling so hard I feared I'd collapse on the sidewalk, I walked up to Aqualung and shoved two brand-new cigarettes into his grimy hand. "Here you go," was all I could manage to squeak out. His eyes twinkled with such life and light that I was surprised. Everything else about him was dingy and smelly and dark. But those eyes…

The years passed and Aqualung remained a fixture in our town. At one time he was a hero, helping to solve a murder. He went missing one winter and the police tracked him down to someplace in North Carolina. He'd gone to a warmer area to wait out the winter. It amused me, a homeless man taking a vacation.

Our paths crossed numerous times over the next thirty years. Sometimes I'd be eating out and see him tucked into a booth in the back of the restaurant sipping coffee and eating dinner. Aqualung was never poor. In fact, he was rumored to be a millionaire and have countless bags of money in his shopping cart. I'd ask if he needed anything. Sometimes I sat with him, asking how he was and making small talk. It was important to me that he knew I saw him as human. He was always polite, rational if not always completely tuned into the moment.

Last year a reporter did a feature story on Aqualung for the newspaper. I didn't learn anything new but felt gratified that younger generations would know a little about our Aqualung. 

Now it is Christmas day and Aqualung is dead. My son said Bill "Aqualung" Dunn left his fortune to a son. My first thought was what woman had lain with Aqualung… I felt ashamed. At some time he had been some woman's son, another woman's lover. He hadn't always been Aqualung. The world felt a little smaller just then as I thought about my own son and his woman. Some tragedy could befall James that would drive him to live on the streets. I thought about the birds, the soup kitchen, and the hobo who'd asked for a sandwich. 

And I cried, not for the hobo, or the birds, or even for the rain. I cried for Bill Dunn's mother, and myself. 

New Math

New Math 

"You're pregnant!" My knees felt weak and I plopped into the nearest chair at the women's clinic.

"Are you okay?" The midwife, Laura, checked my pulse.

"Yes, I'm just a little surprised. I'm not married and…"

Laura nodded. "I understand." She smiled as she added, "I know you'll do just fine." I wished I felt as confident as she did. My divorce had been finalized only six months earlier. My daughter Mena had just turned two and I was struggling to establish a home transcription business to support us. How would a pregnancy affect my new business? Could I earn enough for three people? Where would I find the time to do it all?

The baby's father refused to believe it was his. He stopped calling and soon moved away. I later learned he married another woman while I was still pregnant. My own father was horrified that I was pregnant out of wedlock. He urged me to terminate the pregnancy.

When I refused, he withdrew all financial support and even rejected my phone calls. My ex-husband pressured me to let him take Mena. He insisted I couldn't raise two children by myself.

"She'll be better off with me, Ginger. Let me have her. It'll be easier for you with just one child."

Irrationally, I began to feel resentment. I was angry at myself for allowing an unplanned pregnancy, upset that I had to raise my children alone. I hadn't even had time to work through my feelings about the divorce. I wondered how I could ever love this baby as much as I loved Mena. 

I felt more alone than I'd ever been in my life. In that odd way perception has of calling attention to normal experiences and making them seem more vivid, it seemed like every woman in the world had a husband and children. I was haunted by happy traditional families. Everywhere I looked, beaming fathers
tossed chubby little ones into the air as glowing mothers looked on joyfully. The child, of course, would be giggling with delight. I'd return home feeling lonelier and sadder than ever.

I was exhausted from working long hours, often in the middle of the night when Mena was asleep, to keep my business going. Many nights I sat at the computer with tears rolling down my face as I transcribed. The worst part was the loneliness. Although there was an extra person developing deep inside my belly, there was a hollow space within my heart. I worked with headphones on, listening to court proceedings and typing what was on the tapes. I felt shut off from the world. Nagging doubts troubled me in those lonely hours.

How would I be able to care for this baby? How could I even love it like I loved Mena?

