View Five

I grew up hearing the story of what happened to Melanie. She is four years older than I am, and I wasn't even a gleam in my parent's eyes. In fact, my mother was pregnant with a baby when my sister was burned. If she hadn't lost the baby, I'd never have been born. That's wierd to think about.

What do I remember about Melanie's burn incident? Nothing. But I have lots of memories about the stories we heard about it. My father always got teary when he told about washing Melanie's burns and what a special time it was for him. I guess he really felt important or like he was being a very good father--which I think he was. But he has a lot of emotion about it all.

My mother talks a lot about how God was using Melanie by her being in the hospital and singing to some angry old man. When Melanie became a singer when she was older, I wondered why God would do something like that for her but not for me. I'm a really good singer, too. I wonder sometimes, about how God does what He does--how he makes the decision to give a sign to one person but not another.

Melanie never really talked about what happened to her, even when she was older. But Mother and Dad seemed to have a lot of emotion about it and loved to tell the story--to us or anyone else who would hear it. It made me feel like I lived in a shadow sometimes, especially as she became more known in our town.

I know that God has certainly worked in my life. I'm glad my sister didn't die of her burns. I don't think about it much because as I said earlier, I wasn't even there.

View Four

I never saw what happened, but I heard Diane screaming across the lawn one day, all the way to the neighbor's house. I was in the tree in the backyard. She was hysterical, running to get Daddy, crying and screaming that Melanie was going to die. Daddy came running back across the lawn ahead of her and into the house. I quickly got down and went inside just in time to see Daddy, with a very worried look on his face, rush into the kitchen with Melanie wrapped in a towel. "Get a blanket!" he ordered, and he unwrapped Melanie on the kitchen counter. She was lying very still and crying. He was putting butter all over her before he wrapped her up inj the blanket and took off with her. The neighbor lady came over and stayed with us while they went to the hospital. She told us that Melanie was burned very bad and that we should pray for her. So we knelt down and did that.



I don't remember very much about what happened in the next couple days except that Mommy and Daddy weren't with us too often. They took us over to some people's house to stay while they were in the hospital with Melanie. The people had turkeys at their farm. As soon as I got out of the car, I went across the lawn to go see something. There was a funny sound behind me and I turned around to see a whole bunch of turkeys coming after me, looking at my head. I was scared to death and I started to run. They ran, too. I climbed up on top of a picnic table to get away from them. But they jumped up on the bench part of the table and were starting to come up onto the table with me. I screamed bloody murder, and Daddy came over and scared the turkeys away. He was laughing his head off. I was terrified and awfully glad he got me out of there. He laughed and joked about that happening for years.



Later that day, Daddy drove us over to the hospital lawn so we could wave to Melanie upstairs. I had become so worried that she wouldn't come home again, that I wanted to see her real bad. So we went onto the lawn and looked up to the fourth floor. There, who we saw didn't look like her because she had all this white stuff all over her. I couldn't see her hands or anything. But I knew it was her because Mommy was holding her up to the window. I felt really good to see her because I loved my baby sister.



When Melanie finally came home, I saw the way Mommy and Daddy treated her and I realized that she had to be taken care of carefully. I made sure that she didn't get her bandages dirty, and I played with her and told her stories so she wouldn't feel sad. She acted different when she came home, but I saw her looking at me to cheer her up, so I always did. I have a picture of us from that time: Melanie was dressed up in a white dress with a white dresser scarf over her head like a veil. I had on a bowtie over my striped T-shirt. We had Shultz, our Daschund, with a white bonnet on him and a white dress. We put him in Diane's doll carriage and took a picture of us, all getting ready to get married in our make-believe game. Melanie liked to play those kinds of games with me and I think it made her feel better.



I look back at that picture and remember very fondly, how I protective I was of Melanie. We used to be very close and she needed the help I gave her. I worried for awhile about her dying because Mommy and Daddy would cry about her, especially when they told other people about what had happened to her. But soon she didn't have to wear bandages at all, and she could run around and fall down like kids do without being hurt. Her skin wasn't tender after awhile. I remember this time warmly and have always been so glad Melanie made it through.

View Three

I was 8 and a half when Melanie was burned in the bathtub. It was all my fault, too. I always did what mother told me to do--help John or watch Melanie so she wouldn't get in trouble. I always was helping out, always doing something for someone else. It was my job--I was "Mother's little helper." So when mother was running hot water in the bathtub for our baths, and she asked me to stand in the doorway to keep Melanie from getting near the tub, I was used to doing that kind of thing. I did stand in the hall right outside of the bathroom. But I didn't get what my mother was asking me to do, I guess. I kind of followed her to the doorway of her room because I didn't realize that Melanie would go toward a bathtub with steam rising up off of it.

