What now? I thought, as she rustled through the door and took me aside. "I want to talk to you about Jonathan," she said.
I prepared myself for the worst. Nothing would have surprised me.
"Did you know Jonathan brought flowers to school today?" she asked.
I nodded, thinking about my favorite bush and trying to hide the hurt in my eyes. I glanced at my son busily coloring a picture. His wavy hair was too long and flopped just beneath his brow. He brushed it away with the back of his hand. His eyes burst with blue as he admired his handiwork.
"Let me tell you about yesterday," the teacher insisted. "See that little girl?"
I watched the bright-eyed child laugh and point to a colorful picture taped to the wall. I nodded.
"Well, yesterday she was almost hysterical. Her mother and father are going through a nasty divorce. She told me she didn't want to live, she wished she could die. I watched that little girl bury her face in her hands and say loud enough for the class to hear, 'Nobody loves me.' I did all I could to console her, but it only seemed to make matters worse."
"I thought you wanted to talk to me about Jonathan," I said.
"I do," she said, touching the sleeve of my blouse. "Today your son walked straight over to that child. I watched him hand her some pretty pink flowers and whisper, 'I love you.'"
I felt my heart swell with pride for what my son had done. I smiled at the teacher. "Thank you," I said, reaching for Jonathan's hand, "you've made my day."
Later that evening, I began pulling weeds from around my lopsided azalea bush. As my mind wandered back to the love Jonathan showed the little girl, a biblical verse came to me: "...these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." While my son had put love into practice, I had only felt anger.
I heard the familiar squeak of my husband's brakes as he pulled into the drive. I snapped a small limb bristling with hot pink azaleas off the bush. I felt the seed of love that God planted in my family beginning to bloom once again in me. My husband's eyes widened in surprise as I handed him the flowers. "I love you," I said.
The Marks of Life By Diana Golden
My teammates on the United States Disabled Ski Team used to tease me about the size of my chest, joking that my greatest handicap wasn't my missing leg but my missing cleavage. Little did they know how true that would become. This past year, I found out that for the second time in my life I had cancer, this time in both breasts. I had bilateral mastectomies.
When I heard I'd need the surgery, I didn't think it would be a big deal. I even told my friends playfully, "I'll keep you abreast of the situation." After all, I had lost my leg to my first go-round with cancer at age 12, then gone on to become a world-champion ski racer. All of us on the Disabled Ski Team were missing one set of body parts or another. I saw that a man in a wheelchair can be utterly sexy. That a woman who has no hands can appear not to be missing anything. That wholeness has nothing to do with missing parts and everything to do with spirit. Yet although I knew this, I was surprised to discover how difficult it was to adjust to my new scars.
When they brought me back to consciousness after the surgery, I started to sob and hyperventilate. Suddenly I found that I didn't want to face the loss of more of my body. I didn't want chemotherapy again. I didn't want to be brave and tough and put on a perpetual smiling face. I didn't ever want to wake up again. My breathing grew so shaky that the anesthesiologist gave me oxygen and then, thankfully, put me back to sleep.
When I was doing hill sprints to prepare for my ski racing - my heart and lungs and leg muscles all on fire - I'd often be hit by the sensation that there were no resources left inside me with which to keep going. Then I'd think about the races ahead - my dream of pushing my potential as far as it could go, the satisfaction of breaking through my own barriers - and that would get me through the sprints. The same tenacity that served me so well in ski racing helped me survive my second bout with cancer.
After the mastectomies, I knew that one way to get myself going would be to start exercising again, so I headed for the local pool. In the communal shower, I found myself noticing other women's breasts for the first time in my life. Size-D breasts and size-A breasts, sagging breasts and perky breasts. Suddenly and for the first time, after all these years of missing a leg, I felt acutely self-conscious. I couldn't bring myself to undress.
