He Touched Even Me

Jesus touched a man with leprosy.

Matthew 8:1-3: “Large crowds followed Jesus as he came down the mountainside. Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached him and knelt before him. ‘Lord,’ the man said, ‘if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.’ Jesus reached out and touched him. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be healed!’ And instantly the leprosy disappeared.”

This passage has always touched me. No one touched the lepers. They had to stay away from everyone else and constantly call out “Unclean”. But Jesus touched him.

I grew up going to church every Sunday and made the decision to become a Christian when I was seventeen. In college, I became involved with a campus ministry. They offered worship services, large and small group Bible studies, and classes on serious Christian topics—women’s issues, Old Testament prophecy, and more. They offered the opportunity to learn to do ministries—visits to hospitals, nursing homes, prison, others.

I knew I was getting a good Christian education. I developed a strong knowledge of and commitment to the Bible. Most of my social time was spent with other students involved with this ministry. I wrote about the Bible for my classes, and I witnessed to people. I was charged.

I was proud.

It took growing up, venturing more out into the world, a few bumps, temptations, some growing stress, and a lot of mistakes for me to finally realize I was really a sinner. I was unclean.

I’m not going to describe to you all of my sins. It doesn’t matter. I just finally realized I wasn’t God’s gift to Missouri.

I needed God’s grace.

I hit bottom, more than once, before I could come up. I have suffered from depression since I was very young. God has given me great healing in this area, but I experienced times when I was buried in it, as crushing as if I was in quicksand.

I have gone through times when I let Satan convince me that I had never been saved. Other times, he made me sure that even if I had been saved, I had gone too far away to be able to come back to God. Satan told me I had committed sins that God could never forgive.

I now believe that God has spent many hours crying over my lack of understanding about how much He loves me.

I wish I could say that I went through an earth-shaking, immediate, miraculous recovery.

God has shown me more miracles than I can count, but I didn’t let the change happen all at once. He used my family, many other people, His word, a torrent of tears, and multiple years to bring me to a strong belief that He does still love me.

When I open my ears, and listen to God speak to me throughout His word, He shows me so many people in the Bible whom He touched. They were in trouble for many reasons; all of them were sinners. But He found them, and He touched them. He touched even me.

Tenderly, God showed me His love for specific sinners in the Bible, including some who were already His children: David, the adulterer and murderer; Peter,, one of His closest friends, who denied Him; the woman at the well; the thief on the cross; the woman caught in adultery; Paul, persecuting the church.

The Lord gave them the privilege of helping him and his children. He called David a man after his own heart, Acts 13:22. The woman at the well brought many out to meet Jesus, John 4:28-30. He asked Peter to feed his sheep, John 21:15-17. He sent Paul to rescue the gentiles, Acts 9:15.

When I was young, I believed I could draw people to God by my knowledge and fervor. Now that I am older and weathered, I pray that I can be kind to others who share similar sins and struggles as mine.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4: “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”

I have often felt so unclean by sin that I don’t see how anyone can bear to touch me, especially God. In 1 Timothy 1:15 Paul says that he is the chief of all sinners. I have often said that I am his closest deputy.

But the Bible says that God forgives me. He accepts me as his child. He loves me. Psalm 103.

And when I still worry if God can accept me, he reminds me that his love and forgiveness continue.

Lamentations 3:21-23: “Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.”

Benjamin and Time Travel

I wrote this story about my son Benjamin in March, 2013.

Hey, here’s a time travel program, Benjamin thinks as he scrolls around the internet. I wonder if it works.

Oops, I didn’t mean to hit enter there.

Benjamin feels himself being pulled backward, off his chair, out of the dining room, fast, fast, down some strange hallway.

Now he’s outside and whoa! He’s riding a horse, and the horse is galloping. “Whoa, horsie, sloooooow down!”

But the horse doesn’t slowdown—it gets faster.

Benjamin has only ridden horses at camp, and always pretty slowly. He grabs onto the mane and prays he won’t slip off.

Oh, no, he is falling off—no, he’s being pulled backward down the hallway again.

He stops in a busy sounding room. People are laughing and calling out to him, “Yay, Benjie! Yay!” And he’s laughing like a little kid. What’s going on here?

Oh, he’s at the St. Baldrick’s Day place downtown when he’s just six, getting his head shaved. This time travel thing keeps switching him. Where next?

