My challenge, thrown out at you all, was to write a short piece about a defining, pivotal moment.  I was pretty sure nobody would do it – who has time to play like this?  But to my surprise and extreme pleasure, nine of you did, indeed, choose to take the challenge – if only with the added incentive of the luscious Easter Egg Prize.  Here are the offerings.  The prize will be awarded randomly.  This is not the kind of writing we “judge.”  It is too real.  The prize will be announced tomorrow.  I felt that these stories were appropriate for one of the most significant days of the year.  I hope you share my feeling on this.  I am deeply appreciative of every one.

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Jen

And now on the matter of your question  A defining moment….

I can’t say that I have had any one moment that defines me, I am a lot more complicated than that!  (aren’t we all?) Although I have to say that ‘animals’ are a big part of my life and always have been.  There is a bond between us.  Animals ground me.

I do find myself pondering on things occasionally so now that you have asked,  this one has me noticing things lately.

What attracts us to other people??    Some people are attracted into our lives for a long time and others just for a short time but what is it that attracts them in the first place or rather what is it that is attractive to us?

People who mean something to us are not attractive because of a physical thing, although sometimes it starts like that, (but then is that because we have sensed more underneath but that is another part of the question) it seems to be a feeling that we get from the essence of these people, a connection.  Why?  Are they the same as us? Do we all stem from a common past that we recognize amongst each other?

I can say thankfully that I have many close friends but it is not the act of physically getting together that connects us.   Some  of my friends I have not even met.  Conversations on the phone and via the internet keep us connected so how do we decide ‘Who is going to be our friend’  What is it that closes that gap and makes it more than an acquaintance??

My husband when I met him had been thru a hard time and normally I would have steered well clear of him and his baggage but something kept me from turning away.  How did I sense that underneath all the baggage was a kindred spirit??

My children are still developing their essence but I am hoping that when they are older it is one that my essence likes because I have to admit that I don’t like my parents’ essence. They are nice people but underneath they are both very selfish.  How come that was not passed onto me??  I am like my grandmother and my father’s brother and his wife.  My essence clicks with theirs.  My grandmother was more a kindred spirit than my mum and she lived in another country so we were not in much contact until I lived in London in my twenties???  Wouldn’t I have developed my essence by then?

So what defines me??  I would like to think that my essence does, but what decides what that essence is if it is not something we get from our parents and our upbringing and why do we have different ones??  Wouldn’t it be easier if we all had the same essence?

Something to ponder over and I know you will have a great comeback for me Kristen, I love how your mind works and you are so good at putting it down in writing.

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Toni

Here’s my story. Sorry it is so long.

A year ago, I learned that my “Dad” had been hospitalized, was terminally ill. That is Dad in quotes because he was the only father I really knew, but not much of one at that. I dutifully visited him once a year, but all contact and good intentions were one way.

Nonetheless, I think of him as a good man, as best he knew how to be. He had married my mother and took on her eight difficult children, a man who had never had any. We lived in his three-bedroom house for nine years–for me the important years from 4 to 13–until my mother left him and moved on to other chaos. I remember freedom and wonder from those years: running through fields, climbing the slag heaps at the local steel mill, riding neighbors’ horses, feeding chickens, rabbits, and peacocks, gathering eggs, and hours spent in a tree reading books.

But I also remember his anger: me lying in bed, stiffening as he banged in the kitchen. Shouting arguments that seemed endlessly to turn and boil, mother fainting during one of them. I felt relief and guilt the day we packed up and left. He was at work, and came home to only a note to say we were gone. We had left such a mess in our haste. I knew that was wrong.

With Dad in the hospital, something needed to be done about the house. The city was ready to condemn it. Every corner of the acre the house sat upon was stacked with junk. Four or five old cars. Three broken lawn mowers. Two trailers stuffed with moldy treasures. An empty swimming pool filled with debris. Cans and stacks and boxes, full of rusted tools and screws. Shelves filled with jars of preserved fruit, peppers and tomatoes, dusty, undated, fit only for the rubbish. Everywhere the sense of having saved stuff for that day when it would come in handy, but all those days had run out.

