2010-03-27 To Do List – Open the Cage

Thursday morning came the realization that I have finally achieved “I am my parents” status, when Davis asked, “Is that what you are wearing to chaperone my (Christian fellowship) group this morning?” I had on a bright pink sweat top, with a clean, unwrinkled pair of black, not too tight, stretch pants, purposely selecting those pants aware that I would be in a room with 13,14 and 15 year olds boys in just an hour or so.

Davis, unlike his father, was not one known for fashion. We had lampooned his choices in our annual Christmas letter, stating that he was now working on Project Runway. The temperature was hovering around 40 degrees Thursday and he was wearing gym shorts and his orange school sweatshirt, which he had worn everyday this Spring, because its his “track” gear.

We managed to buy our donuts and make it to the church on time. I watched hungry teenaged boys walk in, eyes clamped shut, mouths wide open, ferociously consume 4.5 dozen donuts, in a fifteen minute timeframe.

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.

They came for the treats and stayed for the fellowship and the understanding that they are loved by God, and the other boys in this room. A local father ran this group, meeting every other Thursday morning. He prepares an agenda, which includes a review from the past week’s meeting, highlights about Bible stories relevant for these boys (Sampson, Moses) and throws in some trivia about the NCAA, March Madness and the Masters.

The boys are asked to keep prayer journals, and use them to write their intentions, their questions. Even if they are never voiced, their words have a place that is secure from society.

That morning, prayer intentions included a young boy battling cancer, a school teacher recovering from cancer treatments, sports injuries, the lacrosse team, and another young man, a high schooler, in the same school system, who had committed suicide two days prior. Davis had informed us of this incident the night before, at dinner, where we promptly, but briefly, discussed the topic.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

At the time, I asked if counselors spoke at Davis’s middle school, separate from Scott’s (not his real name) high school. Davis said, “No, there wasn't much talk about it, other than from students.” Even at his fellowship meeting, before the impact of this event on the boys would dawn on them, they seemed content to speak of it  and move on.

I too moved on with my day, feeding the neighbor’s dog while they were in Florida. I finished the last of the laundry, and decided the blankets in the flophouse part of the basement needed cleansing, which thankfully, I did. I found a pair of girl’s underwear (clean) and a men’s adult sized long sleeve jersey shirt. One cannot ponder these items too long for fear of where it might let your mind lead. I assumed the underwear came from a sleepover, and the men’s shirt was left behind during a recent party our kids had with their Mission Trip friends.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.

I drove to meet my sister for lunch, with a stop at Ursuline to drop off paperwork to Shannon so she could order our couch through her Crate and Barrel discount. As I left, I was halted temporarily by the notion that I had selected the wrong color – Mocha instead of Sable. Quickly I ran through the printout of the paperwork in my mind and breathed a sigh of relief.

My cell phone rang as I drove the down the highway. I thought it would be my sister calling to tell me she would be late. That phone call would come, but it was my father, who always calls with a dire tone, asking if I could participate in a conference call with him and his lawyer sometime in April. “Dad, I don’t have my calendar with me, but I am sure, I can do it. I’ll call you after lunch.”

“Oh, my mom, interjected, “You are having lunch with your sister? That is so nice. Your father never wants to go out for lunch. We have all these restaurant cards that we never use.” Sure, I wanted to be in the middle of THAT conversation. I switched gears to talk about the weather. My mother always felt better when I told her the weather was as equally dismal here in Cincinnati as it was in Cleveland.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.


I have amazing and talented sisters. This one had been valedictorian and started several businesses during her working life. She was in the process of “becoming unstuck from a bad story” and “creating her new story” which has been my buzz line these days, thanks to Donald Miller, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”, and Jim Loehr, “The Power of Story.” Having been a writer now for 13 years (I use Davis’ age as a benchmark, since my first poem I wrote was about becoming his mother), and despite having penned my memoir and several anthologies of poems, and facilitating writing workshops, I never equated the word “story” with the word “life.” But today, I kept driving the point home with my sister. Either she finally heard me or was sick of me!