Now he finds himself in a dentist chair. He’s four or five, and he’s getting one of his many cavities filled. Well, he wouldn’t mind being taken out of this one.

And out he goes, fast, fast, down another hallway.

Next, Benjamin finds himself sitting on the ground with a young Einstein, who is working on the “E equals MC squared” problem. Benjamin has to explain this very slowly and patiently before Einstein finally gets it.

Oooooohhh.

Benjamin finds himself lying in a trench in France during World War I. Many shots are going on around him, and for whatever reason, Benjamin has his head raised out of the trench. He quickly lowers it snugly into the dirt and prays he’ll be able to get out of this one fast too.

But he’s not sure this next place is what he would have hoped for.

He’s on a horse again, on a very bumpy road. Other riders are coming up quickly behind him.

“He’s got it! Hurry up, catch him!”

They sound like rough English accents from maybe the 1700’s. If he had to guess, he would think they are robbers, and they seem to think he has whatever they want.

“No! No! I don’t have it,” Benjamin yells.

“He’s Lyin’. Hurry up. Get him!”

This time, Benjamin wants the horse to go fast. He leans forward, grips the mane in terror, and yells, “Faster, horsie! Faster!”

Ooooohhhhh. He’s being pulled backwards again…

Bang. He ends up on the floor in his own dining room. Ping-Hwei sits in the chair beside him.

“Ping-Hwei, Hurry, unplug my computer,” he gasps.

Benjamin lies on the floor, trying to get his breath back under control. I hope I’ll have the chance to work on that time travel program before using it again.

Our Golden Anniversary

I started writing this last August, close to our anniversary. Lately, I’ve felt the need to add to and complete it.

No, we haven’t been married fifty years.

When our kids were little, we told them it was their golden birthday when they were three on the third, five on the fifth, twelve on the twelfth and so-on. On the 27th of August, in a couple of weeks, Murray and I will be married twenty-seven years.

If we make it to fifty, that might be our “Can you believe we lived this long?” anniversary.

We only knew each other five or six months when we got married. We were engaged less than two weeks.

Our first year of marriage was quite a tumble as we finally got to know each other.

But we were happy. We had plans—school, careers, children. I knew we would be different from most couples. I knew even after we’d been married for a while, even after we had kids, we would hold on to our romance.

Laugh.

Sigh.

Life became complicated. We grew busy. We certainly didn’t always agree on how to handle the kids. The world slapped us in the face with some pretty hefty problems.

We were Christians. We did not believe in divorce. We would stick it out, but we were not the sweethearts we’d been in our early years.

For our 25th wedding anniversary, we planned to take a trip to Nashville. That would be fun.

Two months before our anniversary, I suffered a brain injury and spent six weeks in the hospital. Our lives were turned upside down.

My memory of those first six weeks is sketchy, but I remember thinking how wonderful Murray was being to me.

Every morning he came to the hospital to spend the day with me. He didn’t go home until I fell asleep. A neighbor asked him if the people in the hospital didn’t get tired of him coming there all the time. Murray said, “I don’t care.”

“We have abandoned her into the hands of our sweet Lord Jesus,” Murray told our family and friends during the first couple days, when they didn’t know how it would go with me. When they knew I would live, but not what my recovery would look like, Murray was sure we would manage it, as a family. He told a member of the hospital staff, “When I said ‘I do,’ this is one of the things I said I'd do.”

We praise God for how well I have recovered. I have not retained many of the terrible effects which a great number of people with brain injuries do.

Certainly, I do still have a number of results from the injury. I am no longer able to work outside the home. My balance is not predictable. I have lost a significant amount of hearing. I have memory problems, and the strangest words come out of my mouth sometimes. Yet we are thankful. We know it could have been so much worse.

God has brought many good things from this tragedy. One of the most beautiful is the change in our marriage.

I want to cry when I remember how I treated Murray before the accident. He would call me at work, and as soon as I heard his voice, I was terse. I had things to do. I didn’t have time to talk. Now, when he calls me at home, I “usually” remember to smile, and let him know how happy I am to hear from him.

Before the accident, I found so many reasons to criticize him. I can’t claim I’m anywhere close to perfect, but I work hard at biting my tongue. I used to spend so much of our time being irritable, not being loving. Now I work to remember to smile, to hug him, to hold his hand, to say “I love you.” Most of the time, it’s not that hard of a job.

Murray tells me, “You are the wife I am happy to have.” He takes my hand and tells me, “I want you to know, nothing’s changed.” He holds me in his arms and says, “Oh yes, this is the good stuff.”

