WHAT IS IT MY LITTLE CHICKADEE?

What Is It My Little Chickadee?

    It is a cool Fall day.  I am putting a shine on my windows.  I see a dark darting and then BOP next to me.  There, at my feet, a crumpled chickadee lies, neck twisted, beak open, toes curled, motionless.  My heart sank.  Are my window efforts worth this tiny life.  This joyful, brave and curious bird endures the cold Michigan winters, visits the feeder, flutters near me.

    Scooped into my palm, the body still warm, I kiss the black cap and am so sorry for the mirror windows.  I say, "Shake it off my little chickadee."  The bird is still except a tiny vibration under the chest feathers.  I lie the body down on the deck and continue cleaning.

    At the table inside, I am not so happy with the sparkle.  Out the window expecting a corpse, I see a chickadee standing, appearing to be disoriented.  Getting bearings my little chickadee took flight and so did my spirits.

      

                                                            HOMECOMING

  

In 1980, Bill and I and our three young children moved back to my home town, St. Clair, Michigan on the St. Clair River.  I had been away for 15 years but I had friends and family still living  here.  

I loved our mid-century cape cod house.  I could never leave home without first admiring the traditional blue color, the white shutters , two dormers evenly spaced on the steep roof, flower filled window boxes and a white picket fence.  

And so it was, that I stood on the sidewalk admiring my house on an August summer day in 1981.  I was on my way to teach a Lamaze Childbirth Class at a local church within walking distance. 

The three children were inside with a teenage babysitter, Maryann.  I needed a babysitter because their dad was 15 miles away leading a board meeting at his office in Algonac.  

I was in mid-sentence of explaining how the partners were to time contractions during labor when two men burst  in.  I recognized the friends as they came toward me, men on a mission.

  "Betty, you need to come home, Ross is missing!"

My first reaction was to laugh at the absurdity. " No, not Ross," my  extremely shy 4 year old middle child.  In crowds or unfamiliar surroundings, he hid behind my legs.  He rarely spoke to adults, even relatives he new.  

The two looked back at me solemnly, "Betty, many people have searched your house, yard and neighborhood, Ross is gone. 

My class surrounded me, silent,  staring blank-faced.  I threw my self into the best defense humans have against the unthinkable, complete denial.  Even though I was told he was not in the house, I knew he was.  He had to be. 

It was denial speaking when I told my class I will be back in 20 minutes.  Walking out, I made a plan B,  "If I'm not back in 20 minutes, leave and the door will lock behind you."

The ride home took just a few minutes.  I was too dazed to think anything. 

My yard was filled with people. A police car with the blue light flashing had pulled up to the curb. Neighborhood kids hung on the fence and everyone was very concerned about Ross, the missing child.  The atmosphere was electric.  

My dad was there, too.  He had been in the Special Police, a volunteer group supporting the local police during emergencies, festivals, Friday night football games and also helped form search parties.  He was busy doing just that.  He looked  professional, giving instructions and asking for volunteers to search the nearby field and woods. My other two children were safe in the back yard with my mom.  The babysitter was being consoled by her mother.  

My sisters met me in the driveway.  "Let's search the house again." We went from room to room starting in the basement and systematically searched the house top to bottom.   We did not find him.  I felt  cold fear creep up my spine.

That same year a little 6 year old boy, Adam Wash. went missing while shopping in a mall with his mother.  The family tragedy was carried non stop in the news.  The missing children milk carton  campaign had started with pictures of young children and the words, "Have you seen me?"   The Stranger Danger instructions to school age children had created a general panic.  

After the fruitless search, I told my sister to go outside, leave me alone, I will make one more search.  I began to talk to Ross like he was there and could hear me.  I fought to stay calm as I began in the finished basement.   

I told a favorite story that I read at bedtime almost every night, "The Spooky Old Tree."  I knew it by heart after so many readings. "Three little bears, one with a light, one with a rope and one with a stick. A spooky old tree...Do they dare go into that spooky old tree?  Yes, they dare."

I searched every room down there, under and behind every object.  I struggled to stay calm.  Ross had to be here, somewhere. The alternative  was that he had  been abducted.  

On the first floor, the house was as quiet as a tomb.  I continued with the Spooky Old Tree Story in a calm and gentle voice.  I was being comforted, too, by the familiar story.  I looked everywhere, even impossible places like the stove and refrigerator and down the laundry shoot.  I looked in closets, behind the hanging clothes, the curtains the  couch.  Under tables  and beds, in the bathtub behind the shower curtain.  

I heard a sound and turned to find Ross standing in the hallway.  "Here I am Mommy."

I swept him into my arms with joy and blubbered, "Sweet mother of God, all the angels and saints Alleluia and amen."

So relieved to see him, in an instant  my worst fears were cast away. I teetered on the  edge of both laughing and crying.  

I rushed outside  with Ross in my arms, the gathered crowd let out a collective gasp of both relief and wonder like a crowd watching a magic trick.   "Where was he?" someone shouted.

My house had been searched multiple times, his name being shouted in the house, yard and neighborhood.  