When Melanie shrieked, I thought she was dying. Mother shoved me aside and rushed into the bathroom, pulling Melanie up out of the water. Then she turned off the faucets. I could see Melanie's eyes shut and she was leaning back against Mother, and she was crying so hard she could hardly breathe. Mother was looking down at her legs that were as red as tomatoes. "Diane! Quick, run and get daddy--hurry!" And so I ran across the lawn to where Daddy was. When I told him that something terrible happened to Melanie and that Mother said to go hom quick, he dropped his tools and ran out of the neighbor's house to our house. The neighbor lady asked me what happened, and I told her that my baby sister had fallen into a bathtub full of very hot water and was probably going to die. She looked horrified. I turned and ran home so I could see what was going on.

The neighbor followed me and said she'd stay with me and John while Mother and Daddy ran out the door with Melanie bundled up in a blanket, off to the hospital. All I could think of was that I had disobeyed my mother and that I would be in terrible trouble when they got home. Especially if Melanie died--boy, I'd be killed. Daddy had really gotten after me and spanked me pretty hard several times before for other things I'd done--that I didn't know were bad things. So there was no telling what he'd do to me when Melanie died.

The neighbor made us supper and I could hardly eat it. All I could think about was that I hadn't done my job, had disobeyed, and now I was very, very bad. Something awful was going to happen to me. I just knew it.

Everyone had always made over Melanie because she was so cute. People would stop on the street and remark to Mother how cute she was. "Such a face, such a face!" an older woman had effused. "What a beautiful girl!" someone else had said. I just stood by, like chopped liver. I wish someone would tell me that I was beautiful, or that I had "such a face." Mother told me that I had a fat tummy, but didn't really tell me much about how I looked. Neither did Daddy, even though I knew he loved me. People even commented about John--his blond-white hair and smiling face. He was really cute. I was just someone who tried very hard to do all the right things so someone would tell me that I was good and pretty and nice. Maybe if I took good care of John and Melanie people would see how responsible I was and that I was good-hearted. But now, since Melanie might die, I thought I was the worst person in the world, both inside and out. The thing was, I was so sick of hearing how cute Melanie was that I had once wished she would die, or that she was never born. Because before she was born I was the only girl and I was special because I was cute and did cute things. Mother used to tell all these stories about what cute things I did. I wanted to be cute and nice. Maybe this is why Melanie had fallen into the hot water--because I'm not nice, I'm not good, and I'm not as cute as she is.

I could hardly think of anything else except of what would happen to me when Mother and Daddy got home. Daddy came home after I had gone to bed. But I wasn't asleep. I heard him come into the house and I wondered if he'd come back to my room and spank me or tell me how terrible I was. But he didn't say anything when he came to my door and looked in at me. I pretended that I was asleep.

The next morning, Daddy told us that Melanie was burned very bad and that she would need to stay in the hospital for a few days. Mother was there with her, so we'd need to go to some friend's house for the day while Daddy was at work. Daddy looked worried, but he didn't look angry at me. Maybe he'd wait until Mother got home and then they'd both yell at me.

The next day, Mother came home and made us a meal before she laid down to sleep in her bed. I knew that it was my job to keep John quiet so she could get a nap. Mother had taught me that if she fainted (she was pregnant and sometimes felt faint), that I was to go get a wet washcloth and put on her head until she woke up. So I had to take care of my mother sometimes, too. I wondered if she'd take me aside and spank me, but she just looked tired and very sad. She laid down on her bed and went to sleep. I thought that if I just kept everything clean and quiet that she wouldn't get angry with me when she woke up. So I straightened my room and tried to clean up the kitchen a little bit. I wanted everything perfect so I would be a good girl, too.

Mother woke up and ran to the bathroom. She was in there for a long time and I could hear her crying. See, it was because of what I had done. But when she came out, she called Daddy at his office and told him that he should come home. He did, and they went into the bedroom and I could hear Mother crying in there while Daddy talked to her. I found out later that the baby that Mother was pregnant with had fallen out into the toilet and died. It made me feel so terrible--now not one, but two deaths would have happened because of me.

A few days later, Daddy took us to the hospital lawn where we looked up at the fourth story window and waved at Melanie. All I could see was a white blur up there. Daddy said that she had bandages all over her and that's why we couldn't see her fingers, or any clothes on her. All she had was bandages. I could see Mother up there, but not much of Melanie. I prayed and prayed for her that night. "God, please don't let her die!" and "I'm so sorry that I said I didn't want my baby sister."