As the baby grew larger, I withdrew even more. Trips to the grocery store and the clinic for examinations became my only contact with the outside world. I was so tired and I wondered if I had enough energy to even care for my daughter, much less another child. How would I do it?

Mena looked forward to becoming a big sister. I wanted her to participate in the baby's birth, so I checked out a video from the birth center's library to help prepare her. It was called "Birthing In The Upright Position." The video showed a series of South American women delivering babies while they squatted, holding onto a bar. I didn't own a VCR at the time. One afternoon, a friend let us use hers while she went shopping.

The "plot" was the same for each birth. The camera panned on a woman
already in the squatting position, holding to a rail. Within moments, the baby delivered into a pair of waiting hands. There were approximately a dozen births. I spoke to Mena throughout the video about the birth process. I explained that it was natural and amazing. I made sure to emphasize what we were watching was the final step in a long labor process.

When the video ended, I pressed the rewind button. Not familiar with VCRs, I didn't stop the video first so we watched it as it reversed. One by one, the babies seemed to be sucked back into their mothers. Mena turned to me with a sincere expression and asked, "If we don't like the baby, can we put it back?"

Mena's fascination at discovering the world and her sweet spirit carried me through the long lonely months. Money became less of an issue, but I still wondered if I'd be able to love the baby. As weeks passed and my due date grew closer, my concern that I didn't have enough love became overwhelming. In tears one evening, I called Beverly, a dear friend and co-worker at a previous job. She wasn't home but her husband Rick answered the phone, and he sensed my desperation.

"Hey, what's wrong? You sound like you're crying."

I poured my heart out, telling him of my fear that I couldn't love this baby.

"Rick, I don't see how I could ever love another child as much as I love Mena. How could I? I love Mena with every fiber of my being. There just isn't enough in my heart to go around."

He paused for just an instant. Then he whispered, "Ginger, when you have this baby, your love won't be divided; it'll be multiplied."

His simple words calmed my fears immediately and I stopped crying. I knew he was right.

My father relented before the baby was born and we made an uneasy peace with each other. By the time I gave birth I'd moved up and become the primary transcriber for the court reporting company's owner. I earned enough money to cover my bills with enough left over to purchase the necessary baby supplies and a used crib. I decided to repaint it, and chose a soft yellow base with primary colored nine-patch designs. It was while I was repainting it that I realized I had begun to love the baby.

I regained my sense of self-esteem. Each day I felt more excited imagining what the new baby would look like. I didn't even know its gender. My new business associates sponsored a baby shower. I had everything I needed, except the baby. Mena and I were ready to see the new infant.

Precipitate labor and delivery prevented Mena from attending the birth. The baby was almost born in the car on the way into town. I delivered my son James less than twenty-five minutes after labor began on March 7, 1988. He weighed nine pounds, 2-1/2 ounces, and was a whopping twenty-four inches.

 I smile now as I think back on the days when I feared I couldn't love two little ones. Our home overflows with love for one another as well as all our children and their friends. Rick's words still ring in my ears. "Your love won't be divided; it'll be multiplied." 

How right he was.~~GHC

Easter Eve

I used to love Easter. From the concept of eternal freedom and life to redemption and forgiveness of sins to endless Love, from minutely detailed painted eggs to dyed chicks and bunnies (like they used to do to baby animals when I was a girl), from chocolate and malted milk birds eggs to peeps and yes, even jelly beans which I never really liked because they made my teeth hurt -- I loved Easter. But in 1998, on this day, Easter Eve, I lost my last child David Oso at 21 weeks of pregnancy. I too nearly died, almost bled to death. I never got to see his face or hold him, to nurse him, to change him, to watch him play, hear him laugh, smell his hair.

The following year, chemotherapy and consequences from cancer treatments removed any possibility of my bearing another child.

And for those reasons and so many, many more, today I cry. Forgive me if I can't get into Easter celebrations. I am thankful He and he are risen. But the mother in me selfishly mourns and refuses to rejoice.~~GHC