Make a Promise - Pass it Forward

Twelve hours before Brenda died she called to tell me she was in Heaven.

“You’re there now?” I asked, slightly distracted with scissors in one hand, tape in the other. I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder thinking I’d continue to wrap Christmas presents while we bantered about the gorgeous male nurses who administered chemo in Colorado Springs Medical Center. The young men were a favorite subject for Brenda and the tales she weaved were hysterical. A weak, throaty laugh echoed through the phone, “I do believe I am.”

The words, although breathless, hung in the air like a solemn, heavy mist. I dropped the wrapping paraphernalia, held the phone tight against my ear and walked outside to our deck. For just a moment, I tilted my head and looked into the cloudless aqua blue sky – a mirrored reflection of the water – expecting to see my dear friend waving. “Hey…” I began, stumbling over my thoughts, “everything okay today?”

“Picture this,” she began, “I’m tucked into an over-sized arm chair by a big picture window watching fat white snowflakes silently fall from the sky. Next to me is a fire blazing in a huge stone fireplace and I’m holding a steaming mug of that jasmine tea you sent me and…” she paused, took a short breath, “I’m surrounded by books and books and books.”

“Oh, it really is heaven, Bren,” I closed my eyes against the wheezy softness of her voice. Just last week her voice had been robust and full of laughter. The tropical paradise before me disappeared and I imagined I was right there with her.

“I’m choosing books for my kids,” she sighed, “well…the proprietor is choosing books; I’m just describing the children. I can’t seem to find my strength today. But I called… I called now because I need to ask you to promise…” The words faded between us.

Brenda’s kids were not actually her kids. Rather, they were her friends’ kids, at last count --18 in all -- including mine, from ages 2 to 17. Each year at Christmas and on respective birthdays, each child would receive an age appropriate, award-winning book with Brenda’s personalized inscription. It was in my kitchen that she’d thought up this tradition. “Books,” she beamed, “are the doorways to the world!” I could picture her, eight years earlier, her smile lighting the room. Now, the enormity of her courage - laced with Chemo, fighting cancer, yet still concerned about her kids - it bruised my soul.
I cleared the sob from my throat, “Brenda, whatever favor you need, consider it done.”

“Lynn, I can’t tell you what the favor is just now. There are too many parts, but I’ll have Michael send it to you in an email.”

“Okay…” I could hear the whine in my voice and willed it away, “but how will I know what….”

“You’ll know,” she interrupted, a slip in comportment so foreign for Brenda that it stunned me.

A fear of imminent loss closed around me like a dark tunnel blocking the sun. I wanted to fight with her, chase the seriousness from her voice and words. Hadn’t we talked endless hours over the last eight months about her strength, her will to live, her young age of 60 and the importance, or lack thereof, of breasts? What about the pros and cons of shopping for new breasts and the fun she’d have interviewing men on the perfect size and shape? Our weekly phone conversations always included the future, her pending visit to our home on Sunset Beach in Oahu as soon as she had the strength to travel. I wanted to scream at her, “Buy the ticket now, Brenda!” but the words stuck in my throat.

“Hey beach broad… you there?” This was her new tag name for me and hearing the wheezy voice attempt humor made me laugh.

“I’m here. I’m here… just rolling over to tan the other side,” I choked out, “So… what are you reading?” This was always the absolute second question of every conversation.

“Reading?” she sighed audibly, “Everything I possibly can.” A long, silent pause filled the phone line and seemed to stop the breeze. “I have to go now,” she continued, breathless, with just a slight laugh that felt like a kiss against my ear, “I’m on someone else’s phone, and the angels are restless. Plus,” she coughed, “God invited me to dinner and I have to decide what I’m going to wear.”

“Funny. Sticking with the theme of the day, I see. I love you, Bren. Hey…I’ll call you tomorrow morning… see how that dinner date went.”

“Yeah,” she laughed, sweet, full, hearty; the sound of Brenda, “Love you too.”

