A Tale of Three Dresses

A note to the reader: This was written on 8/1/13. 

"My heart is beating so fast," she says as she slits open the box. I--and only I--have been invited up to her room to share this moment. She puts her hand on her chest and her lovely face pales, making the freckles that Jared loves stand out clearly. Angel kisses. I sit on the edge of her unmade bed, forcing myself to ignore the piles of clothes strewn about the room, and sink into this moment.

The box pops open, revealing a froth of white. She gasps-oh!- and carefully, almost reverently, lifts out the contents. Yards of white chiffon spill onto the floor, topped by a beaded bodice and frothy sleeves. "This," she says dramatically, "is the dress I will wear when I marry Jared."

Quickly, she sheds her work uniform, anxious to have the miracle of the dress against her skin. Shirt and pants are kicked aside and she steps into the pool of chiffon, carefully pulling it up and slipping her arms into the sleeves.

Perfect. Despite two panicky phone calls necessitated by her inaccurate measurements--done while I was away on business and she too eager to wait--the dress fits her perfectly. "Try on the sandals," I suggest, and she kicks off her clogs and slides her feet into the white rose-trimmed flip flops she will wear because, "I hate dressing up."

But here she is, busily fussing with her hair and describing what she wants:just a simple flower and maybe some netting on the right side. I agree that her hair should be up and loose, the way Jared likes it, the way that makes her look twenty-one instead of thirty-four, the way that makes one forget she has seen more than her share of pain.

"What do you think?" she asks and spins.

I clap my hands together. "Beautiful," I say. "It is just exactly right." She grins and turns back to the mirror.

Just exactly right. And it is, both the dress and the man. Jared has never given me a moment's worry, and I cannot say that about others she has dated. Deeply moral and old-fashioned, Jared puts God before all other things in his life, but Bonnie runs a close second. He will not only spend his life loving my daughter, he will honor her as well.

We begin to talk of practical things. The hem needs to come up and inch or two so she will not trip her way down the aisle, and the bodice is a bit lose and needs a few small tucks. "I have nothing up here," she says regretfully. "Wait until you have kids," I say. She smiles. She possibility of children is once more in her life.

Reluctantly, she peels the dress from her shoulders and we tuck it neatly back into its bag. There is a span of eleven months between now and the wedding day. "I will become Mrs. Jared Widger in this dress," she says and even though she is an independent woman, a strong woman, a woman of the 21st century, there is an old fashioned sentiment to her words. She wants to be a Mrs.

Her room--my once and future office--is woefully short on closet space. The small closet was made into a bookcase for my many volumes on literacy and reading. The books have been relocated to a corner of the dining room--my current office space--and her yarn collection and uniforms fill the shelves. "I'll hang it in the back of my closet," I say. She nods and gives the dress a farewell pat. "Soon," she says to it.

Carefully, I carry the wonderful dress into my own bedroom and shove open my closet doors. I make a space in the book and hang up the dress that will take her into her new life. I will get my office back. I know that this move back home is only temporary. She and Jared want to pay for the wedding themselves and save towards a house. She is here, she points out, with an exit plan. For now, I am blessed to share these moments with her. They will not last.

There are two other wedding dresses hanging in my closet. One is mine, a heavy sateen with long sleeves and an empire waist worn for an October wedding more than thirty years ago. It is "old-fashioned", she has declared, and something she would never wear. But I keep it anyway. My marriage to her father has not been easy. Even now, a variety of maladies keeps him from enjoying his family. From time to time, I expend some energy on trying to move him along, but the effort is mostly wasted. I pray a lot. Right now I pray that he will be strong enough and well enough to walk his daughter down the aisle.

She shrugs and says that she has two brothers to pinch hit, but I know that it is really her Daddy that she wants, the daddy she remembers coaching her softball team and digging sand castles at the beach.

There is yet another wedding dress in this closet, much fancier than the one that just arrived. This one was crafted--there is no other word--from embroidered lace and netting and brushed jersey, trimmed with lavender ribbons and pouf-ed out by many layers of petticoats. It was a combination of three patterns she liked, and sewn together on my mother's old machine. It, too, will never be worn again. I think sometimes of cutting it up into something useful or giving it away, but it is hard to part with something into which my daughter and I infused so much of ourselves. We spent hours and hours on the dress, and it held her hopes for her first marriage. The dress is now stowed away in a plastic box. Up until a year ago, it seemed that she had stowed her dreams there as well.