After lunch, rain continued to pound on the roof of my car, but I drove out to Benken’s for my annual pansy purchase. I spent an hour in the greenhouse, mixing and matching colors and sizes to achieve the look I wanted for my outdoor pots. I stayed a little long, because breathing in the oxygen created by those plants was certainly the closest thing to heaven here on earth.

I completed my rounds with a stop at Petmart for pizzles and Nyla bones for Enzo only to receive a text from Davis that Track was cancelled and he would be home shortly. I texted him back, “I will be home at the same time.” Then he responded “There is a video on Youtube about Scott. Can I watch it?”

Clunk. That was an imaginary sound. I did not really smash into another car at that moment, but it was my fears slamming into my insight. I did not know what was on that video. But if I didn’t allow Davis the space to open up about this, to grieve whatever loss he may be feeling, I would slam the door on an opportunity for him to grow in wisdom and compassion.

“Yes, but wait for me,” I typed back.

I arrived home first, let the dog out and welcomed Davis home with my presence. He could not drop his backpack fast enough, which is not usual, and ran to my office breathlessly waiting for me. “Davis, why don’t you search for the video and I will be right there?” In seconds, he called out, “I found it.”

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

From the kitchen, I took a deep breath and dragged my feet and heart into my office. He clicked “play.” The video was approximately four minutes in length and had been posted a few days prior. I will paraphrase his plea:

Scott was a junior, hoping to pursue teaching and photography, but now, he says, he was finding it hard to be interested in anything. He had been to counseling, took medication, but nothing seemed to keep him from this darkness. He went to sleep in class during the day, and stayed up all night. He could not understand what was happening. He used to be a good kid in school, made the honor roll, was a good kid at home. Now, he feared his girlfriend leaving him, he felt isolated from any friends, and felt that he was in cage he could not get out of.

Scott concluded with a cry for help. “If there is anyone out there that can help me, let me know what you have done to get through this”.


Scott presented all of this with a sense of practicality. His life was a problem he was trying to solve. I wept throughout the entire video. Davis sat stone silent until he could no longer keep his tears at bay. We remained in quiet for a few minutes after the video concluded. He did not have the words for this moment, so I began:

“Davis, it sounds like everyone was really trying to help him. We know so little about mental illness, except that there is a change in brain chemistry that alters that person’s perception enough to keep them in a cage.”

“I know because I’ve been there during some challenging times in my life, taking the medication, then gone off because I think I am better, sliding back into my lonely self.”

“But sometimes, a person gets so far down inside of himself, they cannot find the way out. And there is very little we can do to help them at that point.”

“Its so sad Mom.” I understood this to mean that he is a lover of life. Davis will go to school, enjoy track practice, sign up for classes at his new high school, eat a plateful of tacos, go to baseball practice, take out the garbage, and then come home and sigh, “Finally some me time,” and then we all laugh!

He cried a little while longer that afternoon then promptly announced he had to take care of the neighbor’s dog and walked out of the house.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

I understand about cages, and how one can feel imprisoned, despite all the air that enters and exits between the bars, despite all the good intentions, therapy, friends and prayers. At times, I have been locked in my own pen. I have visited with others who are fenced in because of the law or their choices. Even our homes or diseases for which we are diagnosed become cages if we let them.

I pray God grants Scott the freedom from his cage that he so desperately deserves. And may we be reminded that healing begins in our own lives when leave the cage door open or hold it open for someone else.

* “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou.


* The video has been removed due to its content which may or may not be good. What Scott said has a lot of relevance and could someday be used as an educational and emotional tool for others. While I deplore the use of social media for some to “showcase” their work, I cannot ignore the fact that for the next child, a posting such as Scott’s, just might save his or her life..

2010-03-22 Middle Child

Red rocks band together, forming cup-like around me.
I do not worry about what I am keeping at bay –

the coyotes, the scorpions, who I was in Ohio,
steel grey clouds in my distant sight.

But instead, I think of what is keeping warm
the muscle that is my heart.
In this sauna of sagebrush and stones,
I am rediscovering my core and it is everywhere –

in the spiral petroglyph, while its loose end gives birth
to a fossilized human, its origin is etched stone.