I held the phone close to my chest and let the dial tone drone into a maddening beep. Even then, I was reluctant to disconnect, to give in to the sense that I would never speak with my lovely friend again. Instead, I sat down on the steps with my memories.

On the day we met, I was busy corralling and cajoling four young children and a baby at a fast-food restaurant. Brenda was at the table next to us reading Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays. The fourth or fifth time I apologized for the noise level, Brenda got up from her table and sat down with us. She spoke very quietly until one by one; each child – even the baby – stopped chattering, and sat captivated as she recited a Hans Christian Anderson story.

Days later our home became her second home and she visited often at odd hours. We talked books, analyzed the work of the masters, laughed over love scenes. Her weakness was a good romance novel, but she grew serious when she talked about the importance of children knowing the magic of sitting still with a story and letting their imaginations soar. She loved all of our children, but paid special attention to our foster kids and spent endless hours engaging them in conversations about books or organizing special reading days where she would sit with them in a circle and read with all the gusto of a skilled actress. When those children left our home, Brenda made sure each of them had their very own book to take on their journeys.

We were unlikely friends, Brenda and I. I was a military wife, a young mother, a struggling author, full of creative energy and love and not much else. Brenda was fifteen years my senior, held a PhD in Philosophy and Education and Masters’ Degrees in Computer Technology, Theology and Mathematics. She was also the mother of a grown son and the widow of a military man who took his own life.

I was fascinated with Brenda, but I often felt inadequate as a friend. In quiet moments, usually over wine, I would allude to our differences. What did she see in me? The first time I broached the subject she waved her hand through the air and referred to her varied degrees as an addictive hobby. She was philosophical with the sorrow aspect, stating simply that our lives are preplanned and this was her lot. After that one speech, the subject was off limits. “Pointless,” she would say, and then she stared at me, straight on, with serious, thoughtful eyes and asked me what book I was reading.
This was our glue then and now: books, words, and children.

I sat on the porch step until the orange ball of sun set and the ocean glittered into the night.
When the phone rang at 4:00 AM the next morning, Michael, Brenda’s son, apologized for the early hour and went on to explain that his mother insisted I be the first one he called. Through my tears, I told him how sorry I was and asked if he needed anything, but the conversation was blurry and surreal. Just before he hung up he said, “Check your email.”

This is what it said:
My dearest friend, the promise I asked of you has to do with the long document attached to this email. Here it is: please continue sending books to my kids. I’ve written a little something for each year, for each child, with all the pertinent birth date information and addresses, but please find more children to add each year. Everyone at age 18 or upon graduation from high school should receive Dr. Seuss’, “Oh! The Places You Will Go!” Thank you, forever.
P.S. my dinner date was heavenly. God says hi. All my love, Bren.

Most of the original kids are grown now, but I continue to keep my promise and send books to a growing special list of children each year.

In loving memory, pass it forward.

by Lynnette Bukowski
© 2000

The Color of Courage

The Color of Courage
by Lynnette Bukowski 
© 2010

This is what it feels like to watch someone I love fall out of the sky:  I tilt my head back, shield my eyes from sunglow, and watch tiny specks drop from a plane so high, I cannot actually see it in the cerulean blue sky.  I only hear a distant drone.  Big Red, our 120 pound Golden Retriever, begins to pace around my legs in a tight circle.  The behavior is so unusual for this markedly obedient dog that I sense something’s off, but I keep my eyes skyward, fascinated now by a long, colorful cloth spiraling up from one of the floating dots. The silk flaps around like a rag doll, whips at the sky, but doesn’t catch the wind.  Red stops pacing and emits a long, fretful sound somewhere between a moan and a bark. The Platoon Chief beside me angles his binoculars just so and shouts “Buk!” my husband’s nickname. 

