ON THE THINGS THAT DIVIDE AND SEPARATE

It seems for as long as there have been societies of people there have been talks of the poor, the haves and the have nots, talks which serve only to divide and separate us.

I have long had a heart for the poor. I walk in poor circles. I am the poor, falling within the national guidelines, my earnings are considered poverty level.

Still, I supported myself and two children for eight years alone, without help. A feat I am proud of.

Life took a turn for me and I find myself now back at home with my parents. My belongings in a storage unit, my entire world now occupying a room 16X18 feet squared, filled with the leftover bits and bobs of other people's lives.

I am ill. Not fatally so, but seriously, and I go to the community hospital for treatments and my father drives me.

A few weeks back, after my treatments, I got back into the car with my father and listened as he went on about the homeless people he had spent the morning observing. They seek refuge at the hospital. He talked about the waste of their lives, and the disgrace which is theirs for allowing their lives to come to such dire circumstance, and after he finished his speech, I could not stay silent.

"Dad, these people you are talking about, these people you hold in such poor regard, these people are me."

"How in the world can you say that?"

"It is the truth. Can you not see that?"

"You are nothing like these people, Pamela, nothing at all like them."

"Dad, the only thing standing between me and the streets, are you and mom."

"NO! That is not true!"

And though I did not have the heart to continue to argue with him, I knew he was wrong and I right.

The statistics are staggering.

One out of eight people in America are homeless. That's 35 million people.

1.4 million of those without homes are children.

Families with children are the fastest growing category of homeless making up 38% of it's population.

40% of homeless men have served in the US armed forces.

22% of the homeless have serious psychiatric disorders.

One out of three Americans not on the streets are living asset poor, which is to say they lack the assets to survive three months were they to lose their earning ability.

The majority of poor are working poor. Most work two and three jobs to try and get ahead, try to keep their heads above the water, and are like I was, quite literally, three paychecks away from the streets.

I make it a habit to connect with folks who view the world through a different lens than I, believing it is important to stay aware of the other side, to meet regularly with those who hold vastly different views from my own, and the attitude I hear over and over again pertaining to the poor among us is one of disdain, like my father, a mindset that says they must have done something to deserve it, and I get it, get their need to say this. It is two fold I think.

First, if we blame the poor for their plight it leaves us free to continue our lives uninterrupted and unaffected. If we actually saw the problem and acknowledge it, we might then be compelled to do something about it, and we are, after all, leading very busy, productive lives. We made good choices. WE have OUR shit together.

Secondly, if we stopped and acknowledged that perhaps many of our poor, our homeless, are people just like us, hard-working, blue-collared, family-valued people who, by no fault of their own, find their lives up-ended, then we must accept the fact that this too could happen to us, and if we were to accept this fact suddenly life gets very serious and cold. It is easier to believe that if one takes steps A,B, and C, one gets to D and avoids E, F, and G. The illusion of control brings comfort. I fully understand that, however, this is a comfort I firmly believe our nation can no longer afford to hold.

It has become impossible for me to sit smiling when I hear someone say, no workie no eatie. It is glib. It is arrogant. It is a dangerous and ignorant mind set.

Since I was fifteen-years-old I have worked for money. I have never been without a job of some sort except for the last three months of my pregnancy with my daughter and the last four with my son, due to complications which required me to be on bed rest . For the past ten years, I've worked two jobs and went to school, so please, do not talk to be about hard work. I know hard work. I know days that start at two am and end at ten or eleven pm, going from job one, to job two, and then on to job three, raising two kids the best I could in all my spare time.

Save your glib arrogance for the country club crowd and come take a walk with me, let me show you the women I know, women just like myself who want the best for their kids. Who get up everyday and work long. hard hours, taking them away from their kids in the early morning hours and returning them late at night, their bodies tired and sore and not enough hours left to get the proper amount of sleep before their lives require them to rise and do it all over again. Come and sit at my friends' table, share a cup of coffee and some hard truths with them, then look into their faces and repeat, no workie no eatie.

Go ahead.

