Snowball the Gross

By Joie Fields

Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.
~Oprah Winfrey

Our ten-year-old dog, Heidi, shared a special bond with me. And we shared a disdain for Snowball -- the Spitz-mix puppy given to my daughter Susie by her granny.

Snowball was given to Granny by her children after her old dog died, but this white bundle of fur was hyperactive compared to Happy. The kids didn't understand that Granny and Happy had grown old together. Granny didn't have the energy to keep up with, train, and nurture this pup. When we visited Granny, she said, "They love each other. I want to give Snowball to Susie." My husband never told his mother "no" and he wasn't going to start then. He brought Snowball and a happy Susie home.

The first week Snowball lived with us, we kept her penned in the laundry room at night. Snowball chewed a gaping hole in the sheetrock. Her black eyes sparkled and her black lips seemed to beam a proud smile.

Heidi didn't want a new puppy. No matter how many bowls we put out with food, Heidi thought they were all hers. We finally put Heidi's bowl on one porch and Snowball's on a porch on the opposite side of the house. Heidi lost weight running from porch to porch trying to make sure Snowball wasn't eating from either.

Snowball was smart though, and much younger, and she would wait until Heidi collapsed on the porch, exhausted, near her own special bowl. As soon as Snowball was confident Heidi was too tired to care, we would hear her chomping on the food in the bowl we'd designated for her. It took several months, but Heidi finally gave up trying to starve Snowball and even occasionally allowed her the luxury of sleeping on the same porch. They never bonded though, and I didn't think I would ever learn to like Snowball either.

Susie adored her. They were constant companions all summer. When Susie had to go to school in the fall, Snowball howled as the school bus pulled away with her best friend. When the bus disappeared in a cloud of dust, Snowball was on her own with no guide -- or restraint. Boredom made trouble her companion. She gnawed young trees we'd planted and they died. "You gross and disgusting animal!" I spat one of the many times I tripped over the shell of a dead armadillo she'd found and left on the porch. This earned her the nickname "Snowball the Gross." Bob and I both became frustrated to the point of wanting to get rid of this bundle of trouble, but we felt trapped by Susie's affection for her.

The next year, Heidi and Snowball both became pregnant by the Collie next door. I worried about Heidi being able to bear the Collie pups, but let her do so. She and Snowball both swelled so big their bellies almost scraped the ground. Finally, in early August, Heidi had her litter. She'd never been a mother before and she surprised us by nurturing her pups immediately. She was also protectively aggressive toward Snowball when she waddled too close. Finally, a week later, Snowball had her puppies too.

Heidi reacted strangely to Snowball's pups. She kept trying to steal them away and nurse them with her own. At first, I thought she was confused and thought Snowball had stolen her pups, but I have often wondered if it wasn't something more. For a few weeks, this tug of war continued as Heidi sneaked Snowball's pups away and Snowball retrieved them. I found it intriguing that Snowball never got one of Heidi's pups -- she always knew which were hers and only took those.

One evening after dinner when the heat was beginning to subside, Susie went out to play. Snowball ran to greet her and Susie dismissed her as she climbed onto her bike. Heidi growled and barked -- seemingly at Snowball. "Oh shut up, you ole grouch!" Susie commanded. But Heidi's hair raised and she bared her teeth as she growled and stood between her pups and Snowball. As Susie pushed the pedal down on her bike, Snowball leaped in front of her, nearly causing her to fall. Just behind Snowball was a huge rattlesnake. Its body coiled tightly and making a loud hissing sound, it snapped at Snowball. Susie screamed for Bob to get his gun. By the time he shot it, the snake had bitten Snowball many times.

Susie sobbed deeply as she and Bob lifted Snowball into the car and rushed to the animal hospital. The veterinarian gave Snowball shots and told Bob and Susie not to expect much. There was too much poison in Snowball's little body to hope for survival. He gave them some needles and medicine and sent them home.

We made her as comfortable as possible, but she heard her pups crying and so she cried too. Heidi too heard her former foe's pups crying. She continued her practice of finding Snowball's pups, mingling them with her own and feeding them all together. Snowball relaxed and slept when her pups quit crying.


