The Strings that Pulled Me Through

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Count Your Blessings

BY: Leah M. Cano

Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.
~John Lubbock

The words rang in my ears for days. With her arms around me as I fell apart and my world drowned in black, my surgeon whispered to me, "Leah, thousands of women have been where you are and thought it was the end. They are still here." She was right. Those words didn't mean anything to me then. I only remember I never cried so hard. I couldn't stop.

I was like a zombie. My feet moved, I continued breathing, but I couldn't think. When I saw her face as I walked into her office, I knew immediately it was cancer.

My mother and sister had jumped on a plane to be with me. They tried to distract me with jokes, luncheons, and outings to the movies. Their lightheartedness would make me forget... for awhile, but a lengthy operation involving the removal and reconstruction of my left breast awaited me and I began to wonder what I had done wrong in my life to deserve such a sentence.

The night before my operation, I was quiet on the outside, but inside I was screaming, I was on my knees begging the sun to remain, the night to stay away and the clock to stop ticking the hours away, counting the minutes down to the second I would be wheeled into that operating room. It was then that I came to grips with the possibility of my death.

I had been on the operating table for nearly ten hours and I knew my body would never be the same.

The day came when we all went to the oncologist to talk about the plan for the dreaded chemotherapy. I was prepared to hear that I would have to endure six months, which was the standard treatment at that time. When my doctor informed us I was to have a year of chemotherapy, the nightmare seemed to begin all over again.

My sister, mother and I huddled with our arms around one another, praying for the strength to accept this new sentence. My tears had begun again and the world seemed to go silent.

It was at this time I finally began to see that I had a mental strength, a positive attitude my mother had ingrained in me. My sister reminded me of this. She calmly sat down at a table with a piece of paper and folded it down the middle.

In one column, she explained, were the difficulties I would have to endure. In the second column, all the things I was grateful for. This was a technique my mother (who, ironically, was outside pacing and smoking) had taught us. I always knew what the outcome would be. The column for things I needed to be grateful for: my grown son, my completed education, a supportive family, good insurance coverage, a good job and a difficult divorce behind me, would always outweigh the other. As the year of chemo and radiation jumped out at me, it became clear. I had so much to be thankful for.

If you have never experienced that cold poison introduced into your system, it's very difficult to explain the sensation. I would try to think of other things as I looked away and my doctor would put the needle in me. The feeling was chilling, like ice flowing through you instead of blood. Having been informed it was the strongest kind of chemo at the time, I had prepared myself for the vomiting, the nausea and the sleepless nights hovering over the toilet. I braced myself that day. I had my vomit bag beside me. I was ready. I waited and waited, but the nausea, the vomiting never came... not that day or any other.

Sitting quietly alone in my room one day, I thought about my year off from work and my year of treatment. The way I saw it, I had two ways to look at my situation. It all came down to this: Either I could tell myself that I was losing a year of my life, taken by cancer, or I could tell myself that since I would be at home and undergoing treatment without the reaction to chemo others had, I would actually be given a gift of a year. Then I saw it. Even though it had been leaning against the wall for the past three years gathering dust, there it was... my violin, one I had yet to learn to play. It seemed to scream at me, "Here I am! Look at me!"

It was a gift, given to me for my birthday one year by a good friend. The old violin, in a case nearly as worn, had been restrung and was waiting for me to fulfill a dream I never had time to pursue. For me, the sound of a violin was the closest sound to angels singing. I told myself I would finally be given the time to make mine sing.

I began to pursue this goal in earnest as I signed up for the beginning strings class at the local community college. But the rounded, smooth notes I planned to produce emerged in abrupt, stop and start screeching of unrecognizable "melody."

As I mastered each song, I would go on to other simple songs on my old but angelic instrument, always with the impending orchestra performance a few months away at the forefront of my mind. The role of our beginning strings class was to accompany the more advanced class in the playing of the "William Tell Overture." What a lofty undertaking I had set for myself!

In a few weeks, I knew my hair would begin to fall out. So, I had it shaved off before I could see long strands of hair lying on my pillow. Meanwhile, I would imagine the voice of the violin speaking to me to encourage me to keep practicing, to work to make my dream come true. Soon, those sharp, shrill screeches began to glide into smooth, buttery notes, responding to the touch of my fingers, propelling me forward to reach my goal.

