I Threw A Stone Once

I was about 12, and we were waiting for the bus. The neighbor kids thought it would be fun to try to hit a car. For the first time in my life, I picked up a stone, and I threw it at a car. It met its mark. The car abruptly came to a halt. The window opened, and it was none other than Jim Dixon, the superintendent of my school district. He was also my father's employer. My father was a principal of two schools in his district. Jim Dixon was also a childhood friend of my grandfather's. His face was red, and he was mad. He knew who I was. He had seen me throw the stone. 

I do not remember what he said. What I remember about the incident is that my father was pretty upset about it. My parents knew that it was not in my demeanor to throw stones at cars. I told him the truth - that the neighbor kids saw it as a game, and that I had no idea whose car it was when I threw it. The neighbor kids thought it was funny, but none of us threw stones at cars after that. 

Fast forward to being a parent myself. I was taking my children to school one day, and a boy on the next street over threw a stone at, and hit, our car. He did know who we were. He knew that my son, Tim, was in the car, and I knew that he did not like Tim. I also knew the boy's parents. I stopped the car, and spoke with the boy. I told him that his mother would find out, that throwing stones could cause damage that cost a lot of money to fix, and that he should not do this again. He said he wouldn't. 

Art Gish was a peace worker with Christian Peacemaker Teams. He worked for years in Hebron, an Isreali-occupied Palestinian territory. He lived with the Palestinians, and witnessed first-hand what happened to them. He stood in front of loaded guns, as an American, to keep people from being shot. He was killed in a tractor accident on his farm in southeastern Ohio after many years of this dangerous work. In his book about Hebron, Art talked about the Isreali children throwing stones at Palestinians. So Art began taking a football with him when he went for a walk. He threw the football back at the Isreali children. They were unable to resist playing toss with the football. The tensions between the Isreali and Palestinian children were released in this way, in rare, good moments. 

Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez was 16. I do not know for sure whether he did, or did not throw stones from the Mexican side of the fence, at Border Patrol men on the U.S. side of the Mexican-U.S. border in Nogales. Witnesses say he did not, and Border Patrol says he did. They shot him dead. He had too many bullet wounds in him to justify simply disarming him from throwing stones. The building he was in front of is pocked with bullet marks. This week, the U.S. government has stated publicly that they will continue to shoot, and kill, people who throw stones across the border. 

I am appalled at my government. 

Let me say this again. 

I am appalled at my government. 

 

Humanitarian Aid Is Not Illegal

SO, this guy I met on the internet, through my friend Robin. His name is Larry, and after spending the morning with him in Mexico, I am not only still ALIVE; and I not only do not have Montezuma's Revenge, but I think he is a PRETTY COOL DUDE. Cheers to meeting people online!

We like drove right past my first view of a check-point ever, on Route 19, and I opened my mouth to ask, "Hey, is that a check point?" because I'm like, from Ohio, and I've only seen that stuff on the internet. And he doesn't quit talking at my interruption and gives me this look like, "What the heck do you THINK it is?" He probably wasn't even thinking this, but being in the car with two old hands at this trip made me feel a little bit like it was my first day as a Freshman in high school. He was probably too busy in his train of thought to realize it was such a new experience for me. It was kind of like that all the way to Nogales. Alma was in the back seat listening. I may need to correct the spelling on her name.

We stopped before reaching the border at a Dollar Tree to pick up supplies to donate. I was not sure what to buy. I hadn't brought food, and was not sure how long we'd be there By the time I chose food for myself, they were going through the check-out. They had cheap toothbrushes, toothpaste, and Alma threw in some sanitary napkins for the women. I made a personal vow to ship a whole box of sanitary napkins, since I did not buy anything to donate today. I assumed they would be putting whole tubes of toothpaste in personal bags of toiletries. I did not expect to find myself later squeezing toothpaste into individual miniature single-use cups with a bunch of honor students from a Flagstaff university. 

As we drove past the bus station, Larry pointed out the bus, and the immigrants who had just been deported and dropped off fresh this morning. This is apparently a daily occurrence. He pointed out their clear plastic bags with their belongings inside, and stated that everyone in town would know from their bags that they were newly deported. They would likely be harassed by some people; and would be approached by "employees" of coyotes. Some of them looked a little bewildered; others looked frustrated; but they all looked tired, hungry, and at various stages of despondence. They stood out like a Freshman on a college campus, even to me, and it was my first time, ever in Mexico.

On the way to the Kino Border Initiative kitchen, known as El Comedor, we made another stop inside Mexico, at the border patrol shooting site of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez. He was 16, and in Mexico, walking down the street when our U.S. border patrol shot him through the fence, stating he was throwing rocks at them. Today I saw the spot with my own eyes. I stood in front of the bullet holes and faced the direction they came from. The gouges were clear. I took a picture of Larry and Alma standing in the same place. Larry was right. There was no way stones were any threat to the men on our side of the fence; and unlikely they could have reached a mark, even if they'd been thrown by the best football player. Witnesses state no stones were thrown though. This kid was murdered, plain and simple.

The direction they are facing.

The closest possible point a stone could hit from the spot, and not the direction most of the bullet holes were clearly made from. The problem for our border patrol is, everyone in Nogales can come look at this site, and they do. Our border patrol allegedly has a video of the incident, but will not release it.

A word now, about Alma. She brought cloth backpacks that she had made. They were pretty fabric, and had soft rope for the shoulder straps. There were Madonnas stitched onto the outside of each pack. She put toiletries wrapped in a cheap washcloth and towel, and a lightweight, fuzzy blanket rolled up, in each one. This was her solution for the plastic bags from our jail system for the immigrants' belongings. I think I will suggest it for a Grange sewing project.  The nuns love them because it is such a small way to give newly deported immigrants a little dignity.

We went on to El Comedor ("the cafeteria"). We would not need to serve, because there were college students there today. For lack of something to do, I sat down with these young women, and began filling small cups with toothpaste. They told me their college majors. The one sitting next to me was in nursing, then economics, journalism, math, and Spanish. They said the course description for this class had not included a trip to Mexico. Several of them told about how they had discovered this after the course had started. They were laughing at each others' stories. Two of them had to obtain passports for the class. All of them were glad they came, and wanted to come back and do more. A couple of them had heard of Dayton, Ohio's initiative to become an immigrant-friendly city. We talked about the contrast. After working with these people, I can tell you the immigrants are not anything resembling the drug addicts I have cared for in Washington, PA, Wheeling, WV, Bridgeport, OH, or Columbus, OH. These are the kinds of people I'd like to be a nurse for. I don't know what planet our national news came from, and neither did these gals.