My throat closes, my breath stops and the chatter around me turns heavy and distorted.  I lock my knees because standing seems impossible and blessedly, Red is solid against my left side.  I lean into him.  The spiraling cloth crumbles away and it is agonizing moments before a small chute mushrooms out, catches the wind and snaps dangling legs to attention.  Still, Steve is dropping far too fast. I do not even have time to make an entire “deal” with God before Red bolts from my side and runs flat out toward the drop zone.  This is against all rules and some small part of my brain thinks of calling him back, but I don’t.  Instead, I watch, as if in slow motion, Red skids sideways into two black boots a microsecond before they hit ground.  Legs fold like a dance movement and two bodies (large dog and man) drop into a long controlled roll, tumbling over and over before they both pop upright, tangled in line and parachute. I glimpse Steve hunched over, hands on his knees with Red beside him, panting.  The men around me cheer, curse, run.  I drop to my knees, then to all fours as the air leaves my lungs and the world turns black. 

This is where they find me.  I half-wake to a mixture of dust and dog breath.  Red laps his long wet tongue up the middle of my face.  From a distance I hear, “Happy Anniversary, honey.”  Both Steve and Red are smiling (I’m sure) as though this impromptu anniversary gift, indeed, the world tilting on its edge, is hysterical. 

That was my third anniversary gift and to this day – nearly 31 years later - I’m sure Big Red saved my husband’s life that day.  Of course, the law of physics might not support my certainty, but believe me, it was just the beginning of this courageous dog’s gift.

We adopted Big Red shortly after our first son was born.  Every kid needs a dog and we fell in love with his sparkling brown eyes and deep red coat of fur.  We were told Red was bred to win top prizes in dog shows. But his head was too big according to some ridiculous rule, and at just over a year old, he was dumped with a Retriever Rescue Group.  None of us – the rescue group – or our naïve young family – realized the extent of Red’s training until years later, but looking back, it was glaringly obvious.

From the first night in our home, Red adopted our baby son.  He politely watched me place his new dog bed in a corner of the kitchen and after a quick drink, curled up and lay down.  He watched as we ate dinner, during baby bath-time and story reading, but as we tucked our little one into his crib, Red left the room and returned dragging his dog bed by his mouth.  He carefully placed it at the end of the crib and Red’s bed (or new versions of it) remained in that spot through 16 babies (two homemade, 1 adopted and 13 foster babies) and seven different homes across the country.  On his own, Red taught each of our children how to walk him before they were big enough to see over his back.  No kidding, he would retrieve his leash from a basket and heal to their little steps around the back yard.  

With an uncanny sense, Red always knew to be gentle with children and outright frightening to unwelcome strangers.  Often, when Steve was deployed, I would watch Red’s reaction before opening the front door to someone unknown.  He was right one hundred percent of the time.  

On one occasion, I was distracted and opened the door to our foster daughter’s new boyfriend.   Before I had a chance to say hello, Red sped past me, jumped at the boy and had his jaw locked around the young man’s right arm, then twisted until the kid fell to his knees, screaming.  I froze in horror for a brief moment – until I saw the weapon – and then, with far more bravado then I felt, I lifted the gun out of his useless hand and called the police.  Red held the boy down the entire time, and released only when the police arrived.

But the most memorable save happened during Red’s last year of life.  Our youngest son was only an infant and barely two month’s old – attached 24 hours a day to a heart and apnea monitor, which alerted with loud beeps when his heart or breathing stopped.  Most of the time, the alerts would require only minimal stimulation for Aaron to respond and the family (including Red) was well used to the sound.  In 1991, Red suffered from arthritis and was partially blind, so he stayed on his bed a good portion of each day.  That particular day, during naptime, I decided to vacuum and was nearly done with the upstairs when Red ran from the bedroom and grabbed my hand with his jaw. He growled and whined and pulled and the instant I turned off the vacuum I heard the alarm of Aaron’s monitor.  Aaron was nearly blue and I had to administer CPR and simultaneously phone for help.  Red stayed by my side the entire time.  Aaron is now a 20 year old, 6’3” handsome young man.  Red passed away 11 months later, one week after Aaron outgrew his heart and apnea monitors. I think he planned it that way. 

P.S.  I know Big Red and Steve are having the time of their lives in Heaven with tennis balls and parachutes made of spun gold… and chocolate ice cream cones they no doubt share.  They will both live on in me and with me forever. Such Grace.