I brush my hand over the new wedding dress before I shut the door. He dreams have been transferred. After five years of sadness, of declaring she would never marry again, of keeping herself in a very small and safe existence, she is envisioning a future with a husband and a home and a family.

"Ten years ago," she says, and I realize she has followed me into my bedroom, "I married Bill. I am wiser and stronger now. I will wear that dress, and I will marry Jared, and this is the marriage that will last forever." She gives me a hug. "Thank you," she says.

I am not entirely sure what she is thanking me for. Hanging her dress? Providing her with a home? Listening to her plans? All of the above?

"You are always welcome," I say. I think of the three wedding dresses sharing space in the back of my closet. Each has been a journey, often leading onto unexpected roads. Each has led to this angel-kissed daughter.

"Let's get some ice cream," I say. And, arm in arm, we leave the dresses for another day, for June 28 when she will begin a new life.

In a perfect dress.

To my daughter: How to be incredible

It is one of our last days driving home from the city together; in less than two weeks, Bonnie will marry Jared and begin her own commute from his apartment in Springfield. She is chattering on about the wedding, and her students, and things she is worried about. I am half-listening because sometimes it is just best to let her spin instead of trying to make sense of it all. I am still trying to reach the MICU nursing station at Hahnemann, where my husband is receiving ketamine infusion treatments. But then my daughter says something that makes me put my cell phone away.

"I don't think I can do it," she says. I am on high alert now. Do what? What part of the dialogue
 have I missed? What can't she do? Marry Jared? Teach special needs students? Finish her degree?

Casually, I try to pick up the thread. "You never know until you try," I say.

She shakes her head, her ponytail moving from side to side. Her freckles stand out from her pale face. "I just don't think I can do what you have done. What you do."

I want to laugh with relief. "Not everyone needs to get a doctorate, " I say. "Or teach college."

"Not that," she says. "What you do with Dad. How you take care of him and all of us. How you have for years. Frankly," and she shakes the ponytail again, "I don't know how you do it. You are the strongest woman I know, but I don't think I could ever be that strong."

It is hard to know how to respond. Certainly, in the last fourteen years, much has been required of me. It is not easy--and never has been--to take care of Ron's physical needs, work to support us all, and provide for the kids as well. I work too many hours and have too little rest, but I somehow manage to be there for each of my family members. I am pleased that my daughter recognizes what I have done. But have I set the bar impossibly high?

"I didn't know I could do it," I remind her quietly. "When Dad was first injured, when everything first fell onto me, I was certain I would crack in two. But God gave me strength I didn't know I had."

I hear the tears in her voice. "I love Jared so much," she says, "that I do not think I could stand to see him injured or in pain."

Immediately, I am transported back to March 1, 2000, and the recovery room at Crozer Hospital where Ron lay after the surgery, so still and gray he might have been carved from marble. I reached out to touch him, but there were tubes and monitors everywhere. My knees buckled and Pastor Lou grabbed my arm. "You can do this," he said. And I did. I found a spot by my husband's left shoulder and touched it lightly, then bent and kissed his dry lips. We were told that Ron would be hospitalized for several weeks, but would likely make a full recovery.

Fourteen years and twenty-six surgeries later, and I am still leaning on Lou's words: You can do this.

I clear my throat. "I don't do it alone," I say. "God gives me what I need."

She looks at me for a moment, then turns her eyes back to the road. "See," she says, "you and I look alike and talk alike. But I think I'm more like Dad in some ways. I don't know that I could trust God to get me through what you've had to do. I think I would crumble."

"I thought I would, too," I say. "I still do, sometimes. And I am not saying it is easy, Bonnie. I am saying that with God all things are possible." I try to remind her of her own strength that has seen her through heartache and loss, of the love she shares with Jared that will strengthen them both. But she remains unconvinced. Our conversation moves onto other things and eventually we are home and she is heading off to meet her fiance. She kisses me first. "I love you so much," she says. "You are an incredible woman."

I watch her drive away, a wave of emotions hitting me with scenes and sounds from the last few years. As I walk into the house, I become convinced of this: she will be strong enough for whatever life brings her way. She herself needs to know this.