And in the medicine wheel,
which steered many an ancient people.
I stand in its center and think,
“cob of corn, chewed apple core, elongated spine.”

Even the basalt boulders rise up like an altar
from beneath the sandstone seams in Cathedral Rock.

All my life, the middle was a birth order defect.

But here,
I am one and whole.

Stay rooted, I tell myself.

2010-03-22 To Do List – Save a Child

A friend read one of my recent blog posts and suggested I continue writing on a similar theme. The theme of the first post was the creation of my to-do list for the day, and comparing that with the list of someone else, chosen randomly from my subconscious for their to do items impact on my psyche. So today, I begin again.

To do list for yesterday. Yesterday was Sunday, and yet it began at 2 .am. Our Saturday evening with our friends Jenny and Dan turned into Sunday morning, which happens quite often when Jenny is involved. The night also included a late round of euchre in which Jenny and I were partners, with my husband Mark and Dan as our opponents. We “possummed” them in the first round (this is akin to “skunking” but includes total anniliation). They in turn, skunked us (only “skunking” because we scored). We concluded with one last tiebreaker, though by now, my focus was on faces of the two dogs who desperately wanted to sleep, but could not bring themselves to do so, in the face of an opportunity to lap up whatever we might spill in the wee hours. Of course, pretzel crumbs and wine were not quite up to par for their tastes, as might be steak and eggs, but they persevered and their sad looks caused me to lose focus, and lose the final round.

Sunday began with an unusual waking by the Abby, a very large golden doodle we were dog-sitting for my in-laws. Our puppy Enzo sleeps in a crate, outside of our room, because I am a light sleeper and this was one concession that I won. Abby was still new to our household, and we wanted her contained so we knew her whereabouts. She slept in our room, until about 7 a.m. (which translates to 5 hours of restless, wine-induced tossing and turning).

From there the day’s race was on, including baking a French toast casserole with blueberries before our hungry bunch would rise and decimate the cereal aisle in our pantry instead.

Our breakfast conversation turned to the topic of Haiti. A local reporter had returned from that country and written a articles that kept my Mark entranced. Mark was heading to Haiti next month. When had he first told me about the opportunity that existed for doctors through his Notre Dame alumni connection, I simply said, “You have to go.” I never looked at our schedule, nor did I consider being widowed (again) if events turned sour in Haiti while he was there. He simply “had to go”.

Then, Mark received a lengthy e-mail with explanations about where he would stay, how he and his companions would travel and what vaccinations would be necessary prior to departure. Also discussed were malaria and other diseases for which there were no vaccinations. Swine flu wasn’t scary when one compared that to traveling in mosquito-infested countries with rains that wash away potential sprouts of corn or wheat.

I was still hungover, tired, dehydrated, and could take in neither what Mark Carnette had experienced and cataloged, nor could I absorb all that Mark would witness in the upcoming month.

I left the article about Haiti on the kitchen table, showered, attended a Mother-Daughter fashion show and drove out to Frontgate Outlet Store to purchase an outdoor lantern that matched one I purchased yesterday, when I was not convinced I needed two. But, the lanterns had been on sale, I reasoned. I even negotiated with the manager to include another set of pre-burnt pillar candles to match the ones paid for the day before.

We watched the XU basketball game in earnest, biting our nails until the very end. My daughter’s boyfriend thought the team had it in the bag when they went up by 6 or 7 with a few minutes left to go. But I needed to see things through to the conclusion. And sure enough, the game ended, but without our viewing (thanks Time Warner, CBS, NCAA, and Dick Vitale, or the obscure technician in the control booth). XU did secure the win. We all felt a sense of relief, until Thursday when they would play again.

During the game, we had seen snippets for the news magazine show 60 Minutes, which would follow the broadcast of the games. Mark, Shannon, Davis and I stayed glued to the couch when 60 Minutes began. Katie Couric interviewed White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He too carried a hand-written to do list, beginning with 3 minutes with President Obama, and ending the day with what Rahm called their “wrap up”. The end of their day was significantly different than mine or the rest of us. But his to-do list was no less impressive, and he probably did not complete his list with a hangover.