Now, I had something meaningful to do with my fingers, with my mind, something that made my heart soar when I felt the strings vibrate under my fingertips. It was as if they were calling me. After years of silence, the strings awakened my spirit again, the way it had been awakened when I was a child and first learned to play piano and when I was an adolescent and learned to play guitar. The violin, however, was more intense. It was for my soul and spirit, literally counteracting the dark liquid flowing through me. It lightened my fear, replacing it with hope.

A few months later, as I sat in the strings section of the college orchestra, my dream became a reality. Though I was bald under my scratchy wig, it didn't matter. Those angelic chords were being played by me, by my fingers, as I was surrounded by my musician friends. I knew deep inside me that there was a light and an end to this journey. The strings of my violin had pulled me through.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2009/11/The-Strings-that-Pulled-Me-Through.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter

There Is a Tree

From Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family

By Kimberly Anne Reedy

If you feel called to share a message, it's because there are people in the world who are waiting to hear it.
~Michael Port

On the plane headed to Detroit for my grandparents' sixtieth wedding anniversary, I gazed out the small cabin window. My mind wandered as I reviewed the past year.

I had moved to Phuket, Thailand, where I had become a scuba dive master and taught children at a local school. I didn't have a good answer as to why I left home. I just needed to escape from my life as it was.

After living in Thailand for seven months, I got a call from my brother.

"I just got back from Iraq again. A lot has changed in my life, and I have so much to tell you!"

"Well, when can you come out here to visit me?"

"I don't get out of the Marine Corps until next March. When are you coming home?"

That was all I needed to hear. I decided right then and there to return home to see my brother and family as soon as I could wrap things up in Phuket.

First, my mom flew out to see what life had been like for me in Thailand. We spent seven weeks exploring Southeast Asia and parts of Europe before returning home. We then drove through the southwestern United States and along the West Coast to visit my brother and two sisters.

It struck me that I had traveled to ten countries and, now on my way to Michigan, ten states within the course of a year.

I pulled out my travel journal, weathered by months of tropical sea air and endless carry-on chafing. And I began to write....

Months later, my family gathered in Arizona for our first Christmas together in three years. My brother was home from Iraq, and I was back from years of international adventure. My mom wanted it to be the best Christmas ever.

We had all decided to have a "Come as You Will Be" party to celebrate our dreams as a family and our commitment to getting along and growing together. When it was my turn to talk about my dreams, I revealed my intention to be a writer. I even had my first work with me, a short parable I had recently written. Although I wanted to read it to them, an overwhelming sense of vulnerability emerged, and I changed the subject. Then, suddenly, I was interrupted with, "Let's hear it!"

Somewhat surprised that everyone seemed genuinely interested, I read what I had written on the plane two months before.

There Is a Tree

There is a tree whose roots sink deeply into the very core of the earth. Its branches soar up through the sky and out into the universe. Its trunk is so wide, no one really knows where one side begins or the other one ends. On that tree, there are so many leaves that, from far away, they seem to blend together as one.

But, up close, each leaf looks completely separate. Because of this, most leaves overlook the fact that their stems are attached to small branches, which give way to all the other branches and ultimately connect to every other leaf on the tree. Most leaves forget this connection and feel separate and alone.

When it rains, the leaves think they must accumulate more drops on them than the others, or they might die of thirst. So they compete with each other for the limited raindrops, forgetting that they all share the same roots, which absorb the water when it moistens the earth.

When the sun comes out, the leaves are again worried, this time because they may not get enough light. When they see other leaves getting more sunlight than themselves, they feel resentful and envious, forgetting that when the sun shines on any one of them, the warmth and energy strengthens them all.

Some leaves don't remember that they are part of a tree until they fall to the ground. But from the ground looking up, they can plainly see that all the leaves are growing from the same tree. Once they remember, they transform into nourishing soil and continue on as a different part of the tree.

Some leaves, on the other hand, remember before they fall from the tree. When it rains, these leaves relax and trust, knowing that the water will moisten the soil below, and the roots of the great tree will absorb it, providing plenty of water for each leaf.