So, this is for her, my beautiful daughter, light of my life. I may be the strongest woman she knows, but she is the strongest one I know.

Dearest Bonnie,

Your strength does not come from your freckles or your blue eyes or your wonderful laugh. These are things that attracted Jared to you, but what he fell in love with was much, much deeper. It is your faith and your trust that makes you the woman that you are, the woman he wants as his wife. He, with a disabled father, knows as well as anyone that life has no guarantees. The only thing we can count on is God and our love for each other.

I pray that you never need to experience the ongoing illness of your husband. I pray that he will continue to be strong and healthy, but I cannot promise you that it will be that way. We live in a world in which accidents--such as red pickup trucks running red lights--happen. People we love get hurt.

I have no doubt at all that God will equip you with whatever you need, whenever you need it. I believe it because I have seen it. I have seen you take over as Allen's mother when Dad was first injured, making sure that he had supper and did his homework. I have had you by my side throughout many of Dad's surgeries. I have seen you share your deep faith in God with those who came to inspect our knitting and crocheting as we sat in many waiting rooms. I have seen you through the heartache of loss of a dream and a home and a job. I have seen you turn to God to help you rebuild your life and allow yourself to love again.

I know you better than anyone else does. I knew you before you took your first breath. And I know, without any doubt at all, that you are strong and capable. I know that your love for both God and Jared will allow you to do things you do not think you can do. I know that you will face the unknown future holding tightly to your husband and your faith.


I wish--oh, how I wish!--that I could promise you light and roses and all good things. I wish I could protect your from the evils of the world. I wish I could wrap you in a hand-knitted cocoon of the softest yarn and keep you always safe. But one does not grow in a cocoon and one does not get to experience all the joy that God has for us. 

And here is the secret to being strong, dear daughter. Even in the midst of chaos and tragedy, even as I struggle to help your father with yet another hospitalization, yet another recovery, I have joy in my heart because I do what is right, because I honor my marriage vows, because I continue to trust and believe in God. When we give ourselves in marriage, it is for better and for worse, in sickness and in health. It is a promise that is difficult to keep. While I am sometimes physically exhausted by all that is expected of me, it is always well with my soul.

It will be well with yours as well.

Always and forever, to the moon and back,

Mom

Why the Cowardly Lion Never Married: An Open Letter

May 28, 3014

Dear Bonnie and Jared,

Your wedding is a mere month away! It is hard to  believe that the time has finally arrived for you to take your vows as husband and wife. I have no doubt that you will be very, very happy in your marriage because I know that God has planned your union. In the meantime, there are a few loose ends to tie up. This is one of them.

Several weeks ago, you gave Dad and I a copy of the "Parent Questionnaire" from your pre-marital counseling handbook. We have worked together to fill it out, trying our best to give you what little wisdom we might have to offer from our many years together. But one question stumped us: What one memory or time would we choose to represent the essence of our marriage? It was a tough one; 38 years have brought a myriad of experiences our way. Some good, some not so good. We filled out the rest of the survey with no problem, but the answer to this one eluded us.

Finally, though, we have found that one particular moment in time, in the span of 38 years, that stands out above the rest. And here is that moment, far too rich in memory to fit onto the few lines on the questionnaire, and far too important to share with just the two of you.

On our 25th anniversary, as Bonnie will recall, we had a lovely service to renew our vows and commemorate our commitment to one another. It was special for many reasons, the celebration of our silver wedding just one. It was nine months after Ron's horrific car accident on March 1 of 2000, and Ron had been home and back into the hospital three times. He had undergone 8 major surgeries and had barely survived. He limped from the displacement of his hip, and he had lost almost 50 pounds from problems with his pancreas. But he was alive, and we wanted to celebrate the fact. The kids--Dennis, Bonnie, and Allen--helped us plan a wonderful party and invited everyone we knew.

Ron and I renewed our vows in front of Pastor Lou Tripler; Lou commented on what a miracle it was that Ron had survived, that our marriage had survived. We felt, at that time, as if we had indeed come through the fire. We could not have known that the next 14 years would demand even more of us and our commitment to one another.

Each of the kids did or said something special at the service. Dennis painted a family portrait, the one that hangs in the dining room and in which Allen resembles Austin Powers. Bonnie sang a song and let us know how much her family meant to her. But it was Allen, only 14 at the time, who gave us the word that has come to epitomize our marriage, and that we think should define any marriage.