A few days after that, Melanie came home from the hospital. She looked really different and she was real quiet. I couldn't tell if she was glad to be home or what. Mother said that I had to treat her very carefully because her skin could come off and lots of it had come off already. She had these two long places on one hand, between her fingers, where Daddy said the doctor had to cut apart her fingers. Three of them had cooked together. It was sickening to think about.

John and I tried very hard to watch Melanie so she wouldn't fall down, or get her bandages dirty. Mother and Daddy hovered over her and Daddy changed her bandages every day. I watched him talk real sweet to her and put her in the bathtub and pour white gooey stuff over her hands. Then he'd carefully scrub her skin. She never cried, but she looked kind of blank. I thought it might hurt her.

All the while, I kept wondering when Mother and Daddy would take me aside and punish me for what I had done. Life while waiting for the other shoe to drop, can be really interesting. I did it for years after Melanie was burned. I wish someone had told me that it wasn't my fault, but no one ever talked to me about it. I lived with nightmares and fears for a very long time. After awhile, I just got tired of waiting--waiting for someone to notice me; for someone to tell me I was good and pretty; for someone to tell me that I could do special things and that I was a special person; that God had a special work for me to do. I tried to do all the things that I was told and even other things--taking care of Mother and trying to help her in the kitchen and stuff. But no one ever told me any of the things I wanted. So I got angry with Melanie and took it out on her for a long time.

I remember one time when she was going to sit down on a chair and I quickly pulled it out from behind her. She fell on the floor on her bottom and hit her head on the bedpost. I think she fainted or something, because Mother was in the room in a flash, holding Melanie to her and asking me angrily why I did such a thing to my sister. I didn't know. I just knew I was heartsick that no one noticed me and that she got so much of the good things from my parents: attention, love, compliments. If only I could have what she did.

View Two

I think it may been a Friday when an awful thing happened in our family. I was helping the neighbor lady with her plumbing, and Diane, my eldest daughter, came racing in the door screaming that Melanie was dying. She screamed that my wife wanted me to come right away. I dropped my tools and ran across the grass to our duplex and into the house. First off, I heard my wife trying to comfort Melanie, who was wimpering. She was sitting on the toilet, holding Melanie on her lap--holding her very gingerly because her skin looked horrible--translucent, peeling and bubbled up. I could see that she was badly burned. As I looked at her, I was grateful that I had been a medic in the Army and had been taught what to do for burns. Melanie was turning pink and looked like really dazed. My wife kept looking at me with pleading eyes, hoping that I'd know what to do. Well, I did.

Scooping up Melanie, I ran into the kitchen and reached into the refrigerator for the oleo. I was in a real hurry, spreading it all over her burns, just like I had been taught to do. I wrapped Melanie in a towel and rushed to the hospital. Even though I was sick at heart about how terrible Melanie's skin looked, I felt good that I'd been able to help prevent her burns from doing the worst damage possible. As I ran into the Emergency Room, the doctor was there to meet us. As I handed Melanie to him, I gave him a rapid report, just like I would have given the doctors in the Army. I told him that she had been scalded in the bathtub in our home, and that it appeared that she had second degree burns over most of her body. He looked inside the towel and asked what was on her. I was glad that I could tell him how I had administered First Aid just like I had learned to do. The doctor snatched her from me. "You've got to be kidding!" He yelled, as he ran behind the double doors into the ER with Melanie. "That was the very worst thing you could have done!" And he disappeared.

I was so bewildered. I had done exactly how I'd been taught in the Army. Why was this the worst thing I could have done? It didn't make any sense. I had just been humiliated in front of my wife, who looked up to me. My mind was spinning as I sat down next to my wife to wait until we could see Melanie. As I was trying to figure out what I had done wrong, and how to save face with my wife, I could hear Melanie crying and wailing in the distance. It made me almost throw up, I felt so helpless and unable to do anything to help her. Even my efforts hadn't been good enough. It was just like so many other things in my life: I tried to do well and it blew up in my face. If what I had done with the Oleo made Melanie's burns worse, I just didn't know what I'd do.

We sat there for a long time waiting for Melanie to get out of there. I wasn't sure what was happening, but I imagined that all the Oleo that I had put on her had to be scrubbed off. It had to be terribly painful for her because her skin was fragile and tender. When she finally came out, she was bandaged all over, including her chest, arms, hands, legs and feet. She was one big gauzey lump. I felt so guilty and helpless. She looked up at me with big eyes that were frightened and distant. I had let her be hurt. In fact, I had hurt her. I wondered if I could ever make it up to her, or if she would ever trust me again.