I dare you.

The cold hard facts are 1.4 million of our nations children will fall asleep in a car, in a shelter, or on the streets tonight.

What will you do about it?

SURVIVING THE AMERICAN DREAM

by Pamela Black

Credit

won't get me far,

living

out of a car,

dreaming

under the stars,

smothered by poverty

No one

can see my pain,

make-up

helps hide its shame,

lifetime

of dirty stains,

painted by poverty.

Paying

for others' crimes,

knocked down

too many times,

trying

to toe the lines,

laid down by poverty.

Good life

now there's a game,

surviving

is not the same,

trying

to just stay sane,

choking on poverty.

Rebirth

the preacher said,

tired

of lies I'm fed,

fresh starts

are all but dead,

drowning in poverty.

ON THE THINGS THAT WOUND AND SHAPE US

I taught myself to read at four and, as a child, could often be found up a tree, Band-Aids on both knees, nose buried in a book. I spent hours roaming the Kansas prairies with Laura Ingalls and exploring Prince Edward Island with Anne Shirley. Reading made the world wide open for me. Within the pages of books I traveled to Italy and France, experienced van Gogh's Sunflowers and Monet's Waterlilies, watched as Estella tortured Pip, felt my heart race as Ahab battled the mighty whale, and break when Romeo drew his last breath.

Through books, I lived a million different lives, but somehow failed to live my own.

I had spent my entire adult life within the confines of a forty-mile radius, worked the same job as a pre-school teacher for more than twelve years, and stayed in an abusive marriage for twenty. My world grew smaller and smaller as my body grew larger and larger.

I ate my way up the scales, stopping just short of five-hundred pounds.

Fitting my size thirty-two body into a size ten world become near impossible.

Most movie theater seats were too small for me, so I rarely went to the movies. Car shopping became an embarrassing ordeal; squeezing behind the wheel of the average car was difficult. It's hard to say who was more embarrassed by my attempts to fit, me or the car salesmen who politely pretended not to notice.

Traveling became out of the question; plane seats were much too small. Ever conscious of how much space I occupied, I quit attending concerts in an attempt to avoid crowding those unfortunate enough to be seated next to me.

Eventually, I had to drop out of college because I no longer fit behind the desks and it became impossible to manage the distance between buildings.

I was mooed at in front of my husband and people would say rude, insulting things with total disregard for my children. Being pointed, stared, and laughed at in public places became a normal part of my daily life. When alone, I fought back, offering the offending parties a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view. Once home, I would bury my shame and outrage inside a bag of chips and a quart of ice cream.

Even navigating a McDonald's drive-thru became a landmine of humiliation. Teens would gather their co-workers to gape at me and share a laugh. The butt of their joke was not lost on me or my children.

Because of my frustration, and the belief that this behavior is never okay and should not be tolerated, I began to fight back with the only weapon I had. The truth.

Calmly, and with as much dignity as I could muster, I softly told them their actions were unkind. Denial and mock confusion always met my words, but their inability to meet my eyes confirmed I'd made them uncomfortable with their behavior. Small victory.

Eventually, my weight became too heavy a burden for my husband to carry. He told me how humiliated he was to have me for his wife. He said I no longer contributed anything to his life or the lives of our children. He told me I was someone no one could respect.

He left me.

Now alone, I needed a second job to support myself and my children. Physically, however, there was little I was capable of doing, and prospective employers were reluctant to hire me. Unable to make the high payments on our home, I lost it.

My children and I were forced to move to public housing where we lived for eighteen months. This was my darkest moment.

With every failure, I gained more weight, and every pound I gained cost me another part of myself. I had become the human equivalent of foreign currency in an American market. My value had not changed with the numbers on the scales. Unfortunately, the society I belong to refused to acknowledge my worth.

One by one, the parts of my life I loved most fell by the wayside, and I felt I had only myself to blame. I felt a rage towards myself that, at times, frightened me. I felt worthless and trapped inside a life and a body I hated.