I decided it was time to confront myself. That night at home, I took off all my clothes and had a long look at the woman in the mirror. She was androgynous. Take my face - without makeup, it was a cute young boy's face. My shoulder muscles, arms and hands were powerful and muscular from the crutches. I had no breasts; instead, there were two prominent scars on my chest. I had a sexy flat stomach, a bubble butt and a well-developed thigh from years of ski racing. My right leg ended in another long scar just above the knee.
I discovered that I liked my androgynous body. It fit my personality - my aggressive male side that loves getting dressed in a helmet, arm guards and shin protectors to do battle with the slalom gates, and my gentle female side that longs to have children one day and wants to dress up in a beautiful silk dress, go out to dinner with a lover and then lie back and be slowly undressed by him.
I found that the scars on my chest and my leg were a big deal. They were my marks of life. All of us are scarred by life; it's just that some of those scars show more clearly than others. Our scars do matter. They tell us that we have lived, that we haven't hidden from life. When we see our scars plainly, we can find in them, as I did that day, our own unique beauty.
The next time I went to the pool I showered naked.
Burroville By John Soennichsen
Back in 1974, when I was in my early twenties, I befriended a group of hikers who were mapping a desert trail from the Mexican to the Canadian border. Offering to try a few routes for them through Death Valley, I made the drive to a base camp near Ulida Flat, where I camped for the night.
At first light, I started my trek up an alluvial fan into an unnamed canyon in the Cottonwood Mountains. After about an hour of hiking through the rock-strewn wash, I made my way deeper into the shadows and the bray of a burro told me I wasn't alone. With slow, careful steps, I rounded a bend and found myself in Burroville - Population: 100. I looked around and saw that the majority stood in little groups along the slopes while several others were perched atop the perpendicular cliff walls.
I continued walking and was soon met by an imposing welcoming committee-a dozen big Jacks with massive heads, standing shoulder to shoulder and daring me to approach. Though they stood a good thirty feet away, their resolute stance and effective blockade of the canyon ahead made me pause a while to consider my next move. I'd never heard of anyone being killed by a burro, but it was clear they had no plans to let me pass.
Several moments went by until one of the big Jacks pawed at the ground with his hooves and another looked behind him, as if to check the rear for a surprise attack. That's when I saw what the burro was actually looking at - a Jenny and nursing foal standing close beside the canyon wall about twenty feet back. Our eyes met and the female's flanks shuddered as she watched me with a wariness that only a true wild thing can display.
When I lifted my gaze to scan the slopes behind her, I was surprised to see other females and their young, planted in groups of two and three all around me. Suddenly I realized it was the time of year for foals to drop, and the big males were merely protecting their mates and babies. I must have let out a big sigh, because one of them pricked up his ears and raised his head as if waiting for me to speak.
"Don't worry, guys, I'm just passing through," I called gently.
No response, just a flutter of flanks and a few ear twitches. Clearly, the subtle approach wasn't working, so I picked up a rock and lobbed it near the biggest Jack. It fell at his feet and he lowered his head to sniff it.
Clearly the burro had no intention of moving, so I reluctantly turned and began to make my way back down the wash in defeat. That was when a loud bray made me about-face once more.
To my surprise, the big jacks were lumbering out of the wash and making their way toward the northern walls of the canyon. Now, only the biggest of them remained at the edge of the bank, staring at me. Suddenly, the way was clear; I'd won the standoff. I started up the canyon but was stopped by the look in the burro's great brown eyes. As we stood there staring at each other, a shudder passed through me.
In that instant the message he sent me became clear: he was asking me to leave the canyon. Politely, and with some measure of supplication, but plain as day. And I knew then I couldn't go on, couldn't violate his trust. So I turned and headed back down the canyon.
As I retreated, I considered my role in creating a desert trail that hundreds of hikers would traverse each year. Today's unknown route through a rugged canyon might well become a dotted red line on some future map. Was it so important that people knew about this place? I began to think it wasn't.