When the sun comes out, the leaves bask in its warmth. When they see other leaves getting more sunlight, they are delighted, knowing that they all benefit from each other's success.

But the most amazing thing is that when one leaf remembers, sometimes other leaves notice. And then, slowly, they begin to remember, too. And before you know it, on a tree whose roots sink deeply into the core of the earth with branches that reach all the way out into the universe, there are leaves that, even up close, don't seem so separate.

I looked around. Everyone was quiet.

Today, if you were to say me, "Thailand?! What made you want to move there?" I would have an answer. Only after all the people I met, after all the places I saw, after all the experiences I had, and only after being with my family, as if for the first time, can I say in earnest, "I just needed to find my way home."

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2009/11/There-Is-a-Tree.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter

Just Because

Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family

BY: Tonya L. Alton

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
~Johann von Goethe

I grew up in a world where "crazy" was served up daily as a plateful of dysfunction. Years later, at the age of thirty-four, I had a name for my illness. I was bipolar.

During my chaotic life, I managed to give birth to a ten-pound, ten-ounce bundle of love, Shayla Rae Dawn. To me, she was sheer perfection. Many times throughout the years of raising my daughter, the walls I had built up from a lifetime of abuse dissolved when I held her in my arms. Like a waterfall that had been turned off, my bipolar was evaporated by the love of my child.

As a little girl, Shayla depended on me for both love and security. Although these were things I had never received, I was able to create them in the deep bond I shared with my daughter.

Looking back, my daughter never thought something was wrong with Mommy, because my erratic behavior was simply normal to her. We would play together like two schoolmates, skipping along the sidewalk, singing and laughing. If she climbed a tree, I was right behind her, imagining the spectacular tree house we could build in its towering limbs. Shayla would awake in the middle of the night to the wondrous aromas of freshly baked cinnamon buns, whipped shortbread and banana muffins. It never occurred to her that regular people do not start baking at 3:00 A.M.

Then, there were times when my bipolar was infused with such creativity that it seemed like pure brilliance. I would write, compose and submerge myself in the gift that my mental illness allowed me to share with the world. Long before I was diagnosed, my bipolar was like a mischievous child, coming out to play whenever it desired.

During her childhood, Shayla took delight in my unusual parenting methods. One of her favourite memories was of the "Just Because" parties I would host on a whim. While my daughter was at the neighbour's, I would contact her friends and invite them over for the next day, "just because." They would arrive to find our home adorned with colorful decorations. I would have craft projects set up for the girls, and a homemade angel food cake with marshmallow icing, complete with sprinkles and sparklers. The girls would hide behind the couch, and when Shayla entered, her friends would jump out and yell, "Surprise!"

Since being diagnosed with bipolar and properly medicated, my life has changed in dramatic ways. I have clarity where racing thoughts once existed. I have stability where chaos resided. I have been a spokesperson for mental health issues, sharing my troubled past with those wanting to see me as a person coping with a mental illness. Additionally, I have spoken at my daughter's former high school twice and watched with great pride how accommodating Shayla has been with my bipolar.

Stepping out from behind the shadows of my bipolar, I have positioned myself to be scrutinized. To openly announce to the world that I have a mental illness is not an easy task, yet I gain control over my life when I share my journey with strangers. The realization that my "mental imperfection" is the foundation of my dysfunction now gives me hope! My daughter, Shayla Rae Dawn, has taught me that there are no limitations in life, only recognition that there is freedom in embracing our differences!

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2009/11/Just-Because.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter

The Blessing Bowl

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Count Your Blessings

BY: Heather Simms Schichtel

For today and its blessings, I owe the world an attitude of gratitude.
~Anonymous

My daughter's first birthday. I was thrilled that we were celebrating a year of her life but saddened at how hard this year had been. We had spent sixty-one days in the hospital, battled seizures and infections, two Flight for Life helicopter rides, numerous 911 calls and late-night trips in the ambulance. My daughter Samantha was a sick little girl and we were still searching for a diagnosis. Her first year had been tumultuous at best.

To honor Samantha's first year, I had asked people to bring a trinket, a stone, a poem, something that brought peace or felt good to them -- their blessings for her. I found a simple bowl given to me by my great-grandmother; a bowl for her blessings... her blessing bowl.