No, we’re not perfect. We still fight sometimes, and we still say things we’re sorry for. But as our twenty-seventh anniversary draws near, we know our marriage is a gift of gold.

James 1: 16-17: Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

A few months after our golden anniversary, when I hadn’t worked on this story for quite a while, I was going through a terrible time of moodiness. I self-diagnosed my problem as coming from menopause. I cried and got upset so easily, about things that happened in the past and present.

I got into a huge fight with Murray—I cried and screamed and couldn’t stop—over something we could have handled with a decent discussion at my more reasonable moments. After that day, I went through days of being furious with Murray, about so many things, about just about anything, about nothing.

One night after I’d gone off at Murray about something, I was in our room crying and praying for God to forgive me and help me. A couple of minutes later, God answered my prayer.

Murray knocked on the door and told me a friend had called and wanted me to call her back. He could tell I was crying and asked if he could help me. I didn’t answer, so, courageously, he came in.

I said to him, “I’m so mad at you, and I don’t want to be, and I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

He held me, and tried to say it was all his fault, but I kept crying and going on about how bad I felt about everything and how I’d diagnosed it as being from menopause.

I told him that I remembered something that happened right after we got married. We were driving and fighting, and he’d pulled the car off the road and stopped. He put his arms around me and said, “I’m so mad at you right now, and I love you so much.” I told him that’s how I felt right now.

When I’d calmed down some, I said it was a good thing that God had brought that memory to me, about the fight so long ago, because that was a statement we could use on each other for the rest of our lives: “I’m so mad at you right now, and I love you so much.”

Several more months have passed now, and I am struggling through days. Not usually screaming and crying, but unsure of what I should do with myself, and having a hard time making myself get out of bed and do simple daily tasks. I’m sure this will pass, but I don’t know when or how.

Murray keeps hugging me, and holding my hand, and saying, “I’m so in love with you. I want to cry, I love you so much.”

God has given me a treasure so much stronger than gold.

Making Room for Five

This story was published in the Winter, 2014 issue of DIALOGUE magazine.

When we were first married, my husband, Murray, told me that he would like us to have two biological children and then adopt one with special needs. I had always wanted to have as many children as possible, so I was glad to agree.

Rebecca was born shortly after our third anniversary. That was almost 24 years ago. I have a clear first memory of her arrival a little after five o’clock on a Wednesday evening. As I held the newborn on my chest, a bunch of friends from church came to visit us in the hospital after Bible study.

“She looks just like you,” everybody kept saying to Murray.

“Don’t worry, Kathy,” a friend joked. “They change a lot in the first year.”

Murray worked as an occupational therapist, and I was in graduate school when Rebecca was born. I took a semester off, then went back to school to finish.

A few months before I graduated, Murray suggested that we have our second baby right away, before I started back to work. Sarah was born when Rebecca was sixteen months old.

As I was lying in bed with the newborn Sarah in my arms, the doctor who had delivered both girls sat beside me and said, “Well, Sarah, you look just like your sister—which means you look just like your father.”

Sarah was born in January, and Caleb joined our family in December of that same year. But let’s back up a little. Since college I had been involved with a children’s home mission in Taiwan connected to my church. Before I became pregnant with Sarah, we received a newsletter from the Taiwan mission, mentioning a little boy who happened to be blind. Murray suggested that maybe we could adopt him, and we wrote a letter to the couple who ran the home. As months flew by, we found out I was pregnant. I graduated, we moved closer to Murray’s job, and we forgot all about it.

When Sarah was less than six months old, a letter finally arrived from Taiwan. The couple there said that they had several wishes for the family who would adopt the little boy and, Of all the families who had asked about adopting him, we were the ones who satisfied all those wishes.

I can remember Murray crying as he read the letter to me.

The little boy had a Chinese name, but since he was only two, we had the opportunity to choose an English name for Him. For the next few months, we talked non-stop to Rebecca about her new brother, whom we called Caleb.

When Murray picked up Caleb and brought him home to me, I took him in my arms and said, “Caleb, I’m your mama.” When Rebecca woke from her nap, I asked her, “Rebecca, who is this?”

“Caleb,” she replied. At that moment, our new son was almost three, Rebecca was two, and Sarah was eleven months old.

We were done having children, right?

