Would you be that good?

There is a photo my son took of me after days of watching CNN in the Memphis hotel room. It is up close and I am unaware of the camera to the side of me. After I got the photos developed, I kept coming back to it over and over again. My face is in my hands. It is easy to see I have not slept, have dirty hair, have broken out with stress. On the screen is someone on the roof of their house, reaching out to a helicopter. On the ticker is a quote from the mayor.

Ava had gotten croup and a fever. It was one of those occasions when a relatively manageable situation becomes one that stretches you further than you are able to go. We found a pediatrician on a flier in the hotel coffee room. I took her to him, terrified because I had our last hundred dollars in my wallet. Our local banks servers were down, so effectively, we had no money. I sat with her in the office, watched the fish in the tank and wanted to cry so hard I wasn’t sure I could stop. It was too much to bear. His nurse called us back and he took her vitals. But mostly, he talked to me. His son had gone to Tulane, he knew the city where we lived. He loved oysters. He said Ava had a virus. Then he gave me a big hug. When we walked to the pay desk, the nurse told me there was no charge and it was all I could do not to break down in the waiting room in front of the staring mothers. I remember shaking as we walked to the car, Ava and I, and I drove around to the back of the building and had a cry that can only be described as a genuine sob.

Later that week, I got the kids some sandwiches and found a park for them to play in. We pulled in, played for a few minutes, and a car pulled in near the bench where we were having our picnic. A woman got out and asked if I was lost. She said she had noticed our liscense plate. She wanted to know if my children needed clothes, if we needed money, if we needed a toaster or anything in her attic – we could have whatever we wanted. I was in complete shock. I invited her and her children to sit down and told her if there was anything I needed, it was someone to talk to. I told her we did not know where any of our extended family was, our mothers, siblings, friends. We only knew what their loose plans were, and it was a quiet panic that had filled our days. She and I talked for two hours while our children played.

If there was one question that ran again and again through my mind, it was this: Would I ever be that good? Would I have ever been that kind? I wasn’t sure at the time that I could say yes. Now, years later, I can honestly say those two simple encounters changed me forever. It has changed the way I see the world, people in need and injustices that go beyond what may be described by others but never experienced. I have grown empathy in a place where there was cynicism, disaffectiveness, and along with that, a sense of purposeful anger. I have learned that that too is a powerful motivator for change.

My story is not unique. Thousands of us have stories that have the power to make the hair on the back of your neck stand. They are the stories that are tiresome to us by now, but of importance to tell. The truth and the anger and the injustice of it all should be heard by everyone. All we have is ourselves.

The Things I Have Avoided

I have avoided this post for three years.

I went to bingo one night in August with my best friend. We stayed late and at around 11PM, I drove home with my children sleeping in the backseat. The summer had been an awful one. My store died its agonizing death earlier in June, and I’d spent the last few months depressed, my brain totally off. On the way, we passed a gas station that was usually closed, but this night, open and filled with cars. There’s a storm coming, what else is new? Worried, out of town Northshore suburbanites freaking out about some rain and wind. I went home and we all went to bed.

The next morning, Saturday, I tried to take my son to karate. 9AM and the streets are packed, and I notice drivers that I pass have a frozen look of panic. It was an utterly beautiful day. Not a cloud in sight.  I walk Max in and the instructor tells me, “We’re closing. We have to leave. We’re all going to die.” A little dramatic. It’s becoming Mutual of Omaha on the streets, though. So naturally, I go to the grocery store, where I find people buying it out of everything they have. Ice cream, even.

At home, I freak out to my husband who in his ever-calm-and-slightly-amused-at-my-antics demeanor, thinks I’m nuts. Naturally, we also have no local TV because at that time it cost extra with Dish Network and it just wasn’t worth it. Who the hell needs local TV? We decide, however, that we will leave. It should take us, what, two hours to get ready? He argues to pack three changes of clothes, and I relent because it’s just not worth it.

Six hours later (oh wait, did I say two?) we leave with two dogs, two cats and two children in the backseat that want to know why we have packed up our house, and why can’t Max go to Kindergarten again on Monday? We promised him he’d be back for Wednesday. He’d started Kindergarten a few days before and ultimately, he would not see it again for months. 

In traffic, we pass a single older woman in a yellow dress with a parrot in her front seat. A frightened couple with two extra shaggy retrievers in a station wagon and not much else. Families with every generation represented. Everyone with the same face, the same taste in the back of their throat, the same realization that this time is different.

We stop at rest stops along the way, so many times we lose count, on the way to Memphis. The dogs have to pee, Ava is potty-training, we just need to take a deep breath. There are hundreds of people at every one. Again, the face. People are talking with one another, sharing snacks, cigarettes, travel plans. Others are hovering with the cell phones, convincing the person on the other end it’s time to leave, my God, I don’t care that you survived Betsy and have a few cans of Dinty Moore and some water. You can’t eat batteries, mother.

We arrive in Memphis hours and hours later. We chose Memphis because it was familiar, it was far away and the hotel had a mini kitchen and accepted dogs. We are given coupons for free hamburgers from Backyard Burgers. We are completely made fun of when we go redeem them because we were vegetarians at the time, and vegetarians in Memphis is like … vegetarians in Memphis. We were roundly made fun of by the people behind the counter for ordering the Black and Bleu Burger, no Burger. Hysterics. Crazy assed white people. We eat them in the parking lot quietly. We cannot talk.

The days pass like madness from there.