"Mom and Dad," our youngest said on that day, "from the two of you, I have learned the meaning of the word 'courage.' You have survived Dad's accident and you have stayed together and you have kept all of us together because you have courage. And because you have shown me what courage means, I know that I can have courage, too."

So, we can describe our entire marital experience in one word: Courage. It takes courage, dear ones, to be married and to stay married. It is not for the faint of heart. It takes courage to take on an unknown future, full of possible hills and valleys, to continue holding onto each other's hands and trudging forward, to not get lost in the dark of night. It takes courage to continue to love when love means changing bandages and sitting through surgeries and visiting emergency rooms. It takes courage to both lose and gain what marriage brings.

Joshua 1:6 has this to say about courage: Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Often, we think that courage belongs to heroes and soldiers, but courage allows us to fight against the powers that would destroy us and our relationship. It allows us to trust fully in God and the partner he has given to us and to know that, even when times get tough--and they will--, he wants to bless us and our marriage.

I Chronicles 22:13 goes onto say this:Then shalt thou prosper, if thou takest heed to fulfill the statutes and judgments which the LORD charged Moses with concerning Israel: be strong, and of good courage; dread not, nor be dismayed. It is often hard NOT to be discouraged or dismayed! There are so many, many things that can strive to destroy a marriage. As it is a sacred covenant with God, Satan would much prefer marriage not exist! We must remain strong and of good courage to forward God's kingdom AND receive the blessings that a marriage can bring.

So, dear ones, have courage. Take courage from one another. Take courage from God. We hope that, in some way, our life and our marriage has shown you what you really need to make a success of your own union:


Courage.

Flat

Having adult children, particularly if they live at home, does not guarantee restful nights. Both over-20s were out late last night, Bonnie with her fiance at a birthday celebration and Allen at work. I wasn't worried--not really--until 1AM rolled around without nary a word from either of them. Now, Bonnie in particular is wont to call me about,well, anything, but Allen is more forgetful of his cellphone. I'd already headed up to bed and attempted sleep, but the day's cleaning had kicked up my asthma and breathing wasn't going so well.

Enter Bonnie, arriving home around 1:15. I'd moved her phone charger in an attempt at organizing a small space with too many people, and that was the first thing she said: "Hey, where's my phone charger?" Hello to you, too, my dear. And, oh, did I wake you? My kids believe I require no sleep.

A few minutes of chichat later with my about-to-be-married daughter--I'm not really losing a daughter, I'm gaining a bedroom--and I was ready to try sleep again. Try being the operative word.

Ron woke me up a scant 45 minutes later to tell me he thought he heard my cell phone ring. Truth is, Ron could sleep through the eruption of Mt. St. Helens', but I checked the phone anyway, then tried calling Allen's cell. Which I heard ringing in his room. Not good. Just in case you haven't figured it out by now, I keep my cell phone on at night. The reason should be obvious; search and rescue missions often happen after midnight. Ron continued to worry about Allen and, just like magic, the land line rang.

It was Allen's co-worker, Ethan, who is more often than not in need of a ride home. Allen had a blow-out on Baltimore Pike and had no spare. Figures.

Ron is not so great after midnight--he's kind of like a gremlin--so Bonnie and I headed out into the now 3AM gloom, recounting the days she'd worked at Springfield Mall. I'll give her this, she was more concerned than grumpy; spending a whole day with Jared, afore-mentioned fiance, mellows her out. We found Allen without too much trouble, lectured him on the necessity of carrying both a spare tire AND his cell phone, and called it a day. Er, night. We set our alarms for 7AM--the time Allen said the Mobil station across the street opened--and got a little shut-eye. Very little.

The three of us jumped up at 7AM. Perhaps "jump" only really applied to me since none of my kids are what you could call morning people, but there were at least vertical by 8AM. Bonnie headed off to meet Jared for church and I began Part II of Rescue Allen Mission XXV. Okay, I don't really know that I've rescued him that many times, but it feels about right.

Would it surprise you if I said that the repair station did not open until 10? Allen was. Rather than waste one and a half hours, we trucked back down Baltimore Pike into Media, where we found a Just Tires just opening and the additional benefit of a McDonald's with tea and Egg McMuffins across the street. Long story short, this part of it, Just Tires had the right size.