I had to run home that night to pick up the older two children and get them to bed. So I kissed my wife goodnight and drove over to the neighbor's home to get Diane and John. They were full of questions about what had happened to Mel and when they could see her. I got them to bed that night but it was hard to sleep. My wife stayed in the hospital. I had to work the next morning, so I got the kids up the next morning in order to get them to some friend's house for the day.
When I got to the hospital my wife looked haggard and bedraggled. She was pretty far along in her pregnancy and I didn't think she could manage the stress of staying with Mel and the worry about whether or not she would survive. One look at her face, and I asked the doctor to order a sleeping pill for her so I could take her home and put her to bed.
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do too. My dear wife went home and miscarried because of the medication that I suggested. I tried not to think about two bad decisions I'd made but I felt terrible. Tears and loss at home, fear about Melanie's survival (I knew that burns over 40% of a toddler's body could be fatal), trying to keep up with my job, and take care of the kids. It was almost too much. And I'd been wrong again.

The next day I took the kids over to some friend's house for the day. They had a farm menagerie of sorts and the kids were thrilled. As I was leaving them off I heard screaming. It was John. There he stood on top of a picnic table with hissing and clucking Tom turkeys closing in on him. His hair was so blond it was almost white and it sparkled in the sun. I think they were entranced by his hair and they followed him across the yard and up onto the picnic table benches, trying to get close to his shining head. I laughed my head off and got him away from the turkeys. He was hysterical.
A few days later, after my wife was well enough to go back to the hospital to be with Mel, I took Diane and John to the hospital lawn. My wife held her up to the window so the other two down below could wave at her. They were thrilled.

I got over to the hospital every day to see Mel. The doctor told me about her singing everywhere, and my wife told me about Scotty hearing her sing in the night. It was beautiful and brought tears to my eyes to think of her singing like that. The doctor allowed Mel to come home early because I knew how to clean her wounds, since I had been an army medic. Taking care of her burns when she got home was one of my best memories of being a father. She trusted me back then, and she would look at me while I talked gently to her, taking off her bandages very carefully. I'd get the Phisohex and a sponge, and slowly lower her into the bathtub to wash off the dead skin from her burns. She'd just look at my face very seriously. She'd never cry, just watch my face and then look down at what I was doing. I think she knew that I was trying to help her and she knew that I was trying not to hurt her. I loved her so much for how much she trusted me...it makes me cry now just to talk about it. I was very faithful with the debridment--so much so that she has almost no scars now--even over her knee where she lost quite a bit of skin. Her fingers had coalesced on one hand--burned together--and looking at her hands now, you'd never know she was burned. I think it was due in part to how carefully I managed her care when she got home. It was such a pleasure to do this for her.

We could have lost her. When she was a pre-teen, she hated showering and bathing. She'd go to bed with dirty feet from running around bare footed and I'd tease her that she had a complex about not wanting to bathe--still turned off from the tub since she was burned in one. She always laughed or rolled her eyes at me.

Those were the best and most frightening of times for me as a father.

We send out ripples

Found here

I never knew that I could irritate and offend someone just because of the color of my skin. But his whole family was turned off with me because I am White. Because I am a native-born American. "You've got to break off with that woman" they told him, emphasizing their disdain as they enunciated, that woman.


I thought I was a good woman since I had worked hard to behave as a respectable person, get an education and live a good life. Besides, he had the exact same skin color as I did. Bewildered and hurt, I asked him what I had done to deserve this. I never received an answer.


The story began in another country. His parents were poverty-stricken, eking out an existence in whatever way they could. They were good people, just very poor. He was the illegitimate son of the man for whom the region was named, and as such, had to pay for the poor judgment of his parents by bearing the scorn of the entire population. He married a very sweet girl who decided that his unusual princely bearing and happy personality would more than make up for the ignominy of his parentage. She worked hard to make a life for the two of them. Often there wasn't enough to eat and she was hungry. Sad to say, she had several miscarriages because she simply wasn't nourished well enough to carry a pregnancy.





Then the American Christians came to their town. They were nice people who taught everyone how to live better lives, and in the process, taught them a new way to think about the God of heaven. They helped her have enough food so she could carry her baby to term. Over the next few years she had a daughter, followed soon thereafter by a son. The missionaries oohed and ahhhed about the babies--cuddling and carrying them about.





After a time the American woman got pregnant and had a baby herself: a little girl that was like an angel, with blond curly hair and the fairest skin the people had ever seen. The village mother went to offer her help for the missionary woman but was turned away by her husband. Maybe he is helping her, she thought. It must be the American way. I'll wait until she needs me.