When the kids were four, five and six, our minister spoke one Sunday morning about how much help we could do if a bunch of families in our church each adopted a child who needed a home. Murray took no convincing; I took little.

We contacted the county agency that dealt with adoption, and just for fun, we also contacted the home in Taiwan.

The folks in Taiwan said they had no babies who needed adopting, but there was an older boy, about 12, who had been abandoned.

This adoption took a little longer since Ping-Hwei was older. The workers there wanted him to visit us first before they started adoption proceedings to make sure we, and he, really wanted this.

I remember the first day Ping-Hwei walked into our house to join our family. He went straight to the kitchen, pulled the handle off the faucet on the sink, and said something to us in Chinese. We all had a lot to learn.

I knew we were done now. Four kids was definitely enough.

About six months after Ping-Hwei came to be with us, we received a Christmas card from friends at the home in Taiwan. They mentioned that they had a new baby who was blind and needed a home.

Murray said nothing. I said nothing. A couple weeks later, I said, “You know, maybe we could adopt that baby.” Murray just smiled.

I tell Benjamin that God definitely wanted him to be in our family. By the time we called Taiwan, they’d already started adoption proceedings for the child they’d told us about in the Christmas card. But … there was another baby boy, just three weeks old, also blind.

If we had called them right after we got the card, we might have that other little boy in our family. Instead, that June, almost exactly one year after Ping-Hwei arrived, Benjamin, not quite six months old, joined us.

One of the delights about adoption, according to Murray, is that the husband gets to have morning sickness as well, but I told Murray not to expect any more children as Father’s Day presents.

Many people had questions about how I managed, but Murray completely trusted that, even though I am blind, I could care for the children. For nine years, I was a full-time stay-at-home mom and primary caregiver. I am so grateful for the gift my husband gave me. What an adventure it’s been!

If God is Real

This weekend I attended a women’s conference with our church. We’d been planning this for almost three months, but as the event drew closer, I started to sour on it.

It’s cold. I don’t feel comfortable in large groups. I just wanted to stay at home.

But I had promised. I’d even said I’d lead small group discussions—another thing I felt uncomfortable about—so I went.

What a wonderful gift.

The conference was sponsored by a group in Austin, Texas, shown online throughout the United States and in other countries throughout the world. The theme was, “If God is real, what then?”

We focused on the story of Joshua from Numbers 13 and 14 and Joshua 1. Only two of the twelve spies believed that God could help Israel conquer the Promised Land. Unfortunately, Israel decided to follow what the other ten spies told them, that they would not be able to conquer the great nations there.

No, by their own power, they could not. In the end, God showed those who remained that through his power, they could accomplish what he promised.

Women shared what God had done in their lives despite the difficulties they faced—depression, cancer, abuse, loss of children, lack of self worth. The honesty these women shared began to touch my heart.

For most of my adult life, I’ve always kept busy—work, graduate school, raising a family. This was good for me, for it would have been easy to believe, being totally blind, that I was not capable. I did have this fear. But, as long as I had active work to do, I was able to convince myself that I was doing important things.

Two and a half years ago, I had an accident which caused a severe brain injury. Suddenly, I had multiple disabilities—hearing loss, memory problems, difficulty finding words and forming complete sentences, lack of energy, trouble with balance and orientation. I could no longer work. I could not travel independently. I couldn’t even do many household chores.

I felt—I often still feel—useless.

One of the things I learned early from the women this weekend was that I can’t do anything useful. I have to depend on God to do it.

Of course, this has always been true, but I never had to face it like I do now.

One of the main topics discussed this weekend was that God gives each of us a purpose—bringing more people to a saving relationship with Jesus. This even includes me, with all the disabilities I seem to love to dwell on.

I can’t fulfill this purpose on my own, but I know a God who loves to do what appears to be impossible.

“But what can I do?” I wondered. I’m still not sure. But one of the speakers touched me deeply with her story.

She did not grow up with a good relationship with her father. The idea of God being a loving daddy made no sense to her. She once asked a wise Christian how she could understand that, and this was the response she received. God is the one who is the father. It is his job to show her how he can be a loving daddy.

On my own, I can’t find what I am still able to do for God, for the people in my lives. But I have a God who is able, and so willing, to show me how I can be used by him.

I’m not able to do the same things I used to do, physically or mentally. Another speaker from the conference reminded us that when Joshua was getting ready to enter the Promised Land, God reminded him that Moses was dead. It had been through Moses that God had led the people of Israel before, but it was time to move forward. God was going to do things a new way now.