The next morning, Susie begged me to let her stay home from school, but I thought it would be better to keep her mind off Snowball. She slowly boarded the bus and cried as they pulled away. Snowball let out a weak howl and my heart leaped with hope that perhaps she was getting better. I gave her the shots when they were due and stayed with her until she rested. Through tears of anguish and shame, I told her how grateful and proud I was that she blocked Susie from that snake. "I'm glad you were given to us. I'm sorry I called you gross." The vigil continued through lunch. After the noon shot, I stroked her until she closed her black eyes, and then went to clean house. Moments later, Snowball's scream pierced the air, and then she was dead.

Heidi raised Snowball's pups as her own. Susie kept the largest. His name is Albert. He looks like his daddy but acts like his mother. I'm glad we still have Snowball with us through Albert.

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Make a Wish

By Jess Bunbury

All love that has not friendship for its base is like a mansion built upon the sand.
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I never had good luck with boys. I always seemed to wind up with the same types -- a bad boy, a player, or someone who was just generally careless. I would devote my heart and soul to these boys, only to be walked all over. You could say that I was lonely, which is why I always gave more than I received. But because of that, I constantly settled for whoever waltzed my way. I never took the time to realize what -- or who -- was right under my nose.

His name was Ashton and he was a year younger than me. He was a total cutie and lived just down the street. He was always my first choice when it came to hanging out with someone. I thought of him as my best guy friend -- nothing more. When summer rolled around and school was out, we became inseparable. Of course, my very outspoken best friend Stacey had something to say about our tight-knit friendship.

"Oh come on, Jess!" Stacey said. "I know you like him!" I crinkled my nose and shook my head.

"He's my best guy friend, Stace. I do not like him and I never will," I insisted stubbornly, flopping onto my bed. Stacey huffed, unsatisfied with my denial.

"Fine. I'm asking him what he thinks then," she said snootily, whipping out her phone.

I rolled my eyes. "He's going to say that he doesn't have feelings for me. It's a waste of your time. You'll see," I said stubbornly. Stacey ignored me and continued to text. Who was I to think that she would listen to me?

Soon after the controversial text had been sent, Stacey and I fled to the hot tub for a few hours. It was a beautiful, early summer night. The blanket of stars above was gleaming and illuminating the dark earth. Stacey was chatting away about the latest gossip, but all I could think about was the text she had sent Ashton. "Could you ever have feelings for Jess?" is what the life-changing text read. Originally I thought nothing of it. However, the longer we soaked, the more my curiosity grew.

After the hot tub, we went inside and plopped down onto my bed. I smiled and closed my eyes but was quickly disrupted by a sharp gasp.

"Oh my goodness, Jess!" Stacey shouted, shooting upward into a sitting position. My heart rate sped up and my eyes widened when I realized what she was gasping about. She was staring at her cell phone, her mouth wide open.

"He said yes! He has feelings for you!" Stacey screamed, bouncing up and down on my bed. "Look!" she exclaimed stuffing her phone in my face. Sure enough, written simply across the screen were three letters: Y-E-S.

I tried hard to swallow the lump in my throat. My mind was a complete vortex of scattered thoughts. My best guy friend was in love with me? I felt dizzy and sick to my stomach. I was officially faced with a tricky situation. I could pretend that I never saw the text and continue on as friends with Ashton, or I could risk losing my dear friend and take a chance with him. Many say that the best relationships are born from friendship. Did I have the guts, not to mention the right feelings for this boy, to go through with this?

Over the next week I kept my distance from him, but we spent more time than usual texting and talking on the phone. I pretended to be oblivious to the entire situation and luckily Stacey managed to keep it secret that I knew about his feelings.

Ashton and I ended up hanging out a week after the truth had gotten out. It was a beautiful night. The air was warm and fresh; the stars were so bright that it was hardly dark. We sat on a hill in front of my house, talking about pretty much everything. After a moment of awkward silence, he spoke softly. "Jess, look... I need to tell you something," he said, and paused for a second. "I have feelings for you. I have for a while now." He bowed his head bashfully.