When the missionary woman was out and about again the village mother again went to offer to care for her baby girl. She was told she could not hold the baby. She could only look at her, dressed in a pristine blue and white pinafore that had been freshly ironed by the maid. "You'll get her dress dirty" she was told. So she washed her hands with soap and water and returned to the missionary's house. There were no reasons given but the woman declined her offer. Wanting to somehow repay this woman for helping her with her own babies, she swallowed her pride. Holding out her hands to show how clean they were, she hoped she would be allowed to give something back. But the American held her baby a little bit closer to her breast and shook her head, no.





This was a loud message about the value of the villagers and about the double standard that operated for the missionaries. They could enter her home, hold her baby, eat her food, but this was not a reciprocal process. She would never be good enough, look fair enough, be clean enough, or do the right things. She simply couldn't enter that world.


This woman and her husband left that village and each worked two jobs in order to support their three children through college. They were poor, but determined to give their children the gift of being important--to be good enough for other people.





When their children were small the father drove the children over to the hospital parking lot. In the visitor's lot were all sorts of beaten up jalopies--rusted fenders, cracked windshields, patchy paint. "Do you want to drive a car like this when you grow up?" the father would ask.


"No Daddy!" was the rejoinder. "Take us to the good cars!" And he would drive them over to the physician parking lot where the clean, new, big cars stood in orderly rows. "Do you want to have a car like this someday?"


"Yes, Daddy!" they'd squeal and laugh.


It should not surprise anyone to learn that all of the children in this family became physicians. Two of them worked in a hospital unit where the missionary's daughter had to take orders from them. One married into wealth and lived in an exclusive area of New York City. But the most ironic pity was that one son married a woman who would not allow his mother to tend to her own grandchild. For some reason, she was just not right, somehow. And once again she was wounded by not being enough for someone else's baby. She died from cancer a short time later, but I am convinced that she died from a broken heart.


As I've reflected on this sad story over the years, I've wished that this family's rejection of me could have somehow paid for the actions of the American missionaries. When I see what has happened in this family because of the attitudes careated by oppression, I am willing to have been rejected several times over if it could have brought healing to them. But neither my rejection, nor all of the positive, good missionaries of the world can reverse the harm that was done. Their story lives on and comes alive every time I see pictures like the one I've posted today.


Our actions send out ripples in all directions.


Some of those ripples can drown people.

View One

It happened on a Friday afternoon. I was pregnant and got tired quickly, but because the house needed cleaning and kids needed to get cleaned, I plugged on with my household tasks. My husband was helping the neighbor next door. The ladies in the upstairs apartment always used up the hot water so I thought it would be a good idea to run a tub full of hot water so that when it was time to bathe the children, it would be there.
These were my thoughts when I started running the water in the bathtub. I made it as hot as it would go because I'd probably let it sit for awhile before I was ready to give baths. The steam rose up out of the tub--it was very, very hot. Looking down, I suddenly realized that I still had on my watch. It would be ruined if I didn't take it off. Getting up and moving toward the door, I told Diane, who was eight years old, to be sure 17-month-old Melanie didn't go near the tub. Melanie was in the livingroom, toddling about in her diaper and rubber pants. Diane moved toward the bathroom door and I walked a few yards across the hall to lay my watch down on my bedroom dresser.
As I laid down my watch, I heard a blood-curdling scream coming from the bathroom. Racing into the steamy bathroom, I saw Melanie in the bathtub, directly under the faucett, water hitting her on the knees and her little hands curled up in front of her. I snatched her out of the water and saw that the skin on her hands and legs looked like cooked onion. "Go get Daddy!" I yelled to Diane, as I turned off the water in the tub and held Melanie to me. She was crying. I didn't know what to do with her except to hold her to me. I knew she was terribly burned. I also felt nauseated looking at her skin. It was starting to come off on my clothes.
My husband, Don, raced into the bathroom and took her into the kitchen. He had been a medic in the army and would know exactly what to do for her. He reached for the Oleo and quickly applied it all over her body. Wrapping her in a blanket, we rushed off to the hospital. The neighbor rushed in the door and herded the children out to her house.

When we got to the hospital, we rushed into the Emergency Department. A doctor immediately came out. He spoke a few words with my husband, snatched Melanie from him and ran into a treatment room behind some double doors. We were not allowed to follow. Don tearfully told me that the doctor had told him that putting Oleo on burns was the worst thing a person could do to burns. He felt just terrible. The doctor was having to wash all that margarine off Melanie's cooked-onion skin. As we sat there we began to hear her moan and cry in the other room: foreign sounding, unearthly wails. It was the most horrible experience I have ever had: to know she was in pain and be unable to comfort her or do anything about it. Don and I clung to each other, waiting, helpless. I told him what had happened and we felt just awful that this had happened.