I found my contribution to the bowl in my garden. Many times I have set my fragile daughter on the soft dirt hoping something might soak up. Grow, thrive, baby girl; take an example from the zucchinis.

I snipped a bloom from the lily I planted the summer my husband and I were married. The bloom was a buttery yellow with three soft petals; Samantha, my husband and myself. I held a bit of the hearty earth in my hand to form a hard clump and added it to the bowl. My offerings were simple but they represented growth, hope, and my little family; nothing could be more precious.

Samantha woke up on her own at precisely 4:00, when the party was going to start. She's on so many anti-seizure meds that fully waking her up can take about an hour. Yet today she was lucid and playing in her crib; ready to go for her party. I put her in a blue dress with yellow daisies. I had been saving that dress. I was waiting for her to be big enough, waiting for that first year. The blue brought out her red hair. I placed her tiny tortoise-shell glasses on her nose and laughed to myself. She was absolutely the most precious thing on earth.

Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins filed in and kissed Samantha. Wine bottles were uncorked; hummus and brie were laid out on the table. The mood was festive as everyone toasted to Samantha's health.

As the evening progressed and the dinner plates were cleared away, it was time for our blessing bowl "ceremony." Samantha was still awake, babbling to her grandma and seizure-free. I felt an enormous weight lift off my shoulders.

I brought out my great-grandmother's bowl and set it in front of our family, studying the faces in front of me. I thought of what a long haul it's been for everyone -- the sleepless nights, the worried phone calls, the private tears cried away from the hospital, all for our daughter. I felt overwhelmed with gratitude.

I cleared my throat and thanked my family for being there. I reached into the bowl and pulled out my blessings for Samantha -- the earth and our flower.

I passed the bowl onto my grandmother, Samantha's great-grandmother. She pulled out a silver bell in the shape of an angel, "because Samantha is our angel." When my talkative grandma gets emotional, she is a lady of little words. She passed the bowl onto one of Samantha's grandmas.

She pulled out a perfect sand dollar she found on a California beach. "I chose a sand dollar because it comes from the ocean. The ocean is a beautiful, constant, volatile source of life. The surface can be calm or stormy but we never really see what is going on below. And there is a whole different world below. This reminds me of Samantha; we don't really know what's going on underneath the surface but there is a beautiful world full of life."

My aunt pulled out a small silver heart. "I have carried this heart with me for twenty years and it has brought me good luck all of these years. Samantha, I now hand it onto you."

She passed the bowl to my sister-in-law who presented a prayer for health and longevity from a Buddhist temple in Hong Kong.

My mother had also chosen shells. The first was a perfect brown and white spiral I had found years ago during a family vacation in Florida. The second was from Tahiti, another beautiful, smooth shell, chosen thousands of miles away years before Samantha was even born.

My dad was next. He had a small stuffed dog dressed in a karate uniform. When you pressed the dog's stomach it yelled out "HY YA!" It reminded him of how Samantha continues to fight.

The last trinket in the bowl was a jade necklace from Hong Kong. My sister-in-law is from China and went home for a visit in May. Her mother gave her the necklace to give to Samantha for good luck. Thirty-four years ago, her son wore the necklace for good health and safety during his babyhood. The span of people loving and praying for Samantha had traveled thousands of miles.

I lit her single candle, overwhelmed that this beautiful little girl was a part of my life, and that she had fought so hard to stay a part of our lives.

Samantha's dad helped her blow out the candle. We fed her frosting and pieces of mushy cake which she smashed between her fingers and toes.

The night came to an end. I finally got my rowdy daughter to sleep. I wandered through the house remembering the night. I took the lily out of the bowl and placed it in our big family bible to be pressed for safe keeping. The bible belonged to my grandfather, who passed away over a decade ago. As I thumbed through the pages, I found a red rose, perfectly pressed between the passages. I don't know the origin, but I put it in the bowl. It was my grandfather's wish, his blessing for Samantha.

We have asked so much from our families, friends, and people we don't know. They have spent countless hours in the hospital, brought meals, coffees, contacted other family members, held and loved Samantha, prayed, sent jade pendants from Hong Kong. How do you give that back?