I smiled and looked at him. Despite the darkness I just knew he was blushing. I considered acting surprised but giggled instead. "I know," I said shyly. He looked at me and grinned, getting up to walk me to my front door.

Once we got on my porch he stood facing me, a wide smile plastered across his face. "Goodnight, Jess," he whispered, squeezing my arm. He leaned in and planted a kiss on my mouth, then turned to head home. When I stepped inside I couldn't stop smiling and almost fell over with happiness.

The next few weeks were spent with Ashton as we grew closer and fonder. We spent most days together and nights were spent stargazing until the wee hours of the morning. After some time he asked me to be his girlfriend, and I gladly agreed.

Ashton and I developed a habit of saying, "make a wish," every time the clock struck 11:11. This habit originated during our days as friends but became something else while we were a couple. Before we were dating, we both used to secretly wish for things to work out between us. Whether we had fate to thank, or our strong belief in 11:11, things fell together perfectly. There isn't a moment that I regret falling in love with my friend.

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Adopting Edna

By Rita Lussier

A child needs a grandparent, anybody's grandparent, to grow a little more securely into an unfamiliar world.
~Charles and Ann Morse

Finishing a run on a rather warm day, I stopped by the deli to buy a bottle of water. That's when I thought of it. A bowl of vanilla ice cream. That's when I thought of her.

Anyone who exercises knows the last thing your sweaty, exhausted body needs when you reach the finish line is ice cream. But she couldn't know that. Just like she couldn't fathom why I'd want to run on a scorching day in August. Or any day, for that matter. When I returned to her house, breathless and weary, the heaping helping of vanilla ice cream was her way of trying to cool me down. A grandmotherly thing to do.

Driving to upstate New York to meet her for the first time, I imagined what she'd be like. Bustling about her tidy kitchen, she'd have ruffles on her curtains and her apron. She'd stir butter and sugar into the carrots and keep the cookie jar filled. She'd knit afghans while she spun tales. She'd have a big heart and a lap that fit great-grandchildren.

When we arrived at her house, sure enough, she was everything I thought a grandmother would be. So I decided to adopt her. Although I didn't tell her right away.

"You can call me Gram," she said to me with a smile to her grandson, my husband at the time.

"I miss having a grandmother," I told her. "Both of mine died when I was young. I never got to know them that well."

"You'll get to know me," she replied.

And I did. Thanksgivings swirling with the sweet smell of pumpkin pie. Blizzards blustering outside her warm and cozy kitchen. Fans creaking louder than crickets on the Fourth of July.

She had an easy way about her that I admired. A quick smile that welcomed anyone who stopped by for a visit. A quiet way of listening that made the conversation flow. A steady temperament that seemed to calm those around her.

One day, as I sat at her kitchen table while she stirred pots and pans on the stove, I decided to tell her about my plan to adopt her.

"You can call me Gram," she said with a wink. "I already told you that."

As I would soon learn, she meant what she said. Just like a grandmother, she accepted me for who I was. For better or worse. So when my marriage to her grandson eventually ended, she was sad. But she was still there for me.

"Things don't always turn out like you plan," she said. Guess she had seen enough life to understand its disappointments. She had felt enough pain to know there are times you need comfort more than questions.

"You can call me Gram," she reminded me.

But keeping house by yourself in upstate New York, or anywhere, gets hard after a while. And so in time she moved to Rhode Island to be closer to her family. Every once in a while, I'd take my son to visit his great-grandmother. Sometimes when he was at school, I'd go alone. When I married again, I brought my new daughter along to visit.

"You can call me Great-Gram," she told my daughter.

It was never out of obligation that I went to see her. I came for her wisdom. When I went to visit her, I'd bring shortbread or green tea or Crackerjacks to brighten her day. In return, she'd give me something to think about.

When I was sad about the past, she'd remind me to think of the future. When the kids were loud and wild, she'd tell me to enjoy them. When I was worried about a problem at work or an argument with a friend, she'd tell me it would all work out. And it did. Always.