I hid beneath my layers of fat and immersed myself in the imagined lives of the characters of my favorite authors. Books allowed me to escape the ugliness of my own life, but they also allowed me to evade one fundamental truth. It was not okay to be so overweight. It simply wasn't. This stark truth shook me from complacency to action.

The time had come to show up for the life I wanted, so I joined a gym. On my first visit I came wearing an attitude as big as my ass, determined that nothing as silly as fear or embarrassment would stop me from getting where I wanted to go.

The first week I could only walk on the treadmill for ten minutes, so I showed up four times each day to get the forty minutes needed. The second week I walked fifteen minutes, three times daily. The sixth week found me walking on the trails of my neighborhood park for a mile.

The weight came off quickly. Within two months I dropped almost eighty pounds and my clothes no longer fit.

One by one, I began to collect the parts of myself I had lost along the way.

I rediscovered a love for music. I fell in love with a young tenor’s voice and could hardly contain my excitement upon discovering he would be appearing at a venue in my hometown. For the first time in twenty-two years, I bought tickets for a concert and waited expectantly for the night to arrive.

Seated in front of the outdoor stage on that clear August evening, waiting for the show to begin, I found myself in tears. I cried for the time I had wasted. I cried for the depth of appreciation and emotion that were now mine because of that time. I knew for as long as I lived I would never take moments like this for granted.

As the lights went down and the tenor’s voice filled the night’s sky with beauty and richness I knew that moment, and all of its wealth, belonged to me because I had faced the truth and made the hard choices.

The concert made me more determined than ever to regain my life. I started walking two miles instead of one, began a free-weight regimen three times a week, and sought the advice of a personal trainer who suggested I reclaim activities I had enjoyed in my youth.

Swimming was the sport I loved best as a girl, so I changed my gym membership to one with a pool.

The walk of shame, from the dressing room to the water, almost did me in. Real or imagined, I felt every eye staring at me, mocking. I waded through the water until it reached my waist and I felt hidden and protected by its surrounding warmth.

Entering an open swim lane, I pushed off the side of the pool, and stretched my arms in a long-dormant windmill pattern. Water and joy swept over me. I was finally living bravely, this was me~~taking care of myself, doing the thing I loved most.

That swim turned out to be one of the most empowering moments of my life.

Eleven months into my new life, and after losing one-hundred-and-fifty pounds, I became discouraged. It seemed to me I had worked long and hard, but still found myself far from my goal.

I continued to run into small minds about big bodies, and though it was a toned-down version, it still took its toll. I wondered, just how small would I have to become before I would be fully accepted. What was the magic number?

My son noticed my melancholy mood and asked about it. I explained I felt too far from my goal and believed I had gotten nowhere. He brought me a picture taken at my heaviest, one of the few in existence, handed it to me, and asked if I still felt I had not changed. Surprise silenced my self-doubts as I compared this photograph with a recent one taken with my daughter. I was looking at two different people and could hardly believe the changes in my face as well as my body.

Armed with a better perspective, I decided to stop using my weight as a reason to avoid new challenges. In the beginning, it was terrifying.

I applied for a second job working part-time in a bookstore even though I felt unsure if I'd be able to work eight hours at the pre-school and then another six standing on my feet selling books. Refusing to use my weight as an excuse, I determined to try. Eighteen months have passed since I started to work at the bookstore and I still love it.

I re-enrolled in school. Where once my steps dragged across campus and I had to sit and rest several times along the way, resulting in my being late for class, now, with a bounce in my step I'm usually the first to arrive. Sitting in a classroom, discussing thoughts and theories I feel more fully alive than I've ever felt before.

In September, thirty-three months into my new life, I flew to visit my daughter in NYC. I will never forget the feeling of amazed joy as I sat in the plane seat and heard the safety-belt click shut across my lap. I laughed aloud.