Rainy Morning Letters #495

Rainy Morning Letters - #495

It is the perfect morning to lie in bed and cuddle with the memory of you.  Through the window glass the trees shush, their leaves yielding to clear drops, one after the other, sometimes two together, as though you are watering my heart from your Heaven.

The roof dulls the sound for a moment until it spatters over the eaves and creates blistering drops on the deck, like sizzling bacon.  I think: bacon and three fried eggs and a sliced tomato.  A lazy weekend morning and I serve you one of the few gifts you would accept from me.

At this moment – right now – I feel your solid chest against my back, your right forearm and calloused hand resting on my hip, your knee pushing gently against the back of my thighs.  You are right here.  If I turned, I could lay my head against your shoulder, push my face into your smooth neck and know.  The knowing of nothingness and everything.

My eyes squeeze shut at the ache of pure sadness.  The missing your physical presence makes the windows shudder with a stomping rush of falling rain.  Is this your universal answer to my tears? You were never this dramatic on Earth.

You whisper: Get up and write this down.  I stretch against your memory like a waking child. I say: don’t tell me what to do.

If you were here to make me coffee I would hear the sound of six level scoops.  Water pouring – like this morning rain. The aroma of your love for me would seep into the bedroom like a stealth warrior. 

I get up, wander into the kitchen and put six rounded scoops and one-half more, which I know would cause a morning spat.  Why do I so blatantly break the making coffee rules?  Because I like the way our spats end: You grab my hips and spin me into a bear hug and ardent kiss that even now - in the memory of it - leaves me breathless.

Still – probably surrounded by a Platoon of spirits - with each cup of coffee you pour - you add cream, a teaspoon of sugar and while you stir, you grumble to the cup, I can’t believe she is still such a rebel. They all chuckle.  I can hear you, you know, as though the words form a red neon ticker tape of commentary circling the tongue and groove pine of the kitchen ceiling. 

I ask God: Do spirits laugh?  And I have this vision of you sitting around with God and Buddha, a few Mystics and all the Team guys who have so recently passed over.  You are all telling stories, animated hand gestures and colorful language and the laughter is so huge it sounds like thunder rumbling through the trees. 

The passion with which we lived still resonates.  My ego starts to dream up God deals.

I’m sipping coffee laced with licorice tea.  I know… the oddity of me.  And I begin:

Dear God, today is the 495^th day of this infinite deployment and really, I need him back now.  Here’s the deal….

God sighs… the infinite loving sigh.   No Deal.  He says this in capital letters.  And like I’m watching a You-Tube short I’m given a glimpse of you - vital and healthy, slipping through narrow gates, holding infants, holding moons, philosophizing with Emerson and St. Francis, building lavish parks, bending to take a toddler’s hand, telling sea stories with your Team mates, trimming your mustache, building houses, studying in a library that is endless and everything.   You are full of Joy.

When you stand, turn, and stare at me, through me, hands on hips, blue-green blazing eyes near maximum intensity I can hardly breathe through the realness:  I’m writing again, I say. The answer to the question you have not asked. 

About damn time.  You think it.  I feel your thought and see it glisten through you just as the sun peaks through the cloud.  It’s your rare, reserved smile spilling over me.  I laugh aloud because even in Heaven you’re a smart ass. 

It’s all about the Love… I hear you say, standing at the stove stirring your beef bourguignon and reminding me each time I walk into the room that it’s all about the love.  I wonder if you even had an inkling then of the absolute greatness of that simple lesson? 

You wait patiently then – so unlike you - until my soul fills with a boundless blue love.  The rain begins again and it is here in this moment I feel your energy leave me – for now - standing in the perfect memory of you.