But--and here's where the whole thing gets a bit sticky--we didn't have the rim. Oops. You'd think with that many rescue missions under my belt I would have thought of that, but even my brain has trouble functioning on less than four hours of sleep.

Back to the Springfield Mall parking lot. We had a jack but no handle, although Allen did his darnedest to make due with a screwdriver. I, ever helpful, texted Bonnie so she could know how much fun she was missing. She put me on speaker while Jared tried to offer advice. In the meantime, Allen had convinced the guy at the now-open Mobil station to come on over and help us. After explaining to a mall security guard that we weren't attempting to jack the car, we thought we were on Easy Street.

We were wrong. We were actually on Bumpy Drive because the Mobil guy with the tools wasn't having any better luck than Allen. Finally, he suggested that Allen drive his car--flat tire and all--over to the station. I followed Allen with my hazard lights on, making mean faces at the people who honked their horns and made rude gestures. I am not given to road rage, but I'm a mom with very little sleep. Don't mess with me.

We got to the station, a little shaken but in one piece, but the party had just begun. The station guy--never did get his name but he told us he preferred skiing to mechanics--couldn't get the nuts off the tire, even with his nifty machine. We might, he said, need new nuts and studs. My wallet started aching.

I went in search of a cold drink and a bit of prayer. By the time I returned, the situation had improved a bit and slowly but surely the nuts were coming off, rust and all. Ski guy needed to let the machine cool off in between nuts. So, a mere four hours after Rescue the Sequel began, we were good to go.

Here is where I'd like to leave you with a wonderful analogy between tires and life, or the care and feeding of adult children, or at least warn you to keep a functioning jack in your car. But I think the lesson is much simpler than that. Ski guy went out of his way to help us. I went out of my way to help Allen.

Life is, after all, a journey. We need to help each other along.

And keep our cell phones handy.

Twenty Seconds of Insane Courage

Anyone who knows me knows that I love journals. Give me a place to pen my thoughts, and I am a happy camper. Over the years, students and colleagues have given me any number of beautiful journals. Some, like the one made of red leather, I have considered too beautiful to mar with my sometimes erratic thoughts. Most of the time, I use a plain old spiral notebook (although I am getting better at using more elegant journals, so keep giving them!). Today, my daughter gave me a special journal.

The purpose of this little journal--which will slip neatly into my purse--is to remind me that it takes only "twenty seconds of insane courage" to change your life. The quote, in case you don't recognize it, comes from the movie We Bought a Zoo, which we watched on Thursday during another one of the endless snow days winter has given us this year. We liked the line so much that Bonnie and I, with career decisions to make, both posted it on Face Book.

Bonnie's decision will keep her in the same school and is, in that regard, a bit simpler than mine but still important to her. Mine could have far-reaching consequences. I am thinking, quite seriously, of leaving my full time job and spending more time on writing and building a tutoring service for adults.

For me to do such a thing is insane. It is ludicrous. But the idea has nagged at me for several years. In fact, all the way back to the summer I spent with the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project, writing for six intense weeks in a modular classroom parked on the lot of West Chester University's Bull Center.

It was the first time I really shared my writing with anyone. I'd always liked to write and thought I was pretty good at it. But it never occurred to me that I had actual talent. There, in that hot trailer back in 1998, I heard colleagues say it again and again: "You are so good! Why aren't you a published writer?"

Why? Why, indeed. Because I am and have always been the good girl. Because, since before 1998, I have had to deal with an unstable husband and three children who needed me. Because I was afraid of failure. Because teaching is an acceptable career path and writing is unreliable. Because--I'll just say it--I lacked the courage.

Yet, since 1998, I have done many things that required a great amount of courage. I have spent fourteen years supporting my chronically ill husband, both financially and emotionally, in his complex recovery from a car accident in 2000. I have waited out 26 surgeries, several of which held his life in the balance. I have raised my three kids, practically alone, and all have graduated from college and none are felons. I have lost my beloved mother to a stroke and seen my daughter through the heart-break of a divorce. I have lost jobs and found jobs and worked far too many jobs. And, along with doing all of that, I have earned my graduate and post-graduate degrees, battled the vision problems caused by kertaconus, and found that along with a genuine love of teaching, I have a passion--a gift--for teaching adult students.

And, almost as a post-script to the above long list, I have written and published two books. Which, I am happy to say, people seem to love.