I realized I need to accept that I can still do important things for God, just in new ways, with God holding my hand and giving me the strength and ability. I am excited to find what God has planned for me.

For more information about the wonderful ministry behind this weekend, go to ifgathering.com.

Rebecca and the Apple Pie Factory

When I started writing again a couple years ago, I wrote stories about each of my kids. Here is Rebecca’s.

One day as Rebecca walked on the OU campus, she noticed one of the campus squirrels running up a tree. “Oh hi pretty,” she said as she drew closer.

Suddenly, the squirrel disappeared.

“Whoa! Where did he go?” Rebecca asked. She had walked around the other side of the trees, towards the woods.

Suddenly the squirrel’s head popped out of a tiny door that was on the tree. He beckoned to Rebecca to come closer.

Oh, this is just too strange, Rebecca thought. I know I didn’t sleep too much last night, but I was sure I was awake and not dreaming just a minute ago.

“Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter,” the squirrel said, sounding a bit impatient. He was beckoning Rebecca to come to the tree again.

Okay, why not? Rebecca thought. She walked up to the tree, and bent down to the little door. The squirrel had disappeared again. Rebecca put her eye up to the hole and gasped. Suddenly she felt herself being sucked forward an pulled through the hole in the tree. “Ugh!” she groaned as she landed very gently.

Rebecca looked around. She was sitting on a leaf covered floor, of what honestly looked like a room inside a tree. Light was coming from above, through branches. Around her sat a couple dozen squirrels. When she looked at them, then looked at herself, she realized that she had shrunk to be the size of the squirrels.

Okay, way too much coffee recently.

One of the squirrels opened its mouth to chatter, and Rebecca realized she could understand the squirrel’s speech.

“Hello, Miss,” she said. “We are sorry to disturb your day.”

“Call me Rebecca.” If they were going to be part of her dream, they might as well be friends.

“Okay, Rebecca, and I am Berry Root. We need your help.”

“Sure, whatever I can do. But it has to be fast. I’m on my way to an econ test, and my Mom will get really irritated if I don’t pass the test.”

“We need you to carry a basket of pies to Sunny Days.”

“The restaurant across the street? Wait --- carry pies?”

“Yes,” Berry Root, who was doing all the talking said. Rebecca thought that the squirrel lady seemed very formal and prim.

She went on. “We have a continuing competition with another squirrel family two trees to the south. We have had the contract to prepare apple pies for Sunny Days for 87 years, and—”

“Whoa!” Rebecca interrupted, “That restaurant hasn’t been there 87 years.”

“No,” Berry Root admitted. “For only 64 years. Before that we had the contract with a bakery which sat on the same property.”

“You made pies for a bakery?”

“Yes,” Berry Root continued, seeming just a little irritated with the continued interruptions.

“I’m sorry,” Rebecca broke in again. “What is your pay?”

“Oh, the most delicious nuts, bread and cookie crumbs, tiny cake bites.” She licked her lips. “But, let me continue, to get you to your test on time. We have the contract; have had it for 87 years. But this other Squirrel family, the Acorns—” her nose twitched with disgust at the name, “have always tried to take the contract from us. If you don’t help us get today’s pies there before nine o’clock, and the other family finds out and gets their own pies there earlier, we could lose the contract.”

“Ummm, okay.”

The proper lady took a deep breath. “You see, right now we have only two boys who can carry the basket up to the restaurant. Last night, when they had only been on the way up a few minutes, one of the boys slipped and fell, dragging the basket of pies down and breaking quite a few of them.”

“Oh, that’s awful,” Rebecca said. “Is the boy going to be okay?”

“Thank you, yes. He was not seriously injured.”

“But, excuse me, I thought you said you have two boys who can deliver the pies. Don’t you still have one who can do it?”

The proper lady squirrel took another deep breath. Rebecca could tell that she was trying to be patient. “Yes, but you see, there have to be two boys to carry the basket at the same time. It is too heavy for one to carry it alone. If there are not two, the contract strictly says that there must be a human to deliver the pies.”

“Ooooohhh, I see. So that’s why you need me. But, please tell me, have you ever had to use a human before?”

“Yes. My grandmother told me that fifty years ago they had to use a human.” She pursed her lips in a disapproving way. “It was a professor. And my understanding was that he did not want to help and complained and worried through the whole process.”

“I see,” Rebecca said. “Well, of course, I will help if I can. Will the second boy come with me and help me?”