We rented a moving van, recruited helpers, and hauled off debris to the dump for three days. As I oversaw the hauling away, I felt memories being wrenched and torn. My childhood lie before me, rusty, moldy, abandoned. Nothing had been thrown away, but nothing had been cared for either. I felt deep stirrings of a metaphor that I couldn’t quite encompass, couldn’t grasp to process and purge; I wanted to cry and be held by someone.

There, in the midst of a pile of garbage, I found it. A bright memory. As a little girl I had gone to a party at my grandmother’s house. Aunts and cousins were also there, and there was a raffle with prizes. To my surprise, I had won: a bouquet of bright yellow and orange resin flowers, happily springing on wires from a resin bowl. I remember delight; it was displayed in a place of honor on the bookshelf. It meant something to me as a child–hope, favor, sweetness and light? I don’t know. I only know there was pure joy associated with it.

There it was, lying with the other discards of a lifetime. I plucked it from the heap and brought it home. The wires were rusty and bent, the bowl caked with dirt. But the yellow and orange resin flowers were impervious; in a million years they will not have changed. After a good cleaning, they have resumed a place of honor on my bookshelf.

Thus I found my metaphor. Despite the chaos and darkness, I have survived. Impervious to the elements, hope and goodness did last. I am free of those dark places. It was something I went through, not something I came from.

I am free.

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Rachel

I don’t know that this will be that wonderful of a story but this is what came to mind and so I am going to hurry and write it up and then go back and read yours. My story is the day when I finally knew, truly knew, that I was a daughter of a King.

I have always been taught since I can remember that I am a Child of God. My father’s favorite primary song is, “I’m a Child of God”.

I’d been taught it, but I didn’t know what it meant. Sure, I believed in a Heavenly Father, that He was/is my Father but what does that mean for me while I am down here on earth struggling with self worth?

For years and years I struggled with self esteem. I was a late bloomer, had the wrong clothes, hair, etc. I felt ugly.

Living in the world that we do today where plastic surgery is the answer to all physical flaws, (what we deem as physical flaws…..) I thought perhaps that would make me happy. That would make me feel pretty.

One morning, I was making my bed and feeling down. I was contemplating the idea of surgery when a song came into my mind, …”I am of worth, of infinite worth……..” I knew, that my Heavenly Father had sent that message to me and was telling me, I didn’t need those things of this world. I am a child of God. A daughter of a King.

That was a pivotal moment in my life. I no longer contemplated the easy fixes of the world because I know! I am a daughter of a King. I know it with every fiber of my being.

Having this knowledge has helped me now with my health problems. I am not my body. I am my spirit. I am, a daughter of a King…… and He thinks I am beautiful.

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Kathy

Alright here’s my story. From the sublime (Rachel) to the ridiculous (me). This truly was a meaningful moment in my life. Opened up whole new possibilities for me.

I love going to lunch with The Girls. The Girls could be any group of female friends. A collection of co-workers who must to get out of the office on an early spring day. Crazy neighbors who get together to drive 25 miles for the sole purpose of eating fried pickles. Mom, sisters, aunts, nieces, and daughters meeting to celebrate a recent string of birthdays. Missionary moms who move their relationship from virtual to real. The locations are rarely steak houses or sports bars – they are quaint French-café style restaurants, or lunch buffets or the all-time favorite Café Rio.

Because of the rare and unique nature of these outings, I always experience an inherent, though subtle, peer pressure. I like to eat a lot. A lot. I don’t want just the soup and sandwich. I want the all-you-can-eat buffet. I don’t want just the tacos. I want the big burrito with rice and beans. And the chips and salsa. So I find myself feeling a bit self-conscious in these gatherings. And then there is the water.

“Would everyone like water?” the waitress asks.

“Yes, with lemon, please,” someone always responds.

“Me, too. I’d like lemon, too, please,” sings the chorus around the table.

Ooooh. Lemon in water. How special. “Me, too.” I always add.

How long has it been vogue around here to order lemon in your water? That’s how long I’ve been doing it. Until last summer. I started to realize I don’t like lemon in my water. It took me a very long time to figure this out. Lemon in water? No. Not really my thing. I finally did realize that I don’t like what everyone else likes, and I don’t have to like what everyone else likes. And I DON’T HAVE TO GET LEMON IN MY WATER!!!