But I am still trying to find those twenty seconds of insane courage.

For years, I have told my adult students that they can choose, at any point in time, to change their lives and choose a different path. But I have continued to travel the same path, letting only circumstances divert me, but never stepping off.

I plod along, making ends meet but not ever really getting ahead, making a difference but always feeling as if I could do more, wanting more from life and more from myself. But, good girl that I am, I tell myself to just be grateful for what I have.

But today, on our way to Michael's to buy yarn because eight bins of yarn certainly means that we need more, I told Bonnie I was continuing to pray about her decision at work. Then she, daughter of my heart, told me this:

"Mom, you have so much to offer the world. I don't think even you know how special you are, how talented you are. And, yes, you can continue teaching full time and part time and taking on extra classes and you will make a difference in the lives of your students and your faculty. For some people, for most people, that would be enough.

"But you," she continued," are gifted. I see it. Everyone sees it. Take the chance, Mom. Be the writer you know you can be, that I know you can be. Set up your business and write and trust God. For just twenty seconds, be insanely courageous."

Later, at the check-out, she gave me this little journal with its telling message: At any given moment you have the power to say, "This is NOT how the story ends."

"This," she said to me, "is a place for you to keep those insane moments."

Two years ago, a new friend introduced to me Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way. A line from the book continues to reverberate with me: Step out and the net will appear.

 So, here is the question: Do I have enough talent, enough pure insanity, to put less of myself into taking on more and more work to provide a few more dollars, or do I put more of myself into what I feel I am called to do? Can I step out and trust in the net?

What is said about insanity is true, I think, You get it from your kids. I am getting mine, those twenty insane seconds, from my daughter.

Holy Pebbles

They were just little stones, pebbles really. They had been kicked along the path multiple times, rolling for a short distance, then falling into the dirt. Most people took no notice of them, unless one happened to lodge itself into a shoe or sandal. Once in a while, a small boy or two would pick up one and toss it high into the air, or skip it into the nearby stream. Just pebbles, that's all.

One day, though, those pebbles took on an unexpected and important role. A little boy, a shepherd boy, picked a few up, felt their weight in his hand, then slipped them into his pocket. Whistling, he went off to face a giant, a Philistine who had killed many people. When the boy got to where the giant stood, bellowing threats to the Israeli army, the boy fixed his carefully chosen pebbles into his slingshot, took expert aim, and fired at the giant's head.

The rest is history. The Israeli headlines, had there been any at the time, would have declared "Pebbles Pummel Philistine." The lowly pebbles had a brief moment of fame, then returned to the rubble. But if pebbles had the ability to think, they would have known that they had been used as servants of God.

Did you ever feel like a pebble, too small and lowly to be of any use to anyone? In the last act of "Camelot", King Arthur declares that we are all just specks of dust, soon forgotten, but that some of the specks "do sparkle." For those moments they sailed from David's little sling to the head of the Philistine giant, those pebbles sparkled! In Psalm 147:17, the grown up and now King David says, "He hurls down his hail like pebbles. Who can withstand his icy blast?" (NIV). Enough pebbles can cause a lot of damage!

They can also be used for less war-like causes. At St. Adrian's Well in France, pebbles taken from the bottom of the well are believed to ward off diseases. They serve as relics to the faithful. And I myself once devoted an entire blog to a stone I had found on my mother's grave.

Aesop tells the fable of a crow who, near death from thirst, came upon a jug with a small amount of water on the bottom. But the neck of the jug was too long and the crow's beak could not reach the water. Thinking hard, the crow dropped a pebble into the jug and saw the water rise a tiny, tiny bit. Resolved, he dropped another pebble. Then another. I can only imagine the patience of the crow as pebble after pebble was dropped. At last, the water had risen enough that he could drink and be refreshed.

We pebbles are more powerful when we band together. On our own, we may only have a tiny amount of impact on the world. When we join forces, we can kill giants and rain down on our enemies and find a cure for cancer. None of us is too small or insignificant.

One of my favorite poems is Dylan Thomas' "Fernhill." As the poem spins out Thomas' memories of his grandparents' farm at Swansea, a particularly lovely line appeals to me: "And the Sabbath rang slowy in the pebbles of the holy streams." Ah, to be a holy pebble, floating in the stream, waiting to be picked up and used by God!