 

Memo from the Department of Just Showing Up

Memo from the Department of Just Showing Up

By Lynnette Bukowski © 2011

How is it that I find myself at 3:30 in the morning on my back porch with an old box of matches?  I ask this aloud to Spike.  He does not answer.  Instead, paw on my leg, tennis ball in his mouth, his brown eyes look up at me, hopeful.  The print is faded, but I can make out “Subic Bay Christian Serviceman’s Center” and on some dare to the full moon, I slip out one match, strike it, and marvel at the spark and fire, the sharp, pungent smell of thirty-three-year-old sulfur.  Spike is not impressed with this magic.  Still, my spontaneous grin ignites a full body wag and thumping tail and I cannot help but throw a high curveball into the moonlight and watch as he ducks under the fence and chases across the pasture. 

Surely, it is no accident that on this particular night I woke up to rummage through a drawer for warm socks and came up with a memory so potent that time slips away in decades, like a golden liquid it seems to drip from the palm of my hand.  I am so entranced that when my captive audience of one returns triumphant - ball in mouth – I cannot help but tell him the story.

In 1976 I lived in Coronado, California with my parents in a high-rise condominium overlooking the Pacific Ocean.   I attended college and worked as lead vocal in Whitefeather, a top-forty, all-girl band.  We played military base clubs and private parties four nights a week and I was rarely home before 3:00 AM.  It began in October that year, each morning at dawn – with only two hours of sleep – I woke to a crude, slightly entertaining mantra emanating from a group of men dressed in blue and gold t-shirts, tight tan shorts and combat boots.  They ran in formation down the beach, chanting their cadence, replete with original and rudimentary rhyme that echoed up six floors and into my head.  Most of the time I was intrigued, but after one particular week of very little sleep and finals looming, I leaned my head out of my open window and issued a stream of oaths.  Without breaking stride, every single man waved at me in unison, mocking my sunrise angst.  Thus became our morning ritual. 

A neighbor educated me about these supercilious behemoths.  All were trainees or instructors at BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition School), a brutal 6 month training course for specialized commandos known as Navy SEALs.  It was several weeks before I had my first close-encounter. During a private gig, and mid-way through my rendition of Moondance, the most ridiculously handsome, arrogant man I will ever meet, walked right up onto my stage and asked me to dance.  We spent the next year in heated debates disguised as dates.  During one such date he dared me to marry him.  I accepted the dare. 

Years later, when he arrived from a mission just moments before I gave birth to our daughter, I yelled at him about his lousy timing and party-crashing habits.  He laughed, kissed me square on my panting lips and said, “I didn’t crash your party, I simply showed up to the rest of my life.”  The sweetness of that moment may have been lost to labor pain, but I digress…

In October 1978, Steve and I were married at 10:00 o’clock at night at the Christian Serviceman’s Center in Subic Bay, Olongapoe, Philippines during a monsoon.  Picture this: me in red Candie high heels, (I had them in every color) climbing alone into the back of an open Jeepney (a Filipino taxi) in rain and wind that sliced the sky open. When I arrived, the electricity was out but Steve was there, along with Sixteen Navy SEALs (slightly intoxicated), a Navy Chaplain who stood wearily between our friends – the other crazy couple of the PI.  I stood at the entrance, charmed by the glow of the votive candles they held.  In unison, they began their own off key version of the wedding march. The room smelled of matchstick sulfur, wet clothes and grain alcohol, but I was delighted by their goofy smiles and I think I laughed aloud as I sloshed my way down the aisle with mud spattered up to my knees and rain dripping from the hem of my cotton dress.  Steve smiled that cocky, edgy smile, leaned in close and whispered, “See, all you had to do was show up.” 

Exactly six hours later Steve and his platoon left for a three-week excursion.  Middle of the night exits and unannounced returns became the rhythm of our existence.  During our first year of marriage, we spent exactly 98 days together, no more than 15 consecutive days at a time. I found it fascinating to drill him on details about his trips and quickly learned that even my best methods of persuasion only worked for short clipped versions of his days (so to speak) at the office.  Eventually, we found other things to talk about. Every two to three years from 1978 on we moved across the street, the country or the world.  We lived in seven different states and four different countries.  I learned to enjoy change and introducing our children to new cultures, mores and languages.  