And now I don’t.

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Donna

After considering for a few days, I believe my single biggest time of change was when my mom had cancer. (I have no idea how many words this is…hope it isn’t too long.)

We had a rather contentious interlude in our relationship, from my late teens through my early 30s. We didn’t see eye to eye on anything. A big part of this was perhaps the fact that I was much more like her mother, my grandmother, than her. My grandmother was the one who taught me to make things and love animals and be okay with messes. My mother was stepping away from all that. She became a nurse where her world was neater and tidier and more controlled. She was an excellent nurse, with just the right amounts of stern expectations and compassion. If the doctor told her you needed to be up and walking, she got you up and walking and then celebrated your good work with you or brought you contraband ice cream!

I remember vividly the day she told me they had found cancer in her lymph system. She thought she had a sore throat and swollen glands. She was calm and expected me to be, too. I was calm. I remember driving home. I remember thinking and writing about having joined a club that no one really wants to be a member of, but a club whose members are intimately connected. I remember going to many doctor’s appointments and chemo treatments. I remember the steady decline and the small rallies.

But mostly I remember that my mom and I learned to love each other again. My whole family learned to love each other at a new level. I remember having to come out of my happy little bubble world and learning to answer honestly when people asked how my mom was doing.

I remember the time when someone asked my mom why a good Christian woman like her would get cancer and her reply of, “Why not me?”

She never wavered in her love for us or her faith in God. She saw angels. We gathered and told her that she didn’t have to stay here for us. We would remember the lessons she taught us and love each other. She died quietly at home with us at her side.

How am I changed? I am part of that club still, and can hold hands with others who are newly joined or recently grieved. I am more honest, knowing that there are people who really do want to know how you are when they ask. I am more secure in my faith, because I have seen God in action. I am part of my mom’s legacy.

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W –

It happened in the midst of a meeting at the public school, a meeting that was meant to identify and plan for the needs of our son. Special needs: as if any child’s needs are more special than the needs of another. Special needs: the label assigned when a system is unable, maybe even unwilling, to fulfil its responsibility.

The meeting, not our first, came on the heels of a few years of ceaseless advocating for our son. A school staff member said something, I don’t remember what, but it was the final dose of bureaucracy that we, as the parents of this bright, quirky, and misunderstood child, were able to tolerate. My husband and I exchanged a look. It was a look that affirmed an often-discussed long-held desire. A decisive look – the pivotal moment. We would homeschool. And so, borne on the unlikely wings of a careless statement, we began living a golden decision that was so resoundingly right. For all of us.

Somewhere along the homeschooling journey, that pivotal moment lead to a quieter, less defined, moment: After years of intervention and educational advocacy, we ceased seeing our son as having special needs. That the early intervention in the form of physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, and a sensory diet was crucial, is inarguable, but the need for a label itself had dissipated. There was no call to justify why a child’s educational needs should be met. There was no pressure to force-fit a child into a system that champions one-size-fits-all. In our home, our son’s claim to being special is based on the exquisite blessing that he is, not on how he learns. His unique needs are being met, just as the unique needs of his siblings are. Unconditionally. With love.

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Cori

stranger

Her head was aflame; a red blaze frozen mid-flicker atop her leathered face.  I had scurried down the stairs to answer the door to her, this uninvited stranger at our doorstep. A sudden waft of chilly air slipped in around her as she spoke.

“Is your mother here?”

I wanted to say no, to make her go away. I wanted to slip back up the stairs to my books and my dolls and my feather pillow, but I turned instead, a dutiful child, and called my mother’s name. It echoes in my head, my young girl voice, rising in pitch as if it were a question, stretched in a futile attempt to soften the blow that would follow, wondering mid-word if I really wanted to be speaking.  Mom rose from the basement steps, soft with the scent of freshly folded laundry.

“Go on upstairs, Cori.”