You never know when just such a pebble as you will be needed.

Socks: The Ideal Match

All I wanted was a pair of socks. It was dress-down Friday and I could wear my jeans to work. And that meant my new beaded  moccasins. And that meant socks. But while our house has a total of eight feet living in it--twenty if you count animal feet--and a large supply of socks, it is difficult--no, darn near impossible--to find two that match. Bonnie, creative girl, gave up years ago and  now just pulls out any two socks that are at least the same size. And, for the guys, it is equally simple. Their socks are either black or white. Reach into the sock drawer three times, and they'll have at least two that match.


My socks, however, are a completely different matter. I have trouser socks and knee socks and loafer socks and crew socks and sport socks that used to have little pom poms of yarn on the heels. Who thought pom poms on socks were a good idea? I have gray and blue and brown and striped and hot pink with purple dots, thick socks to be worn with boots and thin socks to wear with loafers. I have enough socks to shod the entire sandaled cast of The Ten Commandments. What I don't have is two that match.

Now, I am aware of the fact that every housewife in the world has lamented the missing sock syndrome. Many have tried to solve it, and I recently read a blog by Dr. George Johnson in which he explains the science of the missing sock at http://www.txtwriter.com/onscience/Articles/missingsocks.html. I myself have constructed many theories on the subject of the missing sock, ranging from the suction of the dryer pulling them into the vent to them running away to join a traveling puppet show.

I've tried to make the best of it. I've made orphan socks into toy bunnies and cat toys. When I taught middle school, I once used a whole bunch of rolled up single socks in a game called "Panic." And, of course, soft socks make really nice dust mitts. (In the recent spate of cold weather, my son was seen sporting a pair of mismatched socks as gloves. Clever. But I digress.)


So great has been the mystery of the missing sock that the United States government even formed an official office to look into the matter. No, I am not joking. The Bureau of Missing Socks was formed during the Civil War in 1861 when it was discovered that Union Soldiers, turning in a pair of worn-out socks for a new pair, often turned in only one sock. In typical government style, the United States rallied itself and decided to get to the bottom of the matter. Joseph Smithson, a haberdasher by trade who had proven to be rather a disaster as a quartermaster, was put in charge of the whole sock division of the Unions Army. I am sure his parents were proud.

Anyway, Smithson ran a tightly knit--excuse the pun--organization known as The Darners and insisted upon field repair kits so soldiers could darn their own socks. New England millers, who were making a profit from the feet of the soldiers, tried to put an end to the Bureau of Missing Socks and Smithson's thrift. Even President Lincoln was in favor of disbanding the unit. But the Bureau of Missing Socks became a convenient place to sequester soldiers who were not quite cutting the mustard and high ranking army officials insisted it remain. You can read more about the government's quest to end the mystery of the missing sock at http://www.txtwriter.com/onscience/Articles/missingsocks.html. And, yes, the Bureau still exists today because the United States is determined to unravel the great mystery. Many in America are threatened by this silent plague.

Back to my personal dilemma. My own pile of mismatched socks continues to grow and, frankly, I'm running out of places to stuff them all. At the moment, I have a whole dresser drawer and a basket full. My daughter suggests that we throw them all out and start again, but I am as determined and thrifty as the Bureau of Missing Socks. Recently, we took a huge basket of mismatched socks and made "close-enough" pairs, a method invented by my husband who really, really hates to fold socks. It is always a surprise to pull out a rolled-up pair of navy blue socks and find one knee sock and one ankle sock.

Recently, though, I came upon a possible cause. I cannot claim it is the reason that socks go missing in anyone's house but mine. While sipping tea one afternoon and pondering the great mystery of the Missing Socks, my son's cat, Sugar, entered the room carrying a dark object in her mouth. Of course, I thought the worst, but when she dropped the object, I discovered that it was one lone sock. Upon closer inspection, I noted an entire trail of single socks, leading down to the laundry room. Sugar sat there with her sock on the floor, waiting for praise. "Good girl," I said and gave her a treat. Now, if I can only find a way for her to seek out matches to the socks and bring them up two by two, the way Noah intended.

As for me and my quest for socks on that Friday morning? I gave into the "close enough" theory and wore two red socks, one of which had blue polka dots. I am pretty sure that there is another pair exactly like it somewhere in the house.