 Independence, while slightly force-fed, taught me how to run our family on my own for months on end.  Then Steve would show up on the doorstep and we would begin again the next adventure.

This is no sad story, I tell Spike.  He lifts his head, having long since curled himself around my bare feet, and looks at the small box in the palm of my hand. It is not a treat or ball and his obvious disappointment makes me laugh through my tears. Death is nothing at all.  Even now – fifteen months after Steve’s passing from this earth – he is urging me on to show up to life without him. This, I announce aloud, is beyond measure, a legacy much larger than our little universe of dog and odd woman in the wee hours of dawn.  This ancient little box of matches is a gift full of brilliant love and serendipitous moments.  

Steve was right. Life is not complicated.  Rather, it is a sequence of surprises, both excruciatingly painful and full of glorious adventure mixed and stirred up in moments. We mere mortals too often obscure the steps and miss the moments, when all we really need to do is just show up.

Lynnette Bukowski is the proud widow of a 32 year veteran Navy SEAL, Master Chief Steve S. Bukowski. She continues to show up to life each day as a freelance writer and artist and is always available to correspond with military widows and families of our fallen warriors at bukszoo1@embarqmail.com.

Bucket

Author's Note - Finding My Strength

            I discovered the magnitude of silence and inspiration of solitude at the top of a large outcropping of boulders known as Rim of the World.  By the time I was eight years old I had memorized the natural ridges and curves where I placed my feet and hands just so, a single move at a time, until I reached the very top.  It was there that I learned to share and to appreciate the miracle of God, because until I could sit still and watch the trees bend in the wind and allow my dreams and ideas to culminate, God was just a man in a book.  Eventually, I understood that this gift of force and grace remained in my heart.  As a young woman, I learned to rock climb and billet with my husband.  Much later we shared the lessons and experience with our children in Arizona, Hawaii, Italy, Switzerland and Germany.  Upon reaching the peak of each climb and during many of my life’s summits, I’ve returned mentally to my place of solace and found strength.

Bucket

Lynnette Bukowski © 2011

           

This is the story of Bucket, a three-legged, huffy little dog with blue eyes, shaggy white fur and silly brown speckles.  But I can’t tell the story of Bucket without telling the story of Kyle, his beloved imperfect boy.

Kyle was seven when he became our official tag-a-long.  Danny, my best friend, and I knew Kyle was sick with leukemia – but to us, Kyle was simply Danny’s little brother.  He was small for his age, and his left leg was much shorter than his right, but his most entertaining features were the freckles on his ears that looked like connect-the-dots, and his full head of red hair, with a dollop that stuck straight up from the crown of his head. 

On Monday, the first day of Easter week, Danny and Kyle’s Mother announced that Kyle could come along with us on one of our adventures.  Danny beamed, as though he’d been entrusted with a precious treasure.  We were only nine, but when Kyle’s face lit up and he hobbled off to get his shoes, it made everyone in the room get goofy smiles and their Mom’s eyes sparkle like glitter.

            Still, in the 1960’s the seriousness of life lasted only until the next opportunity to play and of course, because Kyle was Kyle, we treated him like any little brother long before this milestone day. We called him “runt”, “slow-poke” and “Opie” with the love and affection that only a brother and his tom-girl best friend could show. He’d laugh it off, stick like glue and never give up. Secretly we were pleased because Kyle was special and perhaps some of that special would rub off on us.  Plus, we were fascinated by a kid who was smarter than all of the encyclopedias in the school library, and he didn’t even attend school!

We hiked to our favorite adventure spot in the woods; a small meadow surrounded by pine trees and vacant cabins. We had just started to gather wood for our “fort” when Kyle dropped his handful of sticks. “Do you hear it?” he asked, “Something’s afraid – a tiny cry that goes up at the end like a squeaky sigh?”

            Danny and I laughed.  Kyle loved to tell stories and this day, bright blue and warm, was no different from the rest, except that Kyle was with us outside.