The highlight of the entire trip was a rainy day spent at the MET, which houses both van Gogh and Monet. Standing in front of art I thought I would only ever see in a book took my breath away. It was an awe-filled moment to know my hand could reach out and touch the same canvas van Gogh's had. I saw, firsthand, the crisp lines left by his passionate brush strokes. I noticed details that were lost in photographs. The magnificence of his Sunflowers amazed me. Goodness overwhelmed me. The beauty of the art, and the knowledge that I was now living what once I had only read, moved me beyond anything I had felt before.

The birth of each of my children is the closest emotion I can relate to what I felt standing in front of the Sunflowers that day. In some ways I had given birth -- to myself. The me I had stopped believing I would ever become.

ON STANDING FOR WHAT'S RIGHT

Broadway Baptist kicked out of Southern Baptist Convention

By LEE WILLIAMS and BILL MILLER

leewilliams@star-telegram.comwmiller@star-telegram.com

Broadway Baptist Church has been kicked out of the Southern Baptist Convention because its stance on homosexuality is too lenient, convention members said.

Convention delegates, known as messengers, voted Tuesday to end the 127-year relationship with the historic Fort Worth church during the annual convention being held in Louisville, Ky.

The vote affirmed that the relationship between Broadway and the convention cease, "and that the church’s messengers not be seated," according to Roger Oldham, vice president for convention relations with the executive committee.

The committee made the recommendation Monday.

Stephen Wilson, a member of the executive committee, told the Baptist Press that "the church was in effect saying that it was OK to have members who are open homosexuals."

The 2,000-member church could seek reinstatement if it "unambiguously demonstrates its friendly cooperation with the Convention under Article III," according to the committee.

Article III deals with membership and says, "Among churches not in cooperation with the convention are churches which act to affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior."

The vote was a disappointment to leaders at Broadway, according to a statement from Kathy Madeja, chairwoman of the board of deacons.

"We do not believe Broadway has taken any action which would justify its being deemed not in friendly cooperation with the SBC," Madeja said. "It is unfortunate that the Southern Baptist Convention decided otherwise and severed its affiliation with Broadway Baptist Church."

Southern Baptist churches are autonomous and in charge of their own affairs, although the national convention does coordinate missions and relief organizations.

Because it was voted out, Broadway will not have a voice in convention issues or participate in its activities, Oldham said.

"Tomorrow when everybody wakes up, Broadway Baptist Church is still a Baptist church," Oldham said. "The only difference now is that it . . . can’t participate in matters that it has historically been a part of."

The decision does not affect Broadway’s affiliation with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Its executive director, Randall Everett, said he was disappointed that Broadway and the Southern Baptist Convention could not reach an agreement.

"Our prayers are with the church and its new pastor as they seek God’s leadership for the future," Everett said in a statement.

The Rev. Brent Beasley, who was named senior pastor at Broadway this month, could not be reached for comment. He begins at Broadway in July.

Beasley replaces the Rev. Brett Younger, whose leadership was called into question last year during a debate about whether photographs of same-sex couples should appear in the church directory. The photographs were eventually rejected in favor of group pictures of all church members.

Younger resigned in April 2008 to become an associate professor at a divinity school in Atlanta.

After the debate over the photographs, the Rev. Bob Sanderson of Wendell, N.C., criticized Broadway’s stance on homosexuality at last year’s convention and urged that the church be declared "not in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention."

The issue was taken up by the executive committee, which conducted meetings in September and February.

The Rev. Jorene Taylor Swift, a Broadway minister, wrote a letter to the committee stating: "We are not a church where homosexuality is a defining issue. While we extend hospitality to everyone — including homosexuals — we do not endorse, approve or affirm homosexual behavior."

Broadway leaders also appeared before the committee in February, and were asked whether any homosexuals served on church committees.

"The interim pastor [the Rev. Charles Johnson] was gracious enough to say there were two," said the Rev. Chris S. Osborne, pastor of Central Baptist Church in College Station and a committee member.

The committee indicated that it had problems with that and encouraged Broadway to strengthen its stance against homosexuality.

The church responded to further questions from the committee about homosexuality, Broadway attorney Lynn Robbins said.