“That’s the problem. You see, in order that we will have another boy to help carry tonight’s basket, that boy is busy all today, training another boy to go with him. But, we have a younger boy who knows the pie route, and will be able to show you exactly where to go.”

“Oh, well – will I be able to carry it by myself?”

“Yes,” Berry Root said confidently. “Although you have lost your normal human size, you still have your normal strength.”

I hope so, Rebecca thought, flexing her hands and arms. “So exactly how do I do this? And what if the other squirrel family sees me and follows me?”

“My grandson, Nut Root, who will be accompanying you, will be able to hear if anyone gets near. He knows good hiding passages along the way.”

“Okay,” Rebecca said with some uncertainty. She didn’t want to be like the professor and be too much of a complainer and worrier. “And how will I take the pies up? Will I bring them through the same little door I came in by?”

“Oh, no!” Berry Root said, shaking at the very idea. “The pies are already the size they will need to be for selling at the restaurant. Would you like to see where we make the pies?”

“Oh, yes, very much!” Rebecca said.

She followed Berry Root through what seemed like a number of underground passages. They stopped at a little door made of bark, and Berry Root pulled it open. “Come right in,” she told Rebecca.

Rebecca stood and stared with amazement at the room and the work in front of her.

The room was filled with tables, counters, and stoves only a few inches tall.

On some counters, three squirrels worked with tiny rolling pins to roll out one pie crust. Then carefully, together, they lifted the crust, laid it on the pie pan and crimped the edges.

At a stove, two squirrels stood, one on either side of the oven door, with tiny hot pads on both their front paws. They open the door and lifted out a freshly baked pie.

The smell in the room was wonderful. Rebecca’s stomach growled, and she remembered she had not had breakfast.

At some tables, squirrels worked on making the pie filling. One squirrel sliced the apples and dumped them into the bowl. Another took what looked like a tiny measuring cup with a long handle, measured some sugar out of a low container, and dumped it into the bowl. Another squirrel held a bottle of cinnamon and shook it over the bowl.

At another table, Rebecca noticed that young squirrels were being taught how to make the pies. An adult stood by, carefully watching as the little squirrel cut the apples into slices. The young squirrels who measured the sugar and cinnamon had to jump to add their ingredients to the bowl. Jump, shake; measure, jump, pour; jump shake; measure, jump, pour.

Rebecca smiled, trying not to laugh. It was all so carefully and perfectly done.

“Would you like a piece of one of the pies which have just come out of the oven?” Berry Root asked.

“Oh, please, I would like one very much!”

A lady squirrel at one of the stoves cut a slice and laid it on Rebecca’s hand. She had to blow on the piece of pie, and she burned her tongue a little, but it was so yummy!

“Oh, this is wonderful!” Rebecca said.

“Thank you, thank you,” Berry Root said, bowing slightly. “Now here is the basket of pies.”

Rebecca had noticed some squirrels carefully loading pies into a tall picnic like basket. They had to climb small ladders to reach the top of the basket. Now they pushed it toward Rebecca and Berry Root.

“Rebecca, these are my daughters, Tiny Root and Chubby Root. Chubby Root is nut Root’s mother.”

“Hello,” Rebecca smiled at both the young ladies. They bobbed their heads shyly.

“So Nut Root will show me where to go, and then what?” Rebecca asked Berry Root.

“The pie shoot is just the right size for the pie basket to fit into. The wheels on the basket fit right into some grooves in the shoot. You line the basket up inside the shoot and lift it slightly. At the back of the shoot are steps for you to climb. You put your feet onto the first step, and lean back to put your hands under the basket. Then you climb up, pushing the basket up ahead of you.”

“Ooooohhh,” Rebecca said with a little gulp. “That easy, huh?”

“That easy,” Berry Root agreed. “When you come to the top, the basket will push open a small trap door and the basket and you will slide out onto the floor of the restaurant kitchen.”

“And then what do I do? Do I pick up your payment goodies and come back down to you here?”

“No, no. We will get our payment in a few days for the week. It’s safer for Nut Root to hurry back by himself, and try to avoid the Acorns. You just go outside and hurry on to your test. And take a pie out of the top of the basket as a small part of our thanks. We put in an extra one for you”

“Well – thank you. It was very nice meeting you.”

“Thank you so much, Rebecca. And this is my grandson Nut Root. Please hurry now.”