Some of the faces, including my father after first  appearing relieved, became shadowed with exasperation.  "Aren't you going to spank him?"  After all, he had caused my family to 

panic concerned the neighbors, terrified the babysitter brought the police.   Couldn't he have just come out and spared us all?

Ross hugged me tight and turned away from the gathering not wishing to be the center of attention.  First the police left and  eventually all went home relieved if not overjoyed.

Once inside, I asked Ross to show me where he had been.  I had not found him.  He had revealed himself.

He took me upstairs to the master bedroom, rounded the end of the bed and pointed at a space below a built in-desk in one of the dormers typical of cape cod houses. We didn't use the desk and there was no lamp.  It was like a cave underneath.  He had hidden there after an embarrassing accident.  Unwilling to go to an unfamiliar babysitter, he found safety in a little hidey-hole.  The unfamiliar voices made him draw further into the shadows. Refusing to come out until he heard the familiar voice of his mother.

I put the kids to bed following the usual night time rituals which included reading the Spooky Old Tree, a Bearinstain Bear story, a momma, poppa and three siblings bears matching our own family.   

I heard the back door open as Bill returned home oblivious to the chaos  that ensued while he was gone.  Pre cell phone era and no  office staff to answer phones kept him from being contacted.  Fortunately, I didn't need the Algonac Police.   I gave a blow by blow account.  We were comforted by the angelic sleeping faces of our children.

  Ross is 47 now, has his own family and is anything but shy.  After marrying, his first house coincidentally was a cape cod.    The ending of book I was reciting that day in 1981 has become  a sacred incantation for our family when we return from trips.

In the story, After many  big scares in the Spooky old tree, the three little bears run home to momma's open arms.  Every one says in unison, "Home Again Safe at LAST.

Nevermore, The Covid-19 Effect

Unsung             

04/20/2020

Outside my mother’s assisted living here in Charlevoix are signs that say, “Heroes Work Here” I noticed them set up like the old Burma Shave signs along the busy highway as I turned into the parking lot.

All of the doors are locked now at American House. An Alexa Ring door alert blue-lighted iris circles the clear lens of the camera watching the entry. A warning sign cataloging the restrictions is fixed to the door. Pressing the doorbell, a merry chime sounds.  The wait is indeterminate. “Keeper of the gate” is a duty added to the already busy staff.  The heavy door clunking open always startles me.  A hand sanitizer container stands silent century while my temperature is checked and paper work attesting to the lack of any symptoms is filled out and signed.

Once inside, I am reminded of an empty church or funeral home without mourners or the smell of flowers for the quiet yet pregnant silence.

Today, Leslie is my admitter.  She is the activities director of which there are none.  Most are cancelled. No bingo, or outings, the dining areas is closed while residents are served meals in their rooms and eat alone. Leslie and I exchange pleasantries, we are both “fine.”  Only our eyes are visible above our masks.   Mentioning the hero signs out front, she glumly replies, “I don’t feel like a hero.”  Leslie went her way and I went mine, to room number 4.  It’s shower day for my 95 year old, wheel chair bound mother.  I’m a nurse, who happens to be a family member.  That’s my lucky ticket in to an environment where people have not been allowed visitors in weeks. 

At 10:30 there’s a knock on my mom’s door and it’s Leslie.  “Janet, time for exercise.”

Residents move to chairs outside their doors and safe distances from each other.  Leslie starts into the arm exercises with weights in a drill sergeant voice.  She’s at the end of the long hall with a microphone and speaker.   The short session ends with leg marching and singing Oh, When the Saints Go Marching In.  I come close to crying with the irony of it all.

Heroine implies heroics, brave action in a time of need.   However, unsung reminds me of the question, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”  Unsung, unrewarded, unrecognized.   This pandemic has an army of souls who risk their lives, some because they have chosen but more because they must.  It is the job that feeds their families and pays the bills. It is a profession or career chosen while never imagining the danger.  Hired as an activities director, now Leslie is the resident life guard for her beloved residents.

Yesterday, a Raven dropped down like a black parachute to the ground beside the bird feeder visible from my kitchen window.  This was the first time I had seen a raven so close.  A black beauty, sleek and gleaming in the morning sun strutted, pecked and tilted her head in silent queries before taking off in graceful flight, body tilting through the close stand of pine.  In the reverie of the moment, I thought of Edgar Allen Poe’s poem and the Raven’s reply, “Nevermore.”

Nevermore will the world be the same.  Our unsung heroines such as Leslie are reluctant heroes caught in something new and bewildering but requiring brave action or brave forbearance or brave imagining.    Nevermore will I sneeze or hear a cough and not think of my own mortality.

Tomorrow, I will thank Leslie. And all the unsung heroes that walk and breathe and work among us; the transit workers, health care professionals, clerks at pharmacies, hardware stores and groceries, police and emergency responders.    

How will it end?  When will it end?  How will we all be different or the same?  When Leslie said, I don’t feel like a hero, her eyes were weary as if they could see a long difficult road ahead.

Pink House Dream

    This is the house I remember from the earliest days of my childhood.  Grandpa and Grandma Bell lived here.  The small cottage size house had a clear view of the St. Clair River flowing with water, boats, lake freighters, summertime inner tube float downs and winter ice flows.  Grandpa had a small dock and fishing boat.  M-29 separates the house from the River with a steady stream of traffic.  