"We answered their questions by telling them we do not and never have ever endorsed, approved or affirmed homosexual behavior," Robbins said. "At the same time, our doors are open to all people, including homosexuals, without affirming their behavior."

David Lowrie, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Canyon and president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, told the Baptist Press that Broadway "needed to express those convictions in a practical way. They, for whatever reason, weren’t able to do that."

Lowrie said, for example, that Broadway could have started a ministry to help people with "unhealthy lifestyles."

This report includes material from the Baptist Press and Star-Telegram archives.

This week something big happened in my hometown, in the center of the bible belt, a historic church took a stand and took some major hits, but they remain standing, remain standing by those who they profess to love, for those they feel they have been called to love and I am proud of them. Don't really know how to say that without sounding condescending, for who am I, but as I have been dusting off my relationship with God I've been feeling the pull towards public gathering for worship, aka church again.

It is with just such a church I would wish to commune.

What are we so afraid of?

When did loving someone of the same sex become the unpardonable sin?

It isn't contagious folks, honestly it isn't.

Why is it okay for a man who beats his wife and children to hold high offices in our churches? Why are the obese allowed to serve? Why are women who have slept with more than one man and men who have slept with more than one woman allowed to hold positions of authority in our churches, but gays are not? Gays, and if you are baptist, such as I am, divorced.

I have heard it said of my denomination we are the only church who shoots their survivors, and boy oh boy is that the truth.

And what about grace?

For by grace are we saved through faith it is a gift from God, not of works lest any man boast.

Now, where in there does it say, grace and straight? Grace and only married once? Grace and perfect, and isn't that the point of grace? Grace does for me me what I can not do for myself? Grace covers me and makes me perfect. I am made perfect through his grace. His grace covers my sins, doesn't erase them, doesn't make me perfect, just covers them.

"I've got this one, child. Don't worry, I'll cover you."

Come on folks. Stop being hypocritical, unless you have learned how to lead the perfect life, unless you are perfect without flaw, until you manage to get it right one-hundred percent of the time, leave everyone else alone, let God decide who to cover with his grace.

He tells us, if you love me love my sheep.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

No where in there does it say, unless he happens to love Steve. I read no such footnotes. Jesus just said, "Go love them." And that is just what Broadway Baptist Church is doing. They are simply opening their arms and loving everyone who walks through their doors.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar.

What is hate?

Well, I may be too simple. I may be wrong, but I think hate is saying I will no longer have anything to do with you. I reject you to the point of refusing to fellowship with you. Hate is walking into a church and shooting a Doctor to death. Hate is beating a man to death with a bat. Hate is throwing pig's blood on a woman and calling her a murder. Hate is setting off bombs in a doctor's clinic. And if I am wrong and these are not acts of hate, they are most certainly hateful acts.

Hate is taking away a church's membership from an organization they have been an active member of for 127 years and refusing to allow them a voice.

My heart overflows with pride for Broadway Baptist Church and it is on their pews I will be seated on Sunday.

I simply want a church who knows how to love whatever the cost. Thank you for showing me there is one.

The winds of change are blowing and their scent is sweetness to my soul.

ON NEEDING MOST WHEN YOU WANT LEAST

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. There have been many exciting things to come my way these past few weeks yet beneath the surface, my surface, has been a prevailing sadness.

At first I thought it was a sadness brought on by a missing of my children, my daughter in particular, and though missing them does add to it, it isn't this alone which is generating unrest in me.

By yesterday, there was no denying the deep shade of blue coloring my days.

I am a swimmer. I try to swim everyday. It helps get me back into shape, it clears my mind, it helps battle the blues, and it's just a good discipline, a promise kept to myself. Yesterday I just wanted to go home and go to sleep after work and almost gave into this thought, then I realized, when I want to the least is when I need to the most, and so I went for my daily swim.

I have long said the pool is my church. I bring those things that bother or confuse me to the water and while I swim they rather bounce about inside my brain, at first there is strong emotion, I tend to not allow myself to focus too much on feelings, well negative ones, and so they tend to be what bubbles to the surface first and fuel my swim, the stronger the feelings the faster the swim, the harder my strokes through the water, pushing towards this little internal click.