Kyle limped wildly toward the pile of leaves.  We both heard it then - just the slightest sound – like a broken bird in the wind. Danny cocked his head and motioned for me to follow him, but by this time, Kyle was waist deep in the leaves, “Here!” he yelled, and we both ran full out toward the boy holding up a large metal bucket. 

             “Kyle, be careful!” Danny yelled, “It might be a squirrel or a raccoon and they bite and Mom will kill me and…give it here!”  Danny was clearly more afraid of his Mother’s wrath than the mystery animal in the bucket.

Kyle held his free arm straight, palm out.  Danny stopped short. “Shush! You’re going to scare it, now shush!”  Kyle warned.  Before we could stop him (and honestly we didn’t try), he high-stepped his way from the leaves, reached into the bucket and brought up a ball of quivering fur.  “Hello,” he whispered, and even as he said it, even as he placed the tiny fur-ball on the ground and we gasped at the wobbly three-pawed stance, Kyle grinned and shouted, “Look!  He’s absolutely perfect.”

Once home, we all crowded at the kitchen door while Kyle announced to his Mom that God had sent him a puppy with only three paws to keep him company for the rest of his life.  Bucket – aptly named - wiggled from Kyle’s arms then, plopped onto the linoleum and did a lopsided pitter-patter across the floor.  Their perfectly coifed Mom, in her pressed and pink paisley dress, actually kneeled on the kitchen floor to greet Bucket.  Something was way off.  We all stared dumbfounded when she burst out laughing and wiped tears from her eyes.

            From that day, Bucket was Kyle’s shadow and protector.  Kyle read Huckleberry Finn to Bucket and it was downright creepy because Bucket always barked at the good parts. When they watched the “Andy Griffith Show” together, Bucket danced to the whistling tune and then he’d fetch Kyle’s small fishing pole.  This always caused uproars of laughter for anyone watching.

We played “go-fish” and Bucket tapped the cards with his paw when it was his turn.  On our adventures or just around the back yard, Kyle and Bucket had the same walk-and-wait gait that made us all (even Kyle) laugh until our bellies hurt. 

Shortly after the school year started, Bucket began to meet us at the bus stop and as we stepped off the bus, he’d bark twice and run home.  We came to learn that these were days Kyle didn’t feel well and Bucket was sent to tell us he couldn’t play. 

On good days, though, Bucket would meet us and turn two circles, sit, turn two circles and run back to where Kyle stood, waving and yelling happily, “I’m good today, you guys!  Real good.”

One week before Easter and one year later, I sat alone on my rock thinking about how to pray and what the rules were for miracles.  Kyle had not been on an adventure in two months and now they were down the hill in San Bernardino at St. Mercy’s Hospital.

            I rolled onto my stomach and stretched myself across the sun-drenched rock to peer over the edge, just as my best friend’s bicycle clanged to the ground twenty feet beneath me.  I was surprised because Danny knew this was my private place and I had never let anyone sit on the top of the Rim of the World with me, especially a boy. He leaned his head back to look up at me, not bothering to swipe the tears that leaked from his swollen eyes.

“Kyle died,” he whispered. 

            My throat crowded and my eyes stung.  I couldn’t talk, so instead I reached down and held my hand out. Danny climbed up easily and took my hand. He held on, even as we scooted across the rock, even as we lay down, side by side.  He murmured that we must be very close to heaven and then we cried together until the tree limbs and light sky above us blurred to dark blue, until a tiny bark drifted up to us in the night.  We rolled to our stomachs and peered over the edge. 

            Bucket turned two circles, barked again, turned two circles, sat and stared straight up past us to the night sky.

“Kyle must be feeling real good today,” Danny said.

I began to believe in miracles at the tender age of ten.  Now you know the reason why.

My Emily Friend Who
Smells Like Pine
A Christmas Glimpse

by Lynn Bukowski c 2006


Emily Diedra, small girl who smells like pine, like a tree cut fresh that Daddy shakes and brings through the door on Christmas Eve. Something like the crisp of the woods—it gets in my nose, the way her head smells when she’s leaning close to me over a jigsaw puzzle or on the porch where we are squatting over jacks and trading shiny rocks that we pretend are from different countries where my Daddy goes.