Then, a segment about Haiti began playing, and we sank into silence. To be honest, the camera footage was the first I had seen, other than pictures in the newspapers. I am not one for denial, but for the past two months have battled my own demons and could not take on those of the world. Devastation did not begin to describe the scenes which were shown and the apt title the Lost Children of Haiti scared me. Scott Pelley traveled to Haiti for 6 weeks. He first spoke with Moise Vaval, pastor of a local church who also worked for an orphanage. His eight year old boy, Jean Marc, had gone missing in the earthquake. What began as a father’s quest to find his child became an incessant drive to locate and match missing children with their parents. His restlessness drove him to support others in need until his son’s backpack was unearthed ten weeks later, and his small boy body removed from the rubble beneath the school.

The reporter then profiled Jean Robert Cadet – a Restevec – a former child slave. My husband and I had met Jean Cadet at a local fundraiser. Following the earthquake, he had visited Davis’ school, which raised $17, 000 for Jean Cadet to build schools in Haiti. He is a Cincinnatian, who has created his own foundation to save the children of Haiti from the fate he experienced as a child. Child slavery in Haiti is not uncommon nor is it illegal, so Jean Cadet uses his weight as a teacher to encourage families to give up ownership of children that do not belong to them.

Scott Pelley asked him about slavery. “The earthquake created child slavery?” “No, it created the opportunity for more children in slavery,” says Jean Cadet. “But Jean Cadet, if there are 175,000 child slaves, how do you think going door to door can help save any of them?”

Jean Cadet looked almost incredulous, as if to say, if you knew my story, you wouldn’t ask. Of course the reporter knew his story, but Scott wanted to draw it out of him for others, back home, sitting on a green leather pit group in front of a large screen TV, still nursing a hangover and yelling about the dog barking and no one letting him out.

“Someone made a big difference in my life, someone believed in me.” When Jean Cadet’s owner-family came to the U.S., they threw him out onto the streets. A teacher of Jean Cadet’s spent months with him, got him in the welfare system and help improve his education. He went into the military, became a teacher and returns often to Haiti to pry children from the grasp of slavery.

I looked beside me, Shannon to my right, her connection to Haiti through her French club activities, and Davis to my right. Both were children who had lost parents to a physical disease and not a societal one. Somehow they were easier to save than the little children on TV. Scott Pelley held a young boy in his arms, and cuddled with him, in the same vein that I recall Davis snuggling with my mother, so much that she called Davis her “little snuggler.” She would undergo breast cancer surgery after she held that baby for the first time.

I thought about what Jean Cadet said, “Saving one is worth it.” And while he is right, he is also mistaken. Children save us - from becoming inhuman.

When my writing is complete today, the last item will include reading Mark Curnette’s newpaper article or the e-mail on the logistics of Mark’s trip. I had put off learning more, which is unlike me, because I didn’t want to face the danger Mark may be in. But there was a part of me, some human part that knew, while he was administering anesthesia to a young child who may need amputation or surgery, he is the only person that I would want in the room rescuing any child with compassion and his care - and some child would save him too.

To Do List:
1. Testify

It is 9 a.m. I sit at my desk, a ray of light traveling towards the doorway of my office, slowly creeping over towards and warming the sleeping pup at my feet. I look down at my “To do” list for the day: Call for hair appointment, complete update to master family calendar from son’s track schedule, pickup son at 4:15, ask daughter if she is attending driving class tonight so I know what time to have dinner ready. Since it is Monday, the list includes writing. So I do.

I keep imagining what it would be like to look down at my list and see “Testify in daughter’s murder trial,” as Lisa Siders-Kenney is doing so right now, on behalf of her murdered daughter, Esme.

I don’t know Lisa. I only know of her through the women at WWfaC. I bought a pendant from an artist friend of hers, a chiastolite stone, as part of a fundraiser for a scholarship in Esme’s name. Also known as the "cross stone" because of a natural cross pattern in the stone.

It is described as thus: “Chiastolite is a stone of balance, stability and harmony, as traditionally indicated by the cross. It can help with physical, mental, intellectual and emotional stability, enhancing problem solving and adapting to change. It can enhance spiritual awareness and inspiration, as well as astral travel and practical creativity.