Blessed little click.

There is a point where my brain takes a step back from all the feelings and just like that first step back when standing too close to art, everything comes into focus a little more clearly, and I am better able to see what has been in front of me the entire time.

When I arrived at the pool yesterday I was pleased to find I had it to myself. Stepping into the cold water is always a bit of a shock and it took a second to brace myself for that first push off from the wall, but once I felt my body slipping through the water, I swam hard and fast.

It's almost like a movie playing itself out in my head, a crazy independent film where there are flashes of this and that, taken out of order and random, all these thoughts and emotions flashing about, and I allowed them to play as they would, trusting the rhythm of the swim to sort them out, grateful to find myself alone and my rhythm uninterrupted by another's body in the water.

Great sadness and hints of anger washed over me and so I increased my speed, kicked harder, pulled myself through the water with greater force, pushing, pushing toward the little click.

It finally came, more than twenty minutes into the swim, my mind grew quiet as my body picked up on its own rhythm and my brain rather released and I became only body, only breath, legs and arms and lungs, everything else slipping away, sinking to the bottom of the pool to be left behind.

I feel the tug of blue on my soul again today, and there were no epiphanies carried from yesterday's swim, so I know there are still things to be sorted and figured out.

I don't want to write today.

I don't want to go to work.

I don't want to wake up.

I don't want to swim.

But I will, I will do all four and more because I know when I want to the least is when I need to the most.

I have been able to sort out enough to realize, this all has something to do with getting closer to who I am, who I am meant to be, and it seems as I approach those things blue surrounds each step closer, now I need to figure out why, but I have lived long enough to know the how of things.

How I work these things out is I get up. I write. I go to work. I smile. I swim. I make myself do those day to day sort of things and trust myself to recognize the answers when they come, and believe life is kind enough to revel the answers to those of us who seek them.

ON FATHERHOOD

This has long been my favorite picture of me with my dad. It embodies everything wonderful about dads. My tiny hand in his big one, him bent down to my level, the arm behind me ready to catch me if I stumble backward, the look of love on my dad's face, the patience in his stature, me completely unaware of the fact that I am only able to stand and gather the pretty flowers because my father is there beside me, supporting me, allowing me.

My dad has long been the standard by which all other men are measured.

Dad has been a lot of things in his life.

Football hero. Juvenal Delinquent. Sailor, See Bee, to be more precise. Student. Pastor. Sheet Metal Foreman. Inventor. Artist. Historian. Woodworker.

He used to be bigger than life. Loud and full of life, he boomed into rooms and would fill them to overflowing. He never considered himself a smart man, and yet my best memories are of falling asleep on the sofa to the sound of his voice mixed with those of his bible school buddies debating philosophies and biblical theories. He can talk for hours about history and his thoughts on the different events that have shaped our county's.

He never pretends to be anything other than who he is, and I grew up watching the contradictions that was my father.

Rough around the edges construction worker, soul stirring artist, theologian who tells you what the bible says while cussing like the sailor he was, every guys guy, blue collared worker who passed along a strong work ethic to his children and his children's children.

Dad loves music. He was a whistler. For as far back as I can remember, I would wake to the sound of my dad trilling away in the kitchen as he started the morning coffee, and even as a girl couldn't help but wonder at such joy.

I was always dad's buddy. When I was a tiny girl I used to hear my dad turn the key in the downstairs door of our apartment, and would crawl to the upstairs door and wait for my mom to open it so I could greet dad as he came up the stairs. He would swoop me up and dance me about, and in his arms I would stay until I fell asleep for the night.

I remember feeling that nothing bad could ever happen to me in dad's arms, in dad's presences. Dad's shadow was the only protection I needed as a girl.

He was sweet, harsh, funny, demanding, loving, tender, understanding, strict, and I never once had to wonder if dad loved me. I knew. I still do. All the way down to my toes know. And I am grateful to have a dad such as mine.