An elderly man was sitting on the steps outside El Comedor with one bruised foot out of his leather boot, and the right foot still shod. Christa, an EMT who volunteers now and then, and came along with the students this time, was looking at it. I had been summoned to confer, since I was a nurse. I stated that I was not licensed to work as a nurse in Mexico, and was told I would not have to; that there was nothing a licensed medical person was required to do that we would be doing. I held this man's left foot in my hands and inspected it. His shins were scratched like mine were after walking through a mile of brambles back in Ohio, but he also had large red welts all over his ankles and shins, where I was told he had hit rocks while walking. The sole of his foot was a dull, ruddy red, and there was a large blue blister on his inner big toe. I knew the ruddy color would deepen into a dark bruise. It hurt him to walk. The younger men stood around us watching. I held his other boot as he pulled his foot out of it, and I removed his sock for him. He said, "gracias," and I could tell he meant it. I said, "de nada." We resolved that the best treatment was to simply stay off of his feet. Christa rubbed lotion on both feet gently.

Meanwhile he ate some refried beans. He was afraid to try the ham and cheese sandwich he was given and gave it to a young man eying it. The immigrants had not been fed while being detained, and he had not had food in the desert either, for at least three days, and maybe five. He said that eating made him feel like his throat was closing up. Although the picture below is empty of people, in the morning, it was a busy place. The  man was sitting on the steps just beyond the tree. This tent-like structure was built into the edge of a cut-out hillside. Just inside the canvases are metal tables, a small kitchen, a water tank with potable water, and bathrooms with flushing toilets.

Another man had a clearly sprained ankle. It was swollen and discolored on all sides. Christa took a break from wrapping it to get tape out of her bag to secure the wrap, and he was up, limping on it, walking, because someone had offered him a cell phone to use. She waited, then rewrapped it. Communicating was far more important than a swollen ankle. 

The crowd dispersed slowly, and the people cleaned up the kitchen for the morning.

We went to Grupos Beda, the Mexican Border Patrol, next. Unlike the U.S. border patrol, Mexico helps migrants rather than detaining them. They rescue people. They provide a place to stay for three nights; water, and showers. We handed out gum and cookies. I got the cookies, and learned, and used the word, "galleta," today. The men were brushing their teeth with the cups we had made earlier, and their new toothbrushes, near a spigot. Their expressions were no longer despondent. In fact, the men brushing their teeth were filling their mouths with foam and smiling at each other. The man whose feet were bruised was lying in the shade, on the concrete. Men walked around with rolls of blankets tied with shoestrings, and shoestrings hung over their shoulders. After dispersing the goodies, we moved on. 

Larry then took us to visit the cemetery. All Souls Day celebration decorations were still up, so Nogales was colorful. We saw Jose's grave, and Larry sang a lovely song there. 

The grave faces downhill; looking towards Nogales

I enjoyed looking at the different graves, with gifts to the dead of their favorite things. This one had a beer, a bottle of perfume, and a Coca Cola.

The cemetery was our last stop.

We came back through the border crossing into the United States without a hitch. Larry and Alma were concerned that she would be questioned, but she was not, either at the border or at the check point we had passed on the way down. In the car on the way back, they both told me stories of immigrants they had helped, and what had become of some of them. I had met some of them in person. The individual stories are numerous - uncountable. They are heart-wrenching. The man whose feet we had cared for was from close to the Guatemala border. Volunteers for No More Deaths go out looking for people who are reported by immigrants coming into these places as being left out in the desert, and they more often than not find them dead, if they find them at all. The Sonoran desert is vast. It is likely that most of the people who have died were never found. 154 documented deaths in fiscal year 2012-2013 is an arbitrary number. Those are the deaths where we can hold a bone up and say, "I found someone!" What if for every one of those, there were two we did not find? Each day of this trip, that number comes to mean less and less to me. How our policies and our actions affect good, hard-working human beings, is what counts.

I keep hearing the words throughout my life, "Humanitarian aid is not illegal." Larry said it again today, like a loud echo from Viet Nam, Serbia, Somolia, Palestine, and now the American desert. No matter what anyone thinks should or should not be done to solve the immigration issue, causing people to die, by whatever means, is wrong. Always. 

And humanitarian aid is not illegal. No human being is illegal. 

A Pilgrimage for Desconocido/a's and the Named.

At Pima Friends Meeting, last 1st Day, meeting-for-worship began as it often does, with a long period of silence. Then someone, an elderly man who looked in decent shape for his age, as many elderly Quaker men tend to, stood and spoke. He said three quotes came to him, but in the days following, I could only remember two. They brought tears to my eyes. 

Bible, Matthew 25:40: 

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

From "The Walrus" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney:

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. 

Crosses representing those who have been found dead in the desert prior to fiscal year 2012-2013

I wish I could have photographed the entire scene, crosses from the past enclosed in a circle of stones, with the new crosses for this past fiscal year laying outside the stones. There were people of several races, from several countries, standing all around, almost crowded, to fit everyone into the circle encompassing them. I wish I could have included the White Dove of the Desert church behind us, beautiful against the backdrop of Sonoran mountains, visible from miles away. I wish I could have somehow captured in this picture how I felt, standing there after walking for 8 miles in direct sunlight, nauseated; red-skinned, not from burns but from the heat my body was trying to rid itself of; blurry vision and light-headed; thighs burning in an odd way I had never felt with heat, head beginning to throb; feeling I might pass out at any moment but telling those around me I was "fine," wishing it could be over so I could go someplace cool, and yet wanting to experience every moment at the same time. I knew in a way I had never known before, that my 5 hours was nothing in comparison to the days in the desert most of the people that these crosses represented, had suffered. Some of them were shot, but many of them had died of exposure. I cried, quietly. I noticed many of the other walkers also cried. They were overheated and tired too.

This second picture was taken the day after the walk. I went back, because I had not gotten to see much of this historical Spanish mission church. 

The reason was, right after the post-walk service had ended, Joel's girlfriend had taken us back to St. Johns Church where our walk had begun, in his big, wonderfully air-conditioned, white Humane Borders extendicab pick-up. I had been glad for that, as you will see.

After the walk, I squeezed into the back seat of the truck next to a nun named Judy, and on the other side of her was another friend of Joel's. Since Judy was Catholic, I told her about the Rosary I was carrying for my friend, Robin. I told her that I had felt moved by several places, but had not really felt compelled to leave the Rosary in any particular place. At that point she offered to take it to her mission in Douglas, or maybe even to Nogales, to give it to someone who would cherish it. I showed it to her then. She remarked how beautiful it was, and ran her fingers along the red beads, inspecting it with care. I told her about Amy, the person who had made it for me. Then a specific person came to her who might like to have it. It was a man who was widowed from an American citizen. In his arrest and deportation fiasco, all of his papers had been taken and then lost by our judicial and penal systems. The mission was attempting to help him obtain them or have new copies sent; and meanwhile he had no place to go, was suffering from grief, and was parted from his step-family which he had grown very close to. He, like thousands of others, was waiting, waiting, in Nogales. Judy asked me what I should tell him about Robin, so I told about her job, her volunteer work, her concern for immigrants, and about how we had been roommates at a Quaker boarding school our sophomore year in high school. 