Rebecca took a deep breath and started pushing the pie basket ahead of her, following the young squirrel Berry Root had just introduced. The basket was much taller than her, but it slid very easily ahead of her.

Nut Root was small and young-looking, and very shy. He hurried ahead of her and didn’t seem to want to talk.

Suddenly Nut Root disappeared. Rebecca panicked. Whoa! What should she do now? But in a second, he poked his nose around the corner to the right. “Ssshhhh, come here Miss Rebecca,” he whispered.

She followed him into another hallway, then again around another corner.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered.

“The Acorns are coming. Please stay quiet.”

Rebecca couldn’t help poking one eye around the corner to look. Another group of squirrels was walking very quietly down the hall they had just come down, heading the same way they were going.

“Don’t they know where the shoot is?” Rebecca asked.

“Yes, but they don’t know we didn’t make it last night. They can challenge our contract if they find out.”

So much for a little squirrel to worry about, Rebecca thought.

Three more times, Nut Root pulled Rebecca into a side passage while the other squirrels passed by. There were many turns in the route, but finally they seemed to be where they were supposed to be. The Acorns were not behind them; Nut Root had managed to lose them on the way.

They were at a doorway opening in the wall, and Rebecca could see steps a little farther in.

“Thank you, Miss Rebecca,” Nut Root said.

“You’re welcome, and tell everyone I had a lot of fun.” Rebecca wished she could hold the little squirrel and snuggle and kiss him, but she was sure that would be against his dignity.

Rebecca took a deep breath. Okay, here we go. She pushed the basket into the doorway of the pie shoot, and was surprised at how quickly and easily the wheels fit into the slots on the sides. She pushed, and it also slid up easily.

She put her feet on the first step and started the move. Berry Root was right, it was an easy trip, and pretty quick.

Suddenly Rebecca could feel the basket breaking through the door above. Then again, she felt like she was being sucked through the opening and plopped gently onto a floor. She quickly covered her mouth, so that she would not groan out loud. Next to her stood the pie basket. Looking at it and then at herself, Rebecca realized she was her normal size again.

When she looked around, she realized she was in the kitchen of a restaurant. There were big stoves, counters, and sinks all around. A man stood at one of the stoves with his back to her, stirring something.

Very quietly, Rebecca stood up and looked for a door out. When she found it, she quickly opened the picnic basket and took out the top pie. She moved through the door and found herself standing in the alley behind Sunny Day.

Was it a dream? Had she been sleep walking all the way here? She did hold a pie in her hand. She hoped she hadn’t stolen it.

Rebecca saw something sticking out of her pocket. She reached down and pulled it out. It was a tiny wooden rolling pin. She shrugged and headed off to her econ test.

Punky

This was a story I wrote when our kids were small. I remember Rebecca really liked it. I enjoy finding some of my old stories, both to discover the different things I wrote about, and to see how I’ve grown as a writer.

There was a scratch at Mamma and Papa Dog's door. "Who is it?" Mamma asked, without getting out of bed.

“It's Punky," said their youngest pup's voice.

“What's wrong?" Papa asked.

"Is it time to get up yet?" Punky asked.

"No, Punky," Papa said. "Mamma and Papa haven't even gone to sleep yet. Go back to bed now."

"But I'm not tired," Punky whined.

"But we are," Mamma said. "Go back to bed, Punky."

Papa waited until they had heard the weather report, then turned off the TV. "Will you turn the light off, Mamma?" he asked.

“Nope," Mamma said, tucking all four paws under the cover.

Papa sighed, got up, and turned off the light.

As soon as he'd climbed back into bed, there was another scratch at the door. "Yes?" Papa said.

“Can I have a drink of water?" Punky asked.

“No, Punky," Mamma said. "You've already had enough drinks tonight. GO TO BED."

"If you wake up in the middle of the night," Papa said, "You can have a drink then."

 [1]   Papa shook his head, his ears flopping back and forth. Then he laid his head down and sighed tiredly. "I hope he gets to sleep soon," he said.

Mamma thought she had only just closed her eyes when the door scratching came again. "Huh?" she said sleepily.

"Is it the middle of the night yet?" Punky asked with a whimper.

"Punky!" Mamma barked. "No, it is not! Go back to bed, and you better not wake up any of your brothers or sisters."

Punky was quiet for a minute. Then he whined softly, "But I'm scared to sleep by myself."

"You're not by yourself," Papa said. "There's five of you in that bed."