There was no better cure for my shortsightedness than her long view of life. Time and again, I'd see her eyes light up when she saw the kids. "Let them laugh," she'd say with a chuckle. "Let them play. Let them dance."

The last time I saw her, she was sleeping. She didn't hear me come into the room. She didn't notice I had brought the kids along. She didn't see the flower I left on her nightstand. "Kiss Great-Gram," I told the kids. And I did, too. "She's tired. She needs to rest."

Of all the things she taught me, I'd like to share this thought with you. Some think adoption is just for kids. I disagree. Adopt a grandfather. Adopt a grandmother. Someone who can tell you about the future because they've survived the past. Someone who understands how easy it is to see the trees and miss the forest. Someone who will remind you that yesterday's gone, tomorrow may be coming, but today is here.

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Made in Canada

By Melissa Yuan-Innes, North Lancaster, ON

We're very patriotic. It's hard to pinpoint, the Canadian thing. It's almost like a small-town mentality.
~Mike Weir

I buy Canadian. This sounds old-fashioned nowadays. I just had a baby and the sleepers I received as gifts were made everywhere from China to Tunisia. I am grateful and I dress my baby in them every day and night.

But if I have a choice, I buy goods made in Canada. I check the labels. I buy honey from the farmer down the road. Our neighbour keeps cows (Belted Galloway steers, to be exact) on our land, and if we eat beef, I try to buy it from him.

One day, I was working in the emergency room and the nurses started talking about cross-border shopping. We work in Cornwall, Ontario, an economically-depressed town with a handy bridge to upstate New York. The nurses raved about how much more cheaply they could buy groceries and clothes across the border.

"It's so worth it," said one.

"I love it," said another. "The border guards don't give you too hard a time if you've got groceries and baby clothes. What about you, Melissa?"

I shook my head. "I don't do it."

"But it's so much cheaper. Don't you want to buy clothes for Max?"

I tried to explain without hurting anyone's feelings. "I have a lot of hand-me-down clothes for Max. I've hardly bought anything for him between that and some gifts."

"What about for yourself, then? They have lots of nice stuff."

"I don't really need another shirt. So if I'm going to buy something, I prefer to buy it from someone local. There are a lot of cool designers in Montreal." Montreal used to be a clothing manufacturer's hub and you can still find Canadian-made baby goods, well-cut boots, and women's clothing with a certain je ne sais quoi. I've also driven in the other direction, to Ottawa, for their designers. I've searched online to support artisans. I'd rather buy a few well-made items than many cheap ones that fray and stain and end up in a rag pile or, worse yet, a landfill site.

One other nurse said she shopped locally, too, but the three cross-border shoppers stared at us in incomprehension. I thought about pointing out that all of us had relatively well-paying jobs. Heck, just the fact that we had jobs put us ahead of many people in Cornwall, especially since the paper mill closed down. If the locally-employed people didn't support the stores in town, those shops would close down too and we'd lose even more jobs.

But I could tell I wasn't going to change anyone's mind that day, so I quietly went back to work, armed with my conviction.

When I can, when it's available, I shop Canadian.

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The Gold Dust Twins

By Rosalind Zane as told to D. B. Zane

There are two things in life for which we are never truly prepared: twins.
~Josh Billings

"So, did you get any work done today?" my husband asked, home from a long hard day of work and spying my not-so-clean clothes.

Shaking my head, I suppressed a laugh. "Not exactly. You wouldn't believe the day I had." In the six months since giving birth to twins, we'd stumbled our way through endless sleepless nights, feedings, and diaper changes. Asking about work had become our little joke. How naïve I'd been to think I could keep working on my furniture refinishing in a tiny apartment overflowing with twins.

Now that we'd finally managed to get into a routine that included sleeping at night, the days were more exhausting than ever: The boys were crawling.

"Help me move the books," I asked my husband one evening. "Your sons managed to pull out those heavy textbooks."

Before they could tear them to shreds, we reorganized, doubling rows of books on the upper shelves and bolting the case into the wall so it wouldn't topple over.