Gratitude, I thought. I am grateful for my daughter's pink cheeks, for every breath she takes, for a seizure-free birthday. I am grateful for family and friends who would give their silver heart for the blessing bowl.

Someday I will repay the world for their acts of kindness to our family. I will make meals for someone else. I will send their family good wishes for good health and visit the hospital with coffee and fresh brownies. Right now I can only reflect on the joy of the night and be grateful.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2009/11/The-Blessing-Bowl.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter

Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms

BY: Stephanie Wolff Mirmina

When a child enters the world through you, it alters everything on a psychic, psychological, and purely practical level. You're just not free anymore to do what you want to do. And it's not the same again. Ever.
~Jane Fonda

It was the shoes. Definitely the shoes that were pushing me over the edge. I caught the tiny sneaker just as it was about to hit the dirt. My son squealed in protest. I was one step away from a nervous breakdown. We were on vacation. Well, technically, my thirteen-month-old son and I were on vacation. My husband was working at a month-long conference in Geneva -- the perfect opportunity for us to play and explore.

At first, I felt a bit guilty, a bit greedy even, anticipating this trip. It was quite a stay-at-home mom's coup: a month in Europe with husband, all (most) expenses paid, great apartment, my own agenda. I loved exploring new cities. It was my thing. I don't do rope bridges in Borneo, camp out for Burning Man or "summit," but I can really work an urban Lonely Planet guidebook. Leave no café unturned. I actually felt sorry for my husband, who would be cooped up in an office. I pictured myself at restaurants, markets, museums. I even dredged up my high school French.

So really, the inappropriateness of having a nervous breakdown while on such a glamorous escapade just seemed, well, gauche. How could this not be going well? I had a city map. I had an all-access subway pass. I had extra milk. And I was at the playground holding onto my son on the wooden rocking horse and about to cry. The added faux pas of crying at a playground just made things worse. How could anyone be sad at a playground? I guess the same way one could be sad at a carousel (yesterday), a street market (the day before), and a botanical garden (last weekend).

So, the shoes. His feet repelled them. And the socks they rode in on. I was constantly replacing them, wrestling him in his stroller to try to replace them, or worrying that his feet were going to get frostbite when I no longer had the strength to replace them. I knew things had gotten bad when I snapped at the fifth grandmother that day who grabbed my coat to reprimand me for his not wearing shoes.

It was only a symptom anyway. It wasn't the shoes. Even I could see that. No, it was also the sweater. And the jacket. And the hat. And the not wanting to be put in the stroller. And screeching on the tram. It took us longer to leave the house than it did to be out before we had to come in for a nap. Sometimes we did not even leave the house in the morning before the eye rubs and yawns started and we unpacked, undressed, and went back to bed.

I don't know why this was such a shock, not getting anything done. We don't get anything done at home. If we get dressed, have a bite to eat, and make it to the market before it closes to pick up some bananas, we're high-fiving each other all the way back. And that's when it hit me. I thought I was going to be on vacation. I needed a vacation. One appeared before me. I jumped at it. I thought it would be a nice change of scenery -- that I could maybe escape the sameness of life at home. What I forgot was that I now traveled with my own little self-contained life. Which, I guess, is more or less true of everyone. Wherever you go, there you are. You travel around the world only to confront the same baggage (no pun intended) against a different backdrop.

Only this was the concrete version of that metaphysical truism. I literally had my baggage attached to my leg as I tried to cook dinner. It came with me everywhere. It made its presence known loudly and often. Obviously, the problem was that my son did not know we were on vacation. He carried on with the same attention-getting tactics that I was mostly able to ignore back home.

I could appreciate the good and the cute -- the giggling, the snuggling in, the saying "nana" for "banana," the eye crinkle -- as much as anyone, but it wasn't enough to get me through the day with my sanity intact. As soon as anything "less than good" happened, I immediately put forth so much energy wishing things were different that I worked myself into a funk and negated any residual good parts. Why can't he nap for more than a half hour? Why can't he eat the green bean instead of throwing it? I fought with myself far more than my son did. It started to seem as if the days were all bad, punctuated occasionally by something going well.