“But they're all asleep," Punky said. "I want somebody who's awake to lay with me."

Mamma growled a little and jumped down from the bed. She went and opened the door. Punky sat hunched in the hall with little puppy tears running down his brown nose. "Punky," Mamma said softly, "what are you scared about?"

"I don't know." He snuffled. "I'm just scared."

Mamma rubbed her chin against his furry little head. "Let's go back to your room, Punky," she said. "I'll lay with you for a little while."

Punky didn't wake up any more that night. The next day he was as cheerful as ever, bouncing around as he played with his litter mates. They chased and snarled and snapped each other's tails as they pretended to dog fight.

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Finally Mamma woke up. "What?"

"Are you guys asleep?" Punky asked, sounding tearful.

"Not any more," Papa growled.

"I had a bad dream," Punky said.

Papa got up and went back to Punky's room to lay with him. "What did you dream about?" Papa asked.

"That mean dog at the neighbors' house was chasing me, and he bit me real hard."

After Punky was asleep, Papa went back to bed and told Mamma about Punky's dream. "Maybe they better not play any more fighting games," Mamma said.

The next night Punky begged for Mamma or Papa to lay down with him as soon as he went to bed. "Your brothers and sisters are here with you," Mamma said.

"But I want somebody big with me," Punky whined.

"Punky, no," Papa said.

"Ah-ooooo! ah-ooooo!" Punky howled.

Finally Mamma lay down with Punky. "What are you so scared about, Honey?" Mamma asked.

"Mamma," Punky said in a whimpery voice, "Can any of those mean neighbor dogs get into our house when we're asleep?"

"No, honey," Mamma said.

"Are you sure? How do you know?" he asked.

"I'm sure, Punky. Our house is locked and very safe." Mamma licked Punky's nose.

"I'm still scared anyway," he said in a tiny voice.

Mamma just snuggled closer to him and stayed with him until he was asleep.

For the next few days, Mamma and Papa spent a lot of the nights laying with Punky so he could sleep. Finally one evening Papa said to Punky, "Son, we can't keep doing this. Mamma and Papa need rest so we can do our work in the day time. We need to sleep in our own bed so we can rest. We'd like you to try to not wake us up tonight."

When Mamma and Papa woke up that night, it wasn't because Punky scratched on their door. There was much more noise than scratching coming from the puppies' room.

Mamma and Papa jumped out of bed and ran to the noise. All five pups were in a tangled bunch on the floor, yipping, pulling at tails, tugging at ears, wrapping front legs around necks and squeezing.

"Stop!" Papa snapped.

They stopped.

"What in the world is going on here?" Mamma asked.

"Punky did it," Princess said, sniffing her nose at her little brother. "He woke us all up and started wrestling with us."

"Yes, yes, it was Punky," all the others agreed.

"Punky?" Papa said, "Why did you do that?"

Punky held his head down, his ears and tail drooping. "You said not to wake you up, but I was lonely."

"Punky, listen to me," Papa said slowly. "I don't want you to wake up anybody!" Papa was barking by the time he finished speaking. "Now all of you go back to bed, and I don't want to hear one more sound out of this room any more tonight."

The next day the pups were all quieter than usual. When Papa came home from work, he called Punky to come to talk with him. "Punky," he said, bumping Punky's ear with his nose, "I'm sorry I was so angry with you last night. I have something for you. I'd like you to try it, to see if it will help you sleep better at night."

"What is it, Papa?" Punky asked, his ears perking up.

Papa went outside, and when he came back in, he was carrying a big stuffed little boy doll in his mouth. He set it down by Punky.  The doll was bigger than the pup. "It's a toy boy for you to play with," Papa told Punky. "You can snuggle close to him at night, and talk to him if you get scared. Maybe you guys can make up stories together of things you could do together."

"Thanks, Papa," Punky said, looking at the doll with bright eyes.

Papa started to walk into the kitchen. Then he stopped and looked back at Punky. "Oh, and Punky?"

"Yes, Papa?"

"When you talk to him in the middle of the night, please remember to whisper."

That night, Mamma tucked the doll in close beside Punky. "Punky, remember if you really need us in the middle of the night, you can still come and get us."

"Thanks, Mamma." Punky laid his head on top of the doll's tummy.

"Have you decided what you're going to name him yet?" Mamma asked.

"I think I'll call him Joey," Punky answered. "I always wanted a boy named Joey."