They say our earthly fathers determine the size and shape and nature of our heavenly father, we see God in our Fathers, and our fathers in God. If this is true, and I believe it is, I have been given such a gift, because this song could apply to either for me.

Happy Father's Day, Dad! You deserve all the best this world holds, for through out my life you have been beside me, allowing me to stand, ready to catch me whenever I've stumbled, supporting me as I gathered all the pretty flowers, and I want you to know, I am aware. Fully aware, and I love you for it more than I will ever be able to express.

CORNERSTONE

(for my dad)

Once solid rock now life-slammed sand

Shuffles lost, in search of what, I do not know

We sit together, him and me

Silence where chatter used to be

Searching his eyes for the depth they once held

Hollow green surface is all pain has left

Crag under whose shadow I once hid

How I long for the safety of your shade

Bedrock from which my life was formed

How I miss the comfort of your warmth

Foundation on which I did rest from the squall

How I need the support your arms once allowed

Would that I could, like a small child crawl

Back to the rock which once sheltered me

Where have you gone to and will you return

Whisper the words that will bring back again

The keystone who always stood watch over me.

ON MORNING

I was suppose to have met Ronald for lunch yesterday, instead I went to his viewing. I hugged his mom who seemed numb and as blindsided as I felt. I sat with his sister for a little bit and we exchanged our favorite memories of him, then she turned to me and said, "I just can't believe after tomorrow I won't ever see him again."

I knew just how she felt.

What we have lost hasn't fully sank in yet. As much as we are hurting there is still a numbness brought on by shock, and we will never be the same people we were Wednesday morning, some more pronouncedly changed than others, but there will forever come moments when we think to ourselves, "Oh my goodness, Ronald would love this!" and we will, for that portion of a second, forget until loss slaps us across the face with its cruel absoluteness. We will forever be reminded of our loss.

I said goodbye to Ronald today. Slip in near the back and listened as a pastor talked about a boy I hardly recognized, and it made me sadder than I was. I wonder why we find it necessary to sanctify our dead?

It was not this spit and polished person I had come there to grieve, wasn't this boy who was so, so good, I had grown to love, it was Ronald in all his flawed humanity that I will miss for the rest of my life.

Ronald who others had a cause to fear, Ronald who shot heron, and stole, Ronald who lied and manipulated, Ronald whose laughter would make it impossible to remain unhappy, Ronald whose art amazed me, Ronald who would have stood between me or my daughter and anyone wanting to harm us, Ronald who remembered my birthday every year and made me breakfast three mother's day in a row, Ronald who sat beside my daughter when she got her heart broken the very first time, silently, with his arm around her shoulder never saying a word, until she laid her head on his shoulder and finally let herself cry. Ronald who, much to our horror, beat the boy responsible and issued a warning to never ever harm Elizabeth again or he would finish the job. Ronald who understood things on such a deep level it astounded me. Dark skinned, long curly haired, brown-eyed, Ronald, who smiled easily and often, who teased and tormented, who cajoled and charmed, who lied and frightened, who loved unwaveringly and unconditionally.

This was who I said goodbye to today. Beautifully flawed Ronald, a boy I will always love and call one of my own.

After the funeral, I went past my son's girlfriend's house so I could hold Logan, my grandson.

As I sat rocking my tiny little guy, he looked up at me and smiled and cooed and I finally let myself weep. Kayleigh, the sweet girl that she is, slipped from the room and left me alone with my grandson, this little tiny bit of his daddy, and after my tears I sat talking to Logan, telling him about his daddy who he has yet to meet, and gratitude began to fill me because it could have been Michael as easily as it was Ronald back in the day, and I now need never fear my son's death to drugs as those days are long behind him, long behind us.

I want to write my son a long letter of thanks for making the hard choices he did. For stepping up and allowing himself to become a man. For giving me Logan. For growing up and believing he deserved a better life than the one drugs would afford him.

Even as I grieve the loss of Ronald, I realize just how fortunate I am that my son chose a better path.