Then it was the knickknacks on the coffee table. In a matter of days, our crawling babies had managed to find every unsafe object two feet from the ground. Surveying the place every morning, I was certain it was finally safe.

And so, on this particular morning, the boys were sitting, contentedly playing with blocks. How silly it seemed to disrupt them and stick them in their cribs, while I dashed into the bathroom.

It couldn't have been more than a minute later when I charged out to find them sitting happily where I'd left them on the rug in the living room.

They smiled at me, blue eyes and pink lips popping out against their golden skin.

"Golden?" I did a double take. "Oh, no. Boys, what have you done?"

What they'd done was find the one cabinet we had missed. It held a container of gold dust that I used for gold-leafing furniture. At least they hadn't eaten it... yet. I was panicked; this stuff was toxic. It was time for damage control.

Quickly, I picked up one baby and put him in a crib. Then I put his brother in the same crib; why mess up two? They giggled like two Cupids come to life.

By this time, the front of my shirt was gilded. Like Midas, everything I touched became marred with fine gold powder. I put the jar that had caused all this trouble in the top cabinet. The rug was hopelessly sparkling with ground-in gold dust.

It was more important to get that stuff off my precious babies. One at a time, I declothed a baby and cleaned him in the sink. That stuff did not want to come off. And this was not the time for my sons to discover the joy of splashing. Finally, I put one clean baby in the clean crib. It was time for baby number two. My gilded sink and counter were regilded. Thank goodness I hadn't had triplets!

Carefully holding him away from me so I wouldn't get more gold on him, I put him next to his brother. They smiled sleepily, like cherubic pink angels.

By the time I'd attempted to clean the rug and the bathroom again, bundled all the sheets from the crib and all of my clothes for washing, and bathed myself, the boys were up and ready for another round.

I hallucinated gold dust everywhere while I carefully spoon-fed them. As my hair dried, I could see gold sparkling amongst the red. Close inspection of my face showed still more. Would this ever end?

When my husband came home, it was no wonder he thought I'd been working on furniture.

"Well," he said after inspecting and hugging the boys, "they don't look any worse for wear."

Before I could stop him, he held me tight and kissed me. And when I looked down, I saw that the Midas Touch still lingered, and I'd soon have a gold-dusted husband.

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I Wish

By Sandra McGarrity

A prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward.
~Phillips Brooks

"What a perfect couple of days." I stretched out on the bed of the luxurious hotel room for an afternoon nap after another busy morning of sightseeing in New York City.

"Lord, thank you so much for this trip," I prayed. "We've visited so many sites I've always wanted to see. I never imagined we would be staying in such a beautiful suite." A thought niggled at the back of my mind, making me feel ungrateful. "Lord, I wish I could see a Broadway show, but I dare not ask. You have been so generous. Yet I've always dreamed of seeing one. It would be the final touch to a perfect trip -- the caramel on The Big Apple."

I didn't want to ask my husband because tickets are so expensive and Mike probably would have bought them to make me happy. "Surely we'll make another trip up here in our lifetime," I told myself. "I'll get my wish someday."

With that, I fell into a deep sleep and woke a couple of hours later refreshed and ready to go again.

This trip was a shared birthday gift for my son-in-law and me. We drove up from Virginia in a rented van with my husband, two daughters and grandson. As a special treat my sister and her husband joined us from Tennessee.

We covered most of the city in a couple of days, sometimes squeezing into a subway car and sometimes walking. At least some of the group walked. For physical reasons that prevented our walking great distances, my sister and I rode in wheelchairs pushed by our husbands. This was no small feat. We thought super-crowded sidewalks were the greatest challenge until we discovered what wheelchairs do in the subway -- even with the brakes on. Think: roller coaster/bumper cars.

The afternoon of our nap was our last day there. My sister and brother-in-law had already headed back to Tennessee. One daughter, her husband, and son were going to a baseball game in the evening. My husband, other daughter, and I had no particular plans. We would rest, clean up, and go out to dinner.

We headed out to dinner and turned onto a side street to find our intended restaurant. We walked (or rolled) down Broadway looking at all of the theaters, admiring the marquees.