When we were finally able to see her, Melanie was swathed in bandages over her whole body from the neck down. There was an opening in the bandages so she could go to the bathroom. She looked dazed and didn't really make eye contact with us. I talked to her and she hardly responded. The doctor said she had second degree burns over a large percentage of her body--I don't remember how much. He was very concerned about her so I knew it was serious. Don was devastated. But we decided that I'd stay the night in the hospital so Melanie wouldn't be as frightened. Don would pick up the two older children and go home.

I didn't sleep much that night. I was worried sick and didn't know what to do for Melanie. I tried to talk to her and entertain her, but she had withdrawn and wouldn't engage with me. She seemed dazed. Just dazed. She was in a crib with bars over the top so she couldn't climb out. But that would have been impossible because she couldn't really move with all those bandages on her. I couldn't get comfortable in the chair I had to sleep in. Being pregnant made it all the more difficult and I was exhausted by the next morning.

Don came the next day after he dropped the children off at a church member's house. Melanie looked a little bit better, but I was still very upset about her. Seeing how tired I was, Don asked the doctor to please give me some medication to help me sleep. I took a pill called Darvon or Darvocett or some sleeping pill that started with a D, once I got home. I slept quite well that day. But I was still quite upset when I got up. Actually, I felt kind of crampy when I woke up. When I went into the bathroom, I miscarried. It must have been the pill the doctor gave me.
I really wanted to have that baby and was terribly distraught, particularly when I could be losing my other baby, too.

When I went back to the hospital to see Melanie, she was awake and looking around. The doctor came through to take her down to have the dead skin removed, which was done daily in a huge tank of water, and he told me that Melanie sang during the whole procedure. Her little face would screw up and she'd look like she wanted to cry, but she'd sing:

When He cometh,

When He cometh

to take up His jewels.

All His jewels, Precious jewels,

His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning,

His bright crown adorning;

They shall shine in their beauty,

Bright gems for His crown.

I was so proud to know that Melanie was such a good girl. The doctor was impressed with her and I could tell that He admired our family and how we've raised our children. We taught the children to sing when our family worshipped together every weekend. Maybe I had done something right with my children. I didn't know how to be a parent because my own parents were not exactly the model of care for us and I grew up without getting the emotional things I needed. So how to run a household, attend to my children's emotional and physical needs, and not know how it should look, has always been a challenge for me.

Melanie looked exhausted and ashen when she got back from her treatment, but she had new bandages on and at least she was making eye contact with me. It wasn't long before she was singing her song for me, too. I was thrilled and so proud of her.

Melanie sang for the nurses and doctors, and I'd sing with her while she lay in her hospital crib. She started being more responsive, although she acted really dazed and withdrawn. I hoped that she would snap out of it soon.

One day, the pastor came to visit us and Melanie stood up in her crib and sang her song for him. He left with tears in his eyes. A little bit later he came back to see us with some surprising news. Scotty, a man who had once attended our church, was a patient across the hall from Melanie's room. Scotty had quit going to church because he had become embittered about something or another. People knew him to be an opinionated, miserable man. The pastor told us that Scotty had been admitted to the pediatric unit a couple nights earlier after an emergency hernia operation. No other beds had been available in the hospital, much to his disgust. But several times in the night he would hear Melanie singing. Her sweet little voice in the darkness of the night broke through the bitterness of his heart. When the pastor had visited him out of a sense of duty that morning, Scotty told him all about hearing Melanie singing at 2:00 in the morning, and how this had affected him. As he lay in his bed, he considered that he needed God in his life once again. He had reconsecrated himself to God. The pastor was teary as he told me this. I thought of the verse in Psalm 8: "Out of the mouth of babes He hath ordained strength."

I wondered if this event signaled something bigger, more important for Melanie's little life. Maybe she would be a singer when she grew up. Maybe God would use her for something important. She was getting better and could come home soon. I was thrilled that she would be okay.

And so I took my little baby girl home several days later. John, who was 5 years old, became very protective of his baby sister, always watching her and playing with her. He knew that she had nearly died and wanted to take care of her. They were very cute together. Melanie remained dazed and withdrawn for about six months. I just hoped that it would go away soon. And it did, eventually.

It seems that this all could have happened for a higher purpose: Scotty was given the opportunity to rededicate himself to God. And God had shown me that Melanie had been spared because God would do something important in her life.

I am so fortunate.

Both and.