That afternoon, I drove back to the hotel, still feeling very light-headed. When I showered, I found that the skin on my inner thighs had mottled to my knees. This lasted several hours after the shower. I felt chilled at times even though the room was warm, and my skin remained red, but was not sensitive to touch like a sunburn would be. The nausea intensified, and my head began to throb uncontrollably. I looked up heat exposure on the internet, and wondered if I should go to the ER, but I concluded that since I had removed myself from the heat, and since I was well-hydrated, that there was little more to do than to cool down and rest. My oldest son, Lee, had come with me from Phoenix. He had stayed in the hotel, partly because he had not walked 8 miles in a long time; but mainly because he is an atheist, and he had felt he would be uncomfortable at a deeply religious service. At that point I was glad he had stayed behind so that he would not be suffering like I was. Lee is a computer programmer and a project leader at his company, so always has a lot of work he can do even on his days off. He had been happy to stay in the cool hotel for a few hours while I had been gone. I was glad he was there when I was feeling so poorly. He went for a walk and bought me some ibuprofen, and gave me the rest of his gatorade. I was surprised to find that the gatorade tasted good, and helped as much as the ibuprofen; and that I was sick of water. After laying in bed in misery for several hours, holding my head between both hands, I finally fell asleep. 

I had wanted to go to the Dia de Los Muertos, (Day of the Dead, or All Souls Day) celebrations in downtown Tucson that evening. Part of my misery was in knowing that I was missing the "fun" part of being in town that weekend. But I felt a deep sense of gladness for doing what I had come to do. When I woke up around 3 a.m., my headache was nearly gone. A slight throb behind my left eye, and changes in my focus came and went mildly over the next few days, but eventually subsided.  I fell back to sleep around 5, but woke up in time to go to Pima Friends Meeting that morning. 

Lee and I had time to have breakfast at the hotel before Friends meeting-for-worship. In fact, we were so early, that I drove him back down to see the San Xavier church, and tried to follow the path we had walked, but already, I had forgotten which way parts of that went. This was when I took the above picture. I wanted to see the inside however, and we did not have enough time before meeting.  Lee agreed that it would be nice to come back after meeting, and see it again before heading back to Phoenix.  

So much was said during meeting, that spoke to why I was there. A hummingbird visited the flowers outside of the window during the silence, and I remembered Rick, who has been renting me a room back in Columbus, telling me a story about a hummingbird visiting him after someone had died, and again, I cried. A professor spoke about the loss of a teacher who had become a colleague; and a mother spoke about the struggle with her daughter's path in the healthcare system.


 


 I am supposed to go back and stay in their guest house this week. I had the blessing of meeting the clerk of the meeting afterwards. We have been corresponding. She told me about the wonderful library they had. I am looking forward to having quiet time there. 

  




After meeting, Lee had a hankering for Starbucks, and we were close to the University of Arizona campus. So while I took a picture of Pima Friends Meetinghouse, he looked up Starbucks on his phone.

 He sipped on his iced green tea, and I sipped on my mocha frappuccino, as we drove back down to San Xavier. The church was having services all day, so we could not go into to see the wall frescoes. The museum was open though. They were selling candles to be lit. I asked what the different ones meant, and I bought one for "Intentions," for $3. I lit it, and said a Hail Mary again for Robin. I asked that the border wall be torn down, and that all people be seen as people; as human beings.

The circle of stones in front of the church was bare on this day, and would be for another year. There were dog foot print impressions dried into the concrete sidewalk. This is the first time in 49 years that I have participated in an event on Native American grounds. During the event, a dog wandered into the circle full of crosses representing people who were found dead in past years. It was shooed back out. Friendly dogs run loose on this reservation. There were many caged and loose dogs that barked at us during the walk. Most of them were pit bulls, rottweilers or Australian cattle dogs, or resembled one of those breeds. 

We left this place for Phoenix. We drove up Route 10, which was where Rafael Cornelio Alvarado was found, with a gunshot wound to his head, by a construction crew. I carried his cross, and another, desconocido/a (gender unknown). We passed cotton fields that looked ready for harvest. Lee and I talked about relationships, and about atheism and Christianity. He questioned whether this Spanish Catholic mission had done the Native Americans good or harm throughout history. He called the stories in their museum, "propaganda." We debated whether the mission continued to do the Native Americans good or harm.  

The past few days, I have been trying to form what to write in my post about this walk. Back in  Phoenix, my second son, Tim, grilled me about my belief in God, and I finally asked him to stop. In this conversation, we have come to some agreement that compassion and humanitarian missions have no religious boundaries, but are important to all of us. I believe that San Xavier mission is doing good, currently, for the Native Americans, and is a place where we can all lay to rest the people who have suffered. I hope to come back here.

Another big part of this trip that I have been thinking about, was the beginning. Robin, Joel and Larry invited me to take part in these events. I questioned whether I should. I had just resigned from my nursing job. I was looking at travel nursing, and was at a crossroads, wondering what the past 16 years of being a nurse meant to me, and wondering what direction I should go next. Altruism, social justice, and service have taken on new meanings to me, as I increasingly care for drug addicts and listen to strong opinions from people who have little connection or understanding about human beings their opinions affect. People are losing their lives. I had gone in some desperation from life events to my friend, Anna, for a Zero Balancing treatment. She had talked to me during the treatment, and it was she who suggested a clearness committee. I am here. I am seeking, watching, listening, to the people who have immersed themselves in this "cause." 

It is the greatest cause in our country of my lifetime, because it involves a subclass of human beings who are invisible to most of the people in my country, except for their negative attributes. It is here, now. 

At the beginning of the walk.

I just met Joel in person.

 

Mexico in front, then U.S., then Guatemala.

Tying flowers to my crosses. Getting to know them.

Rafael Cornelio Avarado, Desconocido/a ("Unknown" and unable to discern if male or female)

Prepping for a Weekend In Tucson

Left to right: Me; my son, Tim, as a pirate, and his significant other, Michelle, as Amelia Earhart.

The original intent of this trip was to see my sons, Lee and Timothy. It has become so much more. However immersing myself in visiting two offspring I have not seen for close to a year has been a much-needed beginning to the adventure! The first night in, Lee brought his new female friend, Anna, over to Tim's place in Mesa to play board games. I am staying with Tim and Michelle. Before moving on, I want to mention that I am impressed with Anna. It is early in the relationship, but both of my sons are hanging out with some very bright ladies - Anna is a National Merit Scholar; Michelle was her class valedictorian, and both had an alternative high school education. Hanging out with them all is awesomeness of a kind I did not expect to experience as a former single mom.