In my memory we say prayers and then for the fifth night in a row she takes a twig of pine needles and wraps a ragged towel around it, gently, like we tuck in our baby dolls. She puts the towel under her pillow and tells it something. I never hear what she whispers and I tell her again, “Mama doesn’t like us to whisper,” but she smiles, just before I turn the lights off, and promises someday to whisper loud.


In the dark Emily Diedra tells me a story about her mama with green eyes and about so many brothers there’s no time to count them. And how they would all sleep in one bed, some at the top and some at the bottom, because that way her mama could hug them all at one time from one side, like bundling up big fluffy pillows. I tell her I think it would be fun to all sleep in the same bed and I ask about her daddy and if he hugged them all from the other side and she rolls over and pretends to fall asleep.


Even though it’s cold the sun heats up the leaves and they crinkle under our feet and we step carefully because we’re on an adventure in my special place in the woods. Emily Diedra sits on a sappy log and wipes the back of her hand across her face. I think it’s because the chilly in the air made her nose run, but then I see the drops well up in her eyes and spill down over her lips. In a tiny voice she says her daddy went away because he was angry too much and when her mama went to find him, she never came back. She breathes hard and asks if I still love my daddy and I laugh and say, “Of course, silly.” Then I stop laughing and tell her in my best serious voice that Mama says sometimes people have to learn how to love. When I sit on the sappy log with her I give her my special friend hug with my arms criss-crossed around her neck.


We run half way home backwards and some of the way sideways. We trade shoes and wear them on our hands. We lay down with the leaves and stare up at the sky so blue and heaven inside the white clouds. I give Emily Diedra three M & M’s I’ve been saving since yesterday. She asks me if I think Santa knows where all the foster kids live and if it’s too selfish to ask for paper doll cut-outs so we can color in their clothes with crayons.


We somersault off the rail of the front porch and Emily Diedra runs to pick up a fallen pine twig. She tells me pine twigs help Santa’s reindeer find kids who don’t have a Christmas tree because they can smell the fresh needles and tell Santa to land. I tell her I don’t get it. But she looks sad and crosses her heart that it’s true because that’s what her daddy told her a long time ago when they couldn’t get a tree, and even though Santa didn’t find their house it was true. I tell her not to worry because we do have a Christmas tree and Mama will make sure Santa knows Emily Diedra lives in our house now.


When we go in Mama says, “Didn’t I tell you?” and we get it because we weren’t supposed to tromp through the mud and sit on sappy logs and we have leaves dangling from our hair and sweaters. But she smiles with her lips all tight and gives us hot chocolate anyway.


This Christmas Eve we tuck our own girls in, one each, with braided ponytails and red cheeks and pine twigs under their pillows. We sip coffee and make cookies and laugh about so many years ago waiting for teeth to fall out and breasts to grow in, for dads to come home and Santa to land. And when we look at each other, our arms gummy from cookie dough we split in two bowls, we could be sisters, right? We could be, she and I back then, born of secrets and dreams, because blood owns no promise and love is learned. Tonight we can whisper loudly and laugh at the memories we hold dear, me and her, my Emily friend who smells like pine.
--- --- ---

Hats

God knew as I
before I came to this world
my hats would run out

The dirty Easter bonnet
The Black Beret' with Sass
The lovers timid veil
Designer Ribbons flare
A Mother's backward cap
A Wife's honorary Trident
A widow's brimmed ache
so liquid now it melts
around my hair and eyes
and down into my soul
and there I am like Jonah in the whale
folded in half
with prayers so thin they are
whispered until I am
the string between two tin cans
rusted with regret I cannot find

What now does the Mother
of a dying son's hat look like?
Oh, Mother Mary hold my hand
you know this part

all of the imperfect in me is naked and I am left
with nothing but a leaky love
that drips through my final hat in hand
onto the dusty floor
and scatters with such missing
that I am afraid
I may not gather enough love to
fill another cup of life.

Lynn Bukowski
September 11, 2011