Picture found here

James and Sarah (not their real names) sought therapy for their constant arguments. Sarah was always angry with James for not seeing things the way she did, and belittled him when he didn't relate events according to her version of what had happened. Or else she constantly prompted him, as though he were a small child: "Now, what was it that I did next, James?" "What did you say when I turned to go that day? ...no, you know what you did. Tell Barbara what you did." If I had been James, I would have wanted to wring her neck, listening to the nagging, sing-song tone of her voice.
What did James do? He seemed to be truly baffled by Sarah's perspective on life and life events. Something that to him seemed cut and dried, was for her wraught with all sorts of meanings that he'd never come up with. Even if he lay in bed awake all night thinking, he would never come up with her interpretations of things. So James withdrew and spent lots of time working out in the yard or garage, just to get away from her. He also said insensitive things to her which he deep down knew weren't the best things to say, mostly to try to counter her stories of how he had failed. He couldn't articulate what was wrong. But insist that he think the way Sarah did and he'd become furious. James saw life in a very straightforward way and it maddened him that Sarah read so much into everything.

It took a few sessions before they were able to hear that both their perspectives on life were valid. There was not one absolute truth about what had happened, or what something meant because there would almost always be at least two versions of meaning to be had. James was a no-nonsense person. Sarah was a bleeding heart who resonated with emotive aspects of events, not factual, face value type interpretations. She found the most meaning in trying to talk through things, while James withdrew to try to understand what was happening before he committed himself to an interpretation.

So there they sat on at different ends of my therapy couch, furious with each other, holding on to their respective bundles of meanings, interpretations, characteristics, family of origin issues, and list of stories to prove the validity of their perspective being the correct, absolute Truth.

Have you ever been around a group of family members and in listening, realize that each individual viewed a family event in vastly different ways? I have. I do it for a living. I am also from a family whose diverse stories about certain issues are so different as to make us appear to be unrelated. While there may be common threads in all of our stories, each individual's story arises from a unique position in the family, personality, psychological traits, beliefs, and experiences. What is blue to one person is orange to another. What was hurtful to one, went right over the head of a different person. Portentious events for one was not even on the radar screen of someone else. This is how it is in families.
This is why, when performing therapy for couples, it is important to ask about the different meanings of events that are taken for granted. For example, when involved in sex therapy, I always ask about what sexual contact means to each individual. Couples are usually shocked to be asked this question, as each thinks the other finds the same meaning as they do in their intimate activities. However, they are sometimes even more shocked to find that what to one is purely recreational, is a deeply spiritual existential exchange to their partner. Must they have the same interpretation and meaning in order to enjoy one another, or to truly be unified? No. In fact, I don't think that meanings for sex is the same in couples as often as most people think.

But back to my point. We all view things so differently. In the coming several days, I would like to outline six different perspectives on one family event. I think this may help elucidate the idea that there is truly no one interpretation or meaning for everyone. It's not possible.

Just as was true for James and Sarah, both are correct, and there are probably many more meanings that could be equally valid. An accurate view of life cannot be obtained through a monacle. Life is what is seen through both lenses in a pair of glasses, and there are other views beside what is seen through the glasses. All are valid and all have meaning. You will see what I mean, I think, over the next few posts.

My old high school

It was a terrific Alumni Weekend. Seeing my old friend, Alan, was worth the trip there. But more importantly, it was a healing, wonderful time in many ways.

I'm standing before my old high school.

It's been 10 yrs since I touched the door.

But to heal the old pain we must face it again

so I'll walk down that hallway once more.

I have come to this 10 yr reunion

for my heart is still pris'ner of war.

'n if I find it's alright we're escaping tonight.

That's what I came back here for.

Won't you please waltz with me?

I feel like I'm just like I used to be

my heart is locked up here so quietly

believing that you hold the key.

Won't you please waltz me free?

The turns of our steps are untangling me,

free from some dragged around memory

and the rusty old remnants of fear.

And after 10 years,

I'm melting the shackles with tears.

I'm as nervous as if its still high school.

You're happily married I know.

But it's not just this dance that I'm asking you for.

I'm asking you ten years ago.

Remember I wrote in your yearbook?

Could you please waste some time on me?

There's just a few things I must tell you,

but that's as brave as I could be.

Won't you please waltz with me?

I feel like I'm just like I used to be

my heart is locked up here so quietly

believing that you hold the key.

Won't you please waltz me free?

The turns of our steps are untangling me,

free from some dragged around memory

and the rusty old remnants of fear.

And after 10 years,

I'm melting the shackles with tears.

David Wilcox

Hail Alma Mater!