All of my children are avid board game players, to the degree that they have joined Meet-Up groups in their 20's. I have hosted such games in the precursor form as high school and college hang-outs in our home on several occasions. Apparently in Phoenix, there are enough Meet-Up board game groups that each day of the weekend, including Thursday, there is a group to attend. That first night fresh in from the airport, it was just the 5 of us though, and we played 7-Wonders and Word on the Street. 

Last night's Meet-Up was a dress-up Halloween party in someone's home. A man named Mark wore a name tag that said, "I don't do costumes." We divided into two groups. I am not sure what the primary group was playing, but it involved cards that looked like they had advanced from Magic cards to something possibly more complex, and it utilized miniature figurines. At our table, we played Celebrity Taboo and Ticket to Ride, the European version. I am not up on celebrities, so I was reduced to describing names such as "Pierce" with clues like "the first name is a synonym of 'stabbing.'" Amazingly, we got more points that way! My partner could not describe Tony Blair to me - one of the few names I might have gotten. We scored on Cookie Monster and Goldilocks. I've decided to buy the latter game though. Our host and hostess were the center two in the following picture: 

Today I am attempting to smooth out the weekend itinerary in Tucson. Things are becoming more serious. I have read some about the events I will attend, but the more I read, the more I realize I know very, very little! The walk tomorrow is to commemorate the 5595 total deaths, not including 2013 numbers of people who have died in the desert attempting to cross the border. 2012 added 477 to that number. These numbers come from the U.S. Border Patrol, according to the source, National Foundation for American Policy. 

The walk, or pilgrimage, is sponsored by "The Human Rights Coalition," or Derachos Humanos. It is the 13th Annual Día de los Muertos Pilgrimage /13 ª Anual - Peregrinación Día de los Muertos. I hope to finally meet Joel Smith, and possibly Larry Trent, who I've been talking with online for a few months. Anticipation is building.

Today I have been reading more about the Tohono O'odham, the nomadic desert tribe in southern Arizona. The walk will be on a part of their reservation in south Tucson, sequestered from the rest closer to the border. I have also been looking up statistics that I have read numerous times, to refresh my memory in case someone decides to ask questions. Timothy is not planning to come along after all. My oldest son, Lee won't go on the walk with me, but plans to drive in Saturday evening, and attend "The Presidio Walls Talk," a reenactment of the early days of Tucson with me, if his van is out of the shop. Or he may try to coerce his brother to bring him if his van is not out of the shop. I will get to visit with them more later, either way. On Sunday, aka 1st Day in Friends circles, we hope to attend Pima Friends Meeting. Amazingly, all of my children value Friends Meeting, kind of like they value board games. Some members of Pima Friends Meeting have been involved in immigrant rights activities locally. This looks to be a weekend of meeting many new people, and beginning to solidify some of the connections with people Robin has introduced me to via the internet!

More on the Rosary Beads

     Here's a little story. When Robin and I were in high school, at a Quaker boarding school, she came home with me one holiday. Long walks and hikes were popular in our circles then. We went for a long walk down into the village nearby, called Neffs, Ohio, and climbed up on top of some gob piles. Gob piles are the hills left over from coal mining. Neffs was 2 miles from home. On our way back, we stopped into a Catholic church at the bottom of the hill before climbing it. The door was open and the lights were on. I don't remember what inspired us to go in. Maybe it was cold out. There was a dish of wafers, and a bowl of water near the door. We called out to see if anyone was there, and nobody answered. Both Robin and I grew up as Friends (Quakers), so we were not aware of Catholic practices. Her family attended Sandy Spring Friends Meeting in Maryland, and my family attended Stillwater Friends Meeting in Barnesville, Ohio. We each tried a wafer. We knew they were for communion, and we knew the water was probably holy water, but we were unaware of the implications of doing anything with the water or the wafers. It was a spiritual moment between us, naive of the probable heresy or sacrilegious act we were committing. 

I have since realized that I knew people who attended this small parish, Sacred Heart. I was a very evangelical preteen and teen. At another time that year, I convinced Robin that her rock-and-roll albums were evil, and we broke them all together. She left Olney Friends School before our senior year, and we fell out of touch. We did get back in touch in our 40's, and one of the first things I wrote to her via email was that I would like to replace her albums. She told me she already had replaced them, and not to worry about it; that it had been part of our spiritual growth and path. By then, she had become a Catholic, and I had become disillusioned with much of religion. What a change after 25 years! Our spiritual connection remains, however. The exclusivity of Catholicism rubs me the wrong way. Friends do not do rituals and sacraments. But the part of Catholicism that is not judgmental or exclusive has done an awfully lot of good in the world; the part that requires service, social justice, and care for the poor. My sister came from a Catholic orphanage in Korea. I do not think I will ever leave Quakerism, but I appreciate what the Catholics do. 

On the day I mentioned in the first blog entry about the Rosary, my sister-in-law, Nancy, called to tell me what color the Rosary's were to choose from, and to ask whether I wanted my name added to it. I chose blue, and said, "sure." An hour or so later, I realized that I was taking the Rosary for Robin, not for myself. I called Nancy back, and the blue one was already finished with my name. Red and black were still available, so I asked for a red one for Robin, with her name on it.

For the past few days I have been reading about the prayers of the Rosary, and about the Hail Mary. I have also been trying to learn Spanish. Someone said that they would probably be saying the Hail Mary together during the walk, probably in Spanish. I printed out the Hail Mary prayer, and asked several people to read it to me in Spanish, so I'd know how it was pronounced. I had so immersed myself in learning about it, that it was easy to forget what I had originally obtained these for! Today I got into a conversation with the woman sitting next to me on the plane who had grown up in Arizona, and did not feel people attempting to cross the border should be helped in any way. At one point, I showed her the beads. She was very touched by the story, and I feel it was instrumental in tempering her opinions. She told me some profound stories about friendships, and about her recent experiences with life and death. She cried. She told me that I was doing God's work, not my own work, and that I should not let the politics of the situation, or her opinions sway me to one way or the other. She told me not to lose focus. She did not realize that so many people were dying in the desert, or were imprisoned for so long.

A Protestant and A Rosary

Some say that Friends are not protestants. That said, they are not Catholic, and they are not Orthodox. They certainly do not acknowledge the sacraments. To be blunt, I know nothing about the Rosary apart from where it has crossed my path in my nursing career. That amounts to hearing people bringing communion to patients or residents, saying the Hail Mary, and whatever else they say, and seeing Rosary beads pinned on bulletin boards or stashed under pillows. Occasionally I will witness someone handling their beads in some meaningful way and reciting things that rhyme or sound like an ancient chant under their breath. 

My good friend has asked me to take a Rosary with me on the All Souls Day walk in Tucson, and say a Hail Mary for her. 