    I never questioned the color, watermelon pink,  for a house.  It was simply grandma and grandpa’s house, a house that announced itself boldly, though it was tiny.   As freighters from the Interlake Steamship Company passed going up and down, it was easy to pick out retired Chief Engineer Chester Bell’s house for the greeting salute of a long and two shorts from the steam whistle.  I’ve never seen any other watermelon pink houses.  Grandma had her house painted her favorite color.  

     

                                          

Some Thoughts on Roe vs Wade

 Pro-life, anti-abortion, Pro-choice,  Pro-safe, legal abortion, a woman's right to choose are all 

words that

entangle our society in an emotional and often violent tussle for a permanent solution. 

What does it mean to be pro-life?  If a person also believes the government has the right to send men and women to war, to use war strategies that give a high probability of civilian death, or deal the death penalty to convicted men and women for crimes even though some may be innocent, they are merely anti-abortion.  Those who are pro-life respect all life and the commandment, though shalt not kill.  This includes war, the death penalty, assisted suicide.  What about the agents of death such as social decay,  violence in our families and culture and environment, the availability of lethal weapons of mass casualty and a willingness to make profit the bottom line driving our economy?

A Pro-life commitment does not mean just being anti-abortion.  Think of the environment where the seeds of Roe vs Wade were planted.  Women have always born the consequences of  sexual encounters.  A man can walk away and perhaps be totally unaware that a life has been created.  Uncommitted or committed relationships have no bearing on this biological fact.  Most stable cultures created elaborate social structures and courting rules that encouraged marriage commitment prior to sexual intercourse.     Pregnancies that occurred prior to marriage or worse as a result of casual encounters or forced sex either by situation or physical strength or plain ignorance of bodily function happen every day.  Under the beating heart of a woman, a new life is created in the warmth and protection of the womb another heart begins to beat.  Bringing love and kindness to both will raise up all.  May we move toward a pro-life society that protects the body, mind and soul of she who holds the miracle of  two beating hearts.

Childhood Unsupervised

 “I think that I shall never see...’’ begins one of the first poems learned as a child.  It resonated deeply with my experience.  On this Earth Day I am remembering the poplar trees.  They grew at the edge of a hardwood forest near our beloved crabapple tree.  I was with a friend, free ranging the neighborhood. Standing in front of this slim stand of trees, we each grabbed hold of a tree and started climbing.  The alternating branches, although slender held our little bodies.  Up, up into the narrowest, tip top of the tree we climbed until our weight made the tree begin to sway downward.  Once the elasticity of the tree equaled our weight, we joyfully pulled up.  To my surprise we became pendulums swaying in increasing arcs of joy, wind blowing in our hair.  Blessed be Mother Earth’s children who can play unsupervised.

I’m Not Dead Yet, Janet Survives the Pandemic

     “I can see everything except what I’m looking at” is a pretty good description of the effects of macular degeneration.  I once took a small paper plate and put it in line with the focal point of  my vision to see what was left of my vision without moving my eyes.  Try it.  Many activities become impossible or difficult, driving, reading, pushing buttons on phones and screens, identifying faces to name a few.

    One problem was retrieving phone messages on her cell phone and charging her cell phone.  The cell phone has voice commands but first one has to push the proper button.  This became a major frustration for Janet and her children and twelve grandchildren who keep in touch with her regularly.  

    The solution came in the form of a land line in addition to the cell phone.    That left the problem of receiving messages.  It is important to be able to leave loving messages to listen and re-listen when someone special has called.  

    I bought the simplest answering machine I could find to plug into the land line.  Unfortunately,  it still contained numerous buttons.  Also, it could fall off the desk.  I taped it securely to the desk and covered all of the buttons, except the one to push to receive messages.  We recorded a greeting after numerous tries, a cheerful, “Hello, this is Janet, leave a message.” 

    During the Pandemic, I was granted daily access to my mother, a blessing that few relatives of those living in group settings had.  I was designated a caregiver, doing showers, walks and meds.  The first few months were particularly hard because residents could not congregate with each other for activities.  This made the telephone vital for human contact.

   About a week after setting up the greeting my sister called, alarmed by Mom’s phone greeting.  I called while she was out of her room.  When the greeting came on I heard,  “Hello, this is Janet, I’m stiiiillll aliiiiive,” in a voice alarmingly, sounding just barely alive.  How did she do that?  I still have no idea.  I used my phone so Mom could listen to her greeting.  After a good laugh, we recorded another greeting.   Mom didn’t know how or when she made the new greeting but it was surely worthy of pandemic times.

    Restrictions are relaxing, meals are in the dining room. Residents gather for activities.  Recently, weather permitted a visit from great-grandchildren outside with a violin concert by Greta.

 All residents are vaccinated and life is returning to normal.  It was a difficult year for many  and I attended just a couple of the “pity parties” as mom would call them.  Then, like a passing storm, her sunny disposition would return.  She is a joy to me, her fellow residents and staff.  So, if you’re not dead yet, be kind and enjoy the day. (Advise from a life well lived)