A clean-cut young man approached us. "Excuse me sir, would you like to have free tickets to a Broadway play tonight? They are $100 tickets."

"No, thanks," Mike said as we rolled on by. "I just bet they were free," he mumbled.

"Nobody would honestly give away $100 tickets," my daughter agreed.

"They're probably fake. I'd hate to take them and be turned away at the door," Mike added.

I thought of my prayer. "But what if they are real? What if we just gave up a Broadway show?"

Our daughter stopped walking. "Maybe he is for real."

"Okay." Mike wheeled me around. "Let's go back and talk to him."

We made our way back to the young man. "So, what's the deal with these tickets?" Mike asked.

"There is no deal. They are absolutely free and great seats." He handed three tickets to Mike. "Do you need more?"

"Yes! Thank you!" Mike exclaimed. "Sorry we brushed you off but it's hard to believe someone would just give these away."

"I know," the young man smiled. "We're up here with a group of children who have serious illnesses. The tickets were donated for them but they are absolutely exhausted. They've had a full day and want to go back to their hotel rooms." He shrugged. "I've been trying to give these tickets away for an hour. No one will take them; they all think I'm crazy."

We thanked him profusely and rushed to the restaurant. We had just enough time to eat before the performance of Thoroughly Modern Millie.

I couldn't believe I was sitting in a Broadway play, center section, row ten. It was the experience of a lifetime for me. After the play we walked back to the hotel amid city lights and the excitement of Broadway... amazed that God made the wish that I dared not ask for come true.

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Cupcakes and Karma

By Gloria Hander Lyons

We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.
~Roderick Thorp

For most adults, managing the daily demands of a job, spouse, kids, home and community can be challenging, not to mention stressful. Since I was one of those mom-wife-employee-homemaker types who couldn't say "no," I soon developed combat tactics to dispatch my duties with military precision and efficiency.

A two-hundred-page report by morning? No problem! Five thousand cupcakes for the kindergarten class by noon tomorrow? Can do! I formed a battle plan, launched my attack and took no prisoners. Bring it on: the school board, the homeowner's association, the Cub Scouts. I felt invincible. But where was the joy?

Yes, I was super-productive. But in spite of everything I did for others, at considerable cost to my health and sanity, I felt empty, angry and unappreciated. I know now that I was the only one to blame.

After getting knocked on my keister with a diagnosis of breast cancer, I decided to take stock of my life -- or what might be left of it. On my doctor's orders -- reduce stress and take better care of myself -- I finally realized I needed a gentler approach to life. And that's when I discovered an amazing phenomenon called "Karma."

I don't know who came up with the idea that the energy you send out into the universe each day will be returned to you in kind, but two thumbs up for that guy. He was light years ahead of the rest of us.

At first I was skeptical -- surely it couldn't be that simple -- but I was fresh out of ideas and desperate to turn my life around. So I made a slight adjustment to my morning routine. I looked in the mirror and asked myself what feeling I wanted to have returned to me that day. And the answer was always, "Joy!"

Before I could share joy, however, I needed to find some. And that's exactly what I did. First, I had to let go of years of pent-up anger in order to make room in my heart for happiness. Next, I changed my career to one that is more fulfilling and nurtures my creative spirit.

Given my recent health scare, I realized that time is too precious to waste. I now spend my treasured moments only with people I enjoy, surrounding myself with mentors and close friends who share inspiration, laughter and fun, and provide a strong support system for life's ups and downs.

Donating my time and talents to help others is still high on my priority list. When given in the right spirit, it's an investment that pays big dividends in joy. Instead of saying "yes" to every request, however, I carefully choose the projects that are closest to my heart. So please don't ask me to make cupcakes. I love eating them; I just don't enjoy making them. But I'd be glad to help with an art project instead.

Old habits are hard to break, especially when you reach my age. But even though it took me more than fifty years to discover the path to a happier life, I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Every day I look into that mirror and ask myself the same question, and the answer fills my heart with joy. And if that joy arrives in the form of a cupcake made by someone else, it's even better!

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