First I looked up the Rosary. Then I looked up Hail Mary. It looks a lot more complicated than she made it sound. I've read a lot of the Bible. I understand Quakerism and Quaker history pretty thoroughly - enough to converse meaningfully with Quaker scholars. Catholicism has me stumped, but we seem to cross paths with social justice missions.

Today, I thought I'd run down to the local Christian bookstore in Martins Ferry and pick up an inexpensive Rosary. All the other local Christian bookstores have gone out of business. I looked through the entire store, homeschooled child with me, and did not find anything resembling a Rosary. So I asked the lady at the desk. She stated that they did not carry Rosary's. I guess it is a protestant Christian book store, or something that is not protestant, but is also not Catholic. They did have a 99 cent compass, however, that my daughter liked, and I bought.

The homeschool group we belong to has some Catholics in it, and is a Christian group. After returning to my car, I found that I had only put one member's phone number in my phone, and I knew she was not Catholic (or protestant) either. But I tried to call anyway, to see if she might have an idea of where I could by a Rosary. She has read a lot more about other religions than I have, although I think I've read more than most people. Since she homeschools, her answering machine took my call. I have to work 3 nights in a row beginning tonight, then have a day off, then fly to Phoenix the following day. There are probably Rosary's at the airport, but this was important. I wanted to have it taken care of. 

My sister-in-law has been education coordinator of the Upper Ohio Valley Presbytery, and is involved in a lot of nondenominational activities. So she was the second person I called from my car. She happened to be at lunch with some Catholic friends, and after a bit of phone-along-with-people in the background conversation, she told me that St. Mary's chapel had a small shop with Rosary's. I confirmed that it was the St. Mary's in St. Clairsville, and not Martins Ferry, and headed over there. The door was locked. I called her back, to make sure I had indeed gotten the correct place. They were finished eating, and she and one of her Catholic friends were heading there, because her friend had parked there. So my daughter and I waited, and ate our Burger King drive-through meals in the car. We all walked up to the door together. It was still locked. She also pointed to a sign I had not noticed, that indicated the office closed at noon on Fridays. It was Friday, and it was 1:30. If only I had gone there first. Nancy's friend had a key and could get one and take the money for it, but then she remembered, hand in purse, that she did not know how to turn the alarm off. 

Nancy had an idea. Her friend, Amy Brooks, made jewelry, and she knew she had seen Rosary's in her jewelry for sale. Indeed, I have a few of Amy's beautiful creations in my jewelry box, given to me by my mother-in-law and sister-in-law on holidays or birthdays. Nancy called her, and yes, she had four. I could not drive over to her house with my sister-in-law, because I had to work this afternoon. Her house was too far to get there and back, and pack my car in time to leave. But Nancy wanted to go right then, and her friend was willing to go with her. Amy's jewelry is, indeed beautiful, and is also popular locally. I gave Nancy some money, and came home. 

Meanwhile, in looking for, and trying to understand the Rosary, and why it was I would be taking it with me, when I was a Quaker, I had conversations with the clerk of the Christian bookstore, with Nancy and her friend, and with Amy. Also, Amy grew up in San Antonio, and I think she is of Mexican descent. It made perfect sense to the Catholics involved in discussing why a friend would want me to do this. They were touched. I still don't entirely understand it myself though.

While most of this seems trivial, it is not. The preparation for this trip is part of the process. I am not sure what the outcome will be. A lot of Mexicans are dying in the desert, or are being incarcerated, or are being deported and torn apart from their families, and there is nothing right about any of it. I'm not sure what I'm doing to help the situation. I am going to write about the process though. Later it will mean more, I think.

Mango vs Genealogy, with Kimchi

I have spent the last two days doing mostly nothing but genealogy. I've eaten a jar of radish Kimchi that I bought for a friend, numerous cookies, and have cooked two main dishes. My friend took a trip. I'll buy her another one. I have done no cleaning or dishes. This is the calm before the storm. I seem to do this before something big, like a trip. It is like I'm hoarding energy. I'll crash again afterwards too. But there are a lot of new Starbucks and Downings in my database. 

The two trips through the desert are relatively confirmed. My son has sent me links to computer game rules that I have not touched. I should have been studying Spanish rather than doing genealogy with all of that time, but am about to go to the Mango library link now. This time I will bookmark it! 

It is a rainy, cold day. This will be the first year I miss Halloween with my children entirely. I'm not in very good shape to walk 8 miles. We will let you know how that goes. The anxiety and excitement is building.

Quaker knowing

What an intriguing week. I've been in Columbus for nine days, and am back in eastern Ohio. 

After writing all of those nice things about the extended stay hotel, and about people, before that post was even completed, the screaming began. It was a child across the hall, in another room. It was loud, intermittent, and piercing, like a chipmunk cheer. I have raised four children, and they screamed some, but never like this. There was something unusual about this child. The screaming did not stop. It was not crying, but almost like a playful, or surprised scream, every 5-10 minutes, all day. It was unbearable for someone working nights and trying to sleep. It was maddening. It lasted until I left for work, and met me as I returned in the morning after a 12 hour shift. It went on all day, and continued the following day. I was so miserable, finally, that I called the management, and told them I was checking out. The problem with that, it was Sunday, and no management was in. On Monday, after trying to go to sleep, I packed all of my bags. I didn't care if they kept my money. The man from the front office told me he had put me on the quiet floor, and this was the first he'd heard there was a problem, but he'd check into it. He did. First, he was going to move the family. The child finally got quiet, and I collapsed onto the bed, in my clothes, things packed and ready, and slept, all day. 

That was my day off. I did not have to go to work for night shift that evening, and my husband had planned to come to Columbus with our daughter for an overnight. I called the front desk man back, and he offered to move me instead of the family. I decided to try that. He told me that the child was a 4-year-old autistic boy, and that the parents were also exhausted, and were waiting for an apartment to come available on Thursday. I felt guilty for being so upset, but at the same time, I was paying for this room, in order to simply have a place to sleep. The new room was cleaner, and much quieter. 

My husband, 7-year-old and I went out for dinner at Max and Erma's at Easton, and to a 9pm movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs II. We were the only ones in the theater. I felt self-conscious having a 7-year-old child out to a movie that late, but we homeschool. She was sleeping in the next day. She is doing well in school.

Being in a crowded place with so many Somalians present, then being in the same place when it was nearly empty left me feeling strange. This strange feeling extended into the next day, when we went out to lunch for Mexican, then to a park I had frequented years ago. It was also pretty empty. In a city with hundreds of thousands of people, I found this odd. I had brought my older sons to the same place 20-plus years prior, when I was a stay-at-home mom, needing to get out to someplace green. Our 7-year-old played on the playground alone, and watched the ducks in the pond, on a school day. Park rangers drove by us several times. Numerous times, in three different vehicles. We became a little uncomfortable with this, and went back to the hotel. We said goodbye finally, and my husband and daughter drove back home. I went back to work that night. It was wonderful to see them in the midst of this experience. They are a grounding center to everything for me.