On the campus of Columbia University

I am leaving tonight for the East Coast to attend my 30th high school reunion. I have never attended one since I graduated in 1977, mostly because those years were so difficult. After reading the last series of posts it may be clear why that was. But now I am looking forward to going back and seeing what has become of my classmates. Ironically, I'm giving an hour-long afternoon concert during the weekend festivities. It will be very different than I would have given 30 years ago!

My recently widowed mother is traveling back with me for a two-week stay, so blogging will probably be scanty over the next three weeks. I will be back after the 22nd.

Come back in a couple weeks!

Prisoners all

The previous several posts relate to growing up gifted and what life was like for me. It is the abridged version because there is much more to be said that is not appropriate in this venue. One can see however, how formative an experience it has been.

But this is only one of many story lines about my growing up years. There are more. It is not the only version of what it was to be a young person. Other narratives could be written about growing up in a family that camped and did outdoor activities, or about being in a family without divorce. Entire story lines could be developed about being the third-born in my family, or what has happened religiously to the family as a whole as well as individually. I would guess that previous posts do not belie this strand of my story and that was by design.
The story about being gifted is only one very thin thread of the whole story. Were I to dwell in that story all the time, life would feel as though I were standing at the edge of an open grave: missed opportunities, misunderstandings, confusion, great joy that I don't experience now, etc. But there is much more in life than this one story line, as powerful as it may have been.

It has been said that people can become prisoners of their stories. Nothing makes more sense to me than this, as I have been a prisoner of of several stories for certain periods of time. Have you ever met someone who has a story and is quick to tell you that story, adding detail to detail so you get the full impact? That person is probably trapped in their story. The "party line" becomes the structure for their present and future. Everything is typically either blamed on their story, or tied to their story in some way: "My parents didn't love me enough." "I was abused as a child." "Religion was forced down my throat." "My father was absent." Some people weave their present into their past in such a way that it seems as though the same dynamic is happening now, even though they may be 60 years old.

We often hear our elderly tell stories about their lives. If you listen carefully, you can hear the story in what they say. Perhaps they grew up in the Depression, struggling to survive. Maybe their entire story is one of survival and all of their stories of childhood contain this as a key ingredient. You will probably find that their comments about their present life are full of survival references, too.

One of many things therapists listen for is the story. Some people are prisoners of one story but they don't know it. They hold on to the details and relate them to anyone who will hear because those details are integral to their own identity. If they do not have their story, they do not seem to feel like a self. Their friends know their story and can quote it almost word for word because they've heard it so many times. This story is often told as a way to join with other people--if you know what has happened to me, you will understand me. But after so many references to that formative story, people's eyes can glaze over as they think, here it comes again, and they hear the bitter tone of voice as their friend explains their dilemma yet again.
People like this only remember facts from the past that supports their story. They do not look back and recall other events that supports alternative stories of their life, or that tells stories of exceptions to the party line story. They are all about their story and they hold tenaciously to it because if they do not have their story, they do not have a self. I know people who are frozen in time, prisoners of old stories. I felt this way for many years about my singing. But from my vantage point now, I see that it was just one version of my experience, not the entire summation of who I am or how I feel about anything.

Therapists help people develop alternative stories by rounding out the story by exploring other realities that were present during the time that formative story took place. When the story is very negative and painful, it is important to set the painful events in the context of what was going right at the time, or what positive experiences one had in other arenas of life. For example, as a child I was never afraid to go to bed at night for fear that I would be molested. I never had to worry that my father would strike my mother. Although we didn't have much money, we had enough to eat. We made all sorts of gifts for one another at Christmas, so that to this day, I really treasure handmade gifts. I had a degree of freedom living in the country that few of my friends had in town. I felt loved and cherished as a small child, and have many happy memories of family activities. Even though the singing issue strained my relationship with my parents for years, I worked through it and moved on in my relationship to them. I understand my parents and their good intentions for my life.

Do you have a story? Are you trapped or defined by it? Your story can contribute to your self-knowledge or it can squelch self-development and keep you ruminating on what happened or what should have been. If you read stories of the holocaust survivors, you will find that those who survived well were ones who had alternative stories of what was happening other than simply the fact that they were incarcerated, trapped, and helpless. You will read about friends, group meetings, their observations of what was happening socially or relationally in the camp, or even their observations of nature: sky, forest, grass. Viktor Frankl was such a person, the father of logotherapy--an existential approach to finding meaning in one's lot in life. His theory was developed by observing others in the camps.

There are those who hold their story close to their heart, and those who step back and find many story lines; those whose stories make our blood run cold and those whose stories warm us. There is room for more than the party line about who we are and how we got this way. Our lives are really like a diamond with many facets. The more facets a diamond has, the more it sparkles. So with our life stories.