Chiastolite is used for healing rheumatism, blood disorders, veins, blood circulation, balance of blood pressure (high or low), and lactation. It has a specific use in balancing all base chakra energies.”

When I researched which stone I wanted to buy, I knew this one instantly. Not from previous hands on experience, but heart experience. At the time, I was in need of healing, and a gentle reminder that I could always return to God, when the time came, with a whole heart, and a body that felt broken, or at least broken down. The astral travel is my favorite part of the above description. Astral Travel - or in layman’s terms – out of body experiences, seems a key in healing. If we can remove our selves (two words) from our bodies, and see how wrapped up we are in our body experiences and not the experiences of self, we would be further along in our healing, and certainly evolutionary emotional intelligence.

I pray that Esme experienced astral travel to escape the heinous acts that were done to her body. That the killer would sit with her body afterward, watching it burn, horrifies me in a way that I cannot articulate.

I wore that pendant everyday for a while, even promised myself I would wear it every day of the trial of Esme’s murderer, but I failed in the those efforts this morning as a barking dog usually throw my mind off track. I do not even have it on now, but am simply holding her mother in my care, in my writing hands and hoping that is enough.

My list also involved investigating vortices, in particular in Sedona, purported to also have healing energies, but this too reminds me of Lisa, Esme, her family caught up in a not so harmonic convergence of events – go for a run, encounter a man, offer him the wrong name, watch man turn into monster, remove self from body, become a force for change.

I am multi-taking now, trying to follow any news development that hinges on the words of this heart-sunken mother, for she must have pushed her emotions so far down, so as not to fall apart during her time of testimony.

She begins by telling about the day of Esme’s murder. She had been removing dust from their recent remodel. “Drywall dust is dangerous, you know,” she states. She is being asked to describe Esme for the jury. She says, “She just turned 13, just precious, so innocent and so sweet.”

Esme had asked her mom to go along on a run. “We usually went together as a family,” says Lisa. “across the street to the reservoir. Its where she learned to ride a bike. It was like our backyard.”

Some of Esme’s last words were about a cousin, “If Franny calls, tell her I’ll be right back.”

When the police arrived after Lisa’s suspected disappearance of Esme, they kept using the word teenager. "They just had a different picture in their mind,” Lisa confessed, obviously still frustrated that the police did not understand the true essence of Esme.

The police envisioned a picture different from the actual one shown by the prosecutor in the final minutes of Lisa’s testimony. I don’t know which picture it was. I hope it was not of her body wearing only socks and shoes. Lisa tearfully and proudly responded to the lawyer's question, “That’s my baby, Esme Louise Kenney.”

When I look back on this day, I want to remember what it was like to be a witness to Lisa Kenney testifying – tears and fears about my own children, wincing at the prospect of a chaplain at my door, the horrors that Esme endured in her final hours. There is no reconciling Esme’s fate with the outcome of the trial with the exception of a mother bearing witness to the life of her “baby.” - 2010-03-08

2010-03-01 Thin Blue Line


The Winter Olympics closed, the torch passed.
It is March, and snow turns to slush, unlike Charlie Brown’s January snow
that Lucy declares is best.

Time now for swimming.
I dip my toe in the chilly water of the lap pool, and begin to think Summer and the athletes, winter and summer, who train long hours.

I once hoped to be an Olympic champ - super-sized hopes for a peanut-sized person.
I would jump over hurdles or glide down the slalom, and all the world would stare.

The pool is cold, steam fogs the windows. I cannot see out. No one can see in.
All three lanes are empty. The surface is still, the only noise is the buzz of the heater
and the jets of the spa nearby.

I lower my towel and slide in, wakened from my morning state.
I turn somersaults at laps’ end, and shoot through the water to begin the next leg.
The painted blue line below me remains visible so I do not go left or right of center.

My body’s shadow in the water becomes magnetized, pulled towards the line
in the moment Olympians live for – to become transparent, constant, fluid.

Many laps later, I toss my tired limbs onto the pools’ edge.
The surface ripples to the rhythm of a stroke I am no longer executing.

The body has left the pool, the spirit remains.