The next two days, I took care of people from foreign countries other than Somalia. Two families were from places with rare dialects that our translation language lines did not have a translator for. I wondered what their stories were, to be in Columbus, in the hospital. There are so many people in Columbus. So many foreigners! Who are they all?

My friend, Debora, called the next to last morning of this stretch of work days. I don't even remember what all I said to her. She was trying to make final arrangements for my last clearness committee meeting. I just remember her telling me to get some rest, and that everything would make more sense, and I'd feel better after I got some sleep. I must have sounded delirious. The clearness committee would be Thursday, on my way home. 

Different people keep repeating those words over the past few weeks: "Get some sleep!" It reminded me of the first Easton movie I saw, Captain Phillips, when someone everywhere he went told him, "Everything is going to be okay!" And it never was. People keep telling me, "Get some sleep!" I must seem tired to them all the time. And I can't really ever get enough sleep.

Prior to this trip to Columbus, I had spent a good part of a day looking up the places I'd be going. Larry and Joel, two of the mission workers, just happened to be online that day also, and I asked them questions as I surfed the internet. How long does it take to walk the 8 miles on the All Souls Day walk? How likely is it we will have run-ins with border patrol when we are filling water tanks? Where do we meet, and when? My passport and passport card arrived 10 and 12 days after I applied for them respectively. We made tentative arrangements, and I put together an itinerary. I printed out Google maps for every place I intended to go, and one for how to get from one son's place to another, in Phoenix. I printed out web pages describing the places. I put all the print-outs in a folder, and put it in a file at home. I hoped to go home and pick it up before the clearness committee meeting on Thursday.

I was a little later checking out of the hotel and getting on the road than I had intended, so I called Bruce to ask him to bring these the folder to my clearness committee meeting, in Barnesville, at the meetinghouse. He is wonderful about things like this. 

The clearness committee is a living, breathing thing, all by itself. I have had life-long relationships with some of these people, and hardly know others. They had asked a lot of questions at the first meeting, and I needed to answer them at the second one. The hardest question to answer was proposed by the clerk of the meeting - that before they could write a letter of introduction, or a traveling minute, there needed to be a clear sense of purpose for the trip. What was the purpose? I decided in the end that it was a seeking/finding trip.

I could have brought a lot of baggage from the past into this, but during the time between meetings, I had given it deep thought, and had talked with several friends, both online and in person. The one I needed to speak with the most was a childhood friend who was abused. She did not fully understand the nature of my visit when I went to see her. I had not seen her for years; and in the time between our last time together and this one, much had transpired in both of our lives. But she has been a driving force behind some of what I have done in my nursing career, and is a strong influence on what I want to do. She will probably never understand the extent of this. I talked with her some about this influence on the phone, but when I visited with her, we did not discuss the trip at all. In planning the visit; the phone call; the driving to and from her place in the misty, dark, October night, down back roads far out in the country, where coal miners lived and justified in their minds why immigrants should be shot - during that in-between time, I gave this all the most thought. I did not even bring her up at the clearness committee. But my friendship with her summarizes all that is wrong, and also all that is right, with attitudes; with compassion for fellow humans; for regard for those close to us. It summarizes the dead space between bigotry and love. I don't understand how some people can be so loving, and yet so unloving, and I needed to sit with that, for myself. I needed to sit with her, in her living room, and feel all of it, before doing this; and know that I still loved her as my friend, despite everything. Somehow, this gave me the confidence that I needed to know that this trip was the right thing to do. I took that confidence, and the folder of information, with me to the clearness committee. 

My childhood friend, Debora, was nominated to be on the committee first, at monthly meeting, the First Day (Sunday) that my letter requesting one was read. In a Friends monthly business meeting, the first person nominated is the convener of the committee. She openly protested, but she was expected to answer the responsibility. I can't recall who jumped the gun after my letter was read, but they nominated her too quickly. This scared me, because, well, Debora knows way too much about me. And then someone nominated the clerk, and I'm not even going to go into the fear of God that put into me. Or fear of something else - something like ...scrutiny. These people know my skeletons.

Whatever my fears may have been, a conviction is a conviction. They are excited for me. I presented what I had, and they subtly, and humorously, in their Quaker ways, expressed their reservations, but not nearly as many as I expected. They want me to do this. They are going to write a traveling minute. 

Tonight was the memorial service of a good friend. The service was also at the meetinghouse. David was the ex-husband of Debora's sister. He accepted me into his group of friends after my divorce. He let me carve my name in his end table, something he had most of his visitors do. He designed the cover for the tape I made at a studio. He was my friend.  So I saw them, most of the people on the clearness committee, again, two nights in a row, because they were Davids friends too. My daughter and I made cookies today, and I went to Jebbia's Produce market in Wheeling, and bought vegetables for a relish dish. I also bought a homemade olive mix there. I should have bought more olives, because they went the fastest of anything on the table. I knew there would be too many cookies.

After the memorial service, I sat on the meetinghouse porch, and talked for a long time with a close acquaintance I would never have gotten to know if David had not brought me into the fold. She told me about a humanitarian trip she had taken to Liberia with the military, and how it had changed her. Then I told her about my planned trip to Mexico. She became excited, and happy for me to do this. I keep feeling like with all that has transpired in my career that has gone wrong in the past year, that I'm somehow not qualified to do something like this. Part of me feels like maybe I was supposed to do something like this all along; and maybe that is what has been wrong though. 

These posts are getting longer, but there is one more situation I want to address. That is about consciousness. I have always "known" things that I did not understand why I knew. Some people have called it ESP; others have referred to my experiences as astral projection. Still others have suggested that I can read minds, or have had other lives. Christians call it God speaking to me. I have always felt there was another explanation. In the past few days, at least two people have mentioned the kind of "knowing" that comes with Quaker worship. I don't feel this is entirely from God. I feel it is an entity of consciousness, from being more in touch, and in tune with our subconscious minds, through worship and meditation. We take in too much information to be aware of it all at any given time, but our mind puts together what this information means. We know more than we realize. When we tap into this deeper consciousness regularly, we learn to listen to it. We learn to be more in tune with it. I have noticed that many people who have lived their lifetime within Quakerism will refer to the "Quaker knowing" as if it is a given fact. Outside of Quaker circles, people talk about coincidences, and about God, and about miracles. For me, the knowing is an inherent part of me. I have learned to listen to it; but I don't always. Sometimes it is so profound, that it comes in words; not words I can hear, but in formulated words in my mind. "Take that book off the shelf." "Don't give that medication yet." "Turn around and walk the other way." And for no good reason, and feeling partially crazy, I listen, and do. Something not quite conscious knows something, and I need to listen to it.