I ached to curl my overstretched arms around her legs, to be small enough to be held and to hold. Instead, I lifted the back of my foot onto the first step, pulled this awkward distribution of weight painfully away from them, turned, and obeyed.  Behind me as I rose I heard them walk silently into the kitchen.  I paused on the stairs and laid my head against the wall.  Tried to listen to what was said but heard only passive conversation, like the buzz of a light bulb when the electricity is too low.  They sat across from each other in the red seats of our kitchen booth.  I could tell from the placement of their voices.  There, where we had bowed our heads at every meal; where Mom’s pot of forced hyacinths bloomed their pure, sweet scent at Easter.  There where we were daily fed, in spite of little money, in spite of weary, drooping eyes; a nest of huddled birds with beaks open wide, she faithfully fed us. The burning headed stranger hissed across that sacred table to my mother, forsook the sacrament of the bread she broke for her family.  It took many days for the hissing to slither out through the metal casings in the kitchen window.

From my bedroom I could hear the front door close.  I could hear my mother’s footsteps on the creaking stairs; her hand turning the knob to her bedroom door; could hear the door close.  Late into the silent night, when she was sure we were sleeping, I could  hear my mother’s muffled sobs from down the hall. Belly button cinched to chin, legs curled up, I laid my own sorrow quietly into my pillow.

I understand Dad married the flaming head after he left us.  I am told, by a cousin who reappeared a generation later, that she is a very nice woman.  I suppose it could be true.  As true, I suppose, as the color of her brightly blazing, ever-burning shock of orange hair.

Stroll on over to my website: www.coriconnors.com

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Chelsea

Okay.  Finally.  Here is my entry, probably minutes before the deadline.  Shame carrots on me.  (You know when you admonish someone by moving one index finger down the other?)

My moment come from sometime during elementary school– maybe the summer between 3rd and 4th grade, or even earlier.  I can’t remember.  My brother and I had built a fort in the basement, and I was down there with a pencil and a pad of paper, and the game booklet for the N64 game “Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”.  It was one of the first games we’d owned, and probably the best.  I loved the illustrations in the booklet, and set about to draw it.

My experience with art had already been established– but every child is good at art in elementary school.  This was the first time I had set out to copy something, not by tracing, but by seeing, and doing.  I drew Link painstakingly, and it was indeed as if my eyes had been opened as, for the first time, I realized -how- the artist had drawn him.  If you’ve ever done this, you know what I mean.  I can’t describe it any clearer than that.

When I’d finished, I sat back and stared at what I felt to be the best piece of art I’d ever accomplished.  I ran upstairs to find my mom, who was outside doing some yard work in the heat.  Her response was distracted, and not as enthusiastic as I’d hoped.  (She wasn’t like that all the time.  I probably had just come across her at a bad moment.)  I retreated back to the basement and my pencil and paper, but only with a slight disappointment.  The lack of encouragement hadn’t crushed me.  It actually didn’t seem to matter.

That’s the moment that sticks out in my mind when I think of doing art for your own sake, for your own sense of pride and enjoyment and fulfillment.  I didn’t realize it so fully then, but that was the moment I decided that I was going to draw and create not for anyone else, but for myself.

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Dawn

A defining moment for me was Hurricane Katrina.  I remember watching the news and seeing the thousands of people, stuck, in horrendous conditions.  I was angry.  I kept asking myself how something like that could happen in America and I wondered why it was taking so long for people to get help.  I didn’t care that they were told to leave and didn’t.  It wasn’t a time for judgment, only compassion.

Something in me changed as I watched that news footage.  I began to take more personal responsibility for helping those who were hurting from that point.  I no longer assumed that someone else would do it.

Shortly after, I began volunteering with a crisis organization.  I have done this type of volunteer work ever since.  Other than taking care of my family, it is the work that I am most passionate about.  At this time, I’m a companion, to a woman who was recently homeless.  She doesn’t have a car, nor does she have a support system of friends and family to help her in times of crisis.  She could easily be one of those people that I saw on the news, left behind, after the levees broke in New Orleans. I’m part of her support system now, and she knows that she can call me when she needs something.

I love that I can do this.  I felt like I did something positive with my anger and that I’m making a difference, even if it’s only with one person.

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