Because of his choices there is a new life in my world, and tomorrow I will wake up, sit on my patio drinking dark, rich coffee with some sort of flavored cream, writing, reflecting and when sadness comes and sits in the seat next to mine, I will go hold my grandson and breath in his baby sweet smell, and know, no matter how dark the night, morning always comes.

ON LOSS

It is one o'clock in the morning and I am sitting on my patio with a heart that is heavy and broken.

Three hours ago my phone rang. The mother of a boy who spent more time in my home than his own when he was fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen, called to say he has died.

Cause of death?

Drug overdose.

What do you say? How do you help? How do you make sense of such senseless loss?

He was the brightest and most promising of all my son's friends, second favorite of mine. Born in Costa Rica, in American since he was twelve. He was smart, dark, and so good looking I often teased him calling him pretty boy. Fiercely loyal, and sweetly protective, yet self-destructive and volatile, I always worried most about him.

He had a charming disposition, and could wheedle me into doing pretty much anything he wanted.

"Ms. Pamala, will you bake me a cake?"

"Oh, please, Ms. Pamala, you know how much I luve your cakes."

Cocking his head to one side, making his brown eyes all big and puppy dog sweet, smiling his crooked little smile, his accent more pronounced for impact and effect, and soon the smell of cake was filling the apartment.

We used to sit around the table late into the night, my son, myself, and his little group of friends playing scrabble, or cards, or dominoes, and through the hours, through the years, I grew to love these boys.

I knew they did drugs, some of them very serious drugs, I knew they did things that would horrify me were I to be given complete privy into their world, I knew my son would be better off, safer, without them in his life, but these were the friends he had chosen, and so I concluded my best line of defense would be to get to know them, really get to know them, to make my home a safe place for them to be, no judgments, no calling other parents, no anger, no threats, just honest input and perhaps they would come to care what I thought enough to afford me some influence.

I figured they were safer in my home than running the streets, and though I did not allow drugs or alcohol to be openly used in my home, I was not so stupid as to believe they were not, and I never fussed or griped at them when they arrived, clearly under the influence. I wanted to keep the lines of communication opened between my son and myself, wanted him to be able to trust me, wanted him to know he could talk to me about anything and so we formed a crazy, mixed up little family, me, Micheal, and four crazy, bad-ass boys I soon grew to love so much I would be willing to lay down my life for theirs.

Now one is gone. Dead at twenty-one.

Shortly before his eighteenth birthday, Michael came to me and told me he wanted to go to a different school, one that specialized in at risk kids, they had an accelerated program, lower teacher/student ratios, and special training. He wanted to sever all ties, understood if he didn't he would end up dropping out of school, which he no longer wanted, and so we moved into this school's district away from his boyhood friends, and they were not invited into his new world, so I honored his strength, his choice for a better life and said good bye to these boys as well.

I ran into Ronald a year after we moved. He was in the cigarette store I buy my cloves from, looking so thin, covered in pock marks, so strung out I burst into tears and asked him what the hell he had done to himself, didn't even try to hide my horror.

He laughed his silly little dismissive laugh, cocked his head, smiled his smile, and said, "Oh Ms. Pamala, you are being so silly." Then went on to try to pursued me he was clean and had his life together.

For once he was not able to wheedle his way around me.

I told him outright that I was terrified for him and it was clear he was not clean nor sober, I hugged him and told him I loved him, then teasingly smacked the back of his head and said, "Of all Michael's friends you are the one who could go the furthest, you're the smartest, the best looking, the most driven, and I just want to see you live long enough to get there. Please, Ronald, Please use that head of yours,"

That was the last time I ever saw him. He was seventeen almost eighteen.

Three months ago I ran into his mom at the gym. She told me how he was finally clean. He was attending the local Jr. college, and working a full-time job. She gave me his phone number and I talked with him a handful of times, the last two weeks ago to make plans to take him to lunch.

I don't know what happened. I don't understand. Maybe he thought one more time for old times sake, maybe it was the end of a long hard day and he just needed a little help to make it through, I don't know, it just doesn't make any sense.