I think I had the feeling that if I could just get the day to go smoothly, I could have time to get back to my own agenda. But as I thought this, it was slowly occurring to me that this taking-care-of-my-son thing was my agenda. It wasn't something to get through before I could get back to my regularly scheduled day. This was it. Keeping my son safe, happy, well-fed and diapered. This was the job. This was what I was doing with my days. This was the work of parenting. That it took thirteen months and seven days for this to sink in staggered the mind a little. Was this denial a result of some latent post-post-post-partum depression?

It was like that picture-in-picture function on televisions. Your main program is running large on the screen, while the secondary program runs in a tiny box in a lower corner. If you try to watch the tiny screen all the time, it will take all your concentration to ignore the big screen, and probably give you a headache from all the squinting. It wasn't designed to be used that way. The large one is the main program. If you want to focus on the other for a while, flip the images. Otherwise, watch what you've got.

I wanted that. I wanted to appreciate what was looming large in front of me. I didn't want to fight with myself anymore over what should be on the big screen. I had two choices: denial or acceptance. Acceptance seemed more functional. The big picture could remain in focus: I was in charge of raising my son all day. Children are messy. They don't listen. Why double my misery by denying that any of the above is real or expected? I obviously had some work to do, but I was starting to get that my problems didn't seem to be stemming from Geneva, the weather, or my husband's long working hours.

As the afternoon chill settled in, my son looked up at me from his playground horse and whinnied, a big grin spreading across his face at his own cleverness. His other shoe looked up at me from the fresh mud below. My son was having a good time. I decided to join him.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2009/11/Waiting-for-the-Other-Shoe-to-Drop.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter

Paul's Bike

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Christmas Cheer

BY: Linda L. Osmundson

I love the Christmas-tide, and yet,
I notice this, each year I live;
I always like the gifts I get,
But how I love the gifts I give!
~Carolyn Wells

Late one June evening, our oldest son, his dad and I discussed a newspaper route with a morning delivery manager. From the dining room I could hear the television where a younger son, Paul, watched his favorite program.

The man described two available routes. "And if you keep a route for at least a year, the bike we lend you becomes yours to keep."

"How old do you have to be to have a paper route?" Paul piped in.

I stared at Paul. How long had he been sitting at the other end of the table?

"How old are you, son?" asked the manager.

Paul stretched himself as tall as possible. "Ten."

"Well," answered the manager, "we like the boys to be at least eleven."

"But you have two routes in our area. I could do one," insisted Paul.

"Okay, if your parents agree that you can do it. Let me know tomorrow."

After the man left, I laid out some rules. "If you take these routes, they are yours, not mine.

Don't expect me to drive you when the weather is bad or you get up late. I don't want to remind you to collect each month either."

The manager trained the boys for two days. On Saturday he presented each boy with a paper-route bike.

The bike was one-speed, large, fat, tired and ugly red. A basket rested over each side of the back fender to hold papers, and a large canvas bag hung from the handlebars.

I watched Paul's face. He smiled, rode the bike down the driveway, then parked it in the garage. After the first week of riding the bike to school, he chose to walk.

Each morning, Paul got up early on his own to deliver his papers. Even if I offered to drive him in the freezing cold, he refused. He finished his collections on time without my urging. Each month he cashed his checks at the local drugstore, paid his paper bill and hid his profits in a sock in his underwear drawer.

With Christmas a couple of months away, the boys and I made many trips to Target. Each boy went his own way. I'd find Paul in the bicycle department.

"Why are you always looking at bikes?" I asked him. "You have one that you seldom ride."

"Mom, the kids make fun of my clunky paper-route bike. I want one like everyone else has. By Christmas I'll have enough money to buy this one."

Every day after school, Paul counted his money. On each trip to various stores, his brother showed me Christmas gifts he'd purchased. Paul never bought anything. He spent the whole time sitting on new bikes. In December, he did his collections early.

On our final Christmas shopping trip, I again discovered Paul at the bicycle department. His shopping cart was empty. "Are you buying the bike?" I asked.

"I have enough money," he boasted.

"Well, hurry up. We'll wait for you at the front." We waited and waited. At last Paul came out carrying one little bag to the car.

Each boy took his turn in my bedroom, secretly wrapping his gifts. Paul didn't take long. He placed a few small packages under the tree.