One day in the hospital I worked at for 8 years, when I turned and walked the other way, a woman walked up to me and asked where her sister was. I knew her sister had just died. I knew there was no other nurse on the floor at that time who could have handled speaking with this woman because of what had just transpired. I was able to walk this woman to where her sister was. Maybe it WAS God. 

This is one of the times in my life, when I do not entirely understand what is happening, and I am going on faith, when the words, "Turn and walk the other way," have formulated in my brain. Now I will have in writing that my meeting is supporting me in doing so. And it is not crazy. They say they feel the same Quaker knowing about it.

About the Town Going Downhill

About a year ago, I made a trip to Columbus, Ohio, after years of being away. I was taking a Nursing Leadership and Management class towards my BSN degree, and we were required to attend a public meeting within the time frame of the class. I was working full-time, and that complicated matters. So I picked an Ohio State Board of Nursing meeting. The address stated it was in the Huntington Building downtown. 

Well, I knew where that was! My ex-husband had worked in the executive suite on the top floor back when we were married, in 1991-92. His office was in the north part of the highrise that symbolized the "H" in the Columbus skyline. We had watched Red, White, and Boom at eye level from his office on July 4th. The problem was, when I arrived, there was no Ohio Board of Nursing in that building. It was a really good thing I had gone early that day, because the office was in the OTHER Huntington building downtown. The old one. I managed to keep my composure through this disconcerting experience, and talk myself through the fact I was a farmer's wife now. It turned out to be an interesting meeting to write a paper on. A nurse practitioner was requesting a license reinstatement after rehabilitation, following misusing physician prescription pads to write herself scheduled substance scripts. 

A lot of people misuse drugs. Nearly every day I go to work, I have patients who want dilaudid. The nurses have knicknames for it, such as diLALA, or the only medication nobody seems to be allergic to. I have given so much dilaudid, in fact, that it is difficult for me to not be judgmental towards innocent homeless people on the street. I have this overshadowing feeling that they ALL want dilaudid, and sometimes I do a doubletake at what I'm wearing to make sure I'm not in scrubs. 

That day of the meeting, after it was over, I decided to take a drive through some old haunts, such as the J.C. Penny outlet, and Eastland Mall. The Max and Erma's off of Brice Road was all closed up. That part of the east end was like an enormous, concrete, corporate ghost town! 

A turn of life events has put me in travel nursing, only a year later. I have found myself back in Columbus, for the past 6 weeks, and will be here off and on for over another month, minus my trip to the Southwest. It is paying the mortgage. I have been renting from an acquaintance with a house in a subdivision, but decided to take a leap this week, and rent a pay-by-the-week hotel room, to get my feet wet for future trips. I can go back to where I was, but I wanted to try this.

Most people are not as bad as we assume they are. They have bad events in their lives, or runs of a bad time, but most people are mostly good. Someone told me recently that a part of Columbus I wanted to rent a weekly room in was now an "unsafe" part of town. Back in the 1980's, Morse and 161 between I71 and I270 was an area with nice clubs and shopping centers. College kids would drive up to hang out of the day, or for weekend drinks. I drove through, and it was like the east end, but on a different scale. Today, I rented a place anyway. I'm sure there is danger. Just like there are Mexicans who sell drugs, and who kill people. I am definitely the minority, as a tall white woman. 

I noticed something odd today. Once I moved in to this place, in a "bad" part of town, I felt a huge sense of relief. It was only slightly dampened by finding a lone roach in my room. A woman doing laundry pushed my floor's elevator button along with her own the second time I rode the elevator with her. A tall black gentleman paused before entering his room as I walked by, to greet me, and make short conversation. The housekeepers were discussing day-to-day news in the hallway with residents. I stopped into the Asian Market over in the Columbus Square. That shopping center was once a thriving place. Our dissolution lawyer had an office there. Now it houses a giant thrift store. The oriental check-out lady at the Asian Market had her young daughter with her. When I bought Kimchee and noodles, she told me it looked good, and asked the little girl, "Should we have Kimchee and noodles for supper tonight?" The little girl replied, "Yes! Yes!" The people in this part of town are ACCEPTING and FRIENDLY. I feel at home here.

Last night, I went out to a movie by myself. I went to Easton to see "Captain Phillips." It was too expensive. It was about an American cargo and food relief ship being hijacked by Somali pirates. Columbus, Ohio has become a refuge for Somalians. About 1/4 of the people in the theater were Somalians, probably because the film was about people from their country. I have been taking care of a lot of Somalians at work. It felt good to be in a theater with them, instead of a hospital. It felt good to watch a movie, where the main character connected with his captor, and even tried to help, and ultimately save his captors.  He was unsuccessful in saving them, because they were stubborn, due to their life circumstances. 

I want to think on that some more - how life circumstances make people stubborn. Circumstances don't just make criminals stubborn, but also those who oppress. 

Mission Trip - ME?

The spiritual nudge. To DO something.

It usually is not a trip though. In fact, it has never been a trip. This time it is.

A conviction - "a nudge" - is the essence of being a Quaker or a Friend. It is terrifying, sometimes. You want to say, "Oh, God! Again?" Conviction of the most raw kind comes in many forms, but a true conviction has the same elements for me. I feel the same way I do when my parents ask me to DO something. Groan. Sometimes I even want to do it. In fact I usually do. But I know it will be somehow painful, and probably also life-changing. The thing to do usually involves controversy and questioning by numerous people. With me, it often involves the questioning of my intentions or motives, because I don't live the most ...faithful Christian path. 

For some reason, some people do not think I am capable of having a conviction and following it. I have been questioned to the degree that I am wary of telling many people when it happens, and am likely to give them another, less comprehensive reason for my actions than the real one, just because others expect less genuine motives. The only people I really trust to believe me are members of my Friends meeting, and then not even all of them. I trust them to believe me, because they've been through previous convictions with me since my childhood. They know the side trails I've taken from my path. They know I loathe coming to them.

I wanted to be sure it was a true conviction, so I asked my meeting for a clearness committee. We've met once, and they are excited for this trip. I guess it is a true conviction. 

I was going to visit my sons in Phoenix. I wanted to participate in something that had to do with immigration. After reading article after article, watching video after video, and after reading prison reports and Amnesty International reports, I have come to the conclusion that my country, the U.S.A. is on the verge of an ethnic cleansing. I feel in my gut that we are committing atrocities. I feel in my bones that it is growing into something incredibly ugly, and this ...nudge... is telling me that I have a hand in stopping it, even if it ultimately takes my own life. 

So I asked some of the people concerned about the same problem if there was something I could participate in. They invited me to go out into the desert with them to fill water tanks. 