Maybe what this earth really needed was a few more unnamed canyons. Maybe there's some intrinsic value in knowing that some mountains will never be climbed, that a handful of jungles will remain unexplored. Must we really clamber up every alluvial fan, map every desert canyon, and slap a name on every dry lake and rocky outcropping?
Perhaps, in the end, it's enough just knowing they're out there somewhere.
The Diary By Martine Klaassen
Armed with two over-packed suitcases, we arrived at the airport just in time for my flight. "Well, here we are, the airport," my sister said with a sigh. As I watched her unload my luggage, I could see the sadness in her eyes. This was not easy on her either. We had both been dreading this moment for the past week. One last hug and a final good-bye and I would be on my way to a new life abroad, leaving my beloved sister behind.
All my life I had loved airports. To me they were some kind of magic gateway to the world, a place from which to start great holidays and adventures. But today it seemed like a cold and heartless place.
As we made our way to the gate we passed through a busload of frustrated holiday goers and their screaming children. I looked at my sister and even though her eyes were filled with tears, she was trying to keep a brave face. "You better go or you'll miss your flight," she said.
"I am just going to walk away and not look back," I said, "that would just be too hard."
As I held her one last time she whispered, "Don't worry about me, I'll be just fine."
"I'll miss you," I replied, and with those last words I was off. As promised, I did not look back, but by the time I reached the custom's office I was sobbing. "Cheer up, love," the tall customs officer said with a smile. "It's not the end of the world, you know." But to me it was the end of the world, as I had known it.
While boarding the plane I was still crying. I did not have the energy to put my bag in the overhead locker, so I stuffed it on the empty seat next to mine. As I settled into my chair, a feeling of sadness overwhelmed me. I felt like my best friend had just been taken away from me.
Growing up, my sister and I would do everything together. Born barely fifteen months apart we not only looked alike, we were alike. We both had that same mix of curiosity and fear of all things unknown to us. One sunny summer day I was playing outside on the grass when she came up to me and said, "Want to come to the attic?" We both knew that the answer to that question was always 'Yes.' We were frightened of the attic but also fascinated by its smells and sounds. Whenever one of us needed something, the other one would come along. Together we would fight the life-size spiders and battle through the numerous boxes until we found what we needed.
Over time the visits to the attic became less scary. Eventually there came a time when we would go by ourselves, but my sister and I stayed as close as ever. When the time came for us to go to college, what better way than for us to go together. My parents were pleased because that way we could 'keep an eye on each other' and of course report back on what the other one was up to. But now that our college days were over and I was off to a foreign country, all I had left were my memories.
The plane shook heavily and the bag that I had shoved onto the seat next to me fell on the floor. My aspirin, hairbrush and a copy of the book I planned to read were spread on the floor. I bent over to gather them up when I saw an unfamiliar little book in the middle of my belongings. It was not until I picked it up that I realized that it was a diary. The key had been carefully placed in the lock so I opened it.
Immediately I recognized my sister's handwriting. "Hi Sis, What a day it has been today. First you let me know that you are moving abroad and then my boss..." Only then did I realize that my sister had been keeping a diary for the past month and that she was now passing it on to me. She had been scheming to start the diary for the past year but now the time seemed right. I was to write in it for the next couple of months and then send it back to her.
I spent the rest of the flight reading about my sister's comings and goings. And even though a large ocean separated us, at some point it felt like she was actually there. It was only when I thought that I had lost my best friend that I realized that she was going to be around forever.
Ramona's Touch By Betty Aboussie Ellis
It was only a few weeks after my surgery, and I went to Dr. Belt's office for a checkup. It was just after my first chemotherapy treatment.
My scar was still very tender. My arm was numb underneath. This whole set of unique and weird sensations was like having a new roommate to share the two-bedroom apartment formerly known as my breasts - now lovingly known as "the breast and the chest."
As usual, I was taken to an examination room to have my blood drawn, again - a terrifying process for me, since I'm so frightened of needles.