That night I went to tuck the boys into bed as usual. When I entered Paul's room, he lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. His brown eyes sparkled. "I can hardly wait for Christmas," he said. He put his hands behind his head, and his face filled with a huge smile.

"Why, Paul?" I dreaded his answer. "Will your new bike arrive soon?"

"I didn't buy it, but I spent all my money!" He looked happier than I'd ever seen him.

"Everyone's going to love what I got them for Christmas!"

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2009/11/Pauls-Bike.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter

We'll Have Fun Yet

Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family

BY: Stephen J. Lyons

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.
~Jane Howard


My family reunions take place in hotel rooms and restaurant lobbies. We meet in towns like Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where my grandmother lived until last year, and more recently in Downer's Grove, Illinois, where motels advertise "extended stay" business suites, and low-flying jets roar overhead every few seconds.


We are a small family by American standards: my father and his third wife; my brother and his fourth wife and two children; and me with my second wife and one daughter. My mother, who holds a quarter-century hurt against my father, keeps her distance. Although we are veterans of many emotional outbursts, we do not need a scene. In all, the four original members of my family married twelve times. Seven of those unions ended in divorce, one in death. Perhaps that's why transitory anonymous places do not bother us -- we have lost so many homes.


I have missed most of these reunions. When I chose a life Out West at the age of seventeen, I knew I would come back to the Midwest infrequently, if at all. Youth creates an illusion of absolute truths. I easily bought into my own: I didn't need family. Instead, I relied on craggy mountain peaks, big skies, crimson sunsets, and magical swaths of desert. Truth is, I probably read too many Carlos Castaneda books and listened to one too many John Denver songs about a Rocky Mountain high.


The migration of Illinois high school graduates to Colorado and beyond in the 1970s must have rivaled the numbers attempting the Oregon Trail a century before. We were a ragtag bunch of Boomers armed with dog-eared copies of Walden and On the Road. Slung over our shoulders were new backpacks and acoustic guitars. College towns and cities like Missoula, Boulder, Tucson, and Durango took us in with the hope that we would only stay four years. But many of us never left. We graduated, found jobs, married, became parents, divorced, remarried. Twenty-five years quickly passed. Suddenly, all those absolute truths that were black and white -- the ones we stayed up all night to debate -- were now gray. So was our hair.


When I was almost forty, I finally met my Iowa grandmother, Mary, in the unlikely setting of Brooklyn. As the two of us sat alone in my father's living room, she took my hand, squeezed it, and said, "We'll have fun yet." Perhaps she sensed my feeling of loss at meeting her so late in my life, long after the usual familial bonding of grandchild to grandparent. Taking my hand was a way of closing those years, of taking us to the present tense where we could begin.


Grandmother Mary died last year. In my adult life, I had only been around her twice, and we exchanged just a few notes and cards. But her greatest gift was yet to come. A large manila envelope arrived shortly after Mary's death. Inside were letters, charts, journal pages, and copies of small town histories. These were the voluminous results of her life's passion -- our family.


I learned that my earliest known relative in America was David Lyons, born in 1788 in Virginia, who served in the War of 1812, where he was paid thirty-nine dollars and ninety-six cents for six months of duty. Among all the pages in my family's history, among all the underlined passages and Mary's carefully written margin notes, one passage stands out: "David's father came to Virginia from England. He returned to England to claim an inheritance and was never heard from again. David, being left in Virginia and underage, was 'bound out' for a period of time." Two hundred years ago, my family was off to a shaky start.


My newest stepmother, Robbie, says it's never too late for family. At the age of forty-three, I crave family. The setting is secondary to the substance. Although there are not a lot of "remember whens," and "whatever happened tos," something vital happens. The three cousins create their own sense of family, one we hope lasts forever. My brother and I can finally practice the role of uncles and, more importantly, the role of sons. Simply standing next to my brother and father in a hotel foyer takes on a heightened importance because decades have passed since we have stood together.


The photographs from our last summer's reunion just arrived. If you saw the images, you would never know the effort it took to reach that moment. In one picture, we are standing in the parking lot of a suburban restaurant that I would be hard-pressed to ever locate again. We have our arms around each other. Our smiles are bright and winning. But the best part is we look like a family. Mary was right. We'll have fun yet.

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