Me??? From Ohio? Really?

I've had fabric in my basement for months, and I still have not made flags for the water stations. I rarely show up for committee meetings. I haven't helped with the Plummer House Project, or with the Olney Farm, even though I was passionately involved in the initial committees that started those. I have failed in carry-through. I suffer from what my childhood friend, and fellow daughter-of-a-Quaker-minister dubs "apathy." Well, ....I was convener of the Peace and Human Relations Committee for a few years, and we did stuff. Actually, we did a lot of stuff. But I was having lots of convictions then. 

I have gone to nursing school, worked as a nurse, been the primary income earner of my family, put children through college, bought a house - can you see that I am attempting to talk myself into the fact that it is OKAY for me to go on a mission trip? It feels so arrogant and voyeuristic. 

Today, I spent a couple of hours looking up some of these places. Oh wow, the church at San Xavier, where the Day of the Dead walk ends is AWESOME! And it is on an Indian reservation. I don't really care about all of those casinos. But there is a Friends Meeting in Pima, and a year ago in November, according to the handy Google search, they hosted a discussion on immigration. 

I wrote to the clerk of the meeting telling them I was coming. I feel sternness and eldering coming my way, but perhaps I could stay in Pima overnight after walking 7 miles across an Indian reservation, and go to meeting-for-worship there. 

My clearness committee thinks I need to apply for my MSN in Forensic Nursing, even though I'm broke and have student loans the size of a house payment coming up in December. This nudge is turning into something kind of big. I'm hoping that I don't get shot. But Joel and Larry have been doing this for a long time, and they are still alive. My country does not need to live through an ethnic cleansing, and I want to tell them so.

Steubenville

It was 1997. My oldest child was in the 4th grade. I was in nursing school, in the pediatric rotation, and our class was giving sex-ed to 4th graders in St. Clairsville public schools. What an eye-opener! The girls were asking questions that needed to be taken into a private room individually. I was positive the school nurse would be doing some follow-up. I came home that day from my associate degree nursing program, and picked the children up from the after-school sitter's. We talked a lot after school, debriefing about the day. I was a single mom, on food stamps, getting ready to graduate with my ADN in a few months. After dropping their book bags inside the door, they plopped down on the couch, and I looked at the three of them - my two sons and my daughter, the youngest, still in preschool. I did not want to do this. But a sickening sort of knowing gave me resolve that I must.

I knew they were old enough now. I knew it was never too early. I looked at their innocent eyes, looking back at me, "Mommy," and I thought about the questions those children had asked - those children the same ages as my children. "What if your friend tells you her uncle is putting his hands where he shouldn't? Who should you tell?" "What if you're afraid to tell because they will hurt you?" "Can you get pregnant if you like a boy a lot?" "What if your step-dad is touching your little sister like that?" Yes. That telling.

I pulled out my biology book, a boy on each side, and my preschool daughter looking on. I opened it to the male anatomy; then the female anatomy sections. It was a long evening. They were fascinated. We talked about what kind of touching was okay, and what kind was not. Where was okay? Where was not? How was okay? How was not? I defined "molesting," and explained that it was a crime that someone could go to jail for; and that it was wrong. We talked about what to do if someone did that to them, or what to do if a friend confided that someone had done that. We talked about what to do if they felt threatened. We talked about bathrooms and what to do if they were approached when they were alone. We talked about when people grew up and met someone they wanted to be close to, that such touching was then okay, and only if both people agreed, but not until they were older; that children were not supposed to do that. My oldest son asked me, "Mom, how do the egg and the sperm get together to make a baby?" I stared at him. I said, "We will talk about that when you get a little older." Enough was enough, it had been a long day. I wanted my children to hear it from me, and to not have any misconceptions like the children in school did. But I just was not ready to tell my 4th-grade son THAT.

I did not want my sons to be molesters or rapists. That should be a mother's fear. Unfortunately, some mothers don't give it a second thought. There were stories in the newspapers about children molesting other children. I wanted my sons to know what that meant, and why. I remembered my youth, of little boys exposing themselves, or wanting to touch me. They are memories I dislike recalling, and are not pleasant.

When my oldest son was in 8th grade, he came home one day soon after school began, and had fear and tears in his eyes. He asked me if he could tell me something, and wanted me to promise to never tell anyone. I told him I couldn't promise that, but that I would do my best to help him. He was a geek, and he ate lunch with the girls. One of his female friends had told him she had been raped at Jamboree in the Hills while her parents were drunk, and that she thought she was pregnant. She had not told anyone else, and didn't know what to do. My son looked horrified and terrified with this information. This tall, skinny, lanky boy. I explained to him that I would have to report it if she did not. She needed to go to the school counselor or to tell her parents. If she was pregnant, it would not go away, and she needed help. I said that I would answer any questions he wanted, and we talked about her options, and what could happen with each one. I talked to him about girls who had not told anyone who had ended up in the news for different reasons, and explained that as her friend, he needed to make sure she got an adult to help her through this so it didn't get really bad. Later in the week, I learned that she had gone to the school counselor. I had never seen such a heavy burden on my son before that, and watching it lift when she got help made my heart swell with pride.

Years later, as I drove my daughter to college, one of her friends was along for the trip. She had a lot of questions about birth control. She said that it was a topic that she could not approach her mother about, because her mother felt she should not have sex. All through high school, there had been a lot of these girl discussions in the car to and from places. I think I have anonymously supplied the local teen population, through my children, with condoms, Today sponges, and pregnancy test kits. I perceive it as a positive investment in my community. If only some of them knew. Most of my friends and acquaintances were not virgins by high school graduation, and I thought it very naive of any parent who felt her daughter might be an exception. Advice and contraception was free-flowing, even for; no, especially for the Catholic girls. I was earning an income for a reason.

If only the other parents knew what their children weren't telling them. I have never regretted having that initial talk with my children, nor the subsequent conversations with them or their friends. I do believe, that if a drunk woman were disrupting a party, that my sons would take her home and tuck her in bed.

They would not urinate on her or digitally penetrate her.

After my own investment in my community, I feel very strongly that parents who have raised their children in a manner where they would do this; and school officials who would promote a community of people who would do this, do not deserve my sympathy or empathy in any way. Teenagers who would think to do this kind of thing are not safe in this society of teenagers, and teenagers who would threaten the girl that they did this to, when the boys were held accountable for their actions, should absolutely also be held accountable for their threats. 

There is never an excuse to abuse another human being in such a vile manner.
There is never an excuse to make them pay when such abuse is punished. 

When my oldest son was 21, we were working in the kitchen together one day. He stopped what he was doing, and turned to me: "Mom?" I said, "Yes?" He was quiet for a little while. Then he said, "You know, you never DID tell me how the sperm got to the egg." Our eyes met, and he burst out laughing.